001All right. Thank you everybody for joining us. I'm going to go ahead and uh call the meeting to order. Uh today is April 30th, 2025. Uh we're here for the purposes of Salt Lake City School District Board of Education training. I want to give a huge shout out to USBA, Richard Stole, Terry Rhodess, Mark Clement for being here to help us train. And then for Brian, um vice president of the board for working with me and all of us to to help get this set up. Um, and then thank all of you for taking extra time to be here as well. And we have some guests in the audience, too. Let me see if I can remember everybody's name. Heidi, Carson, and Barack who are joining us and will be observing the meeting as well.
002Um, uh, everybody is here except for board member Bade who is excused this evening. Um, he wasn't able to be here. Um, and we will move on to our pledge of allegiance. And I have asked Heidi from a neighboring school district who's observing for a master's program this evening to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Um, thank you everybody for that. And um just to kind of set the stage a little bit um you know this was something that um Brian and I have been looking forward to. Um and then in talking with Charlotte and Amanda, our two new board members, like board training is really
003important for both of you as well. And we thought it was just the perfect time in our first year with you and a new makeup of the board to um continue our work together and always uh work for continuous growth and development in in what we do as school boards and school board members. So, um, Brian and I had some conversations with Richard Stole, the executive director for Utah School Boards Association, and, uh, we were able to come up with a with a training, um, that it seems like you all are doing throughout the state, and you're, this is just the next stop on your grand tour of Utah. So, thank you for being here with us. U, we're we're all ears, and we're ready to to hear what you have to present to us.
004And I don't know, Brian, if you wanted to say anything about the training. Well, I just appreciate I mean, Mark, you're coming from a large school district, soon to be a little smaller, but um so I appreciate having that perspective. Terry, you come from is it about 20,000 now in so kind of similar to ours, but a more rural maybe setting. I'm larger than ours. Yeah, larger than ours. Now, you're um Yes. And just for the record, whenever Salt Lake City School District gets audited by the legislature, Cash is selected as the peer district for Salt Lake City. Oh, we're sorry about that. So, we get audited every time you do. Oh, okay. Good thing you're here, Terry, to train. And then I think it'll be nice because you've been with Davis and I mean
005there's another large district and I think it's really valuable to learn from each other. So thank you. And Richard, anything you want to share before we get started and turn it over to Terry and Mark? No, we we just appreciate uh the opportunity to come and be here this evening and um it's always enjoyable to come and meet with boards in this kind of a setting and I think it's already been mentioned we've um been to a number of districts have been invited and and part of that is because Terry had done such a great job at the board president workshop than then others have wanted to hear more of that in detail and uh um and Mark and his presentation um at these districts we've gone to. Then we've had others that have have
006requested for us to come and and provide some one-on-one kind of training if you will as one-on-one as a board. And so we just appreciate being here tonight. Um and I think that you know most of you do know you know both of them that is that's already been mentioned that Terry's uh actually president of of the cash board um and is past president of USBA and uh Dr. Clement is actually been president of the Alpine board but uh now is just are you vice president or just a board member there now? I'm a board member. Not just a board. Okay. Um and so anyhow, we appreciate the invitation to come and um so thanks Nate to to you and Brian for for the invitation and um and I'm just going to turn the time
007over to both of them because u they're going to dazzle you now. All right. Anything you want to say? Well, while Terry's getting uh set up, um I just wanted to warn Richard that I'm not going to steal your thunder with the the great story that you have. So, if you wouldn't mind sharing that at the end. Okay, I'll do that. I I will uh I will let you do that. But I thought I think it's an important piece, but it is a nice capstone. How long did you guys want us to take? Uh we're scheduled till 8 and I think we talked about um spending about an hour and 15 or so on oversight and overreach and then group norms and then briefly introduce um process for um setting a baseline for a board
008evaluation. Okay. That we would review next year. Perfect. Um this is this is this was a fun uh presentation to put together. I'm much better at this presentation. with my superintendent. Uh he helped me put it together and he uh helped present it the first time I did it. And so um it's so great to have his perspective and some of these situations uh come from his personal experience after serving in three different school districts in state and out and um some of the difficulties he has work as a uh with school board members. So, um we're going to talk about oversight or overreach as board members. There's a very fine line and it's easy to go over one way or easy to get into overstepping when we're so passionate. And that's what I I
009explained to several of you when I first got here is that I love coming to visit um other boards in the state because I learned something from all of you and um I don't know thank you that okay I don't know um any any people who are more passionate about um kids than school board members. I mean that's the bottom line for all of us and sometimes I think we forget about that when we get into the minutia of certain policies or situations or when we get into some craziness that happens um in our society and and it spills into the boardroom and emotions are can get high. And so we sometimes forget that really our common thread with all of us is kids and that we care deeply about them. And um board members
010are some of the best people I have met anywhere. School board members. So when we talk about personnel in the district, it's important that when we uh as board members we visit schools. That's great. We go to school community council meetings, that's even better. Go to PTA meetings, where else can you hear about what's really going on, right? And um but it's important that we be as we interact with employees in the district, we be respectful and um recognize that we have no responsibility for involvement in day-to-day activities of um the employees in the district. and that the superintendent that we have hired is the person solely responsible for the actions or non-actions of employees. And um we need when things when issues come up, we need to work through uh those issues through the
011superintendent as we um find and there are plenty to find in every district that I have visited with. So Oh, I'm stuck. stuck right here. Oh, maybe we're back. I think it's This isn't the right one. This um There it is. right there. Right where it says there. Okay, great. Now, we'll see if it works. Okay, so here's an example of some personnel issue you might find. You find out that a principal in your district has offered to velcro themselves to the wall after some students um reach their fundraising goals. You don't agree with the principal's offer. Relieving it sends the wrong message to students. What do you do? [Laughter] Do you want to elaborate on? Don't say anything. I'm just kidding. Where I'm from is duct tape. It's not Velcro. I know. Yeah. That
012was a really rough one. I think I hope that this principal got out with all of their skin on. Um, I mean, if it were something that you really felt was inappropriate, principles do some crazy things as an incentive to kids. Shaving heads to get them shaving heads, cut hair, pig. Okay. I mean, that's you won't you don't wouldn't want them to be stripping your clothing. Okay, good. or um I don't think they'd advertise that. Or chugging, you never know. No, that's what I'm saying. Those kinds of inappropriate things. Yes, that would be very inappropriate. So, this is pretty easy, right? Um but there have been uh board members who have chosen to get involved in something like this feeling very strongly that a principal should not be doing certain things as incentives to students
013um especially for fundraising something as trivial as fundraising. So next what can I jump in? Yeah. By the way, this is supposed to be interactive. So if anyone Yeah, you jump in. So I'm I'm going to go back to this. What about the clothing thing? You feel like that's inappropriate. What do you do? So, that's really the what we're asking here. So, let's say there's they say they'll step down into their underwear and get in the dunk. There you go. Okay. What do you do? Um, you fall back on policy, right? District policy. And I would definitely talk to the superintendent. Now we're talking. Yeah, now we're talking. So the question the first problem is that if you as a board member decide to go out to that school and tell the principal you're not
014velcroing yourself to the wall I or even if you say look at a policy it says making this up no velcro of principles in schools even if there's a policy it's a personnel item right so it should go through the print the superintendent I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you there perfect thanks Mark. Um, like I said, uh, when I introduced this, I'm used to doing it with somebody else, a superintendent. So, thanks. Facilities and procurement. I have an issue with this in my own uh with my within my own board at the moment. um a board member who feels like something was um mishandled and he currently every time some issue comes up uh refers to that RFP pointedly when looking at the superintendent and the business administrator over and over and over.
