FHSD Board of Education Training by MSBA-July 1, 2025

001All right. So, we we should still use this to want to say hello to everybody. Uh, good evening. This is a board training and we're going to start the board training with a pledge of allegiance. Let's all stand. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Just want to share for those of you joining us online, those of you who are here as well, um just a couple different things about this training. This is not a meeting. Uh there are no votes taking place. Uh there are other board members uh who are not here present. They're going to watch later. Uh it is hard to get uh everybody in the same place on

002the same day and uh the other board members are equally committed to this training. They're just not able to be here for this particular day and we wanted to start as close to July 1st as possible so that we can begin this uh new uh season together uh as a board with the best training possible. Uh this is our strategic plan. Everybody here is working on this strategic plan together and which includes the board. And so what we're going to do is learn how the board behaves in efficient ways, healthy ways so that all the administrators, all the staff, all the teachers can do their jobs to the best of their ability. I heard this phrase that uh we're all going to stay in our own lane, but we're all going to be driving together

003and know what that looks like. Uh today we have uh two people from MSBA uh who are going to help us know what that looks like. Uh, one is Susan Goldhammer uh from MSBA. She's the chief law and policy and she's over there. Hello again to Susan. Hello. And also Lisa Neer uh director of board development. We want to say our deepest uh gratitude for you joining us. And from here to the rest of the time, you guys are in charge of just leading us and helping us see uh how we can be a better board. Okay. So, thank you so much. Great. Well, we're glad to be here. We've always enjoyed coming out this direction and traffic was great today. You know, all the construction going on and all the different pockets, but today

004was smooth smooth sailing. So, that was a good thing. All right. Well, we're just like uh Stephen said, we're going to lead you through some activities. There's going to be a little bit of time for you to like talk to a shoulder partner at some points or just consider a scenario and kind of think about what how you would handle that scenario or what what's good, what's bad um that other board members did in those scenarios and so forth. So, we hope that you feel free to stop us at any time and ask questions. We want this to be interactive. We want it to be a learning opportunity. So, if at any point you have a question, just feel free to speak up, raise your hand, whatever, and uh we'll we'll go a different route.

005And if we go down an alley that you're like, "Oh, we want to keep talking about this," we can certainly do that. We are not married to our slides, we're happy to give you what you need. And if we end up talking a lot longer about a particular thing, and that's useful, that's great. We'll just save some of the other stuff for next time since we already have a date scheduled to come in August as well. So, let's go ahead and get started. I always like to start with just a easy icebreaker little question activity. So, let's just go around the room and what is your favorite summertime activity? So, Stephen, we'll start with you. Uh, St. Louis Cardinals. Going to a game. All right. Awesome. I'm going to say travel cuz we typically make

006travel plans during the summer. Yeah. Awesome. I like to watch my flowers grow. Yeah. You're a big gardener. Yeah. Awesome. Not so good. I was like the watching. Yeah. Yeah. Watch my husband put I I like lake time. Like being outside in the summer. Yeah. Which lake do you guys like to do? Okay. I love them. Yeah. Uh Fourth of July. Yeah. Great time. So your favorite days. Hanging by a pool just relaxing. Yeah. Awesome. I'd say same and backyard barbecues. Yeah. Great. Just enjoy having everyone home and um spending time with kids and my wife. Yep. Are your kids grown? Uh, yes. Yeah. So, and yeah, that is one of the best things when they're all home together, isn't it? What about you all? We won't leave you out. Uh, spending time with my

007family at the pool. Just having fun memories. Yeah. Traveling. Yeah. Cruising. Yeah. What kind of cruising? Uh, the recent kind. Caribbean. Caribbean. Nice. Know if you meant like an oldtime car or Okay, that's great. Well, I uh Susan, you want to add I like Okay. I like walking my dog and seeing the fireflies and listening to the tree frogs. There's something about that sound that just reminds me of summer. Yeah. Yeah. Mine is also travel. I was uh snipping on your conversation. I'm also going to Germany um the end of July, beginning of August, so excited to check it out. So, yeah, travel's always great. All right. Thanks for sharing those. So, let's go ahead and get started. Um we're talking all about healthy relationships tonight. Healthy relationships with all different categories of people. So,

008we're going to talk about the administration, the community slash, parents, and the teachers union because we know that's um that that was mentioned to us that that was a group that you guys interact with a lot. So, I put some post-its between you all. So, if you would grab some and use the blue for administration, the pink for community and parents, and the yellow for the teachers union. Um what does it mean to have a healthy relationship with those groups? So, just use separate postits for separate ideas and I'll come around and you can kind of move them to the front of your table when you've got one written and I'll collect them and sort them up here. I'm going give you about fiveish minutes to take some time and just think about that. Do

009all three of those. Yes. Do all three. What does that mean to you? A healthy relationship with those groups. [Music] Gosh, my writing is terrible. [Music] Okay, [Music] everything [Music] I know it's not a competition, but you're doing better. It's not a competition, but you're winning. Exactly. I told myself it's okay. That's what I do at work all the time. So, I'm the posted. I'm very comfortable with the posted activities. You're an expert. Bring me all the workshops. [Music] Okay. So, I'm just going to hand this to you. [Music] Steven is very prolific. [Music] Oh, okay. Sorry. I can keep going. like we're time boxing this. But yeah, we can wrap it up here. We got a good We're seeing some common beans. [Music] All right. So definitely seeing some common themes here with the

010administration, lots on communication, lots on communication, right? We want that nice uh even easy flow of communication from the administrative staff to the board and the board feeling like they can give their input and really speak their their truths and their their thoughts and and that those will be listened to and so forth. In fact, listening is also a very common theme we're seeing here to listen to all these groups. Lots of listen, which I think in education is so important or any kind of leadership role, which you're both in two different types of leadership roles, but you're all leaders. So, listening to the concerns and ideas from all these groups. Um, we had um respect listed in a lot. So, respecting opposite uh each other, more listening, creating solutions, collaborating together. I love that

011with the teachers union. A lot of collaborating, creating solutions together, showing that you're going to work together. That's great. um speaking truthfully, avoid micromanaging with the administration, trust, trust, trust their experience, clear expectations. I think that's great. That kind of goes along with that shared vision um for direction and priorities. Um with community and parents is treating them with respect. Again, open communication. Uh we had lots of people say that feedback loops, see the good and their concerns. I like that. Again, that kind of is over here with the the listening. um safety, trust that we care and show it. Um so those are all all a great start. I feel like you guys all have you can tell that you have your hearts and minds in the right place here when you look at

012all these things that you've listed. So we're going to go through and we're going to kind of take this which is kind of big idea and hopefully give you some more actionable items related to these things as we go through and talk about these three groups here. All right. So thank you for doing that. All right. So we're going to talk first about the administration. So that healthy relationship with uh administration. So creating and inviting by pro uh communication protocols. We are actually this is something we could spend almost 45 minutes to an hour on talking about how the board is going to communicate um with the administration and with the community and so forth. And we thought that would really be best saved for the retreat when you have your whole board together because

013that's really something that the whole board and the administration needs to agree on. So that and you you guys listed here communication is huge. So just know that will be coming in about a month or so. Um fulfill your responsibilities but stay in your lane. Right? Stephen mentioned this earlier. Um board functions up here at the strategic level. You mentioned your strategic plan. That's your number one focus to monitor that. Um and so staying in your lane and not trying to do the administration's job for them. You pay these people all a nice salary to manage the operations of the district. So we want to let them do that. And just keep in mind like I always tell board members, think about your own job. Would you want somebody calling every day that's not doing

014your job telling you what to do right in your ear all the time? You would not want that. So you want to stay in your lane and we'll uh we'll talk more about that. Um keeping questions at the governance level is one of the main ways that you stay in your lane. Um not every question is a governance level question. So again, keeping them more at the strategic level. And we're going to look at some examples here in just a moment. And then of course delegating those operations. So letting the people who are paid to do the job do the job and you are acting in more of that monitoring monitoring role. All right. So let's look at these governance level questions. So what are they and why do they matter? So it really allows

015you as board members to do your monitoring but still stay in your lane. Okay. So you let the administration know like we're watching you. We've got this plan. We're holding you to it. Okay. But you're not stepping on their toes. All right. So I I was at this conference I was at last week. There was this man named Phil Gore who travels all over the world doing board training uh all over the United States I should say and he mentioned this in one of his presentation that asking governance level questions makes you a good board member and asking good governance level questions makes you a great board member. he really felt and preached that the types of questions that board members ask really um determine what kind of board member they are and if that's

016and if that makes them more effective in monitoring the district. So let's take a look at some examples and non-examples of these governance level questions. So let's say on your agenda you had the calendar the school calendar adoption was up for a vote. Okay. So a non-ex example would be if you raised your hand and said, "Can we just get rid of all these PD days and just do a late start every Monday for PD?" Meaning teacher PD. Okay, some schools do that. Some schools have all day, some have late starts every so often. So that would be a non-governance level question. But a governance level question would be how does the district decide how much PD time is needed and then how it's allocated or scheduled. So looking at those two questions just with

017a shoulder partner and you guys can be a group of three if you want or if you want to work on the two corners together you can kind of just talk to each other. How are those two equations different and why is one considered a good governance level question and one not? Just take 30 seconds. Well, I think the first one can put a person out of a defensive response like you could feel like how do I get rid of that just feels versus a curious question is what I would describe the second one as. And I think those are completely fine. Um if you're just really wanting to know what the formula is to come up with that or if there's a statute or if there's a underlying piece, that's how I would see

018it. Yeah, I really like that for [Music] the same kind of thing like you just said. I think that's like different sense. Okay. Wrap up those conversations. All right. Who would like to share what their partnership talked about? We can start, I guess. You want to say your one thing you guys I heard somebody just said me once that the board's job is to approve the plan, not make the plan. Mhm. And that that seemed like an easy way to understand distinguish help me compared compared to the other ways I find myself pulled towards like being creative. I want to make the plan. Yeah. And so that helps me and I feel like the second one is more of a approve the plan, not make the plan. Okay, great. Anybody else say it a little

019differently? We just felt that the first one could be a little off-putting because it says get rid of which is a you could feel different to the person that would try to respond. Whereas the second one is a really comfortable curious question that they may just be asking the the how-to, the formula of or the underpinnings in case there's statutes or whatever that dictate that. I like how you said that curious question. I heard you guys say something too. More of a question to seeking understanding. That's what the board should be doing, seeking understanding of the decisions that other people are making. Did do you guys want to add anything else? We just talked about it was kind of what to do and versus that how did you come about it seeking to understand. We

020had very similar conversations to others. Okay, great. Nice job. Let's do another one. So, let's say you're getting ready to vote. The board's v voting on a new math curriculum adoption. Okay, so a non-example would be does this curriculum include time tests for grades one through three? Kids need to learn their math facts versus a good example would be how does this curriculum include a focus on fluency and skills as well as problem solving? a goal that was written when the program evaluation began. So again, how are these different? Do you see the difference? It seems like just kind of more focusing on identifying the problem that you're trying to solve rather than asking specific questions about like you said the how versus the what kind of. Yeah. It's another good way to kind of

021slice and dice that. non-examples kind of laced with an opinion in it as well, you know, and and number two, the example is really about seeking to understand, right? And I really like the second GA uh one too included that they've seen a goal like maybe there was some documentation provided in an earlier packet board packet that talked about we're going to review the math curriculum this year and maybe the curriculum coordinator presented their goals that they had said before they started looking at various resources and curriculum and so forth or writing the curriculum if they're writing it themselves. Right? So I love that the board is actually having the employee refer back to goals that they had probably shared with them earlier. So again, that holding administration accountable but not stepping on their toes

