05/07/2025 Planning Committee Meeting

001I think you can call the meeting to order. All right, we're going to call the meeting to order at 5:00 [Applause] and then Uh the first is updates, right? Updates from the superintendent evaluation and board development. And Diana is going to handle both of those, right? Um great. Thank you. Y so with the superintendent evaluation that is right after this meeting, we had originally thought that we would be eating during this meeting. Um that's kind of the way that but that I don't know if that was really communicated to Jason. It is here. Do we know who ordered what uh she just ordered a um um whatever package. So it's just everything. Okay. So should we grab that now quick? You want me to go around grab? Um grab. Um that way we just aren't

002This is usually they're pretty tight for time. So that way we can just make sure we have enough time moving forward and feel free to eat now or or whatever. Um superintendent evaluation Tim Couture will be facilitating that. So he'll give more information um on that in terms of how to log in etc. He'll walk us through that. I know you had mentioned at the board meeting you were having some trouble getting in. I don't know if you ever Did you get in? Um, yeah, I got in. I just had some questions in regards to the data that I was looking at. And those will be questions for Tim. Yeah, for and for close session. Well, but you assisted and you filled it out, right? Yes. Yes. So, I don't understand why neither of you

003could answer my questions. Well, we Well, not in a public setting, right? We probably could. Yeah. I've been in the field for two days for 12 hours. So, I didn't really connect with email and things that way. So, that's why I did. Did you email questions today? Jason emailed yesterday. Okay. I was in meetings all day long, so I apologize. Okay. So, those will be hopefully answered through close session. This is crazy busy time of year planting. So, it's 12-hour days until everything's in. We run 500 acres, so right now it's hit and miss. Understandable. Um, any other questions on superintendent evaluation? Nope. Okay. Then next up is board development. We already had the meeting of the chairs. Um, that is something that hopefully is part of a yearly cadence that we go through. I

004was not at that meeting. Do you know if there has been a followup planned? So instead of once a year, um, typically there's a midpoint check that would be valuable or not. Was that anything that was discussed through that? Um, I don't recall. No, we were pretty tight because we had that meeting and we had the policy meeting back to back. So then perhaps we could put an action item if somebody could connect with Craig to see is there a followup. Um don't know what that agenda would be like. Don't know if there's a necessity for it, but there's always in my opinion there's always a need to grow and and get better. And I know one of the pieces that has been kind of in limbo was using our action items and past action

005items. And we aren't to a place yet of cohesion um as of the last month's committee meetings. Some are doing it one way, some are, you know, kind of testing out different ways to do it. So, the goal has been to do what action it action item, the past action items. Where are they located? How are they recorded? There's there's needing some cons, you know, consistency from one to the next. Some have them at the end of the minutes, some have them in board docs, some put the completion date on them, some don't put the completion date on them. So having them having past action items um out there for transparency is something that's new within the last 6 months. Okay. So we just need to continue to refine that to be common from one

006committee to the next. Okay. Diana, can you refresh my memory of the cadence that was suggested? Was that like May and then February before the meeting of the chairs? We didn't have a second date set because it depends upon what's talked about at the meeting of the chairs and then how frequent you know if when when this originally happened the first meeting of the chairs it was let's meet again at the start of the year and let's check in to see how reporting action items and past action items was going that was kind of the main focus of this this next meeting so depending upon what was covered at that meeting and what the chairs feel as a necessity going forward. You never want to meet just for the sake of meeting, but what's the

007need going forward? What I foresee as a need would be to check in to see okay regarding action items and past action items, are we to a point of consistency across all committees. So if that is 3 months, two months, six months, I I don't know. Um like you just want a central location where past and future action action items are stored essentially like reference. Okay. For each for each committee. For each committee. Yeah. Which we do have as an as a sub item under action items on each committee's agenda, but then what they're formatted like um how how we're keeping track of what they are. HR they were just talking about putting them at the end of the minutes. Some are in board docs. So, we're we're getting a feel for how how we're

008recording them, but as we move forward, there should be consistency through it. Okay. Just for clarity, uh do you want me to connect with Craig or do you want to? Oh, I can reach out to Craig. That's no problem. Good. Thank you. Mr. Bull, what um do you recall the subject of that email that went out yesterday? Access. the subject line that first. Okay. And then the second thing I have under um the board development update. We had talked in the past about doing attorney basics at the start of every new board member year where the attorney comes in and just does a brief I think last year was it a half hour whatever at a board meeting. Um I have a note to connect with Jared on this. Is this something we want to

009do? Um the committee last year felt value in doing that and had recommended that we set that up as part of a yearly cadence. So here we we kind of are and figured we'd throw that out for a brief discussion. It was it's always good and I don't know what background like you didn't have any real um formal orientation you guys did for this the second group coming through. So looking at quorums, walking, you know, just all the the basic stuff, maybe we cover that enough through our orientation um because we've come a long way with that process. Um Jared, what are your thoughts on bringing you know just a quick attorney basics for new board members coming through? So, uh, the last we talked about it, it was, um, one of those things where,

010um, in my evaluation, we set up, uh, basically, uh, the idea that I had a goal of, you know, four workshops this next year with the board. Okay. And, um, we thought attorney basics would be one of them. that attorney basics is talking about like what statute you know what in statute says hey this is um you know the role and things that you have to fulfill that way. Um talk a little bit about um liability uh of the school district your personal liability as a board member. Some of those things will be covered a little bit under uh HR discussion points with um negotiations and and that kind of stuff. Um, and at HR, I believe you guys are working to have um, Brian Waterman, who's our attorney, come uh, and talk a little

011bit about that piece. At least that's what I thought Margaret said was coming up on the agenda. The agenda. Uh, but um, we always are trying to look for ideas or whatever else and I thought that would be a good place to start. So, can I ask you have to do four in a year? Is that a calendar year or is that like a school year? What are what is your year? Uh we're we were talking like forward in the year from like basically the start of our process which I don't know what we call our start. It wasn't exactly January 1 where we got um the goals in and everything else. So I'm I'm thinking March to March I'm going to try to get four in uh for us uh to to to do

012because your summitive will come and and so planning I'd like to do that now uh you'll hear me say later like uh you know we we definitely had a little bit of a void in planning to plan one um but um I put out stuff around the the institute that some of us are going to on Friday. I put stuff out from uh the WSB about one coming up this summer. So even if we can't organize workshops, I'm still trying to work on that goal, right? is to get and really the the idea is if we can have some more professional development especially since we have newer board members newer to the school board role it's really good for us to try to build that capacity uh you know of of a board together and

013that's really what the goal is. Okay. So your goal is to offer them essentially, right? Like you can't and and work with this committee to set them up like my job is to say to you guys like here's some here's some things here's some resources what are you interested in studying um as a group you know what can I bring in for you um those kinds of things and then work uh with whoever are from the committee to so I can make a suggestion to get those set up. Yeah absolutely. Okay. So I'd like you to reach out to school board of academic excellence and ask them to come in and help with board development. Okay. I don't know. I'm sure that they do. Uh I know that they're having something in Ohio coming up,

014but that's super soon. Can I can I pause that because we have workshop planning later on in a discussion so we can get deeper. Sure. Because I have other question, you know, kind of going through so we just Yeah. Would that be okay because it's gonna that'll piggyback really well. Yeah, that's totally cool. Yeah. I I was just following the combo. Yeah. But yeah, perfect. Um, that's all I have in terms of board development updates because the other ones, let me backtrack. When Jared and I started with planning, you know, we kind of had our board development section and then we had our strategic planning there. So, we're still kind of falling under those pillars. And then when Jason kind of took over, it was all right, we have some updates. So the brief parts

015of the things and those are just little five minute pieces kind of thing not huge big discussion points and then there's also going to be some other things that fall into discussion. Does that make sense? So that's where we see it with updates discussion. So just kind of the transition well I just thought that we were discussing board development. So we are later on where it says workshops. Sometimes there's kind of an overlap between discussion and uh updates just pull from Yep. There you go. Spider your girlfriend's hair. Yeah, that's even better than spider webs, I suppose. I like spiders. I cannot find that email. So, can you resend it to me, please? Sure. Or or you Tammy, whatever. Yeah. So, those are the only updates that I have for more development. I can give

016a strategic planning updates if that's okay. Yeah, let's do it. Yep. And so the things that I wrote down to that I think are important to share is that uh from a strategic planning uh lens that the director team and uh Dr. Burke uh do a monthly review of the strategies and just a reminder that our strategic plan year one has a number of strategies outlined under each of the pillars. And so those are kind of action items, right? And so every month the director team takes a takes some time to review where we're at and the progress of those strategies and then where there might be gaps and have a conversation. uh the work with the internal strategic planning continues. Uh so we meet uh I think every other month right now with the

017internal team and that includes representatives from uh Donovan group talking about what's our progress, what are our needs and what are we going to do moving forward. Um can I just pause and ask a question? Yeah. So you have the director team do monthly reviews and then is it a different work like a different cohort of people doing the bimonthly reviews or is it only bimonthly with the Donovan group? Um so the internal team is the directors again Dr. Burke uh representatives from Donovan group and then there's also two other uh individuals from the district. So it's there's a lot of overlap but it's two different groups. One meets monthly and one meets bimonthly. Okay. So like there's the director group just for context meets every Monday morning. Okay. And so we have four times

