03/05/2025 Planning Committee Meeting

001Very not healthy. It was delicious. It is delicious with whipped cream on it. That's melting in there. But did I ever tell you guys I don't enjoy sitting in this seat? I don't I rather sit there. Janet, you look very patriotic. Very patriotic. Oh, the back. The flag in the background and the whole deal. Yeah, it's all good. All right, 5:30. Here we go. Planning committee March 5th, 2025. All planning members are present. So, we're going to go ahead and get started right away because we have Drew Howick in the house today. Drew is here. Um, let me give a little background. If you recall, we did some work with the collective commitments. Charity, this is new for you. Um, but you saw those at orientation. So the collective commitments um are things that we

002had all agreed upon as a board and how we are going to function and pilot join the meeting um being a more highly productive what's the word highly efficient high higher performing board I'm looking for the words there and we had started um some work on that pathway we had recognized in the last year that board policy says we should be doing some self-evaluation of us as a board not necessarily self self but could be interpreted multiple ways. So this past year, these past few months, we worked on pulling together a board evaluation and after sitting down with Drew multiple times, whether it be at state convention or um just conversations leading up to this thoughted upon what should that survey look like and school perceptions has a survey. It's I don't know five, six,

003seven pages long, probably take 10 to 15 minutes to complete. very you've seen some school perceptions things and I thought oh we could condense that we could you know I'm like hey let's go and Drew pulls in the reins Diana that's goal you know we need to start somewhere maybe we can look to achieve that at some point but we need to find ways to dig into what do we best want to do and see for ourselves as as a board and so his suggestion was let's start with the collective commitments as opposed to the survey that we had before because those are things that we all had agreed upon. And so we thought that would be a great starting point for us to start looking there. And I'm going to let I just gave

004you the background of our conversations. I tried to do it in about 30 seconds and I'm going to hand it 100% over to Drew and he's going to kind of guide the ship to where we go because this has never been Diana's pushing this. This has been we were lacking in board policy and so how do we catch up in board policy to where we need to be and how are we going to go about doing that? We took a first I thought the survey the first time around was a good first step. Was it a great survey? No. Was it a good first step? Yeah. The first step is always the hardest. And so hopefully now we have something that we can all um rally behind and around and and take that moving forward.

005So Drew, oh just so you all know, we've scheduled about 60 minutes for this. We have a few things going on. If it goes, this is of high priority. So if this goes longer than our scheduled time, it goes longer than our if it goes shorter, I'm not going to do a hard stop. Just so Okay, all you Drew. Great. Thank you. Who's with us on the phone? We have uh Craig Ortman, who is a board member. Okay. And someone that I do not know. Okay. to the community members. I agree. I'll assume that out. Well, and sometimes it's hard as you're trying to fumble for the I'm here. I'm here. How you doing? All right. Great. Thanks. Thanks for being here. So, I'm going to let you be due diligence on if Craig has

006his, you know, do the conversation just because you have access to that. Great. Well, I was greeted by Jason when I came in, who I not met before, and he says, "You know, it's customary for guests to planning meetings to bring dinner." Apologize we didn't get that memo to you before you walked in. I apologize for not reading your mind. I thought about bringing Oreos. It's National Oreo Day. Yeah. Yeah. So, let me just build a little bit on on the background of this. Um, uh, I've I've been invited to work with the board for two years in a row. Um and we've done war uh work around uh roles and responsibilities and also on as Diana mentioned collective commitments which are behaviors and processes that if followed would lead to higher quality discussions and

007ultimately better decisions. That's that's the premise for this. So, we did some of that work last year uh for an off-site and we had two offsites this year uh where we reviewed those roles and responsibilities kind of you know what does the board own, what does the administration own and what do you own together. So, there's documentation of the outcome of those discussions. We we also spent some time um looking at a survey that was done in October 2024 and for those who are visual it looked something like this and I think eight out of nine board members at the time participated in this um but um and it was a first step as as Diana mentioned uh but there wasn't necessarily full um understanding or buy into the process. I think that fair to

008say in terms of all board members. Um there were some questions about anonymity because some people preferred comments be anonymous and some concerns about that. So we took the results of some of the results of that of that survey and we talked them through a little bit. uh and there were some issues that came up and board members I think felt comfortable kind of working through some of those issues but we didn't I didn't feel we got real good closure on so what does this information tell us u what are the implications for how we perform even more effectively and so on so so Diane is as the chair of this committee reached out and says okay um let's talk about board assessment First off, it is a policy that the board will u dedicate

009some time uh on a quote regular unquote basis and we have to talk about what that means to to take the time to assess how well the board is performing. Um your district uh has a policy that Diana shared with me. you are transitioning to some Neiola policies which also have those u built into it or very similar policy as part of Nola's recommendations and that's very consistent with my experience in working with high performing teams committees task force boards whatever is that you you assess your effectiveness uh you can do it as a collective you can do it as individuals you can do both there's a lot of ways to do But uh we know that high performing groups, teams, etc., they all dedicate some effort towards that. So as Diane and I were

010talking about this and we we were with Jared when we were at the state convention as well, we're raising questions. All right. Well, what what where should we as a board start? We tried this. Is do we want to keep pursuing this method that you did before? you want to uh contract with WSB and school perceptions and do their survey which is very comprehensive. Um and we talked about a variety of things and my recommendations um were that you start with assessing your effectiveness on your collective commitments because this is something that you created. You you weren't a part of that but I think you've seen it right Jody goodness. I know. Good. Um and um that we use the collective commitments that you created and put them into a format where everyone would have

011a chance anonymously to evaluate how well they think the board has been performing with regards to these commitments. Um so it's not somebody else's questions. It's they're they're your questions. to your your your commitments and we can do it in a way that provides anonymity which some people uh think that's helpful. Um I I would point out that ultimately you want to get to the point where you don't feel you have to be anonymous. You want to say that was me and this is how I feel and this is why and it's like then you use that as a data to have those discussions. Um but I think based on um your efforts to become a higher performing board um a a a process like this uh something real simple a Google doc or a

012survey monkey something like that very simple and that we would use these 10 or so collective commitments that you created and give everybody a chance to rate how they think the board has been performing um over the past and I think we have to decide x amount of time um and that you would use that data as um a starting point and dedicate some time at a board meeting to just go through the results and ask yourself so what does this mean? What does this tell us and what do we want to do in res in response to the the responses? Are there areas, for example, you want to acknowledge you're you're doing an admirable job on those things? Are there areas where there's mixed perceptions? You know, someone says you're you're doing great and

013someone else is saying, "You got to be kidding." You know, and then you have a conversation to share perspectives. or are there some areas that collectively you say, you know, this is an area we need to work on and to do better and talk that through essentially. Um so, um I'm I'm summarizing part of what Diana said and and capturing uh my recommendations uh as someone who works with a a lot of organizations and boards of education. Um, it's it's it's part of your policy, whether it be the Watertown or the Neola. Uh, it's best practices. Even if it wasn't a policy, I would I would still say this is this is good practice uh for any organization that wants to get better. So, I'll just pause. Diana spoke, I spoke to just to see

014if you have any questions for clarity. Um and then we'll if not we'll or if we do and then we'll talk about how it gets from concept to to reality. So committee members first questions comments concerns just point of clarification from a historical perspective. Had there been any conversation to date about frequency of how often this happened? So we'll get into that. Okay. Yeah. typically um once or twice a year is what we're considering or that's we'll part be part of the discussion later. Yeah. Okay. I'll save some questions. Yeah. But I will put out right right. I was just going to say I think the policy says at least policy originally said twice. So we Yeah. So at least once originally in the conversation we had had Drew had recommended once but now talking

015to him twice at least once a year. Thank you Craig. I didn't want to think that you excluded you just committee burst anything at this time questions right now. Okay. Um and I'm happy to start with that question right there. My my recommendation um is that at this point you you might want to look at this twice a year. Um and as opposed to well once a year I think so many things can occur in a year. It's hard to really look back at something the recent you tend to look back at your last meeting and go well that's what happened last meeting. Looking back at nine months ago who remembers right? Uh and and I think it also it gives you more data points than just doing an evaluation after one meeting, you know,

016evaluation after every meeting. I know very few boards that have committed to doing it after each meeting and still think there's value in doing that. Um one meeting can go just so well and the next meeting for whatever reason doesn't. And there you are. said, "Oh, you got ying and you got yang." And it's just like there's no themes there. But I think if you take a period of time such as five or six months and knowing that everyone's going to have an opportunity to say this is how I perceive we're doing over that period of time, it it gives you enough data to work with. The second thing it does is that it also builds in room for when there is turnover in your board. So you have an election coming up. Okay. Board

017members uh your board may change. I don't know the details here. Um and um some some years the board changed significantly. Others it's same group. So it gives you then that period of time. And one of the things that Diana and I talked about was there might be an opportunity for you to do an evaluation with your existing board before your new board comes and then you have some data to look at. And then once you have a new board starting in April, fast forward maybe six months, so sometime in the fall, say we will now all new board members, all board members will have a chance to uh weigh in on the board's performance over that period of time. So I don't know if I summarized that accurately. Basically, you did. The only the

018additional piece to that is using the like if we did it now in March for example that would then give data points for us then to look at as a planning committee to go through okay for board development for the new board coming in that new next new year term. What does the data tell us? We ask our administration we ask our staff to be data informed decision makers. This would give us data as well. it's saying this I in the last couple years have been collecting data as the chair. This is what's been said or this is what I've heard at meetings. Um this is just a better process than that. So and you and I had talked about u mentoring new board members and it would be good if you know that there

019was going to be a sixmonth evaluation that we tell them up front take notes on how you think the effectiveness is working. So they're not surprised by it and say, "Well, I don't know. You know, I haven't really been keeping track." So they know there will be an evaluation. Can you hold that thought? So when we come back to orientation, we're going to do that later in the meeting. They already talk about collective commitments. Maybe what I'm kind of hearing at like the discussion, but further. Sure. Do we inform them about the survey at that point? Just, hey, keep an ear out. Let's hold that piece for that if you would. um that'll serve us better in the orientation piece. But I agree that I think an underlying thing of what you were saying is

020a new board member, it's too soon for them to take a survey in April right away. Giving them six months under their belt, but needing to take note of, hey, what am I looking for? The collective commitments are something that for the last two years we haven't really put in our forefront. And one of the pieces working with Drew with this survey, the other piece adding to the summary part is this helps to get those collective commitments in the forefront. So then it would be a natural transition. So yes, thank you for bringing that. Yeah. And even if I can just build on that, it's they know that these are the things these commitments that that were created by you or what people will be using as a way to assess the board's performance. Then

021they have an eye towards that. um as opposed to somebody else's survey or whatever. And the other the other comment I'll make too is um the moving forward in this way just it does not lock you into doing this forever, right? It's just a way to start the process and you may find after a couple of assessments a year from now, whatever you not quite getting to the things that we think are more important. It's like, oh, okay, what are those things? So, you can modify this as you go, but it seems to me you've done a great deal of work just getting to this. Now, it's just a matter of putting it into um an assessment process. And um I've seen survey monkeys a real simple one to five scale. You know, one is

022we are not doing this. Um, and five, we're we're rocking it. We are doing all these things and everything in between. And then you just let the data speak and then you dedicate some time to looking at it and ask the solo question. So So I I you have the collective commitments. I don't think there's any need to go through that other than these are all things that that I think represent best practices or at least promising practices for any board of education that that I've I've worked with and um you worked through these, you've modified them a little bit, you've clarified them and know what they are. Um to Diana's point, uh by doing them in an assessment, you also start kind of understanding, well, what what do we mean by that? Um we

023will be receptive to other perspectives while remaining objective in decision- making. Huh. What does that how does that play out? What does that really mean? And and I think you you'll get clear about those. And you may also find, I've seen this in other boards, that they'll go, you know, I thought of some couple other commitments we ought to consider that we just for whatever reason didn't think about last time or I don't know if that's really that important to us anymore. Oh, okay. Talk it through, make decisions, commit to it. Um, so I'm starting to repeat myself. I realize it just I think it's just a it's a it's a it's an easy way to start. easy, not as in simple, but just effort-wise. You've done great work. Let's put it in some kind