022and doing their job for them. All right. Oops, wrong way. All right. So let's see now if you can just identify yes or no. So let's say the agenda item is the super assistant superintendent is giving a report on student discipline data. I don't know if you guys do that, but a lot of districts every so often give reports on how many referrals and things like that discipline report. So the question would be, can we have all of our staff undergo sensitivity training to decrease the amount of discipline referrals? Talk with your shoulder partner. Do you think that's governance level or not? instead of just discipline referrals or something. [Music] Okay, let's start with you guys this time. What do you think? Uh, we were just saying this was probably more of a a non-example

023one uh in there just that goes a little bit towards specifically what are you going to do rather than maybe how are we reducing discipline, how are we providing different training for staff members. Exactly. Yeah. Kind of getting too specific, trying to imply that something specific should be done, trying to solve the problem. Great. What about this one? Can you have the assistant superintendent provide not only the number of referrals but the number of unique students receiving the discipline referrals? Is that governance level or not? It's a leadership question really question just to like what what they're trying to get to. To me, it feels a little bit better, but I don't know that it's at the I don't believe that it's at the governance levels. It's digging into some very specific solution. It was

024my Okay. What is it? Most of you agree or do you think it is? Feels like it's a third category just I feel like you're just looking for information. Yeah. That you might need to use to make a government's level decision. Okay. So, for that reason, exactly Stephen, I would say this is a yes. Sure. because if maybe they want the district is proposing maybe doing some like uh adopting a character behavior program in the middle school to address the you know the discipline issues. Well, you might want to know, is it really a problem or is it this, if we have 130 referrals for a semester, is that 10 kids doing those or is that a hundred students doing those? Because those are two different problems, right? As a board member, would you want

025to vote to spend money on a program, a curricular problem that a program that maybe takes time away from, you know, actual coursework? You know, if we have to plan in this character education, then maybe we're taking minutes away from the core classes. You might want to know, you know, how many unique students are we really talking about? So for that reason I would say this is more of a governance level that's like context basically. Yeah. So it's kind of like you might be thinking of a when I write these questions I have something in my mind and obviously you can't read my mind so probably things. All right. So what about that uh top one? Can you use that same context and change that to a governance level question with your partner? See if

026you can write that into a good governance level question that has the same theme or idea. I would say it's I think it's bigger than that though because to me that's just like their uses sensitivity is the solution already that they want. So I would just wonder if like the things Yeah. if the real problem we're trying to solve is making sure that we're discipline girls or future plans over disciplining one group versus the other and maybe just like how are we ensuring that we're being fair in this? Yeah, that's a good idea. So to me just called strength but not that's my thought cuz otherwise it's just like are you saying well how are you dealing with sensitivity training without asking like is that the solution we need you know what the problem we're

027sol trying to solve for the other okay I'm going to let my board members answer this one I know you guys work together do you have one too did you we funny we just done it before you said that oh you had okay so I'll let you go first because you seem to have done it early do we have a plan to decrease the amount of discipline referrals Do we have a plan? Yeah, it can be as basic as that. What did you guys write? We just took a little different twist on that. Just like how is the district ensuring that we're being fair in our discipline referrals or that there is equity in our discipline referrals. Okay. So, kind of taking that bend on it, just seeing if the referrals are equitable and so

028forth. Yeah. I guess on that too with either of these, it's kind of like, well, what's this is my product management hat I'm putting on, but like what's the problem we're trying to solve here? And if it's a concern about the number of referrals or are they fair referrals? Do we have any like you know Yeah. No, you could take another do teachers need support what support are we giving teachers who have a high number who write a high number in service of. Yeah. Based on what the full report was. I mean you'd be getting a lot more information from that administrator. You could formulate a governance level question to kind of fit that situation. Yeah. Great. Awesome. All right. So, we always want to let you know that these can happen before or during

029the meeting. Okay. When you get that board packet from the administration, what day you guys meet on Tuesday, two Thursdays, and what day does the packet come? Fridays. The Friday before. That's pretty good. You have almost a full week. That's that's a good amount of time. Do you guys feel like that's enough? I'd say we get a couple of days to like submit questions. Okay, that's great. Yeah. So those we just uh like to remind board members to ensure that even those questions that go before the meeting that you're you know sending to the superintendent or board president whatever your protocol is is that you are making those governance level as well to the extent that you can. Sometimes it might be something a little bit more picky but you would still want to try

030to keep those at that governance level. Um what about that discipline data question that we asked here at the bottom? Can you have you know providing uh not only the number of referrals but the unique number of students receiving the discipline? Would you think that would be more of a before the meeting or a during the meeting type of question? I would say administration would prefer before. Yeah. Because then we could maybe provide that at the meeting so that we could for sure. I think it's great. Yeah. Any type of question where data needs to be collected. It's really really nice to send those to to the administration before so they can collect that and either get it to you before the meeting or you can then you can say ask the administration might say

031ask that again during the meeting. I'll have the answer for you by then. Okay. how the administration tells you to get or let you know that they're going to get you that answer. So, yeah. Um, so, um, just thinking about, you know, is it best to ask it before or during? Sometimes we recommend both. Ask before and maybe you get your answer, but we know that you have a district, a community that really likes transparency. They probably really want to know you're doing your job, I'm guessing. And so, sometimes it might be beneficial to answer ask a question during the meeting that you asked before and got the answer to, but you know, it's a it's a really good question. It's one you think the community would like to know that you did ask ahead

032of time before you voted on something. So, um, some people think that seems weird and I've heard some board members tell me, "Well, that's like showboating or, you know, not being authentic." But you're getting your answer, but you're also showing the community that you're doing your job. So, I don't I don't see it in that regard. Um, okay. So, another one, uh, let's say you've got a student transportation contract, the purchase of an activities bus. Let's say you're going to try to start running activities buses to get kids home after events after like after their practices or and so forth. So a question such as what is the predicted life of an electric school bus versus a diesel school bus governance level or not? I think you decision purchase. Yeah, I think that's a great

033question to ask. Yep, that's a good one. Good governance level. Um, what about student transportation contract for some field trips to the Edward Jones corporate office downtown? So, question, why are we busing all of our fourth graders to the Edward Jones building downtown? Can the Ed Edward Jones people come here? That's a good one. What's the purpose? Yeah. But once you get to that second part, like then it's like, okay, hold on. Yeah. Yeah. This is kind of getting into the weeds a little bit. You're kind of like asking them, you know, questioning their decision-m skills. Most districts, especially ones of this size that are larger, have a whole field trip process in in place at the buildings, right, that they follow. Usually, they have to be tied to the curriculum in some way. So,

034what might be a better way to ask this question? Can you make that more governance level? You can take different avenues of put that in governance. What's the connection learning outcome? Oh, for sure. question like if you assume that the field trip is and then that way people [Music] and it very well could be could not be But you're paying on something about return on investment. Yeah. Come to the decision to bus. Okay. What did you guys write? We just said like uh how does the how does the trip to Edward Jones uh better support student learning? Okay. I think that's great. Yep. Anybody have think it's a little different angle? We talked about how might it connect to the curriculum? What might they learn? It's the same. Yeah. For CEO. Yeah. We just kind

035of looked at it from like the financial perspective too of just like like how did we come to the decision to bus all fourth graders downtown? Yeah. Just to help us understand. And is this decision is this already in the budget? And if it was, then it's more of a decision maybe for the next year budget discussion. Yeah. Yeah, those are all great. I think probably something like this generally would be in a consent be a consent agenda item. If you're approving a student transportation contract, um, so those might be better questions to ask again before the meeting. You're kind of getting in the weeds if you're asking too much about this field trip during a board meeting. I don't think that would be a good use of board meeting time, per se. But if

036this is something you're really curious about, um, it would be before. But again, I would stay away from things like this because there should be processes and policies in place. You might ask, "Do we have a policy regarding field trips and things like that?" Or maybe you look that up your yourself. Um, but really staying out of the particulars, you have educated people making these decisions. Somebody in the district thought that this is an has educational value, right? So, you want to trust that they're choosing activities that have educational value. Now, when you talk about the money involved, that might be something if we're getting into I know a lot of districts are worried in the next couple years that fiscal times might get tighter. So those might be things when you think about tightening

037up the budget. Are these the types of things we keep for students because they're interesting and good for kids or the things that we have to tighten our belts on and cut. So good job. All all good questions. All right. So we talked about governance level questions there. Again, that should be a big part of how you guys govern, how you monitor, asking those governance level questions. Let's talk a little bit now about delegating operations. And we're going to look at that through a scenario. This is a true story by the way um of a district where we uh is renamed in the scenario but this actually did happen. Uh the Coloulston school district is in the process of building a new all-weather track. Board President Zeke upon talking with various people learns that the

038track will be a red clay color. Through talking with the construction manager, he finds out that the surface could also be black, which he thinks will look much better. He adds an agenda item to the next meeting for the board to discuss the color of the track. At this meeting, the athletic director reports that the track coach recommends the traditional red clay color because it won't absorb the heat as much, making it easier for the runners to perform on hot days. The president calls for a motion to vote on the track color. So, let's talk about this with your shoulder partner again. What do you think of Zeke's actions? What was good about his actions? Maybe was what was not so good. There's some good and some bad there. So, tuck that over. What do

039you think? I don't like it. It's a little gave us a problem. Right. And I kind of I guess I was trying to jump into that. The president just has already the president like wanting to change the color from red to black. You're saying I was going to say but again that way the president still calls for so much why are you bigger work for the board to do that hard wrap up this conversation aesthetics very somewhere All right, we'll start with you guys this time. What do you think? What What was good about Zeke's actions? Yeah. The only thing that I could think of is that Zeke at least, you know, has an interest in aesthetics for an investment. He wants, you know, he's very, this is was a smaller community, so he's very,

040you know, he just wants it to look the best. Yeah. No, that's So, he's got his intentions maybe were were good. I feel like that's really really like smart for us to claim because a lot of times our questions have good intention behind them. Yeah. Yeah. So, just being able to identify that and realize that we're meaning well, but this guy shouldn't be talking to the construction manager, right? And you can imagine this, right, in a small town driving by like, oh, let's get out and look. You know, construction's fun to look at, right? I'm watching like the Missou is adding on to their stadium and I drive by that and like gawking at it. You know, it's it's neat to look at. So, you can see how you want to go out there, look

041around. Oh, and there's construction manager, you know, start up a conversation. So, yeah, it seems like he cares. What else did he do here that actually was appropriate? Yeah. I mean, he at least added an agenda item to to the meeting. Yeah, he added an agenda item. Yeah, he going to let the board talk about it. He's just not trying to ram rod it through. He's bringing it to the board to decide. I think it might have been better if he just he Yeah, he asked the question prior to the meeting taking place, like how did administration arrive at color selection? I understand that there are different opportunities cuz then you could have gotten the coach's feedback first and had known prior to even going in that direction. Yeah. Yeah. So, what are some of

042the some of the issues or some of the ramifications of his actions? What's the fallout going to be? I think a logical step process there would just be to think about track color is not governed by board policy. And so if you think about that that layer of thinking, you're you're far deeper into those details. And so I think if you can bring yourself back up a notch and think, "Oh, oh, these people understand the AD has a recommendation." Mhm. Yeah. So I imagine it also created a awful lot of maybe unnecessary work for some people. It sounds like your AD is coming to a meeting to probably had to present some information for decisions that you know again probably could have been solved with a more curious question earlier on. I think there's also

