001[Music] There we go. Good evening everyone. Um, we will call the meeting to order momentarily and SPS TV will begin recording. Can you all hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Director, we can hear you. Can someone speak? Cuz I can't I can't hear any video. I can see the sign language interpreter. Thank you very much. Director Sarju, can you hear us now? So, Gina, are you talking? I did just ask if Yes, I will head nod. Yes. Never Matt. Never mind. I'm I'm I've got the audio now. Perfect. Awesome. Well, then uh the May 13, 2025 board special meeting is called to order at 5:08 p.m. Um we would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and the traditional territories of the Puet Sound Coast Salish people. For the record, I'll
002call the role. Vice President Briggs here. Director Clark present. Director Hersy here. Director Miseri present. Director Ranken here. Director Sarju Haki. And this is President Top. Um this evening, uh the item on the agenda is a work session on the superintendent search process. Um just to kind of recap, uh during our April 23rd regular board meeting, we voted to authorize a contract with the executive search firm HYA um to support our uh superintendent search process. We are now this evening joined by the the HYA team and um team to plan out the next steps in this process and confirm the overall timeline. Um the HYA does have a presentation and we will want to do introductions. Um, but just to kind of ground us and start us out here, um, I want to talk about
003a little bit about the themes that we heard from our engagement sessions on the 24th and 23rd on the 24th and the 30th of April as we sort of talked with community about what they wanted to see in a search firm process. Um, and some of the themes were building trust with the SPS community. um needing to have more accountability in the district. Need a superintendent to articulate the vision for a district. Don't rush the process. We want to be excited for a new superintendent. Um need some need for on education on what the superintendent does um and uh engaging communities furthest from educational justice in the process. Um, like I mentioned at the start here, we will have a presentation from HYA tonight that will guide our conversation. I'm going to pass it now
004to HYA for introductions of their team. Um, as well as um HYA, I don't you have not officially had an opportunity to meet board members. I don't know if you want us to do introductions as well, but look to you there for to help lead that conversation. Turn it over to you all. Well, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here tonight with the board of education and we would love to have an introduction from each of them as well. I'm Nancy Perez and I'm the chief operating officer for Hazard Young and Associates and I also serve on the teams for all of the large urban uh searches. And so I bring with me tonight experience having served on the nation's largest school systems executive searches um for over the last decade. Good
005evening, Mai Ali. I'll be the executive lead responsible for the day-to-day operations of this search and look forward to working very closely and intimately with each and every one of you. hway. Did you have one more team member you wanted to introduce? No, it's Let me see. No, I believe that that's it. Perfect. Board directors. So, uh uh I'm board director top, president top. Um, my district is in district 6, which is West Seattle, South Park, Zoto, Pioneer Square, Georgetown area, and this is my second year on on the school board. Uh, I will just call in the next person, Robin. Okay, cool. Yeah. Hey, my name is Brandon Hershey. I represent District 7 uh down in southeast Seattle. Uh, and I am wrapping up my sixth and final year on the board. Vice President
006Briggs. Hi. Um, Evan Briggs. I am District 3 and I am also in my second year on the board. Nice to meet all of you and thanks for your help. Director Misrai. I'm Joe Rahi. represent district 4, which is Fremont, Ballard, Queen Anne, and Magnolia neighborhood in North Seattle. Uh, and I am just a shade over a year on the board. Uh, Director Sarju, uh, greetings. I am Michelle Sarju. I, uh, live in and represent District 5. And at 12:01 a.m. this evening, I will have 28 weeks left on school board. Uh, Director Ranken. Hi, this is Liza Ranken. Um, along with uh Brandon, the the senior members of the board with a big old five and a half years so far. Um, so in my sixth year of my uh this so this is
007this the second year of my second term. Um, I live in District 1. Um, and yeah, that was it, right? Yep. Yeah. Super excited to to kick this off with you all. Director Clark, hi. Great to meet you both. Um, tonight I'm uh, Director Clark. I represent and live in district 2, which is, I guess, northwest um, Seattle, and really excited to um, have your collaboration on our superintendent search. Those are the uh, board directors here uh, in Seattle. Um, pass it over to you now. Uh, uh, Nan, uh, Dr. Perez, wait, I'm sorry. May I just jump in really quickly because I noticed earlier that it looked like Miss Vincent was trying to talk when you guys were doing introductions and I think she was muted, so we didn't we couldn't hear her. Um,
008so I just wanted to uh note that in case she wanted to introduce herself. Is she part of your your team? Yes, she can introduce herself. You hear me? Hi. Can you hear me? We can hear you now. I can. Yes. Having a little bit of technology challenges. Um, good evening. My name is Tahara Vincent. I will be supporting Hi Ali and Nancy Perez uh with the search uh providing project management support and um also supporting you all with the board portal that is the school board supporting you all. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vice President Briggs. Appreciate that. As we navigate the online format, um pass it over to uh Dr. Perez to I I think kick us off here in the presentation um for our planning meeting. Great. Well, it's our absolute
