001e and good evening welcome to the Rochester City School District's Board of Education work session with Council for great City Schools uh today is Tuesday March 18th we're going to um call to order the work session at this time again with the council for great City schools and we'll be moving forward into our discussion items um at this particular time I'd like to entertain a motion to amend the 2526 budget calendar motion motion or moved by vice president Malloy seconded by commissioner Griffin all in favor I and as we open for discussion i' would like to first turn the mic over to clerk W who will give us an understanding as to why we need to amend the budget calendar good evening everyone just so that everyone is clear the budget amendment that you all
002just voted on is to adjust your question rounds the budget book was not um available to you all at the date we had initially anticipated the question and answer portion is based on those dates and so we needed to update that if you look on board dos the um New amended budget calendar is there highlighting those date changes and just to further further expound on what clerk win is uh discussing the budget book uh believe was available in the 20s last year March 20 something is um our financial team is doing a fantastic job trying to ensure that we transfer the1 billion software uh from people soft into Oracle as well as maintain a balanced budget and also ensure that you get the information that you need uh and this is also coupled with uh
003the fact that we have New York State meetings um you know we're we're working with staff that's pulled in multiple directions so the fact that we can even be sure to get uh this uh which is on par as it was last year is is really a miracle um but nonetheless we wanted to make sure that you all remain updated you do have the draft budget which is the most important piece um Rochester we have additional uh things that we like to go through and show the community as well uh just for further transparency so um uh clerk win uh just brought the resolution forward just to make sure that we uh keep uh following our policy thank you for that uh clarification and understanding did any Commissioners have any questions or anything at this
004time with no further questions or discussion all in favor of the amendment to the budget calendar I I I any opposed okay motion carries so again at this time we are joined by the council for great City schools and we are going to turn um the calendar or the agenda over uh to discuss mindset practice with executive director Ray Hart and governance coach uh Cindy Elburn thank you you there we go okay uh thank you president Simmons interim superintendent Strickland thank you uh members uh Commissioners um so we'll do a couple of things the first first of which is um we're going to move forward uh this this afternoon this evening with a continuation of uh the last session that we had where we talked about um board goals um but we're going to expand
005upon that uh and talk more about um some of your operations how you do things from a board standpoint uh we're going to lay the groundwork for that uh but we're also going to begin to move forward kind of in parallel processes um a little faster between now uh and the summer time uh to do two things the first of which is uh we've been in in touch with um district clerk W uh about setting up dates for um conducting your community um listening sessions uh but what we're going to do now is start with um the staff to really develop uh in parallel to developing board processes procedures how you interact uh with each other uh how you interact with staff Etc we'll talk a lot about that today which is the mindset work
006that we talked about um but we're also on a parallel path going to uh begin to develop um the re the review process um how you'll begin to uh hear about making progress towards your goals um Etc as I listened um the other day to uh your education uh committee meeting that was um chaired by commissioner Santiago uh there were a number of questions that you all as board members asked that were very good good questions that you did not get answers to um for example commissioner Elliott um in one of her questions asked how do we know based on the report that we've just received how do we know whether we're making progress toward our goals or not um and the um she didn't quite get a clear answer what I will share with
007you is that as we go through this process so it's a parallel process that we'll do part of it will be working with the board as we talked about on mindset but as we go through this process of helping you understand how uh the district is making progress on your goals that would be one of the first questions is answered anytime the staff presents um to you um there are other questions that were asked as well uh so commissioner Griffin asked a question about you know individual project things like that those are all sound questions but we'll walk you through a process of how to make sure those questions are are answered as a part of the presentation process so we'll do both of those in parallel um so for tonight we will focus on
008extending the conversation that we had uh when we last met um where um you drafted some uh board guard rails but we're going to take it now tonight a step further and start looking deeper at how do you interact both with yourselves with staff Etc uh so we'll go deeper this evening and I want to start um from a couple of places the first of which is we started our process process when we had our two-day workshop um with the board um in really establishing student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change and you remember we started by really asking that question first we went a little deeper and we're going to um go back over some of what we talked about tonight um in those original conversations we had that today but we started
009with student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change and we ask which adults Behavior which adult Behavior needs to change first um and we had talked about lots of different individuals were thrown out uh but ultimately landed on uh on me uh my adult Behavior has to change first and we'll talk extensively about that uh before we do I want to um introduce which I don't think we've gone deep with this but in the process for understanding your goals for the district uh what you want to accomplish whether or not you're making progress I want to go back and U really reflect on where you are and where you've been historically and ask you to share with me uh where you've been historically as a district I want to do so uh by first of
010all starting with uh starting with your data uh so this was your 2024 data and uh what we've done here is grafted your 2024 data next to the state's performance data um and the question that I want to ask uh relative to this and I recognize this is where you are no there's no judge judement for that and I also recognize that you set goals for making progress but I do want you to make a little have a little bit of reflection as we go into tonight's conversation uh and I want to ask you this question uh first of all you all familiar with this data you've seen this before correct yes so my question to you is this is where your third graders are and I just picked third and eighth grade just um
011to take a look at them I didn't even know what the numbers were before I picked third and eighth grade um but in third grade um you're uh behind the state by roughly 30 um 33 percentage points in math at third grade and behind the state by roughly 36 percentage points 37 percentage points in eighth grade math and then in Reading you're behind the state uh by roughly 28 29 percentage points in third grade and in math by about 31 percentage points in eighth grade I mean sorry eth grade ELA about about 31 percentage points my question to you is this is that a new phenomenon was 2024 the first time that you've seen data like that no is that the first time is that a new phenomenon no no uh how how long have
012you seen data like that for years for decades for a number of years um what I was share with you um and this is why we're here this is why this work is Meaningful for us um what I'll share with you is um started working with uh a number of different districts and what makes this work important for us is getting districts to a place where they can say this is where we were but here's where we are now because we began to focus on the right things we began to focus on the right work and we as a board collectively we decided to put our children first and that is a decision that each of you as individual board members will have to make you'll have to say are we going to put our
013children first as a part of this process um and if you can say that you can turn those numbers around and so that I want to ground Us in why you do this work um you spend a lot of time in um in in meetings um as Commissioners you spend a lot of time in your respective communities um but the reason we do this work is to really change the trajectory of the district and the trajectory of your students and you have an opportunity um to do that um and so taking advantage of that is important so that's one of the things that collectively uh we just want to gr you in the reason we're doing this work the reason we're having the conversation and feel free to push back on us but the reason
014we're having this conversation is to turn that trajectory around and I can we can show you examples I think I did when you asked U of how districts have have changed that trajectory but I just want to ground Us in that as we move forward um individually you'll all have to make the decision ision that as a collective board are we willing to do what it takes to move the needle for our children in our district um and with that I'm going to turn things over uh to Cindy to get us started for tonight um but in getting us started um we will build upon not only this conceptually over the next uh few weeks but also build upon how you'll know that you're making progress toward the goals that you've established for your kids
015and that's our next steps right good evening everyone um before we get started I whoops wrong way um just want to put down some meeting standards our our time is short um and just to um make sure we're making the best use of it uh and are as effective as possible just ask that we all adhere um to a few Norms um first of all time efficiency and focus staying on topic um summarizing key points we're going to be doing some brainstorming later um and we'll um be asking for everybody to give input um but just uh staying on point and if something comes up that's off topic uh if we can just parking lot that make note of it to address later that's that would be great um we want to make sure you
016get answers to your questions but some of them might be better insert at another time or talked about um discussions at another time just being future focused not uh um we prioritizing Forward Thinking St strategies for the community engagement that you're going to be embarking upon um and um as well as just general board um board operating uh procedures and and such so use past events to serve as context um but not not for debate and um then when we identify challenges just be uh solution oriented as well um think about what can we do and rather than what we can't do um finally the respectful and collaborative communication around um disagreeing with ideas not individuals and um just being Mindful and contributing positively um any questions or concerns before we keep moving all right
017so starting we're going to do a little a little bit of of review um why do school systems exist who can tell me why do school systems exist this is a foundational question for the work we do educate children who else why do school systems exist outcomes to improve student outcomes yes school systems exist to improve student outcomes um I haven't heard anything to the effect of making sure that the carpet is clean and laid well um that uh the light bill gets paid um any of those things that the uniforms for the marching band at XYZ High School are a certain color or fit why is that well that wouldn't be board because they don't affect student outcomes because they don't affect student outcomes who else why why don't we talk about those things
018or why why is why is that not a reason that school systems exist we do talk about those things but why is that not a reason that school systems exist I guess it's because it's not in the board purview not in the board purview to decide those things they're all important it's all important it's all important that's the superintendent's perview so these are all important things things but it's the superintendent's purview who else we've established that they're all important they're in the superintendent purview not necessarily the boards what we talk about is that these are means to an end and not the end itself so it's it's all things that um we need to have have flooring need to have the lights on need to have all sorts of things for a school system to
019run um but the end that we want is improving student outcomes um and there are a number of various means in order um that school systems have in order to do that what do we mean by when we say student outcomes what is a student outcome making sure the children are successful District make sure they have the curriculums they need to be able to achieve to be successful in life make sure that they are successful in life that they have the curriculum they need to achieve what what do we mean when we say student outcomes the outcomes um should be reflective of the inputs and so when we're talking from an academic level whatever is being input the outcom should again be reflective meaning their their test scores um their proficiency how they align with
020our port portrait of a graduate what they're able to do uh so that's what okay so so they should align um to portrait of a graduate and it's what students are able to do did I capture that all right as a result of as a result of the inputs that are um used to get there yeah so when we um talk about student outcomes we Define it very simply as what students know and are able ble to do so a student outcome is what students know and are able to do um so what we know is that there's many means to that to an end um but they're not the end itself so while a lot of those things are necessary um they're not the reason that they exist so we again school systems exist
021to improve student outcomes um and it is important to distinguish between the means and the ends um in order to understand what it is that the board is focusing on what we've heard from the Rochester City School Board is that their intent is to be student outcomes focused so very focused on improving what it is that students know and are able to do so through the community there's all sorts of ideas of what those student outcomes should be right um which measures of what students know and are able to do um what which ones the board can should focus on um so that's what we refer to as the community's vision so when we talk about Vision we're talking about those student outcomes community's vision for what students know and are able to do um
022and then we also uh know that there's a whole lot of ideas about what values the school system should protect on the way on the way there um so the as the school district is accomplishing the vision there are things that are off limits and that's what we refer to as V values um we know that the school system can't be effective if it's chasing all sorts of student outcome goals uh or um and having all sorts of um different priorities the uh student outcomes and those um non-negotiable values that need to be protected so uh if we're going to focus and prioritize um in the context of limited resources which I assume that um we know that school districts have limited resources uh how is it that the school system determines which of those