018a month. Nope. Uh so there's a cadence to the things that we cover once a month is strategic. Okay. Got it. Okay. So like last Monday we we talked about strategic planning. Uh nope. Two Mondays ago because it was the the last Monday I thought. Okay. Yep. Thanks for asking. Oh yeah, not a problem. And then uh part of the work uh the todos uh we're going to be working on crafting an endofear message around strategic planning and the target audience for that would be uh staff and then parents and so in development of that uh we want to deliver those messages before the end of the school year. We are also uh in early stages of developing some core value posters that we would have available in our schools uh with pictures of our

019students just highlighting what our core values are and helping define those. And then uh I will I have been and will continue to work with our data guru Chris Mallaloy to develop an endofear uh board uh presentation around our strategic plan and uh that'll be June or July. I don't think we finalized that but it'll be an update around student data but also around those strategies that we uh said we were going to accomplish. answer my updates questions. No. Uh, if you could, so there's nothing just because that's updates. Uh, if you have a copy of that, unless I missed it earlier, if you have a copy of that, um, if you could email that to me, just the of your of your notes about those updates for strategic planning. I know Typically what happens

020is my notes become minutes. Sure. Okay, makes sense. Awesome. Perfect. Perfect. Yep. All right. Thank you. Uh referendum. I can go to that next. Yeah. Okay. Uh there's a little less there, right? Um so, uh we This is semilinear. We did have a small debriefing with we had an internal team that was working uh to think about the referendum and that was the director team and again Donovan Group was supporting our efforts around referendum. We had a short debrief shortly after April 1st just to talk about things that went well, things that uh we could have done differently or better. I am hosting uh a similar more expansive, more uh more digging deep into the conversation with just the director team by the end of the month here. I think it's scheduled for the third

021week of May. And the goal there is to really spend some time with the director team. I think it's scheduled for an hour and a half to really think about what are the things that really went well and how do we know what are the things that we could have done differently or better or what was you know elevating to you know things that came up when we were present presenting that were concerns. Uh so we have that data. Okay. Um and then uh it's really not specific to referendum but the director team and uh uh we've been working on kind of capturing uh ideas by month of uh around budgeting and again that's not specific to referendum but we know we're hitting a shortfall in our budget and so what are the things that

022we know we want to do in May, June, July, August and so forth. uh really uh focusing on the budget at this moment. Okay. Questions on that? Um who So you're doing a more in-depth meeting with just the director team or is the Donovan group going to be there as well presenting you with data about the strengths and weaknesses? That will not be Donovan group. I'll be leading that. Okay. Uh with the director team and when I say director team, I always include Dr. Burke as well. You don't want to say that. Yeah. Um, so you you have you you have data you're getting together about or is it just like your perspective like the director's per Okay. Yeah. It's not hard. We won't have hard data other than we were not successful. Right. That's

023the data set that we're working from. Okay. Right. Okay. I just don't know if like you got feedback from anybody about why they think it maybe it I think what we saw was some common themes that when we were presenting and I'm sure those will come forward. Okay. Recurring was a thing that I think that was I don't know if it was at every meeting but it was a concern that people brought forward. So I'm guessing that will make the chart. Okay. Okay. Understandable. Thank you. Should you let us know when you are going to have that meeting? I would love to sit in and hear because we were going to have a discussion at the last fiscal. We didn't really have time for it. So, sure. Thanks. I'll put that as a to-do. Thank

024you. I'll share that invite with all members of the planning. Absolutely. All right. Um [Music] Uh, anything else from a referendum planning question? Uh, any questions on that? No, because you don't have anything set in stone about like what you would be presenting in the future yet or any even basic ideas. Y [Music] just going to let you know your thoughts um as long as we're around the topic of referendum. What what things have you thought about or considered or discussed? Uh you mean as far as action plans or as far as just thinking about it? How how do you think uh things went in in the last referendum? What things are you thinking about as you know we move into the future? Those kinds of things. Uh I mean I heard the same probably

025three things from everyone that talked to me. Uh and it was they were worried about the fact that it was indefinitely recurring. They were worried about cultural issues and they wanted more transparency as far as budgeting goes. That's where people were coming from when I talked to them. So, I mean, I'm not sure where I'm not sure what else you guys heard, but that's mostly what I heard. Can you just describe cultural issues? Because the word cultural in my mind means different cultures. Are you talking school culture? No, I'm talking about socioultural issues. the kind of major ones that have been discussed over the past year, but I mean nationally they've been going on for three or four years now. We're talking about, you know, bathroom issues. We're talking about the draft C. We're talking

026about some people seemed to be under the impression that um draft C or I guess administrative guidance C, whatever you want to call it, uh wasn't it was kind of being soft launched was the word that I heard. um you know, still people having concerns over what's being taught in the classrooms and what money is being spent on, what kind of curriculum money is being spent on and things like that. Um and of course people in public, you know, they want to have that information, but sometimes it is just sincerely hard to access because there's so much of it. I know I had one father who has a child in the district send me a math problem and the math problem was a story problem and it said uh I I can't remember what the

027actual content of the math was but the father wasn't very happy because it had a middle school that was called Kamala Harris Middle School and he said hey maybe we should like stay away from having partisan language in our math problems which is some of the stuff that I've talked about in the past actually but uh that was most of what I most of what I heard from people when we talk about cultural issues, people don't want politics and they don't want, you know, I guess uh current event philosophy in the classroom then. No, and that's clear cultural in terms of school culture. There's cultural in terms of cultural. So I just want, you know, is it issues because of Hispanic population this or Latino, you know, whatever. No, no, no. Definitely not in that

028sense. Cultural in the sense of like cultural discussion like the discussion of the culture at large. Yeah. So that's true. Different meetings, different No, thank you for the clarifying question. I I would have to pair what Sam said with I heard people were very uncomfortable with an indefinite referendum. Like that was their main That's the That's the main thing I heard back. Um, I can't say I heard a lot other than um a group who was putting out information about, you know, um, draft C, but I I didn't hear anything about soft launch until you and I had a conversation just around your onboarding or whatever. Um, and I asked you the question because I had gotten um a request for records and one of the search terms in it was soft launch and I'm

029like, what is this about, right? Um, and it turns out, you know, like the the discussion points I made to the paper, um, based on like that last sentence that was added by the board, which is I don't I I can't remember exactly the wording of it, but I basically said to the paper, I don't know exactly what the board's looking to do, and we will slowly roll this out as we understand more what the board wants and the transition between a new administration coming in. So, I don't know if that's where people picked up soft launch, but that's really where Yeah, maybe. I mean, I heard that. So, and again, it's anecdotal, but I heard from a parent who lives in the district that uh they, you know, they were communicating this information that

030their child had observed that students were still being reprimanded for using non-preferred pronouns in the classes, which was Yeah. So, I mean, and again, I don't know exactly how those things work out, but this is just one of the things that came up when, you know, I was talking to people over the past several months and people were coming to me and talking to me about how they felt about uh one aspect or another aspect of uh how things are going in the schools. So, yeah. Well, that would be that would be important to get to my desk if you're hearing those things and specific so I can Yeah, I always I always encourage people to uh reach out and go through the process. You know, I just I want to be able to say

031like in a public meeting here that shouldn't happen. Yeah. And if anybody uh has those concerns, they need to call. Yeah. Because that wasn't the intent to the policy. I agree. Yeah. And I think that as we increase transparency and as we continue to act as a board over the next year, I think that people are going to gain that trust to a higher degree. And I think that you're going to see people who are more comfortable with bringing that forward, especially as they feel that administration and the schools at large are becoming more effective at handling those issues. It's kind of I think that and again it's not just Watertown but I think that across the nation people have people are coming out of a long cycle of feeling kind of disillusioned and distrustful

032of the school system and I'm hoping that as some of these changes happen they'll you know they'll uh they'll they'll start to feel like they can come forward and they can have that confidence. Yeah. Thank you. I didn't know if you knew that your emails yes I didn't know if you did that on purpose. I'm trying not to interrupt Sam, but if there's anything Are you sharing your screen on the video? No. Oh, god. Okay. I definitely can't talk that much and look at the screen at the same time. Not with this font. So, no, I wasn't I was hoping sometimes confidential things are up there. So, I just wanted to slightly without I'm sorry. Yeah. No, no, no. You're completely fine. Thank you for bringing it up. Um, but yeah, I mean that's uh

033that's what I heard. So, uh we could talk about that more, but I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities to do that going forward. Yeah. Yeah, thank you guys for your information. It does help us. I just wouldn't recommend an indefinite referendum. Okay. Seems to make people a bit uncomfortable. Mhm. Yep. We we we tried to do a long-term solution and um that that uh was was shared with us that that wasn't what people wanted right now and I understand why you know but the idea is uh we tried that and now we will have to try something else and it's and it's good information to have. Yeah. Outside of that, I would that was the main concern I think was that I I'm just not comfortable forever even increasing my taxes. Yeah. Just because

034we don't know what's going to happen with the city if they're going to do a reassessment and raise our taxes again and it just makes people very uncomfortable. Totally understand. Totally understand. All righty. I'm scrambling here a little bit just in full transparency because I think I used the wrong Zoom link and so this is being recorded but uh Lynn is texting me saying I might have used the wrong Zoom link and you know I got an email from someone about that uh the other night as well. They said that the Zoom link was not matching up. I think it's that the uh passcode is it passcode or the login ID? Yeah, the meeting ID was not matching up. So, I'm wondering if that's the case here. It might be. I'm gonna end this recording.