009pleasure to be here tonight in the first step of the engage phase, which is to really plan out the search. And so we have a a presentation that we'd like to walk through tonight um that will make sure that all the board members have the scope of the work that's going to be done as well as some decisions that need to be made. Um we'll just tell you when to advance to the next slide if that's okay. Um since you guys are controlling uh the presentation. So we'll go to the next slide and I'll turn it over to Mr. Ali. All right. Thank you very folks for your time and attention and I would not be laboring. So the slide that's before you details the HYA's signature processes. So right now as we speak, we're
010in the engage phase. The engage phase well entail intrinsic and in and deep community engagement. We're going to do roughly 20 sessions or so virtual as well as in person. We're going to work very closely with several of you board members. You've offered yourselves up to be very useful because you do have some relationships we want to leverage i.e. the business community as well as the union. And then of course we'll work very closely with each of you as well as the staff on any other organizations you believe we ought to engage relative to the engagement phase. And so the engagement phase will go until June. The recruitment commences tomorrow. We go live tomorrow with the announcement, the job announcement as provided by your staff. We've already prepped it. It's on a timer and ready
011to go tomorrow. We'll then begin a very strategic and targeted recruitment strategy. That's active and and aggressive recruitment. And then of course the website will be open for passive recruitment. So what is what are the differences? The passive recruitment aspect any individual will get the tweet or the social media hit. They'll look into one of the publications for which we'll use they'll hear about it and they they'll apply. The active and aggressive recruitment is our network of associates throughout the country getting on the phone as well as all of our other ways in which we communicate in order to curate an experience and bring forth individuals we believe match elements of the leadership profile report which we'll discuss later but also who have the necessary experience in order to move the system forward. And then
012of course the transition phase. So you will select in August, you'll uh you will then transition in August and then of course the new superintendent starts the 1st of September. Next slide. This is the timeline. Of course it's malleable, but again this is the timeline as presented to the board leadership last week. And this is the timeline we're going to attempt to stick to unless there's some deviations by the board. May HYA team will meet with each board member. That's also part of the engagement phase to determine process and finalize the timeline that's happening as we speak, right? And then of course, as you drop down, we're going to post the job announcement of the position on the HA website. We're going to leverage social media as well as leverage the district's communicational conduits and
013channels. We're going to begin aggressively networking. We're going to accept the applications. We're going to open the survey. There'll be a very detailed survey. We'll be able to elicit a tremendous amount of very tangible data from the entire community. The engagement sessions are important, but if people are not interested in leaving their homes or joining online, they can spend a few minutes completing the survey, which will provide us with enough information that we would need in order to build the leadership profile report, stakeholder interviews, and then we'll then submit the district leadership profile report to the board. The leadership profile report is the fulcrum of the entire search. That's the document that we'll use as well as will be shared with all of the aspirants. Essentially, if they want to understand the district based upon
014in-person survey engagement, based upon online engagement, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, forums, etc. All that information will inform the leadership profile report. The end of July, there's a presentation of of the slate to the board. In August, we're doing first round. We're doing final interviews. We're doing an extensive background check, very extensive. We're selecting, we're appointing, and we're transitioning. Next slide. So the C is andformational items for the search very transparent. We'll work very closely with your staff in order to properly position a page dedicated to the superintendent search will schedule interviews with the board. We will conduct surveys, focus groups, etc. I madam chair I do believe that there is a hand raised. See that direct director Sergio do we want to work and we have the ASL interpreter as well. Let's director Sergeant I'm
015come to you but first let's make sure we're good from a interpretation standpoint. Um I am not certain that the other interpreter can see me because my camera is on. Can you see me? No, we can we cannot see you. No, it looks like I am spotlighted. Let's take just a a few moments break here and uh and and hopefully have district staff reach out and and figure out the uh interpretation issues here. Is the other interpreter the initials A N. A is in Apple, N is in Nancy. ASL interpreter Tracy N. Oh, no. That's not what I see. Okay. And I do see the little image that shows that I'm spotlighted. Um Tracy, uh our board staff will be should be reaching out to you directly to see if we can uh figure out