043some potential unknowns here. And and what I mean by that is he put it on the agenda and then he calls for a vote. If the vote goes black color, black may be $100,000 more uh in cost than red and that's not a part of this conversation at all. I will add that the construction people were actually there that night. I think they came to every board meeting to give an update on the construction. The construction manager was there. So, they actually asked that question and he stood up and it really wasn't more about I think I don't know if they asked about money. They asked about time. They were really concerned with the whole project being done by football season starting. This was in the spring and and being done by their deadline in

044August or whatever it was. So, they had a guy there that they could ask. Yeah, the AD was there to talk to as well to get the coach's recommendations. So, what was the answer? What? They did vote to change it to black because the construction manager said it could be done um on time. If they made the decision that night, he's like, "You got to tell me now or we, you know, we can't make the change." But they did do it. It's also not good for kids. So like to me I was like well didn't they just say that wasn't good for the estimate? Yeah I mean it kind of appears that way but he's kind of putting appearance but then he I'm sure he was like oh it's only really hot a couple days

045or you know in that situation what happened to the construction manager? Did they did he quit or he or she quit? Not the construction manager but you know who did quit ad. Nope. Superintendent track coach the one that they asked for the recommendation. He did resign at the end of the year. Oh man. Yeah. So, that was a kind of a big fallout in a time where there's a teacher shortage, you know, um lost an employee over kind of getting in the weeds here. And again, he had good intentions. He just wants it to look the best. I mean, this was a big project for this little town. You know, it's kind of one of town where everybody goes to all the football games. And so, he wanted to look great, but his good intentions

046kind of got him in the weeds and had some kind of bad ramifications. So, kind of have to think about those things. Even when you're passionate about something, sometimes we have as board members, we have to step back a little bit and make sure we're up here at that strategic level and not in the weeds. All right, so just kind of review, you keep that big picture strategic view. Um, you have to realize that your actions must benefit the whole like the whole district or all students. So was he really thinking of students here? Probably not. Thinking more appearance and facilities, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but kind of put those above students. always want to put those students at the forefront of our decisions. Um have to understand that all parts of

047the district interconnect. So these changes you know making about track connected with basically human resources and with personnel. So this can be a domino effect sometimes when you make decisions in the weeds. Um things might happen that you weren't initially expecting to happen. Um so I just want to give you a moment board members. Can you think of a situation when maybe you've got out of your lane a little bit? I know most of you are pretty new. you've only been on the board a couple years, but you don't have to say anything out loud. I just want you to take a moment and reflect like over your board service. Like, has there ever been a time when you asked a question where you're like, maybe that wasn't strategic? Maybe that was more in Queens

048possibly. So, I can't think of a time I did it within this setting, but sometimes I I like brainstorming. like think of great ideas and so sometimes I'm like here's these five ideas and I I love them. I think they're good for students and I might share them with somebody and I'm thinking it's just more of a conversation about ideas but when it's coming from a board member it feels almost as a demand or a requirement or direct a directive. Yeah. And so like I know for me I'm thinking just more of a playful you know what what can we do for kids? What can we do for students? But with this position on the school board, it comes across as maybe a directive that is in the weeds. Yeah. And so I have to

049pull back brainstorming because it comes natural to me. But in this way it really is getting out of my lane. Yeah. And that's that'll come up I think too when we talk about communication protocols in the future because you might want to establish some protocols like when you have some ideas or when you go to a MSBA conference you know maybe you could listen to a presentation from another board and you're like oh that's some really cool things they did and you want to share it like what's going to be the avenue for sharing where it doesn't seem like a directive but just a sharing process. So, we're going to talk a little bit about you want to build that collaborative relationship with your administration, particularly the superintendent because that's primarily who you'll be speaking

050to, but having that collaborative relationship where maybe he at a work session, you have a moment where you like share ideas or throw ideas out there that just, you know, to be considered kind of like a little work session or brainstorming session. So, you might put that as in as part of a meeting sometimes. So, it's not seen as a directive, but just part of our process for thinking and problem solving. So is there a like a an issue with so in the case of like presentations when you're giving presentations at the board meeting and we've got questions like well have you done this have you tried this you know whatever I mean is that fine or is this more like and I guess that's where it's like well where's the line for that? I

051don't know. Have you tried this? It's kind of getting in the weeds, but I think how did you come to that decision or how did you make the decision to do it this way? I think is good because then some of that stuff usually comes out like the different options maybe they considered and why they chose the option they did, you know, depending what the topic is. So, u I think I know a situation that Amy might be referring to where she had something in her experience that really was a great question for this particular presentation. If one of us has experience from our own past that might be specifically helpful in this situation, is it okay to maybe ask that question beforehand, maybe beforehand to other folks in a different avenue so somebody else

052I think like if it's not coming to a vote like I understand if it's like you know like like director ponder for example is a big baseball guy and so if he had questions about a new u field that's being constructed or renovated he may have questions about just things that we don't Right. And so, uh, I thought those questions he was asking was very appropriate, helpful, allowing us to see that it was done well. My question would be, is that kind of a set of questions good for that setting? As long as they're at the governance level when you're asking more of the how, not, you know, did you consider this or, you know, how questions, why questions are good. Yeah. And that's what he had done. He was asking questions, did he consider

053that. I think those are good, good monitoring type questions. Thank you. But I think it's real important to remember you've got that invisible hat you can't take off, right? Because it's really easy to scare the poo out of your staff when you are with good intentions or just plain flatout curiosity um asking questions. I mean staff when you get a question from a board member, staff tend to drop everything. Um, so you think you're coming in as a community member, as a parent, um, but you've got that invisible board member hat on, um, and you come in and ask about some detail about the baseball stadium and suddenly you have rerouted somebody's complete day because, oh my gosh, we've got a board member and they're concerned and they they think that you and your constituency

054are concerned and and that is so it it's this interesting balance between we don't want to say you can't ask questions but developing a an understanding that when it's coming from you you can uh unintentionally most of the time um cause some drama that you didn't ever want and also you know change the trajectory of your staff and so that's the thing so is it okay to ask a non-governance question before or um uh that's the problem is it's not governance level and so how do you and every district struggles with this. How do you as a parent you have a question for your teacher. How do you deal with your teacher of your child as a parent and not scare the poo out of them and the principal and the assistant principal and the

055director and and the you know all of that because you asked a question. So, let me ask u and so Jane and Amy. Oh, first of all, the example I used for Mark, I thought I used because I knew his questions were appropriate and good. So, Mark, if you're watching us, we're aware. Um, but so there are some presentations that we receive and we don't see the slides until that day and so we don't have time on certain occasions to ask questions that might be those informative questions of why why this or that. And I think uh that might be one of the things that helps us ask questions ahead of time is if the presentation especially from other third parties who are coming from usually like our staff are just on top of it

056over and over and over again but third parties if they were able to present their presentation earlier we can look at that earlier. Is that fair? I mean I think I think a lot of this boils down to the matter of trust. You talk about scaring the the staff and things like that. And how many times have you heard me say, "I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I have this question." Normally, when I was a treasurer and dealing with Carol, I would we would go through the presentation and I would have questions and and she would answer them and I'd say, "Okay, but that was an aha for me, so I'm going to ask that question during the presentation." and I would and and she always appreciated the fact that I

057kne I told her ahead of time what I was going to ask but at the same time it's really hard for people with an inquisitive mind to not ask a question and an inquisitive mind is a good thing to have but I think it it comes down to that trust. If you build trust with the administration beforehand so that they know you're not coming after them with a gotcha, they're a lot more comfortable. It's just me. I think that's a great way to summarize it is that that I have board members that misuse questions just either to show off themselves or trying to embarrass somebody or to but most of my board members just are trying to be good governance and we are trying to ask the questions. Yes. I think we all want the

058same thing and that's what's best for the kids. J I was just going to say I think it helps too when those questions are always in advance, you know. So, because if you really want a good answer and you're representing the community, I mean, that's that's your role. You you want the community to potent, you know, there's going to be some people that are going to ask or have that similar question and they can't ask it. So, if that person knows in advance, this is a question they share with you and you say, "Oh, that makes perfect sense that I'm going to ask that question during the board meeting." It just provides some clarity, I think, to the community members as well who you're representing. I agree. And it builds more trust up with the

059community with your staff as well because they're able to give a good presentation, not get thrown off by so many questions that they get nervous and then start bumbling, you know, right? They're not speaking in front of big groups every day on camera, you know? So, having them give a good presentation where they're able to answer your questions builds up that trust with them, you know, with the community also bolsters their confidence, which makes them more effective workers. It's just a a good cycle. I know we I've struggled I know just already just with a particular issue that we've got you know with trying to hold people accountable and get enough information to make sure that I feel comfortable that they are doing the diligence that they need to be doing and and all of

060that too. So, I mean, that's I think for me has been a bit of a struggle where it's like, well, how how are we supposed to build trust with the community also, you know, if we don't look like we're and we don't have the information ahead of time to be able to know what they're going to say, you know, so it's like that part's a little challenging. I think it's real clear on a lot of things. I think there's some things that I think it's a little trickier with to, you know, when you've got specific questions that might be challenging to put into a governance model, but I'll agree on that. Yeah. Yeah. And it might be something maybe it's a little below governance level. So maybe before the meeting would be a better chance

061to ask that question to get you know. And is that something then too though like just thinking about it when we talk about communication strategies and stuff too like maybe it's not maybe the better forum for that is to go to the person on the admin you know internally that were that is directly responsible for that too and just not press on that person that's necessarily presenting, but also make sure that we were following up with additional questions after the meeting. You know, if it's not a vote scenario anyway, I'm just thinking out loud about and sure. And I think you want to work out those communication details, too, because I know in some districts, they don't necessarily want you emailing all these people individually, but maybe funneling it funneling it through the board president

062or funneling it through the soup. Maybe the soup says, you know, um, Amy, will you answer this question for the board? you know, and kind of I have found that to be very very fruitful on both sides. So that we we trap all those questions as they're occurring. Um that's a great question. I don't have that information in front of me, but then you have to follow up like you have to provide an outlet for that and and whatever that that's determined to be, but um I think that's super important to to not feel the pressure when you're at the podium to know every single answer. That's a that's a trust that that you know I would get you the answer if you had a question I didn't have right in front of me, you

063know. So yeah, and I would even say going to the superintendent like, "Hey, Amy said last week that she was going to get us this answer. Can you maybe you know put that to the top of her radar or let us know what the status on that is, you know, because you might for I mean we're all human, right? It got most just forgot about it or whatever. So anyway, instead of contacting her directly, I think. All right. So, let's look at this scenario. So, board member Tisha has been serving for two years and has never missed a board meeting. She gets the DESIE newsletter and sees lots of information about literacy programs and professional development. Her district's math, social studies, and science MPIs fall in the target category, but the ELA MPI is at

064approaching. She emails the superintendent an agenda item request asking for an update on the ELA program and what kind of professional development teachers are provided in this area. And just as a reminder, like on the MAP test, target is the highest, then it's on track, then approaching and emerging is the lowest category. So, what do you think about Tisha's actions? Are these she kind of getting in the weeds here, or is this appropriate governance work? I feel like that's pretty appropriate. See, you could tie it to the strategic plan. It's a curious question. It's not offering any sub, you know, specific remediation. And it's just asking like for an update. Hey, is like this is where we're not where we want to be. What's going on with this and what are we doing about it?

