07/15/2024 Human Resources Committee Meeting

001Press Bill is with us. All right. All right. Well, we're going to go ahead and get started. I know Michael will be popping in in a few minutes here and stuff like that. Um so we've got the HR meeting and we're going to go ahead and get started with that. We have a guest speaker with us today um Bill Foster from um perceptions with the um employee satisfaction survey. And so um this is something that we do have the employee satisfaction survey results. Um those are two documents that are listed um in there that we will go through as far as you know Bill will lead us in all of this. This is not a new process for us um and things like that but the information that we accumulate every year um we usually

002do have Bill visit with us and everything and I don't I don't know if there's another intro or anything we need. Well, no, but I think we have some new members in the room and maybe we can go around the table and just make sure Bill knows who's all in with us tonight. Sure, that sounds great. Um, I'm Tina Johnson. I'm the um chair I'm a school board member and I'm the chairperson for HR. I'm Saman. I'm a school board member elected in 2024. Jan Wner, school board member the same election. Oh, uh, Fa, I am the president of the school board. Mari Holland, school board member. Diane Johnson, school board member as well. You know me, Bill. Probably seen me too much today. Bill, I'm Jared Brook. You know me, superintendent. Um, we also

003have online with us, uh, Craig Wartman. Uh, he is a schoolboard member and Jamie Fischer is a member of, uh, Margaret's staff in the HR department. So, I don't know if there's anybody else on there that I don't see, but that's it. All right. Well, thanks for having me tonight. Again, my job will be to take you through the results of this year's uh staff survey. So, as you may recall, I think last year we we kind of shifted. I actually just went back. We've been doing this survey for you since gosh I guess we went we did one all the way back in 2008 but um as far as this format's concerned it looks like probably 2019 so the last six years but we did change a year ago to kind of more more

004of our standard questions although we did keep a handful of questions you've used in the past for longitudinal data so we'll look at both of those tonight. So here we go. Can you see my screen? Okay. Yes. Thank you. All right. So, again, school perceptions, we've been around since 2002. We've done uh we actually have done projects in all 50 states, but we are Wisconsinbased, and we also do a lot of projects for uh strategic planning and referendum preparation, which we talked to the district about today. Actually, um your survey had a deadline of April 29th. We had 370 respondents. So, I scratched my head a bit ago and I said, "Is that good? out of that compare and I went back and looked last year we had so about the same as last year

005gave us a p a participation rate of 70% which is typical for us uh we had representation from all locations and we can we wanted to get into crossstabbing the data by location we could we don't do we haven't done that tonight my advice is always to kind of let let's look at the district level first um we also asked one question on your position. So 41% of our sample were teachers, ed specialists, those are folks who are typically certified but not necessarily in the classroom every day. Um 19% were our paras or aids, 14% support staff, 3% admin, and then you didn't have to answer. Um so if you didn't weren't comfortable, you went into that chose not to answer 8%. So, uh, our surveys are designed around, um, obviously a number of standard

006questions, but we do build, um, five indexes for the staff surveys. So, this is kind of good for a committee like yours to roll it up to a high level to see are we moving the needle. Um, and because we use these same items last year, we're able to build these indexes again. So, we've got academics, engagement, support, student experience, and staff experience. And you can see uh your current score for this year, as well as your previous score, and there really wasn't a lot of change. Um, a few of them dropped down a little bit by 1%, a few of them popped up by a little bit. And then the comparison percentile, what our software does is it goes out and compares the Watertown School District compared to other similar districts in our database.

007right now. Gosh, there's probably close to 150 other districts that you kind of match up with. And you can see that you're well, you're in the really the bottom quartile right now with not a lot of change over the previous year. Um, then we go to each survey section. There were three sections in the survey, the first being work day, and you can see the item. um then it's actually easier for most people to kind of wrap their minds around well what was the percent of the folks who either strongly agreed or agreed with that statement. We can see for the first example was 93%. If everybody would have strongly agreed with the statement, it'd be a five. If everyone would have strongly disagreed with the statement, it'd be a one. So you can't get

008above a five, below a one. And again, um, our software goes out and then places, um, your district, um, compared to other districts in that area. So, as far as technology, you know, your 44th percentile. Um, and then, uh, really the same format applies to all the questions in the workday section. Um, here these are lower. Um, Bill, pardon my question. For the percentile, do we want to be in the first or the 50th? You want to be in the 99th? Oh, 99th. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, there's one. You can't get You can't get below the first or you can't get above the 99th. So 99th is the best. So that kind of gives you relative terms. Bill, let me just share this because this is where I got goofed up to and

009I asked a similar question and and he clarified it pretty quickly for me. So, like if you take a look at that bottom one, I have h healthy working relationships with my co-workers. 91% of our staff said we strongly agreed or agreed. Yeah. Or agreed. Right. Yeah. And we still ended up in the seventh percentile. Yight how tight that is. It's a really good point. So, some of these are very very um so if you if you think back of your statistics class, you've got the normal distribution. Sometimes it's a fairly wide distribution. Sometimes it's very very narrow. And that's a perfect example of one that is very narrow. So, if you were to move from a 4.15 to a 4.25, you might be in the 50th percentile because it's a very tight it's a

010very tight band. Um so some of those um and that's why we we presented it three different ways with the percent agree as well as the average. Now let me just jump ahead as another example. The bottom one here is student discipline. Now all of a sudden you're at only 36% agree to that and you're actually you know you're at the 17th percentile. Um so they do move quite a bit. Um, so you got to kind of look at each number as you're as you're wrapping your mind around kind of what it means. So student discipline is the lowest item across the state for all school districts. Postcoid kids came back, they're not behaving, and it's a challenge for every single school district. Um, so that's a it's a it's a good distinction that some

011are tightly clustered, some aren't. And then we could share the standard deviation, which is really what you'd want to know to wrap your mind around it, but that might get to be a little much for most people to think about. Um, so let's see. So then we're in environment and um these are kind of correlating in terms of comparison. And what happens is if people aren't real happy, they tend to answer questions in a similar fashion. And the next section is support. So we're a little bit better in terms of pay practices. This is a second section. Again, this is sorted based on comparison percentile. And the third section for support. We have a sense of these year-over-year from the last survey be to see what the movement was on those or are you going

012to get to that? Um, yes. What we can do, let me jump ahead to those. So, year-over-year change. So we do have a longitudinal change both on items as well as the ones that are unique to um Watertown. Um so these are the changes on the unique items. Um so you had six items. So the you had a couple gains on respect and satisfied with benefits up a couple percent. And then you can see um these went down um with the greatest one being um has a clear vision, mission, vision, and plan went down 7.44%. So those are the changes there. We also do have a uh spreadsheet on each individual item and then we can go down and do that by at each individual school level which is a whole another cut of the

013data. I don't know if did you want to go there tonight? I I don't know that we have time to get into that level of detail. It's a it's and I guess the takeaway there is it does vary from building to building. Um but again kind of at your committee level at a district level this is where we're at. Let me jump back to uh let's see we went through support um one sectional of equable opportunities kind of consistent. Uh again the additional items we don't have comparison because these are unique to Watertown year-over-year changes and then the kind of wrapping it all up kind of this is a question that we use in just about every staff survey based on the net promoter framework. You are a 6.01 compared to a 7.04. And let

014me just look quick if I have that. Um, for a year ago, yeah, we were a 6.09 down to a 6.01. And I think that's the end of the quantitative report. Any questions on that? And then I was going to go over to look at comments too for you tonight. So, Bill, uh, when you say 6.01 versus 6.09, is that like statistically neutral or do you still see movement even at that 0.0 something%. Yeah, good question. So on this scale it's a little bit different. There's a different statistical answer, but um I would not say that's a significant change. It's just a you know it's a it's a slight change in the agreement scale. If it changes by more than 02 um not 002 but 2 2 then you can you could say that's a