035Okay, we'll have it all recorded and we can patch it together and do it. So, in the minute and a half while he's doing that, should we grab something? I All right. Sorry about the delay, guys. We had some technical difficulties and needed to correct the Zoom link. We're coming back on at 5:29 p.m. Thank you, Tammy. Both recordings will be available uh for our public upon completion of the meeting. Thank you. Okay, so the referendum planning, we're good with that. Any more questions? Nope. No more questions at this time. Okay. So then we have the review of board survey. All right. I could start us off if that's okay. Sure. Please go ahead. And so uh the the data from the survey um is available in administrative content. And there's also a blank document

036that is not in administrative content that I'll just pass around. And I'm just going to give some context to that just for planning purposes. And so um it's going to be a little backwards, but I'll talk about this and then I'll turn it over to Diana and perhaps Dr. Burke or just about the survey. And so this is a document that is very similar to what we use with uh teacher groups, principal groups, the ESC group, right? It's and it's a way to frame uh looking at data that really removes emotion and removes subjectivity, right? And so it's just three questions or three categories. One is what are we noticing about the review of the data? So what are your noticings? What questions might uh percolate with you or rise to the top when you

037start looking at this data? And then the third is what questions or ideas I'm sorry. What ideas do you have uh after reviewing the data? And so again, this is something very familiar with our teachers, building leaders, district leaders, and it's just a way to frame looking at data. Uh the the survey uh kind of the history and context. I would just look for Diana or Dr. B to to give us a little bit of context for that piece. Yes. So, do you all have access to the survey? Yes. Okay. I can't find it in mine, but that's okay because Oh, I only have access to the slideshow to this. No, the the results of the survey. The results of the survey which is in slideshow format. It's a PDF, I think. Yep. I just

038restarted and came back in. That's okay. I I can grab it in a different minute. Um so start out with a survey just for background information. One of the pieces of board policy is that our board should be doing a survey for improvement. Um whatever. So how long that how often that occurs. We had decided at least once a year and that kind of went to twice a year. Um we set the cadence being when um new board member like We'd finished it in March. So that way the exiting board, end board, how are we doing? And then Octoberish, so like six monthsish later, five, six, mid year. Um, so that way we can kind of see how we're doing through this. Also, we need to set some goals and some priorities. So moving from

039our first go at a survey did not meet a whole lot of um pleasure by all. It was the first time through you're learning things. It's vocabulary. It's how are we doing this? What are we asking for? How are we using the data? So through trust was a big thing that came out of it. But that was a good piece and then through board development um with Drew Howick leading he had recommended through our collective commitments that those questions be the questions that we use in the survey. So it was purely taking our collective commitments and phrasing them as questions. And so then looking at how are we doing on what we said we're going to focus on. What we added then to the survey was um people had like the first time around because

040you learn from everything you do. They like the fact of having a place to put some anecdotal data. So commentary on where it is because here we're going to be sitting and looking at data given to us. you weren't with the board last year. There's only three of us here today, you know, so at least can we get a framework of why someone might have scored something the way they did. And so that's kind of where we are now. But as Jason and I when we went through agenda planning a month ago looked at well, how are we going to assess this? What what are we going to look at? Because it's kind of all over the place. there weren't blaring trends like hey this is you know so it's like I said let's kind

041of look at he agreed what do we notice what questions you know and that's kind of where this came from and that's how we've done data analysis on other things that Jason's brought to the table and then the ultimate goal is then all right from what we see here what needs arise now I believe only five people took the survey so my initial thing There's nothing you can do about that. I think there were four different reminders over a fiveweek period to get the survey in. Um, that is something that I think we'll need to to do a better job with. I don't know how we can do a better job when you have multiple reminders, but that's just something that I think people in comfort will do. was also a rough I don't say

042rough a difficult time of year because we had it at the end of March then the election came you know and then there's turnover and so then it's like okay if they forgot to do it do you still do it so just that's going to be an issue that we have all the time unless we do it in February but then in you know does it push it back too far that can be a discussion for later but where we are right now we need to take the data that we have even though it's not everybody that that was here and look to see what do we notice and how do we move forward in terms of what are our goals and our priorities going to be. Does that make sense? Yes. Is it possible

043that we could transition to um in the beginning of April putting a survey out of what people would like how the we would like the board to behave since new people are added on and then do the review to see if we are all in line instead of because if you if it's a timing concern if you think people didn't answer because it's a timing issue because we're doing board tur turnover would it be more advantageous for the init initial survey to be with the new board members saying what direction do we want to move together with as a board so that that can be discussed as a board this these are the new members this is where they're hoping to go what things do we have in common that we can focus on and

044then in October doing a re-evaluation to see where we are on track obviously that could be adjusted if say there's an election and no board members are replaced but if it's six months that new board members are on and they're doing a review of the board and then this one the turn the turnaround was not great, right? Like half the board I mean we're we're that's just it. We're we're trying to make sure uh two things. One, is there a commitment to do a self-evaluation of the board, right? and and how the board functions and interacts. Um I I think we're still on the process to even say that as a board we agree, right, that we that we should evaluate our ourselves as to how the board works. I'm totally open for board evaluations,

045but if newcomers come on and this the survey could be stated in a way of where are you hoping this board's going to go in the next year? What do you feel important and it would be a way to collect data on things that the board agrees on so that they can focus on things they agree on initially so they can start building board rapport and trust with the new board members. And then the second one can be let's assess where we're at with the goals that we set initially. So we can the question that I have is when the survey was created the agreement was to have something more universal and that's where we went off the collective commitments. Yeah. And so if we move into that route that you're suggesting that then changes

046the survey. And so then there's discussion what kind of questions and we go back to that piece. What kind of questions and how are they non-threatening and and and things like that. So I'm not saying that it can't be I think you can combine them though. You can still have the the questions that were worked on around the collective commitments, right? And then add the add what you're talking about as an evaluative question about on the in the first survey saying like where do you hope uh this year goes like what are the things that you're hoping for or whatever else right and then mid year you know assessing that you know here and all you have to do is like put on here's some of the things that the board's members said how are

047we doing on those things are those still important Right. And I suppose I think that if we're structuring it around board commitments, I I'm assuming that the on we'll we'll call it tenatively the onboarding survey. We could structure the questions around what goals do you have that focus around collective commitments the collective commitments of the board. I think from a data collection standpoint, I think Drew spoke to that. what um that uh we want to maintain these questions for at least one more round before we were to change the questions but adding questions I think from a data ser uh standpoint would be okay I think Drew's worry is that we will start spinning wheels on what's the right question what's the right question and we're going to lose people to say you know this

048isn't really worth it let's just stop Um and so I just want to make sure that we get continue our momentum forward because one of the where this this idea of surveying came out is two two places. One, we have a policy that says we'll evaluate, right? Um the policy that's in place until the new board is you're supposed to be evaluating every meeting, right? That's the policy. Um but besides that, um highly effective boards, right? We we read some pieces out of a book about highly effective boards, right? It's not just highly effective school boards, just boards in general. Yeah. Right. Um talked about one of the key indicators of a highly effective board is that they had meaningful conversations around self-evaluation, right? And so trying to find a way where we can do

049some self-evaluation and have some meaningful conversation around that as a board. Talk about how does this lead us towards our goals? how do we, you know, function better? Uh, those kinds of things. Um, is really a good activity. And so that can that gives you a little bit more of the background of where we are. And our qu my question is like how how do you want to proceed forward? I I think today we were uh set to go over the responses of the last survey. Correct. Yes. See what we can learn from those. Um, and then also talk about uh how did that go, right? And and one of the how did that goes is we we we only got just over half of the people to be a respondent. So can I speak

050to that really quickly because you did bring that up earlier. So I actually tried several times to get in. It told me that I did not have access. I needed to request access and I sent a request I think twice and I never got a response back. So again, might be a computer issue, but I don't know if that happened for other board members. Oh, true. Because I and I remember the last time we talked about this was during one of our professional development meetings with Drew, I believe. We talked about some adjustments to some of the questions because I think certain members of the board felt like, oh, I'm not sure about how that question is phrased. Um, but uh, and I know there was kind of an ongoing discussion of should there be

051a larger board approval of those questions before we move forward with it. I don't remember just because there's been a lot of things going on. I don't remember where we landed on that though. That was kicked to a a subcommittee. Mhm. Uh that was actually at first it was kicked to planning planning kicked it to a subcommittee to uh align those and everybody was okay with it as long as it aligned to our collective commitments and it was about our collective commitments. Sure. That's that's my recollection of how it went right with the because of the way the policy reads what happens in planning board development the survey etc whatever superintendent evaluation fall under the purview of planning and so therefore it doesn't require the full board approval it's a planning committee issue was kind

052of where that was all left but the board did articulate to the planning committee that they wanted to be involved in those questions. Correct. No, no, they other other board members talked about it. Um the I think the official action was Yeah. This is for planning committee planning committee as long as the questions are around our collective commitments, we're okay. Like the board is okay, right? And so it went to planning committee with that. Like we will have questions, but they will be around and structured around the collective commitments. planning committee that had a subcommittee draw up the questions around the collective commitments and that's what you're seeing and the subcommittee is is my understanding of how that went. The subcommittee is people in planning. I'm just wondering like how how do how's the subcommittee

053decided? The subcommittee is decided by people that volunteer within the committee kind of a thing. Okay. So, so you don't even reach outside of the committee to see if somebody outside of the committee wants to be part of the subcommittee. I'm asking I don't anybody who who was in attendance that was on the board at that like at that meeting. Okay. Didn't necessarily have to be a committee member. Um a subcommittee is kind of we need additional time to talk about this. Let's set aside additional time to talk about this specific topic. Um and any board member is always free to attend and get like the one that was signed from today. Okay. Right. So at like policy Sam created a subcommittee with uh Miss Boris himself and who's the only Dan I think. Yeah

054Dan doing policy. Right. But I also mentioned like hey Craig you obviously have you obvious obviously have a lot of input to this. Please come if you can. Right. Yeah. And we've had multiple subcommittees within planning because of the different pillars. So the way we've worked it in the past is board development. Tina Johnson was the person that was in charge of board development. In terms of referendum, referendum was Mike Higgins, I think. No, from this group. Oh, from this group. Yeah. Lorie Holland was And then superintendent evaluation was myself. So we had one person from each committee that kind of was the lead in that. Okay. To help delegate throughout to give all voice and that way it's not one person the chair or one person whomever carrying the load of the committee. Okay.

