001Press. How's it going? You got good. Well, I see a room full of people staring at me already. No, you got time. Don't worry about it. Tammy said that she might be a little late because she gets out of work at 4:30. Sure. and Dan. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Was he earlier today? look beautiful to you. Yes, absolutely. One of the most perfect days we've had so far. I think it's been perfect. I haven't had a chance to get all enjoy it. But did you? Huh? I suppose not. What's happening? Well, I guess we're all working. all bad. We were I did uh get to go to a rotary meeting, so I got out and then Yeah. Yeah. Just got some sun. Anyway, a beautiful day, man. Still trying to kick this cold, huh?
002I don't know if it's cold. I think it's allergies. Well, that I really don't feel bad other than I'm just stuffed. Yeah, right. I don't want It's not like I have a, you know, a temperature or hacking or anything. I think I just think it's that time of year and I'm doing everything I can to battle it, but whatever. God, they kill me, man. They kill me every year. It'll run its course. Mhm. I don't know if I can log in. When did they start changing the You mean to do your multifactor application? I think they have to run that through with you, right? The first time. Is that right, Lyn? Or no? Oh, yeah. I had sent out an email quite a while ago about getting that if you needed help. You have to
003worry until they help. It was going to be May 1. Got the board, right? But um yeah, it may it may just ask you to do it on your own. Okay. Hey, Dave. How are you? Good. If you want me to resend you the email, I can because I have I'll find it. I'm sure I seen it. I Hey, how you doing? Good. Second time. Yeah. Second time. Second time. I got to say hi. Not very good. D should be okay. Are you sure? Nothing was two of these break on us. One I think it was uh Dave was in it. Yeah. And then uh both Dave. Yeah. Dave Smith and Dave uh right Vitali. Thank you last name for I don't know why but uh Dave Vital was sitting over there at Brook and
004J was heard. I mean, hold them up pretty decent for how old they are. All right. I've got 430. Um Tammy's uh Tammy's online. Oh, permit. Deal. Well, uh, so I'll call this meeting, uh, to order for the, uh, board committee chair meeting. Did we want to record this one for Diana or It's recording. It's recording. All right. Excellent. So, uh, first item on our agenda is, uh, discussion about, uh, participation. And uh now that would be participation at committee meetings as far as um in the past what we've done any board member can attend committee meetings and uh they have an opportunity to weigh in on those discussions. Um uh typically typically in the past what we've done uh what some what some of the uh committees have joined the meeting uh was to
005uh allow for the committee members to speak first on any given particular topic and then have after they have had an opportunity to get through the committee chair would often recognize anybody else that wanted to contribute to that particular discussion. Uh I'm a little indifferent. I don't I don't want to tell a committee chair uh how they feel is most beneficial to run their particular committee. I I feel like um what worked for me as a committee chair, I'd rather listen to uh everybody having the discussion at at the same time and recognize people equally. Uh and then when it came time for an action item, then I would turn to the committee and ask for their for their uh input on the action item. And the reason I did it that way was because
006I felt that it was uh more efficient to to not lose a train of thought uh and then rehash that discussion later on after we've moved on from discussion. Uh I I don't know u any thoughts that you may have on it. It would be good to have it be similar amongst chairs so people knew what to expect. Sure. I think. Sure. So, um I I do I like Craig's method too, which is to have the discussion all at once, but when it turns to really taking action on the item, you know, that's when just turning to the committee members and saying, "Okay, committee, what are your thoughts?" That's easy. It's an easy transition to say, "Okay, committee, what is your thoughts?" Mhm. And then uh they they know that you're turning to action and
007everybody else in the room knows you're talking to the committee members, right? And if you ever find that the discussion is going difficultly difficult with going with difficulty, there we go. Yeah. If if that's ever the case, you can always resort to a roundroin method of discussion where you go committee members talk, external talks, committee members talk, external talks. Yeah. Um, so yeah, no, I've always appreciated the way that you ran the policy committee. I think it's important to have, like you said, kind of an organic discussion that flows naturally where people get to bring up their thoughts. I think one thing under participation that we don't often talk about and rarely happens, um, but, uh, does happen from time to time is when you have guests that come. I rarely ever see anybody come
008to a committee meeting, but when they do, um, because there is no, uh, place for public participation, we've always left that up to the chair to decide whether or not they're going to invite, uh, guests to speak, you know, public or, you know, or whatever on that topic at the committee level. Um, and it's only because we don't have it listed for public comment. So, uh, you know, that's something that as chairs you should be, um, alerted to, right? Very rarely, but in the past, we've left that up to the chair of the committee. I don't know if you want to continue doing it that way or uh however we want, but it sometimes has been helpful in the past um to not only hear that at the committee level, but then um sometimes it
009alleviates uh you know a a discussion point that a a community member or somebody else brings to the board level that could have been really thought out and discussed at the chair at the committee level. uh and so I don't know what you guys want to do with that as we're talking about participants and who can participate. Are these uh members of the staff that are the guests typically? No, usually if it's a member of staff, right? Uh the the chair of the committee knows who's who's going to be there like at services and stuff. I'm talking about truly like guests or community members who show up but they don't know like you know how can I how can I have a have a a dialogue a dialogue or or whatever and at the board