015that's a that would fall into being deemed a significant change. Okay. No way we ever Yeah. Um and so does anybody, if you don't mind, Bill, we can take questions on like this actual data and then he's going to go into, you know, the analysis of it. Um does anybody have questions on the actual Craig? Craig did a hand up. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um the uh like for instance when it comes to the question like um all students in our school are respected for their values and beliefs. When they ask a question like that, who is that? Who is that pertaining to? Is that are we asking the staff if they feel that um other students value other students values and beliefs? Are is it parents? Is it um staff? Is it administration? I

016mean, help me wrap my mind around that specific question so that um I don't I think that might is that a water town specific question? I think it might be. Um Okay. So, that might be one that you carried that you developed previously and have carried through. Okay. Well, thank you. Um any other questions on the quantitative [Music] Let me me hopefully do this right. Let's see. Where did I put that? Um, see we don't has a lot of question. Can you see it? Too many monitors going here. Here we go. All right. So, then we did a comment analysis. Um, all right. So, what we do is we read all the comments. There were 370 total respondents of 370 253 folks or 68% roughly twothirds left at least one comment. Um so 39 left

017one comment 214 folks left two comments. There are only two places where you can leave a comment. So that um you ran out there. We really broke it into two areas. Um the first being the district strength strengths. And by the way, um it can be a strength and a weakness. In other words, you might have a group of people say supportive staff, that's our strength. And then you can go to the next section and it might be a weakness because there's another group that has concerns there. So you you can't these are different people kind of um weighing in. Um so there might be a little what might appear to be conflicting, but uh with that in mind, we've got a supportive staff. Um several comments mentioned um opportunities for professional development. Um staff

018made positive comments about a student centered approach. Um comments about technology resources. We saw that in the quantitative as well. That was a little bit higher than other areas. Uh a community sense of community within the district. The collaboration among the staff and support the broader community was frequently mentioned as a strength. There is a commitment for improvement. Um and the district's efforts to be inclusive and support of diverse student population were highlighted as important by staff. Um areas for improvement. Um communication. So respondents would like u better communication between district administration, schoolboard staff and parents including timely response of emails, clear communications of policies and changes. Um student discipline was an area we saw that both quantitatively as well as in comments. Um this is probably one of the more significant concerns not only

019with Watertown but as I mentioned with every district. Um it's a frustration for staff. I was in a I went to a board meeting the other night. It happened to be a pretty big district that actually had an elevator. Um after the meeting, I got into the into an elevator with a person who happened to be the union representative, I guess he was, and he said, "You don't have to pay us more. You just have to if if you can help us deal with um student discipline, we'd be a lot happier." And I thought that was just a a data point of one. it was not your district, but um just as an example how big of an issue that is in in with every district. Um support for staff, this kind of ranges and

020you got to remember you're you're getting comments not only from teachers but also aids um and support staff. So it kind of varies. Um but it it also parallels the quantitative results that we saw. Um I think there's a desire and you do have a unique situation where your district administration's really separate from all buildings. So they don't see administration as as often. I think that was an area of concern. uh support services, heavy case loads for special ed um and the importance and strong emphasis on the need for more mental health. And again, that is not unique to Watertown, but that is an area that um kind of goes with student discipline, more concerns with discipline, more concerned for support in the mental health areas. um better some word for ELLL um kiddos. And

021then rounding this out, we had two other ones, vision and planning. I think you you do have an initiative to do some strategic planning. So I think this one is actually beginning to be addressed as well as some initiatives to update facilities and resources. I think you're beginning to put together a plan for that. So that was the qualitative or the comment analysis for your staff survey. Questions on that? I really appreciate, you know, oh, sorry there, Bill. I just was going to say I really appreciate, you know, like um kind of how you broke that down as far as, you know, the different strengths and areas for improvement and um I'm sure you're going to go through trends and things like that, but like you said, you know, some of these things we have

022um you know, started to to address and things like that, too. So, thank you for that. there. I guess the other just general comment from looking at comments from last year to this year, um I don't know if snarky is a word, but uh last year maybe cynical. Last year they were um they were just not um that helpful where this year it felt like they were a little more constructive comments. That's hard to quantify, but just kind of more of an opinion or a feeling of the comments that we're we got this year. So, um, you know, in the for what it's worth column. So, that's, uh, that's the qualitative. Let me, how are we doing on time and and what where would you like to go next in terms of We're good, I

023think, as far as time is concerned. We've got a light agenda, other things. We allowed about 45 minutes. So, Oh, you did? Yeah. Yeah, we allowed about that for us. Um I'm not sure what else you want to cover, but I know um kind of some of the things as far as like how can we use this data? What kind of um you know, if we want to make a big push and I I get Yeah. Okay. Everybody sees, you know, student behavior and discipline and things like that, but how can Watertown set itself apart and, you know, like and so if we want to make some big leaps in some areas, you know, maybe what you've seen or how long does it take to push the needle? You know, if we started some initiatives

024this year, should we see results or if we started some initiatives, pardon me, last year, should we see results this year, how long does that take? um you know process for change different actionoriented things were kind of on our minds. I think you I first thing I would do is break it into two areas. One is um strategic initiatives which you're clearly taking you you're you're initiating strategic planning. You've got a I think you're developing a long-term facility plan. Those are strategic in nature. They're very important and if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there, right? So you you need a you need a plan. And I think you're in the process of de developing that plan. Concurrently though, if I'm a teacher, nothing nothing feels like it changed if

025you're just doing strategic planning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. But I I haven't seen any change. So I I think you also want to um and Jared and the team and and I talked about this about a month ago. Um, I think at the end of the day, what you want to do is pick a finite number, two or three, maybe four areas that uh um that are tactical. They're not strategic. They're tactical, but they're policies, practices, procedures. You know, we asked, we listen, and here are some things we are going to do. Here are some things we're going to change, or here's some things we're going to continue to do and do better. Um, but be very very specific. Um, and and they might not be that exciting, but they're um, you know, there's the

026sorts of things that you're able to stand up on opening day and talk about. Um, and you can't eat the elephant all at once, but you can begin to take little bites and uh, and that's what the staff wants to hear. And what we've seen with districts that have done this for literally decades now is they take the survey a lot more seriously because they realize this is a vehicle we can we have to express our frustrations and then they they ask they listen and they they're they're doing some things. So that's also important is not only to come up with, you know, the two or three policies or practices you're going to change, but also acknowledge it's it's in response to what we heard. We're trying to do better. We know where we've still

027got challenges and there's some things we're doing. And we actually had one district who the superintendent got up on opening day and said, uh, we asked, we listened and and, uh, here are some things we're going to do specifically in the area of professional development. and the staff raised their hand and said, "We could could we take that survey again? We didn't know you were going to take it this seriously." Um, so that was kind of an interesting story, but uh, but it it does work. It does work if you really you got to kind of own it. Um, and then uh and then come back with specific plans. Then a decision for this group, are those specific at the only at the district level or um what some districts will do is say there's

028one or two things we're going to do at each individual school because the schools are different. You've got some schools where you you've made you gain some ground. You've got other ones that are more challenged. So what some districts will do is to say we've got two or three district initiatives and each school might have you know one two or three school specific initiatives based on what we heard at a individual school level. So I would say generally speaking that's the practice and then it becomes a continuous improvement cycle after that. Okay. Do you tend to see the needle like how long do you think it takes to see the needle move or does it just I mean I I know it's kind of a asking you to look into a crystal ball kind of

029thing. It takes time. These are lagging indicators you know. So not only you ask you listen then you have to come up with something then you have to deploy that something and then you have to give it time for it to work. So it it really does it it kind of takes a year. So, some districts will reach out and say, in fact, we just got one today that said we want to do another survey this fall and they just did one this spring and we're going to do do it and it'll be real focused, but um to me it if you really want to measure growth, it's going to take probably more than six months. It takes time. Um and it also takes um it's really communication. you want to continue to talk about

030it, that you're doing it, why you're doing it, why it's important, and then uh the other thing is kind of what gets measured gets done. Um to make sure it stays in the forefront of really everyone. Um it's not just we just change it one time, but we continue to talk about it and why it's important, what we're changing. Um, so communication can move the needle almost as much as the actual change or maybe more because it's in the forefront of uh what people are thinking about. Other committee members do Yep. Diana. Um, I have a question. One of the questions on there was regarding social emotional needs and it had 44. We're in the 44th percentile that needs are being met. I was wondering what the rating was from last year if that's improved.