055And Tina left the board then I assume that role just you know because everybody else had a role and the new person coming on and so it was kind of in limbo in that. So, I don't know if that's something that's going to continue um as we go through that conversation for the next meeting. Okay. And how to to proceed that you and Jason can kind of work through that. However, I do have to say uh as far as the as far as the questionnaire goes, I did have the pleasure of working on this, giving my input, talking about it several times to you guys in various meetings. I do think I understand where Drew is coming from when he talks about let's keep the questions the same so we maintain some consistency but if

056we have the board potentially changing composition every year I feel like because you're bringing in new people who themselves have not necessarily agreed on those commit they haven't necessarily agreed on the commitments and they haven't been in that process I do feel like that kind of skews the data does that make sense yes and So, and that's what I have to talk because let's go back to Tammy's and then bring me back if I don't connect with this. So, the initial thought of having it March and then October is new board members. There are so many things that are new going through. So, those first few months is getting your feet wet, getting yourself feeling, you know, comfortable, stationed in, whatever. Tammy, in my opinion, you're an exception to the rule because you were to

057almost every board me board meeting, most every committee meeting most in most cases that doesn't happen. And so you have an advantage coming in that many don't. So getting that feet wet kind of thing, that was the the reason for giving some time, kind of see how things go, whatever. Um because it was one or two, we need a check where all board members feel comfortable, you know, and because we were trying to have a survey that all would be in agreement upon. That's why the middle of the year, but we also need a summitative. We need something happening at the end of the year to show how we did. So if you are suggesting that we have one for newborn members coming on now we're talking free because we need I'm not talking about

058adding a new one. I'm talking about removing the March one. You mean a summitive though because the same it's the same set of questions twice is what you're saying. Right. You need to have something to show how you did by the end of the year to be able to you know what I'm saying, right? But I don't necessarily think that you can't find out how you did at the end of the year with if you use different questions, okay? Cuz I understand that I might be an exception because I was at a lot of meetings, but people only run for public service if they have a passion about something. And the board would be able to work better together if everybody starting out in the beginning knew where everybody's passion lies and they could find

059things that they agree on for the board to work together so that they can start growing rapport with one another. I think people highly underestimate the importance of getting to know members that are part of a board. And the way it's happening right now is you're doing it at March and then new board members don't even get to participate in any sort of board input until October. Yes. Where because that's part of what we get into the the workshop planning. There's typically a retreat. That retreat is typically been done in October. So one of the suggestions and I brought this up at the last board meeting is we move that to June. So right now it's May. if we have that in June that whole getting to know what is our why and I have

060some suggested pieces for that particular we used to call it the board retreat I don't like the word retreat because that's retreat's kind of like spa layback whatever we're think about don't care what you call but if we look at different workshops different whatever board development sessions pick a word whatever um that would be doing exactly what you're saying why are people there and and so on But wouldn't that meeting potentially change the questions of the survey? I don't think it would change the questions of the survey. My concern is my honest concern is with the survey is that just over half of the board participated. So I don't know why that is. It could have been an access issue. It could be other things I'm unaware of. But that is my concern. And I

061I think that if we want the board to work together, I've heard in multiple meetings where there's problems with people coordinating their schedule and you know, we could hope and pray we can get something together in June, but it might not pan out that way. But if we could get a survey in the beginning sent out to all the board members, what are your top three priorities coming in this year? Where do you think that the board could have improved last year or the district could improve last year? And then let's say that four or five board members have the same things that they mention. Then we can start structuring our meetings to flow seamlessly together to make decisions quickly. I have no preference. I'm just giving you the backstory of where it came and

062how things came to be where they are. the the other key component that came up is if we are collecting if we are doing surveys and collecting data is just how are we using the data. So that's just been resoundedly loud and clear that you never want to do a survey just for the sake of a survey and and I'm not saying that's what you said at all. Again, I'm giving you the this is the the transitional kind of meeting, giving the back history of how are we going to use that? And one of the pieces is to be able to set our priorities and you've described that in there. So then it just becomes okay, what do those questions look like? And and then moving that forward. Okay. So I guess you two worked

063on this, right? You you my understanding is Jared and you worked on the questions with Tim. Tim might be the wrong name. Dave Drew Drew sorry it is it is coming up to a lot of names. Yeah. So I guess I would like to know what benefit you think you received from the survey answers. I understand the whole board didn't answer but from what you gather from here what did you take away so with it are we are you just look what are my not because I'd have to look at the questions then again because I haven't perhaps one one idea could be for us to take some time that's my thought right now if we my my intention through this was you have the survey in front of you whatever So that's what this

064was for. My thought was five to seven minutes. You work on your own and you put what are your noticings, what questions do you have, and what ideas might you have that stem permit like your aha. Hey, I think we should try, you know, whatever. And then we use that as a it's a collaborative piece. It's not one person saying it should be this this. Yeah. Does that make sense? That would be tension moving from this. How come I can't get this in mind? And and again from my experiences what we typically do is to agree upon some time frame. Are you authenticated or you in the public site? Some time frame for us to independently review the data and then uh jot down our noticings, questions, and ideas. Craig, did you get a sheet?

065I Yes. Got one. Yeah, I have extra. Thank you. Um, so is that Yeah, I'm good with that. Um, so the question, the tough question is how many minutes would we put on the clock for that independent work? Uh, 10. 10. No more than 10. Yeah. No, I'd say five to seven. Let's start with Can we start with five to seven? We can start with anything. Five and see where we're at just for the sake of time moving us through. And if we need more, we can extend. If we need less. Okay. How about how do you feel about five minutes and 11 seconds? Perfect. I think it's great. Great. Thank you. So again, independently looking at the data, filling this out, right? What are what what noticings rise to the top? What questions and

066what ideas? He knows that drives me nuts when he does that. Okay, we're this stuff. Okay, as we go. Uh, And if we go through these together, if somebody can um help me with the colors, I would appreciate it. Are you color blind here? Yes. Oh, okay. Not fully color blind. Color association blind is on the red green spectrum. Oh, okay. So, red and green I can't differentiate unless I figure out how the light's hitting something and or what it should be. Okay. And or colors close on the spectrum make it difficult for me. really wreck my ability to go in the military. It does actually, which is pretty sad, right? I guess not really if you think about the technical aspect or tactically. It did. It did save me from You don't want to

067be a deer, you know, in the woods. It did save me from going to the golf war. Well, that's good. At least I would have squarely been there for sure. Wow. Not saying that. I mean, I would have signed up for that. That's what I would have done. But, um, in in hindsight, I know a number of friends who've been affected by that. So, Anyone need more time? Um, I don't think so. I think I'm pretty good. Dr. Burke, I'm good. Thank you, Diana. I don't think I'll just work through it. How about um I could read this if it helps. Read the read it out loud. No, no, no. I can facilitate if that helps. Oh, you can definitely by all means. And so I I really just like to focus on the noticings

068and what typically I do is go around the room and and ask people to share one of their noticings as a starting point. So Mr. Orman, would you be willing to share your 20 one of your noticings? Um, well, obviously the participation factor was was one of them and um I won't say that I'm guilty of that. Okay. Um uh it looks as though um uh still there's there I mean of the previous board members that participated um it appears as though there's still some strong division of trust here among um uh work that's happening in the committees and discussion that's happening at Ford level and um you know uh trusting uh questioning each other's intent. It's like uh so I crossed out two of mine. I also had the number of respondents and I

069saw you know faith or trust come up. One thing that I would I would add that was new is I think that there's uh a theme of preparedness that came out in several of our respondents. one round, you know, could could we forward questions prior? And then there was another one where someone mentioned like could we review the point prior or the discussion topic prior. So, uh we we were all prepared. So, that was just one of my notes. Sam, uh yeah. No, the uh the thing that stood out to me the most was um consistent between the last survey and this survey is the continue use of I don't know if it's appropriate uh to call it this, but I think it's an accurate description uh scare quotes uh around certain terms uh scare