065Like what's already in the works? Yeah. Yeah. We think this is a great question because it's one tied to academics and that is should be one of your main priorities is the education of students. So yeah, we want to know what's going on with ELA, what are we doing to support teachers, what are we doing to get better. So this is a great monitoring question. So we think this is definitely um good board governance work. All right. Um, we sometimes talk about it this way that teachers are on the ground level with the students. Principles are just a little bit higher up kind of supervising that, stepping in when needed. Then you've got your superintendent and admin team looking over th all those buildings, all the principles and so forth. But then the school board,

066you're up there at that thousand foot level. Um, sometimes we use the analogy that you're in a helicopter and you know just looking over the forest and if a forest fire pops up, then you're you're being strategic. Oh, we need more resources over here. So you're making the call so that superintendent and the staff get resources to you know quell that fire over here is looking good. So you're giving a lot of praise to the people over here because this part of the area is looking looking great. Um so just kind of staying sometimes we say are you in the helicopter? Are you staying in the helicopter? So just another analogy that we sometimes use. So you can kind of think about that and sometimes it's a fun way to remind people like people are

067getting in the weeds like during a discussion say hey I think we're getting a little out of the helicopter here or sometimes people say we're getting in the weeds or getting out of our lane. There's all these, you know, phrases we can use, but sometimes the helicopter one is one that, you know, people kind of smile about. It's a little less um attacking, I guess. Um just just a nice phrase you can use if you feel like people are um overstepping. So, why is it sometimes hard though? What are the reasons that board members sometimes do kind of insert themselves? I'll let you talk about that just with your partner for make a list. What are some of the reasons? Why why is it sometimes hard to delegate the authority to the superintendent that things

068are going well? I think that's important to say want to get closer to it for the right reason for the right reason [Music] or something. Theoretically, I agree. I think of your life experiences too because you all come to your table as an expert in some field that you have worked in or are well and I think that's important. I think that's important for us to think through then Amy's a project manager or an accounting background that's going to give to something and that's okay but then that person that you're building I can see And then another reason would be and your soul like I will do I will just absorb all you you I will do all you obey all. I like that. That's a legitimate reason. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a that would

069make it hard to feel like I'm very sorry. Yeah. It might be [Music] more. All right. Going to wrap up those thoughts. Let's just go around and each pair and give one and we'll go around until we've exhausted your best. All right. Uh, lack of trust. I think lack of trust. Okay. Easy one, right? You guys, we talked about like the board member has an expert part that they're bringing to the table. Okay. Um, so board member expertise, right? Their their work, their their life experience. also talked about the fact that it's easy to delegate when things are going well [Music] and when they're not. Like so things that make it hard to delegate. So we can add another thing uh rough waters. Yeah. Like I was like crisis or crises create everybody operating out

070of stress. Yes. And and so that ends up all of us behaving from our different part of our brain even. Yeah. J thank you for sharing that. Okay. You guys, you have a passion for a particular area or something you worked with before? Yeah. Passion for an area. Good one. Do you guys have anything different? Uh yeah, we said like they just don't know better. So they don't they've never been through a training. They don't they don't under they they've never been through a governance uh piece, right? So they're just they don't understand the role yet. Lack of understanding. Don't know the role. Yeah. Do you guys have anything else in your list? Nothing that Stephen wants us to share out there. No, but there we has nothing to do with anybody in this room,

071but but somebody might just they don't want to share because they don't care. Like they they have to be the expert. They have to be this savior. They have to be the one. And so they just don't want to delegate. They just want to do it my way highway kind of thing. Okay. So, um, uh, sage on the switch. Kind of control issues. Somebody has control issues. We'll say that's a nice way to say it. That's a very nice way to say that. Yeah, those are my words. Okay. Do you guys have something different? Not on the list yet. Anybody else have anything that's not on the list yet? I just have a second. I mean, I think it's probably in there with passion, but just like the desire to help, they want to help.

072Uh, I think that's a little different. Like, they're helpers. A lot of times board members, I mean, you're volunteers, right? if you're volunteering for a job that has this much commitment, you're a helper type of person. So, yeah, want to help. And then our last one is I think some board members sometimes in the past might have just had too much time like they just have capacity. They have time. Not all a lot of time. Extra time extra help. Excuse me. Yeah. Bored as a hobby. Yeah. That's true. I like I like that. Yeah. I I feel seen. I like how you put a lot of extra not just extra. Sorry. I read that I say retired. Yeah. Yeah. All right. This is a great list. You have almost everything that's on mine. So that

073lack of trust and there's really two kinds of trust. Can they do it? Like and then there's also will they do it? You know, those are kind of two different types of trust there. Um that ego due to expertise. Sometimes it's real, sometimes it's perceived, right? Um delegating takes more time. That's one we didn't mention like some people sometimes board work in a big district, it just change is slow, right? It takes time. People want things to get done faster. So they think if they insert themselves, things will get done faster. And then that uh concern about losing control. You guys mentioned that. All right. Yeah. Those are all all great things. So you know way to avoid these challenges, we need to build some trust, right? We'll be doing more of that on August

0742nd when we have the whole board here. Trying to build that trust, getting to know the administration. You know, the more you know, learn about people, learn about their styles, just their personalities, the more trust automatically you have going into it, and then hopefully you've kind of got new leadership, set some expectations, and then that trust just builds. All right, so the benefits of delegating, like why we want you to do it, it really does support the authority of your leader. Okay. When everybody knows who's in charge, things just tend to work better. If you know staff have different board members calling them, they're like, "Who who's my boss? Who should I listen to?" It creates chaos. I think somebody mentioned that earlier. So, we want to avoid that so we have a smooth running

075machine. Um, it creates clarity for staff and we really feel like that builds strong staff morale, right? If you know who your boss is, you know who you take your messages from, um, it just makes a stronger uh, workplace environment. Creates collaboration. We talked about that a little bit earlier. you really want to have that collaborative relationship with your superintendent and their staff so that you know if he's got a really tough decision to make that he feels like he can bring it to the board and say I got some ideas on this. I really want to get your feedback you know before we you know make a recommendation as an administrative staff. So if the uh administration trusts the board and the board has you know let the has been delegating the operational duties

076to the staff they're going to be more likely to trust you and share those things with you. um elevates district priorities over individual preferences. A lot of times if board members are inserting themselves, they have like we talked about some passion for an area and maybe that passion doesn't cover thinking about all kids or all the facets of the inner workings of the district. And then of course it just makes things more efficient, okay? Especially when you've got a big district like this, there's workflows in place, right? There's strategies, there's um procedures for doing things. And if people are inserting themselves, just kind of like puts a wrench in the gears that are turning right, can slow things down, make things more inefficient. All right, so I this is just a short list of things

077we see commonly by well-intentioned board members that they do that they really shouldn't. So just thought we'd add these things and I don't this is not from anything we've heard around here. This is just things that we've collected over time. Popping by buildings for an unscheduled visit. Okay, we really really encourage board members not to do this. If you want to see things, how a building is running, talk to the superintendent. They can work with the principal to schedule a time to maybe do some visits, do some walkthroughs at, you know, whatever buildings you're wanting to see or if there's programs you want to see in action and so forth. So, um, it's again, we talk about being inefficient when you don't delegate. You just show up. A principal might have a plan for the

078day and what they're going to get done and then all of a sudden they've got a board member that they've got to, you know, show for around to different classrooms and so forth. So, um, try not to do that. um meet with staff without board or superintendent's blessing. Okay. Sometimes again board members can be very well-intentioned. They're like, "Oh, they post on their social media, I'm going to be at such and such coffee shop Saturday from 9 to 11. Come by and just tell me what your concerns are without letting the whole board or the superintendent knowing you're doing that." That's not a bad thing to do, but that should be a board decision, right? We talk about collective authority, making decisions at a as a board and not as individuals. So, not bad to

079have these little listening sessions, but let's make it something that the whole district knows about and plans so that everybody, every board member can participate. If you just do this on your own, it makes the community like, "Oh, Stephen's the only one who cares. He's the only one doing these listing sessions." When that's not necessarily true. He just kind of went out of his lane and started doing that. So, we should talk about that as a board and and make that decision as a board if that's something you want to do. Talking to district vendors and contractors, again, just like talking about Zeke, you know, he thought he was just being a good guy. he's talking to the contractor, getting the lay down low down on the construction, but again, that can cause some issues.

080So, even though you're well-intentioned, don't do that. Um, trying to solve stakeholder problems or concerns. You know, your neighbor comes to you talking about the basketball coach, benched your kid, you know, or benched their son, you don't really, you know, they're unhappy. They talk to you. Can you do something? Can you talk to somebody about the coach? That's not a board level issue, right? So, even though it's your neighbor, you might really like them. and he might really like the sun. You might think he's an outstanding player and shouldn't be benched. That's not something board members should get their fingers dirty on. Um asking the superintendent an unreasonable amount of questions. And I say this just because recently in the last year I've been working with the district where the superintendent called and we were

081doing going to do a workshop with their board and he sent us the questions he was getting from a particular board member and it was like 30 to 50 questions for every board packet that came out. he was spending over a full day just asking a lot of questions that were really in the weed. So when you think about your questions, keep them at the governance level. And if they're true governance level questions, you should not have 50 questions about one board packet. Okay? So just kind of keep that in mind that they're a good superintendent is going to answer all your questions, but remember they are managing the whole district. They don't have time to be your your personal little soundboard and answer a bazillion questions. All right. So that's basically the talking about

082the administration. We are going to go next to the community and parents. If I could just Yes. I think sometimes they've asked people on the board, are you going to be just rubber stamp and what I'm hearing all this uh we just shared was not about rubber stamping anything. It was just about staying at a high level their questions so that you guide and put resources here for that fire staying a helicopter using that example. But nothing that you shared had anything to do with rubber stamping. It was all about just staying at a higher level. Yeah. So that's helpful to separate the two. Yeah. And those questions that you ask might lead you to vote no on a particular agenda item. It's just getting the information but also trusting your staff that they're doing

083their due diligence. And your questions really are about asking have you has the administration done their due diligence before making this re recommendation? And if they have, you would hope that you would trust that it's you know the right recommendation. Yeah. All right. So, relationships with your community and parents. So, kind of four items we're going to touch on here. Uh having a district's communication plan, a community engagement plan, um honoring what we call chain of command, and then making decisions based on the welfare of all students. If we kind of focus on those four things, generally will build a good working relationship with your community and parents. So, talking about communications, um this is a plan that's strongly um suggested by Desi. Do you guys have a district-wide communications plan? We do, but interestingly,

084I don't know that we share it with the board. It really is, you know, our team operates off of it and use it to drive messaging and stuff, but we haven't traditionally really collaborated with the board on that. Yeah. Well, I Yeah, I don't know about collaborating, but at least sharing what that plan is. I think would be good. It might be well worth putting on an agenda just to share what that plan is. Um, we really recommend letting the district do the talking. Um, that helps maintain consistency. everybody in the community, parents are getting the same message. Then um do you guys have a social media page the district? We also really recommend that you just share the district's post. You know, we've seen some board members who like to give a playbyplay of

085every board meeting on their own social media account. And sometimes it reflects what happened in the meeting and sometimes it really has a lot of opinion put into it. Um and that can sometimes create a lot of um friction within the community because they're hearing two different things. So, we really think it's a good idea just sharing what the district puts out. I mean, it's a free country. You have the first amendment right to post whatever you want on your own accounts and you're certainly you can do that, but we think if you want to build that good rapport, good community relations is like having one clear voice um from the district um is a good thing to do. Um and then kind of monitoring is the district sharing the good and the bad. Transparency