015Um it is important that we uh maintain our facilities and that they're operated properly and they're used according to district policy and that we need to establish guidelines and policies and procedures for procurement. Um Allan could tell us or he could tell us spend two or three hours I'm sure talking about state code in relation to procurement for state entities. But um this is this is this is hard. I mean sometimes we we feel strongly about something. So here's an experience about um your so s will suggest that your district has gone through the procurement procurement process to provide athletic trainers to your to one of the high schools in your district. you have some concerns about that provider with from personal experience. So, and you feel that the provider is unethical. So, what are
016you going to do? Dr. Grant, superintendent. That's our superintendent here. Express your concern. We could express our concerns to the superintendent or business administrator and I have a different answer. I mean it is a personal we have a committee that deals with this. So if we have a committee that talks about procurement or I would direct it to the applicable committee so that it could be discussed. Also it's the prerogative of an individual board member to vote for or against any kind of like PO or contract that comes forth. We're a fiscal agent for the district. So, I would also just vote no on that contract as an individual. Excellent. And after you voted no, um what would you do if you're in my uh current situation as a board president and the board member
017voted no and then continually brings it up over and over every time we talk about other issues. So you're saying that the other the majority voted yes but this individual board member right continues to so as a board president what should I do I'm asking actually in my opinion obviously it's the norm of school boards to respect what the vote is right so it would be ideal if that board member wasn't continually upset but again it's their prerogative especially this says they feel it's unethical it's not like they just don't like something about it. So I would again redirect that the finance committee talk about procurement and review what the process was and why that vendor was selected and identify the next date that that procurement would take place which would be the ideal time
018frame for them to share their ongoing opinion about the ethics of our procurement procedures. You could also consider if the finance committee and all those opportunities had been exhausted that obviously we have a policy subcommittee and procurement is part of a policy. Perhaps there's lines of revision that would help alleviate their concerns about the ethics of procurement going forward. But obviously the la the latter part is just accept that people have different opinions about our providers and they can continue to be disgruntled and that provider still is going to be the provider until the term of the contract is up. I think Ashley well spoken as always. Um, additionally though, if there's concrete information they have to back up what their concern is, they should make the effort to provide that. And then if there
019is um uh concerning information that is valid, then that should be brought to the pertinent individuals. If that's ignored even though the majority said yes, then we're actually not being responsible to our district. So if they're just crabbing because they have a concern, that's one thing and that needs to be, you know, discussed. However, if they've got information to to provide that shows that should be reconsidered, then that should not be ignored. that that uh board member does feel like um they have uh information to provide that is reasonable. Um however um fails to acknowledge that they don't have all the information from the background based on furpa laws. And so it's really interesting it's a really interesting conundrum for me to to work through as a board president. But I appreciate all of your
020comments. Um I as a president am concerned about how the continually the continual reinvolvement with that no vote um to the superintendent pointedly to the superintendent and business administrator are making them feel. Um as a board we hire them to and expect them to do a great to to do great work. about in any position um a supervisor or supervisors over uh an employee who continually bring up negative things um dealing with or associated with their work. How how do we expect that employee to do better if we're continually heranging them about one decision regardless of how large it was? I mean, if we can't move forward ourselves, Mark, go ahead. I was just going to say it makes me wonder, too, like, you know, just in my time here, like I worry also about
021like liability, you know, like if the provider caught wind that the board, you know, they say when one of us speaks, we all speak that the board is upset and, you know, we're providing whether it's real or false or whatever kind of information. like does that put us in liability of you know being in conflict with a contract you know and a a recognized process that's tied through the state and I just I worry that sometimes those things I mean those are I always think about worst case scenario I think probably in part because of this work but I just wouldn't want to put the district or the provider or the students in a position where they either lose out or the district is sued for whatever defamation or breach of contract Um, so those
022are other things that I would be thinking about as a board member and along with just being a board president, how I might have a discussion with one of my colleagues about something like this. Yeah. Yeah. Um, thanks for your advice. Can I chime in as bad cop again here? Um, so I would just like to to think of I mean the oversight piece the board member needed to make those things public, right? they needed to present them to the superintendent and to the board. I have this information. If I'm not doing my duty for oversight if I do not provide this information to the process. However, the overreach comes when the board makes a decision, they vote, the best practice is that once the vote's been taken, the board is now in support of
023that that vote, right? So if you can't get behind the support the the vote of the board and now be become a cheerleader for for the board, it is going to be constant. It's going to really limit your effectiveness. And so I'm just I'm just going to claim that um that that is best practice. And of course I'm just going to say there's no law that says you can't ever disagree with the the consensus of the board, right? You can just keep doing it. But best practice, if you want to be effective, you're going to pull together because even even though you can say, "Well, the superintendent's tough enough that we can go ahead and keep bugging them every week about this." But the reality is your superintendent and your staff are not going to
024be as effective if they sense a uncertain sound in the board. I'm just saying, you know, it's it's going you're going to be much more effective if you can pull together behind board decisions. Agreed. Jerry, I I just jump in on that one there. You know, one of the things that I found with about all of the issues, you know, would be to head this off before it ever come to the boardroom uh so that we don't uh have some risk on the district of a liability concern, but it would be before that comes to the board for a vote. See that on the agenda, there's a recommendation to approve that. Then I would be right on the phone, text, email, call, however you guys communicate with the superintendent and say, "Hey, I've got some
025concerns about this." And then she's going to say, "Okay, well, I'd like to hear it." Or, you know, why don't why don't we have a meeting with Allen or why don't we have a meeting with, you know, the chief procurement officer in your district and then can address it. I think sometimes, you know, the board members feel like, well, I can't do that or I have to wait until there's a board meeting before I bring up that issue and concern. And so to do that beforehand, you certainly can address and solve so many problems. And this is is one that's just a perfect example of that. um is to address it before and then when you get to board meeting then you as a board member if it's addressed you can vote yes. I I
026support that recommendation or you can vote no. I still don't or you can abstain. Um so you've got several options and yet then we continue to be able to move forward on that once that issue is addressed. So um anyhow you can see I'm I'm going there. You can go ahead Brian but I'd like to take a moment. So Richard, if you as a board member see that and you have a question, are you including the other board members in like CCing them in the question that you're raising to the superintendent or are you just going to the I just like you know some understanding there. Um what do you think the best practice there is? Is that something that you um just bring to the superintendent yourself or do you CC the rest of
027the board? Um because now you've brought in the whole board. I would just like to know what your direction on that would be. The answer is yes. Okay. Yes. and and and yes because I think it it depends on the situation in the one example right here which is so good Terry I think in that one there it's that I have the information and and so I think that that one would be in my opinion would be the best way to handle it is go directly to the superintendent without copying anybody else in and because now it's a concern you have and you certainly wouldn't want to taint the other board members, you know, if you were to send the information of what the issue is or concern because it may could be easily addressed
028um for whatever reason or however or not get addressed. But I think it would be the very best practice in this situation to just go to the superintendent and say, "Hey, I've got a concern about this. I need to talk to you about it." And then let her determine, "Okay, well, this is how we could solve that." And then it may be that if it was enough then I think then it may be okay well we're we're going to let the rest of the board members know and and however that communication may be or you know if it's a serious enough problem somebody's going to probably pull that from the agenda and go okay we're not going to be able to vote on that uh right now until we investigate this further. So there can
029be lots of ways of communication and so I was being serious when I said yes Brian and not trying to to be you know right um so I just want to see if I understood you're saying that you would go directly and if you didn't feel like it was being resolved or it was something because then you said something really significant then you would talk to the superintendent and say I'm now going to include the board in this because I think yeah and I I think that if you if you were to do that I think that you know the superintendent can be able to figure out that that's what she's good at being able to go okay here we got a problem here now and how can we solve that problem she's a problem