070quotes around hidden agendas and where was the other one? Uh tough questions. And uh yeah, that kind of goes in line with what you guys were talking about. still seems like there's at the time at least because I don't know this was back in March so it seems like at least someone or a couple of people still felt frustrated about um you know some of the elements of how the board is conducted although because we don't have information on who's who obviously we don't know exactly where that is um but yeah uh and then also um what's a scared quote uh when you put quotes around a term to, you know, kind of assign a certain uh a certain value or slant to it. So, I don't think I've ever heard anyone in any of

071the meetings say hidden agenda. I don't think I know I haven't said it. And if I haven't said it, I don't know if anyone else has. Uh so I, you know, I I haven't heard anyone say the phrase hidden agenda. So when I see am I allowed to read this out loud for the purposes of discussion? I don't because it's a because it's in the administrative content. I would I wouldn't read it aloud. Yeah. So, as as an example, I know what you're referring to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, in in that example, there's that that would be scare quotes because it's referring to a certain idea that this commenter thinks someone else has, and it appears that they're trying to assign some kind of value to it, but scare quotes tend to be vague. So,

072is it a is it is it being said with sarcasm and derision? Is it being said with skepticism? Um, there's some sort of negative slant to to that sort of thing. So, I I still see that kind of tone throughout. I have a feeling I know where that one came from. So, um it you know and and the individual that made that those comments probably felt that uh uh that when a committee forms a subcommittee and then discussions happen at the subcommittee and don't end up back at the committee that that is you know that is a concern of theirs and and you can see that there's very diametrically oosed osed comments in this particular area. Uh, one referring to being prepared and asking questions ahead of time and then the other saying, well, if

073I don't have this information, how am I supposed to ask questions ahead of time? Right. You know, you know, Tammy, would would you be willing to share one of your noticings, please? Um, I'm gonna agree with Craig with the um the number of people, but I'm gathering that committees feel like the board don't appreciate their work because there might be a disagreement at the board level. And I think there needs to be an understanding that it's not lack of appreciation, but differing of opinions, right? like committees are put together to put in recommendations, not to make determinations, right? And the whole board's got to make that decision. So if there's some resistance from some board members, I personally don't think it's a lack of respect for the work that you're doing, but maybe an oversight

074that you miss because people miss things, right? Or I missed if I'm running the committee. And I don't think it should erode trust. you know, if all the voices aren't in the room of a nine member board, you have to anticipate some questions, concerns, um oversightes, that would not be seen in a group of four. Thank you. I think uh some some concern that comes from that model though is that um if that happens a lot right where um either uh there's a difference of opinion from the committee or you don't feel like the committee prepared you well enough to make an answer right and that happens a lot and and doesn't get fixed that becomes a big issue Well, does it happen a lot? I'm asking. I think I think it's happened a lot

075more uh in the past couple of years um than than I've seen uh working with boards. So is it I guess of the two is it more that the whole board doesn't feel like the committee's providing enough information or does it or is it more the committee feels like the whole board's not applying themselves to become a breast of that information to make an adequate decision once it comes to the board level right which of the two are the problem so I'm going to answer that by way of breaking one of my number one rules and and I usually try not to do this uh because it's usually not about me. It's usually about the topic or the the whatever. And so I try very hard to say don't make this a Jared issue because

076this is an issue about curriculum or this is an issue about whatever. It's not an issue about you Jared, right? But where it does feel like it starts to become a me issue, um for instance, let's say I'm the subcommittee, right? Uh, and if I'm making recommendation after recommendation, I'm bringing you information and I'm constantly asking you what more information did you need? And I'm not really getting responses or or feeling like I'm getting responses. Now, it feels like it's a me issue, right? Not a uh issue about the topic we were talking about, right? Uh and and so that's where I'm concerned if it goes there, you know, and and the same could be said to not just a subcommittee, but an administrator or or whatever group is bringing information to the larger group,

077right? If if that happens more often than not, then either there's a communication issue, a philosophy issue, or you underlying philosophy issues or other things that we should really talk about instead of just going into the void of mistrust. I don't I don't disagree with anything you're saying from your experience. I have not been. So is it more that the board is not preparing themselves appropriately to address those uh please correct? Yeah, just my perspective um but and observation but I feel that both sides of that particular viewpoint are misunderstood and uh and the reason for that is um it some some board members have a different style of approach when it comes to uh board discussion and that happens to be when when there's a discussion that happens at the committee level. Uh the

078discussion itself spurs more questions and that may be perceived by other board members as a lack of preparedness because you have those questions and and as a result the uh the onus is hey I asked my questions ahead of time uh and it it if that's where there's a there's some contention on that particular topic and it's not necessarily that one somebody has it wrong or approaches it wrong. Um some people feel that maybe that's a an efficiency uh point that we can improve upon. Uh and perhaps that's true, you know. So that's kind of where I feel that's coming from. Yeah. I mean we would have even I I'm just giving some examples of of what I've seen in in the last year that have led to like some breakdown maybe in communication which

079then led to um you know probably more questioning of what happened at the committee or committee work than maybe needed to be. Uh, so one example is just the philosophy difference, right? You may have the philosophy of, hey, I I don't have to ask my questions ahead of time because I want the public to hear my question, right? And so I'm going to ask it at the full board meeting. I should ask it there. uh a and uh you know everybody else says well the norm is to try to get that information out because if you had that question right I would love to have heard the administrative response before I came to the meeting so I had time to think about it right but nobody had the conversation about that you just believed what

080you believed and the other person believed what they believed and and it became this more of a phil philosophical divide when if we had conversations and a norm around how do questions happen in flow, right? Because you can get what you need, which is to ask it in public and everybody knows that you're going to ask it in public, but we've already seen it uh prior to and we all can understand what the response was from either administration or whatever group you asked the question of uh and you got the information and there was no there was no dialogue around it, just information, seeking information only. Um, but you still got to ask it in public and the and the dialogue got to happen in public, right? But everybody was still prepared. So if you

081if you do those kinds of things, right, have communication around the difference of philosophy, I think it would bring it together. And and I don't think sometimes those those dialogues around the difference of philosophy happened is one thing. Another thing that I saw is I saw sometimes uh to expediate things. Uh conversations were shut down uh because uh there was power brokering. I I I feel like I've got enough votes to pass this. We're just going to shut down the conversation. Let's take the vote. Passed it. And then it's like, well, but the I I didn't feel like the whole conversation was had, right? Uh and uh that sometimes I think happened, right? Um, and there there's other things that I've seen happening over the last couple of years, right? Which is why I suggested,

082hey, I think we need some more board development. We need to talk about how to how to be a highly effective board, things that we can do so that way those things don't happen, right? And and part of this self-evaluation piece is that like is to have these kind of conversations uh to bring that stuff to the surface. But you can see in the data those things are happening right uh and so I just want to uh you know share that that that's my observation is people are noticing those things right and and to say like um if we don't if we don't start working on those we won't get a different result correct I agree Sam what do your opinion on where it's coming from uh the the some of those quotation marks and

083some of the the yeah with like the uh this I am getting that yeah well and again so just thinking about it purely mathematically when we look at this survey as many as three of these survey answerers may no longer even be here if we're just being objective. So the thing is I don't know how much that applies. I don't because when I read the survey, right, and there's there's a saying that goes along with with this that you that you that you could that you could coin, but when I look at the survey, I read some of the comments and I see some of the feedback, I think, well, that's not how I feel. But again, it's a very it's a philosophy. And I've always personally thought you should have robust discussions and if

084you're public servants, you should have as many of those discussions in public. If you're looking for technical data, you should try to ask for that ahead of time. But as Craig said, sometimes you're not even realizing like, wow, this would be a really useful piece of data to have until the discussion is already underway. It might not have been something that was on your radar. So, I think uh you know, there's a way bigger thing to talk about there, but I you know, that's that's I might be I might be hopping ahead a little bit. I might be looking down at the third point there, the idea stemming out of it. So, so where do you I was going to do the same. Oh, yeah. Where do you think it comes from? I'm going to

085piggyback on what Jared was saying first, and that is with the committee work. I agree with all of those underlying things. Another vantage point from that is if you rewind three years, the way committees worked is you have a committee of four board members and the work was done by those four board members and you trusted those four board members to do that work and when it was taken to the full board the remaining nine member that's when the conversation and things but you kind of trusted the nitty-gritty. you put your your concerns in there. And we have a and this is has been a trend um for the last few years is the board is much more engaged and hands-on than ever before. And so now you have five, six, seven, sometimes eight people

086at a committee meeting. And so then it's like there are people that feel like well wait a second I'm a committee member yet do they not trust that I'm doing the work that I'm here because you have people there but that's the philosophical thing that no you know Sam said this a million times and I know this about Sam and I love this about Sam that he wants to be involved in all the things and I could say that about a number of people. I'm just looking directly at Sam. Um, and so we've we've had a shift that's there, but there are some that have communicated because of me being the planning chair have communicated directly to me saying, "What? Why am I even doing this as a committee work or even a subcommittee work

087because people get mad, board members have gotten upset about the fact this was done in subcommittee and they didn't have voice to it." Well, it's a subcommittee, you know, and and so then it comes back. So there's there's just different thoughts and feelings that have kind of moved through there and it's a shift but then it comes back to trust and it becomes back to I don't want to say respect but kind of what's our why why are we here you know things that you brought up things that I am going to talk about you know when we get to the workshop pieces all of those kind of go together um as far as my noticing all of them were already said the additional one um because I had value each other's work and the