023priorities it's going to focus focus on let me get my grammar right on which priorities it will focus learning organization by the goals we set by the goals we set by the goals who sets the board the board along with the superintendent of the administration representing the administration yeah so um that's why the that's why the school board exists the school board exists to determine what those goals are to represent the vision and the values of the community um so why do school boards exist they exist to represent the vision and values of the community um and again just to remind you Vision we talk uh the vision as determined through those student outcome goals goals about what students know and are able to do and values um which are those non-negotiables those things that
024need to be protected and we call those guard rails so these are the foundational Concepts um behind that underg actually not behind they underg the work um that you all are embarking in on in becoming student outcomes focused and your role is to prioritize um and focus these ideas and now we're going to dive a little little deeper um the next concept is around and this is going to be very important as you um embark on your listening sessions to get into this mindset around what is a customer and what is an owner so up on the um screen are the definitions of owners and customers um owners as the organizations moral and legal Authority uh such as residents taxpayers community members uh where the board is better positioned to address or resolve issues because
025the board has that expertise and the customers are the recipients of the service um for which staff is better positioned to address address those needs so just to go a little further into this um imagine you go into McDonald's and buy a hamburger are you acting as a customer or an owner customer a customer yeah now imagine that you leave McDonald s and you um go and buy stock in the company are you acting as a customer or an owner owner as an owner yeah so the customer is person buying the burger they're looking for that short-term benefit that immediate more immediate satisfaction um the relationship is transactional they want that immediate value it's a shorter time Horizon but the owner has that long-term relationship with the organization they're very they're very invested in what
026that organization is producing in the success and Su sustainability of the organization um and that and it's over a longer time Horizon can the same person be a customer and an [Music] owner yes yeah they can they can and they can often show up in one place as both and that is really um very typical in a school system you will have people who show up as both the customer um the beneficiary with that short time Horizon that want for immediate value um and transaction and you'll have people showing up at as owners as people invested in the long-term success of the district um so because the same person can act as both whose job is it to know which job which they're showing up as who has to know what behavior is being exhibited
027I would say the onus is on self right you have to know the hat that you're wearing so when you're thinking internal external customer service um it it it transient you know but you have to know the difference in when you are serving as an owner or acting as a customer so so the person the person in those shoes needs to be the person who discerns whether or not they are acting as an owner or a customer in that moment well depending on who they're engaging in I guess depend who they're engaging with yeah so if if I'm engaging with a staff member that would be a customer that's an internal customer service piece you know as a so from the head of a board member I guess is what I'm thinking of I'm thinking
028there's a level of ownership that I need to have there okay so you're thinking about your yeah as a board member I need to know if I'm an owner or a customer wherever I am showing up to let's say that the person person is showing up to engage any of you as a board member whose job is it to know if they're a customer or an owner what's the question again please so when we think about customers and owners in a school system um customers wanting that immediate value the shortterm um transactional relationship and owners being more invested um um for the long-term and um long-term success of the organization if that person can wear both of those hats say me say I'm a Community member and um am both an owner and a customer
029and I come to you as a Schoolboard member with an issue whose job is it to know whether I'm showing up as a customer with my issue or an owner with my issue I would think it the board members should be able to discern that yeah yeah yeah so it's up to the board member it's not the community member's job to know how they're um how they're showing up it's the board member's job to understand um which hat that person is wearing as they're coming to you with an issue can I say something definely I I just want to tell me if I'm getting off topic but would that be the same instance if you look at it in leadership if somebody's just just coming into a role wouldn't it be the leadership's responsibility rather
030it be like uh the board president or or or the superintendent would have you in any given situation to ensure that the information that that board member needs or that that staff member needs is given to them so they're they're doing their role the way that they so performing their role the way they should I think that one should have the tools in order to know how to do their job right so that would be the same thing as if it was a superintendent or a staff board member or board member in itself right or no am I wrong so I think so what I'm hearing is um your you're asking if um a board member that's coming in to the role new um if they should be given the tools in order to be
031able to do their job whether it be from um the board I think you said board chair or from the superintendent yeah just as a leadership in in leadership I'm believe the responsibility When anybody is coming in new is to give them all the viable tools that they need to be successful as we do give our kids if we has the goals and everything for for this District us as leaders in in the roles that we have in order for us to be the best at what we are to do for this community for the schools as a whole we are needing to give be able to have those tools that are going to be uh uh that are going to the tools that we need to drive us forward and to make sure that
032we're staying in line with our with our roles right yeah so so I'm just I just want to put that out there yeah so um it isn't completely off topic it is something that we'll address as we go forward because um really what I would say is that it is up to the board to make sure that new members have the tools they need and often the way that the board does this is by writing it down as a governance um as an operating procedure about how we're going to govern ourselves there might be um some sort of procedure on new board member orientation that you all would um would adopt um you have that and not to take that offline not to take that too far because I want to bring it back to
033the customer service aspect and and recognizing too that we do have a an orientation piece and and the op opportunity for continuous Improvement so as we grow and find other opportunities we can lean back into it and develop it further absolutely so that's absolutely so so um short answer is yes board members need to have the tools um I served on a board uh school board for eight years and it is a matter and sometimes um it's a matter of continuous Improvement and continuing to develop and improve on how those things happen um and there's always always opportunity for that but getting back into the customer service owner service piece um what we were talking about was that uh it is the board members job not that Community member's job to know how they're showing
034up so for example if a parent comes up to you um just in the grocery store on the street wherever wherever you might see them and says my child got a bad grade um don't like it I think the teacher was unfair I voted for you what are you going to do about it are they um exhibiting owner Behavior or customer Behavior customer customer yeah any questions on that yeah so that's customer Behavior they they're focused on the immediate um let's say a Community member and I know you all hear this all the time comes up and says students need to be able to complete in a compete in a global economy and should be Adept in multiple languages and I think these are important skills I know I heard that all the time when
035I was a board member but are they um owner or customer in that role they're looking at what students know long term owner or customer I are where does it lean I think I'm going to take a stab at it since no one's jumping out there but I think it's leaning toward an owner yeah anybody disagree with that no yeah that leans more toward that owner that um the focus on on long-term outcomes for for students not an immediate outcome for their own student um so again what we know is that the same person can be both an an owner um and a customer they can uh show up um show up in either way and that it is the board board member's job to discern the difference why does that matter why does making
036this why is making this distinction important I'll just jump in yeah otherwise we're wasting a lot of time on things that we can't immediately change as board members um and they're all important items but we need to be able to delegate that responsibility to someone who can uh meet their immediate need yeah yeah so what I heard is that um if we if we don't and if we're addressing customer issues as board members we are wasting time and that there are better um people positioned to meet their immediate needs P I think you're crossing over between again governance and management yeah yeah tell me more well um we're as a board you know we're supposed to be more governance structured and the management is really left up to manage managing of the system the district
037is left up to the superintendent so it becomes gray or blurry when you're crossing over those lines are crossing over and that makes it difficult for anyone if the lines are blurred yeah so so um making sure that those lines don't don't blur um and it it is a matter of uh management um doing those day-to-day operations and taking care of the day-to-day systems issues uh the other piece of that is around accountability so and this you have this um print out in front of you as well um the board is actually positioned furthest from the parents student staff from those customers uh and so it is um something that the superintendent and staff have are better position to take care of and that they also are um responsible for taking care of as well
038next as we keep talking about this and this is going to be important when you do your community listening in the um in the nearish future um because when people come to those Community listening sessions they're going to show up in all sort of ways and what you're going to really want to be focusing them on is hearing about um what their vision and values are especially the value side because you're looking going to be looking to develop those guard rails uh statements so um we'll talk more at another um time when we do more training around the script and actually prepping you about some ideas of ways that you can address that you can still hear the customer issues and essentially parking lot those and get them to the right place but um that
039too is one of the reasons we're talking about this but this also this also is important as you uh think about operating procedures and how you're going to um work with each other take a look at this statement the board cannot act nor should they on every interest of the community but the board can and should act in the interest of the community a distinction the board must both understand and communicate what does this statement mean to you for me I think it's important that every decision we make we put the we put our put our um Community First because they're the ones that put us in the seat we need to make sure we're governing governing them their ethics and the moral values I think that's very important so I think the decision for
040them to put us in the seat also make sure that we're also taking listening to their voice and governing what they would want us to do okay so thinking about how they're the they're the people who put um board members in their seats and so um respecting their respecting their voice the respecting their voice their values there I think for me um as a commissioner or any elected official just for me um it's an ethical and mor moral values that we need to uphold and when somebody puts you in the seat they're thinking that you're going to uphold that in reference to what the community would think about you so it it plays they both play hand in hand for me I think that we it's a respect level it's a it's governs so much
041for me so the community is a stakeholder and I think we need to make sure that in our decision-making process that they are first and foremost amongst you know like with with schools and everything else but that's all in one so unless you want to divide the community and say the schools and the kids are different than the community I think the community would be the whole am I wrong or right in saying that so so what so what I'm hearing is that we need to think about what the community what the community wants us to do and govern with that in mind um that I wouldn't say that that that is wrong but I think the thing to remember is that the community is a large broad group I mean Rochester city um is
042has a lot of people with a lot of differing and sometimes conflicting opinions about what the board should be doing um and so that's where we talk about the school board exists to prioritize those things um about vision and values so you can't can't be all things to all people um and but that the the community you do represent the community as a whole who else president Simmons the distinction between cannot act on right and then there's the distinction of should act in the interest of right so not acting on is to the point you made Cindy around folks may say we're red today and we're purple tomorrow and someone else is telling you to do the opposite and you're not going to be acting on all of those things constantly in conflict and it's
043outside of our perview however acting in the interest of is listening to the concerns of the community taking those things into consideration and alignment with the board goals that we have and recognizing again when we are talking to a customer and then also making that delineation between input and output as well so if a Community member comes to me with a concern if it is in the superintendent's purview being able to act in their interest by communicating that I understand their concern and redirecting them to the appropriate uh channels to voice their concerns or get them in front of the right people but not acting on it myself yeah yeah so and that is the distinction acting on um every interest and as you mentioned getting them to where they might need need to be
044if if it's appropriate um getting it to the superintendent or whomever is positioned to deal with whatever it is that they're bringing um but they should uh act in the interest of the community who else has any thoughts about this statement is it okay if I jump in real quick this yeah I mean trying to act on every interest of the community is impossible for any individual um it's very time consuming to even attempt that um and there are people who represent really well and I mean I know people not me who are able to represent a a broader group of people than I'd ever be able to to represent but it's impossible to actually act on um it's impossible no one has that amount of time available to them but we are here to
045represent the vision and values of the community um and that's a more productive use of our time yeah yeah so um it it would be inefficient ineffective um and nearly impossible to act on every thing every issue or every um interest of the community um there would also be some Mission drift and all sorts of things um but then on the flip side the board can and should act in the interest of the community so the board's responsibility then is to ensure that de decisions align with that long-term um success in accomplishing that's determined through those prioritized Vision um statements which you have written down as goals and the value statements the guard rails that you're going to be developing um and then that alignment will really help the board stay a stay focused when