030solver and this is how we can handle it you know and so you do it collaboratively uh on that issue um and and then you know the next time that could be altogether different you know and and so I found that it's you know you have to just be an a lot of that comes from experience to know okay so yeah so this is an issue that should be handled you know in this manner would be the best way and the superintendent can easily u then be able to say okay no we you know this big enough deal here and because of the concern concerns then we were going to talk about it in a close session you know for whatever goes to the board or pull it or whatever it would be but to
031figure that out but that would be what I would do in that situation when it says you know right there from personal experience and so it's what one person has you know and it may be they go well whatever the issue was well that kind of on that note um that is very specific to that situation Um, one of the things that I have tried to um, figure out a good approach on is obviously it's difficult in a board meeting to have a comprehensive conversation about any particular topic because of the time parameters, the limited time you have to speak and such. Um and so some conversations there is um potentially some background information that would be helpful for um other board members to be aware of that they may not necessarily know that bcc
032seeing them on a here's some information on this for the upcoming meeting. um there's no discourse about it behind the scenes. Like I guess what's your experience in those situations to make sure that there's not a public meetings violation, but being able to not feel like you can't share and then you're in a board meeting and you're basically blindsided by a conversation that you can't have an effective conversation because it's relatively um unexpected. Um, and so like trying to figure out how to navigate that um, outside of public meetings, making sure that information is is there and ready for the board meeting for everybody because I might have a concern that something and that clarification or might have information that would be prudent for all board members to know so that you know whatever people
033vote on is their vote, but at least it's more based on all of the information, not each person's perspective. ives which may not have all the information. Does that make sense? So trying to navigate that so that we're all better prepared for the board meeting to make sure that those decisions are um um quality and informed and um with integrity and all that. I think that um to Richard's point, if if you BCC and all the board and then a a email conversation ensues back and forth between board members, then we're in violation, right? But if it's purely a but if you send it to the superintendent and the superintendent then the superintendent can investigate that and then return the information back to the full board as information from the superintendent on this issue. So
034this question came up this issue was raised. This is the investigation that we have done regarding this and this is what we found. um the superintendent is is is legally within her rights to do to send that out to the full board so that you all have that information. You could just can't do the back and forth thing on email. You get that bit for sure or it could just be general information, but it sounds like you feel that it might be best just to send it to her to her to turn around and disperse back. And if it has if that raises more questions for other board members, then by all means, you should go, especially if it's um regarding a contract or personnel or um some kind of legal issue that those are
035all things you can talk about openly in a in a closed session. Openly in a closed session. Ashley, yeah, I had a question. It was related to something Richard said that relates to what Amanda was raising, which is, you know, if you brought an issue like this to the superintendent, you didn't include everyone because of open public meetings law. Um, that then there would be time to resolve that issue right before the board meeting occurs. But how long would you say in your districts do you have your agendas and information before your meeting takes place? Question. Or like what's common among school boards in Utah? like how when do you receive your agenda sufficient that there would be enough time for that problem solving to happen before the meeting occurs? Well, if it if it
036can't happen before the board meeting occurs because my experience has been varied over 12 years. When I first got on the board, we got our board packets when we got to the board meeting um which was absolutely not acceptable. And then um after we uh worked on that, we got a a a couple of days ahead and we have gotten it um digitally now. We have gotten at least an a basic outline a week ahead um and that we it we may not have all the details but our executive assistant will tell us. So here's the basic outline of the topics for the upcoming meeting. I don't have all the attachments yet but those will get to you by Monday or Tuesday. We have our board meetings on Thursdays. So, so she lets us know
037when it will come. So, if you are if you um if you feel like you're not getting information soon enough um or or in my in my case when I first started on my board, if I had a question about something, I could definitely request that um that be tabled until we could resolve this. Um, that's a that's a very nice way to do that. um if you have really um personal experience with a particular issue and and you've you can contact the superintendent, but if if that's not enough time before the board meeting, by all means, table it or pull it from the agenda until until that issue can be resolved because you definitely want the issues to be resolved before you go to an open public meeting and have discussion about that. And
038there there's no reason you should be forced to vote on something without having issues resolved, but you want to present as united of a front as you can in your open public meeting. Um, not saying that we should all vote unanimously, but we can vote unanimously in or nonanimously in um respectful ways after we have all the information that we need. And I think that's the challenge is getting all the information you need to be able to make an informed decision and not have some may have more information than others but because you can't have that private discourse and like figuring out how to ensure that our understandings are as complete as possible because even and I'm sure you guys deal with this too um the presentations and such they're they can't really be massively
039robust for many reasons every single time which limits the information that's received. And so when you're getting, you know, yeah, you have the rough draft of the uh meeting, but that's bare bones, right? Um and then the materials that are coming across depending on the presenter may be um or the circumstance may be more robust or not. It's still um I don't know the problem that I've had is it's still not a robust amount of information. Um and you know I have no qualms with asking questions and whatnot in advance, but um if we're we're trying to vet out that information or flush out that information or figure out the holes while you're up there on the podium um when you can only say so many words in a so limited amount of time. Yes.
040um that begets challenges and frustrations, right? So, I think that's personally like um how to and you've been kind of answering it um figure out how to um flush it out in advance without violating the public meeting laws. Well, you can if you if you have something like this that you have a lot of concerns about, you can request a closed session. Um, because there are there are multiple re legal reasons to have a clo hold a closed session, right? And and I'm not talking about just personnel issues. It could just be like regarding goals or strategies or a report about a resolution or whatever it may be, you know. And you definitely, especially in the public eye, you want to have robust conversations. You want to ask questions because your people are asking you
041questions. Um the the thing is we want to make sure that if we're going to ask questions, we let the people know who are doing present presentations or the superintendent beforehand so they at least can have an answer for us and not be set back on their heels like, "Oh my heck, I didn't know this was coming." So let's circle back to Brian's question. you know, if those questions are only being sent to the superintendent. Um, and then that it would be helpful. Like if Ashley sent questions, there were things that I wouldn't have thought about asking. It would have been very good, helpful information for me to know that that's on her radar. That will be interesting to see how that fleshes out during the meeting and as we discuss it or, you know,
042Bryce or whomever it is. So figuring out a way to um as we're pushing questions up in advance that those questions can be pushed back to all of us as a whole so we know kind of what is on each of our minds as we're navigating these topics so that we're I guess in a better mental state to have an overall conversation on the same page and more uniformly. Does that make sense? Because I think that when we don't have that and then a question comes up and it's like where the hell did that come from, right? If we could kind of get away from that, then um that could help like not have relationships crumble. It's it's important to on for for everyone involved in board meetings to remember that it that surprises are
043detrimental um to everyone in a board meeting. Whether it's a presenter, whether it's a board member, whether it's a superintendent, whether it's the VA, um we need to know what we're going to be discussing before we go in. And um like I said, there are lots of ways and reasons to have a closed session. Um and hang on to that thought because I think after this presentation um at the end of this meeting, you're going to talk about protocols for information passing and you can decide those things as a board. And so those are details that you're going to want to talk about um how you like to get your information, what you feel is best for your board with information sharing um within the law of open meetings. And so think about I mean
044keep that keep that in mind. Um I know you're going to have that conversation at the end of this meet this big larger meeting. Can I chime in one more thing? Yeah. So, um I think uh I just wanted to give another vote for board norms, but this is a great thing for you to decide as a board on what your board norms are going to be. You know, how do we do it? And let me just tell you in our board, we had one board member that was calling the superintendent every day, spending like an hour of his time. And so as a board as board we decided when you when you have a problem you contact the superintendent and the leadership in the board. And so they they then figure out what to