016the technology issue. Tracy, um, can I ask that for you to leave this team's meeting and then rejoin and then we'll reset the settings? I was going to suggest that that's often the solution. I will do that. Uh, President Toth. Yes, director. While we're paused, um, uh, I will take this opportunity since we're addressing interpretation stuff to ask or remind folks to because the interpreters are spotlighted, folks accessing the meeting through the interpretation might not be able to see who's speaking and they are not hearing the differences in our voices. So when you do directors um when we get to questions if everyone could please remember and it's it helped me remember too to state your name before you start speaking so that the interpreter can let the audience know who is talking and they
017can you know access that information as the rest of us who are uh using the tone to distinguish. Thank you. Or board staff. Uh it looks like uh those on YouTube can see were able to see Tracy. So it maybe just something on our end. So I am back now, but I'm not spotlighted. We hope. Well, I can see you. There you are. Now we Now we are spotlighted. Um, perfect. I think we we are good to go now. Um, Mr. Ali, do you uh want to take questions as you go or are we taking questions at the end? Take them as we go. Uh, Director Sarju, thank you. Um, this is Sarju. S as in Sam. A R J is enjoy. You um I want to make a request. Um and maybe you're already
018thinking about this. Um we need to be able to have translated information, language translation information on the SPS website. And it needs to be at such a level that anyone really who speaks a language other than English can read it and understand it. Um I think often times people's experience at least what I've been told is that these kinds of presentations are very corporate and highlevel like. there's lots of um uh words that are used that are not necessarily accessible. And so what my hope is uh is that what we share to the website is um presented in such a way that um you actually don't have to have a PhD uh to read it and understand it. Um so that's my that's not my request. It's actually not a question. It's a request that
019that be uh that that be created and structured in such a way that when we put it up on the website um it's accessible to people. That's it. I'm done. Madam Chair, would you like the district staff to respond to that? Uh, sure. Director Serge, just a point of clarification. Are you talking about the the survey that is going to be sent out? Are you talking what what information, I guess, are you specifically referring to? Well, number one says transparency, Seattle website, and upcoming board meetings. It is best practice to have one location on the SPS website dedicated to superintendent search page to communicate all information about the search. We will have Ellie I think is here or Miss Wilson Jones is here. I think she is ready and able to pull up the draft
020website as as currently structured. Uh, Miss Wilson Jones, President Top, are you wanting me to share the website at this point? Um, on the screen. Okay. Yep. Um, it's going to take a second. I have to pivot between machines. So for uh folks who are viewing, this is not currently um accessible on our website because this is information that's being built um as the board has this conversation tonight and plans out the superintendent search process. President top, was there anything specific you wanted me to walk through? I think maybe just talk about ex where this will be located and whether and how there will be translation if any is currently planned. The superintendent search page would be located within the school board page of the district website. Um, I believe that there would be plans
021for making sure that our community is aware of this page by uh, you know, something on the homepage of the website and communicating with the broader SPS community. I'd have to fer defer to Chief Redmond on um, translation um, and our standard practices for getting those communications out to our SPS families and students. Good evening everyone. Thank you. My name is Bev Redmond. chief of staff and public affairs, the board office, SPSV, all of that roles under one canopy. Concerning translation, it is our standard to translate into our top five languages and we will make sure that that is done and accessible through our website as well as any documentation that we're sending or emailing to our community. So I want to make sure that that is it's a clear standard that we we try
022to hold to always and that will be employed in this particular process. Do board directors have any further questions? Mr. Oh, sorry I didn't use I didn't get to the hand thing fast enough. Uh just for my own clarification. Um, this is Director Ranken. Thank you. See, I knew I would need that reminder. This is Director Ranken speaking. Um, just for clarification, the does staff h we have a real person or somebody that provides the top five languages, but if you don't speak one of those languages and seek a different language that we do also have the ability to access translation that's provided automatically through the website. Is that right or am I missing? You You are completely accurate. Yes. Okay, good. So, because I I don't want people to think top five or nothing,