086is a word we hear a lot um from community members who are unhappy with things like we didn't know this. The district isn't sharing this, they're hiding this. So really that's part of your board um is look at what communication what is being put out there. Are they sharing everything the good and the bad? um you know sometimes there's an incident at a school and some communication will go out like if the police were called usually the district will put out some kind of um email to that school or maybe it goes on the whole district page just letting know um we had an intruder outside the school we decided to for safety precautions to go on lockdown we let you know we raised the lockdown at whatever time all students are safe that kind

087of thing if you know as a board member that happened but that message wasn't put out to the community I think as a board member you should be speaking up and saying Hey, our parents, our community members need to know when things like this happen, even if it's not news you want to share. I mean, those things are important for people to know about. Um, so that's part of your job is to monitor that communication is going out. And then we always say share the good. Be a promoter. You guys are board members are really ambassadors of the good news. If you hear about things or maybe you're asked to attend an awards ceremony at one of the schools and you visit to hand out some of the awards, you know, maybe you take a

088picture and you share it. you know, I was at such and such middle school today and uh got to see so many great kids, you know, earning awards for citizenship and whatnot. So, sharing that good news, kind of being that megaphone for good news is, I think, another good way to promote um just that trust and good feeling within your constituents. Um community engagement plan. I think Susan's going to talk more about this one. And the reason I'm I'm popping in here is just because this is has a law attached to it. So um you are required now by law to have a community engagement policy and part of that policy has to be um that any resident of your district if they go through the chain of command cannot can get on the board's

089agenda. Okay. Uh that is something that the legislature put in a couple of years ago. But what we have found as an association and nationwide and our other associations is that the lowest level I would call that the lowest level of community engagement is just allowing a person to come. Um now it's not I don't mean to diminish it, okay, to allow someone to speak is is important, okay? It's important to have that pressure valve, but as far as community engagement goes, that is not two-way reliable communication. Okay, that's one way communication. And typically, it's one way because we don't have an agenda item. It's just, you know, something that they have brought um to the to the district, but it's not a deep agenda item. And um so this community engagement plan, we encourage

090districts to and that's really where the hard work comes in um is to put together a true two-way community engagement plan. And so my question to you right now is how does your district connect with the community? In what ways does the board and the board connect with the community? How do you do that? Why don't you turn to your shoulder partner chat a little bit and then we'll go down heard about that and that would be a good example she's doing [Music] He cannot resolve it. First 30 days or 11 days taking problem solve it go directly to the board discussion [Music] but you might ask her for clarification years ago that we had to all update script it out. Yeah. scrap script it out all but you may ask her that question it's

091kind of like we have a community gets rolled out a little bit more people can come and look at all the curricul They do a lot. But when it comes to conversation back I don't know. You get a lot of emails. All right, let's think. Okay, so there's actually been research done on effective school boards because there was a time maybe 25 years ago where there was this really big question. there was a trend kind of in the big cities like the mayors taking over um uh school districts like Chicago for example that's an example of like not having an elected board but having mayors appoint uh those kinds of things and people started really asking you know do school boards matter um at all you know like what impact does do school districts have

092um school boards have on their school districts and so there was some deep research that was done on um do school boards boards matter and if they do what are the um effects you know so there was a correlation uh found with effective school boards and they came up with a list of uh of criteria one of them is um reliable two-way communication with the community okay so reliable two-way communication with the community and there are some other things which we've already covered delegation is a huge one too being policydriven um There are some other things that we're probably going to get to at your retreat, but this is kind of a big one. So, my question to you is, how does your district connect with the community? Anyone want to share? We have Oh,

093we have Jen. Jen, I'm going to go last because I want to see how much you guys have been paying attention. It is a test. How about Mark? Why don't you give us one thing? Uh I would say like the citizens in our schools initiative is certainly a a community engagement where we have at least 35 to 40 commu uh community members that come in on a monthly basis to learn all things about the the way school functions. Okay. Marvelous. Marvelous. And do you feel like that's reliable in two-way? Oh, for the people that are in there, yes, absolutely. And then I also think it provides them an opportunity to learn about the district and and they go and champion or share the good uh or or things that they think need to be improved

094on. They share that you know out in the community as well. So that is excellent and actually I'd heard about this program because you guys do a great job. I don't you know I'm I'm very impressed um with that. It's a safe space for your community members to ask questions, right? um and to get uh feedback and then you get a feeling for, you know, what's on their minds, right? Okay. What else? I like the senior palace program. Okay. Our community members that are 55 and older and they're invited to come in and see something fun. Maybe it's the cupcake wars or a band concert or a baseball game and then there is conversation beforehand about a topic. Uh maybe the superintendent's giving some updates and asking some questions and getting their feedback. So, we're

095engaging those people that may not otherwise be connected to our school. Their children or grandchildren are out. So, I think that gives some two-way conversation. That's a great That's great. Great. Okay. So, what about this team? Oh, I go back to Jen and and she founded or started the citizens in our schools program as well. So, I stand on my answer. We go to Jen. We go to Jen. But do you have another way that the district connects with the community? the district or the individual board members. I mean, we all have websites that or, you know, Facebook accounts or whatever that we post things that we take from that the district has put out there, you know, um certain athletes, certain musicians, whatever accomplishments that there have been made. Um, we also I I

096mean I get a lot of personal or not personal emails myself. I'm sure you do, too, from patrons and people in the district that have this issue or want this answer or whatever. So, I do my best to answer what I can and send the rest on. What about the board as a whole? It's Are there any Well, help me out, John. We don't do I think there was a time here pre-COVID we did like a brownies with board predates me where it was more of like a was brownies with board people could come in I don't know that they were super well attended we've moved to more we try to have a topic like make it a little more intentional so we also do citizens roundts we didn't do as many last year kind

097of depends on what the things are right but we when we were considering the onem walk rule for transportation right we engaged we usually have about 100 people show up. There's a little information sharing, but it really is most of it like share your ideas, thoughts, solutions. It really is community problem solving. So, those have been really effective and board members typically are attending those. Senior PL, some of the other things you've heard, board members are invited and usually not the full board can come, but people will drop in. So, I think our community gets to interact with them. And not to say there's not merit to brownies with the board types of things, but around these really intentional problem solving things. And I think it's a good opportunity for the board to hear from

098the community and people to share ideas directly with them and with admin. So those have been good. And the other piece I would say t traditionally since I've been here it's been really more admin but going out into the community as well. So we do a lot of chamber you know Rotary club talks things like that. So it's kind of again it's a little bit taking yes what's going on at the district out but we're hearing from stakeholders too. And that could be something again I don't know if that's overreach. which again I don't know that it's traditionally been board members involved in that but admin certainly does that um and that's I think been pretty effective and we have coffee with the principles too I mean that's not districtwide but high school principles tend

099to do that surveys lots of surveys and things yeah our our strategic plan came through a lot of the community roundts and so there a lot of those conversations took place and then whenever there's a bunch of new curriculum that is being presented we open up this room and they're just on all the different tables. People could come in ask questions of each different version and it's hard to understand like like that example how much of that is similar to what other school districts do or maybe like we are especially transparent in areas like that. And you bring up you bring up a good point Stephen everything every meeting that we have is videoed and taped and people can watch it live. So I don't think every district does that. And that's a good good

100thing to identify too. Yeah, I would add like although um it it's not necessarily at the time like comment comment comment but in its pure form public comments at a board meeting are meant when done appropriately are meant to give the board feedback about concerns that the the public may have. And the board may not even be aware of that it's a concern. And so it can be a driver for the board to say, "Wow, thank you for sharing that. We didn't realize that that was an issue. We will talk to administration about to better understand kind of why this is a concern." I mean, so and those are followed up like you guys follow up on those too if there's stuff that's heard, you know, that it's not necessarily us. It's going back to

101anybody from patron comments, but I know it can be a good done right. No, I think I think patron concerns that kind of agenda item is absolutely appropriate and essential and now required by law as well for good reason, right? Um but if it's the only way that boards and actually you guys are on the advanced level as far as community engagement, so I'm really very advanced too if you see one of our board meetings and the board meeting ends. Typically all of our board members, they stay like and they engage with community. Community comes up and strikes personal conversations or things that hey, you know, like and and that can be a good thing as well. I mean, it's about building rapport between the board and and the community. Yes. The challenge is always,

102you know, community engagement, public comment at board meetings is great except for the fact that you never know. Is that an issue for just one person, five people, or is that that is the hardest part as a school board is trying to weigh. you are weighing the interests of thousands of people and you only have so many resources and you have only so how when you're steering the ship it's easy to start doing this you know based on a few people and some people are more comfortable particularly if you're videoing all the meetings some people are more comfortable coming to the mic than others okay and so the challenge for districts is that reliable two-way. Are you getting representative voices? Okay, so some I have a lot of districts that all they have when I

103say what's your community engagement, they'll say public comment. Anybody can come and talk to us, but they have no idea if that's representative. If that they have no idea or we take a survey, well, who do you send the survey out to? Parents. Okay, but is that the only stakeholder that you have concerns with and all of your parents taking the time to fill out the survey? And so it's hard. It's difficult because there's no perfect way of getting that feedback and so and you don't want to, you know, crowd it with volume. Like I know that my sister and her school district, I mean, they quit answering the surveys because they got too many of them. And she's like, I don't have time uh to answer all these surveys. And so that district learned

104very quickly that that was not reliable communication because people dropped off dramatically. So, how do you do you have the systems in place? It sounds to me like you guys have a lot of varied systems and ways to get feedback from the community. That's great. That is something that every district is continuing to work on, struggling on. I, you know, kind of the brownies with the board. Not that I'm advocating you start that back up again, but it's a lovely just to be able to say we have this opportunity. And that way if you have a shy person um who is not going to come to public comment and and speak up that they they know that's there but obviously we don't want to waste people's time either. So um finding that sweet spot in

105your community. Yes, building the relationships but also um continuously as a board understanding and that's difficult for my board members too to understand. Just because two people come up and are concerned about something doesn't mean that the ship is sinking. um uh it might feel like the ship is sinking, but how what other information do we have? What other data do we have to determine whether or not this is something worthy of, you know, navigating the ship a different direction. So, um and that's difficult. That's difficult. But it sounds to me like you guys h are doing a lot of things that I wish more of my boards uh were doing. Um as far as getting that input and getting that input in front of um I'm a fan Illinois school boards association has a

106document called connecting with the community. Um, and that was designed for school boards to just kind of discuss there are uh more ways than just public comment uh to uh to connect with your community. I got a quick question on that too. just do you have any best practices or you know creative ways that you've come across for ensuring that you're engaging a solid cross-section because I still feel like even in all of those events even with surveys and stuff it's just so hard to get the people who are just underwater in their own lives or not engaged in you know various ways but some of those family situations can be really under represented but really in need of representation. And so like how do we how do we do that? I mean Jen, you

107probably have ways around that too, but I'm just like that's the piece where I just, you know, it's the same we have a lot of the same repeat people come to patron comments and we have the same people who email us and it's like it's always the same squeaky wheels and surveys like we we did that the last big survey we did. I thought it was awesome. You know, when you when you're getting at least a few thousand responses, great. That's that's better, you know. Um, but how do we how do how does anybody has anybody cracked that that you want to you want to speak up for your I can tell you what in I taught in Columbia for 25 years and what we did there is we held like you mentioned roundts. They