045do. But it kind of gives a little bit of a uh it tempers boards as you know monopolizing the superintendent because the board leadership cannot see oh they're they're asking a question every day. That's too much. Right? and then they could bring that up in a study session and say, "Let's put let's fix this with a a different board norm." But I think the biggest thing for you as a board is to be willing to to agree to board norms and then to abide by them, right? And if you can do that, you can fix anything. Well, and I think and maybe others feel different made differently, but I think pretty similar is that uh your input on what is uh plausible board nor dorm so that then we can figure out how to make
046what what are good practice works for us and we know what's within the parameters of accepted practices. Well, every board is different with their board norms because um what works in DAG Oh, totally. with 158 students and five board members and they're spread across a a large geographical area um may not work for you. But so and and if you have a change in board your board membership, you may need to change board norms um based on the the experiences and the schedules of your particular board members. So these are these are things that need to be regularly reviewed. Ashley, yeah, I will just want to say I'm a little bit surprised about how the questions have come up. So I want to directly address something that has gone on. I used to send all
047my questions in advance. Um I always did this. I never expected an answer. It was to eliminate surprise, which is exactly what you've raised. And then it was indicated to me very directly that that was too ownorous for board members to be sending their questions. So I think we've had a lot of mixed messages about what actually those are because we've failed to have an operational meeting. So, I just want to pose to the three of you that am I correct that the type of meeting you're suggesting we would have to establish these norms is not an open public meeting. It's not a professional development training. It's an operational meeting to discuss things that are not policy that direct our norms such as agendas will arrive on Thursday, but we would like to have your
048questions by Friday if that's possible. Um, we will convene for this long. This will be the process for pulling items. If we feel there hasn't been ample discussion, we'll have three readings of this kind of thing, but only two readings of this kind of thing. Is that what I'm getting? Absolutely. And you can do that in a study session. It's very appropriate in a study session, even in an open meeting. Um, you just have to be willing to spend the time to to do that. Um, so that everyone feels comfortable with the norms. um because it's it's vital for the community that you all work together. Well, um that will trickle down to our individual communities. Um so I'm going to move on. Hang on to those thoughts because Can I answer while you're moving
049on? Uhhuh. Okay. So I think you have to do it in a public meeting because you're limited to only four reasons to have a closed session. not a closed session but operations can be discussed after but it still has to be public meeting if the whole board's there and the whole board needs to be there to make to create board norms just to give you just so anyway to answer that direct question it would be I would be curious what Richard would have to say about that it's just not my understanding that that's true I if you could point us at the conclusion of this training to the code relating to operational discussions that would be really helpful because it's my understanding that operational discussions are a a totally different thing. But Terry's obviously welcome
050to move on. I just wanted to put a pin in referencing where that is actually housed would be helpful information. You know, the thing that I I think that works really well would be, you know, if you did like just what you would be doing tonight to talk about those board norms. But then I think what Mark is saying, you know, I think it would be really helpful then for that to go to the, you know, to a regular board meeting and say, "Hey, here's the norms we've talked about." And and then if there's further discussion, clarification, or, you know, the board president may go through them and say, "Hey, this is what we talked about this this um I think that that that's always a a good thing." And then you could take that
051formal action to say, "Okay, now we approve those um public meeting." Yeah. In a public meeting, I think, you know, and so, but what you're doing tonight, I I think would be a good thing to have that conversation at least to to start that conversation about what they are. You have some discussion. And um but anyhow I you know to me I think that you know you can always you know get too far out one way or the other on any issue. And so I think that you know you just kind of have to navigate your way through. I think you always have to go okay well what have we done in the past? What is our do we have a policy on that? um you know and and do we have an existing process
052maybe that has worked or not worked and so you know we need to take all of those things into account as well. Um but I think you know in the end um I think that would just be a a great thing to do in a public meeting then to where that those are formally adopted. But then like Terry said, you know, make sure you revisit those uh whenever you have an a new board member or or anything that changes that way and and maybe some of them don't work. And so then let's have that conversation again. Is there not an option for an operational meeting that would not be public? There actually is. I'm researching it right now. So it says um let's see uh give me a second. Basically operational discussions may be exempt
053if they are solely for discussion or to implement administrative operational matters and if no formal action is required by the public body. So there's a little bit more guidance on it and I was just getting to the statute. So I'm working on that bit. Yeah. Is that in 53G under school board and the 5241035B of the Utah code? So that's so you need to look under 53G for reasons for um any meetings that are not open for school board members. Anyway, I I believe that this building board norms, you want to vote on them and anything you're going to vote on, I think needs to be in an open meeting. Um just just but you don't care. I mean it's fine to be in a in this kind of a meeting. You just talk about
054it until you figure it out. There's no reason to have it in a in a non-public meeting. I was going to bring up one other thing because you mentioned, you know, what if one person has a whole bunch of questions. How do you deal with that? And we did have one experience with something like this. And so what we would do is everyone would submit all their questions to the leadership and they put together a list. Then we during one of our study sessions, we all just voted on which ones we wanted to know too. And so then you got board consensus as to what you know the superintendent should address. Does that make sense? So the reality is you as a board member really do not have the authority to direct the superintendent to
055do anything as an individual, but but the the majority of the board is what has power. And so that allowed the majority's opinion to be made manifest in directing a a staff member on what to do. Anyway, just an idea as to what worked for us, right? I think I have a question. I think what you're saying is directive versus what Ashley was saying is questions. Yeah. Is there are you saying there's a differential between those two or it's the same thing that if Ashley were to ask a question and a majority of the board said no, we don't want to know that that Ashley's question wouldn't be answered? I'm very confused by that. When we did it, it was because of we were doing uh things that for study session, future study sessions. I
056think it could it depends on you as a board and your norms, right? You can decide. No, board members can ask any questions they want directly to the superintendent. But if you want study session things or that then it needs to have this different process. By the way, I think what Bryce is trying to clarify is he he's talking about any board member can ask a question about a discussion item or an action item in the open public meeting that that's our prerogative, you know, like not least of all because in code we don't serve the board, we serve our constituents, right? So if they have a question as Terry raised that is they're asking me to ask. It's not my question. You're talking about questions, meaning topics that would be placed on an agenda.
057Or for example, a question like, "Tell me how many kindergarteners actually uh have free lunch." You know, it's something that the superintendent is going to have to do a lot of work to find that out. That kind of stuff data can can totally overwhelm your your superintendent and BA depending upon how uh you do it. So that that might be something that you would say before we expend resources on this let's make sure the majority of the board is interacting but you're not talking about a situation tell me if I'm incorrect speaking for you school lunch is a discussion item on the agenda certainly that would be a reasonable question to ask right that that wouldn't be ownorous it's something we're planning to discuss I have a question about our discussion you get to decide
058that general questions in the abstract and I think maybe it it depends on what's causing problems right if there's something where you your superintendent is always busy answering questions and doesn't have an opportunity to do her other job, then you'd need to address that as a board and say, "Okay, what is our norms going to be?" You know, how do we balance this? But it it could be whatever you decided as a board in your norms. And by the way, I'm seating all the time to you, Terry. So, uh, don't be worried because I've been I've been budding in with board norm discussions along the way. All right. Very good. Thanks, Mark. It's good that we can work together on this. Um, next up we're talking about complaints. Um, it is vital that board members
059follow chain of command in the district when you and and really empower your public by teaching them what the chain of command is and how to get answers. Um I um Mark was telling me uh when he when we presented this to another board, he he he mentioned that he has seen a board member that spends 60 hours a week on board school board issues. And um it's because that board member um became the answering the answer person for anybody in the community who has a question and um no matter what the question is. So, it's important as board members that we educate our our constituents and our public to know to understand the chain of command like Johnny, little Johnny's teacher is doing this in the classroom. Okay. Have you talked to the teacher?