024of form. Let's get it out. Let's get the responses in at in a timely fashion. Um, and then let's dedicate some time to looking at the results. So, what else should we cover here in terms of the process? Um I think we should come up with you've done a lot of talking but let's come up with consensus. So with that we have talked briefly about once a year twice a year you gave your recommendation. Let's solidify that. Okay. So one time a year or two times a year. I agree with Drew that my recommendation be twice a year. So that way we have it's kind of like a middle of the year assessment and an end of the year assessment except our board term ends in March not in June not in December. So it

025just makes sense as an end of the year assessment to come in March and then a midyear assessment to come about six months that would be September Octoberish um give or take. I don't know if September is enough. Technically that's about the six month range because you haven't really gotten a lot of the school year into you yet. But I guess we'd have to kind of take a look. We don't need to solidify that data at this point, but what other things are going on as far as superintendent evaluate, you know, does all of that stuff matter? This there's what 12 commitments. Just because we take it, we have time to be able to analyze it and things. So that's the first thing. The second thing is how are we collecting it? Um, survey monkey

026is something that you had suggested. Is that something we all agree to? Um, and then the piece that we haven't connected with yet is who's collecting it and who's and how are we analyzing it? And those are just pieces that that became part of some of the discussion previously um, at a very surface level, but as we kind of go through, if we're developing this process or this plan, I guess I'd kind of like to have the structure set up. We don't need to have it perfect, but we need to at least have the who, what, you know, those structural pieces and the rest of it. Anytime you do something the first time, the first year, I don't want to say I don't want to stumble through it, but I know it's not going to

027I'm a perfectionist. It's hard for me to say this. It's not going to be perfect the first time, but I don't want to fumble through it because that's a waste of time, energy, and effort. So, can we first and foremost agree twice a year? Does there is there any objection to twice a year the way it's been described? No. Can I make a suggestion that we don't pick a month that we pick spring and fall so we have a little wiggle room. We may want to, you know, like this is Lor's last meeting here. we may want to have may want to have heard what she thought a month earlier so we have another month to discuss it with her here you know so instead of March it might be so we can look at

028that that would then I'm not I'm not saying no to that what I'm saying is we would need to take it analyze it pull it together for the discussion pieces um so the discussion part to that at the end of the year one wouldn't come until probably a month or two after do you know what I'm thing. And so with that, it's kind of the I understand the commentary on it. Um because there's value to hey, why did you think that? Um so that's something that we hadn't talked about in there unless you have a comment section with it. Um we just don't want it to be too early on because it's a summitative piece, right? So maybe you and I, Drew, can kick that around. I don't know what you've seen done in the

029past. We've kind I had thought about that perspective. We originally thought February, Marchish. Um maybe it's different this year than it could be for other years going forward just given that we're maybe later in the process to get it started than we'd want it to be. But maybe to your point that it is something that happens in February. So we could have March discussions and then there could be some April turnover. Obviously we can't do that this time around but it could be something for future consideration. I put that down as a note. So Okay. Okay. Because I originally thought March, but yes, kicking this February. If we meet March, we don't have to meet in order to because it'll already be done. It's just pushing it out. Okay. So, twice a year, Februaryish, discuss

030in March, six months later, we put fallish. Um, I am going to put the February though just as a concrete date, but fallish be September because as we as Jason and I do the plans, we put it into a target month, but we have wiggle room. Okay. Um, how are we collecting this? So, Survey Monkey is Google Forms. Google Forms is another We can certainly are. So, Drew and I talked briefly about who's collecting it. Who's the one I know that there was you all probably sorry charity doesn't you all probably remember there were questions and concerns about the anonymity part of it um Google forms if we use that would go to Lynn Lynn takes all of the names off of it so that way it's not anonymous for the first couple seconds till

031she hits delete delete delete deletes everybody's name then it's anonymous but as far as who's all seeing it. If there's anybody analyzing it, whatever, it's anonymous. So, if there's someone that has issue with that piece, we could do a survey monkey to an outside source like Drew. The question that I have in that great idea concept behind it's wonderful. My only caveat or question is if Drew somehow retires from this, then who do we have doing that? So, and I don't do surveys. Okay. So, so that would be I'm I'm speaking arbitr. So survey monkey then would go to whom? Yeah. So it almost seems easier if it's a Lynn, but I'm not as familiar. So this is a great point for discussion. What do you all think? It'd be great to be able to

032go to Lynn and say, "Who said this?" [Laughter] That's psychological safety. Hand it right there. There's no way to Google form anonymous. You can you can if you don't the way Lynn had described it was you can do that but then you cannot have the option to get your own responses back. If you want to have your own responses back then the email is tied to it. So if it's 100% anonymous then it's you don't get your own responses. So where does the main value come? Okay. Uh the biggest concern that I have is if if you if you're creating a public document basically that and when you when it's when your name is attached to it and then now you deleted it now you've destroyed that public document. So that's that's the one concern

033I have from a logistics standpoint. Like hey, okay, if um if it's anonymous, it's anonymous. If it's not, it's not. So then if we're okay with the Google form, we can use a Google form. You just don't get your responses. You just I'm sorry. You just what? You don't get your responses back. Oh, I see. If we go that route, do you need your own response? That's a personal thing. I don't need my own responses if there's some I I can't speak because I don't know. I don't I don't need them. Long surveys sometimes, yeah, I have the responses just if I know from year to year to year. But does sur I'm not familiar as familiar with Survey Monkey. Can you get your own responses back with Survey Monkey and it still be anonymous?

034Uh, I don't know. I've worked with districts who've used Survey Monkey, but they've they did it internally and I don't know all the logistics of it. Jason, do you have any I don't I I'm I I know that Google uh forms or surveys we can we you could set it up for not collecting emails, not collecting names. I would have to research if you can you can uh forward responses. I I think there's an add-on, but I would have to double check and see. I distinctly remember Lynn saying that that was not possible, but there's a different if there's an add-on that she wasn't aware of. Yep. So that is something Jason we will come as an action item um to bring that back well the question just becomes what are we doing for this

035time around so I guess this time around would be no responses back for this time just so we can do it otherwise we're waiting two months in Survey Monkey you can't print a copy of your responses on an anonymous survey but the creator can export and print a copy of somebody's response. So it'll be like respondent one responded all of this, respondent two, responded all of that. So if I'm respondent one, my question is I've taken the survey do I have access to my responses after I hit submit. Only if the person who created the survey, you go to them and say these are some of the things I said. It's no longer anonymous. So the answer is no. Correct. Okay. So then I don't know if there's an advantage to going with Survey Monkey

036as opposed to Google. Um, at this point, am I missing anything? Help me fill in a gap. I think the only other question is I know that there with survey monkey you can sometimes have surveys up to a certain number of questions for free and if it's beyond that there's a cost that you incur and so Google Google forms would be free to us as opposed to potentially a cost for survey monkey. I know it's not significant but still a cost for I think I remember that when Tina and I way back when she was on wasn't for the board survey I think it was when we were trying to do the first retreat I think we looked at serving and there was a fee after some that yeah so I'm hearing not a whole

037lot of pushing survey monkey so looking more into Google forms at this point in time. We will I have an action item to to review this in a year to look and at that point, you know, making some adjustments. Again, it's a first year through. We're going to stumble. This is not what's going to be set in stone. So, in a year taking a look and reviewing um Google or not as well as um the questions that we have. Are we sticking with the collective commitments or are we moving to something else? The other thing I having have on here for my questions was who is analyzing the data? Typically, it is well, I'll let you speak because I was going typically off of what you and I have talked about. When it comes to

038other districts doing surveys, typically who is the one that kind of breaks down and analyzes the data? If you go to school perceptions, you can pay school perceptions to analyze the data and then bring it back. So, it's a non-biased third-party whatever. Um, as you've seen surveys go through for um board improvement, whatever, who typically analyzes? Um, in this case, uh, the board because you have such a manageable number of statements and a manageable simple scale. I'm recommending one to five to start off with. Once you get all the data of how all nine board members responded to each commitment and you can see the data, it it's I mean it's not a big analysis challenge. Um, and I also think it it sets a good precedent is instead of having someone else tell us

039what the data says, we can we can do that. I don't think that's a heavy lift and I think most people actually prefer to do it, you know, and I as a as a rule of thumb I the principle that I use is never do for others what they can do for themselves. And this to me is pretty pretty straightforward. Um so so that being said then that would then fall under the purview of the planning committee to do analysis there. [Music] Um it could go as a board development session separately. Not sure what that and that doesn't have to be determined today. Um but I can tell you that it's been very very difficult trying to get an external board development session scheduled. Um and so we are in March right now. If we

040take this would it be April? April is when the board, it would at least be the end of April to the middle to end of May before it's analyzed by the new full board. So, taking that into consideration, we meet again in May as a planning committee. So, we would have to determine, do we want to do an additional meeting to do that? Is May okay? Um, I don't know if we want to. We have to decide that tonight. So, what are your thoughts on that regard? I'll leave that up to you. I'm not gonna be here, so I'm not going to give my opinion. Well, what I think you can't zoom in from Puerto Rico. I won't be in Puerto Rico in May. No. So, uh, we do have that month open. I mean,

041that would be, of course, that's plugging another thing in for people from other committees, but we'd be doing that any month, right? So, that wasn't helpful. You understand? I go through a lot of this in my own head. So, it is helpful because it's letting me You guys are going through the same thought process that I am. But again, this isn't Diana says this, Diana says this. Can I make a suggestion? No. You don't know who's going to be on the committee either. Correct. So I don't know if you really want to set something in gold right now. You know what I mean? You may need to have a we can set the plan of it. I understand there won't be a part of it. If the plan is to wait until the next planning

042committee date to do it, we can do that. Mhm. If the plan is we are going to set a board if the if the feeling of this group is that the board feels that all nine members need to be involved in this process then the plan is we need to have a board I'm going to start moving away from the word board retreat. One word that was used a lot at state convention was a board workshop. We would need a board workshop to do something with that. So after the April 1 election, once they're sworn in in that first week or two, then it's collecting dates. We're not waiting till May to do that. And how do we get that on the calendar? Um that's been a little more challenging. That may not be pushing

043for we're hoping for 100% um attendance, but I don't know if we're going to get 100% attendance because I can just tell you how difficult it was scheduling between November and April for the superintendent evaluation and things that way. So hopeful but not holding my breath. Um just based on experience. So we won't have something set in stone but we'll we can at least have a plan. Yes. Charity. Two questions. One historically speaking when when is the committee reshuffle happen? Does it happen after folks are sworn in in April or does it happen at the May meeting? Typically it would have it would happen after April. Okay. because they they the board gets seated at that that last meeting in April. It's the regular board meeting in April and then and then you do the

044president and then there'll be orientation orientation and the well actually orientation would happen before they're seated. So I'll use Lori as an example. Lori would go to April committee meetings. Correct. But not the board meeting. So I think that addresses Yeah. I was just wondering if it would make sense for us to then aim for April to do some of the day-to-day evaluation and then we'd have it for our May meeting and then whomever and because our meeting is early enough in May that even if the meetings were the committees where we've shuffled at the end of May, do we want to wait until essentially June when we have new committee members seated to do that or do we kind of progress with the April time frame and go from there? And technically if you

045do do a planning and you I would be willing to come and help and come to that committee meeting since I still can April. Yeah. Well, it's up to us. So, as a committee meeting, I'm hearing that Well, let's let's back up a step. Do we feel that this should be something that is full board workshop or planning committee? And I can tell you what my thoughts are, but I'm going to listen for your thoughts first. and then I'll let Drew answer after my thoughts. Anybody? My instincts go to full board, but I could see the logic between having with having the committee, but I think it's for the board. Then why wouldn't you want to include the whole board in that breaking it apart? I think you can learn a lot when you're breaking

046even just five questions. you may be able to be sitting there and dissecting it as a non-committee member just you know as the board member but I don't know the sorry go ahead no go ahead it depends because in my mind it depends on how we choose to to analyze the data and what those reports look like because if we can say in a pie chart you know this number of percentage of people said answer one this percent said answer two and it's mainly the quant quantitative. It's one thing. If we do have those verbatim comments and allow people an opportunity to provide comments, we can include the whole list of comments and have that condensed so that way people have a chance to read it in advance of maybe a full board session, you

047know. So, do we do the work first and then share with the entire board giving people a chance to ask questions, digest? Jim, I think it's a horse a piece really. Right. I sort of think the committee should figure it out. I personally I mean I if we're going to try to take time out of regular board meeting for that I mean it just makes sense for the committee to to do that. Come on. So here then is my thought. My thought is the board evaluation survey falls under the purview of planning. It specifically states board evaluation in that whatever policy number that it is, we have committees to do this kind of work for that exact reason. Um, and if you all would feel better about me doing like I did at the last