046there are competing interests um competing and conflicting interests because that's going to happen so as um well let me ask this question so we've made that distinction why is that important why is it important to make that distinction about not acting on every interest but acting in the interest about the representation of the vision and values versus the um dayto day all of those things we've been talking about in the last few minutes it's it's not our job to act on every interest I think you you said it yourself um prioritize it's kind of loud um we have to prioritize what's important [Music] um you know for example if I forgot my train of thought now um I'll have to come back I just can't remember so it's like a dog chasing its tail it's
047like spaghetti at the wall if you're trying to act on everything you're acting on absolutely nothing at all and it's it's it's really cool to like recognize this in language and in conversation but it's it has to be also recognized in your actual practice and so it does require I like that you label this mindset right because it requires a level of mindfulness to know when you are spinning and creating a a tornado effect um in the District so how we um understand our role will be imperative to how the superintendent and our district is able to really focus on these are the goals and keep turning towards them um but if you're throwing I think um a bunch of different things in we're we're constantly taking them away from the goals and then we
048wonder why we're able to look at the slide that we first saw and say we have decades long um outcomes that we've been looking at yeah yeah so um it helps to keep having that distinction and keeping that in mind um and acting uh acting accordingly um is what will help the board govern rather than manage um and it will allow staff the superintendent and staff to handle that day-to-day um operations more effectively um more effectively than the board ever could because again you're not positioned um to do that and it allows the superintendent and staff to leverage their expertise um again it allows for things to be addressed at the point of service um and uh it also serves as a critical feedback mechanism um to the system so if individual board members are
049off fixing or um doing different operational things there's not a feedback into the system to understand uh if there's s a systemwide fix that's going to impact more children and families if um we allowed for the superintendent and staff to actually do that um the superintendent and staff are position position to do to make system Solutions not just individual Solutions um and then it finally it and among other things um supports that long-term stability um it allows uh decisions to be strategic and sustainable rather than reactive and driven by shortterm um pressures so next question what is the board's responsibility in communicating this distinction because you have people who are going to come to you thinking that you're going to fix their problems what is the board's responsibility in communicating this distinction yeah James I
050think uh we're just educate them I we're trying to change here by bringing in the Council of great City Schools to educate us on becoming a functional board so therefore there's going to be some changes I know change is difficult for some individuals but it's our job to which I've done recently um to a person that's approached me relative to presenting some information we'll say and I had to instruct them to move to the next level whatever that next level was you know be the Principal or the superintendent um you know so there I think the public is used to this board operating andun functioning one way and now we're making drastic changes in the opposite opposite direction to be more functional yeah so um it's it's about education and the board educating the community
051on what what to expect about how you all are going to are um do business how um and having those clear expectations and yes change is hard um and uh especially when um a board has been operating one way and is embarking on a whole new way of doing business um I can say personally that I went through hard changes well it is really hard to to sit in those seats to be mindful to not um to not um go back to Old patterns which is why it's going to be incumbent that you all are [Music] um you know that we we have these board guard rails which we have them drafted uh from a previous time and then just ensuring that the operating procedures that you're holding yourselves and each other accountable to are
052um have some some meaning and some teeth to help you really be focused in this work so essentially um what you're going to need to communicate to the community is uh are these things um explaining Your Role versus the superintendent's role using your board policy and procedure as a guide um having having a policy and process for addressing Community concerns clarifying the distinction between governance owner service we um would uh distinguish that as and operations or the customer service aspect and I think um president Simmons you mentioned it you listen and maybe others did too that listening to those Community concerns you said the same thing commissioner gri Griffin but then also explaining what the board's role is and then how to navigate the system to get to the person or place that they need
053to in order to have it engage uh dealt with appropriately I think once the public sees that we have these board goals and the guide rails put in place and they can see the direction they can actually visualize it they it's it's one thing to say something but they can start seeing it I think a lot of things would change with the public perception of the board I think it it is is one thing to say it and it's another thing to do and to act upon it so we our own best teachers sometimes and and we're all the time and most of the cases so I think that we have to practice what we're preaching in all aspects when we put those go the guide RS in place and the board goes so I
054think you know once we do that we'll see the difference yeah so once once you um start getting these put in place and doing the work of monitoring them it is going to be something different that the public we see during your um during your meetings and how um and the work of the board uh the other thing um and that's the last point on this slide is that you will intentionally educate stakeholders on what it is that you're doing um and we really recommend that you provide regular trainings to your community um so that they understand and that you're that you're constantly you don't just go out and listen to them um during that Community listening campaign to hear their vision and values but you keep you keep uh doing that two-way communication um
055sometimes it's going to be reporting back what where you're at with accomplishment of the goals and honoring the guard rails um and sometimes it's going to be things like this educating stakeholders having having a Schoolboard school so to speak I have a question around that so you know because I think that's phenomenal right I think it's necessary but also how would we determine a state of Readiness to ensure that um so it's one thing to listen and listening is is subjective right um but when we talk about educating the community making sure that um we and I'll speak for myself as an individual um School Board commissioner right if there's going to be that talk back that they are being educated properly that they're not being given Miss information that they don't hear something from
056me or and I say the wrong thing and someone else is telling them the right way to do it and so how do we ensure that that's not taking place yeah so there's a couple couple of things on that um like thinking about your community listening sessions you'll have that scripted um everybody says the same thing everywhere and um no matter what um who's delivering the script no matter where you're at you'll be sticking to the script and doing that when we do the um when you start doing the community uh trainings that's actually something that we would support with um and and um partner with you to actually come and provide the training with with you um so that it and until such time that the board is ready to take it on themselves
057and then some of the other um other communication um some of the other communication we can help with that as well not uh it wouldn't be the two-way communication but as you report back out um you know uh just whatever you might put on your website or whatever one-way communication you put out as well we're happy to support with that too just to um ensure that it it has the accuracy and whatnot that you want we're we're here to support however the Board needs us so any questions before we move continue moving on yeah you want to do this first before we brainstorm okay you want do that all right so the next thing we want to do um is lead you through a brainstorming activity um to col uh collaboratively draft some board operating
058procedures so um the way this is going to work is that we'll pose a question and then each each of you will have about a minute or so to share your thoughts um this is brainstorming no right or wrong um we want to hear from everyone about their ideas and then we along with the help of rahima um will capture the information um we're just going to write everything down uh with the idea that we will um syn synthesize that information and bring back draft language uh to you to consider um to consider to perhaps um and we can talk more about what next steps would be after after we give you that draft language we would also plan to give you the raw notes that we take as well I'll put everything together um
059into one document to capture everything just to make make sure so if you need to you have a pad and pen in front of you if there's any thoughts that you need to capture um as before you're called on to speak um and then also if there's anything additional that you think of later um after we've already passed that question feel free to write it down and just hand it hand it to us to add to the notes later any questions before we begin so what I would say so I have to add because I thought we had so what some of these would do um would help for uh clarifying the the role of the board and the role of the superintendent um can I can I reject for a moment hi so um
060yes commissioner Elliot you all have 20 uh bylaws which is uh 20 policy 2300 in terms of the handbook or procedure manual yes you all have one that was developed back when um the district clerk was Chen Lee um so it is um outdated at this point there's been changes even to the board bylaws but there's other things that you all have mentioned to have added to that book um and those things are not a part of that book so I think this might be more around kind of the update not creating one from scratch so I think I think what this I sometimes um when we do this activity with boards uh what we find just like when we do um I I wasn't here for your two-day workshop but we I believe or
061what we often do um is what we call an ideal agenda yeah so what we say is start from scratch nothing um just act as if nothing is there so that we're not um yeah so that we can put out whatever ideas and not there may be things that don't change but we might also be able to capture other capture language changes and additions especially as you are uh embarking on the on being a student outcomes focused board um there are things around uh delegation to the superintendent there are things um such as those uh board guard rails that would be included in this as well as um yeah what I'm not exactly sure because it would be an activity to brainstorm about about um so I'm a little do we want to do are
062are you saying that um what processes are uh in terms of Bo needs any from the district you've got a process for that we go to give are you talking about that kind of documentation or you talk about the way you behave as individuals that's what I'm not clear about in terms of all of the above it's all it's how you um govern yourself and the reason I had this slide here I was going to do this within the activity but these are the board behaviors which we've talked about um in the past that have the greatest outcome or greatest impact on improving student outcomes around setting those smart goals collaboratively setting non-negotiables and publicly monitoring Pro progress so um some of what we talk about might be uh the design of uh writing down
063and having ideas around um what are our meetings going to start looking at like what are our work sessions going to start looking like so that we can really focus on these behaviors um different things like that so that's why that slide is there uh and then that is just a general um slide that we have for when we draft uh board operating procedures and like I said we're we're working from an ideal um and not from building on it can build on what you already have but we're um thinking as if we have a blank page so can I ask for clarity so okay so this is kind of like a lean Six Sigma um brainstorming piece I think you're talking about where you just have this free thinking you take the boundaries off
064there's no right or wrong no yes or no it's just free thinking you may have overlap you may say something that you know already exists but just allow for the process to take itself where it needs to go because in that process you might end up with something fantastic or something new is what I'm understanding you too thank you supposed to be going toward okay yes and I was not aware that that's a lean Six Sigma process you know how they have the different tools but yeah one the brainstorming because when often times I think you already said it when you go into brainstorming um as a human nature we were we're designed to be like well no you know put a mar rocket ship on Mars and it's like no that's not going to
065fit over there right um and so we we hinder progress or the you know the the opportunity sometimes because of our instinct which is natural um but when we challenge ourselves to just open up a little more to the process sometime sometimes not always but sometimes it's helpful yeah we'll see we'll see where it goes we'll try the process and see what we what we come up with but just not being um limited by what's what we already have but throwing up ideas and um again we it's brainstorming nothing's nothing's wrong um don't need to litigate anybody else's thoughts um we're just going to capture everything and um see if there's any anything that can be drafted from that that is helpful other questions ask questions and me right or yeah so we'll ask you
066to respond in writing and then what we'll probably do um is also ask you to uh to share with each other uh and then we'll report out to everyone so we've got three questions um regarding this process um and again think outside the box but the first question um and I'll preface it by saying this um one of the reasons we're going through the process is is um in the last conversation we just had about an individual member of the community coming up to you we talked about educating Community there's a couple different ways you can educate the community one of which is broadly with the community as a whole but the other is in the moment so one of the challenges um for board members is in the moment can I recognize whether or
067not this individual is coming to me as a customer or owner in the moment and that's where the real challenge occurs is as you're listening as a board member how do I educate a Community member one it's easy to do if you're doing it broadly much more challenging if you're doing it one-on-one in the moment so the first question we have for you to ponder is how should a board member respond when a Community member shares a concern and keep in mind you've got two things to delineate whether they're coming to you as an owner or whe they're coming to you as a customer and so how should a board member respond when a Community member shares a concern I'm only going to ask that question let you write about what you think you and