088committee work um was discussions before proposing solutions. That was something noticed that we have a lot of you know here's the discussion. Well, I think we should try this. I think I don't think we quite get the discussion piece done before now we're talking solutions and how do we you but and I know I don't want to pick on Craig you feel this way a lot you know I've got that wait a second I got this and we got that well we're already on the solution piece where people don't feel like they've had time to really get their their stuff together um some of that I believe stems from efficiency we've started time boxing things look you can go on and we could go on this topic if we wanted for another half hour but

089you know where do we get the gist and then kind of move on. So I think that comes with growth. I think you know that'll proceed. But that was one of my bigger noticings and it's just how do we grow together as a board or a team but it doesn't feel as much like a team yet. I use the word yet because it comes back to the philos, you know, the philosophical pieces. And I think we all have we all have the best interest of our district at heart. That's why we're here. It's a position of service just like you said. But how do we form us all together in the same direction because it feels right now or I should say it's felt in the past and you can see on here we're all

090here and it's how do we bring us there? Yes. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I'm gonna play a little role of timekeeper here a little bit. So Diana, could you bring us back around and share one of your questions that you wrote down, please? And we'll go backwards here. On one of the slides there was um a comment that stemmed from trust of our um administration and using government management whatever slide six if you need a point of reference. Um, so my question is how do we how do we develop that trust? Because if we're not trusting our superintendent and his team to do the daily stuff, you know, then how do we, you know, move forward? What's our role? And one thing that I had learned last year is the board has

091a significant role in certain aspects and our superintendent and his team has a significant role in other aspects. I'm just like policy. There's some that are more administrative and there some that are more board and how do we how do we navigate that better? At one of the conferences that I was at the last year, there's a district I'm not suggesting we do this. It's just as an FYI, there's a district that they have a separate policy book for board policy stuff at administrative policy stuff. And they said if you take your entire policy book and you narrow it down to that which is in the board's purview, it's less than 40% of all the policies that are there. So then when an issue comes to like if someone reaches out to me, hey Diana

092blah blah blah, I can say, oh that's a superintendent, you know, that's a board or that's a a superintendent issue or vice versa. Does that make sense? I think we need to have some definition or clear definition as to who, what, where, when, and that will then help develop trust because I think there's there's too many questions um that are out there right now. And that's seemingly like from the comments like a natural. Thank you. Dr. Burke, did you uh would you be willing to share one of your questions you noted? Yeah. So my question um remains more along the lines of surveying in um in itself. My question is is uh when and this will get to one of my um you know uh ideas uh about how we move forward. There's been a

093lot of transitioning uh on this board. Um I'm I'm now on my I think fifth board president in three years, right? Um, and only three of the board members uh that I have uh uh who hired me are still on the board, right? And so with that um that provides a lot of opportunities for uh discussion, right? Because new members generate new. Um but we know that um highly effective boards uh really have um anchoring pieces, anchoring philosophies, anchoring discussions and those are passed on to new board members and then uh are are also open to nuances of all the newer board members and and that kind of stuff. I don't think um you know my my question is have from the data I'm seeing in this this questionnaire have those anchoring pieces uh that

094have helped boards become highly effective have they been passed on um and if not how do we create them and uh have newess of the board uh brought uh nuances to strengthen the board or not. I'm not seeing that arrive from the data. And so again, that comes out of those discussions about highly effective boards. Yeah. That's my question. Yeah. Uh in response to that, I think definitely hear where you're coming from. I think it's important to have That's not where I'm coming from. That's No, no, I mean I I I hear a question based on our data. I hear I hear where your questions are coming from and I hear what you're saying about the importance of having an anchor and the importance of having consistency. Um, I think there's a couple of questions

095to ask about what is what does it mean to be an effective board of elected officials versus what does it mean to be an effective um uh board of shareholders or uh you know in in the business world there are a variety of different boards and I think that they operate differently. But additionally, and this is really my overwhelming question about this, is how representative of the board's feelings about operation is this survey and is this data now? Only because like I said, I mean, for all we know, every single one of these comments comes from someone who's not even here anymore. True. and and I'm only get going off the data we have in front of us, but I I would still have the same question with whatever other survey we have, which is

096uh you know, what does the data tell us about like how are we being a highly effective board, right? And and so uh that's that's what I want to work I want to work for a highly effective board because I know if my board is highly effective, it allows me to be highly effective. If my board's not highly effective, it's going to be very hard for me to be effective at all, much less highly. Oh, yeah. Right. Oh, completely. And so, um, that's my interest in in and that's why I wrote a goal around, uh, trying to have professional development and trying to install things like this so that we can be to a place where I'm working for a highly effective board. Yeah, I heard Tammy, would you be Oh, Craig had his hand

097up. question just some of that you know I mean um I think I think when we we talk about highly effective board that's that's a subjective thing um according to who you're asking the question of uh some people might define what that means differently as far as what a highly effective board is as far as far as the anchor pieces are concerned You know, if the if the board has been uh at had had some division about what those anchor pieces are where uh you know there have been voices on both sides of what those anchor pieces should be, but not uh recorded in in the board norm, so to speak. and move forward then that can be a challenge too and I'm not saying I'm not saying that that is the case but um

098we go through this regularly as a board to to try to define our board norms but yet then we seem so differing on some of those anchor pieces why so that that would be my question I don't I don't know and and Like you said, we could spend all day on this and it's really more uh of of a piece to have somebody who does talk about highly effective boards or what boards should look like. And I don't care who we bring in uh the group that you suggested, WSP, uh you know, um any others, Drews, How can Associates, whatever. But the the gist of it is I've been through many of those through many different of those organizations. But the real factor is if you don't get to a place of agreement, right? Then

099you then you won't be effective. Right. Right. And and so the work is there to try to get to a place of agreement. and and perhaps maybe that might be something that our planning committee wants to take on at some time. uh to go through that those collective um commitments and those board norms and see if uh if if those if it they make sense to uh new newer board members, you know, and because it is always it always seems to be odd when when uh we had norms and then Sam and Dan came up on the board and then they had a different perspective of what that looked like. uh when Charity uh Tammy and Carl are on the board, uh how how would they interpret those particular norms? And you know, because we

100felt as a board at the time in both cases actually that that those collective norms did represent where we were as a board. You know, that is part of when we get to the workshop part. The suggestion that I have collective commitments should be reviewed every year. It should be something that comes with a newborn each year. We were just at an odd place last year, you know, again, baby steps, moving it forward. Yeah. Um, and the other piece I just lost it. Oh, with the No, you talked norms. You know, why is this so all over the place? Again, because we're at the infancy stage in that one thing that should be with collective commitments or norms, it should be in the forefront of every meeting. So other districts have done the collective commitments

101is a a laminated piece that you know just that reminder that first year we did them they were forgotten about you know we had to review you know bring them back in you the ball was kind of dropped to corner something else right I I I admitted I dropped the ball in that because that was me as planning chair I didn't realize that was my role as planning chair but ultimately that was my role you know to to bring that forward and move it through again it's when you're learning something new there's going to things that happen, mistakes, whatever. So, how do you get that? You keep it in the forefront. But if it doesn't mean something to new members, they need to be a part of it. Otherwise, it's not collective. Can I ask

102a question? I'm sorry. Go ahead. So, the collective commitments for the board is the responsibility of planning to come together. Yes. You don't think that would be better suited for like a board development where everybody The whole board is there. The whole boarding planning is planning is the facilitator. That's something that happens at a board workshop. Okay. This committee is the facilitator of of making it happen and in a lot of ways and trying to hold uh people accountable to not accountable because I I hate using that word adults, right? Making sure we hold each other to honor those, right? to honor that work that we did together, right? So, for instance, the collective commitments that were made were made together and agreed upon, right? But um and if we're not revisiting those, and we're

103not passing those on as an anchoring piece to new members and saying, "Here's what we've operated. Here's the rules of interaction, so to speak, right, that we usually use. any new nuances or commitments to these commitments, we would love to hear from new members or whatever else because the rest of them have been in agreement and have been working under them. Right. But there should still be open to any nuance that a new board member has. Right. I'm just may just a suggestion. Yeah. Maybe we could add those collection collected commitments collective commitments to like the onboarding process because this is the first They were part of it. They were part of it. Um Mr. Higgins went through them with went through the board. Yeah. At the very end, he went through the collective commitments

104at the end of the meeting. What's that? No, this was at the on boarding with Carl. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You have them in your packet. Okay. Just want to be mindful of the time. We have approximately 28 minutes. And so, Tammy, did you have any question that you uh The only Yeah. The only question I have is um it seems to me like the previous board felt like a differing opinion was showing a lack of trust. I I I generally don't have that stance. I've communicated with Sam and Craig over this past year and there's been a number of times we've passionately agreed with disagreed with one another. It's nothing to do with lack of trust. So, I'm trying to understand why the comments in here imply that if a committee makes

105a recommendation that they feel that they're not trusted if the whole board maybe has some questions or concerns about how they got to that recommendation. So, your question is about does does uh disagreement uh mean a lack of trust or respect? Yeah. Yep. And really I do think that there's an element and it's a through line if you look at all the questions. There's actually more correlation I think between the amount of time that is taken on committee meetings and that lack of trust than there is between disagreement and lack of trust. And I think that that was a big thing that was talked about over the last year was oh let's let's not take too long on committee meetings. What I observed happening was if a committee meeting did not have a whole lot