031We've had a focus using Panorama and some other things and that's going to be a discussion point um at the board meeting and so I'm just curious does our data does this data show any movement for the better specifically for the social emotional? Yeah, I can find that as we're talking but I don't know that off the top of my head. Oh, sorry. Well, I didn't figure it would. Yeah, I looked some of them up and it didn't go. I thought when I marked it went down. Wasn't a significant change from 47% to 44. The percentile, remember the percentile may not be up. I might have said percentile was percent. Let me double check my notes. It might have been percent. I might have misspoke just now. Um, you actually went you went down slightly.

032You went down from a um 2.88 to 2.79. So you dropped 3.13%. On the social and emotional needs of her students are being met. And you said a point 2 is significant. Yeah. And so we dropped something. You dropped u um yeah 0.09. So it's not a significant change but it was a right confusing. So we dropped 0.09. So it would not be in the significant range. Right. It's lower but it's not a significant drop. Correct. Okay. Bill, what would you say is a target as far as like average? I thought there I thought I remember being hearing something about like where you know you want to be as far as like the the one to five rating. It really varies item to item. Yeah. Dramat it really varies. Um if with discipline, for instance,

033if you could be a three, you'd be the best district in the state. Other ones, if you're a 4.25, 25, you might be in the bottom quartile. So, it really varies item to by item. No problem. I have another question, but I don't know if it's for Bill or not. Yeah. Um, Jared, have you seen this already? Has the admin team seen? The reason I'm asking that is we had a conversation at ED services about workload with the pilots and whatever. yet specific data here is saying they're feeling very overloaded. So, I'm just wondering, you know, when we got the no, we're feeling good, we're feeling okay, you know, with what Jenny said. I'm not discounting what Jenny said. I'm not questioning what she said. I'm just wondering the word the staff is saying, hey,

034and we're saying it's okay. So I was wondering so that one of the things that we have to remember like this is this survey is one data point in time right and yes some of the questions we have year-over-year data with so it means one point in time last year and the year before and year before I'm trusting like what I said to you guys in Ed services I I'm trusting that um Jenny's got a really good pulse on this right and it's grouptog groupoup and when she's talking about it. She may be talking um about how the staff are feeling with just the curriculum changes, not the curriculum changes plus everything else going on, which is what this question is getting at. So again, that's why we take multiple data points. This is why

035we we do this activity and other activities throughout the year, the rounding sessions that we do and everything else to try to get feedback. You know, um we're trying to triangulate all those pieces of information to see how we're doing. But I'm not saying that to say we don't take this as value because we think it's very valuable data. So don't don't take it to say that. I just don't know how to how to quantify that. And that's why I always lead it towards let's talk to the person who's closest to that issue, right? And when we're talking about curriculum and their ability to take on more, she's reporting back. You know, elementary is probably at their limits, but I have some rooms in other places where I can get some movement. Well, that was

036going to be my followup. It's broken down by elementary, you know, schools and whatever, so they can specifically see. But no, thank you. Good. Well, I have one more, but I figured I'd let everybody else. Well, well, go at it. Go at it. And then we've got Craig and then Lori. Yep. Go ahead. Um, behavior behavior's come up consistently over the years and one of the questions that I have and this is mainly a committee question is is behavior affects everything. It affects teaching. It affects learning. It affects so many other pieces of that. Is this something that perhaps needs to be addressed either inadvertently or vertently through the strategic plan as an improvement piece? um somehow I don't know is it something that we need to look at and I'm wondering I'm not dictating

037I'm wondering is it something that we need to look at administrative guidelines because they they talk about consistency in administration and and whatever um what can we do to be supportive there I know that Bill said pick two or three things and and I'm not saying this has to be one of them but this is a common denominator that's happened over time. So, I'm just wondering if that's something that we need to look a little closer at. Maybe not in this committee, but maybe it goes to a different committee or maybe it goes somewhere else to get movement and traction. I mean, I think that's a, you know, other might be able to weigh in on this, but, um, I know in HR we brought that up and, um, I think it was maybe the

038beginning of last year, um, you know, we were asking about like we had some in some principles come in and talk about, you know, restorative practices and I know there's been, you know, reporting out and things like that. Um my concern and I don't know exactly how it fits into HR um but I would like to see it whatever that looks like for HR because this greatly affects employee culture and that affects you know retention recruitment you know all those things related to that um you know which in turn of course affects you know student achievement and you know those kinds of things I'm sure I don't have the stats on it um so I don't know what that looks like in HR If I can just a little bit like this is one that

039um has some uh feel of frustration too um not only with the board but administration. This this has been discussed about um behavior for a number of years uh you know well before I got here and and some of the things that the the district has done um and we we've worked on a number of different policies around behavior like bullying policy and some other things. Um we've uh tightened up our processes around expulsion and suspension. Um we've been doing a lot of that work over the last two years that I've been here. We've been creating uh better uh data portrait or data walls around that. We've done things like restorative practice and other things to try to put those in place. Um uh and yet we're still seeing a report of this in an

040area where 80% of the effect can be done right within the classroom by the teacher themselves. But yet it feels like it's not getting uh worked on or taken care of. At least that's what we're getting reported back. And so that's a frustration point because we're we're we're doing a lot of work in that and we're still not seeing some results. And so this next year I have to dig in a little bit more with staff to say what is it about um discipline that's not really um that you feel like it's not um coming around um because we've done all these things. We've we've worked on restorative practices and I will tell you um the area that's done the most work in that is the middle school and that's probably where the data feels

041like maybe um it's actually getting a little bit better than worse at least from other reports that we're getting and I don't know Bill from this survey standpoint how that came u but u we're we're still asking the question like if this is 80% where you you have uh a lot more control of that in your own classroom, but it's still not getting better. Like, what is it that you need support in? How can we help you? How can we um do do something to make that change? Because what we're working on doesn't seem like it's getting the result in the classroom, even though we're working on policies, we're working on larger structures, we're working on gathering data, you know, all these other things that we are working on. It just doesn't seem to have

042an effect. So, that's that's a you know, but that's a perfect example. So you don't necessarily have to have the answer, but if you stood up opening day and say that's going to be one of our initiatives this year and to help crack that nut, we are going to be reaching out and asking staff for their specific example or ideas of things that we can do change to improve in that area. If that's a major frustration for a staff member and I hear that, even though I don't know what you're going to do yet, I'd be happy that you're going to do something. Um, so you don't necessarily have to have the answer, but you just have to declare it as a problem. You know, before we can solve the problem, we got to define

043the problem. And that that's a good example of maybe something you pick. Um, I know you've done some work already on um potential projects, but or areas of focus, but that's a good example of what and and then and then you have the staff weigh in to come up with some ideas. And I think too when we take that example like you know in the areas for improvement student discipline like some of it is what they're telling us as far as you know lack of respect and the need for clear and consistent consequences for misbehavior you know so who who are the people that are you know delegating out the consequences you know and what does that you know so I think that helps us you know some of It's this data helps us to,

044you know, if they're telling us those things, that can at least give us a a part to be able to point to to be like, okay, this is like J was saying, as you do a little investigation, it might be I don't want to simplify it too much. It might be something as simple as this is a classroom management thing. This is this is classroom level. This is administration level. And it might be at the building something as um simple as that to show here's a first step. Okay, once it gets three times that then it gets to the administrative level and there might just be teacher A thinks this automatically goes to administration but it's not an administrative type behavior. It's a classroom. Craig, put your hand down real quick, bud. Jeff H. Okay,