010level right we don't allow for dialogue right so this is really the only place if an engaged community member wants to have dialogue with a board that it's really allowable uh and so um not that it happens often because I I don't even know if I've seen it once or twice here in this school district, but but I just want to know what your guys' expectations are as chairs for if that were to happen. It's something that we should think about at least once a year, right? What do we want to do in that case? Interesting. It was always my impression that uh there was public comment time set aside at the full board meeting and that there was no opportunity for public input during the committee meetings. So that was always kind of the
011way for the past year. That's how I've seen it conducted. I I guess I have always looked at uh committee meetings as you know the work product where the the heavy lifting is being or where or the sausage is being made. But um the the public does have their opportunity to weigh in via via email, via um public input at the regular board meetings, but a committee meeting is a business meeting of the committee. And I I feel that sometimes uh it would be easy for a member of the public to um derail that discussion and deviate away from the agenda from time to time. And when I was when I was a committee member or a member of the public, I would have loved to be able to participate in committee discussions. Uh there's
012got to be at some point in time some reason why a member of the public would want to become a board member. If they want to participate in these kind of discussions, they should run for election. Yeah. And in my opinion, as a matter of fact, I think that maybe six or seven months ago, Tammy showed up as a member of the public and asked a question during a committee meeting and she was told she was not allowed to speak. I don't remember which one it was. That is true. It was planning. It was it it was planning. Uh and it was uh again the the chair at that time said thank you for coming but we're not hearing I mean again and right it's if if you want to allow it as a chair
013or if you don't uh my suggestion is that whatever you choose you do it similarly. Okay. so that it's not happening in one committee and not happening in another committee and people are saying I thought we could do this you know um just we're setting the rules for how you guys want to engage uh participants right and that's what we're talking about today is participation and I just wanted you to have something to think about because I I think it bears uh talking about in case there is somebody who shows up and says hey you know I've got a question you know um the moment somebody starts engaging in that right without a rule, we're in trouble. So, I'd like to have a rule if we're going to allow it uh as as like it's
014the purview of the chair or not. Um or we just don't do it. Um but make sure that we have an operating norm for everybody is all I'm saying. I guess my concern with that would be allowing if we're allowing two-way conversation with the community, which I'm for, but that could lead the discussion to go off topics that are not on the board agenda and it might be harder to rein that in if they feel like we're defer, you know, like brushing them off because we just can't talk about that because it wasn't posted publicly. What kind of mess that could cause for us like how that would look to the community. Now we're allowing questions, but it's Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. What if we were to invite someone that's an expert in
015what we're talking about from the community? You know what I mean? I think that's a different situation. Yeah. I think this is more just like regular members of the community who might be interested in discussing. I don't know. I think that uh I think that communication with board members via email, via phone call, uh via public comment section, uh speaking with board members before and after committee or full board meetings for me, I think that's sufficient. Um and I think that's mainly to maintain uh an orderliness to meetings. I think that if you have five members of the public show up, which could very easily happen, all of them would like to engage robustly in discussion. I think that you've now got a you've now doubled the size of the people that you're having a
016conversation with and that can very quickly grind the entire process of the agenda to a halt. I'm all for thorough discussions, but I think that you have to be careful because at what point does it become uh a town hall exercise and maybe there's a place for town halls uh and that might actually be a more effective place to have discussions with members of the community. Well, let me give you an example that could happen. uh talking about the sale of the property to the city and we would have the councilman come in by invite and talk to the committee. You know what I mean? So that would be an exception. Yeah. That and that already happens, you know, we have either staff members or, you know, people from the city or whatever else. um
017if we're on a topic usually the chair and the administrator work together on that agenda and say okay well who am I expecting to come and talk right so that happens on a regular basis I'm talking about you know what do what are we going to do what is the answer going to be if somebody from the public uh wishes to speak or not right um I do believe that there was a time in which uh public comment was offered heard a public input was offered at committee level um hasn't been in the three years that I've been on the board but uh I don't know it it feels like most of the time these the committee meetings are very under uh attended by the community in general right so I guess I'm indifferent if
018the the board wanted to have public comment at those meetings. I'm open to those ideas, but I don't know that I don't know that it's super critical. So, what's the norm going to be there? Yeah, I guess. What do you think, Carl? What are you tangling? Two minutes to say their piece and move on. So you're you're you're in favor of having a public comment section for committee meetings. Just put a time limit on it, though. I don't want somebody to rattle on for half hour. Yep. Yeah. Put a time limit on it. Yeah. I wouldn't mind adding uh public comment back on uh and then we can always do what we do at general board meetings where once the uh five or 10 minutes of public comment time that's allotted has been has been
019reached then we can vote to extend it if we feel the need to if it ever comes to that point where we're getting lots of input. Most of the time it'll be is there any public comment? There won't be anybody here, right? So then you just move on then. Well, it it what tends to happen is it's just uh because board meetings tend to be, you know, once a month and that is really the only time in a public forum that somebody can chime in. So if there's a if there's a particular thing that's of particular importance to the community, they're going to bring that forward in any public comment comment period that they see fit. And if you if we do offer public comment uh at the committee uh perhaps maybe it might make