060Have you talked to the principal? Have you talked to the supervisor of the principal at the district level? Um, those types of things. Um, I had an experience where a a grandfather called me of a student in middle school and was upset about a video that had been presented in his health class. And um I asked him, "Have you talked to the teacher?" "No, I know this I've known this teacher for years and I'm not going to go talk to her about that question." I'm like, "So, you've known her for years and you won't go talk to her, but you want me to go talk to her?" And he said, 'Yes, I'm not going to go talk to her. I don't want her to feel bad that I'm asking this question. I said, 'Well, anyway,
061so it's important that we train them what the chain of command is and um not become the shell answer person for the board, for anybody, everyone in our community who has a question. I mean, in passing conversations when they have questions about, hey, what's happening with blah blah blah or what's happening with what, you know, that's great. Those are great conversations to have. We want our public to be informed, but with complaints particularly, we want to teach them to and empower themselves to follow that chain of command and get some resolution to their complaint. Okay. But what if they didn't like the answer that they got and they're upset? Yes. Then we get what happens at the legislature when a handful of people go to their legislature and say, "Our school board is not listening
062to us because they didn't get the answer that they wanted." And and that's real life. But um we can go have crucial conversations with those people and try to get some common ground and try to find some place where we can come together. Um not in unison necessarily or all in agreement but with some consensus about why this decision was made or why the decision will be made this way. Um, I mean, we've somebody's got to do it in our current world, right? We've got to be respectful and try to reach out to those people. Yes. I So, that's what I was thinking. Um, encourage them to follow the chain of command, but then also try to allay their fears or concerns. Well, and I think the other piece that you'd like to do is
063you want to make your superintendent and staff the hero. So, if maybe you're going to listen to this, you're going to try to allay their fears, but you're not going to say, "I'm going to take care of this and you're and I'm going to be the your hero." what you want to and even if you do talk to the superintendent, a couple of other people and eventually the problem's solved, find a way that they learned allegiance to the district, not allegiance to you as a board member. And that way, you know, it may seem like a subtle difference, but it makes a huge amount of difference if you're building allegiance to the district. It's tempting as a board member, right? You want to get elected next time, right? you want to be a hero and
064solve all the problems of all of your constituents, but actually that's destructive for the whole district. So anyway, I I'd like to voice I feel uncomfortable with the idea people should be allegant to the district. I don't think that's that just makes me a little bit uncomfortable. But I think what that speaks to is some of these examples are feel a little bit silly in a way that like of course I don't need to attend a meeting with the principal about um the secret party under the stage. But um I remember in the first USBA training that we had when um Martin Bates was the interim superintendent, they were giving kind of examples like this that were a little bit silly and one was about coaching and I said well this actually is an instance
065where like title n compliance could be an issue and when I read into this scenario it feels like it's written in a silly way but actually it could violate disciplinary policy. It could violate you know important code or policy related to juvenile justice. So I think the issue that's not being addressed here is yes you go through the chain of command and sometimes people are dissatisfied with answers that are abundantly reasonable and yes we should defend that not for allegiance but because that's you know reasonable good governance but I think that if a disciplinary action violated our policy and there was no accountability for that that's where board members in our district get into tension that no one joined this board because they thought things were going super well and a lot of us have
066kids in the district and some of us feel our kids have been harmed in this district or their peers have been harmed. So when we get into a scenario like this, I think the answer's pretty simple, but this scenario actually is not so simple in real life. So I would pose to you, what would be the consequence if the disciplinary action did in fact violate juvenile justice norms or violated our policy for conduct and then there was no accountability for that principle and I'm a board member. We don't just keep trucking along because one person's delegated the responsibility. We're responsible for ensuring the person we've delegated that responsibility follows code, statute, rule, policy. Right. You are correct. Does that make sense? Yes, you're right. So, so in your um in your scenario of um being
067concerned, what I'm hearing you say is that we need to have oversight. we need to make sure that the accountability is there without overstepping. Um, in this particular case with the PTA, um, what's the principal going to do if a schoolboard member shows up? Um, all of a sudden the principal is caught in a real awkward situation. Do I do what my supervisor has taught me to do or do I do what the board member wants me to do? And as board members, we do not want to create those types of situations for our employees. There are better ways to handle um infractions if there are infractions of the law. Um so just as followup, what then would be the example of I think we all agree on what is overstepping, but there's not an
068agreement on what then would be effective oversight when the disciplinary conduct was inappropriate. I'm sorry to keep chiming in. Terry, you can slap me if you want. So, one thing that I think uh um again this this idea that an individual board member doesn't have authority, only the majority of the board. So, I think what you would want to do is you would want to talk to other board members. You'd say, "Here's my concern. This this was not not appropriate." All of a sudden, you now get a majority of the board that agree with you. Then you can tell the superintendent what to do. Then you can say we the majority has made this decision and we we want to direct you to change the way this happened. And that's your oversight role in my
069opinion. Well, you can I'm going to do one better. If you violated an existing policy, we don't have to take action as a whole board, right? It's our policy and you can So, what would be an example of how you would structure um oversight when policy is not being followed? Does that make sense? Uhhuh. I I know what you're saying. Anyway, you can still talk to a majority of the board, right? And then you can tell the board president, John, Jody, and Phil, and me all think that this is this needs to be done. Let's have a close session. I mean, in this particular case, you needed to do it in a close session. But now, when you have a majority, you can ask and you can you can take care of that in a
070close session. What are your thoughts? I I mean, I feel like this conversation is kind of layered in This is at a building level principal and parent well grandparent issue and so if we're not comfortable with what the principal's um how the principal is handling it what I have done as board members yeah as board member um you know network directors the next chain of command but ultimately I mean a lot of what Dr. Grants has a Senate to her so that she can handle it and hold her have her staff vet it out and then she's been good about giving a report back as to how it's like played out and then if it gets dealt with it's done. If it continues to go on we know we've got an issue that's not being
071addressed and then you know that can go a lot of different ways. you take it to, you know, superintendent. She sends it through her her routes, it gets mitigated, done deal, or it goes through that and it's not resolved. It's repetitive issue that needs to be revisited because we all know principles don't always handle things well all the time or if at all. And so there's obviously various ways routes that could go. So I think a a a one answer isn't going to cover all the different No, because ways that that could somebody said earlier in this meeting, every situation is unique in some way. And so a one-sizefits-all solution can't can't be given. Um which is why it's so important to establish um uh board norms with dealing. You know, what are you going
072to do when you run into or if you find something in a school that you feel is um being done against current law that is is is wrong. just plain wrong. How do you deal with that? Those are things that you need to discuss as a board. Um your processes, how you want to how you want to handle those because truly you are not one of seven. You are 17th of one. It is the board working together who create who creates the policy, who hires the superintendent, who hires the BA, who makes the decisions. It's one board. You are 17th of one and that's how much authority you have. Um it's important that we have consensus on our boards. We rarely are going to have unanimous agreement in some places, but um it's important to
073remember that the board is the whole and you're 17th of that pie um trying to make this decision or trying to create this oversight and accountability. So that's why board norms are so vital. And um this may seem like a silly example. However, to the principal and the superintendent who had to deal with this, it did not feel silly at all. Um PTA moms who are upset are not silly in any way, shape, or form. So, here's another one. Um we've talked about this. This is just about curriculum. Um so it's another topic, another example. We're moving towards board norms. Um part of this uh part of these qu I have a slide here with some questions on it. Is there a is there a commitment to a shared vision of learning for all students?
074We all say and we and we hear it all the time. We want to we know all students can learn. We want to educate every student to the best of their ability. We want to provide everything we can so that every child reaches their potential. And yet is that really true for each of us? Um do we honestly believe that? is there. Um, often there are um we were talking when we were before this meeting about how some uh communities within our district can be contentious one to another. Um, are we really committed to a shared vision as a board regardless of what our community contention is? Are we willing to come together for a shared vision for learning for all the kids in our district and set aside our community contentions? Um because a
075a a board a school board whether everyone agrees with each other on every issue or not a school board that one board which you are 17th of when all the seven pieces come together and work really hard and have great discussion and come together as one cohesive unit um even with difficult problems. are can be a really great example to the greater community about how to overcome some of our own issues with bias, with prejudice, with um uh issues with people that we're working closely with, those types of things. As a school board, we can do that. Um, but it all takes time. Here's the the we're moving it toward your um part of the meeting for developing uh group or group norms. Is there a defined process for resolving conflict and making decisions within