045go ahead. Keep going. Diana, was that all you had on that? Okay, go ahead. Um, yeah, I just uh I wonder how much of this is all all pretty much related. I mean, we're looking at um this particular staff survey report dated May 15th of 2024. Um when was the actual um surveys taken uh or completed, I should say, uh for staff? I'm assuming it was probably late in the school year, right? April 29th. Yeah, April 29th was the deadline. So, you're probably mid to end of April. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, by by that point in time, uh it's kind of like the the the the heat of the school year, things are really really intense and um when it when it comes to workload, the perception of workload, um I kind of wonder

046if maybe uh you know, your sub subfill rate and dealing with those types of challenges. Then you're talking about behaviors and then there's other comments about efficiencies and things of that nature. Those are kind of all kind of cumulative on one's perspective of, you know, that form form their opinion of of where we're where we're at when it comes to workload. Um like for instance, efficiency, okay, can overlap into tardies and stuff like that. Well, that could also be a um a behavioral thing. you know, um, teachers, I understand, are required to record their own tardies and track those and at the classroom level. Why, um, perhaps maybe we can put software in that could be handled at the building level, not necessarily at the classroom level. I mean, it's just an example of of

047how we can actually kind of alleviate some of these concerns um, and and hopefully move the needle a little bit. Okay. Thank you. Lori, did you have something? Well, I it's kind of on what Craig just didn't we talk at one point I'm trying to remember about changing the time of when we did this? Did we decide? We did that already. Yeah. This this year and last year, I believe, were the where the and we got better response. Yeah. Like a better response rate. Yeah. And we did get a better response rate. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. No, good question. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I agree with most of what's been said so far. Uh, I had an opportunity to speak to 12 or 15 employees. Some were custodians, some were lunch ladies, some were whatever. And

048they all were very frustrated since co. So that goes right along with what Bill was saying. Um, I'm I'm not sure that I buy into restorative justice at the administrative level. I think teachers can have an effect that way. And I think they naturally do that. If uh the at least Dian I don't know if it was your experience, but when when I was teaching, if I had a problem with a kid in class, I'd say stay after and we talked and uh or you know something similar. Um, if that didn't work, then I needed the administration to help him. And there's some kids that don't care enough to want to restore that relationship. We need the administration to get tougher. And I think that's what I heard and I know teachers that have left

049and I spoke with them and it's uh and I remember Margaret saying this is everywhere. Um, that's one thing that our district could stand out on. we could be attractive to students and their parents and teachers and we would keep teachers if we could get a handle on that. And I think that should be one of the major points that we focus on this year, maybe even before this year, this fall. uh because um we want to market ourselves as being, you know, uh techsavvy and and and STEM programs and everything else, but this is something that gets right down to every classroom. So, I think we need to look at restorative justice at the principal level because the couple of subs I talked to said uh they finally sent the kid out of class

050and the principal sent them back and they come in smirking and they're getting no support and and I know you're doing a little bit of investigating into the old blue slip program and so forth, but I think the teachers need more administrative board. Thank you. And I think that came through in a couple areas I think that I saw as far as that goes as well. Um if I'm not mistaken as far as that goes. Um so kind of too I mean I in whatever whatever parting guidance you might have for us here Bill but um I think typically what we've done as far as at the HR level here um and at the board level is you know doing like Bill had had suggested you know we kind of pick two three areas that

051are like okay this is what we feel like should be the focus area and that's our job as far as the direction and then um you Jared and his team kind of take it and decide like, okay, what does that look like and where is, you know, where is the breakdown, you know, of those things and then decide the education plan or whatever. And then usually come back to bring it back to you guys and share this is we heard what you said. Here's some of the plans that we're going to be implementing and then we share partway through the year how we think it's going and what we usually do. So, as far as just kind of a process, rephrase what I just heard. I think I just heard that we kind of set

052the direction for Jared and his team. I'm wondering would it make sense? And tell me if it doesn't. They've got all of the smaller detail information. We've got super high level to see, okay, yeah, this makes sense, this doesn't. you know, in all of the elementary schools, this is going well, but it's a secondary issue here, but we're really struggling at elementary and this. Wouldn't it make sense for them to come with three or four and us to say, "Okay, of these three, I'm just wondering which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does it make sense? They're the one with the knowledge and expertise within education and then okay, here's four items. pick three from their knowledge and expertise as opposed to us picking blindly going, "Okay, I like this one, this one, and

053this one." Even though we do have some input, I'm just wondering what others think and feel on that. I I would vote for um and I think Jared and his team, that's really they're the experts there. They should come. I I think it's the board's responsibility to provide oversight, not specifics. um but for the board to make sure there's a process in place where they're you know that you're going to be making some improvements. But yeah, I I I like the the B if you're it was A and B with you doing it or administration. I think it's going to work better if the administration does it um because they do have access. And so for instance um going down to the next level of detail, the middle school is really doing some great work.

054Um there's really we saw pretty significant improvements at the middle school level. So find out what they're doing there and are there any best practices there that could be transferred to the other other other schools. That's the sort of detail that I think Jared and his team want to drill into and then come back and make a recommendation. But I would vote for that in the peanut gallery. No, I'm curious in because we don't have we just have Exactly. But we also, you know, I think from the from the different, you know, things that we see and stuff like that, picking, you know, kind of giving our input as far as like, okay, yeah, I think it's collaborative. I think you say, here are some things and you can debate it, but yeah, I I

055think you you work together, but ultimately I think Jared's got to own the plan um that that he's going to be deploying with his team. Mike, no, I agree. Good point. Uh that we're oversight completely. Uh so it it was me asking I would say Jared, can you bring in the next meeting or two three or four things that you think are important? If we agree, great. If we disagree, we can say go back to the drawing board, right? But uh really I agree this is this is your wheelhouse. Okay. Do we have anything else? Oh. Um, one other thing as far as Oh, did you have something, Brent? Oh, okay. Um, as far as the building, did Craig ever get to ask his question? I think he did. Okay. Sorry. After the kid asked

056to put his hand out, it all turned into a blur for a moment. Um, oh, as far as um building specific information, um, what would be the appropriate venue for us to be able to, you know, measure those kinds of things or what, like we have the overview on this. I know Bill, you mentioned as far as um, building specific information. Yeah. So, like like go ahead, Bill, if you want to share. Go ahead. No, I Well, the one thing I would say is that's the next level of detail. And what can happen is um you can begin to if I'm a staff member at a at the elementary and whatever, all of a sudden I I start to feel not too anonymous anymore. So, you need to be careful and to kind of honor

057that commitment to anonymity. Um but you also need to look at that data. Um so, you kind of want to strike a balance there. So, so our next steps, you know, um that we regardless of how we initiated that, like who's first, the the board or the administration or who's going to start in the end, we're going to come up with a plan that's going to have specifics and we're going to have to come up with how are we going to measure those specifics. That's where we will come in with here's ideas. Here's some specifics that we can measure. It may be utilizing Bill and his team for some survey work. It may be looking at other ways that we can look at metrics or whatever. But in the end, it's all going to be

058designed towards getting to whatever goal it is that we think is going to be most important or goals um as we move forward utilizing this data. I remind you that this data also is uh one set of data that comes into much larger pictures that we're dealing with with strategic planning including things that we're going to be having plans and measures for and everything else. So we want to take this incorporate it into those plans so that we can uh address more right uh with with uh you know try try to address as much as we can with our strategic plan and the goals that go around that um that that that link all these together. So I mean it's it's a good and exciting time but it's um something that we're as we're moving

059forward and implementing these things having that data is going to be really important to say okay how are we going to measure that little piece. Okay. Anybody else have any other questions for Bill and then we can kind of continue our our discussion. Okay. I think we're all good. Bill, thank you so much for your time and information. Have a good night. Thank you. Thanks. Um, so, so just so you know, we did get a notification from Zoom that this meeting and another meeting are potential bombants and you get people that come in and and those are the people I'm removing if I don't have the ability to mute them or they start to take over the screen. That's what's going on there. It's not that. So, it wasn't Craig. No, Craig had his hand