068your colleagues should do how should you respond when a Community member um comes to you to share a concern uh and then we'll ask the other two questions and then we'll start our conversation with each other and feel free to write down multiple ideas so it doesn't have to be one response it could be one two three responses um whatever you think sorry it happened when I was presenting with youbody else was sitting here oh I have my back to her the whole time so no other way to do it e e now I see some folks are still writing keep writing uh but I'm going to ask you the second question um so the second question is how should a board member respond if a staff member shares a concern how should a board
069member respond if a staff member shares a concern so the first was a concern from the Community member the second is a response when a staff member shares a concern with you as a board member and you can write down more than one thing one or two items e can't remember where and in the last question um how should the Board address concerns raised by another board member so how should the Board address concerns raised by another board member how should the Board address concerns raised by another board member e so we'll let you talk uh in pairs we'll do Pairs and then we'll do three over to the right so um commissioner Patterson commissioner Griffin if you call you got quickly share I'm only going to give you two minutes to share so share
070quickly two minutes with your partners and then we'll report out um commissioner Elliot and interim superintendent Strickland president Simmons and vice president Malloy and then commissioner Santiago commissioner LeBron Harris and uh State monitor Alysia if the three of you could talk quickly about um what you've written down and then we'll report out and then we'll start to add to what we've shared we've got a couple other questions to respond to um and then we'll take notes on that and then we will share with you um where we left off with the board guard rails for your review so please feel free to share for two quick minutes and then we will come back all three do all three so do all three questions at once do all three questions two minutes question for you we're
071going to finish this part y let's now talk about policy violations um you want to do are we G to have time to do all four of these or do you want to just do superintendent and board member superintendent because you've also got what Norm should guide the board member Behavior um probably this last one yeah how will board self- evaluate and hold accountable to these agreements just do the last question and then the policy violation e e share on the screen for now he's got got it got it got it all right 30 seconds and we'll come back all right so we're going we're going to come back and in coming back um we can uh we can stay on the PowerPoint for now so that's later uh Inc coming back a couple of
072things the first of which is um if you wrote down something and we we probably won't have a chance to share everything um that you shared but if you wrote down something we want to capture it so feel free to share it uh with Cindy and I and we'll write down what you wrote um we'll capture that information um and make sure it's Incorporated uh so so I'll ask who would be the first to share um either what you discussed as a team or what you wrote about any of the three questions it doesn't matter whether it was a Community member concern a board member concern or a staff member concerned but who would like to share first yes ma'am uh the last one um I think that if it's a board member with a
073board member I think that first it we should try to be um see if the board president could address it and then if that didn't help I would I would definitely um do some type of consultation or mediation within with um maybe an an buzzman or someone of that sorts um or anyone that we could have to assist um two Commissioners at that time so this is the commissioner concern question commissioner to commissioner didn't you commissioner to commissioner perfect okay uh so recommending what I heard you say I believe is recommending to the president um the board president taking up and then going to an odd buzzman well I think that you know um that's for me out of respect I think that if it's two Commissioners I would want to I would want to
074seek um the advice or seek give the information to my president the board president at first and to see what they would recommend cuz that in a form of leadership so I don't I'm really I don't want to overstep the leadership so I would bring it to the board president first um if then then have you know get the recommendation from the board president but um if that was not if that didn't work with some type of um conversation with them then I would suggest or maybe they would suggest the mediation or consultation but um within you know with an outside person or an H buzzman or whoever is in the role that could help assist us in that matter between the two Commissioners but definitely look for a resolution within within the um within
075that those compounds so things were not become so public you know I think that we have to learn of different ways to resolve issues before they blow up and I think there's better ways of doing things okay that makes sense would anyone else care to share we on we'll go to number one from the community level and recognizing that you know again we um are representative of the Community Vision and so on um and so sometimes you do have Community owners if you will they come there's folks that will come from the ownership lens and they have suggestions or thoughts and I think it's important to uh make them understand that they are valued we're listening and and hear them it doesn't always require a response sometimes folks just want to know that they gave
076you the information and you received it and so you mentioned community members coming as owners do community members ever come to you as customers yes absolutely so so the own so that I was going down the chain okay so that's the owner piece and if they come as a customer um maybe it's something at the school level one of the things I try to practice is asking you know understanding the the channels they've gone through so here their concern I always thank them for trusting me with the information or whatever the case is um but then if it's you know maybe it's a classroom teacher what have you have you had tried talking to that classroom teacher I did okay um you know and everyone has a has someone they report to so just trying
077to help them navigate what those channels look like a way that you can potentially solve that issue before it is straight up at a commissioner or at the superintendent level um so just just supporting them in that way um and I'll let you jump in and then the last one I said was sometimes you just have to redirect and educate um the conversation but I think you had a thought well ditto everything you just said you really captured it well um yeah just making sure a lot of people just want to be heard most of the time um thinking them for trusting you with that information and one of the things I'm learning to do is repeat back whatever it is that's said to me to make sure that I captured it correctly because there
078are times where I've completely misunderstood or I think I'm listening very carefully um and I haven't in fact captured what the true concern is so I think I'm learning to to put that into practice um but I do try to tell them that I understand where they're coming from and then if it's a customer service issue which is what I find most of the time people are coming to me about um I do try to direct them to the appropriate person within the district um and help them navigate that chain of command as U commissioner Simmons was or president Simmons was talking about one thing she said that was really good though is also follow up if if you're not finding that relief because and I don't know that might be out of bounds but
079the followup is just I did try those chains that you suggest that allows us to maybe reach but hopefully they can so uh commissioner Malloy vice president Mallo I want to go back and clarify one question make sure I heard you qu correctly uh you mentioned that you do try to connect community members when they come to you as customers to the place in the district where they need to get support support uh can you elaborate on that a little bit does that mean you you put them in contact with the District staff that needs to support them no okay but you know if it's something that they should be going through the um office of parent engagement I might ask them have you talked to the people in parent engagement um if it rises
080to that if it's those people um if it's something with a classroom teacher have you spoken to the classroom teacher directly um if it's an issue at the building level with a principal have you spoken to that person um and then just ask them or tell them that you know you're please work your way through that chain of command and if you're finding that it's not working out um please give me an update let me know how it went um do do community members ever come back to you all and say I followed all those chains didn't work um now what well see I find that most people don't come back okay okay because they are end up getting whatever question they need answered through the process through that whole process okay occasionally like in
081extenda circumstances that happens but most people just want to be heard by the right people with go to the superintendent have that report with who can then delegate or help redirect or get involved with whatever situation is as need okay because you all nobody's mentioned that so far so oh okay all right okay no but we're liaison with particular schools so very often people will come to the school liaison with legitimate concerns right and being able to redirect those as I'm not just going to tell them who in the district to go to to solve that particular problem I will tell them or encourage them um you know I'll pass the information on to the building principal um and then also to what I mean if there's an assistant principal involved I'll just pass that
082concern their way and not try to solve it for them okay you want you did you want to respond I just want to say like I don't even I don't do all that what I personally do um and it also depends on the issue so what we discuss is that a lot of these things sometimes do Depend and I've been here long enough whereas it's initial with the superintendent or the cabinet members I encourage people to go to The Whistleblower in the district because sometimes they're not comfortable and that's not even an option for us to go to the superintendent again been here long enough to have had these real lived experiences here one of the biggest issues that I always get is the prek kindergarten transition parents are always upset about how our policy
083and New York state law sort of clash in that regard and I never refer those back out to the superintendent it's a matter of educating them in that moment that the office of Family and Children Services is involved on this side and then we switch over to nid and that it's a conflict between those two and then if they're not satisfied they have the right to take up further but no one's going to tell them anything different because it's a policy clashing with a law that we have um but majority of everything else just gets sent to the superintendent for his discretion to you know um and tomorrow I'll tell you I'll send lots of stuff to him and he'll respond back and he will direct the right person and typically um he will call
084back and say I've I've directed this to the office of parent engagement once I have a follow-up I'll give you a followup because he's good about following back up with board members so that it's not a sort of up in the air we don't know what happen or what the outcome was cuz I would rather hear the outcome from the superintendent than have a parent or staff member come back to me with that same measure to say nothing happened nothing was resolved would anyone else care to share would anyone else care to share I'll just give an example of something that happen today so uh the president and actually commissioner um president Simmons and commissioner LeBron Harris both were alerted of a situation uh that happened that was brought to their attention they didn't try
085to solve the problem they both sent me the picture and as they they they know me uh by now um I simply responded um I'll definitely be looking into this uh to find a resolve and I will let them know of the outcome you know when I um when we do the investigation of what was brought to their attention so they didn't try to solve it they didn't offer any additional advice any feedback they didn't even take it as law uh which often happens uh not taking it as law is extremely important and it gives me room to uh try to determine if something is real or not uh or if it's true uh because often times uh unfortunately there are situations that are brought to uh their attention that may be misconstrued or one-sided
086which happens often as well um when you don't give individuals uh you know what they want to hear at times unfortunately uh that's often uh then put forth as you know they didn't do anything about it so I just maintaining that space is extremely important and I do want to say I appreciate both of you for for that how that happened today um but it gives me room to work with my staff because they are my staff to find a resolve to that situation and um I'm just glad that you know that was a real real life situation for today um but I just I do want um to encourage Commissioners to continue to show empathy you know when people do come to you I understand empathize you know I'm I'm sorry that happened to
087you um however you know it's going to be to the superintendent and his staff for solving these issues so I just wanted to put that out there so I'm going to ask a follow-up question of all of you so I shared you know and if anyone else has anything they'd like to share please do so uh so the question um again is uh how should a board member respond when and we had Community member board member um staff member what I heard was um one person say share with the board president um another conversation was around follow the chain of command so asking that individual to go back through the chain of command another individual said I shareed with the superintendent um um my question to you is this as a board do you have
088a set of standards as a board that says here's how we address issues when when should it escalate to the superintendent when should I take it back through the chain of command when should it go to the board president um because you're sharing different because even commissioner LeBron Harris said well I I do it slightly differently I do it this way so our original question was how should the board respond when you hear these particular things come up if the board has different responses then your community so okay because one thing I do want to validate is that I think we were all coming from a a different context I don't think we validated you know so when I said hey I'm it might be something very simplistic so if it's whistleblower level no I'm
089not going to say go to the through the chain of command if I know there's something egregious that's taking place and it would potentially make a person feel uncomfortable so I think the context is important to know what our what position we how you how you respond but right so to validate that I want to just put that out there but to your thing right the standards that we have we should be able to reference uh operating set of procedures that which we know exist and we have the opportunity to maybe update them at this point in time that would be the answer does my question does my question make sense though U just in terms of how you're how you think about this and even um as a part of uh being on the
090board commissioner LeBron Harris Shar earlier it depends on the situation so she started her comment by saying it depends on the situation but I typically share with the superintendent um so given that yes lots of things are situational having a common understanding for how you respond helps your community immensely in understanding here's how my board interfaces with my community and it sets them up for not for not being in a situation where if I go to commissioner Elliott she's going to handle it one way and she may take it straight to the superintendent where I get action right away versus commissioner Simmons is going to tell me go back through the chain of command does that make sense but how you all how you all share that is important but here's where I'm confused because