020sense then to say okay this is an opportunity to comment but it you must stick to comments on the agenda. Mhm. You know, if if we're going to do that as a norm, stick to the particular topics of the agenda. Being able to being able to speak to that uh speak specifically to the agenda items, being able to say, "I'm here to talk about, you know, agenda item 1B or, you know, 2C or something like that." Yeah. They already have a time to bring up anything under the sun. a regular board meeting twice. Great. Great. At a regular board meeting and then also outside of it through email, through phone call as well. Um if they have a specific question or they have a specific discussion item, if there's a specific board member that they're
021interested in speaking with, they can always email or call that specific board member. Um so yeah, I mean I think that would be appropriate. Okay. Yeah. public session that can I mean that can definitely form you know a board member's perspective before having carrying on the discussion especially in a policy meeting where okay so uh we'll say Jesse uh happens to bring his particular concerns to the u policy committee meeting ahead of time you know because there's public comment there Oh, we we've overlooked this sort of thing. And um then that might be a, you know, something that we would want to engage in, I guess. So, you're really looking for something different than like the board public comment. You're looking for like a public input time where each member can have two minutes or
022three minutes to share something related to the agenda for today. Mhm. Right. Because that's different than the board. At the board level, they're allowed to comment on whatever. Right. Right. And by policy, you don't respond to them on that, but you may respond to the input that they do at a committee session. Well, that's a that's another interesting thought. could that moves away from public comment if it's a if it turns that's why I said it sounded like you were moving away from public comment what you said Greg that's why I was asking question I'm not well no I understand with it being not broad like the policy committee can't affect a change in fiscal let's say unless it's a fiscal policy they bring to your attention but I I think that if you're going
023to make a public comment it should be committee related. So what if they want to bring up a policy that they want the board to look into and address, but it's not on the agenda and it's flying under the radar, but they want you to know that's different than what he said. Yes, I know. That's why I that's why I responded the way I didn't. But I I would be for a public comment section during committees. But what Jared was recommending or suggesting or I wasn't even suggesting. I was saying what I'm hearing you say is that am I right? in the beginning was two-way dialogue, right? Like that's what you were saying as a possibility, two-way dialogue. Yeah. The effect becomes a two-way dialogue. But that does happen at general board meetings, doesn't it?
024Where they will talk about something that we're going to talk about at the board meeting. they'll give their thoughts and then it becomes a part of component of the discussion before a vote or there's very few times and it's usually um when that happens, right? It's a uh like a a very highly visible or or something discussion, right? And sometimes we even put a public comment for just this item right before you have that discussion on that item, right? And so there may actually be even another separate Hopefully that's not an appropriate engineer. Exactly. The training video that that thing is talking about a great training video. I was hurt. I don't know how that happened. But yeah, that that is funny though. So, um anyway, uh so that's that's even a different scenario yet
025and usually happens at like a board meeting. There's still not any back and forth. I'm I'm just saying you have to decide if this if you're going to have any time or efforts or energy to respond to a back and forth to the committee um from the public standpoint or not. If the answer is no, then the answer is no. And um then we also can say do we still want to have time for people to share specifically for the committee members and thoughts a public comment time during our committee because we don't have that either right now. Right. Um but I'm again we're talking about participation. I've seen things in the past. Um and I'm wondering what is everybody's response going to be because the real the real thing I care about is that
026you're on the same page, right? because if you're not then it will confuse the public. Uh there is a reason that they stopped it if we had it before. So we have to look at that too. So I I just don't think that it's feasible time-wise to have open dialogue with with extra individuals who are showing up, you know, unless they're specifically asked to come in as a panel individual or someone who is essentially going to be cross-examined. Um, you know, if if someone's being asked pointed questions about a specific topic, I think that's one thing. But I think that you can very quickly have, especially on an issue that's, you know, highly contentious, I think you can quickly have 20, 30 people show up and um I don't know that that's I don't know
027that that's going to make the conversation productive. I think that that can, you know, I think that can end up becoming counterproductive. So, I think a public comment section is good. I think it would be extra good for the public comment sections at the committee meetings to be specific to the committee affairs, either something that's on the agenda or something they would like to see on the agenda of that given committee. Um, but I think that back and forth is a whole different issue and I think that becomes really complicated. It could actually be written out ahead of time and given to an administrator and we could present it as a chair or something. And again, I mean that's we have emails, we have phone call What do you think about moving forward with uh
028public comment uh sticking to agenda related items or items that should be on a future agenda for that committee specifically? Okay. Time limit time. Well, like as in like the whole the whole section of public comment. Oh yeah. No more no longer than 10 minutes. Two minutes per and two minutes per individual. So you can hear essentially for five people. Yeah. And unless the uh committee would feel like it's of particular importance to listen to more comment than the then the committee chair would um turn and ask the committee, you know, what is the pleasure of the committee? Do we want to uh extend uh public input for another 10 minutes? You know, yeah, I mean based on history, you're you're probably not going to care much of anybody at 10 or you know, whatever.