060up. But, I mean, when the guy asked him to put it down, it was like, "Okay." Yeah. No, you're missing a little circus over here. Wasn't somebody doing a great job. I'm sorry, but that's just just so you know what's going on. So, it be I thought it was our IT department talking to me. Whatever. No. No. Um, so I think out of that, like what are some of the themes I guess just to kind of maybe see what the next steps, you know, are together? I mean, I think obviously student behavior, you know, really stood out to all of us. I mean, you know, seen it in other areas and things like that as well. Um, are there other things that kind of stuck out to people that, um, you're like, "Oh, um, I

061know as far as as I was kind of looking through this, um, as far as, uh, 51% as far as the district's pay practices are fair." Um, you know, I think we're doing things to address those. So I'm ex I'm excited about that because we're actually taking response from that in addition to all the other you know elements that you talked about and you know that Margaret has brought up as far as HR is concerned and retention and recruitment and you know keeping our pulse on that. So um you know although that one is a low area as far as a 51% we are doing something um in that area to address that. Um I also saw the um sorry I can't see where it is now. Um but as far as like the district's

062mission and vision you know like as far as the board and the work that we are doing um you know like hey give us a clear there's no clear direction and we know that you know we've been talking about that over the last year year and a half or however long it's been that our job as a board that's something that we can affect. So then, okay, great. So, we're on the, you know, strategic plan path, you know, the the building. Yeah. Yep. All those kinds of things. So, I think we can feel good that we are actually, you know, like we're taking the the survey information and the time and effort that people put into these things um to be able to act, you know, put it into action items to be able to

063have a positive effect. So, I think we can feel good about those things. Um, but I think too, you know, we just we also need to, you know, I know the the board has not always been rated very high in areas and, you know, those things too. I think we need to be reflective of those. Um, that it's not just, you know, pointing a finger. We're all working together and what part of that do we own and what part of that, you know, can we be a part of moving the needle in a in a good way as well. So, um, oh, here year-over-year change. that was the the biggest one as far as um at the end were 3.12. So there was a 7.42% change. So that was um significant that way. So we

064are doing something about that. So I think we can we can feel good about that. Um Craig, did you have something you wanted to add? Yeah. Yeah. I guess a couple of things I wanted to add is when you say that we're providing direction, I would clarify and say that we want to be able to provide board unified direction because uh we don't want to have split decisions going forward and in when it comes to strategic planning and stuff like that, we want to have a concise direction as a board. So, uh that would be one of them. The other one I I do take slight issue with the previous comment about the chicken or the egg and and um leaving everything to the experts and then coming back to us for for um you

065know which ones are going to make the most sense because uh first of all I don't feel like I'm an idiot idiot as a board member. Um and also when we're we're asking um the staff to solve a problem that they haven't been able to uh solve for many years and is indicated in this particular survey. I think we'd have to be careful with that conversation. I don't see how it's not a collaborative conversation. I just don't Let me clarify. A I never intended for you to feel like an idiot or anything that way at all. Um secondly it will be collaborative my assumption because we are together as a team the administration the board. My question was simply who do we want to start the process? You know Tina just rattled off five or

066six different things that whether they be her themes or themes that she had heard throughout the night. Um my mere suggestion was just as we go to do that, could the starting point come from the administration that has much more intricate detail than what we do. They can see all of the different building responses. They can see, you know, we just got super high level. So yeah, we we could share themes and I don't know if anybody else has themes that they haven't shared that was out there. Um, yeah. So, I apologize if you took offense to it. Was no, I think I need to make a clarification statement, too, because uh my comments weren't intended to uh lay blame at the teachers level. Uh I didn't say I'm blaming the teachers or I think

067that it's their fault that this hasn't gotten fixed. I said it it's it is a conundrum that all of the work that's being done, right? And where where teachers have a lot of control in their classroom is discipline, right? How is that still evading all of us? How can we work at that together? And it was more of a question, certainly not teacher blaming. I know our teachers are fabulous, you know, when it comes to uh teaching and doing that. But my question is is what do they feel is missing out? Because even with the 110% they give, right? they're feeling like discipline's still a problem. That's concerning to me as I come alongside them to to issue a response to that. Not a blaming. I would not blame the teachers at all. I know

068they're giving 110%. It's just with the 110% they give or more, the discipline still not being affected, right? And that's a it's a concern of mine. like how how is that still not getting affected with all the work that they're doing, all the work that this board's doing, all the work that the administration is doing? Why aren't we being successful? Also, be careful leading into a single data point there, right? We are asking teachers about discipline in the classrooms. We're not asking about discipline in their classroom. So if I'm a teacher and I know I have friends in the district as we've seen from this the teachers have you know good friends in this district that if I said they're having trouble in the classroom and they're talking to me and saying this sucks they're

069not doing anything for us like this and if I'm voting on this and go yeah you know what we have a problem with discipline in our classroom but I don't have discip problem with my discipline in the classroom so you may end up having a skewed result to that Because yes, we have discipline in the classroom, but it's not, you know, specific. I'd like to know, do you have discipline in your problems discipline in your classroom from the teacher? And that might give you implicit a different response than does the district overall have discipline issues in their classrooms and how does that bear out? That is one of the things where if you see a a point of data like this where discipline is an issue, follow up, get a different survey, dig into this

070with more directed comments, more directed questions on this to get more data on this because right now we're looking this going, "Yep, discipline's a problem on one data point. We need to have more information around that. Followup, surveys, you know, questions with the teachers, focus groups, that sort of thing." I I guess my only clarification is that um I'm looking for somebody to take the lead on on that. Um because it sounds to me from from from staff staff satisfaction that there is a disconnect between uh the consistencies of discipline and at the building level potentially and what the board is handing down for guidance and direction. and somebody's actually going to have to solve that problem. Um, and and actually take the lead on it. If if we don't want to say it's the

071the board, but we we do provide oversight and provide direction. I I I don't know. Fine. It's a matter of semantics, but let's figure it out. Okay. Thank you, Lori. Well, and I think to something to think about, it may not be that it's just a problem at a specific building, but we're going from elementary to RMS to the high school. We want to make sure there's some, you know, make sure it's not in, you know, like we even see with curriculum and and with, you know, those kinds of things. We we want to make sure that there's balance so that, you know, they're doing something at the middle school and they're not doing it at the high school, which we've seen sometimes there's that disconnect there and that can cause for more problems for

072sure. So, it may not be at fault necessarily for a building just to make sure we have the district, you know. Yeah. an end to that. If they're doing something at one location and it's working, we need to make sure we take that through. We've had good success from at the high school with the cell phone policy, we need to broaden that and bring that down to the other locations as well. Not that I expect a lot of kindergarters pull out the navigation, but never we we know that this can be a problem. So, you know, when we have wins, share the wins. Just as much as we want to make sure that if something is in place, we make it across all of them and don't have those gaps. Um, and I I think

073too like we personal conversations, I mean, and you guys are going to need to figure this out the how, you know, so we kind of need to bring it back up to, you know, so we're kind of sounds like from our perspective, what we're gathering, what's important is, you know, student discipline that, you know, that factor is affecting employee satisfaction. Um, I guess another theme that I think I saw um was um teachers feeling or staff I should say feeling supported. Now that can mean a million different things, you know. Um, you know, I know we, you know, have a communications person now and, you know, communication has brought been brought up quite a bit. You know, maybe maybe support for them looks, you know, you'll have to decide what that looks like. Um, but

074it seems like that's kind of something that I've heard from this that I've heard from different conversations and things like that. Um, so I guess that's my two cents as far as the two things that probably stand out the most that I would that I would see. Well, I said, but like it is conflicting sometimes, right? Like I think there is something to say about not reading too much because for instance in support 82% strongly agree that our school supports students from diverse backgrounds but only 68% feel that the staff have have training and support to work with students from different backgrounds. So even it's kind of the same thing but it can mean very different things depending on the person. I mean that's that's kind of where surveys where they kind of can be

075you know because in one breath it looks really good but then when you drop down to 68% how are they supporting students if they don't have the train you know what I'm saying and remember we're getting 50,000 miles that could be more isolated at one or two buildings as opposed to the other that's why I said okay we start you know with Jared and his team because he has all of the information not just the 50,000 mile exactly Yeah. view of it, you know. Okay. Yes. I want to go back to something Margaret said a lot many years ago about how in her ex interviews she's finding that a lot of people are leaving education totally for other jobs. Now they spent several years in college heading towards a teaching career and then they're changing.