091we have a mostly mostly I need you clarify because we're seeing no standards and I'm saying that we do have some processes and practices and so that's what I'm confused about because okay and this is and so you're the first person since and we've been discussing this for a few minutes you're the first to mention the question log so that means that there's another another process U so yes ma'am can you hold on to absolutely I can hold on we're not saying you don't have none so just no we're not saying that I'm just trying to understand how we're just trying to have an open conversation about how should the board respond yes so when commissioner submit questions related to District district functioning or things you may hear in a board meeting those types of
092things go into to question L when Commissioners Ford concerns that came from direct constituents situations that have occurred those are shared to the superintendent to then delegate to his staff as sees fit with a request to follow up and just ensure that the parent or Community member correct but you just said there's two different things though you just gave two different answers one is a question log that gets referred to staff but another one is what you you hear from and that gets handled differently what you hear from constituents gets handled differently so can you clarify that for me for so if a commissioner sends me a question and ask uh for data related to sixth grade attendance that will go into question log if a commissioner sends uh a email or a concern that
093a parent approached them and X Y and Z occurred in their school you know with the teacher and the parent is concerned that goes to the superintendent to address what his said okay so it does it doesn't go to the question log okay yes correct I I just for me personally I have never if there is something written out I if there if there isn't something if there's something not written out if there's something written out let me backtrack I don't know what that is so I'm going to say that first and foremost I don't know a step bystep process people say things but as you can see none of us had the same answer because we all see things a little differently I think what you're trying to say is that when we go
094out into the public they're getting different answers so we need to be on the same page so when these questions are asked we are giving them the same protocol which we have put in place so that's what my understanding is is that what I'm understanding you're saying because I don't know any process or policy that states what we should do in any given situation so that's what that's what needs we need to govern as a board so that when we go out into the public people ask us a question different qu different answers are not GI given given in any different situation any given situation and so I see okay question log okay I I just want to add uh commissioner I saw I'm sorry but commissioner Malloy and then we'll come right back to
095you so if you can hold on to it for a second um you know I agree with everything that's being said I think it is really important for us to revisit just those operating procedures so everyone really is on the same page but then also a concern though that I have is not every concern that is brought to you as a commissioner Rises to the level of needing to go to the superintendent because he's got seven people he's reporting to and if seven people are bringing five relatively maybe minor issues non-stop to the superintendent that is a huge chunk of their day that they're spending dealing with those smaller fires so if there is a standard operating procedure for how to examples of how we might delegate you know with their permission you know whether
096that's um handing that to when people come I'm the liazon for a high school right if a parent comes to me as the liaison for that school I'm going to pass that directly to the the principal of that school that concern that came my way and make them aware of it um and encourage them to get in touch with the principal about that matter I don't think I necessarily have to reach out to the superintendent um and also share that same concern I sometimes copy people in on emails um but they're inundated with running the district and so there's not all matters rise to that level I guess is what I'm trying to say so and that's one of the things that I U one of the things I shared one of the questions I
097asked was um at what point does an issue rise to the level of needing to go to the superintendent but that again is something that and you won't as a board you won't always be on exactly the same page as to when that point gets hit but if you don't have a clear understanding of about where that is then you're all going to give different messages to the community um so yes ma'am excuse me I'm sorry commissioner LeBron um if everyone could please be sure to turn on and speak until your mics folks are having a hard time hearing online thank you okay thank you uh we have communications protocols in writing and actually those were sent to the full board a few weeks ago where a commissioner was like who gave you permission a
098bunch of craziness in that response but those things exist and that is part of the orientation for new Commissioners to go through they're given a copy of it in writing um there it's accessible by email by going to the board clerk but we do have a set of communication protocols that address those things that also address what board members can ask for because in the past we've had board members come in here and say we want all of the history on all the Dei efforts that the district has made from 97 to now we nobody has time for that and often times we have these big requests from staff and they're not even relevant to the conversation or outcomes or the the moment in time it's usually driven by things that they're hearing outside um
099and that is partly one of the reasons why those Communications protocols were put in place a few years ago for exactly that board members coming in here asking for large chunks of data that had nothing to do with the conversation at hand the agenda at hand and what this board was working on at the time but somehow they went to a meeting someone got in their ear you know disgruntle staff they want to see all the data and so from that that's how the communications protocols was also driven but there are a subset of standards and I think that is also what uh president well commissioner Elliot is referencing to um in terms of there being protocols in place because when I got on this board there were none and I just want to be
100real clear there was no orientation we had to fight for that there was no like here's we used to get the law book and uh join it was like running on a running trade but there was a lot of effort put into developing an onboarding process and orientation updating the handbook updating a Communications protocol that was the board and the administration working on it together so that both sides could agree this is when it rises to this level this is when it doesn't so I just want to encourage my colleagues to read it because it exists and if we're going to update it after this and we update it but the base is there in the foundation thank you perfect and if I can just add one other thing here I wanted to go back
101to what commissioner Malloy just said about she goes directly she'll go directly to the principal I think that's something that needs to be negotiated with the superintendent uh because I do believe that when uh a board member who has this um Power if you will um and it could be undermining the leadership of the superintendent so I think that that needs to be um negotiated so that the superintendent is also informed about it now if it's a matter of going sending an email directly to the principal then copying in the superintendent that's way M we're doing it but I think that those kinds of uh inter interactions is something that has to be negotiated with the superintendent uh because that can cause some issues there um because of that Arrangement and one good thing and
102I'm sorry to I'm going just be brief is that one good thing I'm hearing as far as processes and things and that have been developed over time is that what is informing me is that there's an opportunity to lean into those more so I you know some of us have read them some of us do know of them some of us have had them for a while and have had the opportunity to practice them and so with u being cognizant of newer Commissioners that come in how do we make sure that we put that in front of and continuously um check in on those just some pulse checks to make sure it's in front of us because I think when you when you um are intentional about practice it can become part of the the
103muscle that you build so that that brings us to our last question we have several but we're going to ask you to write a response for this one as well so our last question we're going to ask you to respond to is how will the board self-evaluate and this may be in your materials already uh commissioner Elliot but I will ask you again to kind of think outside the box how will the board self evaluate and hold um each other accountable for the agreements that are set forth in those policies around how you communicate and you can feel free to write write down any responses that you have so how will the board self- evaluate and hold yourselves accountable to the agreements that you have in place I ask the question again how will the
104board self- evaluate meaning essentially if you've got policies in place how will you hold each other accountable for maintaining those policies as they are set forth does that question make sense I'm having a a a problem with with things with with words okay and and I think I just want you to clarify it for me I it may be redundant but I need to ask it give me give me the difference between policy and protocols procedures where can you give me the definition of the three and how they differ because um I'm having some type of understanding of the definitions and what they mean and how they apply so if is is it can I get some clarity on on that you want to CL you want me to clarify you want to clarify uh
105so I'll go through a couple um the first of which is what's in policy um policy is what you go through with um the board as a whole and the board agrees on here's our sets of policies that we want to adhere to as a board now you can create um within those particularly let's say for example um how the board might so you might set in policy here's how the board communicates with staff but what you might put together is a set of standard operating procedures about how that policy actually gets implemented in practice does that make sense and so the standard operating procedures are designed to say here are the standards be around which that policy actually gets implemented and so there should be could be some communication protocols for example um I'm
106not sure if you have this in policy or not but what could in your policy is the um the question what you call it the questions question log so the question log could be in your policy or the question log could be a standard operating procedure for how you implement something that is in your policy about how you communicate with the superintendent a lot of for me for me board log and that parking lot is is it sometimes can get a little sketchy because the information sometimes never comes through so I'm I I kind of with myself refer not to refer people to the is when I'm do that's when the question log yeah the board question log and and things of that nature because if I'm in an open meeting they want an answer
107you know so I I try to make sure that those answers are covered and when I'm when I'm when I'm overseeing the meetings that I have because I feel like sometimes those questions get lost in board law so that's just for me personally but other than that I just want the clarification on the other things because I think it's important for me and for even into the listening Community to understand the difference because we have if we have rules or guidelines that we need to go um follow these are important that we do that but when I'm looking at policy I'm governing policy and looking at protocol or or at something that some sometimes people make up to control The Narrative of a policy so that's what my that's what my issue of concern is
108because if you keep manipulating the system or the manipulating the policy so much then it becomes like a move point the policy ain't going to never work and that's why the last question I asked the last question I asked is um how will you hold each other accountable if you work outside of the district policies or the district protocols that you've established so once you've established those that's one thing the question is how you how will you hold each other accountable if you work outside of that so if I go outside of that policy how what is the process for saying you you're working outside of the policy how do we get back in to working within the policy so so maybe adding something to the policy to govern that that's why that's why I
109ask a question okay thank you thank you very much that's why that's the reason I asked and I asked everybody to write down just adding something to the policy to write down how will you hold each other accountable you're working you very much that makes sense to me now thank you right why is that piece so important big well before we go before we commissioner um Elliot I'm sorry and please forgive me I just wanted to before we go into that question really quick I wanted to stand there so that what you're saying doesn't get lost I just wanted to touch on the board um question log as far as um depending on what information we put in it can take time there may be timelines attached to that and it is monitored and so
110we do have the opportunity for followup to get those um questions answered um that type of thing so I want to um kind of just validate that piece as well so C be you know and it depends on how much we're we're asking what we're getting from that and it may not be an immediate response so you got to give the staff time to respond so I just want to kind of put that in there but I want to um go back to commissioner aliot so so why is the why is the that's okay they always I'm sorry sorry I'll get you next why is important why is the accountability piece why is the accountability piece important um again it goes back to what I talked about you as a board in all that you
111do when you interact with the community when you interact with each other when you interact with staff you send a message about what is acceptable um you send a message about um how the board will operate and function and address issues concerns it's the reason we started the conversation with is someone coming to you as a customer or is someone coming to you as an owner and as a board you want to deal with ownership issues because you are working you you are the representatives of the owners as a board you want to have processes for dealing with customer concerns but you have to understand that customer concerns aren't yours so how you communicate with your colleagues how you communicate with your community um and how you communicate with the staff about how you handle
112and will address those um if it is handled uniquely by different board members where some board members may go straight to the superintendent with a response I'm not saying it's good or bad other board members will refer someone to the chain of command in their local school then it sends a message to community members that I can get I can go to different board members and I get treated differently depending upon who I go to It also says to community members there's preferential treatment perhaps to some over others um that some community members get different representation and it sets you all up for having uh and creating a different message to your community about how the board functions and operates and how the board should function and operate It also says the same for your