029But well, but you will you will eventually be prepared and on the same page, right? My friend Russell said, uh past events are not indicators of future occurrences or something like that. Maybe it's right. Yeah. May I just say something about this? Um, we also have to remember that people log in, they zoom in, so you're going to have to also keep track of questions in the chat as well. So, you know, I don't know if that's going to be up to the administrator to watch that because they're usually the person running the Zoom. Yeah. What do you guys want to handle that? Do you want to just keep public comment to individuals that are uh here in person? I I think we should. Yeah, because it's a smaller meeting. I think it makes sense.
030Do it in person. If you'd like to speak with us digitally, you can always email us, right? Follow us after before or after. Um those discussions can always happen then. Is that important? They should show up. Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. again at a general meeting, right? Chose an investment of their time to find out when the committee meeting is to show up and to impart their input. I do feel that if you if we want as a board to to have more of an open uh uh opportunity for the public to impart their feedback. Um, and hopefully that equates to more of a um a better public uh perception or public uh transparency. Yeah. Then then maybe that maybe that's a step in that direction. My other suggestion is that um if
031we start that that we start that with June's meetings. Okay. So that way I can make sure that our admin team is up to speed on it. Lynn and I can work with you, Craig, to there's that little unlike when you click on it, right? Uh the agenda item details, right, will have in there the things that the community needs to know. So, it'll say public comment, right? And if you can click on that, then it will share like this is a 10-minute time period. You know, you can speak up to two minutes, but you have to show up in person, blah blah blah. We'll have all that outlined in there. So that way if anybody wonders what's going on, we we can say here and that limits our liability and other things. Yes. Should
032anybody want to challenge Yeah. You know, um you know, their speech. That sounds good. Um just having good rules available. So they'll give us some time to have you and I and Lynn talk about what that section should say and make sure that we're we have it there for everybody. Uh, and then we just get on, you know, on the agendas for that those ride, right? And while I mean, while we're on that topic, while we're considering going down that road, then um, keep in mind that it's not, this is still a business meeting of the committee or a business meeting of the board. uh it is a privilege for uh members of the public to participate in that particular fashion. So it is not unfettered uh first amendment rights that they can say whatever
033they want about whoever they want whenever they want. That's not how that works. you know, the the board has a right to to even step in and say, "No, that topic of discussion is not appropriate for this meeting." Yep. And also, you need to direct those comments this way. Um, just just let you know you're going to go down that road. Be careful with what they say. you know, you can't you can't have them uh directing their comments at a specific member of staff. That can become a liability issue also because if you allow that to happen, uh they may have a claim against our district, which we don't want. So, and we can revisit our decision, right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. If we find that it's counterproductive, um I would say in the interest of
034time, maybe we can have an additional discussion about this, we could even do it uh a recorded Zoom meeting if we didn't want to do it in person, but if we still want to have like an open meeting where it's recorded, people can pop in. We can always do a Zoom call together and we can talk about the details of uh how how we conduct those thing. Absolutely. Um I think that'll help us because we got the next meeting coming up in a half hour and Yep. All right. Uh moving on to minutes and action items. I want to lump those both in together. And the reason for that is because um your action items that uh the committee decides uh will usually end up on the bottom of the uh the minutes or the
035summary. Uh the intention behind action items is to have a clear understanding for the administration what your expectations are as a committee and andor moving forward for uh the board whether for the board meeting whether it's we're going to take action recommending action on this or we're choosing not to have action on this at this time or we're postponing it. So those that's really what the intention of the action items are and I one thing that I feel uh we've actually started doing this a little bit um Mike actually started doing this recently. I I kind of agree with this is um utilizing a little bit of Robert's rules of order when it comes to taking a hearing a motion, you know, when it comes to a particular action item and and knowing that any
036any action that a committee takes when it comes to uh a uh a particular action item is a recommendation for the full board. It's not an actual action. It's not an actual decision. It's a recommendation. Yeah. But giving a clear picture of that recommendation. So when it gets recorded in the minutes. Mhm. Yeah. I think that's a good idea, too. It makes it a little bit easier for Lynn or whoever else is going to be taking that down. And as a uh as a springboard for that, then who does take down the minutes for each committee meeting? Well, um, depends. That's a great question. Yeah, it depends on the committee and who's who's available for those. Most most of the time the um administrator takes them down. I know that when I was working with
037Diana on planning, she was taking the minutes and submitting them in. Uh and then when Jason switched over, they had him starting to take the minutes for planning. Um but usually the administrator uh takes those minutes down of what happened. Um, so you know, just make sure that we're we're capturing everything. Um, because you'll you'll approve those minutes, too, right? As part of the uh board meeting, making sure that you reread those uh and and look through them. And usually the administrator will say, "Here's the uh here's the minutes from the meeting." Uh, and she'll send them to Lynn and you as the chair uh to say, "Hey, please review these. These are what I captured from the minutes." Sure. see one. Any questions on any thoughts on that particular uh process? I mean it
038you when you if you're the chair and you're asking uh do I hear a motion? You might want to clarify. Do I hear a motion among committee members? Mhm. Uh and then state that motion very clearly so that the committee understands what the action item is. And then you know it is I I have a motion by Tammy and seconded by Carl to and then you state the motion and it to make this recommendation to the full board or what have you when it comes to that particular action item and then I don't I think that would help clarify a lot of um situations and I I will tell you In the past, um, our attorneys have shared like really legally only the only thing that we have to capture is any, uh, recommendations or
039action that has, uh, the committee, uh, directing something either to the administration or to the board, right? Um, in our district, uh, we do capture some of the discussion points as well. And uh our attorney would say uh that's good, but make sure you just are hitting the highlights of the discussion. Don't try to capture the whole discussion of your minutes. Um because remember we're whenever you create that as a record because people can go back to and watch the video if they want to see the discussion. But in creating the record, you want to have the record as clear and concise as possible. So you a lot of times you won't see in the minutes like all of the discussion that happened. you'll see just the highlights of the discussion and the action items.