023correct? But we do have over 100 languages spoken by families and in SPS. Yes. So, um it it uh Yeah. So, a a staff person translator does the top five uh manually. I don't think that's the right word, but and then but it can be accessed through other tools. Yes. Okay, thank you for confirming. You are very welcome. Thank you. Do other board directors have questions? All right, Mr. Ali, I will give this I will give you back the reigns. Thank you, Miss Wilson Jones, for u pulling up the website, the draft website. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, right there. There we go. All right. So, back to this particular slide. Decision and information items for the search. So, as stated before, we're going to schedule interviews with each board member, each and
024every one of you. Our objective of two understand your your goals, desires and aspirations for the system and make sure that we include that in the leadership profile report. Focus groups we talked about that these are items that are very important. We like to discuss at the onset of the search. Slated candidates and expenses. We usually slate between five and 10 candidates. HY recommends that SPS reimburse candidates. This is normally customary. So this is not at all anything that's novel. The application deadline will be July 31st, 2025. There are multiple advertising options. has underscored, we would definitely publish the job in California because California is a very large state and so of course we're all on the west coast together and there's nearly 1100 school districts and so there may be superintendents in the California
025area that we may be able to leverage part of this process. However, the search again will be national, a very national process. So, we're not just exclusively looking at California, but again, we do want to be able to leverage as much as we can along the West Coast and throughout Oregon, etc. And so, of course, our background checks, we do a very comprehensive third-party due diligence check. We're looking at every aspect of this individual, not the least of which includes credit. And so again that information will be provided to the board in a very confidential manner and we'll make certain that we keep the board apprised accordingly. Next slide. All right. So this slide here really unpacks who we are as HYA. Your ambassador, your strategic partner. We're in this together for the next 90
026or so days. And so this here really provides a glimpse into how we facilitate the group sessions. And so they're versatile meeting formats, face to face, virtual, etc. Flexible times. We'll have people on the ground and in the air morning, noon, and night. We'll do sessions around the clock. will monitor emails in addition to working very closely with your staff that propagate the link so that all within the community have an opportunity to complete that link in short order. Focus groups, students most certain we must lift and uplift to invoice in this process. parents, teachers, the classified staff, non-instructional staff, business, ecumenical, your your union folk. We want to make sure that we're inclusive. We don't want to give an illusion of inclusion. We want to make certain that we're inclusive in this process and
027that we're able to capture voices. We want to be diverse and want to make sure that we do respect language any languages spoken within the district and we're going to work very closely with your staff with respect to ensure that we touch each and every community member. Next slide. Mr. Ali, I do this is this is president top. I do have a question. So for example uh uh I know some uh focus groups or groups that would like to be engaged with specifically like the superintendent advisory board which is a group of high school students or the NAACP student council. How do we make sure that you are connected with those folks? What is that that mechanism? And then I just sort of uh putting it out there as well. I know that our student
028board members want to hold an engagement evening specifically on this issue for other high school students. And so, how what what are effective ways for us to make sure that we're getting you all those sort of places where we we would like you to to reach out or facilitate sort of um hearing hearing voices from our community. So, let let me just say this. Let's talk the presses. I work for you. I engage who you tell me to engage. If the NAACP desires engagement, we'll engage. If the students are interested in having a separate form, it shall be. You simply tell us who you want us to engage and we will roll them into the process. This is very simple. This is like your way right away. Burger King. We'll make it happen. It's not
029a problem. We'll be glad and ecstatic to engage the students. So if any director has a specific organization, homeowners association, renters group, doesn't matter. We'll talk to everybody. We'll engage everybody. Perfect. Thank Thank you. No problem. All right. Next slide. All right. So survey and focus groups I want to lean very heavy into this because again it's very important to capture voice. So the community survey will be live for two to three weeks a broad spectrum of individuals we're desires of capturing in addition to ensuring that there's accessibility. This survey is very critical and very essential because the data captured will then be given to the superintendent once hired because there's so much within the overall document. So for example, if the superintendent chose to want to modify, augment or update the strategic plan, the