113staff um because your staff get a different message um and it creates confusion and so clarifying that so that the board all functions as a unit um is important and if that does not happen what's next that's why you have to say that's why I asked the question how you hold yourself how you hold each other accountable if you operate outside of the expectations that have been created that make sense makes sense commissioner Patterson yeah I may be a little off here and I do agree with what you're saying um but first we have to agree to be evaluated and we have to agree to a self- evaluation to know what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong what changes we can make you know to be a better board um one thing i'
114like to say is in the State Police which is a large organization we had scenarios for every event so when something happened we had a field manual and we had an administrative manual and in those two binders which were pretty thick were the answers to all your questions so maybe we could create something like that where we have a list of scenarios and whether they're customer or you know the opposite customer owner how you respond okay yep would anyone else care to care to respond now going back to how you hold each um each other accountable does anyone have any I hope you had a chance to write I know we jumped right into Q&A with that but does anyone have anything you'd like to share about what you wrote down regarding the question um
115how will you hold each other um accountable um and I use the word accountable but it could be self-evaluate which you just mentioned um when individuals work outside of the agreements that you've come to any thoughts oh I I have have to admit I would love some some examples around what you've seen because I understand that accountability drives standard right and if you have a standard of Excellence a standard of expectations for yourself or our Collective board then you know you you're more um applicable to to reaching those right um I would love to to hear some accountability measures that other boards have maybe put in place maybe one or two um because in a space of dysfunction sometimes the accountability looks like drastic measures and that's not you know sometimes you know just from
116a professional lens it can be a conversation it doesn't have to be the board president be brought into something it can be you know we had a tough night or we didn't agree the tone was off and that that personalized ability to go to one another and just just have that conversation gain understanding Clarity and you know figure it out on that level level can happen and then if it doesn't you know maybe you know you figure it out but there's just some professional expectation and the way we dis Talk Amongst ourselves um as a board is is is not okay so again I don't want it to I don't I'm trying to stay away from some things right now but it doesn't have to be the most egregious piece to to hold someone accountable
117so can you give a few examples of maybe some healthy ways of holding each other accountable you've seen among other boards uh I would love to when you establish your own first um why you that Dr har the answer is yes absolutely I'll be happy to share so there's a couple of things the first of which I will share is uh we have obviously we've worked with a lot of boards so we've seen what's been created what works in other cities and boards and school system is not necessarily what's going to work in Rochester understood and so um the same way we did with the generating uh kind of your ideal um board agenda um create that first and then we'll come back and share okay here's some other ideas that may work for you
118but we want you to create your own first so we're going to push you to create your own ideas first okay and then we'll add what we've seen well I do encourage dialogue I think it's important that we I mean on on the most basic level um if there is uh an issue if you're able to to just go to your board colleague and start with a conversation that that's that's the first start I I think everyone doesn't have to be involved in that okay necess can I can I make a suggestion um I'm going to go to commissioner Santiago first and then we're going to come back so hang on to that yes sir my my recommendation is um n where is written out as far as the expectations of the board that it's
119also written out as far as um the measure of accountability whether you know it's it's a process that starts off with you know conversation with the president you know and then from there you know having it written out as far as what does accountability look like because although we may make agreement with this board you know a couple years down the line it might be another board or a different board and so in my opinion for these things that we're setting and the amount of money that we paid you know to to get this which is taxpayer dollars you know that we should have things that are fundamental that are there uh not just for this board but boards in the future to make sure that this what we've paid and taxpayer dollars uh for
120this governance training uh can be effective not just for this board but moving forward and of course future boards can tweak it you know but I think that there should at least be something written as far as what does accountability look like you know and the process of accountability which of course would be an agreement of the board but you know step one conversation with the president step two you know and then just going into more severity depending on the situation so that's my uh that's my recommendation and I I missed the very very first thing that you said but I think was the very first thing conversation with the president uh because it wasn't clear what you said right off the bat yeah yeah I was just saying you know for for the process
121you know for for there to be kind of Tears because okay some people don't come on this board knowing exactly what's going on and of course we we now have the onboarding and so that's a good way to know but sometimes you know in the process you may you may forget you know there's a lot that goes on in this position and so I think that um that's important you know just for it to be laid out and written on paper of course not too specific you know because policy is policy or what's agreed on is agreed on but specific enough to where there's a framework on how to deal with conflicts on the board thank you sir would anyone else care to share you always forget me I did I apologize um my suggestion
122would be to establish like an ad hoc committee um it doesn't have to be you know all board members but representative from the board it can be people from the community it can be our general counsel um you know on that committee but um you know just to work on this uh what changes should be made what should be adopted um changes in policy things like that so it won't take away from the everyday operation of what we're doing here as a board and won't put that much strain on uh the president um so just my idea we can also establish a set of questions that we ask ourselves right as far as um so I guess you would start with the end goal like what does a functional board look like right and so
123identifying those measures that we think are functional and that high you know what what we would want to see and then we would pose questions um I don't know if it's a mid year review it doesn't have to be too intense or crazy but it can just be how how do I believe I'm functioning in this particular space um but again we would we would not have we would not be able to function in this pseudo reality of Harmony because that's one of the five dysfunctions of right teams is that that fake Harmony and so because if I'm evaluating myself I I should be able to give it to commissioner Elliot and she can also evaluate me from an objective lens and you know I'd be able to receive that type of feedback or vice
124versa however that looks um so we we need to work towards getting to a healthy space as well because other than that it'll be weaponized and I think that that distrust that exists currently does not allow for that level of accountability I think that's why I asked I think what I'm hearing is that and correct me if I'm wrong that you're looking for clarity in our roles and accountability that's what I'm hearing that unless I'm understand you clear not Clarity of the roles but more so um so if a high functioning piece is that um I'm not going to I'm not going to yell at you when I disagree with you even if I'm cringing at something I think you're saying and I don't like it I think it's wrong I'm not going to speak
125to you in disrespectful tone right I'm not and so that might be a measure of how am I engaging my colleagues am I having discourse in a way that's still respectful right and then I'm eval I don't know if it's a rating scale but that's just an example of what I'm yeah I wasn't questioning what you had said I'm just trying to clarify his question so he said how will the board self-evaluate and hold each other accountable so I was trying to respond to that to say I guess it's a question that are you trying to say that you're looking for us as a board to clarify our roles when we either respond or don't respond whether it is governance or management and what is the accountability if we're going outside those r roles to
126each other as board members am I incorrect uh it yes but it is all of it so it goes back to president Simmons as well she just used a different example but if you've established um a series of guidelines which we'll show you in a moment that you have um because we're going to pull up show it to you in email you what we talked about with board guard rails if you remember the last time we were together we talked about board guard rails um it's one thing to have board guard rails it's another thing to say okay now are we going how are we going to hold each other accountable for adhering to those board guard rails um that's the conversation we're having now and commissioner Elliott just to make sure I'm clear um
127you mentioned that there are policies and protocols in place and I think commissioner Simmons Santiago you were next as well so I'll come right back to you um and then we'll wrap up this conversation because we'll share with you two other things and then we'll we'll um call it an evening but commissioner Elliott just so I'm clear um you mentioned that you have protocols in place for communications things like that do you have corresponding um protocols for how you hold each other accountable when those Protocols are violated okay thank you yes ma'am was that super Evel that we had that we did not um do the board self evaluation most people were not interested in completing that self- evaluation through board eval okay so board self evaluation is one way there's other ways so board
128self evaluation is one um we have it built into some of the protocols that we'll share when we're a little further along the line but it's one way but not it's not not the only way uh another one of my recommendations when it comes to the evaluations of the board um after every board meeting we do have a uh basically a a response a survey a board survey um and my my recommendation would be on that board survey to um to add in there you know today did we focus on our goals today did you know then have the ranking of Highly Effective you know kind of effective however that looks um and then you know that information can also you know throughout the the the year you know it could be put together and
129then by the end we can look at how that looks and then we can also fill out our own you know end of the year or whatever the time is our own self- evaluation which covers you know throughout this amount of time you know have we covered the board goals have we stayed in line with our Communications you know and so those would be my recommendations is really to have two we already have the survey after every board meeting that we're supposed to complete and so I'll just say possibly adding questions on there or taking away some questions and adding different questions that's more focused to the board goals and um I think that would be a good way to to do self- evaluation because then we'll see at the end of the year you
130know if if how that looks and then we can evaluate from there how we move forward and and did we stray from what we agree to as a body um I will share with you um a couple of things as we wrap this up and we'll share with you the next next piece um U Cindy share with you briefly um the board guard rails that you shared our um realignment of those guard rails and what we suggested um but you've heard the saying what gets measured gets done um creating policies and then not having uh followup um or a way to measure it means that you'll quickly like you shared earlier president Simmons I know it's there but I'll quickly forget about what's in it what the protocol says um and you'll notice from this
131conversation that we've had tonight that each of you has had a different idea about what the response is in different circumstances why we kind of laid out the customer versus owner but right now you're not all aligned and in that misalignment uh you're creating confusion amongst staff amongst District um uh community members Etc and so as a board as you begin to have alignment around those even if it's keeping what you have in place the same but then revisiting what you have in place and having a way or a mechanism for testing yourselves against those protocols that you have in place um will be critical moving forward so what we will do is ask you to do two things share with us uh what you've written down uh we'll go back take what you've written
132down take what you share with us we will compile it in much the same way we did with what you're going to see on the screen and then you'll get an email uh we'll compile it and then we'll bring it back to you as suggestions for here's what you said we'll combine that with the policies that you already have in place so you understand okay here's what we had in place here's what we suggested here's where some of the gaps are between what we had in place and what we suggested any questions about that no I can I just want to knowled that it's kind of like practicing What You Preach as well because often times from the day as we're asking questions of the administration and we're saying tell us how you get how
133you're getting that how are you monitoring that how are you checking for that and then we're getting responses to say hey we do walkthroughs we're doing a check we're walking in the classrooms and making sure the teachers are in alignment and they're saying the same thing and that's an expectation we have of the district that we govern as we would say and so why would we not have the same expectations for ourselves so I like that and uh that's where we're headed as mentioned we we're going to do we're going to step it so uh we're also going to step up what we do so we're going to ask more of you in the coming weeks than we have um but at the end uh the other thing I want to remind you of is
134uh we mentioned that this process was a two-year process at the start uh so we share with you this is a two-year process it's not all going to happen overnight and you're also not going to snap your fingers and function in a different way right away um and so we're taking you through a process on purpose because we want you to own the process it's the same reason I said I'm not going to give you the answers that other school board members have implemented because you won't own it in the same ways if you craft it and develop it on your own but we will give you advice as you go through um so we'll talk about two other things and then we'll wrap up for the evening so this will be brief okay so
135what's up on the screen right now um if you recall we did a similar brainstorming session um a couple meetings ago uh when Ray and I were here um where we took notes and came um you all had chart paper and and uh were in in small groups um we had consensus board guard rail topics which was spending no less than x% of meeting time on student outcome goals um and then needing to have a common understanding of what student outcomes focus is uh to something to Encompass respect honesty trustworthiness professionalism and decorum and three um overstepping via interaction with staff and administration then what we said we would do is take those um and synthesize them into some board guard rails which is um is what we did and what you see up here