108called it a world cafe which is similar to the round table but it was invite only and they really were intentional about getting different segments of the population inviting them and feeding them. They always said if you want people to show up you've got to feed them dinner. Um, and so a lot of times your PTA presidents will have some good contacts on some good people or your principles, you know, if you reach out to those PR individual principles, they'll know people like this, you know, this is an active parent who's, you know, all about the kids and they'll have some good suggestions on maybe ways to hit different different demographics or know some people. Um, a lot of times if you reach out to different types of churches, the minister might know somebody who's

109got, you know, that would be a good advocate for schools or has good ideas or be good at serving in that way. So, actually just make an invitation and you might have to invite twice as many people as you really want to show up, but at least you're really being intentional about trying to get those different segments of population. Okay. Like that. We've done that. Not so much with the events. I think our events are pretty much open, but um some of the committees that aren't the tier one that have the bylaws like trying to be more intentional about principles like hey we're looking for someone who's going to be more let's say contrarian but some of them need to be will poke some more holes here and some you know to try because they

110know there are people now are you still going to miss some? Yes, because they still have to be someone who's on a principal's radar to recommend, but it at least helps us if we're planning on the district level to have some from every building and trying to get a little bit of I guess diversity in those groups there. But yeah, I don't know that there is a one thing that works for everyone. It is hard, right? Like it's always frustrating when our you know with our surveys, if you're a person who just doesn't check email or read news from the district, you're probably also not going to be filling the survey. That's how we distribute it, right? Well, and even with like oh this a whole other thing, but I'm just thinking even with you

111know people that work like staff that work with our homeless you know or care you know the kids who are unhoused community and stuff like you know just being able to tap people sometimes I guess just for different perspectives like in my world you know it's always best to go direct directly to the customer to get feedback but sometimes you have to have a proxy just you know but it's still better like it's still a degree closer than you might be otherwise. So yeah, like talking to the homeless coordinators or the or you know the counselors that and just kind of what do you see like we know that there's this at risk population and mom and dad are working three jobs and they can't come to this meeting but what are you getting from

112them or is there some way when you're interacting with those families that you can ask them these two questions and get that feedback back and I do encourage and I know you guys are because it sounds like particularly your senior program um uh is trying to connect with the community that doesn't have kids because I think that's huge um for schools and it is frequently like it's e easier for us to connect with our parents like we can trap them um but the uh but connecting with the wider community that aren't our parents and connecting with our staff um which all obviously you guys already have you know union and some uh systems in place that way as well um but providing that feedback but yeah the closest that we've come is some intentional inviting

113and inviting in different ways. So, not necessarily a parent or a senior, but somebody from the business community, some somebody from the diverse communities. And I imagine if you just sat here, you could come up with a huge long list of, you know, different churches or businesses or homeowners associations or, you know, on and on and on the sports clubs. The last thing too just as a tangent to that though with when we think about community engagement and thinking about I know uh at the summer summit we touched a little bit on just you know um engaging your community assessors and you know just building some relationship with some government people or lobbying you know and like how like who's nailing that like how do we go about that because I mean everybody's just so

114busy with all of the things and I think that's where I at least am still trying to get a feel for like what's appropriate and what's necessary. I mean, we got a lot of legislation. We were just talking, you know, lot of big big legislation where now feels like maybe more than in recent past time for us to get actually have a plan together as a board to rally for our school funding. Um, but does anybody have models that look good for that? Like here's who you should be talking to and how you might go about engaging them. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we've got we have several districts that I think really knock it out of the park as far as the and that's definitely a board role. Okay. So is the advocacy is a

115huge part of being a school board member and a huge part of your board role. you were elected officials, there are other elected officials um who impact your work. if even if it's like the the road and the street lights um uh and the sewers to uh the assessors, the collectors and I don't know if you've seen the news lately, but the county clerks um have uh we've had a snafu and several of the county clerks didn't advertise some of the bond issues appropriately and we've had four school districts bonds not certified by um uh the state auditor. um as they're required by law to do. And all of those schools are going to have to go back and rerun their bond issues. And the relationship with the clerk suddenly became very very very important

116and uh crucial to the operation of the school board. And there are a lot of similar um uh similarities. We've got um areas that they the elected officials advocate together. I know MSBA belongs to our, you know, we advocate for school boards, but we belong to a group that advocates for counties and the municipalities because we do have a lot of similarities um with those folks as well. And so that is definitely something that and I know that your administration does, you know, you have interaction, you have to have interaction with these people like how much money you got to send my way so I can make my budget, you know, those kinds of conversations. But that's what I'm trying to figure out like how can we or how should we as a board unit

117like be stepping into that or complementing backing up whatever the work you know they're doing. We have districts that have advocacy committees or the board creates an advocate some advocacy priorities um you know for the board that is definitely board level stuff and then they start breaking down how can we as a board assist in this okay and now it's not always like okay here's our priorities now deal with it superintendent it is a partnership okay um because you're elected I mean you are representatives of the community and constituents And a lot of my board members don't realize that um that invisible school board hat works in the community too and sometimes quite for the benefit of your school district is you know being able to be that voice when you go and meet the

118mayor when you go and meet um uh uh the assessor. Um they know you're an elected school board member. So yeah. Okay. If you want a couple names to um Peggy Hassler at Melville I she was the president last year. I don't know if she's still the president after this year's reorg. And um uh Tammy Hidland at Duncan. Those are they that South St. Louis County. Say it again. The last one. Tammy Hidland at Duncan School District. It's in Herculadium. I never heard of Dunlin until started working here. But I know they do a thing in the spring like when the legislators are on their spring break, they have them in for a breakfast. So they're actually really spending some quality time with their local reps. um getting to know them personally versus just handshake

119and five minute conversation on kind of makes me think like last year I think u like Mr. Cook um and uh Dr. Rambus myself uh several state uh couple state senators and house rep members came in and we took a visit to how high um so they could see school and see classes and how it worked. Um, you know, an additional thought that came out of that was, you know, probably some type of a sitting down session afterwards and just talking about, you know, what what you saw, but also how you can support how we, you know, how we advocate across the board. So using this example, will this be a situation where the board approves a plan, doesn't make the plan, so we might say, "We would love to hear your ideas for how

120do we engage with these persons and that they would just create an idea on who they would be speaking to or maybe who we speak to and then we approve that plan versus us saying uh one of us is going to talk to the this person or that person." So using what we're learning today, how would we address this topic of we want to learn more about advocacy is so is that the right step is the idea a non GLQ government level question is it what is what's the next step is it to ask them to be part of that okay I mean is that it well and this is this is I think in my opinion a a higher level function okay because you are going to as elected officials walk hand in hand

121um with administrative staff and and you are this is one of the things that some boards are creating like this is their own creation. Okay, your board is advocating for certain things. Um and then you you as a board with input from the staff because obviously you don't want to advocate for something that's harmful um uh for the school district with input from let's look at your CIP. You don't want to advocate for something that is uh that torpedoes something that's already done. But advocacy is one of those higher level uh functions uh that the boards can get more involved in. It's not just a governance level question. You as a board can decide um what your advocacy position is going to be. Now individual board members might have differences and they might have different

122recommendations um uh but you as a governance can can decide this is what we're going to advocate for just like you as a board can decide you know on your CEIP the CEIP is presented to you but is presented to you for approval. So once again, you're not just a rubber stamp, you know, but this is one where you are more in the fray, I would argue, than uh the curriculum and the uh communication, the daily communication and the running and the operation. This is definitely a board level function. Would we have to vote amongst the board to say we're going to address this? Yes, you need to get consensus. It's not going to be effective. Your advocacy is not going to be effective. an advocacy plan where only two, three, four, but not the

123board as a whole needs to come to some agreement on what you need to advocate. Would you do that in a work session so that they have the ability to work through that? Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, some districts will do it in a in a board meeting, but I would argue it's a work session. I know Melville actually has a whole separate committee um uh that they put together and create some advocacy. You know, they get input from all kinds of uh folks, staff and and whatnot. and then um try and of course there's tons of things we want to advocate for but we always recommend that you pick like three and really focus on that because that you really just don't have capacity um for the more than that. Um, it also

124helps inform other things like what are you the most worried about and and where is the line if we get to if there are particular ballot measures that's where we have to be we as staff have to be very careful not to advocate we're all information we can inform right the board even with ballot issues as elected officials could advocate be more of an an advocate role yeah so there is a state statute that says you can't use public funds to support or oppose a ballot issue and so that ballot issue is key. So, um, staff on staff time, uh, we're paying, taxpayers are paying on, they can't advocate one way or another. However, staff on staff time can and should be advocating on some other things, right? Most superintendent spend a lot of time

125trying to educate legislators, communicate with legislators, trying to get good information. These days, uh, there's a lot of misinformation out there. getting good information um to legislators. Arguably that is an obligation of the superintendent um to do and that is the board's role as well. Um but you can't use public funds. So individual staff members can on their own time and so that's where you get like if you're running a bond or levy issue sometimes staff will volunteer their time after hours. Um they can do that. It's got to be purely voluntary. Um, and you guys have a voice and you also have sort of a megaphone. You can't use district funds to support, you know, I'm trying to think of something on the ballot. Um, Senate Bill 3. No, there we go. Senate Bill

1263. Um, you know, you can't use district funds to do that, but you yourself um can use your megaphone. Um, and in fact, the law actually allows for um, uh, public officials to use press releases. And so, I've had boards that you can't, you know, uh, put signs up, but the board as a whole can vote to issue a resolution and a press release on how they feel about a particular topic. Um, and some boards have used that uh, quite effectively. Um, so can I paraphrase what you just said to make sure I understand? So, with Senate Bill three specifically gonna need to be on the ballot potentially either in the fall or the spring, when the ballot language is identified, then they could adopt a resolution to support or yes, not support support or

127oppose it and you can issue a a press release on that. That is specifically in in the law um that they are allowed to do that. Now, we can't, you know, put a bunch of flyers out. We can't put signs up in the building. We can't do that. But you guys can do that. And during if the superintendent is able to speak to people and advocate in conversations, can they also advocate from their chair? Like can they also post that we are for something or we are against something because of how it would impact our budget. Um so the superintendent it's interesting you can't use public funds but um the law is clear that public officials do still have the ability to speak. Okay. And so that's why let's say that there's a bond issue

128out there um uh the superintendent and the staff frequently are going on Quantis Club and and uh chamber and whatnot um uh using their voice to speak. They're not using district uh funds. um there's a legal issue, you know, about okay, if he has a social media post, um is it personal or is it as the superintendent who owns that post and stuff and we can go through the analysis there, but certainly um the superintendent has the ability to put out as an individual, this is how this will impact our schools and uh this is how I as a superintendent would encourage you uh to vote. Um it always makes it's just an interesting line for because um he's the voice of the community. Some superintendents don't want to be that far out there knowing

129that people feel one way or another and the superintendent and the staff are going to have to work with people uh all people um uh and so how far out do we go on these particular issues? But I some districts have been very effective at um uh issuing the press release and just making a very clear case on um this is this is what we think, this is why we think it. We understand why you might feel the other way and um but this is how it's going to impact schools. And we feel it's an oblig it's a responsibility on our part to to make sure that you know how this might impact your school. Very factually based though where you would even say a no vote would equal this effect and a yes vote

130would have this effect. Well, and that that's a different thing. So then you can't ad uh support or oppose. You can't advocate for or against a ballot measure. No, I'm saying that if it's just purely fact. So that's the other I I don't the other exception that districts capitalize on it a lot. So um on one end you can say I have a resolution we feel very strongly we are advocating that you vote or not vote a certain way on a certain ballot issue. But then the other that you can use public funds on um is purely factual information about a topic. Now that one's trickier um because uh I've talked to super I I review these a lot and so I have a lot of people say you know this is it. Can we