030individual can ascertain and extract elements from the survey results in order to help to shape and cultivate that process. Next slide. So, we've talked so much about this leadership profile report and I want you to look to my I guess is my left perhaps your left as well. There's a column deep community engagement successful and deep community engagement. And then we we look at the elements for which we've extracted information. For example, your goals and guardrails. We will analyze the goals and guard rails in addition to pushing down board interviews, individual interviews, focus groups, all the way down. All of that then pushes its way to the leadership profile report. These are the documents we will use in order to form the foundation of the profile report and that document will be shared with all
031aspirants. Now in many searches often times people don't particularly focus on community engagement as much as we do but we understand number one you have to build goodwill. There may be some healing that needs to occur, but most certainly people want to be heard. Public is normally heard during a three-year cycle called an election. They can vote yay, they can vote nay, they can vote you in or out. We want to make certain that this process, we got three weeks, three weeks to be able to make certain that we are in a position to hear from the community. And again, all of this information will be provided to the board as well as any individual desires of applying for the superintendency of the Seattle public schools. Madam Chair, You're muted, Madam Chair. Sorry, Mr. Ali.
032It looks like you have director Sarju with a question. Yes. Thank you, Saru here. Um, so I'm curious if you uh if you implement a particular community engagement strategy and for example what I mean by that is are you doing you know community cafe style um are you you know reaching out like preemptively to certain groups to say um you tell us what's on your mind. What questions do you have? Like what what is your and the reason I'm gonna be transparent. The reason why I asked this is that we generally don't do community engagement very well here because we're that's actually not for most of us. I don't know that any board director at at least in this iteration of the board is are actually trained in community engagement. And so I understand what
033it looks like to be part of strong and effective community engagement that was led by people who this is their profession. This is their life's work. Um they are really really good at it. And so I'm curious what you all's experience is um related to that because I think we name a lot of things community engagement and it's actually not community engagement. And so I I know for some of the groups that I'm going to be putting forth, they know what real community engagement is and they will check us on it if it's if we say we're doing community engagement and that's actually not what happens. And so I want to understand so that when I'm talking with I've already got two or three groups that I'll be reaching out to. I I want to
034be able to say yes, they are going to do authentic community engagement, but I need you to convince me that that's what you're actually going to do. Well, I'm going to convince you very easily because I'm going to lean on you and your professional expertise and guidance. Guess what? You know your community better than anybody. And so, your wealth, your wealth of knowledge, I'm going to take my cup and dip in it, okay? and make sure everybody's recording. Right now, I'm gonna tell you this. I'm gonna tell you this. What what we're doing is we want to listen to people. We we are going to have a couple of probes and prompts. It's for us to listen. It's for us to to stoke, stir, agitate emotion because we want to be able to elicit those
035responses. We're going to write down. We're going to annotate. And if individuals are not interested in us writing out their notes, then we'll direct them to the survey and they can do it confidentially and privately. So the these are more fireside chats as it were and I and I would also say that it really depends also on the group. So for example, we have learned that the teachers really like an online format, right? They like several different meetings. They like an online format. We have the probes, but those probes often lead to other uh conversations that they feel are important to bring forward and then we utilize what comes up in in some scenarios and we build it on the next ones of the same um constituent groups. Um I will tell you that parents
036um like online, they also some like an a a in-person format. certain community members love to have more of kind of a sit in a circle and let's talk right and let's really um you know have this kind of intimate moment and so it really does depend upon the constituent group we have experience understanding what most like from that constituent group but we never assume that that's the way it is in Seattle and so we will as Mai said lean on you understand that but also make sure that the people at the session and feel like they are also a part of the process to be able to really um be heard and to be able to shape the way that the evening goes. That doesn't mean we don't have protocols. That doesn't mean we
037don't make sure that we're getting certain information. We're building off of information. We're taking down information, triangulating. But first and foremost, and for me, this is what is most powerful about the engage phase. First, it's an opportunity for the board to show its leadership by wanting community voice. And second, when that community voice is reflected in the leadership profile and people see their voice in it, they feel that they have been heard and are a part of the process. And that's our ultimate goal. Okay. I look forward to my individual phone call with you, brother Ali. we will talk more about this. Yeah. No, and and and I look forward to that. But what what I will say if we're looking for a particular community engagement model, I would probably be liking this to more