136on the screen um and what that what you'll be able to consider uh adopting um and the way we worded that was that the board shall operate within the board's role as a governing body corporate the RSC rcsd board bylaws and adopted protocols for communication between Board of Education Commissioners and board staff superintendent and administrative staff because that's what you have in the moment um the board either collectively or through the actions of individual board members shall not invest less than 50% of its minutes each month into monitoring student outcome goals um we landed on 50% because that is um that is the number uh that shows Mastery of student outcomes focus in your student outcomes Focus governance manual um perform or appear to perform any of the responsibilities delegated to the superintendent including in
137interactions with staff and outside individuals groups and or other entities and finally um the one about to Encompass respect honesty trustworthiness professionalism and decorum um what we put was violate board adopted School culture and climate policy as described in the Rochester city school district code of conduct policy 1400 page 5 which you have identified as school culture and climate to whom when and where this code applies promoting positive student Behavior so you have a really um robust expectation for how your students behave and how they interact with each other and what this says is you're committing to act the same way um and so that is um that seemed like a really simple way to Encompass that with something that you already have and that you're expecting of your students um and that so those
138are the recommendations or the draft language I guess for your board uh guard rails any questions on those and those again um will provide those for you all to be able to look at and then um consider as appropriate so those guard rails are not set in stone um that is and you'll have it in your email uh that is what um we got together to propose for you um as I said of guard rails we will get together now to do the same process for what we just talked about in terms of um policies around um how you communicate Etc we'll review the policy that's currently in place um and then uh we will work with um president Simmons and the team to set up a review process for you as well for uh
139that information um anything else you want to cover oh go ahead you can do that part you know more about um so the last thing I think there were some questions that you all had of us um and so we'll open up for you to quickly ask us any questions that you might have it doesn't have to be quick but we'll stay until you till uh We've answered your questions uh we talked about committee sunsetting committees um in the past uh there were committees that were Sunset and then there are committees that are still continuing uh that we we recommended that these were the ones that continue these are the Committees that will be sunset questions about uh that process questions for us about next steps with that process so uh if there were some
140misunderstandings or things that we need to clarify about the committee process the committee suns setting process we'll address those um my concern is that I when when we s set a committee I want to reflect on prior on from my understanding and when we have like the mwbe that was one of one of um um something that we had within the district once it was like once that committee was like dismantled so to speak it's like it was almost forgot about or it maybe not forgot about I don't want to use that term maybe we weren't we couldn't there was not enough transparency in it so we didn't know what was actually going on um with with the governance of the mwbe so my concern concern is that by sunsetting these committees too soon that
141we will not have the oversight that we need that will governance them accordingly and I don't want that to happen as it has happened with other other um committees or things that have happened within the district and it falls on death ears and nobody's overseeing the the the process that's a concern of mine so I would think that to Sunset something is to be able to have a collective group of people to come together to do to that can have a meeting of the minds and until we have a group a group of people that can come together to have a meeting of the minds I don't think that certain certain um committees should be sunset until we can get out those Kinks within within the group itself that is just my recommendation I'm not
142saying that they should never ever be sunset I'm just saying that we have a lot to work together as a team as a group no not going to always agree but I think right now it's just a little too soon to sunet something especially like policy and Esa at this time until we can get all these you know get all the rest of the Kinks out in the group which I believe we can do I believe we can come to that point but I just don't think it's now so I think a couple of things the first of which is um you mentioned at the end policy Esa uh just want to clarify um that we're not s sunsetting those and agreed not to um essentially the ones that we did um as a question
143okay thank you um the ones that we did agree to Sunset uh if I'm not mistaken there's a couple things that we talked about the first of which is um as the district begins to um Sunset some of the Committees the information that was there the question that we asked is can that be presented to board members in a different way um when requested uh so you mentioned one that wasn't wasn't one of the ones we reviewed but as a board member um at any point you can make a make a motion to have the district share with the board in uh either in smaller groups as a full board board as a as a whole um share with the board information or updates uh on things that you you might request we're going to
144start to shift you more to having more conversations not just about other things but mostly about student outcomes um but um it still doesn't preclude you as a board member from from requesting a vote of the board to get an update on anything that that might be of interest um so that's one thing the second thing is uh again uh raising with your colleagues on the board if there's something uh that you need updates on from the superintendent superintendent's team um making a request for those is always uh it's all so we're not in sunsetting the Committees we're not we don't want to take anything away from your ability to get the information that you need as a board member uh however uh we do want to make sure that those uh in sunsetting those
145committees you aren't spending time doing things that are management issues uh that you're doing things as a board that are focused on ownership issues so even though you might get an update let's say on Transportation that you're not creating a committee that is always asking about Transportation every month right and that's the critical issue does that make sense yes it does thank you Dr har um quick question so I know that there were some committees we Sunset um expeditiously like we were like they're Sunset and then there are committees as you said some that were not Sunset and then they are looking at a July one Sunset date am I correcting with that I would I would say whenever you're ready so wouldn't necessarily put a date on it um the reason I would share
146that is one as we and I'll use um education as an example uh I think as we started to transition the conversation uh around student outcomes understanding regular reports around progress towards your goals which was the question that commissioner Elliot asked in the in the last meeting I think you'll find that that information gives you what you need um and then you can begin to think about okay can we at this committee because this work has now been transitioned to a different venue does that make sense yes I and I I definitely can uh respect sun setting and restruct it's really a matter of restructuring the Committees and how they look in a work session I do have a question around for example um the esa committee for example if we were to Sunset that
147there were parents who enjoyed um the opportunity to engage in that committee learn from it and and they felt it was helpful and although this committee could be sunset is there an opportunity to ensure parents are still somehow involved in work sessions or learning alongside us and you know I would want to figure out how to structure them in a way that um is encumbersome but helpful to the community as well as us as a board in getting that um perspective uh that's why I was suggesting earlier I wouldn't put a timeline on the sunsetting and I also um you've done three I believe it was three kept three I wouldn't put a timeline on them but understanding that as your board work begins to shift making sure you incorporate some of those ideas that
148you just shared so that before you Sunset the committee you know that it is still accomp that you're still accomplishing as a board all the things for both you the community the parents um that you felt you were getting out of the old system in a in a new system well a couple of things the first of which is one of the Committees you can't sunset by law um so you're not going to Sunset all the Committees secondly you may reach the conclusion um that and I I can tell you will Coach you away from this but you you may reach the conclusion no we can't really sunset this committee so esaa we can't sunset this let's keep it uh the reason I would coach you away from that is what we generally coach boards
149on is that if you create a committee like we just talked about an ad hoc committee to revise this particular conversation we just had your board committees for doing board work should be just that ad hoc you create a committee to accomplish a certain goal by a certain time when that goal is accomplished you Sunset that committee so all of your committees with the exception of the one that's required by law um they should be set up to accomplish a particular goal once that goal is accomplished you don't create a committee that goes on um for forever that's just a standing committee um because you wanted to do something um that's related to board work and once that something is accomplished uh you'll you'll Sunset that ad hoc committee that is ideally how you want
150to use committees you may not reach that conclusion um it's not our decision for how you decide to do that um because it's what works best for Rochester uh commiss commissioner LeBron Harris yeah um I just one I'm ready to Sunset committees um but two um I we've had ad hoc committees for that purpose and I just want to point out like the code of conduct literally was based out of one necessity for the board and the district to have a set of Standards um that was Universal across the district but there was an ad hoc committee that sort of and that occasionally will still come together even though they are not meeting every month right so it's sort of they will review um as yearly as things come up or make additional recommendations we've
151had a variety of those types of setups um but I do want to point out that we've also allowed parents to come in and serve and be a part of the work session conversations depending on the topic so I do not want anyone in the community listening thinking that if we Sunset these committees that there won't be opportunities for parents to be a part of it so if we Sunset policy we're still going to have to address policies as time goes on do we need a policy committee no we're reviewing a bunch of policies we literally could do that in one meeting um because there's not many changes and when there are changes legal comes and lets us know hey the law change the policy has to change this is when you got to vote
152on that um but that doesn't that leaves the door open in my opinion to have parents who are interested in policy conversations to be the liaison for those conversations to come in because we do have a protocol in place as well for how parents um join these committees and having them connected to our other parent groups so that they're also liaisoning not only between us but those parent groups about these conversations uh that's perfect I I think um one we're going to let you go down the process but we've seen some ways that that has been handled uh in ways that aren't um committees per se but ways that you as a board can still ensure that your parents and your communities are your parents and Community are part of processes educational processes things like
153that we won't I won't share it now but we do have some things we just wrote down I'm so confused because I I thought we had like a I know we did the other ones but I believe I felt like we went over a timeline of consideration for the end of the year or or something of that nature for the additional committees to Sunset them and it was a matter of um we we Sunset some upfront and we're most of us that were meable to set UN sunsetting in that moment kind of said so and then we continued with the others and we were going to look at or revisit the plan for sunsetting them by the end of the year end of the school year end of this school year okay yeah that's that
154was the understanding clerk when if you can redirect um maybe you have different notes but it was that you all would come back together to make a decision but at this time at that time excuse me back in October that you only wanted to Sunset those um three committees by the January start of the year yeah so I'm I'm comfortable in um take the guidance of cgcs on on sunsetting committees um with the um to commissioner Griffin's point you know there's things that we want to make sure we don't lose in that how do we struct restructure them to ensure we don't lose those pieces how do we restructure to ensure as commissioner LeBron stated we continue with the parent voice but outside of that I'm I'm amable to to following your guidance yeah for
155now keep the Committees you haven't quite transitioned enough of your work to move away from those committees that are of interest to you um so my advice for now keep those and we'll set up a timeline for uh I don't know uh we'll have to see if we can make it by the end of the school year um it might be possible but it may go a little further you say in the end of the school year and what that would look like okay so we can we can Target that but it may go a little further depending on whether or not you feel like okay we've got everything built in okay any other questions about the committee process uh okay okay um and I was we're also going to going to go around and
156just ask for immediate reaction so we can you know we can share that uh as a final um just going around the room uh any reactions to the conversation we've had today um and we'll start with commissioner Griffin and then we'll go around the room you don't have to go first I I we can we can start with anyone who cared to share first um no I I really enjoyed the conversation I think it was um very enlightening I think that uh we are moving in a step in the right direction and I look forward to seeing you guys again to get us on the road to recovery from um from the damage of the what we have as a um as a as a group to making it so that we can work together
157on a common ground to get do what we need to do for the children so I appreciate you guys thank you thank you now just thank you for the training uh thank you for your professionalism on you know both your ends um I love working with you you and um I work with you for a year uh so out in California but uh it's nice to see it working you know so thank you for being here and thank you for um just training us no comment thank you uh I just continue to appreciate the intentional dialogue that needs to happen so that any superintendent that is in this seat is able to focus on the teaching and learning of the district and the more we can have those conversations the better it is for our