048meeting, I typically don't like saying, "Hey everybody, this is what we're doing at the next meeting." because that's what agendas are for. But I did that for this particular case at the last meeting because hey, I I know that people want to be able to weigh in and everyone had the opportunity to be here. Now work or something else might have called them out of that. Um they all had opportunity to reach out to me as the chair and didn't you know so opportunities are there. I just caution us on doing every full board this. Yes, it is for the full board. So are all of our policies. So are a lot of the things that we do. So it just becomes at what point do we trust the work of the committee. And remember

049that's one of our commitments is trusting the work of the committee. And I'm a control freak and so it's hard for me at times to be able to let go of some of that. But I think that this is a great first step and and it is a collective piece of work as we start moving toward I'm kind of on you for a second. Dan Dan reached out with questions about a different topic and and his comment as we walked in today is I'm really starting to try to work at putting some of those questions out prior to, you know, that's another collective commitment of getting information out there ahead of time. So, we're kind of starting to walk our walk a little bit as well. So, let's put this to a vote for committee

050members keeping this work within the committee or sorry, Drew, did you want to chime in first? Uh, no. I I'll be Dan and talk about a horse a piece. Okay. Whatever that means. Okay. It means something arguments for both. I think whatever you decide to do, just give it a shot. See how it works because again, we're going to review it in a year. Yeah. All right. So, committee members, keeping it at committee or full board, I can tell you what I heard. Um, does anyone I mean, it's sounding like we're keeping it in committee. Has anyone changed their mind or want to Change that thought idea, Mr. Horse a piece. Well, that's why I was a horse a piece. I didn't have an idea. All right. So, we will keep this at the committee

051level for analysis at least for the first year and then um as we revisit after a year kind of taking a look where do we where do we go from there? We might like it or we might be like whoa hold the show. We need to fix this this and this. Um, that's what I had notes on for mine. May I actually just ask a question please, Drew? In your experience, is there any benefit going to a sixpoint liyker scale to kind of have a forced non- center? Um, boy, that's a dissertation question, isn't it? I mean, so many perspectives on that one. That's actually an education question because in the in schools, Yeah. you. The typical rubric teaching is you don't have a center, a true middle. Because our tendency is if we don't

052want to choose, if we're a horse a piece, we don't want to choose one or the other, we naturally choose the middle. And this forces us to choose. Are we a little better than the middle or on the other side? Yeah, I don't have opinion about that. I was going to ask for a smarter than me on liquors and so on. Know more about this, but I think you choose whatever you want you want to do. Whenever whenever we did like a marketing survey marketing courses they would try to force people to make a decision one way or another. So five gives you that middle ground you want to Six gives you that you got to go one side or the other or four whatever slightly agree slightly disagree something to that right the other

053question I was brought up I didn't know you decide do we want to give people an opportunity to share uh comments about uh each of the each of the uh commitments personally I feel it would help be more constructive if we're looking for opport opportunities from a board development perspective or something along those lines if we know why people feel that way. So is it, you know, maybe I might be new. So for me, there's some things on here that I might not have a strong opinion on or know as much about. And so for me, it's development, you know, mentoring, peer partnerships kind of thing that would be helpful to me. Um, I don't know. I guess I think I'm going to use an example from teaching because I did an end of the

054year survey every year that I taught just to see where the kids felt of me as a teacher, how I did, whatever, whatever. one page, five questions. And one of the questions a student answered, um, he scored me like a two or whatever it was because I yell a lot. I went, I yell a lot. And his reason, you know, when I looked at there wasn't a reason under it, but we didn't have air conditioning and there were three fans in the room, one there, one there, and one there up on the wall. And I changed seats every month. And lo and behold, when I think about who he was because they put their names on it, so I can kind of get a feel, he was always near the fan and where I taught

055was near the fan. So I'm projecting my voice to talk over three fans, but he happened to be sitting right next to me. So that's yeah, from his perspective, I was yelling a lot, but that was helpful to know because otherwise taking that personally, but I'm like, I yell a lot, man. Did I really yell at him? But it just gave me it explained the why. The why. Yeah. Yeah. So, I like that. I I agree. And and if people do not want to add a comment, then that's fine, too. They just want to do straight numbers, that's okay. Okay. So, we will have those comments. Um, anything else that we want to see on this survey? Again, we're we're shooting for simplicity, keeping it simple the first time around, knowing that we're going to

056revisit it in a year, looking at what kind of data and feedback it's going to give and and how we're going to analyze it. Um, we're all going to evolve in this process. I think the only thing that would be interesting to me maybe it's and I know it's not adding into the survey but with there being a a question about the board on was it the student perception survey being able to just include that data you know like where people rate the board's effectiveness or whatever that question is and you all probably know better than I do um like when we're asking whether it's community or administration or something like that can we can we at least keep that alongside this data so that you know our board our self-evaluation is also taking into

057account some of those things that we're hearing from other data sources as to how our effectiveness is. Yes and no. Okay. No in the fact it wouldn't be on this evaluation but yes it would be another data point as we talk about using our data to inform decisions. Exactly. That would be a piece. We would just have to look to see when does that data come in. It may not be both times that we analyze the data. It might only be at the spring. Spring. Okay. It' probably be fall by the time. So, we get that. Okay. Stutter. Um. All right. You good with that? Yeah. I I think you guys make some great decisions. These are um you you'll you'll learn a lot um and uh you'll decide um you know is this going

058to provide the value to increasing your effectiveness. This is what it's all about. It's a classic continuous improvement kind of thing. So um I think this next year next year you'll learn a lot. you know, figure out what you want to do differently, what you want to do the same. So, yeah. Do you have anything else for us? I do not. This was my objective. Your main objective today? I know that one of the objectives that I have, and I've talked to Drew briefly on this, I just I don't believe in surprises. If it was up to me, I'd have something that says no surprise. And I know that other boards do that on the back of their name plate. Just try. We talk about transparency within our community. We should have transparency here as

059well. Um, and one piece that I've talked to Drew about down the road is what does what do these collective commitments then look like at a committee level. This isn't just full board kind of stuff at full board kind of meetings, but as we walk that walk, we walk that at full board meetings. We walk that at committee meetings. We walk that as a committee member and a non-committee member. And so kind of my in the back of my mind is how do we continue to bring this into the folds for us as a board member because we're not our board member role isn't reserved to the board meetings on a Monday night at a full board level. Um, so that's just going to kind of be a piece when and this bring that's leading

060to my question to you when we are talking about this survey. I don't know if we need something in the directions clarify this because it's a question I have. Are we evaluating the board's performance at the board level meetings or are we evaluating what we perceive as the board's performance as a whole which is committee meetings etc etc. How does that survey work? We just need to make sure we have that in the directions. I I don't know that answer because I haven't looked at enough surveys to see how it's worded. Yeah, that's interesting question. My original p perception is that this people would be thinking about the full board when they are together. When we are together, how well are we following our commitments? Now, I could see that eventually getting into a committee

061committee level. And I could also even suggest, not tonight, because you have other agenda items, that you might want to think about what commitments um uh ha have have your committees make commitments to how they're going to work together. So you have some consistency within those committees as well. And it could be committees could go these work for us, right? I mean just or well we work a little differently. It's like okay that's but have some consistency among committees and a lot of that could come out in the comment section if you know I mean if if we had a problem in planning committee one of us could put that in the comments. Mhm. You know, I'd like to see us do this. So, my recommendation is you do it as a full board, have

062a couple whacks at it, and then say, "All right, let's talk about committee level. How do we want to do that?" And you could even explore things like what about committee leaders? You know, what are the expectations of committee leaders? And so there's some consistency among committees. Or if someone wants to make a case for differentiation of leadership style among committees, then let's have that conversation. So So that gets into the no surprises piece so people know what to expect when committee meets and so on. Yeah, I'd say give this give this a shot. Give this a couple of rounds. see how effective it is, adjust. So classic plan, do checkout kind of kind of thing. So then the next step in the process is to create it. So pretty simple, pretty easy. Um, is

063that something you are all entrusting me to do based on the notes here? Is that something you want a subcommittee to do? I mean, it's basically putting one, two, three, four after each of those with a set of directions and a comment section. So, if you're comfortable with it and then wouldn't mind emailing it out just so that we have a chance to look before it would go live just in case there's anything that we see. Um, if I do that, just remember first time probably for you comments then have to be responded only to me. do not respond all because then we have a walking meeting, walking forum. So with that, yes, if there's anything within there and and then if charity says, "Hey, I don't like this and um it's been brought to

064my attention blah blah blah and push out something beyond that based on what I see now. I've just described to you what that would look like." Um I wish that I would have been doing it while Drew was talking because I could have had it up on the screen as we went. This is what first time through. It's a little clunky. Um I don't It's going to be super super simplistic. It's not going to be super pretty. Um it might even be a matter of hey Lynn, you know, take this put it into a Google that's her role her, you know, here's what we have. Then it's not necessarily one person transferring the the notes from that. Um and unless I miss something, it's going to be here's the title. It's a Google survey. Um,

065here are the 12 questions. Here's our liyker scale. Our I don't think we if we do numbers, it would be numbers, but they'd be qualified. So, there'd probably be words. Do you want them to be creative words like I'm a rock star. I'm I'm going with charity recommendation. Some totally agree. Totally disagree. So the the the traditional that we have, I'm looking at four. I'm not I don't like five. If you have Lynn building it and you are the second set of eyes, that's totally fine. I just always know when I work on surveys for just basic spelling stuff, things like that, you know. Do you need a second set of eyes? If you're if you're the second set of eyes, that's fine with me. I don't I don't need to see it. I trust.

066And I'm also to the point, remember, it's our first time through. We know it's not going to be perfect. This is the bare the bare necessities that we have there. But I I had no problem sending it out to the board. I just don't know. I think she's gone this week, isn't she? So, she'll get back. I don't know how overwhelmed she's going to be. They have a week and then it's spring break, but we also have our board meeting on 16th, 17th, whatever. It's a week earlier because of spring break. So, it's just the time crunch coming in. So, I just want to connect with her before I say, "Hey, Lynn, I need you to do this." because it would need to be pushed out. I think it's by Wednesday. She gets back on

067Monday, so I don't know if that's a fair turnaround. So, let's have Diana do I don't want to speak for Lynn, but she will be overwhelmed, right? Anytime you leave for a week plus and come back, there's just a lot. So, great. But she's going to need to create I don't know. I could because it's all anonymous. She's typically the keeper of the stars, though. I'll still connect with her if I have it all built here. Send go touch it up. It should be simple. You can also change the ownership of Google forms. So if you create it, you can make her the owner after that. Yeah. Alrighty. Um, everything that I have for ideas and conversation we've hit upon. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Drew before we Thank you. Great. You guys

068doing great work stuff and then we may be in touch again at a fall workshop type session or summer workshop. We'll see how we'll see what the data tells us. Yeah. Awesome. Drive safely back. Okay. Got it. Thanks. Nice being here. Great seeing you guys here. All right. Second on our food. Second on our agenda today. Um I have new member orientation feedback. And the purpose of this, similar to what we just talked about in the survey, is this was our first time through creating a structure um for new member orientation that will be year-to-year process of it. And so char I emailed charity last week to just again I don't believe in surprises. Hey Charity, I'm going to put you on the spot during the meeting. Um just want to know what you thought.