038community building. I wouldn't necessarily liken this to any other aspect as far as a deliberative dialogue because we're not trying to persuade. We're trying to build an understanding, right? We're not trying to sell anything. We definitely want individuals to come and share their perspective. And I tell you this, if they say that, hey, you know, the district has not done anything for me in my life or whatever the case may be, we want to capture that because then that particular segment of the community, the new superintendent might need to focus a little bit attention to understand is this a situation that's systemic or is this a one-off. So and again and the data will share a lot of that. All right. So the presentation of slate. So what does that mean in this particular you
039know this particular construct of course very confidential in the process to ensure that we're able to capture the best slate. We'll bring individuals before the board. These individuals are the best match to the leadership profile. Again, I go back to that point of the leadership profile being the fulcrum of the search. The applicants not slated. If the board wants those applicants, we'll provide all the board will be availed a board portal. That board portal, you're able to review the applications at your leisure. There's also workshops and other best practices that are built into the portal. So you will be able to look at interview protocols as well as look at sample interview questions to prepare yourselves for the first round. This will happen the end of uh July is when we will present the slate
040to the board. Next slide. All right, first round of interviews. So, this will be a performative experience. They'll do a SWAT analysis. We can either break this down into two ways. We can do an all day session from 8:00 to 5:00 of interviews or we can break it up into two days. We can show you two different schedules. We'll put the two different schedules within the board portal so the board will at least be privy to what that will look like and how that would feel. 60 minutes including Q&A, 15 to 20 minutes for the SWAT and then of course a colloqui to members of the governing authority. Each candidate will prepare their presentation and that presentation will then also be provided to the board. The objective is for there to be a deep dive
041into the candidates's ability to understand elements of the system. Now, we're not interested in telling an aspirant whether this district is struggling financially. We want them to tell us and we want them to also bring forth corrective action measures, right? bring forth a fiscal stabilization strategy. If there are issues within the areas of curriculum and instruction, want them to bring forth a strategy for which they believe can help to move the system in a positive direction. This really allows the board to ascertain an individual's presentation style and also their con conceptual knowledge and then the intrinsic time spent really unearthing the challenges within the system. Now again, there may be some aspirational aspects. You may want to highlight some phenomenal things happening in the district. Great. But at this moment in time, what we're interested
042in is somebody who's done the due diligence. If they've not done the work, it's going to be very difficult for them to pass the screening as far as moving forward as uh our first round, you know, selected slate folk. So we do want to make certain that we're very conscious and cognizant of that. Now the second round of interviews case study this would be a deeper dive case study. The study will then utilize some data briefs that HY has developed. We have a whole system where we can come in write a comprehensive data brief on the system financial student achievement etc. We're utilizing a source material as a part of this analytics as it were. And then the candidate will present 100 day plan. The 100 day plan will pretty much detail their steps essentially
043within the first quarter of their arrival, right? And not the first quarter of the year, but the first quarter that they've arrived and what are they looking to do by way of implementation. This also allows the board another opportunity to have deep questions of the candidate to look at their styles, measure their competencies and their philosophy etc. And then of course bring forth any issues or questions that you may desire to ask or questions you may have gathered based upon looking at their SWAT. This is a much longer interview, roughly an hour and 30 minutes. This allows a much much deeper deeper assessment of their capacity. And so again, the objective here is to understand if this individual is ready, if they've done the necessary and requisite work to showcase that to the board, as
044well as are they prepared to walk in and begin leading the system with a comprehensive strategy. All right, any questions? Director Ranken, thank you so much. This is Director Ranken speaking. Um, I am wondering if there's any part of the process, maybe during the looking at the slate, but maybe during the top two or top three or whatever it ends up. Um, and apologies if you said this and I missed it. Uh, but I'm wondering about kind of 360 evaluation. Um, is there an opportunity to talk for talk to maybe direct reports of uh one of the candidate or um get a grasp on uh their past performance or examples of their work from somebody who's not them who are, you know, if it's if it's somebody from a school district, families or staff or