131put this out and it's purely factual? And then I read it and it's like if you don't vote for this bond issue all hell will break loose. And uh and I'm like that's not and you know and then I get into this argument. I'm like that is advocating that is not pure factual and then I and then like no all hell will break loose if I if I this happens and and that's not uh uh you know so it is when you are passionate about something it's easy for you to accidentally uh categorize an opinion as a fact so you got to be careful about that but there are ways I mean the intent of the law is not to completely squaltch the voice of the board or squaltch the voice of the district. Okay,

132this is a a huge topic. I would imagine we're going to need a lot more of MSBA guidance in writing later on, but I know we have other things you might want to cover uh for this operators, but I got this. We got we wandered off, but this is good. Oh, no. We wander off. We wander off in a good direction. We actually have a really good guidance on this. So, if anybody wants to read that, I've got a good guidance I can say. Please do. I would like that. All right. Okay. Moving on. So, uh, other ways to build healthy relationships with your community and parents is honoring that chain of command. And this is actually in your policy, I looked it up, it's policy 1480. Um, how do you respond to parents and

133other community members when they approach you with a concern? Board member has this happen. I know you've only been on the board a little while, but people probably come up to you from time to time, right? Yeah, they do. And there's there's another option here. Uh, we passed I don't know if you read policy 412. I did not. Policy 412 states that um you don't have to go through the teacher, the principal, the superintendent to get to the board. What you can do is go to the superintendent. If he cannot uh resolve your issue, then you have the right to go and spend five minutes before the board at the next available board meeting. Is that that's part of the part of the law community engagement? Yep, that is correct. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

134So, that's somewhat new, right? When did that last year? Yeah, that's like three years ago. Um the law passed. But uh but the chain of command is still that that is the law. Yes, you can do that. Is that the most effective way to get your uh issue resolved? Usually not. Yeah. It it also depends on the size of the issue. Yes. Yes. For sure. Yeah. For sure. So, we've had one I think time when somebody used invoked 412, right? Yeah. So yeah, we really think you should try to direct the person to the person most that can most easily solve that problem most at that level of whatever the problem is. Typically a lot of us I know you probably do this too. You just send it off to Mark and say handle it.

135Yeah. Or or advise them if they're complaining about a student issue. Have you talked to the teacher? You know, you really need to talk to the teacher first. Oh, you did? Well, did you talk to the principal? you know, just kind of encouraging people to follow that chain of command also because those are the people who can solve their problem the fastest versus you. And then he, you know, comes in his inbox, which is huge, you know, and he's got to move it on. It just takes longer time if it goes top down versus bottom up. So, just advising them to start at that level where the problem is rooted. All right. So, we've got four scenarios here. So, I just want you to practice um as we go through these and decide who would

136you direct them to. Would you direct them to the teacher, the principal, the superintendent, or the school board on these issues? So, a parent is upset that her son has been on time at his bus stop every day this week, but the bus was 25 minutes late three out of five days. I'll I'll go through them all and you can talk with them with your partner. A parent is upset that his daughter reported that the school fire alarms have gone off five times this week and it's only Wednesday. A parent is upset that her son was not allowed to use the restroom when he was in the middle of a science test. And a parent is upset that there is no policy requiring classroom doors to be locked during the school day. So just talk

137with your shoulder partner. Who would you direct? This parent comes up to you with this issue. Who would you advise they go to speak to? principal. That's what I would do. Second one. I would say teacher on that one. building classroom teachers teacher situation but it's just policy that would be more because it's a district it could be the safety plan if it is no there isn't It wasn't how we find things out has gone back and forth a couple times in my life. You're aware that you champion rock busters like and so how much of that is responsibility? Okay, let's talk about these. Some of these are a little gray and it all a lot of it depends too on your administration structure at the top a little bit as well. So let's start

138with you guys over here. We'll go this way this time. So we've got the bus that's late. So if you're the board member and the parent comes to you, who would you direct them to? I would reach out to transportation team. Transportation team might have a superintendent in charge of transportation. Could have superintendent tagged on the email or whatever that looks like. So in this district probably so in our smaller districts that might be the principal, but we don't want the board to contact transportation, right? To the parent. You make a good point. That was something I was going to say at the end. you do it once, do the work, do the community, serve as the liaison or the middleman between the parent and whatever staff member, what's going to happen? It's going to

139snowball and this word's going to get around. Oh, uh, Amy, she helps. She'll help you. She'll contact them for you and before you know it, you'll have more emails in your inbox than anyone, right? Okay. What did you guys say about the next one about the school alarms are going off all the time? Yeah, this is probably a building issue. The principal needs to be figuring out what's going on. Maybe working with somebody at central office who works with the safety team or the fire alarm team. Yeah, the principal needs to be on that. I or possibly even starting with your teacher depending on the kid because it does his daughter reported and sometimes kids can be like oh this happened blah blah blah and it's like did this happen? Yeah. And then you maybe

140could go to the principal after Yeah. Or maybe you know maybe they should be asking another mom or dad friend you know is your kid saying this too? Maybe cross-checking the information before contacting Yeah. Yeah, but that's probably a building issue. All right, you guys next in the corner there. Um, son wasn't allowed to use the restroom in the middle of the test. Who would you? We said teacher. Yeah, that's definitely a classroom issue, right? Need to talk to the teacher and get the get the full story there, too. We might not have the whole story there as well. Um, and then the last one, uh, no policy requiring classroom doors to be locked during the school day. Well, it's policy, so I think the board is appropriate there, but also I feel like anytime

141they wanted to go to the superintendent also with like a district policy, something that's not a bad idea either. Yeah. So, probably running have them contact the superintendent, that might be something like, oh, you know, we we maybe need to address that and know I'll bring it up in a board meeting or I'll pass it on to the board president and maybe we can put it on as an agenda item. So, yeah, kind of that. But anything policy related is definitely board. So you kind of have some leeway there to talk to the superintendent about it or your fellow board members. Well, we actually have a process to a pin form that could be the first step is to direct them to the pin form which is on our website which then gets routed through

142the superintendent policy committee. And we might be more complicated than some districts. But what pen is that an acronym or policy issue need I think is what basically just ask the person proposing it to provide their rationale and then that gives the policy committee more info when they sit down. Fantastic. So yeah, something like that would be perfect to direct them to that link on the website. All right, great. Um, and then uh again to build that healthy relationship with the communities, making ba uh decisions based on the welfare of all students. If you know parents see that you're always advocating for just a certain group or a certain type of group, um they might not feel like you're really representing all all students. So keeping in mind that you work for the kids, not

143the people who contributed to your campaign or voted for you. Okay? They helped you get elected. Sure. But you are there for all kids. And we like to say that school board is not equal to politics. It doesn't matter if you're, you know, Democrat, Republican, if you consider yourself progressive or conservative, whether fiscally or socially. It doesn't matter. Once you're elected, you got to put, we talked about that noise. Politics is a lot of noise, okay? And you really just need to always stay focused on the kids. And I think if the community sees that you always are asking governance level questions about the best interests of kids, about their academics and their well-being, you're going to build that community support. Aligning yourself with a particular uh group that's political is going to isolate the

144other half, right? So, you want to try to build community and just keep everybody focused on what's what's best for kids. Um and yeah, academic achievement and um well-being. Um and again, Susan touched on this already, so I'm not going to spend any time here. really recognizing volume really a couple really loud people versus the volume like a lot of people are saying this and that's sometimes hard to do. Sometimes you have to do a little investigating to kind of figure out is are these people speaking for a larger group or is it really just these five people who are over and over and over in here complaining about the same things. And that's that's just really important um to try to discern. Sometimes it's challenging, but um again getting trying to get a representative

145voice from everybody like we talked about earlier helps out with that. All right, so now we're moving on to the healthy uh relationship with the teachers union and we're going to toss it back to the lawyer to talk about this. Well, and we have 10 minutes. Is this Yeah. So, I'm wondering if this wouldn't be best saved for later. I mean, I'm trying to get How how long is the presentation? How long? As long I mean, you know, I think for it to be appropriate, it needs to be deeper um conversation, right? 15 minutes enough or don't don't mean for what you're trying to accomplish tonight. I can teach you a few things in 15 minutes. Let's do let's do 15 minutes because I I want I want us to have a good start on

146this because it's an important topic and it's a relationship that I really want to work on. And so, if we can start on that in this conversation, that'd be great. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm going to set a timer. So, we'll hold you to it. Okay. Resurrect the posted notes um because I think this is going to be informative uh of the conversation um because it looks like listening, listening, collaborating, learning their story, proactive, effective partnerships, strong communication, spending time together, trust, a lot of communication. A lot of communication. So, let me just share where I'm from because this is kind of when we talk about union relationships. Uh, and of course it depends on your background. Um, uh, people get nervous, right? They don't want to upset people. Some people have very strong, uh, opinions

147of unions. Um, uh, MSBA works very closely with the the major what I call teacher unions in the state. So, M&A, AFT, and the Missouri State Teachers Association. And in fact, um, we're cheering today because the NA just um filed a lawsuit challenging the state voucher program today of constitutionality and and we have uh we have definitely have uh some advocacy uh positions that align. Okay. We are on the uh education round table together with uh the teachers groups and we work collaboratively with them a lot. My me personally, I have never been a member of the union, but my mother um who was a teacher for 32 years um was a very strong member of M&A. She was a building rep, but she also crossed a picket line both in the Kansas City School

148District and the Park Hill School Districts where she worked. So, she did not believe in strikes. Um uh but uh she definitely believed in collaboration. So, um it is easy to try and pigeon hole um unions into one thing or another. Um and uh I don't think that that's very helpful. What I think is helpful in my personal opinion um with uh school board members is just understanding what a union is. Okay, which what it is, why they exist. All right. um understanding the law and that most challenging which you guys have already picked up which is developing that honest transparent relationship with the union. Okay. Um and so uh when I talk I took a stab okay u school board stakeholders and I probably missed some but let's look at them. I mean, obviously

149our students are big in there and I always put the parents in too because the parents are advocates um for the students and so um I think that's important and I threw in employees and you don't just have I think a lot of people when they think about employees I think teachers but you guys have a lot of employees um a lot of certificated and non-certificated um managerial and not managerial employees of course our legislators okay I put them in the circle the business community. Um, that's huge. Residents and property owners, which aren't the same thing. People own property here that that maybe don't live here. And your taxpayers, voters. Okay. Who Who's missing in this group? Did I miss any? [Music] Our plan always talks about media, but I don't know that I'd call

150them a stakeholder. Just a a thing that has influence that we cater to. Sometimes I I'm I'm big in you know when we talk you know then goes down to the question of what is a stakeholder but yeah I mean these are these are very important but they're not center right um uh center's got to be students and so sometimes when the interests of the business community is one way but the interest of the students is another um we have to make choices you guys have a lot of stakeholders is really what I'm telling You got a lot. You got everything. Okay. All right. Now, just quickly, and needless to say, I liked your your mission statement, so I put it up there because empowering students to be lifelong learner students was right smack in

151the middle. And I loved your logo, too, because it's home school community. I mean, you almost did my my uh circle for me. Of course, I saw that after I did my circle. So, so real quick, the Missouri School Boards Association. Who's in the center of my circle? School boards. School boards. Yes. School boards, helping school boards ensure students succeed. That's our That's our mission. So, school boards. Who else is in my circle? Administrators. Administrators. Administrators. Yes. Because I mean, I can tell you 90% of the phone calls I take are from the administrators, not board members. All right. Even though I work for the Missouri School Boards Association. Who else? Teachers. Others. Teachers. Yes. Yes. All staff. All staff. All staff members. Yes. because school I mean my work there's a reason we're on

152the education round table with all these other groups right the principles the administrators the um and the PTA PTA's in there too darn I didn't put PTA in there um the circle that's one legislators again but who's in the center of my circle still the students because there's if with not without the students none of us are here well that's true okay that's true who's the member of my association the school district the board the board. Yeah, the board. Um, and the board supports the students. But yes, students are in my circle, too. Okay. But as an attorney in particular, my client is school board. Okay. And so union, who are who's in their circle? Teachers. Teachers for sure. Yes. Students. Students. And I don't know, do you guys just have union represent? I mean

153do you have a I know you have a CBA for your teachers. Do you have other CBAs? We do. Okay. With other what other groups? Uh teamsters for bus drivers and monitors and then um support professionals which our nurses paras uh secretarial staff. Um I keep talking. Uh I know it maintenance grounds. Maintenance grounds. Custodians. Yeah. Computer tech and then uh social workers. Uh educational support. Yeah. So, lots of lots lots of different stakeholders, but it's not the same union, right? No. Teamsters is different than NEA. I know. And then everybody else is in everybody else is NA. Okay. And so, uh, who else is in the circle? Students. Students. Yes. friends community and really what I'm trying to say is that who's in your circle, okay, depends on the focus of your group. Okay?