069Was it valuable? What was too long? What was too short? What do you want more of? What do you think less of? Understanding that's one perspective. I remember Dan saying, "That was just really long." But I could have sat another two, three hours with the computer part of it. You know, everybody's got their own flare. We knew going in, we we fast forwarded it because we'd have a new board member in March. We also know we're going to be implementing it again for a new board member or members in April. We'll revisit it again. just that other hey additional tweaks whatever and then we don't need to keep doing this over and over again. It would just be just maybe the planning chair saying hey what did you like what did you not like and

070if there's anything glaring from there but in a nutshell anything super high level that either worked really really well that you think hey you might want to just because you suggest it right now doesn't mean we're going to change it. It's just let's put it on our radar and the next time around as as another data piece. Hey, you know, so you got the floor. Thank you. I I think for me, obviously, I got my my folder out because the collective commitments were in there. I mean, having a takeaway resource I think was very helpful because it's something that I can consistently go back to, including having the new member handbook. Um, you know, that's not something that I knew that I would be able to get. I'm getting 100 emails from WASPY every week,

071you know. So, it's like how much how much can I look at all of that on a regular basis to where this really kind of condenses specifically for this district some of the things you need to know. I think sitting down with the administrators that I did get to meet with Sarah Duncan understanding a little bit about district finance. It was an incredibly helpful overview. You know, having a conversation with David and Jared overarching, you know, things that are in here and then Sarah O was helpful. I for me I would love to you know potentially if we have the opportunity to have a sit down with Jason understand you know his role or um you Jenny um you know just just understand you know I know coming up in the referendum we're talking about

072potential impact to HR being on the HR committee I feel like I have at least one meetings worth of insight from Margaret but you know just understanding um beyond the directory that's available online and I know that um one of the things that and and this is all new stuff I think at least relative atively new front line for the evaluation is new technology and probably relatively new to everyone. You know, being able to have the the new members who are coming in get an understanding of that. Uh I had gotten an email regarding um whatever the data opportunity is wise, you know, to understand what our access points are to that. So again, you know, maybe just a a brief tech orientation around those programs um might be helpful and and maybe that piggybacks

073with J Jason, you know, spending time with you. I'm not sure. Um but, you know, it could be another opportunity, but but overall it was incredibly helpful because I'm coming in, you know, 10 months, 11 months after people who have been here one year, two year, three year, four year. Um and I don't want to hold anybody back. So, this was really helpful to kind of try to get me up to speed relatively quickly knowing that there's going to be a learning curve as I keep going and I've got a lot to continue to learn from everybody here. Um, but this is just very helpful resource. Awesome. Please, I think there's a lot of things you may have um gotten that a lot of us didn't. So hopefully that'll help you get a good start

074or a little bit more accelerator maybe in getting into it. So I'm glad that that I was told by multiple people when I came onto the board typically it takes six to eight months before you feel comfortable as a board member. They're like well Diana you already know the school system so you have an advantage where others don't because you know more of the ins and outs of it. Um, Dan, you know the school system, but at what point did you feel like you kind of felt that you weren't fumbling or, you know, overly swimming in the water? Well, it wasn't that long ago. I mean, I feel more confident now, but I didn't get to meet with Sarah Duncan or or any of that, and that would have been helpful. I still am not

075sure about how the roles break down between the administrators and I've asked a couple of times and Jared has said we're working on so I don't know what that actually means but I've gone to the wrong administrator and they get get me in the right direction but you know it would be helpful to have this is this person responsibility if I have a bus question who do I go to you know that kind of thing so and that's something that he that he said they are working out as well. Now, they're in the New York board member handbook. This is in here, but I was told this is our first crack at it, so it'll probably change. But to your point, just to even have something like this that's a draft version, right, gives you

076some insight. And remember too, when all of the the rules in there are shifting a little bit yet because of the whole shake, I'll call it shake up, shake around. Um, so yeah, it's changing, but exactly I'm I'm a list person and I'm used to it's just like you're used to the teaching role. Here's a list when you want to go to you call this person then you call and they're I think still figuring out because it used to be this person's role and now it's kind of this and that. Well, that's not really work, you know, and and uh the protocol for visiting a school, you know, what should happen there, you know, uh contact the principal, what do you do? I mean, walk in anytime, you know. So, be good to have all

077of that. Um, having uh uh town hall meetings, listening sessions, that kind of thing. What can I just announce one, you know? So we should have something defining that. So I'm going to ask this question. I'm not critiquing. I'm asking the question of what you just mentioned on top of the whole list there. Are those things that those would be good to have day one as you're sworn in as a new board member or do you think that maybe there should be a followup? Because as a new teacher, for example, I'm only using teaching because that's where I lived and breathed. You were a newbie for technically a newbie follows for the first three years. You don't dare try to have a 100% of it done on the first day, right? And so I think

078about how overwhelmed I was. I think about the conversations you and I had in the first couple months on how overwhelmed you were with the computer with this. You can have all those conversations. I just don't know how much will stick. So I'm wondering do we suggest a second goaround where maybe at that point then you're meeting the Jason the Margaret and having some of those pieces. Yeah, I think I'm not I'm just I'm asking. Well, it'd be like, why would I have a town hall meeting the first month I'm in there? Because people are going to be asking me questions and I don't know, you know, so call this person, whatever. I can comment. I think that would be helpful. Like what charity may need in six months may look very different than what

079I may have needed or been looking, you know, it really just depends on what committees you're on. It depends on, you know, um what's happening in the district. So like wise dash I did have to have a sit down for someone to help me through that. Um, that doesn't mean that every board wants every board member wants that, but I think that there's always opportunities with the administration to get that one-on-one if you need it. But that may be a good thing to do, Diana, just as a hey, a high level. What are some things that you find now in six months that you're still missing or that you still think you need some clarification on now that you kind of got your foot in the door? Let me noodle on that. Yeah, I like

080where you're going with it, but I know that if I was to ask, what are you missing? You don't know what you don't know, right? But if we can maybe I hate being surveyed, but I you hate being surveyed. But one thing that I did with Dan, Dan, as the chair of this committee, I reached out to Dan every two to three months. I did that purposefully. Hey, what are you doing? How you feeling? What do you need? We didn't have a mentor role yet. I'm sure Dan connected with other board members as well, but as the chair I can take care of my peeps and so hey well I was wondering this and then he hey I'm not understanding it. So they're developed that and I think you've got some of it. It didn't

081help with some of the other but who do you talk to here? Hey reach out to this person go this route. Um hey we have a protocol for this. Those are snippets of conversations he and I had that if you were to say to Dan in the third month here, "Hey, what do you need?" I can tell you Dan's response would have been I don't know. I I'm just trying to stay alive right now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that would have been So, I agree, Lori, that something What does that look like? Is it a conversation? Is it a um like a two to three question? like you said a two to three question that's not a full-on survey but just what what are you feeling confident in you know because there are

082certain things that you feel you pick up right away you really gravitate toward you know what are some things that you know you still feel you're struggling with you know and it could just be understanding Robert's rules of order point of clarification all of those things I mean you don't until you get into that flow of meetings and know what the the culture of each meeting is you might not know but at least It's here's my question and with this by adding in and that was a conversation with that Dan and I had which why we suggested having the mentor in part of the orientation that could be something and and we said that mentor isn't assigned mentor it's the committee chair will meet whatever it is says with it with new members of their

083committee and so they can reach out and ask those questions. Hey, how are you doing? Is there anything you're struggling with? what's going well? Anything I can help you with? And hopefully Dan, you're on two committees, right? So you be being new, you would have two people reaching out to you. Charity, you're on two comm you'd have two people reaching out to you. And so if you don't get it with the first one, then it might be maybe you're on policy with Craig and oh Craig, can you help me with this? You know, kind of a thing. So you you've got yourself covered in multiple directions as opposed to just here's a generic survey that comes to my inbox that I'm overly inundated with emails anyway. Should I use that as the suggestion um through

084the chairs? If the chairs have set check-in questions kind of thing, you can deviate from them. But these are things just checking in on on your new members. And these are a couple things and I've recorded what am I confident in? What am I still struggling with? What are some questions you have? You know, it could just be general questions. I guess I would yield to you and Craig as chairs because I could say, "Yeah, that sounds great." But I'm not a chair who has to follow up with somebody regularly. And so it's easy for me to say, "Yeah, yeah, do that." But are you comfortable with that? All right. So, I'm not going to put this as a questionnaire. I'm going to use this as followup questions from chair to newbie in the mentor

085role. Did I capture that? It won't be stated exactly like that in the minutes, right? We're not going to say newbie, but that's kind of the gist where that's at. All right. Anything else on that? All right, moving right along. Next one is the superintendent evaluation feedback. Um, as you recall, we met with Tim Ker and he led us through the superintendent evaluation process. Um, I'm going to tell you Jared got to me his goals yesterday, the day before, whatever it was, and there was a piece missing. My thought was that these goals when he puts them in there, they're live. when you get when they go in there and I finalize them, whatever, it's they're locked in. So, it's not necessarily a live document. You see that point, you don't see things until I

086finalize whatever's there. So, that's why there's still nothing there at this point. The piece that wasn't there, and I have to look more intricately, but the first thing I noticed in that was, hey, we had talked about some things with discipline, um, being a focal point. What are some action steps regarding discipline? So, I I need you to put some of those in there. I will take it's been a busy couple days on my end once he got those. He's been very very busy. I'm not making excuses, but with the referendum and all those other things, he's talked to us about the overarching goals. And I said to him, if these aren't in there in a perfect form at this, but we know what the goals are. We've heard them. I would much rather him

087dedicate the majority of his time right now to the referendum than to having this perfect route of of goals. Please correct me if I'm wrong and I should be addressing it otherwise. We got behind the eightball in it. We were late coming through. Wasn't it left that he and Jenny were going to meet and talk about it about what discipline? He the goals are he's he's got to talk about what are some action steps with it that they're going to do. Um, and so I don't want to speak on his behalf right now, but I am going to speak somewhat on the behalf. There's been a lot going down with the referendum. Um, and pieces that way. A lot going down with pushing different things through with Neil. There's always going to be things with

088the district. I'm going to say referendum right now has taken a lot of the priority pieces. Um, yet this still is a priority as well. So, how do we find that balance? So, I will continue to nudge. Um, but I didn't I didn't hold, hey, this is this needs to be finalized before the planning meeting. So, we have this. To me, that wasn't a necessity. I mean, I guess uh April was just, you know, what, 27 days away, April 1st, and you're not going to implement a new discipline policy in May. You know what I mean? It's going to come next fall of any time. So, but that's not necessarily implementing new action steps. Could be things that he's already doing. It's just laying out for us what's happening. Okay? This isn't, hey, we're changing.

089You're midyear. So, if you're making an overhaul in discipline, you don't do that mid year anyway, right? Do you know what I'm saying? But different action steps to how we're going to see things. I know that Sarah O has been doing some different things with discipline. So, some of those would would be pieced in there. I can't speak specifics because I don't have that in front of me right now. Um, but I just wanted to let you know as far as where that's at that a it's going to be finalized. You're going to see a snapshot of the goals and things. You're not going to see it again until check-in number one when different things have been added. My understanding initially when I brought this to committee months and months and months ago was it's

090a live document throughout. I've been corrected on it's not a live docu. It's live for Jared, but my understanding is once it's finalized, it becomes live for others to see. Okay. Let me understand like the um what's the definition of a goal? Because uh in this particular case, it seems as though we have identified an area of focus, right? and then returning to the superintendent or administration come up with some sort of a plan. Who I mean at what point does the board provide the direction for that area of focus that the board has identified? So my understanding and that conversation kind of came up when Tim was here. Yeah. that the way the DAPES process works, it is more focused on the superintendent and their goals that we through the check-in process, we have

091our um comments that go through. Okay. But basically, it's and that would be a great question when when Tim comes because Tim's gonna you were Yeah, you were here for that that he's going to guide us through this process this year. Tim's going to lead us through check-in one. I will or whoever the planning know I will because I'll still be here just having the background on it. I will lead us through check-in too and then our summit of evaluation Tim will lead us through. So I don't have all of the answers. I'm learning it just as you are. But ask I had asked that question or that did come up through when we met and that is um it is the dates process is not an evaluation process like many of us think evaluation

092okay um we think of evaluation when I think of evaluation I think 5 4 3 2 1 five is good one is bad you need improvement on this you know there's different protocol if there are um targets for improvement. There's a word for it. I just lost it. It's the DAPES process is different because yes, it's performancebased, but it's looking at improvement. It's not improvement. How do you describe even the way CISA works with educator effectiveness? Yeah, they're focusing on growth. It's not focus. It's not a punitive kind of a piece. So if we're looking for something more evaluative other than growth mindset focused, we need a different tool. And um when I had gone to the state convention looking at even the school perceptions tool um because it it's it's light years behind where

093it is, it it wouldn't be feasible for us. Um is there a different if that's something that we're looking for? But as a committee we had committed to going through this process at least for this year to see given what's there and that's why I said asking us all have an open mind given what's there is this something that we see working for us and it's hard because many of us come from a frame of mind where we're more evaluative in nature it's still your yeah so I guess I was confused by that because uh when when I when I hear we talk about goals. I'm I'm thinking measurables like metrics that that okay, we're hoping to move the needle this much in this particular area. So, you will have that. All of Jared's goals

094are written in the smart goal format. They smart standing for specific, measurable, attainable, time bound, and I forgot the R. That's realistic. Realistic. R comes before T and smart. So, with that, when I sat down with him, we made sure they were all in smart go format before they were presented here. So they all have measurable components to them. Okay. Okay. I mean I mean yeah I think that answers it. Okay. I was going to add to it. I think you guys kind of put it all together. I had like a thought but it all fit together. So anybody else? All righty then. Moving right along. Then next up, Jason is going to we have parent engagement survey and board referendum letter. Both of those. Do you have a preference which comes before the other?