045or um other examples of initi atives that they've led. Is there that kind of opportunity? Absolutely. And so that that will be a part of that will be a part of the process. They will provide those recommendations. We have a a way in which we dig deep into those those references and we can be able to extract that. But I want you to I want to underscore look at this slide here. Drop down under number seven. It says TTI behavioral assessment. This is the document you really want to get your hands on. This is almost MyersBriggs on steroids. Okay. Now, you read this document. I mean, I'm telling you almost it's interesting because we've given this document to individual spouses and said, "Is this reflective of your spouse?" Unequivocally, it is. Rarely do people ever
046say no. Now you'll have Now this is a 50page report. You guys are going to have a tremendous amount of information to read. You will not have a shortage of reading as you're enjoying the beautiful moist evenings of Seattle, the dampness as it were. You will have a tremendous amount of information to read. And this document here, this will give you more than what you're asking for. The 360, you can get that, too. But the TTI, that's it. Director Director Sarju, I would just like to say real fast, our summers are real nice. They're not wet or or anything. No one wants to leave Seattle in the summer. Director Sarju, I I can put an amen stamp on that one. Um, so I don't know if this is a a staff related question or an
047HYA related question, but um and uh I'm going to request for myself, this is only for me that um the applications that we receive for the ones who make it to an interview process, I am going to request that my copies names be redacted. acted and I have a very distinct reason why I'm going to do that and I can talk with it about talk with hya about it. I'm not willing to state that on this call. Um but it's one of the ways in which I can assure that there is no accidental uh by acts of commission or omission that a name gets out like this. The confidence of this process is unspeakably important. I don't I don't think we can actually verbally say how important that piece is. And so that's what I'm
048going to ask that I don't want an I don't want anybody's application with a name on it that I have to review until it actually until I'm done and it comes time for the interviews. Then I can put a name with the application. So, is that a is that something HYA could provide me or do I need to ask district staff to do that? Madame Chair and and uh distinguished director, we can if the board is inclined, this could be a blind process. That's no problem at all. This could very well be a blind process. And as a matter of fact, you won't have any attributes, name, gender, sexual orientation. You won't have the school district. You will just pretty much have the content of their character and that of their creed as presented in
049all of the facts. I've done that search in numerous places. And as a matter of fact, it makes it very interesting. Yeah, we do have experience doing that. Mai Ali has led many searches w in that model. So that's something that we can discuss. That's that's good good to know. And again, I I'm going to be real clear. That's what you're going to do with Michelle Sarju. I don't I'm not trying to input into other board directors uh process, but when we talk about being truly objective, the fact that you've done this before, you just basically uh said to me why I'm excited to work with you because that is a very unique way of recruitment, but it also removes bias. It just absolutely like if you don't know somebody's black, if you don't know
050somebody's Latinx, if you don't know somebody's, you know, Chinese, then you're just looking at the person's skill and fit for the job. And so, I'm excited to hear that you that you've done that, and I guess we can explore it more later, but I'm I'm letting you know that's what I want to get. I I don't really care what anybody else wants. That's that's what I want to get. Director, all the hands are going up now. All the hands are going up. Perfect. Uh we'll go to then director Ranken. Uh thank you. Really quickly, I would just love to I'm very interested in this concept of a blind process and or a no-name process. Uh, I would love to um know more from HYA about maybe pros and cons since you've done it before if
051there's other things we may not be thinking of because I I do think that's um valuable for us to consider and I'd like to know more. Absolutely. Director Hersy, I was just going to second the um kind of like my ears really perked up when I because I had not considered the idea of a blind process. I think uniquely for Seattle especially uh and given that like we would likely have um folks who are internal and external applying, right? I think that that gives us a lot of opportunity to judge um whatever potential candidates we get with a fair slate. Um especially if we can, you know, figure out a way to uh do so with as little identifying information as possible, right? Like even if we were to go there, I would just want
052to make sure that like names of high schools, things like that, or like whatever schools that they might be working with, like if there's a way to structure the application to safeguard for any potentially like un inadvertent identifying information, that would just be a real um interest of mine. But yeah, I'm I'm actually really excited about the idea of a blind process. And yeah, I just simply wanted to also chime in with um enthusiasm for that idea. That's all I got. I have a question. That's called synergy. I love it. I have a question just as uh this is uh director top. Um, as we are working on planning out our summer and uh our sort of what our work ahead, sort of give me a little bit of a time estimate on what you