040Uh and so I would say, you know, I would continue to do that um as a as a committee chair um because one, we're directed by our attorneys to think about and do it that way. But two, uh the video is always available for somebody to go back and watch if they want to see the whole discussion. So you don't have to capture everything in a minute. Yeah. and then it should really just be a concise brief overview of what happened. I I appreciate that. However, it's still important to try to get most of the highlights again because you know where we where we kind of run into a situation is when when either one of a board member or administration looks back at those meetings, you don't want to, oh, I thought this was
041talked about here, but it's missed. You know, we don't want you don't want that to happen either. Yeah. No, but that's when you go back to again, you go back to the video and you say, "Hey, this is this is what uh I thought it was and we should go back and change those minutes because it was missed or whatever else." Um I I only say what I'm saying so that you do you follow the same page, right? We don't want Tammy taking a book of minutes, right? And writing down every single word everybody says and you take down just the action steps. people will be like either judging you or judging you for whatever it was that was different. Right. They judge both. Exactly. You're right, Tammy. They'll judge both. Yeah. But if you're
042all doing it like very similarly Yeah. Right. Uh then uh you get less of that. Yeah. And that's all I'm trying to say is try to be as as similar as possible in how you run your meetings so that uh and how you how you notate from them and all that to leave the rest of that f out there for people. Yeah. Um in relation to that then because you're speaking about videos. I know this is something that I've had a lot of people in the community ask me about and I know it's something that I would appreciate personally. Um, currently the way that we have our videos is they're unlisted or private on YouTube and they need to be specifically requested. Um, I would like to request that we make those videos publicly available
043perhaps with comments turned off if we have concerns about comments and and things like that. Age appropriateness. Exactly. Um, and we can talk about that at at a at an agenda item. I I just want to give you the background. Okay. the background and the reason we have people request those is for two reasons. One, it's actually a record, right? We could make that record and every other record just publicly available on our web page and say, "Hey, if you want any record that we have under that topic or whatever, it's here, you know, and we do for some things like if you want the staff who are in Lincoln, go look on the web page. It's there." Sure. We don't have to provide you that record. It's already available. Yeah. Right. But the the
044reason at least my understanding of it is this that um we like to have people be able to request the record. So that way we can ask them, you know, is there something in particular that you uh were looking for or need help with or whatever else because sometimes uh they just need to have a discussion or a talk through with somebody and it's easier to do that than for somebody to just go on, watch a video, not have context of maybe some of the other meetings or do their homework appropriately and then they come in and they're like, "Hey, well, I saw this video blah blah blah." I was like, "Whoa, you didn't understand the fullness of that conversation." So, sometimes having the requesttor do that and to walk through and question and have
045a saves um like sometimes a bigger discussion. Sure. Sure. Um alternately, where would we have that discussion as a board then? Where what what would be the best committee to have a discussion about that? Just so I'm not like starting to get into a real deep right. No, I I honestly think that that's up to Craig as to say where do we want to put that discussion? we noted it down as a future topic, right? And uh as he and I and and Lynn make the agendas uh of the future board meetings, he will take a look at that and go, well, maybe it should start in this committee or that committee. Um but we can we can discuss where we want to have that. I'm just getting rid of the history so you guys
046know why. I'm open to either. I just want us to be um you know, understanding of the why of where it is. Sure. Go ahead. I think we should listen to what the attorney tells us. That's probably good advice. You only need to you only need to put the uh the action items on. You mean as far as Well, I whatever the attorney comes up with, I think I I listen to my attorney very closely all the time for some reason. You'll find that out when you go to court. That's why that's why you have an attorney. Yeah. I'm okay either way. I just wanted you to understand the the why behind it. And it's really not that difficult for us to be able to get an email that says I want these and turn
047that around. Um that most the people wait just a couple of days until the video is actually posted. They'd have to wait for it anyway if it was not requestable. If it was just out there. Yeah. And so, you know, that's that's the that's the history. Anyway, for another time, we can we can add that to an agenda. um if if we want to put that as a full board meeting discussion or um if we want to take it up at policy committee um we we'll talk Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No rush. I just thought I'd bring it up because it's kind of relevant to minutes and action items. So, I I did want to mention that when it comes to action items specifically that um that not all not all situations are going to indicate
048a clear direction for that the committee is going to take. So in that case what has been the practice and you kind of saw that last meeting uh when it came to a particular uh policy uh discussion about fiscal would be that if there's a if there's a split within the committee uh and there's not really a clear direction and you might it might be within your best interest as a chair to uh move that forward to the board for a strategic discussion and then and then have the board weigh in on that and the board decide whether or not they would like to kick that back to committee for further uh work that they based on the feedback that they've been parted or um you know or or they the board can as a