095No, I think we can go in order. Just parent engagement I think is first. So, uh, thank you. I always like to, uh, start with our why. And so when we think of of a parent engagement survey, we know that parent engagement and feedback is important and we value that. So that that's the essential why. Um a parent engagement survey also aligns with past practice. And so just a reminder that in the in the past we just just like our student engagement survey, we partnered with stutter uh that that partnership is sunset. So, um, we're looking for a replacement and of course that our parent engagement survey and the data aligns with components of our strategic plan. And so, those are the three um wise that I thought about. I also think about the how.

096So um I think it's important to note that any data that comes from a parent engagement survey is uh reviewed by uh the director team you know the district level team but it's also funneled to building leaders in their leadership teams by school and so those the data sets would be dissected there and becomes part of their action plans. Um, typically what happens is the we we would work with school perceptions to uh uh send this uh parent engagement survey out electronically. In past I've also made sure that we had paper copies available at each building if that was the preferred method for families and we communicate that. And uh in past I what I have done is align the parent engagement survey window with the student engagement window. So parents and students just assume

097that like that that when we will look for our survey and that's worked well for me in the past. Just a couple reminders and I would love your feedback. One is that uh we can certainly make minor revisions, right? Um but our our survey experts, our creators of surveys have asked us to really steer clear of word smithing individual questions, right? And so we can delete questions, we can make revisions to like demographics. Those are minor things, but they really have asked us not to wordsmith. Um, I'd really uh ideally we work on on uh questions here about this survey, work through the process, and if we're supportive, we would then bring this to the full board uh preferably in March and then work towards uh finalizing our our window. We have not finalized our

098window for using this but really would like you know any questions suggestions for improvement and and the work to occur here so we can be ready for the full board. That's a question please. Got a question. Yeah. Is this going to be I'm trying to remember in the past but for a parent that has multiple children in different buildings. They going to do the survey for each building. I think that's how it was in the past. Guess I just didn't know if that was what is going to happen now. That's not the way I read this, right? Which because the way this one works is if we're on slide three, page three, which schools does your child attend? Select all that apply, right? What grade? Select all that apply. Right. So, in the past, we

099did one per child per school, right? And I just wondering it it would concern me if we are only doing one survey for multiple children. What what I've worked with school perceptions in the past is what once they get to that question then you get multiples and so if you have a child at uh the middle school and shurers then you're really answering two sets question so it's a branching yeah okay yeah y so similar to what we've had in the past okay I just wanted to be sure because you know when you're looking at it's just hard to capture the branching in a p you know a PDF so no and that's good because that was one of my questions with school experience school experience at the elementary school if I have an elementary

100and high school kid. Those are very different and it's going to skew the data. So, we want to make sure we're getting the data from the right building level. That was one. The only other question I do have is, and I know we did this for the student, um I do still wonder the latex, Latinx. Um, page three. Page three for the identity. And I know we we put the student one through. Um, we weren't going to change it. I'm just still not sure if that is being my concern with it is that it's not being fully um, what's the word I want to try to find? I I I've done a little bit more research. I'm finding that the his especially older Hispanics don't even know what that is or Latinos or Latinas. So,

101I want to be sure that we're not missing a group of somebody that, you know, may identify as Latino or Latina. I'm not even so much worried that if we have I'm not even sure how you say it. I don't want to say it incorrectly. Leon X latex. But I you know I I know that um I have a couple friends that I've asked also. So I just want clarity on I think we do need some clarity on the reasoning behind that and if we're not missing someone who may not know you know especially when they are fluent in a Spanish they my understanding is that is not a Spanish version that is more of an American and I can appreciate the reason why I'm not saying that it's necessarily wrong. I just don't want

102to make I want to make sure we're not missing a Latino or Latina that wouldn't necessarily be well and I look at not picking on Puerto Ricans. I've had friends that are Puerto Rican and if they're Puerto Rican they don't want to be called Hispanic and they don't want, you know, they're very proud of their culture, you know, instead of Latinex, is it Latin American? Can we just, you know, I don't know, but that doesn't fit the grammatical, but neither does LX, right? Um I guess I guess my curiosity would be we know what our makeup of our community is. Is it why is it so essential for us to know this identifying information on a satisfaction survey that that is something you know like I said it earlier that the demographics is a spot

103where we have full control over right uh school perceptions again would just tell us please don't words smmith survey questions so that we can we can do away with demographics We can say take Latin X off. We can that you know that's very flexible far more flexible than our creators would say around the survey questions. I real I realize that we can remove it. I just want to know what the value is. I can tell you my perceived value. Sure. um going through if we look at some of the questions of my child feel safe at school or the staff treat my child with dignity and respect having a demographic break breakdown. If you're seeing a tendency that hey this demographic is scoring this pretty low at this particular school without that demographic breakdown you

104have no idea. So, it's m we break down demographics for behaviors. We break down demographics for special ed. We break down demographics for um different academic things to make sure there's I don't see why we wouldn't do that in this. That doesn't mean that this has to be the beall end all, but just it's if you have it there and you don't use it, it's easier than not having it there and wanting it. But ultimately, we would want to strive to treat all of our students correct with dignity and respect and it shouldn't should matter. We're going to strive to do it. But what does the data tell us and if we're making data informed decisions then we have data to support that. That's just my perspective on where that is. Yeah. Jason, do I

105don't know and I know this is our first we've used um is this who does our staff? Okay, so we know how they break down. They do a very pretty detailed could that be a question that needs to be asked if that is part of the data when they do do their you know what's the word I'm looking for when they do analogy of the data are they actually pinpointing well you know that do they give you that much distinct um data about the identity in you know, in the whole thing. I can't talk tonight. No, no, you're good. The answer is yes. If we ask the question, then you can dissect the data, uh, cross reference it, right? So if you don't ask, as Diana is saying, if you don't ask, you would get

106this raw d, not raw data, you would get this data. But if anyone ever wanted to say, huh, uh, my child feels safe at school. I would like to see that by, uh, identity break it down. You would not be able to. So all it does is allow for us to do that. And yes, so the answer is the short answer is yes, you can. Jim, I I want to read this uh research that uh community members sent to me. It says Latin access in a race. It's a queer gender term for someone who is neither fe female nor male. To be race, it would be Latino. Male or female would be Latina or Latino. Latinx is crossing out the O or the A in order to stamp out male and female. Queer theory. I

107think we just take it out. You can't take it out because Hispanic and Latin American if you break they've got because these are the Spanish speakers. So Latino if a Latino go back to that with an e is is equally inclusive and I know that that can be a charged word. It's more of it it's as I've heard the argument before that there's not a sound for the X in Spanish speaking countries where with the E in place of it there is and so essentially that is intended to be rather than putting Latino Latina slash you know that the Latina with an E is intended to essentially tick both the boxes. Well, what's covered under Spanish origin of any race? Isn't that sort of all-incclusive? Yeah. We we have to remember that folks are self-

108selecting, right? And so, we're really saying are do you see yourself identity as one of these, right? So, we're not prepopulating that. Folks are self- selecting and um that level of detail, I don't think we would ever know. So my question is similar to Dan's and this is the almost English teacher in me. We have Hispanic, we have Spanish. Latino Latina is the Spanish written version of Latin American. The other two are in English. Why is that one not in English? Why don't we have Latin American? That's just and and by having Latin American, it solves all of this. If Latin American is truly what they're I just I don't know if I'm missing a boat on something, but um I mean I'm not Latina, so I don't want to speak for Latino or Latina,

109but from what I was told and it is not a it's not even so much necessarily like I can appreciate the idea that we're not making it Latino because that's male, right? We don't want to offend a woman who may be a Latina, but my understand where my concern is is there's going to be a misunderstanding for someone who's not familiar with the X. I don't want them to be, you know, so I don't know as Latin America proper because really what it comes down to is it's who identity identifies at that. I just did the brief Google search. Now I'm 20ome years out of my Spanish speaking degree and everything with that. What does Latina mean? A woman or girl who is native or inhabitant of Latin America. So that goes back to my

110statement. We have an English thing in there. Hispanic. We have an English thing in there of what? Spanish. I don't have it in front of me. Sorry. Hispanic. Hispanic. And what's the other one? Spanish origin. Spanish origin. Those are both English. And then we have Latin X. So let's just make it Latin American. Then it's all three. That's what we're just They're from Latin America. It's a Latin American person. It's a Spanish person. It's a span. You know, the only the only challenge, and it's not to truly challenge because we can deliver this probably for a long time, is that sometimes Latino is inclusive of Caribbean countries and Latin America. Yeah, that's where I was wondering if there that that to say Latin America would would solve for I think the majority of what the

111challenge would be to that demographic checkbox. Are are the Caribbeans part of the Americas? Depends on what countries I'm looking at right now. I was doing that right as you were talking because I'm on that same line. Yes, the Caribbean islands are generally considered part of Latin America as the term Latin America includes not only South America but also Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean islands where romance languages like Spanish are predominantly spoken. Latin America. What does are like [Music] in the Jamaica? Jamaica would be America is also then it says terminology when discussing the region as a whole it's often referred to as Latin America and the Caribbean. Okay. And down at the bottom it says other. I mean they can write in whatever they want. Right. So if we put Latin America and

112they're like no and we have another if they don't feel you know for the and I don't want to say for the 1% but for the the less than 1% that we have you know at least there's that's why we have an other there to make sure nobody is excluded or feels excluded. So, are we in consensus with the committee that Latin X Jason will look into to see if we can change that to Latin American? And I'm going to step out of the box here as the committee chair and ask that if that is and you guys agree with me or disagree if it is okay to do that on this, can we do it so it's similar for the other surveys as well? So that's consistent that if that can be changed to

113Latin American on the parent survey, it will also be changed on the student survey and the staff survey. Are you all good point okay with that drag input? I think it's a great idea, but I still question especially uh I still question whether or not you know that ident identifying a child by their um ethnicity is necessary on a satisfaction survey. Can I ask you to hold that question for when we when the information is brought back to us and we have the representative here to speak to that say hey this is a question here can you describe for me a few instances on how this is used and then we can make a you know given the data in front of us then hearing from the person you know behind it all would that

114be a fair piece rather than us to try to believe why we think in things but actually have it they can tell us specifically then would that be okay. I'm not discounting the question just when there's someone here that can answer it better. Sure. I I guess I mean I mean my my hope is that we're able to um take every child's concern and in in a similar you know correct and if they say hey there's really no value to it then that would be a great time to say all right then I would recommend that the committee takes a look at this next time and eliminates it or oh I see value I see why it's there we're going to leave it. Sure. But it's easier to, you know, from where we are now

115having it on until we hear that there's little value and then take it off since we don't have that information today. Just a point of clarification. I know I I don't know, have we covered the student one already? I know this is about the parent one and I know we're talking about consistency across all of them, but did we talk about that one in a prior meeting? Yes. Okay. But but I think from my understanding is we've approved a survey. We didn't necessarily approve, you know, I mean the the language on the survey can still be changed. That that was my my understanding. I'm going to push back. But I'm gonna ask the question that No, no, but if if the language is changed, what's the process to do that? Oh, you know what I'm

116saying? Because I got from Jared. Oh, it can still be questioning about it. But my question just would be what would be the process to do that, right? Does that come back? Okay. If this if question number four, the language is changing, right? Is the expectation it's coming back to committee then coming back to the board before it's implemented. Even the board said yes or no I would think that the planning committee would be the one that and adapt the survey according to what the committees you know but we have to come back to the comm and that's what I'm saying given timeline we are at March we don't meet again until May so for this goound we need to that survey is the one that's going to be used there's not going to be