106of discussion, you had a monthly board meeting that was going to go on for five hours and everyone was going to feel like they didn't get to talk about what they wanted to talk about. Yeah. Okay. True. Just as a just as a comment, I'm not trying to put that out there too much. Yeah. What do you think uh about about you what's Yeah. Oh, my question here was uh I I think of it through the lens of strategic planning actually right and so we had three words of strategic planning tradition innovation and transformation and so my question was how does uh the questions and responses honor the traditions of the board and the district I don't know okay and similarly like how do the questions and responses uh support a culture culture of innovation

107and when I say a culture of innovation I think of a culture where people are comfortable disagreeing comfortable taking risks comfortable asking really qu good questions so I don't know like I wonder right that's my wonder and then transformation is for me uh continuous improvement and I think this very activity shows uh we're modeling what we ask our teachers and principles to do so from that lens I don't think I have a question but it's like we should be proud of this conversation right because this is the exact thing that we want to model in every classroom uh with building leaders is using data to have these really nice conver robust conversations so that's what I wrote down Sam your question uh yeah no my question was um no no no shade to people putting

108this together for this planning committee It's just kind of how it falls. But how relevant is this questionnaire? Um, and the thought that comes off of that is kind of like what you were talking about about having new members do the question questionnaire. I think if you combined that, and again this is this is stepping into ideas and workshopping, but if you combine that with um the idea of reviewing collective commitments at the very beginning of the year uh and having new board members come on and say like, "Yeah, I do agree with all those collective commitments except the one where I cut off my pinky. Not a big fan of that one." As long as you get everyone on the same page, I'm really glad that we got that you guys got that one

109off there before. I agree. It was It was right at the bottom. No, no. Uh but uh so so bringing people on board, having the new board members review the collective agreement, the collective commitments, getting everyone on the same page there and making sure that everyone's like on board, then having a ser then having the survey, then having the survey in like June or July, the first survey in June or July after they've gotten their bearings and they've had a chance to get on board with that, then doing the second one in December or January. December, January is kind of the end of the year if we're thinking about it in terms of the board really because that's kind of when things calm down more so. Yeah, I I agree with you. I think, you

110know, should we have been afforded uh better timing and more I think the planning committee could have could have knocked this out of the park. The the good thing though is that we're recognizing like we're not if we're not having to start over and start over and start over. I think this next time it is going to be a lot better. And with the nuances that a new board member sees, right? Maybe making a couple of minor changes. I I don't I don't know that it's the survey's fault. I think we still you you said relevancy. I still think we got good data and I don't think this data is inaccurate. I wish there would have been more. Right. And I don't know if it's as meaningful to uh two of the new board members,

111but everybody else is still here, right? Uh who who uh got to take this. So, um I I think there is some relevancy that we can keep from it. That's just my opinion. Um but I I'm hoping that um this or a semblance of this with nuances from our new folks can uh be utilized uh and and move forward. That's kind of what I had for my uh last one. Um I know it wasn't it's not a question, but you know just a suggestion of like we have a good start and I think that we have a great team as as proven by this this just this is a good meeting. I we're we're openly talking. We're talking about how can we uh be better at how how the things we're using some data uh

112all albeit older data. Um I'd love to see this um not be older data be more data that is uh you know kind of uh something that starts to become one of those cornerstones that we can pass forward, right? Um and not just a new thing and then another new thing and then another new thing where you don't feel like you're getting anywhere. Um, but I I am happy so far with um what I've seen and I wish the process would have been a little bit more time. I mean, you got to iterate. We we just kept going, right? So, that was my idea. I don't want to skip ahead either, but I my idea was to have the uh board survey on the next planning committee for discussion and finalize or or develop a

113new cadence or whatever it is. I think the conversation here as Dr. Bert mentioned I hope I mention as well is exactly what I think the vision of what we talk about professional learning communities that's common phrase right this is what it is right it's using data to have great conversations so I think there's a lot of benefits to this and my ideas again to put out for discussion next time Craig what about you did you share your question yet I think I did earlier you did okay um Yeah, I'm happy to move on. Yeah, we're getting the interest time. Perhaps we can move to the next discussion point. Yeah. So, there's been a number of references. I can lead it off if that's okay. Yes, please go ahead. A number of references to workshop

114planning. Again, I think in the past we've referred to or that was referred to as a retreat. I think Dr. Burke uh has a goal of from March to March having four of those workshops. In the past, uh correct me if I'm wrong, Diana, but I believe Tina Johnson was kind of the person in planning that did the organization of that, the logistics of where are we going to be, when are we going to be there, what time, who's bringing the food, of those things. And so I I would just start there and then open it up for other discussions or questions. Um, if I could jump in please. And the ideas that we've had from that and I'm going based on what we did last year at this time just because we had two

115board members that were new. Now we have three board members that are new. So there's value in doing this stuff again. Number one being a getting to know you activity of some sort. We many of us don't know each other outside of these four walls for the couple hours that we sit in here. whatever that is, whatever that looks like. Um, one thing that I've always liked to do is figure out, and you alluded to this earlier, what's our why? Why are you on the board? Why am I on the board? Why is what's in So, we hear that from each other and my why three years ago is different than why I'm still here, but it's good to kind of know that, you know, it's evolved. So, that's one piece. The second one is,

116we talked about the collective commitments already. um having that be something that we all are a part of and they may stay similar they may change altogether they may be a hot project role um additionally one activity that was really good and I think you guys talked about in onboarding is whose role is it is it a board role is it a superintendent role or is it both to me I learned a lot in there like wow I thought that was a both know that by state statute that's a board thing or by state statute that's a Jared thing and there's good conversation and when Tony Tony was here. Tony was here for like eight or 10 years and there's well this this. No, we need to go that individually that even though I've been

117through it twice now for someone that hasn't been through it at all like yourself, Richard, it's good just to go through it in your own time and things and that just helps build some of that trust in there. Well, I would add also um that just because the last board said it was in this bucket or this bucket or this bucket doesn't mean it stays in that bucket. Correct. you know, um, as as as um I I made the administration well aware, I'm like, just so you know, this board is going to move towards more oversight. Um, you know, and not in a like a micromanaging way, right? More in aformational way. You know, I I don't feel any um discussion points from any of the board members that says we're going to micromanage. we're

118just going to we're just going to expect more oversight and and uh different level of quality of data uh you know kinds of things, right? And so when that happens, right, and and you move from uh from governance to more oversight, some of those buckets have to change, right? because because our philosophy changes a little bit. But understanding what the buckets are now uh is good for everybody to understand so that we can uh move forward together. Not uh people stuck in old buckets and people with new bucket ideas or or the majority of the board moving in that way uh would be um not serving our the people we serve, right? It would just be leading to more chaos. Yeah, I would say specifically uh a workshop on state statutes regarding board authority would

119be really good because and of course authority gets delegated, but that's that that's what I was talking about with the the attorney coming in and talking about like board basics. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Right. Can I go through my other ones again first? um goals from our survey, we establish goals and priorities. So I'm not goals and priorities goals and priorities. Yep. And that's where by the end of the year and that's why I don't think by February we can say that yeah we've achieved those because you still have Mar well sorry by December January I don't think by February March. Yeah. Um and then lastly I truly believe this is a Diana thing now. I believe that we need some sort of training hour whatever on Robert's rules, you know, a motion. This has been

120actually on our board development calendar. It's been on for two years. Um to go through that. I'm actually completely on board with doing a training on Robert. So with I'm just that was the only item we didn't get to off of our board development calendar last year because you put together this list and we did it last year. what do people feel the needs are? It wasn't database. This is, you know, trying to get it more data driven. Um, and that was one that, okay, timing just didn't work. Trying to get things scheduled, whatever. Setting up a board workshop calendar, getting those dates out sooner. What I learned last year is if you're trying to set a date, sometimes it took two months to get agreement on what a date would work. We we've struggled

121with superintendent evaluation. That took us two and a half months to plan, which is why the meeting, the follow-up meeting with Drew took so long, and that's why the survey and stuff didn't come out until March. His meeting should have happened in December, not in March, you know. So, it life happens. It is what it is. And and but this is where getting some of these things on a calendar, establishing the priorities helps to make us more efficient and as Jar's used the term multiple times, more effective in general. Sorry, I didn't mean to take yours now that you took a bite. It was all good. Yep. Did you have additional um actually the both of those that were mentioned were really good ones. Let me think about that one. That's four. Just as I'm

122taking my notes for my own personal use, that's four of them that we have down. Are we anticipating that we'll be able to that we would be able to do more than four? Are we trying to Yeah. Go ahead. I remember now. Yeah. No, that's fine, man. Um, it depends on your guys's appetite to have more meetings and uh more commitment around uh taking stuff from that meeting and putting it forward and in a timely manner. And like like we said the last time, what I mean I thought it was a stretch goal to say four, right? I know there are some boards that they spend a half hour before each full board meeting and they do a professional development topic, right? And so they have the information prior to the meeting, right? They have

123it um one of the board members uh they take turns leading it like this is my month, you know, February is my month and my month we're going to focus on XYZ. I give you the information ahead of time, read it, read it. Uh and and it's all really around how to become effective board members, right? and and and or um topics might be around uh fiscal responsibility of the school board, right? And and they bring in information around fiscal responsibility from the school board or or bring in somebody from WBO, which is the business officials organization to talk about levy, right? Or whatever else, you know, I'm just saying how whatever your appetite is, Sam, people are stealing people are reading my mind today. Am I reading your mind or is reading your mind?