049whole can take action on it you know right then and there as well. So that might just be a good practice. uh we uh a lot of times people uh in in the past had talked spoken a lot about I trust the committee uh well um sometimes v all the voices aren't there you know at that committee meeting and uh perhaps maybe you feel like you want to hear more of those voices that are at the at the full board uh because one way or another you're not getting a clear direction which way we should be heading as a board. That that that's just my two cents, you know. Yeah, I think that's I think that works well. Yeah. All right. Any other questions on that particular topic? All right. When it comes to duration
050um duration of committee meetings, I think uh the the hope is that we can get through uh a committee meeting in two hours or less. I think that's when like usually after two hours the brain starts shutting down a little bit. But it depends like you know policy committee and some of the other committees have a lot of planning meets not every month all the time they they meet uh every other month and sometimes that workload might be enough where you have to spend some extra time on it you know and sometimes it's just necessary personally I have no problem working hard uh when it comes to staying longer and getting uh getting the hard work done, getting the heavy lifting done. But it's okay if uh if you as a chair feel that you
051need to postpone something off to the next uh meeting if you have the bandwidth to do that. Uh if the administration feels adamant that you need to make a decision or they need direction on this particular item now, you need to be able to uh prioritize that uh on your agenda hopefully uh so that those discussions are had. Any questions about duration or any thoughts behind the length of the meetings? One of the things that we started trying to do was to like time box our meetings. Yes. And try to hold to the time limit or close to the time limit on that topic as possible. Um I I realize that that doesn't always work well. Um but it was helping to be more efficient. Um, also, uh, in in something that happens within duration,
052right, that I want to bring up is as chairs, you're going to have to decide how much is enough discussion on the topic. And once you start hearing people, you know, state and then restate. Sometimes it's say it's good to say we we've heard your opinion on that part of this discussion. Do you have anything else to add? Because we've heard that. Um because everybody wants to be super heard on their point of uh the discussion, myself included, right? Uh so finding ways that you can keep the duration where it is might be to say to people, thank you. We've heard you, you know, in in a nice way, right? You know, don't shush them. That's not a good idea. But like you know in a nice way saying thank you we've heard he further
053right and and that's particular a topic of discussion I feel pretty um that you have to be a little bit u concerned about because I think that that that one particular item is can lead to some consternation uh among other board members and if you want to maintain a cohesive uh cohesive board uh dynamic You know, in general, you're going to want to listen to what people have to say. Yeah. You don't want to shut them down, right? Because that's not what I was saying. I wasn't saying shut them down. I was saying hear them. Hear them twice and then say you've shared that twice. Yeah. We understand. I also think that everyone I've seen in these discussions, especially in the more intricate discussions, does a good job of because the main problem is you
054make a statement and there's more to that statement, but you don't want to balloon out your time. So you let other people talk. You want to build on your statement. People have been pretty good at not repeating themselves, but enhancing their previous statement and building on their previous point that they've made. Uh so I don't think that's too big of a deal. I think that's more of a mindfulness thing of either members of the committee or people who are attending. Um I don't think that that's too much of an issue though. That and of course that can always be brought up. And I think probably the most appropriate way to bring that up when I do meetings like for my job is to say, "Oh, okay. So I hear you say that. So uh can
055you tell me a little bit more? what do you mean by that? Uh, you know, clarifying questions, I think, are the best way to get through there. Um, and make sure that we're not going in circles. Usually, if someone wants to repeat themselves, it's because they feel like they have an idea that they haven't been able to get out yet. Yeah. Absolutely. Anything else that you want to Okay. Sure, Sam. You sure did. Yeah. Very rarely have I, you know, Very good. Very rarely have I seen someone not have something more that they want to say. Sometimes it's difficult and you're like, "Ah, well, it feels like it feels like a summer breeze or it feels like air moving on a hot day." I don't know. Yeah, you got to figure it out. Eventually, you
056hit the right No. So, moving along to uh what's your best metaphor? Hey, that was fun. All right, let's go. Come on. Well, hey, if I had more time, I'd be able to get the point. So, the uh for letter E, we got the oral summary at the board meeting. um it captures a lot of the action items, you know, in it's previously been felt that that should be fairly brief. Um most of the the people that are sitting on the board have either watched the video, attended the meeting or whatnot. But uh I I maybe you keep those comments, you know, ideally less than a minute length, you know, uh as far as your uh oral summary at the board meeting so that the meeting keeps uh moving forward. Um but also keep in