117a lot of change because we don't have time to come back to committee to push the survey Does that make sense? Oh, well that's that's unfortunate. I that's just my thought. Correct. Unless we I just don't know if we need some clarification on that one. Yeah, I think we do too because I think I don't know Jason if you spoke to them since we approved the student because at the board meeting when this topic came up, we were told we couldn't change the words. Now we're why we are kind of, you know what I mean? So I just I think we need some clarity on what this is going to look like. I can give you some clarity. What questions might you have? Well, the same topic, the one within the Latin X that's on

118the student that has been approved. What would be the process to get that so that it does have the same language as the parent? So, I I uh just emailed Derek, I think he joined us, and just told Derek, I'm just pointing because he's virtual. Sorry. Derek from school perceptions was here and answered questions. I simply emailed him and said that uh the student engagement survey uh moved through the full board with support that we would have the parent engagement survey on tonight with the goal of it being on the March full board and we set a time to meet I think in April. So there's time specifically about demographics. I will hear uh in red is to do JB will check with school perceptions changing Latin X to Latin American in both the student

119and parent. We that change I'm very comfortable that I can say yes we can do that. Questions survey questions is a far different answer. That's what I was interpreting. You were saying survey questions. Okay. Are you were you just talking about those? Well, well that but um I was under impression that some of the other items could still be changed but student or parent? The student. Oh yeah. I mean we can change anything, right? It hasn't been but I think that would we'd have to think about going Right. We have a full board resolution that was approved. Let's put it let's put it this way. If the only sticking point is that, it's a non-issue. Great. Well, my question would be if we've already proved that as a board, why are we going back to

120making additional changes to questions because it's already been approved as a board? It can be a practice to retroactively change things of a previous. No, no, no. I understand it, but but to approve something that to go back and make changes to something that we haven't utilized, you know, I guess I I don't know. We have collective commitment that says, you know, that we're going to I remember how it's worded, honoring the board decision, you know, kind of a piece in there. I just wonder on that. We just want to be a little cautious and careful because otherwise we don't want to come back to saying that okay we made a decision on the board but just because of decision on the board we could bring that decision back again month after month after you

121know so we just want to be careful in our practice. I did have something to add. Yes. One thing um when we were talking about with specifically the parent this is asking the identity of the parent not the student. So, I just want to be sure that we're not thinking we're going to know what the identities of these students that we're concerned about because if a parent identifies, you know, they could have an adopted child, they could have there's many, we all know how this works. So, I'm just saying I don't want us to think that. So, on your note, Craig, how important is it to know the parents identity? Would we be better served to know what their student identity was? If that's what we're, you know, if that's kind of where we're Yeah,

122that makes sense. I understand that question. Do you understand what she's asking? Yes. So, what are we going to do with it, right? Because it's a valid I agree with the question. Dan agrees with that question. To me that would be more valuable since we're wanting to know how you know like the likeam unless there's another example where it would be important to know the parents identity. I'd be curious you know I'm not saying that it's not an interest but do we need both then? I don't know. I'm I'm curious on both on both accounts but I mean I want to know what the what the rationale is and and that that's just my two cents. Well, I think that there there are questions on the parent survey that I feel welcome in my child's

123school that it might be helpful to know. Sure. In the same way that like with students um you know, I have at least one school staff member I feel comfortable contacting when I have an idea of concern. Maybe less so. I mean that that is not specifically demographic demographically connected, but I think there are probably two or three um the school teachers with materials that reflect my family's cultural and racial backgrounds. You know, you could argue that question, but it would be helpful to have the demographics as it relates specifically to that question. Yeah. And here here's the thing going back to how is how that information is used. Are we going to be profiling families just to try to fit this particular um you know survey, you know, to match the survey up to

124to try to serve that particular segment of the population. Well, I'm going to use that to move this conversation um that point because of the question or a conversation that Dan and I had via email today is how is this survey going to be used? because to take a survey for survey sake is a waste of everybody's time. So when we look at whether we're talking the student survey, the parent survey, you know, student survey more so, but parent survey, um can you give a 30 second or minute overview? How is this data in the past been used? Now we've used this is this a new company we're going with this year? School perception. So it would be a little bit different than the stutter questions that we've had in the past. So there might

125be a little bit of difference there. But just a brief synopsis, how do we use the parent engagement survey? I don't ever remember seeing a parent engagement survey. And that's why I have begged the question each time, is this the right place for this in the planning committee? If not, what committee does it go to? I I don't have that answer, but I've never seen it here. So until we know or until I understand how is the data used I understand it fits under our strategic plan and that's kind of how it fits here in a way but is there a better house for it in committee obviously not policy and obviously not fiscal you know but is there a better place for it to take a look at that information and this isn't the

126first time Jared's heard or Jason's heard me say this every time we meet once a month I come back to the same question is this the right place for but how is it used and then that'll help determine yes this is the right home or not and what you know what are we going to do with it sure I can attempt to answer all the questions I think Craig's question first is how we use the data is that we disagregate disagregate data uh in every way possible right from our report card data right that's given to us in a way that is broken down by subgroups and model that with every piece of data we have whether it's behavioral whether it's uh more local assessment data we break it down in a similar way and

127this would allow us to match that or follow that I would also say that similar to what uh Drew was talking about is that it's a it's a progression of I think we're on a datainformed journey right and how we use the data now will look differently over Right. And so that's just something to think about the plan uh whether is this is the right place. I asked that question in a central office meeting with all the directors and and Dr. Burke and it was unanimous. Bring it to planning committee. So that's why it's here right that's logistically just why it's here. And then how more specifically we use this data I would start at the at the building level. So uh uh we have asked we've created a model we call it the action

128plan model and so there's an expectation for principles to work with their leadership teams every summer and they look at a multitude of data sets they look at student engagement parent engagement staff engagement academic data behavior data and uh Chris Mallaloy and I have created a template where they capture that data longitudinally and from that data digging they create goals for their buildings. They create six goals. Three student goals. One in math, one in literacy, one in student engagement and then three adult goals or one around math literacy engagement. So if we say we want to grow students around math, how are we going to support the adults to do things in math? And so that's where this falls at the building level is summer data digging which then evolves into action plans and goals

129for their buildings. From a district level the the director team I think is in a in a different spot. Uh we're we're on that continuum of our data journey as well. Right. So we're we are growing in how we use this data. But what what I would say is that we see how Margaret brings staff engagement survey data forward and what are the actions that come from that is similar to the goal of where we want to get with directors with uh student and parent. What is the makeup of the leadership team and how are they chosen? Yeah, that's different by every building. That's a madeup I don't know how they're chosen to be really honest. Um but like uh the high school I'm more intimate with. So there are team leaders I think representative

130of every content area and that's the the the core of it but then I think they add folks because we've uh allocated dollars to to make that happen. Are there any parents on the leadership team? That's a great question. I I don't believe thus far I have written a a blurb to our principles they haven't seen yet uh to to prime them for their data meetings and what I've encouraged them is to think about adding students especially at the secondary level and parents and I think they're just part of they need to be part of the process. I think it's a little more challenging at the elementary to have a third grade student there. Right. Right. But to have a fifth grade student might be appropriate, but middle and high school I think is very

131appropriate. And we're and I'm encouraging that. But they're on a journey as well, right? We're all learning and growing together. So follow up on that, Jason. Do you see obviously this is new. Um I know we've done this staff survey for many years now. We well we I think we're on third year of this specific survey because I think Diane and I right when right when we came on changed the survey. So um do you see this coming to the board with the same type of breakdown of what the the survey results show like they do at HR? Yeah, I think it's it would be we would be remiss not to bring some data to you in past practice and other districts. Uh I've I I have some knowledge because I've worked with these and

132we brought the data to we have curriculum committee there. That's where it just funnel to. But yes, that's my past practice. But because I know like the student data, you know, like I we've talked before, we haven't seen that. Yeah. that's we brought to add services but I think we need to create a cadence for that and that's what I just put on the note here to get into the cadence of you and I will talk afterwards when is a good time once we figure out the month to do it and then what typically happens is what I've done in the past again just past practice doesn't have to be the practice is that I align the student and parent engagement survey usually about the third week of April to the first week of uh

133May as the window then It takes some time for school perception to put the data together. We take a look at the data. We're ready to bring it to a a committee in June or July. That's typically what I've found to be true. Point of information just given the large ESL program we have at Shur. Has there been any conversation about offering it in Spanish? Yeah, we'll have a Spanish. I should have mentioned that, but yes, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Do you know how many questions were on the old parent? off the top of my head. I'm sorry. I feel like it was pretty short. I'm remembering want to be sure that you know. So that leads me to a question. Thank you. And that is so we went from the old survey to this

134new survey. What questions are similar? What questions are different? who kind of made that decision. Um, I'm not questioning the person that made it, but tip, you know, questions that were left off. Yes, I trust the administration is doing what they're doing, but why were they left off if they were valuable before or maybe they weren't valuable before, I guess. Can we speak a little bit to the process there? Sure. Um, as I've mentioned, our our our work with students sunseted for a number of reasons and they were the the owners of that previous survey and so we really didn't do much with surveys that you know we just let that sunset and through conversations at the director level and aligning of the work um you know school perceptions could provide us with multiple surveys

135uh I engaged with school perceptions and what if right what if what what could these surveys look like for our district? Okay, let me let me stop you to rephrase because maybe I didn't ask it clearly. If we've had parent surveys in the past and we've asked questions A, B, C, and D, and if I'm looking at something more longitudinal, now I know that we're not going to have it from school perceptions to stutter, but we can at least say that question A is similar to, you know, we can at least meticulously look at a longitudinal thing even though that's sunseted, that's that's moved on, we're starting new. Do we have I'm rephrasing my question. Do we have access or do we have the ability to access that to look back if we need to?

136Yes. Okay, Craigy, we're waiting patiently. Um, you know, I mean, I guess I guess I guess um it goes back to some of the comments I made earlier um about um identity and and stuff like that. I could I could potentially see usefulness in some of the areas of the survey that I'm noticing like um how how would you like to receive your information uh communication and stuff like that? some of you know just in case there's a blind spot in a particular segment of our communities that we're missing um that type of communication or uh satis um you know that's that sort of thing. So I guess I um that's what I was hoping to hear but but yeah so I took that I'm going to piggyback on that if I may. I'm on

137slide six from the parent survey. Questions three and five, for example. Okay. The overall amount of homework my child is asked to complete is whatever. As someone who studied Spanish and going and spending time in Spanish speaking country, 100% in Spanish, what I could have done in English, it took four times as long because the brain is processing so much. So if this particular person says it's too much and you know at least now you have the demic break back background to see hey there's something else going on because this demographic maybe they need some ELLL services that they're not receiving maybe they're whatever. The same is true with my child has access reliable to the internet outside of school. If we notice that there's a certain demographic that's kind of coagulated in this area

138that we can help meet and this can help make sure that people are treated fairly equally you know whatever that is getting the service that they that they should have right if this can help to provide us that then perfect so I agree it shouldn't be done in a negative way and what you're looking the negative I'm looking at it from the posit you know these are all positive looking at it one way or another. I just want to know what the rationality is. Correct. And and making sure that it's not a, you know, you use the word profiling before and whatever. We want to make sure that we're not doing that. But how do we make sure that our kids have what they need, right? Dan, did you have you started? No, I didn't.