053think this this will require of board directors, the search process will require board directors. So, as a as a cursory response, the engagement sessions, we encourage board members to attend. However, we encourage you not to be actively involved because again, it's it's a listening session to elicit responses from the citizenry. The board members commitment will not be come as apparent and as needed. She's not until we until we schedule the first meeting to review the slate in the latter part of July. So while you will see me, I'll be in town. I will be interviewing many of you and working very closely with the team on the ground as well as your staff when necessary. You and I won't see each other as a collective until the latter part of July, August. hours. I would
054probably encourage the board members to dedicate between the end of July and the end of August a minimum of four days, four to five day five days. Five days in order to get the process and I'm I'm adding extra time. I'm being very very liberal in that. Five days total in order to do the interviews, make the appointment, negotiate the contract, and of course final contract approval. And the review of material is that included in that in that 5day span? Yes, it is because the portal will go up a few days before the meeting and we'll work very closely to ensure that the identifiable characteristics are not present. That would give the board a few days to review. So once we get into the meeting to discuss the slate, it's a much more heartier and
055rich discussion because you've had a chance to review the materials prior to as opposed to doing it all in a meeting will advance it as is the case for your normal schoolboard meeting. You receive the agenda x amount of days in advance. Questions from other board directors? any other discussion on this process? Um or is this are folks feeling comfortable and and ready to move forward in next steps here. Director Ranken. Thank you. This is Director Ranken. Um, I just wanted to say that because in the previous meeting where we were starting this process, I expressed a lot of uh hesitancy about just, you know, do we want to do an interim? Do we want to do this? What are all of our other options? And so because I've said that on the record and
056to my colleagues, I wanted to um say here that this feels like a really I don't feel like that's a predetermined decision that we have to make. I think we have like this is a process I personally feel really comfortable with and hopeful about finding a great candidate. And I know also that we're not if we get to the end and and we don't see the right the right fit for what we need um then we can keep the search keep the search going and explore other options. But just because I had expressed you know worry before um I feel really good about uh this process and and your all experience in in supporting other districts through these this this process. Um, you know, I think it's a I know our community is going to
057be really interested and the end of the school year can be a heavy lift and a big ask. And, you know, thinking back to a year ago, um, we engaged on a pretty ambitious process as a board to listen to community for vision and values. and people want to be involved and they'll make the time and and we had a sort of similar timeline and were able to reach a lot of different parts of our um whole Seattle community. So, I'm I'm just I'm now instead of being nervous, I'm very excited. Madam Chair, if I can respond to Yes, please. If I can respond to the distinct general lady who was number two in seniority on the board, number two. I remember that. Director Ranken. No, director Vice President Briggs, I believe. Oh, so Oh,
058length of time. Oh, no. Time number two by by a couple months. I think Brandon has me beat by those are two long months. Director, I believe it. Well, I'll say this. I want to just thank you for your cander in our discussion. Also, thank you for your confidence and I'm very ecstatic to be able to work with the board. Our objective is not just to help you with the search, but to be your partner during this journey, during this process, provide advice and counsel to to listen to criticism. If there's criticism of the process, we can do it about faith. You know, we don't fashion ourselves to be uh these intellectually adjured individuals with all of the answers. Education is a process, but we're just ongoing. You're learning each and every day. And our
059objective is to quickly learn the community in short order and to allow you directors to serve as the as our tutors, you know, to serve as our teachers. And so again, I thank you immensely on behalf of HYA. I look forward to working with each and every one of you. Other board directors discussion as we wrap up this evening once, twice. All right. Um well, thank you, Mr. Ali. Um Dr. Perez, I really appreciate the presentation getting us organized, moving us along in this process. Um, I think we are all very excited for the opportunity and the um the journey ahead of us. Uh, I appreciate that we get to end this meeting uh this evening around 6:08. So, there being no further business to come before the board, the regular the special board meeting
060is now adjourned at 6:09 p.m. Thank you everyone and I will see you all or I'll see board directors tomorrow evening for our regular board meeting. Thank you everyone. Have a good evening.