076your board? Are there are the roles and responsibilities of everyone clearly defined? So, how you need to think about that as you consider what you're going to create for your board norms or re-evaluate. Does you do you as the management team model the behavior and actions that you want to see in your schools? What does success look like? These are um these are all the things that your board norms when you bring them together are going to help you with um or as Ashley said the operational um parts of your board and they're vital. Um we've talked about this um oversight focuses on the management system um and and the accountability piece and overstepping focuses on individual actions or micromanagement. So it's important for us to ask ourselves um those are we overstepping or over
077or over over or are we showing oversight and creating accountability options or opportunities? Building and improving our oversight systems may require formalizing some practices like board norms. We keep saying this over and over. Mark, you haven't said it yet for a while. Um, these systems will take time to develop and implement because they may be changes for you in in your process or your practices. And all when I try to do something new that maybe wasn't my idea in the first place, it takes me a while to to ingrain to make it ingrained to internalize it. um these are an important part of the board's job and this is another place that you are an example to the greater community and oversight is proactive. Um like Ashley said um it's important for the full board
078to um make sure that there is accountability happening in the district within the district. Um so yep. And um the most important part of building and improving our oversight systems is that it takes time. that third one. It does take time to develop and implement these especially when and and the hard part is that on our board teams where we have change. Sometimes we have a lot of change. Sometimes every election cycle we have change and that that puts us back to step one sometimes in team building. And so then we've got to start again and work on building cohesion within our board team so that all the seven pieces come together to fit that pie or the nine when we're including the superintendent and the BA. Um because they're just as important in that
079pie. Otherwise, we have no information except for the word on the street, right? Or what we observe, our own observations. So, um it does take time, but um it's important for us to do that work as an example to the greater community and for the good of our district. So, here's the the conclusion of oversight or overstepping. Um and it's important that we remember that we are um the leadership team of the district, the board, superintendent, and BA together. We are the leadership team. We need sometimes to step out of our own individual um issues that we may have and and and and help with the whole board to create the the space for people to be accountable within our district and for the superintendent and the BA to do their jobs. And that's the
080end of that presentation. Sure. We your right story. Um I wouldn't I'd like to before I do though I have just two other items and I don't know if you remember when we were at the conference and Mark was giving his uh address uh as the new president of USBA and he talked about a professor that he had. that professor would stomp his foot when he had something important to say. So, I just stomped my foot and and Terry has mentioned it, but I I want to say it again. You know, why do we do all of this professional development? Why do we come and talk about best practices? And and here I think is the bottom line to that for me and that is that and somebody told me this a long time ago
081that so goes the board so goes the district. And so you guys are at the top of this organization. It's the top of a corporation. You guys are a corporation. Um, and you are the board of directors of that large organization. Very, very complex. And and what you do and everything we've talked about today and you think back on Terry's Mark's comments, everything about that is again, so goes the board. The way you handle your business, everything that you do, then that's what's going to happen in the schools. that's what's going to happen in the classroom. Um and and I just absolutely believe that. And so what the work that you're going to do um you know and I think that as Ashley mentioned you know sometimes I will call that you know an operating
082guidelines operating agreement board norms all of those are the same thing of what you do but for you to come together and for you to decide how you're going to operate um is you know obviously we think is is a crucial piece of that. Uh, and we've really focused on that tonight and sometimes, you know, it'll go in a different direction, but I think, you know, that's something that's come out here tonight. Um, and and I guess, you know, the other thing I'd like to say is, you know, I appreciate you loaning uh Brian to us for the past couple of years. Um, he he was just great on our board. Um and he he's headed some really important work that is continuing on right now and you will you'll see that I know you
083guys know that what he's done on on that superintendent evaluation and that work is continuing to go not at the same pace it did Brian while you were there but but it's still going and it hadn't been forgotten because they continue to work at it and they're just uh serious about doing that part of it. So, um, this is the thing that that Mark wanted me to to share with you that I I often share and how important it is, you know, for you and supporting the superintendent. We were at a regional meeting and we had u a guy and I'll tell you his name. His name's Mike Barkley. He's down in South San Pete School District. Has a big business down there. Still in business. and uh um anyhow just an really interesting guy
084and uh and so and he'd been on the board and he was going off after about 16 years and somebody said what is it that you've learned? What's the most important thing that you've learned? He said I'll tell you what the most important thing I learned in 16 years. He said, and that is if somebody comes and says to me, Allan, okay, um, what kind of a job is the superintendent doing? And he said, I've learned that if I say, well, the superintendent's doing a pretty good job. He said, then people go, pretty good. Um, well, isn't that your job to supervise the superintendent? And he said, "Boy, I found that that was that was not the best thing." He said, "I could say it, but I found it's not the best thing." He said,
085"I found the very best thing is he said because I ensured it happened." So it wasn't not true. He said, "I would always say, I think she is doing a fantastic job, don't you?" And he said, "It was my job to make sure that she was." And he said, "And then I could say that." And he said, "You know what?" He said, "That solved so many problems in our school district." Just by the way, as being board president, when I made that kind of a statement, just that and how that was handled. And anyhow, so I I passed that along that that that was um just a that come from him, not me. That that was his response and how he handled that kind of a question. So anyhow, um can I just interject one
086thing after? And I mean, thank you for for that, Richard. And I mean, I enjoyed working at USBN. We don't need to get into all of that, but I guess what I as I've been listening to this and as Mark has been talking about and Ashley when you were talking about the operations and all of that, to me, what this is is is building a team and figuring out how that team functions. And whether you call it at allegiance or whether you call it teamwork, I mean, I think you can look at that your own way, but so I'm just going to share something really briefly, and this just happened a couple of days ago. So, my oldest daughter, she has two um little boys and of course, you know, I think that these grandsons
087are, you know, the best and the brightest. Um, of course, I'm biased, but I think, well, their teachers have said, you know, they're doing well. But anyway, um the reason I bring this up is um the teacher came to my daughter and said, um well um your son, there's something that I want to work with him on. And I think that as a parent, because I'm thinking of this in my role as a teacher in the classroom, that you had parents that when I would say that, there would be the parents that would, oh, how I want to know so I, you know, can work with you. And the way that they were viewing that teacher was as a team like she has my best my child's best interest. And I think we talked about
088that a little bit. Okay. Is this in the best interest of the student? And then you also have parents that say, "What?" So, you're now questioning my child and you can already see that there's a defensiveness and I'm just telling you that from experience as the teacher. Those are two really different responses. And I can tell you that for me it was much more successful when the parents were looking at it as, "Oh, okay, help me understand this." So, and I mean this little boy, he's in kindergarten. He's just, you know, figuring this all out. But anyway, the teacher says, "Well, you know, he's always so excited and he's always the one that's blurting out all of the answers." And so my daughter's listening to that and she goes, "You know what? I believe the
089teacher. I'm going to think about that." So she starts thinking about it and she's going, "Well, he will do that." But the teacher said, "I don't think that he's doing this to be difficult or disrespective or he is just really excited. He has figured this out and he wants to share it." And my daughter's going, "Well, yeah, he does that with me all the time." And I'm kind of going, "Calm down or, you know, stop interrupting me." And the teacher said, "This is how I'm going to work on this with your son." And she said, "Oh, that's how I'm going to do it, too." Now, we don't have a lot of time here, but to me, when we're talking, and I hope that we do reserve like 10 or 15 minutes where we figure out
090how are we going to look at the operations, Ashley, figure out the norms, the processes, because that's what a team does. And maybe that wasn't the best example, but to me it was an example that just happened of someone looking at this and going, "Oh, okay. We're a team. You're setting these up as the norms for, you know, my son, and when I heard this as the grandfather, am I pretty invested in him?" Yeah, I am. And I thought they're doing this is going to be successful. This is going to help him um be a successful student. Okay. Parting comments. I I would say I appreciate that story and I appreciate the idea of teams and norms, but I would be remiss not to mention that that's built on respect. And I often feel very
091disrespected um in this group and I think I would go back to the questions that when I hear that people have said it's so annoying that I send my questions before meetings. I don't actually feel the mutual respect to build the norms that we're talking about. So I think I probably misused the word silly and um in trying to explain that I don't think I think this is very on the surface of what the issues are because I think we are a board who has a majority of members and a staff that are interested in compliance and efficiency and actually do not share a shared vision of what students have. And so when we talked about, you know, what is the balance between managing constituent concerns and following district operations, district operations are constituent concerns.