139All right. Anything else regarding the survey? Anything else as we go to push this forward? Um, I'm going to speak out. I'm in line but out of line. I'm just I'm prefacing it to start with. Okay. I was taken aback at our last board meeting um when we have and I'm not asking anyone to talk about how they voted, but when we get to a board level and we have a vote and we have multiple no votes coming from committee level, but we don't have committee discussion based on that. It makes it makes me wonder what did we not do at those at this level? And that's why I'm asking this because we don't want to get to a full board and then be like, well, wait a second. We've got three members of the

140committee. They voted I'm making this up right now. Okay, we've got three members of the committee that are voting no on something. Why did it even get pushed to the full board level if three committee members said no to that? So, I just want to make sure we're having the discussion here. So when we get to the board level, if we're pushing it up there, we're saying that we support this. Not necessarily. We're we're supporting it being voted by a full board. But I I mean I get what you're saying, but I don't think that that necessarily means that I I could support it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I understand that because we don't get on No, but I would know going in based on conversation at this level if you were a

141Yes. So, are you asking me why I voted the way I voted? I feel like that's what's right now. No, I'm simply asking the question, have we exhausted everything here in the discussion that we need to to say we support pushing this forward for the full board? Because if we're saying we support this to move forward so we can go on with it, I don't think we ever push something forward to the board to vote no. But that not been the intention. I know when I was part of the planning and it wasn't my intention to push it to the board to vote no. No, I'm I'm just because sometimes the board is going to see we're going to have further discussions. I understand that. I just want my I'm coming back to the the

142premise that I just want to make sure that if we have questions or concerns going forward. We've exhausted those here. So, we give Jason the time to present those so we have something good moving forward that we can stand behind. And if we if we have things that we don't feel we can stand behind that we state that here so he can work on it to get that there. That's my only piece that I was surprised when there was dissenting votes because like well I we didn't have action. We didn't have conversations that would have said in there. So again I'm not critiquing one way or the other. I'm just want to make sure as we go because our timeline again, if we want to to adhere to Jason's timeline to get this out in

143April, then we need board approval in March. And if we have things that we don't think are going to, then this is the time we want to get that done. So, we put the best document forward. That's all I'm getting at right now is have we have we made the sausage we need to make, right? We have all the sausage we need to make for the regarding the identity. He's pushing that forward, my understanding, to see. Are you saying the Latin X? Yeah. Well, I I know that there I mean I know Craig isn't on the committee, but he is on the board and I know there was qu Do you still have questions? No. Regarding I'm not I just wanted to be sure if the rationale is, you know, to try to try to,

144you know, find blind spots in in segments of our community that we may or not may not be serving um appropriately. I get that. rationale. Um as far as uh your committee voting a particular way at the board, uh we we we hope that there is um uh good faith effort from the committee to voice their their concerns prior to it coming to the board and that there you know to your point and uh but sometimes I could see where discussions come up at the board level that you know weren't weren't necessarily thought of at the time. Totally get it. And me personally, I uh I probably would have voted differently if I knew what was that that represented differently. So um uh I I think that the recommendation from the committee so far is

145that um we're going to change it to Latin American. I think that's a a nice compromise to what you know would be suitable. Uh you know, I get that. I just want to re I'm not asking how people vote. I just want to make sure for this moving forward we have all of the questions answered. We know that there's going to be additional things that come up in that. But do we all feel because I shouldn't have to ask it each. I just want to make sure because of our tight timeline with this wanting to put that out in April. We want to make sure because we don't meet again until May. We don't want to have to pull together a special meeting if we don't have to. if we can get 90% of the

146questions and concerns here and then just address whatever questions and concerns come up there and I just want to put you in a position to make great decisions. Right? So I'll bring these and I'll answer any questions and you want to change Latinx to Latin American I'll bring that forward to school perception and if there were other this is the time you know let's I think this if there's nothing else is this everything that we see from here I think the process worked I I agree with Craig that there was new information that I didn't have at the board level and that's fine I just wanted to make sure our process here is working. Yeah, that we have the abil, you know, the best we can, you know, and not and and I wasn't doing

147this to critique any of you. It's for me, how do I make this process better to make sure we're getting the information that we need so we're not putting so we're putting our best foot forward to the full board. So, this wasn't reflective of you all. It was reflective of what do I need to do to make sure the sausage is properly made. As a perfectionist, you want to perfect the process as much as possible. Is that what I'm hearing? But you can't pretty much you can't control my people. No. No. But what like we can always hope for that. And I think you're doing a you do a very thorough job. So, and for me, it's 100%. It's reflect. It's always about me when I seek information. It's okay. What can I do better?

148How can I do this differently to make sure everybody has what they need? And that's why I brought the topic up today because I wanted to be sure we had the discussion because we didn't really get the chance. It would have looked very different if we had it if we but I it wasn't on my radar. It's all good. Um so anything else with the survey? I do have one more. I'm sorry. I don't mean to backtrack. I when when you were you guys were talking about um the other pages, I noticed and this is just slide number please. Slide number four. Thank you. Number three. when it says how would you like to receive school information? I realize that this is a um you know school perception survey but when I see parent portal

149such as infinite campus power school peach star skyward granted we know we use skyward skyward could that be confusing to families that may go I don't know what p school is I don't know what peach jar is I don't know what inant is and then not market because they feel like they're not getting the communication Can I piggy back? Do you get what I'm saying? Knowing what we know, but I know not everybody may realize that. I'm gonna I'm gonna piggyback on that. I'd like to suggest a change to that. You all can correct me. We are moving to a new parent communication portal. Shouldn't that be what's listed there? Well, this is perceptions, but but as a district, we are moving toward having the communication through that new app starting try three. So that's

150starting on March 9th. No, I know. But with that the words I I'm pretty sure we can come. But with this we can Oh, no, we can't. Well, okay. So, this is where I get But this is where we're confused. But right now, none of these is how we're going to be communicating skyward. That's not But but that's I'm asking the question that if we're telling people that our primary means of communication is now through this new I can't even think of the name of it. This new app rooms, do we even want to have those things on there if that's not how we're communicating in a parent situation? Yeah, I consider this more it's not but it's I consider this to be more of a demographic question than than a survey question. And so

151I can follow up with school perceptions as can we change it to such as skyward and rooms and cut it short or can we just even if they can't do that in their whole big scheme of things if they're looking for consistency can you add rooms to that list then sure because technically parent portal is still there right you know it's just giving example so maybe it won't mess up the survey I just thought I would mention No, I like that because to me as an outsider, I'd be like, "What? What is that? What is that? Why?" And we don't use any, right? We don't want to cause more issues. We, you know, we don't want to cause the one we have isn't even on there. It's not even on there, right? And so, if

152we can't change it a single word, okay, if it is what it is for this year, but then next year if they can change it for all blanket to having rooms, so then it would say all this plus rooms, then we're not changing the demog. You know what I'm saying? We're not changing the word words at all. Sorry, I didn't mean to. No, that's a good question. I missed that. Yeah, that's still it's just was great. Making a question. Anything else? Comfortable moving this to resolution? Yes. Yep. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Jody. Yes. Sorry. Thank you. I didn't see a nod either. So, all right. Last up on the agenda then we have board referendum letter. So thank you. Always starting with the why and uh working hard to inform our public um all stakeholders

153about the why, what and how of the referendum. And so with that in mind, uh there's a draft letter here. Um the draft letter has been reviewed and revised by Dr. Burke reviewed and revised by uh David Shrader and reviewed and revised by our attorney and uh David Shrader suggested that we bring this here. I bring this here for your consideration. Um uh the goal would be we're really looking I'm working with Melissa Lampy to think about the big things that we want to accomplish each week of March. And so the first week of March we're doing some newspaper ads. second week of March, we're doing a a mailer, a second mailer. This would fill the big thing of the third week of March. And it's a uh the the idea is a joint letter

154by the members of the full board. And uh I think ideally we'd have each each member of the board sign this and then we push this out via social media, go to the newspaper and our website. So questions, comments, ideas. Go ahead. Is there going to be any additional company information with this uh letter or is it just this letter graphs or like we really um you know Don and the group is saying that the third week of March your information your your historical data all the graphs people should know and by the third or fourth week of March it is reminding people the why, when, how, and reminding folks to vote. And so that's kind of the impetus for this. The number one comment that I've been getting is uh that 7 million is

155that every year. And I'm not sure that uh is it the third fourth paragraph, whatever it is, where it talks about the revenue limit. If 7 million per year is strong enough so that people aren't surprised, you know what I mean? That we're not hiding that if it were even if you capitalize per year or old. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. It's easy. Yeah. You know what I mean? No, I I guess I I I try to understand the premise of your question. Um as opposed to a fiveyear one time. Yeah. A one time 7 million is different than adding 7 million every year is what what I'm the way that it's been worded in a lot of the presentations is it's a $7 million recurring referendum and there are community members what does that mean right

156you know recurring you know is it that is there a sunset to it is there whatever so I understand your point in it it's been clarified at those meetings but when John talks to Susie who talks to Bill, who talks to, you know, that's where sometimes it gets lost, right? And what does that mean? Well, well, I mean, from what I've heard, some people have like this misconception that it's a compounding type of referendum where it's like 7 million this year, well, then next year's another Yeah. Right. you know, um and and that's not what this is. It's just $7 million. I I'm pretty confident to say that we addressed that in our recent editions of uh FAQs. Okay. Do you think both Craig and Dan that paragraph 4 clarifies that? It's clear enough language

157for me, but that that's because I you know it. No, no. And I understand. I'm saying trying to put on put a different lens to it. In line two, we're saying 7 million per year. In line three, it's telling, okay, it's about $175 per year for a $250,000 home. And people then can say, okay, my home is $325,000. My home is $178,000. They can then say, oh, it's going to be a little bit more than one, you know, or it's going to be a little less than that. Or is that I still think it's confus It could be confusing that they're going to think every year it's going to be another 175 then another 175 then you know what I mean? Well it is it's just not going to be 175 350 525 right? I

158mean every year they're going to pay the 175 right but I don't want them to think that that 175 then turns into 350. Oh, that way. Y. So, instead of 175 per year, does this solve it in line three of that paragraph, if approved, the estimated tax impact would be approximately $175 each year for a home valued at whatever instead of per. Does that specify it? Yes. Uh, I would my only I guess feedback on that statement would be we probably would it probably would still be more beneficial to let individuals know the approximate mill rate increase um per you know per thousand assessed and then say for example if approved moved uh the estimated tax impact would approximately would be approximately $175 per year in a home valued at so that they can kind

159of do the reverse math a little bit. How do you if they're two things if they're confused by this general statement they're really going to get confused by mill rate and is the mill rate because it fluctu well because because each municipality is a little different right so how do you because they're each different it how do you cons that's what I'm getting at is how do you concisely and consistently state the impact on the mill rate because each municipality is different well it's still going to be approximately 70 cents or you know that's the that's going to be the miller decrease. So, and we have that in other documentation. I thought, okay, you're saying to have that 70 cents per per thousand thousand on there. Yeah, I get it. I can see why they

160didn't just trying to simplify it with a monetary amount. And I can appreciate simple, but we still want to be sure it's simple and clear. So, I'm fine either way. I do like the each year if we are going to continue the approx keep the approximately that would be my suggestion. So here's my wondering I wonder we have a lot of space down at the bottom simple we have a lot of space a lot of white space down at the bottom and maybe there won't be if you have each individual signature on there but right now it's looking like there's a room for a table. Sorry this is the math person in me. Is there a small table? You know, if you have sure you have a mil you have, you know, a visual doesn't

161have to be a visual of some sort. It's going to get lost in the words. To me, this this is too long, but I don't have a way to shorten it. So, I I don't have that. Something that's simple can walk away with a graphic is my thought there. Tony, I guess I'm I'm looking at this and I know that there's an email that was specifically created for the referendum. My question is, do we have folks that have the bandwidth to respond to say recognizing there may be specific questions about the financial component, if you have questions, reach out to this email? And and that way the people who really are seeking to understand and are just like, I don't get it. My house is worth I don't have a house. Is this going to

162affect me? You know, there there might be people who just want to ask that question. I agree. I don't know. I don't again I'm speaking from a bandwidth place not knowing we don't want to bury you in thousand emails either. Well some people don't have emails. So we've added that before so we can we could add that. I think that's a good idea. One other piece that I have on the letter just general feedback in the one two three four fifth paragraph we invite you to visit our website and the website is linked. You click on that link. I like an easy button. What's it going to tell me? Okay, there's no. It says take the next step to the journey April 1st. There is nothing there. So, take it right to the spring referendum

163page as opposed to the Watertown K12 page. Something. Yeah. Something because right now this tells me nothing. Especially because we know a lot of people do this on their phones. Mhm. And one thing I learned teaching online is that one year easy button. You don't want five clicks to get there. If this is the information, then link it. Link it to and if there's a specific page to have it, have it be that specific page. And if there's something really specific you want, if this is a letter in it, if you normally would have a paper copy and it's the backside, you know, I think if you are going to do that, then I mean it could even just say we invite you to visit our link on our website, you know, because if you

164say it does say visit our website, which is where it takes them or takes you is to the website. Oh, no. So, it's giving you the website to find information. Yeah, that's Yeah, we got to do better. Visit our referendum website. Yeah. Yeah. So, right now, I just think there needs to be a better place that it's going. So, two things as uh additions. One is the referendum email for questions and ensure that the website link goes to the referendum page of the website, not the general website. I don't have clarity about the fourth paragraph. I've heard like add a graphic. I've heard change per year to each year. I just need clarity on what one what are the suggestions so I could hit the target. I like that last one each year. Okay. And

165I would even like each to be bolded. Okay. And then would you re would you recommend that for the 7 million each year as well as the 175 each year for consistency of language? You mean in Yes. Okay. So, just for my clarity, 7 million each year to those uh we'll bolt those and then $175 each year. We'll build that. Yes. Okay. And we'll add the the email for questions and we'll clean up the linkage. Anything else? Would you like to see a graph from a math from a math teacher perspective? I want you to feel recognized in that. I don't even want to see a gra. I mean, I I'll take back the word graph, a visual. I'm trying to wrap my brain around how to I understand where Craig's point is coming from.