076And it seems they're saying a lot of it has to do with the discipline or lack thereof in schools. And I think one thing that we found from these community meetings, the strategic meetings, is that the community does want to get involved. We've got people attending these things. And we heard from people at the very first meeting that they would like to see more listening sessions and I believe I heard from the board that we hadn't done this for five years or something like that. uh you know the strategic plan listening sessions with the community uh you know um I don't know town hall meetings that sort of thing I think I think that would be effective to do with the teachers too if we could have you know teachers knowing if you show up

077here um we want to hear what are your ideas about better discipline how can we support you how can we help you and so if we could have um one listening session a quarter at least then the community feels like they you saw examples of that when they come on those Monday nights they want to talk but they never get an answer from us on Monday nights and if we give them a chance to talk and we listen maybe we'll get some some good answers and if if they if they feel heard Maybe then they'll feel valued more. And you know what I'm saying? You're saying we the board, not we the district. When you say we need to have listening sessions, can you clarify? We the the board. We the board. Well, and I

078I think we'll take note of that. I think that that's another bigger discussion as far as, you know, if it's specific to, you know, an issue that's more of a management, you know, type of issue or, you know, strategic level, you know, that kind of thing. Well, let me ask this. Is there a policy that would um keep me from doing it? I don't know, but I want to keep us focused on this. Okay. So, I'm not sure where that belongs where. It's a good question. Very good question. I'm just saying it's just not going to be part of our discussion right here right now. Okay. So, can I ask a follow-up question to that because I think I understand what he's saying and how it relates. Yeah, it's it's how it relates to an

079HR meeting and discussion about specifically the feedback that we've gotten from teachers. So I think correct me if I'm wrong but I think what you're saying is that it would be helpful if you could hear directly from teachers who are willing to bring their their their thoughts um in a more precise manner instead of having this big broad very abstract generalized question like do you feel like students are supported then you get actual either anecdotal or just specified stuff in general. So, I think that's the reason that he was bringing it up there and that's something that I've been turning over in my head too when I've been hearing about a lot of things that have been going on. I think that does fit really well, right? And that's where I'm saying like that's a

080different discussion. I just have to keep us moving. Um, but you know, valid points. Um, but I think that will need to be addressed as far as is that something we can look into or something we have done in the past. Teachers have been hesitant for doing that in the past because they actually put their name on it. uh and you know if they're going to be in the room the the boarding that so we know who they are this is anonymous uh if there is a desire from the staff to do that I don't see a reason for us as a board not to but it's something we would have to look into and I would want to coordinate with Jared Margaret on that how we do that so thank you thank you good

081discussion um so of course as far as the employee satisfaction survey I mean that also, you know, we have those items. We have the strategic plan going. So hopefully within the next the strategic plan is going to be ready for board evaluation. When do we Sorry to put somebody on the spot. Do we know about No. Um it's it's set to do so at our August meeting. Okay. And we think that that will probably be where we are. Um you know, barring any change between now and then. I mean, okay. you know, that's still six weeks out easily. So, we can So, that would be a good like strategic plan, employee satisfaction survey. So, so may I circle back to the action item? Yes, that's where it's going. Thanks, Margaret. Um, so I think it

082would make sense as far as an action item is concerned um to for admin to come back to the next HR meeting with like two or three things that you want to focus on as far as the affecting the employee satisfaction survey. Does that sound accurate? Three action items, specific tactical items that you want specific well specific areas that you're going to develop plans of. Does that sound right? the themes themes discipline needs I would think would we kind of agree needs to be one of of those for sure. All right. Does that sound good? I know there's a lot out there and things like that. Kind of trying to bring it back down into a focused thing there. Okay. All right. We're all good. Yeah. Okay. Moving on to letter B, our consent agenda.

083We do have um a resolution um for onestaff appointment that was listed. Not much action there. Anything to say about that, Margaret? Yep. Just that there will be another teacher hire. I had an accepted offer this morning. And then we did have another uh par resignation from uh someone who has accepted a full-time job elsewhere. So, I mean that it'll grow a little bit. I I may have two more offers going out before the board meeting, but we for the remaining vacancies, we still have some activity coming in and we're pretty close to offers. So, okay, we're looking good otherwise. Okay, that sounds good. And it I know since I think last year we had more PAR activity and things like that, but that's going to start more like in August, right? Yep. Yeah. On

084that, excuse me, that that process timeline to be a little more effective. The way assessing vacancies right now in terms of preparing for our recruitment for um within the next few weeks, we'll start to get those postings rolled out. Okay, sounds good. Anybody have any questions on the consent agenda? Okay, we're good there. Um we did not have a summer school, it sounds like. No, we didn't. Okay. Um, that brings us to letter C, support staff salary project update. Margaret's got a plan. So, there is a plan that has been um posted in the uh board docs which is just a high level plan of how we're pro proceeding through the implementation for uh summer school or for the support staff salary. Hello. [Music] Hold on for just one second. Go ahead, Margaret. And if

085you recall, we did um approve the support staff um we did approve the um support staff proposal um at I don't recall what month that board meeting was, but we did approve that part of it. And so Margaret's part of it is um the implementation plan because that's going to take some time. So she has put together this plan along with she's got quite a crew there working with her as far as the implementation is concerned. Um and so she put together a very nice timeline for us to give us different categories and who exactly is going to be affected along the way. And I know there's notices and information. And there's a whole there's individualized notices that need to be prepared. We also have an an significant system update that we'll need to do

086once we align and map everybody's individual rates to the new schedule. So, um, we put together a process that starts with we'll be meeting with Jared next week, um, for as soon as we can to to iron out a few last minute, uh, questions on certain individuals, and then we'll go from that to overall mapping, set up the system for the changes, set up the um, communications for this the changes, and then work with the Carlson Deton is providing the um, some of the uh presentation and slides for most of the staff information sessions and then we'll follow that up at the very end with Q&A sessions for um for all staff and I mean we'll be ringing that out over don't admit just wait okay um over well it's a public meeting that's thank

087you Margaret for managing the meeting we already understand that that person is So, um, so I I think we're in good order. Um, you know, we're feeling pretty good about how we're going to set that all up and what the effects of that will be. Uh, particularly for certain groups that have been hard to recruit for, like pair of professionals. We'll be seeing some nice adjustments going through. Um, that will definitely position us better in the market. So, that should help with our recruitment coming up. Good. Good. Well, thank you so much. I know they'll be excited to to go through that process and I hope so. You know, thank you for all the time and information so that they'll, you know, each have their own individual thing. I know a lot of work has

088gone into that. A lot of time. So, thank you for that. Committee members, any questions on that? Dan, did you have a question? I did not. You're good. Okay. All right. Um and then as far as um we'll do uh future meeting planning, then we'll go into close session. Um as far as um future meeting planning, we've got August, we'd have the um consent agendas, we will have the information um that we had talked about as far as the health insurance renewal information. Um Jagger will be attending that either in person or virtually. So Okay. Excellent. And he's our um health insurance rep. Excellent. Any questions? You know, he can we've seen him before in one of our meetings there. Um we will also have staffing updates. Um a couple of the So, as far

089as action items coming out of this one, we have the employee satisfaction item and then um we'll have the exit turnover and transfer data that will be presented in August. We'll have that as an action item. Um and then our um perhaps closed session will also produce an action item is what I'm figuring there. So that would be three action items. Does that sound good according to the committee? All right. Any non-committees? Okay. All right. Um, do we any questions on future meeting planning or any topics that Yes, Diana? Um, I'm wondering the employee satisfaction survey results we have in July. I believe they're always posted in July. given what Bill said today of you know using maybe the he didn't specifically state this I'm putting using maybe the back to school welcome meeting as