092And I've had parents who write in who are also demeaned, right? And their concerns are disparaged. And I think that it's not as simple as if we follow these rules, we will have these results. And I think if we hover on the surface of what these issues are, we get into like, you know, Howard Stevenson's infamous quote that we're all just having our nose ring installed and being led around the ring. And I feel like if we're concluding here in terms of like this discussion, I feel like we're being asked to have our nose ring installed and be led around the ring. I don't know if everybody knows that quote. Do you know Howard Stevenson? You are his neighbor. He was a former state senator and he was being critical of the work of school
093boards and it was not popular at the time. Um, and he said it's as though the day after the election every board member goes down to the district office, the superintendent stalls the ring on their nose and they get led around the arena for four years. And I feel like we haven't really talked about what some of the issues are and and the fundamental issue that when people bring concerns to us, they are not always handled respectfully and that we don't have accountability. And I just feel like I would be remiss not to not to say that. And I think sometimes the idea is um funnel these emails um justify the decisions that were made and keep the train moving. And I don't know how to resolve that. But I feel like I have to
094bring it up. Well, and hopefully we're not done because I really want to get to the point that we do put together some procedures that we can have these chains of communication so that we can have more effective board meetings and decision making because I think all of the points that were presented were really good points, but I really hope we're not done because we've got started say yeah we've got more if we don't leave this room with how can We be effective in in my opinion so that when we get to the board table and those discussions that we are having quality meaty conversations and effective discussions and instead of like on the fly and we get frustrated with each other which is just um destructive. So part of that norms discussion then should
095be Ashley what you're saying is how do you ensure respect and um how do you acknowledge um one another and what what that individual sees critical thank you for letting us be with you tonight. Um, we would love to uh uh I don't want to interrupt the rest of your meeting, but I can tell you that the the leadership academy on September 26 is going to be another great opportunity for you to refine this as you work on this process. So, just want to throw that on your your calendar. The one in Bryce. Yes, Bryce. Well, I want to throw out here though, like I think partly what we're trying to get from you guys is how do other boards what structure do other boards have in place to accomplish the the challenges that we're
096mentioning here tonight? you know, versus just you're leaving and then we're trying to figure it out without some kind of a reference point. Does that make sense? So, that's personally what I'm seeking is how do the other boards do these situations, these communications to the superintendent like we've got these subjects coming up for upcoming board meetings and topics and like you know the questions coming you know and sharing them out or not sharing them out. we're just going to be like throwing this out during a meeting and then pissed off at each other or how do they share it out in advance so that we're all kind of aware of where each other's coming from so that we're ready for a robust conversation. You know, those are some of those things that I've been circling
097on. So, personally, I would love some examples of what other boards are doing to have that kind of a collaborative conversation and preparation for the public meeting without violating the public meeting. Can I just share one idea? I think that these are are definitely hard things and my board has not figured them out but this helped. So we meet with the superintendent again a less than majority of the board so that we can talk. So we have uh one of the presidency and two other board members that meet with the pre the superintendent every week and we have something called three must agree. So, if you have an issue, let's say that you're in a minority position on a on the board, um you then need to con convince those other two board members to
098be in agreement with you. Then we say, "Okay, you now we we're now close enough to a majority and the superintendent better have paid attention to this." But what it did was people that were in the minority normally on voting for something, they felt like I have a way to get my my my issues out there and they would go ahead and and make passionate presentations in that meeting with the superintendent to try to persuade those other two board members. And I don't know exactly how it always worked, but I can tell you that it was it re it was a great pressure release on on the board. So that it it wasn't just when I come to board meeting is only time I can air my grievances. It was I can do it and
099the superintendent's there listening. And so um she's even if you're not in the majority, she gets an idea of what's going on and you have the opportunity to to do it. So we we just save up all of our issues. you know, whatever is frustrating us and we all take turns. Okay, here's your turn. You heir all of your grievances. Then we go to the next person and then we talk among those three to say, "Okay, what you know, how do we resolve this?" And then it's easy for the board president. He's now seen three people. He can maybe call a couple of others and and as soon as he gets one more, then then you've got a majority to support that position. So that might that that for us has been pretty good in
100order uh in order to make sure we're hearing minority opinions. Oh, I I think it could wait until Yeah, just for our board. That would be a great operating guideline or an agreement, operating procedure, whatever we're going to call it. And that one there and I support that. I, you know, I've advocated that with boards for a number of years since I because you guys have done that for quite a while. So, we didn't do the three must agree thing. Um, and what it did, it empowers people that feel like they're not being heard in the majority on the board to know that I, you know, if I can present a logical case, I can convert two other people to my point of view. Anyway, but yeah, that's just an idea. So, that would be
101a great starting point. I think Amanda that would be one that I'd say would be in there. You know what I Sorry. Do you have a five member board? We have seven. Oh, seven. Okay. Yeah. So, that's that's it works pretty good. If you get five, it's a little harder because then you can only have two, right? Before you get the majority, right? But a seven member board having three people on board, you can actually really hash over issues with three people. It's harder. I I do have a question. Um we you talked about possibly having a conflict management procedure. Mhm. I don't know if we have that. We don't have something like that with our board. Um and so these conflicts just linger and um and some I think you know as a new
102board member I stepped in and I I felt some old conflicts but that I didn't quite understand you know um and that have not been resolved and um I do think if we could work past some of that and come to common ground and have ways to er our grievances and you know handle conflict then we can work really work together as a team and I don't think we should I don't as a as a board member just want us to have efficiency and I can't remember what else you said compliance Yeah. No. Um but I think working together for common goals is what I want. Efficiency and compliance will never take you to the next level. You need great ideas and um and the the support and the ability to or the willingness to
103work together toward common goals. And but it it's kind of like trying to move a caravan going through the desert, you know, moving a a district. And you can you can try to move. It never moves fast. It never moves as fast as I want to move. Um decisions that we make, I may not even see the results later. Um, for instance, um, years ago, probably 10 years ago, uh, we were, uh, about 4,000 students smaller in our district. And, um, so it was run like a small district and we didn't have a public information officer nor a public information office. And so we were concerned. There were a couple of board members of us who were super concerned that we're not we're not getting information out into the community about all the great things
104that are going on in our district. we need to we need some some mechanism to do that. And um both of us had seen uh lots of really great presentations at um National School Board Association at Utah Schoolboard Association conferences and we're thinking, man, if that district can have it, why can't we? And so we brought it up to our superintendent and he said, "Oh, I don't know if this is the right time." Anyway, it took us four years um to figure out how we could afford that and and make that work within the the structure of the district at the time. But wow, what a change it made when it finally happened. But during those four years, I had to be really careful that I was not the one griping and moaning constantly at
105the superintendent. You haven't done this yet. you haven't done this yet and trust that he knew that that's what we wanted. And the rest of the board was after we presented in a board meeting, look, this is a this is something that could help us with our communication to constituents, to the community, all of those things. Um, and the board agreed, but it took a while. It took a while. I haven't found anything except for um severe uh non-compliance issues that get answered really fast. Um because we all have great ideas. Like we go to a conference, all seven of us or nine of us come back with great ideas. Hey, let's do this. Let's do this. Let's do this. We can't do them all. So, we have to pick something to move forward with
106with our goals. And so if you're going to set goals as a board, don't don't make it five or six, make it one or two. And um work towards those. And as you work towards those, you'll be able to add in maybe another one next year because you'll be close to achieving one of the two that you just set. Um, just remember, keep in mind how hard it is to change the direction or to change a culture within any community or district and and be patient with each other and with the community. So, Mark, were you going to lead us in some of those norms? And I mean, I think that's getting a little bit to what Amanda was saying. help us give us direction in how to you know go down that road basically
107because I'll use a very general statement in like say a report's going to come up on a board meeting we get the rough um breakdown of it but then instead of all these unknown questions going different places um being able to have a way that we're all aware of the questions that are circulating around so that [Music] we're more prepared for that discussion and that awareness of where all the concerns and where all of the potential um conversations going to be. Can I interject what a norm might be for this? And I don't want to interrupt you, so obviously you could go back and finish, but I think the norm you're trying to establish is what I raised earlier about how many times you would on average discuss something. So most boards have a policy
108uh process where it's a first reading, second reading, and then you consent to the policy change as an example. So I think what you're expressing is that often we are being asked to make a decision in real time that we have not yet discussed. So, the norm that I think you're asking for is how many times on average would we need to actually be able to discuss something in a robust open public way before we vote on it? Because that's what I'm hearing from you that we haven't had time to know what other people's questions are and hear the answers to those questions to make a good decision. So, it might not be what you want to know, but that would be the norm I disentangle from that. How many times on average is it