158kids and the more outcomes will actually be seen at the end of the year as a result of this so thank you yes thank you very much for your guidance your patience with us um I know you you mentioned that as we go through this process we might not like at some point right because we're going to be challenged to to dive into things that we may not want to or feel that we're ready for but I do believe um as um Dr Strickland stated um our children will be better as a result of what we learn um through this structure so stick beside us we will okay um thank you again for for meeting with us um I hope that we can meet more often I think sometimes things get lost in Translation along
159the way um as we try to govern the district um as well as learn all of this at the same time um so just having that more frequent opportunities to discuss all of this together would be helpful I know for me um because we are learning all of this as we go we're building the plane as we go um but I think any opportunity that we have as a board to get to a place where we can actually begin having meaningful discussions about student progress in this District um it's going to be helpful and is going to help move all of our students forward um but we've got to get to that place where we can have those actual conversations about the data instead of about each other or other other topics so I'm looking
160forward to continuing this work thank you commissioner LeBron Harris did you have anything you want to share um you guys I lost um sound when Dr um haime was talking so I didn't hear what he said um you know I'll be honest for me I'm sort of just going through this right now and I have um deep concerns on other things and I just don't do fakeness I don't do fake Harmony I I I definitely want um what's best for kids in this District but you know one thing that's that's actually not defined is what that is and as we're going through a coupe in this country we have a a board that has not yet planned for what we're going to be doing and how we move forward so I'm I'm committed to it
161I'm still going to be coming to these things but I'm going to be honest and coming to them I'm not going to pretend like things are all great there's lots of people I don't respect on this board and I think it's going to be a challenge as we move forward um and that's just that's where what I got for tonight thank you uh thank you and thank you for sharing that it it gives me an opportunity to reiterate U one of the things that we share at the very outset of this process um at the outset of this process you'll recall we shared um we're we don't expect you to all agree on on all things we don't expect you to agree with each other um that is a healthy part of the school board
162process um and you won't necessarily like like all of the individuals um one of the analogies that we often give is a football analogy um you know the Kansas City Chiefs is a prime example they lost this Super Bowl but they won two prior to that but everybody in the locker room doesn't like each other um and it's not that's not the definition of what it means to actually work together um and so what we want to make sure you have is the structures in place uh to be able to work together uh you don't have to like each other you don't have to agree matter of fact is healthy if you don't agree um but it's just a matter of how do you dialogue when you don't agree um when you're on the day
163together um when you're behind the scenes so uh getting Kumbaya is not our goal um and we don't expect to get there but being able to work together on the day um and have a healthy respect for each other's perspectives um is important um commissioner Elliott youe something you want to share at the end and we'll turn it over yeah I wanted to you know the last question I asked you the last time uh with regard to the education uh department and the Trump Administration and and where are we now from your perspective um because I he's done a number of things right now terms of the reduction of staff and what have you so what are you hearing um on um on on that level so uh there's a lot um I'll answer uh
164kind of several things the first of which is um in terms of support for the district um the uh Department of Education and the Secretary of Education who just stepped in a couple of weeks ago um has indicated that things will flow to your districts the way they always have in terms of Title One funding your your um your federal programs Etc what I will share is that the changes that they've made um at the department recently um will have Downstream impacts um for example one of the offices where the staff were eliminated uh which our districts have relied on heavily uh is the office of English language learner um English language acquisition um that office uh provided for example tool kits um best practices for a number of our districts uh you may not
165know we' we only have 78 districts there are about 15,000 districts in the country but so we're a very small percentage of that but one in four English language Learners is in our districts so offices like that that have provided support to our staff we connect your staff directly with staff from those offices for to answer questions provide supports uh those types of things those those will uh those will be impacted um our staff is still in place to answer questions uh but not having uh a central Focus from the US Department of Education uh one of the things that I noted in one of the statements that I made recently um is that it is particularly telling as a country um if we disinvest in education um Department of Education was already one of
166the smallest Department ments in the federal government it's now probably the smallest Department in the federal government um if that is the priority we place on our nation's future and educating our nation's citizenry and in in particular uh our children or our nation's most precious resource um we may think it's oil we may think it's um you know gas and other things our most precious resource is our children um and if we disinvest in our nation's most precious resource it says something about us as a nation um so Council advocating so um we are doing a number of things we'll talk more about that this week at our legislative conference um but uh one of the things that uh We've shared is we actually operate on two fronts one of which is a legislative front
167um and that is it's one of the reasons why we asked you uh to Advocate when um Congress uh recently voted to cut funding uh So the instructions in the house wasn't for all Congress as House of Representatives but the instructions they gave to their committees was to cut $330 billion out of Workforce and education and to cut $880 billion out of Energy and Commerce inside of Energy and Commerce sits um Medicaid Medicare and Social Security um it is mathematically impossible to cut $880 billion out of Energy and Commerce without touching one of those three um what we asked you to advocate for is make sure that Medicaid which our districts receive millions of dollars in reimbursements U for Medicaid services that we provide that uh congress not touch K12 education so um there are
168continued fights for that we are going to continue to fight for that um both in the current Year's budget which and I can explain more in detail offline but uh what Congress just passed was a continuing resolution to the end of the FIS school year M that continuing resolution does not have the same instructions um in it uh that typically guides the Appropriations process um for congress uh which means that the administration will now have a little more leeway in how some of the funds get used but we'll address that from an administrative side of things uh and more importantly as they go into the next FIS schal year uh making sure that we protect and don't block grant uh things like Title One title three we don't eliminate title 2 uh that uh your
169food services reimbursements aren't impacted um that are not are not are not are not impacted um and I address one more thing and I'll take your question uh and then finally we also Advocate when needed on the judicial side so through a court system so we actually have been in contact with um other agencies lots of different law firms I can give a whole list of them on things that um we recognize will directly impact you uh that the Administration has changed relative to um Staffing funding um grants not just grants for you but grants to universities so there's some grants to universities that have impacted the number of special education teachers you have in your districts because the grant was to a university but it actually funded special education teachers in some of our
170districts so when the inclusion Grant was blocked because it had language like inclusion it actually pulled monies that were supporting inclusion teachers in classrooms so we've addressed that on the judicial side so there's a number of different things yes I okay this I'll let you have this last one um just in reference to um uh our budget and do we have to be concerned about as we prepare our budget for the next school year um from uh the federal side because just saying that title funding is won't be cut un I didn't say it won't be cut I say we're fighting to make sure it's not cut um and I think your guidance is helpful and I and I no I'm going to can finish my S were you not done sir were you not
171done if you want me to respond to that question okay I'm sorry I thought so my question to you my suggestion to you would be not to uh change your budgets going into next year but recognizing that um on September mber 30th is when this fiscal year ends uh you've already got funding for so your funding for this fiscal year has already been drawn down your state has already drawn down your title one funding you may not as a district have drawn down all of that but the state has drawn down uh Title One funding Etc um for next fiscal year which starts October 1st the current continuing resolution that was just passed last week it actually funds next fiscal year um so we'll know more about how the department and administration will uh handle
172that funding uh what I would would say to you going into the new school year is just recognize that as of October 1st um there may be changes um but your budget I would go into your budget year um particularly for state and local funding as you normally would but recognizing that October 1st May mean unique things um for the district a lot of it depends on uh and if I were uh in your shoes but I'm speaking to the superintendent uh I would identify what do we spend our federal dollars on what could potentially be impacted should things change on October 1st and then what is our contingency plan if on October 1st um the funding isn't what we would expect it to be for this year does that make sense and I was
173going to just say that you know your calls are extremely helpful I think it's imperative or important that we not make assumptions that folks are not in tune or you know we may not mess things the same way but um when you talked about the title one the funding formulas and the grants are what we want to keep our eye on in in a budget and so that is an an understanding that we walk around with and we are privy to the calls that you have where you're updating us and we want to thank you the cgcs for the work that you are doing to ensure uh school districts Across the Nation are in tune and able to move without I call it the chicken little syndrome the sky is falling because it is it
174is it is it is scary and we recognize that this this particular Administration is doesn't follow the rules and so even though certain things require an act of Congress and you know legally you shouldn't be able to do this they are in fact doing things that are um could be very harmful when you lay off staff and have to bring them back that can impact how dollars and resources flow um and and people are paying attention and are having those conversations and that's why um it is important to recognize the difference of um not so much Harmony but the importance of working together so that we have these unified conversations to understand how this District needs to move on behalf of the students and no one person is the savior of this particular issue the
175piece I wanted to ask you about is um we have a dist general counsel um you might be able to redirect me there was a letter that was generated um from the Council of great City Schools um and was brought up a while ago on during a board meeting around signing on it was like a a uh a junction or some something um um that yeah if I'm if I'm recalling it might have been something from from Dr Dr Hart a message from was it a message from Dr Hart um encouraging districts to to reach out to uh legislators I think so and to sign on was there something you asked us to sign on to there was a like a recommended maybe a resolution something like that that districts could pass to show you
176know kind of support for some of the things that a concept great City schools are doing to Advocate against some of these budget cuts okay that is U it is totally a local decision uh so it's totally up to you anything we share with you is always a local decision uh however I can tell you that as the Congressional process and the concessional budgeting process moves forward um that is not the last time and that's not the last time we're going to ask you to reach out to your Congressional leaders um and not only in your District but across the state as well uh making sure that they understand that some of the decisions that they're making on um the possibility and one of the things that you know um we had had uh Representatives
177who got back to us and said oh this bill doesn't say anything about cutting Medicaid we didn't say the bill said anything about cutting Medicaid what we said is don't cut Medicaid to K12 education um and that message won't change um so there is Lang you know the language in the Bill said cut $880 billion it didn't say where right but what we want to make sure of is that it's not cut out of Medicaid it's not cut out of Title One um or other things that are uh that you rely on to make sure you're providing your students the supports they need to improve thank you thank you can I just say though that it is part of project 2025 and it is part of the plan there is a bill right now to
178terminate the the um Department of Education right now in Congress put in um yesterday so no no Camille you're not going to be funny and try to throw little directs and think I'm not going to respond to it we're in agreement you don't play yourself cuz I will play you right back that's all I'm tell you can't do that commission play yourself cuz I'm gonna play you right back you can't do that I am I'm doing right now you're not going to you you're not doing anything as a board president families have no idea what's coming down the pipeline and how it's going to impact maybe if you had a conversation we can have that to educate families about the impact to them that's not true Comm tell me tell tell tell the community right
179now Camille what's the district's plan what's the board's plan to address families and prepare them for what's coming first and foremost give me one thing first and foremost there have been Community there's been Community conversations second of all I don't owe you that explanation Community conversations with what families are do families have safety plans and they're prepared do do I do that as a commissioner or does do we do that as a district you're going to the Urban League and talking with melli so am I so what the urban Le what are you talking about you are right now you have the board lead little minion with your little minions y got to figure out how to communicate to family the impact absolutely is going to happen to them 150,000 families in Monroe County are
180going to lose Medicaid to lose Medicaid that includes our families too Camille well they're not cutting the mic they don't they don't cut say no damn Chicken Little get it together okay well commissioner LeBron I appreciate your comments you're incorrect those are assumptions on your part and when you ready to have a conversation show it to theun show go ahead show it I'm going ask that you cut the mic I don't know um what they need to do but this is inappropriate you have no plan we can adjourn the meeting okay well we can do that and then we can talk when you're ready have a good day the meeting is adjourned and so I will ask for motion to adjourn so moved all in favor I I good night good night everybody