090hey we heard you folks or within the first month or so is July um enough time to do that being here we are July 15th we're bringing new teachers back about August 15th August 20ish does that give enough time um or should employee satisfaction results come maybe a month earlier. That's my I'm wondering. They have No, they have in the past. They have in the past come in June, but we weren't able to connect with Phil. That's what the correct. Okay. I was just wondering, you know. Yep. No, good. Yes, because usually it does come in June to be able to give us, I believe, a little bit more of that buffer as far as that goes. Um, so that'll be a little bit little bit quicker turnaround there. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, we'll book

091him a little earlier. I mean, he does a lot of presentations in June. No, I get it. Yeah. No, that was good. Anything else as far as future meeting planning? Craig, um the turnover exit data in August. Yep. Maybe a good time to just sneak in some talk about uh listening sessions because we'll find out, you know, some data from that as well. So, yeah. and then we'd have more input from from what that looks like or whatever, too. So, okay, great. All right, moving on to um close session. Do I have a motion to go into close session? Second, Mike and second by Diana. Um vote as far as Mike white vote. Yes. Sorry. Okay. No, that's okay. Dan. Yes. Thank you. Myself. Yes. Was that okay, Margaret? I didn't know. Okay. Good. Okay.

092Yeah. Now we're safe because I don't have to admit. Okay. Okay. I was like, I'll do double duty and we know we're covered. Okay. So, we are now in close session. Um the reason for being in close session, we have the educator compensation model request for proposal. As you recall, this has been um on our on our docket previously and Margaret came to us and we needed to adjust um some things and stuff like that as far as the temperature read that she has and now she has a new report for us. Margaret, go ahead. So um the last time we talked about this, we had two vendors, Gallagher and Mercer had submitted um um responses by that time. And then we had talked and revisited the critical success factors as it related to measuring

093compensation or measuring student specific student outcomes in a classroom for the purposes of determining pay. and we expanded consideration of other means other than simply student success in the classroom as a means for a direct correlation to teacher compensation. And by doing that, we did um get a bid from Carlson Deman. Um I think one of the things I just want to point out from the get-go is that there is significant price differences. And if we start at the top which is Mercer, Mercer is from if you're an HR person the gold standard of compensation surveying and position data and I mean they are like a go-to for Fortune 500 companies. They are very rich company very well staffed a lot of bench but they also are charging a price that reflects the status of

094their company. I would I imagine anyone that's worked for a Fortune 500 company has had some experience working with Merced Mercer data or is um their HR people certainly have. So um but they also are coming at a price tag that and we had talked with Sarah Duncan about that is simply un unattainable for our school district. But credit to them for actually even taking the time to put through, you know, the respect of a bid. So, um, Gallagher is also a global insurance uh, brokerage risk assessment and HR consulting firm. Um, they do have a presence in the state of Wisconsin. It is not as strong for compensation consulting. Um they also have a rather um deep bench in terms of of their uh resources available. They do not have much in the way

095of local presence as it relates to Wisconsinbased uh compensation challenges like you know the the language that is in um uh Wisconsin statutes the chapter 118 with respect to collective bargaining the nuances of CPI and and um collective bargaining. So they they don't have as much experience as Carlson Deman, but I would also say that they have some experience. I think one of the drawbacks to Gallagher is that they will they will provide a project manager, but beyond that we wouldn't have much in the terms of of individual person dedicated resources to our project. So we would have one managing director, so to speak, and then that would pretty much be our go-to person. we wouldn't have the ability to go deeper into their bench to you know other than at their direction. So I

096mean that's part of working with a multinational global firm. I although um you know I they are starting to build more of a presence in Wisconsin. It still isn't as deep as Carlson Deman. They did do for better for worse a compensation study for Milwaukee public schools. uh you know they kind of have a little bit of a financial black eye right now. So I don't know if that is in their favor or works against them but that's kind of one of their probably their uh only recent school district uh client in in Wisconsin. uh Carlson Deman, I think some of you already know, you met Jenna Bedwell and Brian Carlson who have been the project consultants for the support staff salary survey. They are have been since um since uh the passage of act

09710, they have been a local consulting firm that has been specifically developed as a result of the changes that came through in public sector compensation through the passage of act 10. They um have been surveying and collecting data on uh most public sector entities in Wisconsin state government and in school districts throughout Wisconsin. So they we know that they have a a specific proprietary database as well as a well-developed knowledge of the nuances associated with teacher compensation in the state of Wisconsin from a personal you know from a a standpoint of having some organizational contact with them. We found them to be thorough um very interactive in terms of helping us guide how we wanted the support staff salary project to work out. Um they listened uh very well to the direction that we had

098provided them in terms of how we saw the support staff salary project rolling out and were very um helpful in guiding the the discussion when it came to you know where do we want to establish ourselves in the market? What types of structure do we want? What are we seeing in terms of questions? I mean they were very responsive. I know they spent some time with those of you that were here for the presentation and I think that we at the administrative level have a level of comfort working with them because of their you know of our experience working with them on support staff salary from a if we were going strictly based on price they would also come in by far the least expensive for the district. Um and and so if we had

099to make a recommendation to the HR committee, we we would um be very pleased in working with uh Carlson. Um we we could I'm sure do equally well with Gallagher and um but that's at a cost that's almost double plus expenses for the district which given what I've understood the financial situation to be might might not work in our favor. So thank you Margaret. That's all I have on the RFP. Does anybody have any questions regarding the RFP? Okay. Um I would like to propose to the HR committee that we take Margaret's recommendation of the Carlson Deman and um put that forth then I believe that would go to a resolution then for the July board meeting. Yeah. So to make a recommendation that we go forward with that sound supportive of that. Yeah, I

100think that sounds good. Um, Margaret, thank you for taking the information that you had originally gotten, recognizing the position, you know, that we're in, you know, as far as, you know, finances and even the organizations, you know, that were responding to us, and then taking that, coming back to us and saying, "Hey, this is what I think, you know, so that we we could find something like you did a great job being able to find us something that's going to work better for us, and I think this this sounds really good." So, Um, okay. I'm just gonna tell you I was it in case Carl and Deman, but they came through. So, um, okay. So, that's an action item then that I'll break for. Yes, that would be our that would be um the an

101educator RFP action item as far as bringing that forth then for consent agenda or not consent agenda or resolution. I'm sorry. A lot of words flying around. Okay. Um, any more business in close session? I think we're good. Okay. Is there a motion to go back into open session? Move. Second. First by Dan, moved by Dan, second by Diana. Can we do an all in favor? All in favor? I. All right, we're back into open session. Um, techally open. You're supposed to do a roll call, but we'll just keep That's what I thought, but I I you know me. I'm a stickler. That's what I was going to do. Sorry, Margaret. I thought ahead for I thought ofation close. We need a roll. I think it's both you have to do. Well, I think we're

102right. If there's further business to discuss open um Okay. So, I just want to provide some clarity as far as the action items we go. We have um the action items that we have. We have the um resolution that we just discussed. We have the um employee satisfaction survey to come back with two or three items out of that or two or three of you know what I'm talking about categories. Um and then we have the exit turnover and transfer data information that will be brought forth in August. And then my apologies I don't know where oh go back can can you go back to number one please? Yes. Number one was the item that we just discussed in close session. Okay. bringing that to resolution. And number two is the employee satisfaction survey. Y

103bringing two to three things back to the committee. And then number three is the exit turnover turnover and transfer data which we previously we talked about last month but we didn't officially have it as an item. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you. Um and then I just wanted to you know what come back to the listening sessions question. Where does where does that information lie as far as like coming back with that information? I'm just asking because I don't know. Is that an HR or a board operations? Is that a a planning committee type of thing? I don't know. We can use it to gather information that would help HR, but I don't know exactly where that where that lands. So I I mean just from a an historical perspective, we have had in um other years

104listening sessions for the board where the board would set up various locations here in the building. Fred, maybe you remember this where staff were invited to come in to talk to board members and then we had like a table set out in the lobby for staff to come in. We had one back in the conference room. I think we may have used your office and then one in the board room. And then board members had been split up amongst those um those areas. And then we had allocated I don't know 15 or 20 minutes for people to spend at each table and then the board members had been working off of essentially a set of questions or that were like rounding questions. Do you know what's going well? What do you need to you know

105do you have the resources to do your job? You know what changes or improvements would you make? And and is there anyone that you want to recognize? So we did have those types of sessions in the past but that was done from the board level not from any specific committee level. So for whatever that's worked that was one approach that was used. We broke it up by location. So we had me in each of the different elementaryaries and we had within the middle school and the high school and we had we had a representative from the administration there as well. Um but we asked staff if they were comfortable or not with it and it depended upon the location. Um I do remember there being disagreement uh from the middle school staff at the time.