124you like I I I feel like um a workshop centered around you know uh district budgeting understanding district finances and stuff like that. Yes. Somebody were you talking about uh funds and things like that? Yeah, definitely. There's going to be on Friday there's actually a breakout section about district finances and we'll post all those. Like if you have a ticket, they actually record it and send you that that breakout section. Oh, nice. Nice. So you get access to all the breakout. If anything, we could reach out to whomever's doing that breakout section and see if they could come to the board to give us professional development on district finances. Yeah, that is true. Um that's a good idea. Try if there's any other resources for that. But yeah, we'll see that Friday. Yep. Well, and

125we'll we'll find out how how thorough that is, you know, depending on the time that they have. I mean, that's always um at the will convention, they're going to do a piece on uh fiscal fiscal responsibility stuff like that. I don't know how exactly you've said it, but my suggestion with that would be in the future, can that information go out to the entire board? the the invit the invitation did go out to the entire board, right? But it was today in terms of there's the something on Friday. So, as far as planning goes, if it's a conference or a convention, sent out a couple of times. It was sent out and then I said, "Hey, reminder." So, I have to check and see because I still have things that are going to Johnson DI

126instead of Johnson D. So, I because mine used to be different than everybody else's. So, I'm wondering and Sam, when you mentioned that earlier, I'm wondering if that there should have been a caveat where that came through. Um, but anyway, I'm just wondering because there's other things. Hey, I sent that like I didn't get it. So, okay, that makes sense then. I'll just have to look into what technology to see what's the I I apologize for being the timekeeper, but any other further discussions about uh the workshop planning? Mark and is there someone that from the planning committee that wants to be the liaison similar to what I mentioned about Tina being the organizer of it? Um, can we wait to loop Dan in? I don't want to make the decision since Dan's gone. Yeah,

127we we can do that. So, is everybody comfortable with just waiting until Dan is My hesitation on that is that would be our next meeting. So, is that two months out or is that one month out? And if we wanted to have something like Craig had suggested at the last meeting doing something in June, that's already pushing us till July June, you know, to coordinate that. I'll I'll I'll coordinate it right now. If Dan uh if Dan, you know, later on talks to us and he's like, I really wanted to be the guy who coordinates everything. I don't think so. Dan Dan can coordinate from there on out for all I care. But I'll coordinate it for now. I'll I'll take it. I'll take it this time around at least and we'll try to set

128something up for uh for June. Okay. Thank you. And yeah, take a look. Um I think we can move to uh the DAP's professional development. So moving I would like to train everybody on the committee with DAPE's professional development. So I'd like all of us to be trained on DAPES. Does anybody have any concerns with that or questions? I'm open for discussion about that. In terms of what just familiarity with it with the process? Yeah. All of us have professional development on the dates process and we did that a little bit earlier this last year this last uh whatever board cycle. Um but I think you know the thing that you sent out that was the little video that kind of helped uh helped explain it I thought was pretty good. Um but doing a

129lengthier assessment you'd like that to also be something that we do for professional development. Okay, let's add that to the list then as well for more trout planning. So we can um that would be great to talk with Tim about as he's here because with that it's kind of been the original thought behind it was it's an on the job kind of training thing. So the process is a little bit as you go instead of a boom here it all is. So Tim came in and gave the overview of the day process to start with and then there's check-in one checkin two and then the summitive. So Tim is leading us through check-in one which is basically what you're saying some professional development. Check-in two we would do on our own after you know he's

130guided us today and then kind of guide the person through and then the summitive evaluations him is coming back to guide and lead us through. So he's doing those checkin professional development pieces as they happen as they flow. And the reason checkin two is going to be on our own. This is really repeat of checkin one. Same same process. So I don't know if it's something different than what you're suggesting. This is just broken instead of doing all of it in one. It's just kind of breaking it down in smaller chunks as you go. So my understanding is we're we're trying to we're we are becoming trained in it. Um this is the professional development piece of it. Um is there any other any other training that we we ought to be undergoing as a

131board? Can I suggest that we hold off and maybe ask that question if more people are here when Tim facilitates in the next 8 to 10 minutes? Would that be okay? I'm good with that. Yeah, because that leads very nicely into that piece. Yeah. And maybe maybe what you're thinking of Tim will say hey we oh yeah yeah got that covered got that covered or you missed that and Tim can can you know connect from there my question in the Dave's process is who is going to be that liaison person going through typically it's the planning chair I've been the one for the last two years that have looked into it and I understand what you're saying because I've done my own digging research you know I've met with Tim prior as we were looking

132at what evaluation piece is there. So, I do have more knowledge going in, but that's been done on my own accord as we were trying to figure out what evaluation tool are we using. And the board has committed to using this one through this cycle. Um, if we decide we don't like it, because we haven't been using the Daves process the way it was intended, the entire time we've been using it really, then next year looking at something different. Um Jared and I did take a couple looks at, you know, different things at different conferences and it wasn't better than what we had here. So this may be even a second year out. Don't know. But I'm just kind of keeping that in the background. Right. I guess my thing is is I if we're

133talking about moving the board in a direction where we're all working together for the long term, it's far better for more people to be trained on it than less people because like let's say you decide that you don't want to run when you're up for reelection and you're going to be replaced and you're the most knowledgeable person on the board on how to handle that process. So the more people we have on board with knowing how the process works, transition will be substantially easier for everybody on the board and that is the direction I would like to go in every aspect of the board. I don't want there to be a gatekeeper at all really in any area. I would like all of us to be as knowledgeable as possible so we can all pick

134up everybody's strengths and weaknesses and work appropriately together with one another. Exactly. And that's what it speaks exactly to my point about you know having cornerstones that we hold each other accountable to it. And you're just saying that I mean like you know if this is going to be how evaluations are going to be done and we're going to use this process for now then we should have this as a cornerstone we pass on and it should be more than one person because you're right that's not a that's not a way to pass it on. It should be a communal uh ownership of it. So that way you can pass the cornerstone on. That's why they call it cornerstone. It's like it's not just a small thing. You want to make sure you you pass

135those things forward, right? So everyone is being trained. So then when we get to that, then we'll just figure out if there's an action item, we'll go back and add it. Sure. I think in terms of if there's something additional that needs to come there. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. Great transition to action items that I wrote down. I have six and I could share with the team. The first is that Jason's Jason's a rock star tonight. Yeah. Want to be mindful of Tim's everyone's time, but especially Tim. One is that Tammy will follow up for scheduling uh next meeting of the chairs. Yes, you and I, right? Or no, with Craig. Yes. Yep. You. Okay. Uh uh number two is Dr. Burke uh will uh check into the school board of academic excellence

136for professional development. Is that right? Thank you. Number three is uh Jason will share the invite for the referendum debrief with the planning members of the planning committee. Yes. Thank you. Yes. You're welcome. Number four is uh Sam will coordinate a June workshop at least at least for this one unless um If you want, I can help you with that or I can just give you uh Brian's uh phone number and tell him you're going to give him a call. Uh okay. I'll I'll I'll talk to you about it. We can have a discussion about it in greater detail for for the for the sake of time at the moment. Okay. Number five is that Jason uh we didn't talk about this, but I think it's important for me to say so I I hold

137myself accountable. We'll co we'll coordinate a monthly meeting with Tammy. Yes. Right. And I I'll have ask Angel to help us plan. Okay. And then number six is Jason will ensure both of those recordings are available to the public because I messed up. Okay. Can I direct us to the past action items? Yes. Uh there is one that's still outstanding on this. Um yeah. Uh there's three action items there listed. When Diane and I were putting this together, we agreed like we would only go back 30 to 45 days. I think we agreed. Is that true? What? Finish your statement. We We weren't going to keep every action item for the last year on this thing and we would only go back 30 to Oh, no. I thought we were keeping all of them. But

138what we recognized was we've we've done a good job of action items, keeping them current. And so the ones that are listed only goes back two or three meetings because everything else has been done. Okay. And uh what was your question? I'm sorry. So my question is like the um the first one I will ensure the board evaluation process is discussed and revisions are considered you know looking into March of 2026. We discussed that today we've talked about we didn't finish that but that then stemmed its own set of action items or things there. So that one can be resolved in terms of where it is here. Okay. Um, and then whatever new action items came from that, right? Because that's going to be an ongoing process. But that would have been the only other

139one. So, I don't know why the other two are on for past other than if it was to show that they were completed because what what Jason and I had done is originally when we had our planning committee notes, they were in there and then it became like I said before, where do they get housed? Do they go in the minutes or do they go into board? Well, here's an example of their board docs. Maybe it's better to have them in the minutes, you know, and that'll just be something okay for later. Thank you. But that past action item then is Yep. Yep. Thank you. Future agenda item 2425 has been linked. So that's just a working draft of topics. Uh 2526 is literally a cut and paste, right? It's it's just a that is

140something that Tammy and I will work through. And then um next is July 9th and we're scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Okay, awesome. And then I I believe we just need to adjourn and we have at least 30 seconds before the next meeting. Meeting a journey.