166I don't understand how to put that into an already cumbersome um a lot of words on the page, but I do I mean I'm married to someone that what's the mill rate? How's that going to affect me? Whatever. And we want to do the double check working backwards. I to so having that for people that want to use it you know what else would be in that but you don't want it too overwhelming you know I think in a couple of other other pieces of correspondence they did put tables out there so I think yeah you just you don't want it too cumbersome but we've hired the Donovan group I don't need to come up with what that looks like right now I think you have guidance that you know mil right on there what

167other pieces you know they've done this before that would be Good. But for people like me that see this, they might read the first. This is too much to read. There's a lot of words on this page and you're going to have a lot of people that don't read all those words. So, what can you do um to have something that kind of still summarizes it in a visual? So, I'm going to kind of change the role a little bit here. If you go on the link Oh, shoot. Did I get out of it? Um, if you go on the Hold on, hold on. I just had it. If you go on the link, it talks about the imp. Oh, there we go. If you go down, it says property tax impact and it has

168the word the verbiage. An improved referendum would have an estimate school district annual property tax impact. Where are you? Okay. So, you go on, click on the link on the letter. I did. And then go down to scroll down to on the left, you'll see Jared. Do the link above Jared. That's where it'll take you to the referendum page. Road to the referendum. This just shows you how that needs to be fixed. Road to referendum. And then you scroll down. Um you'll see road referendum. You'll see about the referendum. So I'm clicking on Jared. No, the one above Jared, the referendum one. Taking the next step to the scroll down. I don't know if there's pages. My point is is if you read this, it's very clear and I think it states exactly what we've

169been talking about. And maybe the words should be smear that. Why shouldn't it? Maybe it should be smeared because then it's familiar. They're going to see it. They're going to hear it from the board. They're going to see it on the page. It's going to be Can you just tell me what document you're on on the website, please? It is Watertown K12 Wisconsin or I don't know the right dash referendum. Okay. Back back slash that's the hyperlink that that should be in that. Yeah, this is sad because even with you giving me directions, I still didn't get there. Are you Are you talking about the one that has the list of dates and at the bottom it says property tax impact? Yes. I just think it's getting all the information in that one basically phrase.

170It's the flyer. So that Yeah, it's basically the flyer but Okay, I'll distill that language. Sorry if I No, no, that's helpful. Yeah, I like that. Would that make sense? I just think it would it would match. It says it all. It it's just an extra. The only thing it does say is it does say per year, but that's and and when it gets to the full if it gets if you agree this should go to the full board, it'll be another chance to take a look at it right before it goes up. Yeah. and getting that to the full board. Can we please have those revisions all the revisions will be in the dock the board docks for the full board? Yes. Got it. I just know we have a tight turnaround. It it's

171Yeah, I'm a visual so to see it. Yeah, absolutely. Anything else on the letter? I don't I don't think this needs a resolution, but n do we all support moving forward? Okay, good. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. All righty, then finishing up today. Um uh I I'm sorry. I don't want to backtrack too much here. The um the Oh, look at this letter again. So, um I know somebody had just [Music] mentioned like where people can be contacted. I mean, I think Charity, you were mention you you mentioned that. Yep. I'm going to put on there. And on in the the bottom of that same hyperlink that we're just added, it it gives us please reach out to us. We want to hear from you. email referendum 2025 at mywd.org or call. Yep. I'll I'll

172I'll replicate that. Okay. Sorry. It's just No, it's a it's a general email that four of us get or something like that. So, yep. You then we all need more emails. As we get to closing this up today, I think we'll start since it's still fresh. Jason, I'm not going to retype these because you have them, but could you please review the action items from that Sure. particular item just to make sure we've captured. We've talked about a lot of parts and pieces and my one set of ears or his one set isn't enough, but having all of us know. What about this? So, go ahead. I'm going to ask Don and the group for suggestions or ideas around a visual. This you're talking specific to the letter. To the letter. Yeah. And then we'll

173Okay. Yep. uh uh $7 million each year and $175 each year. I wrote down bold, but then I wrote like check this, you know, uh flyer. So, I'll replicate that language. I'll make sure that the website is the uh link to the referendum page, not the general website. And then we'll replicate that uh email and call us language. Was there anything that was missed? No. and those revisions will be reflected in what the full board sees. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Um, we've done the action items after each topic today. Does anyone need to hear them again being the end of the meeting? I try. It's so sometimes there's so many that are there. I lose track of them, which is why as Jason's taking notes, we typically try to do it each section. Are

174you all okay with that? I am. Okay. And then because we reviewed all of them, right? I didn't miss one. Yeah. All right. You just had a look. I just was all the red. Um, no, I'm saying yeah, all your red. And then what Jason and I do is we take the action items from last month and we bring those forward. Those should have been part of we're trying to a new practice for our meeting of the chairs trying to have that as you see on um the board docs piece. One thing that we will oh that we have on there if you notice the action items are listed and those are ones that happened at a previous meeting last month. I told you all of the action items from prior had been completed. So

175these are the action items that came of last month. I'm not going to do this every month but just kind of letting you know where they are. And then in parentheses is the date that they were completed. So where it says Diana Johnson will ensure 8170 is brought to the full board for first read. That was done on the 28th. So that's where hey that was you know I think I connected with Craig on that day. Can we make sure that this is part of whatever. So if there's ever doubt at least gives us a target date we can go back look at an email look at whatever. So, as you're looking at action items, we bet probably eight or 10 action items from today. So, this list next month or next time we meet

176will have all eight or 10 of those. All of them that are completed will have a date there. The ones that do not have a date would have taken more than one meeting time to get through. That would then come back. So, this becomes our running record so we don't lose things. Yeah. in the past. I have a a a working calendar document for our cadence. Um that's where it was before, but the meeting of the chairs said they wanted that as something common practice from all committee chairs. So that way all board members have that transparency. So if you're looking, hey, what was the action item? This takes it a step further that here's the action item and here's when it was completed. Does that make sense? Just so you all know where to

177look. Again, I'm not taking time every month to go through this, but at least letting you know that this is where it's at and you can find that. Um, speaking of meeting of the chairs, just as an FYI, um, I am putting forth the recommendation that we will be having a meeting of the chairs, I I stated this to David before, I'm stating it to you, the planning committee right now. There's value to having a meeting of the chairs each year, especially if we have a new chairperson come on for one of the committees, no different than a new member orientation. Um, and so as we look at that, we met as a meeting of the chairs a few months ago. It makes sense to meet again. I'm going to say May. I put May

178here, question mark for my notes, May, Juneish to see what do we need, how is it going, are we are we moving into a more efficient um method of chairing. I know when I first started my first time as a chair, there's things I can learn from from others. Hey Craig, what do you do for this? Is it working for you? Or hey, I saw Diana, you did this. I'm going to take that. You know, we're all just trying to be better. It's not a critique kind of thing. And with the meeting of the chairs, everyone is invited to that, but it's a committee meeting. So committee members have pref first preference in terms of the the questions and speaking where other committee members can still participate. But do you anticipate that being early in

179the month? I have no idea because that will then go to I guess I should ask Jared on that. Do we set a date ahead of time? If we wait until April to figure out who the chairs are, when they can meet, you know, typically that's what you'd want to do, right? But now we're waiting until the middle to end of April to set a date for May or June. Again, it doesn't have to be in May. Yeah. It could be in June. That's a tricky one. It it because then you get into summer. Well, yeah. I mean because because like if you happen to have a new committee chair for whatever particular reason, you know, you kind of want to have kind of have to want to have that meeting soon enough, right? Um

180but then we start we start getting into meetings and that second week in in May right away. So what will happen is my intention is this meeting of the chairs would then follow you the cadence. I would like to have it be twice a year. Once, you know, in the initial kind of like we talked about with new memory orientation, once mid year, just kind of check in. Hey, how are things going? You know, whatever. Um, so it would make sense to do we I suppose this should be a chair question to see if they feel it would be better for a May or a June um for that initial. And when's the next when does the April board meeting more than top of her head. Yes. I think it's the 21st. Yes, it's the

181I for some reason I don't on my calendar it got me stuff. I have HR and the board meeting on the same day. So this month April um if we go to last weekend, right, the last Monday because it would be the 28th. Yeah. But it says there's Easter. Easter is the 20th. That's late, isn't it? The 20th. So, but we don't have an abnormal cadence, I don't think, because of where spring break is. Yeah, I think it's that I think it's 4th, 28th. The 28th. Okay. In my onboarding documents, April 28th. Thank you. There you go. Look at you. Good use of resourc. You better hold on that calendar. April so that bring that folder every time. Exactly. Maybe two weeks to have committees set up. You know for the for the new for

182the new board reorganization. That's that's not a lot of time, is it? No. So we'd have to do June. Yeah. And but then you're going to have potentially well you have summer commitments. Yeah. I mean potent potentially somebody's going to be there might be a change in um chair at some point and then somebody's going to be seated that that isn't going to have that type of orientation more or less. Well, and and most likely there will be a new chair just because yeah, we have Mike doing two right now, right? And if there's a shift in president, you know, it could be it could be anyway. But I'm saying and David's president and you know, whatever, right? But if someone else moves into that role that happens to be a chair, you don't do

183president and chair. So, so are you saying that you don't think it should be May? I'm hearing you waffling. I'm hearing argument, not waffling. Argument both ways. Well, I I think I think it could be it could be early May, but it's just it it's just really tight to get Couldn't it be anytime in May? Could be. It could be, but then you know you potentially still run into a situation where okay a committee u is going to be you're you're seating a new chair in that committee before you're you know your chair but the purpose wasn't straight up or maybe there needs to be a separate orientation thing okay for a chair this is a this is a checking in I follow you as things are going okay so either way I think we

184need an orientation if there's a new chair anyway. But right, one point of information, May 19th is a meeting following because of where Memorial Day falls. So, it's a little bit earlier in the month. I knew there I knew April May. Okay. I was like, "Nope, I was wrong on that one." But I wasn't. Not that it affects me. But when I looked at it, I have something to add. Yes. On our um on board docs, charity is not listed as a committee member. Okay. I saw that. I feel like I think I saw that. We'll get that fixed. And I know there was like that weird came in and so I just thought especially now forward. Thank you. And with that planning always gets policy too, but policy not so much because they've been

185meeting every month. Yeah. But planning, how many times are we omitted at the board level for conversation? Because it's an every other I knew it wasn't intentional. So, if you're adding that you were just the three of us for a second. Then the last thing that Thank you. The last thing I have this way longer than I anticipated, but thank you for the very, very good conversations through it. Our next meeting is May 7th. Close it. Um, I am asking that we please start at 5:00 pm because progress check number one for the superintendent evaluation with Tim Cer is that night after planning if you recall trying to find a date that these piggyback or that that work for the superintendent evaluation is hard. So, we've been piggybacking and so it will be piggybacking either

186a policy or a planning meeting. This first one happens to be piggybacking with planning. So I have him start set to come at seven. Um he tells me it should be done in the target time is 60 minutes. So I'm saying 60 to 90. It could be less than that. But look at today was supposed to be no more than two hours. And sometimes you get off on something that goes a little further. So 5:00 p.m. Does anybody see a discrepancy? Granted, this may not be the same committee that it is. I would just have it on there if right but I'm saying if somebody knows something right now calendar-wise hey no look you know then we will put next meeting if you can have that as next meeting as seven and if you could

187also please put on that project pro progress check one and it's identified as progress check one as seven at seven we're starting at five we're starting at five got it so both of those pieces will be on there um for everyone Anything else? I move we get out of here. 8:05. Wait a second. And I won't say it's good having you because I have you next month again. You do? Sorry. What? You were trying to get rid of me already last month, but you guys are meeting you.