154And my stakeholders at MSBA aren't always the same sto stakeholders at as the Missouri Association of School Administrators. Okay? Which isn't the same thing as the M&A. Okay? In fact, part of the education roundt, one of the rules is any member can veto a topic because there are certain topics that that group won't get along with even though they all put students in the middle. Okay? Um the way that we get to it is different. All right. When I get calls from superintendent um 99% of the time I know that they are calling me as a conduit for the school board. So no problem. Okay. Um but if they call and ask me a question about their employment contract, I cannot answer that question. Okay. Then I have a conflict between the administrators and my

155board. and my board is in the center of my circle. Okay? They are my they are my they're my client. Okay? So, I have to say you you're gonna have to find another person to talk to about this. I can't talk to you about this. U you want to talk about your board policy or the new law or whatever, I'm on board. Okay? But I can't do that. I think, and this is just me, the biggest issue is understand when understanding the various groups that you work with is that your circles are not all the same. Okay? It doesn't mean that they don't love your community or they don't love students or they don't love No. Um but the constituents of the union and the political forces of the union are different than the political

156forces that the school board has to deal with. They don't exactly align. Okay. I have lots of districts where the community is not necessarily supportive of union um uh unionization. Maybe it's not common. I have some districts where the you know because of the surrounding surrounding area and maybe the the different businesses that are there the community expects unionization. Okay. Um that is I think the most difficult thing for school boards and unions to understand is the perspective that they are coming from. Okay. It's not always the same. We hope there's some alignment. We reach out and we collaborate when there is alignment. But it is extremely important for board members and administrators and union members to understand that our focus is not always going to be in alignment and that is where the rub

157happens. Okay. Um uh there are a lot of pressures on unions um that school boards don't have to deal with. And so I had actually just quickly picked out and I think I went back, you know, a a relatively recent news article about um NEA membership dropping in 2024. Okay. And everybody wonders why that is, you know, why is why is union membership dropping? Um uh and is that a good thing? Is that happening in your area or is it not? um in Missouri, we we're from a very kind of goofy background as far as unionization goes. Um uh because about the time that in the nation, union membership has dropped or is dropping or there were lots of states who were passing laws um limiting public sector unions. And when I talk about public

158sector unions, I'm talking about unions that represent um uh local municipalities or the state, these are unions that don't aren't represented by the National Labor Relations Act. Okay? So what most you know, Ford plants and McDonald Douglas and and all of those are governed by the National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board. Ever since the 1930s, unionization has been legal um uh for all those entities. uh unions um didn't become legal for school districts in the state of Missouri until this court case in 2007. Okay. And so at a time when uh so Missouri just isn't used to you guys have a lot of union presence here in this district. Um that is becoming much more common in the St. Louis area. There's lots of growth in the St. Louis area. Um, there's probably

159only 60 districts in the state that have a union presence in them, like an actual collective bargaining agreement, level of union. All of my districts in the state have collaboration with their teachers and with their staff in some way, shape, or form, but it does not always, and very rarely, quite honestly, takes a true union um uh shape, shall we say. Okay. So I I just think it's kind of important. So this is what the Missouri Constitution says that employees shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. You would have thought in 1945 that was pretty clear, but we had a court case uh that said no and that was overturned in 2007. Okay. So it's really the independent case that and this we haven't had any law

160since then. I mean the one law that they passed um has been declared unconstitutional. So, we're back to this court case um which says that public sector employees, which are all of your employees, have a constitutional right to organize into a union and to collectively bargain with the the district. The district must meet with the chosen use union and listen, but are not required to enter in a collectively bargain agreement. And if a district doesn't enter into a CBA does enter into a CBA, it's binding and enforceable in court. Okay. So that's what that's pretty much the law of Missouri right there. Okay. Um so the question that I have for you because that court case doesn't require you to enter into collective bargaining agreements. Okay. And your district in partic I'm sorry I'm right

161your district in particular has several collective bargaining agreements. Okay. So, if a district's not required by law to enter into a collective bargaining agreement, how do employees and their unions convince the school district to enter into them? Okay. I had when the law first passed a board member call because I write policy all the time. They said, "Why don't you just write us the ideal agreement and we'll just use that, you know, now that collective bargaining is legal." And I said, "From a lawyer's standpoint, and I know we ruined most things, and I'm willing to admit that. Um, uh, but from a lawyer's perspective, the best CBA is a blank piece of paper. Okay? That doesn't mean that I don't like your staff and I don't think that they deserve great benefits, but as far

162as flexibility for the district to deal with things like declining revenues, um you boards can give your staff great benefits and many districts do without a collective bargaining agreement. Okay? And uh districts can provide a great working environment without a collective bargaining agreement. And you can write great policies without a collective bargaining agreement. And so why would you enter into a collective bargaining agreement if you didn't have to do it? I'm not going to tell you the answer and I don't know the answer. Okay. Well, I think we're talking about relationships with the teachers union. One of the ways would have opportunities for listening and collaboration. And so a collective bargaining agreement would allow that conversation to take place in ways that it may not have taken place otherwise. Yes. And but we have a

163lot of districts that have those teams that get together salary and benefit. Some of them call it meet and confer but it doesn't end up with a collective bargain. I think sometimes CBAs come about because sometimes things uh put into writing feel very black and white. So it helps guide principles on both sides. Um so I think sometimes that's how they came to fruition. You know, it feels good to both sides to have an agreement that's there and and both sides support. Okay. But would a were policy good enough? That's kind of Oh, sure. Sure. You I'm just answering your question. Oh, I know. I know you're doing it. I'm just pushing back. I'm just pushing back. These are conversations that I have had. I think sometimes people are afraid. Some you know board members

164come and go, administrators come and go, teacher leaders come and go. And so if there is some agreed upon decision that this team feel this team feels really strongly about, I think there's some comfort in knowing it's written down so that if Mr. Delaney is our superintendent and we would agree to this and he no longer is the superintendent tomorrow that we have this assurance that this benefit is going to continue. And that I think gives people some assurances that the things that they have as far as benefits and salary will continue regardless of if Steve is elected the president or Mark is still the superintendent, whatever the case may be. I think it gives them that assurance. I think too just like like how we can leverage you guys, you know, does a school

165board need the MSBA? No, not necessarily. But it's all of the extra value that's provided in the knowledge and the expertise and the pooling of that and the disseminating of information and the sharing of all of that stuff I think is also really helps maximize perspective and make us probably more effective in the long run. I think that and to that point, nobody is arguing that the a teachers union, employees union shouldn't exist, that these groups shouldn't exist. And in fact, in every single one of the districts that I work with, there is a group of teachers and a group of employees that exist for that very reason to disseminate knowledge, to professional development, to communicate with the board, to communicate, you know, those kinds of things exist. Okay. Um it's just that what I

166have found and I know this is not enough time for us to dig appropriately into this is when it comes to positive um board relations and teacher relations, it's important for us to remember um that your sometimes there's going to be situations where the employees want something you can't give them. Okay? And what I fear is that particularly with we've got some financial things coming down the pike. We don't we're really uncertain about what's happening at the federal level with funding and the fiscal cliff is coming um where our pandemic money is uh is cut off and there's rumors and discussion about whether or not the governor might withhold some funds later on this year and of course speculation and I can't I have no more knowledge than any other human being on that so

167I don't mean to start rumors but um we're going to have a time not to distant future where we don't have deep res reserves and we don't have the ability to pay teachers and staff um as much as we want them to or maybe give them the benefits that that they want. Um there's always that situation. Okay. And how if it if it's difficult to have a relationship when in the good times, how much more difficult will it be um in situations where you simply can't give them what you feel that they deserve? Okay. And so I go back to it's not a mystery your sticky notes here. Okay. um and some of the discussion which is that clear communication is important. I've got some scenarios but we don't have time for this. Um clear

168communication is important. Transparency is important. understanding that sometimes the board's constituency is, you know, you can't agree to something that they want because you have to advocate for stakeholders that maybe they aren't advocating for. Okay. um that having clear communication, consistent communication, the boards that I think do it effectively, they come up with before there's a hot issue, come up with a communication plan with the union. Okay. Um uh because elsewise, uh there's lots of side conversations, people calling individual board members. um uh a frequent um you know when when people get stressed so you know well you gave us the bad word or you gave us the bad news whoever had to deliver the bad news that maybe we're not going to get the raise that we wanted you know that's got to be

169a bad the bad person you know um it's easy for u it's easy for intelligent adults to divide okay um and so creating a a communication system where union members are this is how you communicate with the board and then you the rest of the board sticks with it. Um is very important so that a the entire board gets the same message. Um uh but b um uh you are not pulled apart okay by your very many staff members with their very many opinions. Um, and that's just surface level for what I think is a much deeper conversation. Um, listening is crucial, but not just listening to your staff, but listening to your administrators. Okay? There's always two sides of the story. Um, and I don't know if there's much more I can shove into

170my more than 10 minutes that has has occurred, but I want to I you know, I have some scenarios that I think would have been more useful for us to be able, but we don't have time for that. pick it up. And so, um, just want to say thank you. Um, you identified, I think it was you, that the purpose of the whole school district is to create, you know, lifelong learners. And I think part of that could be embodied by all of us to be curious and trying to find ways that we all can learn, too. Whether it's learning how to be a board or board president or interim superintendent or administration. So, I think just overall the language of curiosity, that approach, I think could really do us well. I thank the two

171of you for both Susan Goldmer and Lisa Neer. We want to say thank you for being here. All of you who are also here, awesome. Um, we also have Jane Hler, Michelle Jones, and Scott Gowin over here who are doing a lot of work. And we have we have one community member who is here. Hello. This is Kim from FHEA who uh tirelessly works on behalf of uh students. I just want to say thank you for being the community member who is here. So, we don't have to do any motions stuff. Just want to say maybe by a round of applause. Thank you all for being here. Thank you all very much. All right. Thank you.