106This is prejason um for this um about having someone there there when we asked Webster they're like oh of course Brad can sit in he'd be fine. So it's going to depend on that. So um it is up to the administration to decide if they want someone there representative or if we just have the board with the teachers. Yeah. If you if you want to do something like this, like I said, it's it's doable, but there'll also be some things that you know, I'll share with you that you'll probably want to follow so that um you can protect your interest in the note takingaking as well as the interest of the person that gave it to you. For instance, um if even if there's more than one administrator and and we're taking personal notes, um

107I don't ask uh Margaret, hey, what did you take for a note? Because the moment we start sharing our notes back and forth, they become a record, right? So what we do is I say, Margaret, bring your themes that you came up with for the day. I'll bring my themes and once we discuss this the themes, right? And agree on the themes that becomes the record, right? So that she's not violating any confidences from any one staff member. I'm not, you know, and I'm certainly not saying where did you which teacher did you get that from it because remember those become public record uh if you start doing that um without having a format. So we would want to go over maybe the format again of what you guys are going to do to to

108be able to do that and still protect confidences. I guess what I would like to do with that discussion is it sounds like I I guess I would feel better if maybe that became maybe a board discussion. I don't know if that's a you know what I mean to make sure to include everybody and to have that good input so we don't have to repeat everything. So if that could maybe be an item on the board meeting agenda. So so what I would do what I would suggest is it came up out of the minutes of this meeting. So, as you report the minutes, say one thing that the HR team would like to put on a future agenda item for discussion at the board level would be this topic. Okay. Actually, I would tell

109you to um hold off when we get to the future agenda items. Um which Oh, at the board meeting. At the board meeting. Okay. Sure, sure. Sure. Put that on there as a specific because we asked agenda items. Do that at that point. Yes. Okay. Not part of this the minutes from this meeting. I would say when we ask for do that. Okay, we'll do that then. I just don't want to spend a lot of time going into the details on that. Right. Uh just a logistic question about that though. If we're going to put it on for future agenda planning at the regular board meeting that doesn't mean we can have a strategic discussion about it. That just means that it's there for No, you put it on the on the next agenda or

110any future agenda to have that discussion is what I'm We can talk about what that looks like. If it makes sense to the committee to push it forward to the board for discussion, then now is the time that you would want that on placed on the agenda for this. Do you want it in July or do you want it in August? I Dan, what are your thoughts? Well, I would think the sooner the better. There's benefits both ways. If Tina brings it up for in the July meeting or the August, we get awareness on it. People got a month to think about it. So, if they want to have feedback and be there in person for the discussion, you have that. Um, if you want it on the July meeting, we will be we can

111get it there in expedite the conversations. Like I said, there's bonuses, plus minuses to either either one. Sure. So if you want teachers in present for it, maybe you'll give them a little runway. I I'm not mind either way. And it doesn't necessarily have to be on just one agenda for for discussion. You know, I I we will have to communicate um the rationale andor why behind the the discussion about why you're doing what it is you're doing. The only reason I say that is because people know and we've already shown them over the course of the last year. Administration's been doing these rounding sessions and we've been bringing it forward to the board. They may go, "Why are we going to the board when you've already come in a couple of times, right?" So,

112you're going to have to share them the rationale of why you want the connection. Continuing to do the rounding sessions as we get into next year. Yes. Is it worthwhile to um not all the time but inly we've invited you guys to board members sit in on the routing sessions process in place to talk directly to the staff. I mean you know we can always sit in we can do it together like that too. I just I know the rationale is you want to build the connection, right? And and so however we say that, right, that you have a keen interest in building connection directly with staff members, then um how in in our in the context of our previous discussion regarding um you know the satisfaction survey, there's been an expressed desire for more

113board involvement, right? you know, so um something that that's what I'm seeing. So yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's that's what I'm saying. We just have to be very clear of the why. We're just going to take five more minutes on this topic and then make Yeah, I know. I know. I know. Like in the community meetings like there are a lot of staff there and I feel like they are really willing to talk to us. Yes. And they're taking that opportunity at those community strategic planning to I don't feel the resistance. I feel like we give them a voice, they they may want to really take part in that. That's just my I agree with you. I mean, that's that's how they've been with the um the other sessions that we've held already. I mean, I

114think that part of the success around that and I'll share this more later in a different meeting is the success that they're seeing from having had voice now and they're seeing that we're working on some things. So, I also would like to have listening sessions with the community because u I think that's a lot of now that's starting to kind of get out of our but I I hear what you're saying that's all going to be part of that bigger discussion I feel Diana did you need 30 seconds for something 30 I was just going to say if we can come back to you know in the discussion what's our why behind it I like the idea of if we're going to do this having the board sit on on with the administrators if that's

115possible because how do our questions differ from what the ad the admin team is asking because we don't want it to seem like we're working against. We want it to seem like we're working together and I don't know if we necessarily need to ask the same questions that the administration because then it looks like we're undermining you know so we just have to be careful in that. So what's our why? Okay. So, we're going to make a decision as far as like where does this belong and then we can get into the from that then we can have the discussion where it needs to happen and then details can be decided from there. Does that make sense? I just want to corral it where it needs to be. Not to not to completely cut us

116off but um and so going back to I guess Dan you had started the the request. Would you like for that to be a board item in July or in August? I'd like in July. Okay. Then I don't know what that looks like as far as purpose or who figures. I think we have a room in our two of us will take a look at it agenda together. Now, one of the things be taking things that are coming out of the committees. Okay. Um and I know Lyn has already asked and we'll be putting that together and then he'll send it to me and we'll review it and we'll look at the timing on it. Okay. Um so that you know we try and make sure that we're not here for six hours for a

117board meeting. So yeah, we had a couple presentations on your agenda, but we just you know box things we'll be good. So from an action item standpoint that's a referral to the board for a broader discussion on the idea of listening sessions. Is that that's what I correct? Is that what that you want that in the minutes? Okay. Yes. Okay. Thank you. when you're doing those rounding meetings, could you like drop some invites to me through the calendar with everyone? Sure. Yeah. Because then I'll see it and I'll be able to pop in when I feel like I can open up. We already have Not right now. Right. Just do standing invites to all board members and I can drop in as available. Yeah. And again, I I I want to make sure that we're

118communicating that out to the staff and everything else. and just want them to to know what's happening or or or the why behind what's happening so that they're not It's like a golden ticket. you get a surprise board member with your own Oh, we're we're trying to build trust in and and communication, not like, you know, because like I said, even if even if it was something, you know, uh bizarre, and I call it bizarre because I know that we're not at this place, but if if you were like, "Hey, we're maybe not trusting with the administration and we want to make sure that we're hearing directly from them." Then tell them that, right? just so that they know what you're trying to get at. Like we don't trust the administration. We're coming out to

119verify some of the things that they've said. And that's what we do. You know, I I just want to know that we can communicate openly and honestly with each other as to the why behind what we're looking to do and what we're what we're trying to hear. Okay, we're good. All right. Meeting adjourned. There you go. Thank you guys all very much. Good discussion.