057mind that that particular oral summary is usually the first time members of the public uh hear what uh work was done at that particular committee level. So it's important still to to communicate that information out. Yes. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I I think the last time we talked about it is there's a balance between um I don't have anything to add. the minutes are there for you to review and you know uh rereading all of the minutes verbatim, right? And we've we've all discussed in the past that a brief highlight of the really high points might be good for the public and the rest of us have to suffer through it because we know the highlights because we were at the meeting and we read the minutes, right? and you know and so
058um really though it's the first time that some people in the public are hearing it and they might not read the minutes until you say something that was a super highlight and they go oh I'm interested in that. So, just make sure that when you're doing the minutes, you balance that out between, you know, the minutes are available for review. Any questions? That doesn't do justice for our our community. Um, you know, so having some highlights but brief uh is good. Any thoughts? I think that seems like a a manageable task to try to get through the oral summary of the for a minute. in about a minute. About a minute. Like you don't have to what you don't have to say is here's who was here. Here's the other people who were here. You
059know, I do. You don't you don't have to I'm just saying you don't you know that's that's I mean what people really want to know is what were the discussion highlights. That's it. Talk about talk about each item that was discussed. Talk about what was done with it. You know, move on. Yeah. All right. Excellent. Uh and then letter F. chairmanship. And this kind of ties in more of um with some of the stuff that we talked about at the beginning when it comes to participation. I still think that the the purpose of a committee in general, my perspective, and you may have a different perspective, is to do the heavy lifting lifting uh and to have a place where that I guess I guess for lack of a better term where that's where the
060sausage is made. So, uh, if if a board member that's not sitting on that committee shows up and wants to participate in that discussion, let them participate in that discussion. Even if it's not necessarily something you'd like to hear, it's still uh like some people just need to be be heard. Mhm. And um and you know the committee can decide what direction they want to take based on the feedback that has been imparted and really at the end of the day we're all board members. So we all get to make the ultimate decision on on those uh decisions anyway. So uh it's best to like let people be heard and then uh then we can you you know as the board makes a collective decision we either move forward together or that particular uh topic
061of discussion dies all dies all together but I mean at least at least we're again making a collective decision to move forward together and then that particular discussion is over with hopefully. Yes. Dan uh future agenda items. Yes. Can you address that? I mean because how do we say well let's do that at another meeting? I mean how do you determine? So, uh, future future agenda items would be stuff that didn't make it to this particular agenda for whatever particular reason and it happens to be a committee members uh uh on a committee member's mind to uh because it might be important for having another discussion. In the past, this particular item wasn't on our agenda and uh it's not a time to discuss that particular item in detail because it's not on the agenda.
062So, you can't make a decision on that one way or another as far as let's have a discussion about it. But we're we're committing potentially that the committee can make the decision to have a future discussion about this. So that ends up on a future. But do you get to make the decision whether it should be a future agenda? As chair. As chair. Yeah. Yep. You you kind of oversee full board. He can overrule. Right. Right. because the the board president can place things on any agenda, whether it's a committee agenda or the board agenda. So, you may say, "Well, I don't want to talk about that right now." and the board president says, "Listen, I know you don't want to talk about right now, but uh from my purview and all the things I've
063heard on it, we're we're going to have it on that agenda because they may know something that you didn't hear of from either administration or community or uh whatever. They're the ones who are going to have to like help you decide that. But for the most part, you're in charge of what happens on your agenda." Well, reverse and I and I'll just say that my commitment to you would be that I'm having that discussion with you before that right happens. Exactly. You know, uh so that everybody's on the same page. I didn't mean to make it sound make it, you know, he does have the authority and you guys gave him that as as president, the authority to help manage those, right? Yeah, I'm okay with that. I um let's say I show up at
064policy and I say you know at some point I'd like to talk about this and you still can say yeah I don't think we're going to put that down as a I mean do you have that okay yeah but also around the understand that again you know comes down to chairmanship understand that that can lead to a contentious uh relationship ship at some point in time with that particular board member. Uh I I feel like we've spent some time observing uh that happening on our board where for instance the topic of restorative practices wanted to be discussed on a regular basis and not ever seemed to be put onto agendas. Well, that that could be a problem. you know, uh, we go two years down the road, three years down the road without actually having
065a a a meaningful discussion about that. Well, you're going to probably have a pretty upset, you know, board member, you know, that's pretty jaded about that, you know. So, um, I feel personally that it's best to just have that discussion, you know. Yeah. But as a chair, when it comes to the priority of um items that we need to cover, you're going to have to what? Prioritize according to the the the schedule of the overall district as well. you know, just based on how those decisions are made and how how soon they like for instance, policy happen to have a bunch of um agenda items added on because one, they have to go have to be discussed. They have to end up going through uh first and second read. And now we're looking at um
066potentially uh approving the the book before the next school year. So that th that information is communicated to staff. And yet there may be one or two other policies that may still have to be added to that, you know. Uh so maybe maybe more. I don't know. So that that's just kind of the nature. Yeah. I guess uh I guess a chair could determine that we have talked about this and have gotten through it and even though I'm not satisfied with it, you know, you have to wait till you get a new board to discuss that again. That type thing. It it may be, but um kind of depends on what the thing is, what the right discussion is. But yeah, I I still think I'd be cautious with that. Sure. Yeah. So, we also
067had some like standing rules before on some turf wars. Uh this goes along with chairmanship, right? Uh what I mean by that is um we we didn't want an item to be jockeying between two or three committees and then going to the board. The reason you don't want that is because if one committee has a full discussion on a topic, right, and then uh makes a recommendation and then it goes over to another, usually it's like something like maybe let's say a curriculum purchase, right? And then fiscal says, well, I know they had the discussion over there on the curriculum, but we want to discuss the purchase, right? There's a potential that that committee to committee before it goes to the board can create a walking forum, right? So you want to have it go
068pretty much just through one committee start and end up to the board level. The board is where you can have that full discussion. And if the board says, "Hey, we're not ready to make a decision yet." And they want to kick it back to one or another committee, they can do that, but they do that saying, "We didn't have a walking forum because it came up to us. We said more research had to be done and we kicked it back down and then it's going to come back up." Right? So that's the appropriate way to do it instead of having multiple committees on a topic. And so we want to have some discussion about like how you as chairs need to have some discussion about uh where that's going to reside. Uh for instance uh
069just recently uh on this agenda for tonight uh there was a policy that Sam really wanted to have a discussion about but we realized like that agenda is too too much. So basically he gave that topic over to ed services and said you need to work on this policy right they will work on that policy it will go up to the board from them it won't come to committee or to to policy and then up to the board it'll just uh stay there and go from there up right and that's the one on what was it uh surveys yeah the surveys the surveys and so ed services is going to work on surveys u policy uh and then that will come up to the through ad services. Uh so you're really going to have to
070work with each other on whose turf is it and where it gets put because where it starts then we go up to the board from there unless the board kicks it back down to whatever committee they want to kick it to and we do that so it's not a walking forum. Sure. Makes perfect sense to me. Just a quick time check that we have three minutes before the next meeting starts. Um two minutes. any any other items for discussion or any other thoughts on that particular topic? All right. How about when it comes to board chairmanship or or just uh just being a chair? Any questions? Any thoughts? Uh no, I don't think so. You just call the meeting to order. Yeah. Start the meeting, guide through it, and then close the meeting out. Do
071you call for adjournment or No, we can just you can adjourn or you can call for You can call for an adjournment. You can you can just adjourn the meeting because it's a it's supposed to be a somewhat informal when it comes to Robert's rules of order. Just make sure you take the time down. Right. Right. Because I will tell you, it's easier for you to take the time down than to have to go back into the video, go all the way to the end of the video and capture the time. Right. Makes sense. So, on that note, that saves a lot of time. If you if you have if you have any time any questions on on your particular uh meeting I think uh for at least for June and the rest of May
072if you since a lot of you are new to being actually you're all new at being a chair uh if if you'd like me to be part of that uh chair setting meeting which chair tends to have I'd be happy to participate in that with you as well. Um, so that you can kind of get a feel for how that looks and h what what's I think for the first couple just uh leaning into that relationship with the administrator that's in charge of uh your area. So for human resources it would be Margaret. For ed services it would be Miss Boris. Um and uh Sarah Duncan for fiscal and uh what about planning would be J uh Jason Bull. you know, um just leaning in, uh and and establishing that kind of relationship. It's a
073pretty informal one where, you know, we'll say, "Okay, um you know, got something coming up." So, uh usually, um Lynn and I for policy, we'll we'll sit down and we'll say, "Here's what we got available. Here's what we've worked on. Um what are your thoughts? How do you want to stagger this? Are there anything else you want to put on here?" Um, and then we go back to prior minutes and say, uh, you know, this one was put here until this work is done and so on. Um, and so that's that's usually what we would do with Craig. That's how it looked like from us. I don't know how it looks like for the others because I'm not part of the agenda setting meetings with those administrators. So, you'll have to develop those relationships with
074them and ask how it's worked in the past and put your own flavor on it, you know. All righty. Yeah. I'm available for questions, you know, on a one-on-one basis on that um as as they arise. So, time is now 5:31. I apologize for going over. Uh I'm going to call this meeting adjourned. I'll second. All right. So I um Sam I would suggest