109normative in Alpine Cash, Jordan, whatever to read an item before you vote on it? Well, I think it's relevant relative to the situation though because there's some things that are more complex that so it would be hard to put a black and white timetable on that. I lean towards more and maybe I'm not communicating it well is again not violating the public meetings act but a board um agenda's sent we get the details and I might be sending questions up the chain I don't I have concerns about this I need clarification on this I need some more information on this and in my opinion and there's times where I'll see my you know other board members so that they're aware of this because I feel it's important information for everyone to understand and so you
110know is that an appropriate practice if not like what is the practice that could be in my opinion because there's things that you might be asking that it would be like oh I hadn't thought about that like there's many points that Ashley brings up that I was like that is a really good point I had not considered and on and on that if we're we're turning on this stuff in advance of that meeting and these questions are going up that that information sent back down could be provided to all of us um before the board meeting and then they go into the public meeting discussion with that all those different pieces that's what I'm seeking does that make sense so so here's an example for instance um in cash I don't know how many years
111ago it happened 15 16 um they they tried to have only one meeting a month and when I was a PTA president 20 years ago. I was going to those meetings and they started at 7:00. Some of them didn't get done until 1 in the morning. It was just miserable. So, finally about 15 or 16 years ago, they split it up so they have two meetings a month. A study session at the beginning of the month and then a business session um two weeks later. And um the the study session lasts as long as it needs to so that we can have so we sit around a table just like this and we have presentations on different data from different parts of the district or different programs things that board members are concerned about or
112want to see and then we have discussion on that. um if it's something that's going to require action, then our policy states we hear it first in the study session and then if it's if it's something that doesn't require a a lot of discussion, then we can pass it in the next session. So the minimum number of meetings it has to be seen in is two. But um there was an instance uh earlier this year or earlier this school year where we had talked about um school fees for instance and we thought we had solved or we thought we had uh solidified our school fees schedule and we got to the second meeting and or just before the second meeting the day before the superintendent sent out send us all a note and said um
113we've had some issues come up because of something that happened in the legislature or the state board. I can't remember exactly the the details of that situation, but so he said, "So, we need to table this discussion and move it to a later meeting and we can discuss it if you if you have more questions about this. Um, we can discuss this in the second meeting, but we aren't ready as a district to have that finalized yet. And so we need more we need to get you more information. So so we're flexible. I mean so we say the minimum is two reading or a reading and then two weeks to study and ask questions and then um a vote in the next meeting or so that's the minimum an intentional structure of study it and
114then move to discussion with potential action. Yes. Or it goes longer. Yes. And I don't think there's out those questions and the yes unknowns and stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think there's any of the 41 school boards in the state who have 100% of their board members engaged at the same level. [Laughter] No. And we have people that have lots of experience and some that are new. And so some people, you know, they prefer more information and some of them, you know, will say, "Hey, you know, I'm ready to vote now." And and so yeah, we we don't have that a pretty safe question. No. Well, that's just my own personal observation as I we've traveled the state, but um in my experience, no board has 100% of their board members um
115at the same commitment level or the same level of um understanding experience. Exactly. We're all at different points in the road. Um, we all have different lives outside of our board work um that that require more or less time. I mean, those types of things we have to take into account as we work together as a team. Some people either aren't interested or don't have the cap capacity at the time to take in a whole um I mean to read pages and pages of information other people do. Um, so we have to be patient, like I said, we have to be patient with each other as we work together as a team and understand that everybody's in a different space. And so some people may I have a I have a new board member on
116my board who is upset that some of our other board members don't seem to be as engaged as he is and he wants me to whip them into shape. And um that's not my job. That's a that's a personal that's a personal thing that everybody has to be comfortable with their own level of service on the board. But um we do work really well together as a team. Um so so that's an example of how we do ours. But um so we have two meetings a month but in the off weeks when we're not having meetings then the board um president and vice president meet with the superintendent and BA um on our board meetings I told you we're on Thursdays. So on the Thursdays when we don't have board meetings, we're meeting in a
117board leadership meeting um to bring uh issues to the surface with the superintendent and BA um and the and the you know so we've been out since our last uh board leadership meeting. We've been out and about in the community and here are some things we're hearing. Here are some issues we've seen. Um here are some issues we've heard from other board members. we need to address these types of things. And so there's a constant and then the superintendent will report that back to the full board um when uh will'll send the the minutes of the dis of all the discussion from those board leadership meetings to the full board. So the board all the board members know what we talked about. So, it's not just president, vice president, but then um board members can
118know that their issue, if they brought up an issue, their issue was discussed and the superintendent um lays out the plan for how that's going to be addressed. And usually it is I'm working on this and I will get you more information as I receive it. And so um then the superintendent follows follows up with that later. So a a continuous feedback loop is good and having having a structure to how how you're going to discuss things in your in your board meetings so that you so that you know okay we talked about this in study session. we're expected to pass it or or vote on it, I should say, in the next meeting. Um, and so I need to be prepared for that then. And that gives us two weeks or ask for it
119to be postponed. And by the Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say I think where we have a lot of opportunity is that we're operating right now off of what's been done for, you know, 10 years or we're operating off of what's in a guardrails document or we're operating off of what we interpret or think is defined in our policy or in our RNRs with finance committee or policy subcommittee. And you know, I I think if we were to more clearly define, as was kind of prompted in in your training, Terry, um these roles and responsibilities in particular, um that we might find, you know, more opportunity and alleviate some of the real or perceived um struggles that people have with us, that we have with each other. Um you know, what is
120within the superintendent's realm of responsibility? What's within ours? Um are we asking questions that help us make a decision? Are we asking questions that are, you know, over that line or that threshold of what is oversight or overreach? Either way, um, and I think where we're struggling right now is that we're just operating from a lot of different either norms or interpretations or a lack of clearly defined roles and responsibilities. And I think if we can make a commitment, maybe that's not not necessarily the norm, but spend the time that we need to to really do that work to clearly define it, um that we might alleviate a lot of what we're experiencing, you know. And I think the other thing that Brian and I have talked about is that we're not as in bad
121shape as we might feel. You know, I think um we've come a long way in in at least my last six years here. Um, I think the accomplishments that that we have made are significant and and um, but like I said, there's always opportunity to grow and evolve. Um, but I I do see a disconnect in in how clearly defined things are and are we operating out of norms or processes that aren't clearly defined or even written down understanding a little different or different. Yeah. And then that might create aggravation because a person may feel like they're getting whatever where another one doesn't. It's because of that lack of consistency in how we're functioning and do those th those clearly defined things. I think that they should match our policy, you know, and um you
122know, I I want to kind of fine-tune comb um RNR's clear defined clear definitions of our role um our guardrails documents and it makes me wonder if some of those elements are out of policy and outside of the the oversight of the board. Um, and I think that's where we're getting stuck in some of these operational kind of decisions or woes that that we're feeling right now. Brian, did you have something to And then Charlotte. Well, I'm just glad that you said that we need to step back and look because I think that there are a lot of I mean, it is set up. It's very similar to what Terry is doing in cash. I mean you know there's a business meeting one or we have two meetings there's the business meeting there's the study
123session that's something that we instituted that we thought was going to be I thought beneicial yeah re yeah okay reinstituted thank you um and I think that that does not need to kind of drive where we're going but I think that um and I mean with Mark you're saying some of the meetings. I mean, there are board leadership meetings. I like that idea of maybe that three must agree thing and that could be a way that other board members were participating in that um dialogue with the superintendent and the um business administrator. But to me, we have similar processes, but fine-tuning it or adding some of those things would be beneficial. Ashley, I just wanted to ask you one thing and then Charlotte, you've talked about calendaring and I guess I would like to know
124what do you see as a norm out there across the state with how far out are districts calendaring? And when I say calendaring, okay, we're going to have okay setting setting agendas and I mean the superintendent and the board leadership, they're putting together the skeleton of a an agenda and that sort of thing, but on that overall calendar like Ashley you're talking about. Let me just explain what I had asked about as an example. Okay. So I had given an example um you know as Nate is saying he thinks we're operating on these old norms. I think we're operating on um COVID operations actually and we haven't gone back to our past 10 years norms. That's what I would say is where there are a lot of things that used to exist 10 years ago
125that don't exist now that I think were pretty beneficial and we don't really need to reinvent the wheel. And one of them is the calendar. And the calendar used to exist as a skeleton for the year and it was in the folders that are at our board table. And when leadership met or agenda setting took place, if there were adjustments made to the calendar, that was adjusted and then put back in the folder. And that is how people tended to receive it in what I experienced via my predecessor and as a parent as the before times. And so what I had asked about which Brian is sharing is what would be normative for people to know and be able to predict what's going on the calendar. And I think the reason one reason why we're
126asking about it is you said you meet once a month and it ended up or sorry you used to meet once a month. It ended up very late. We meet twice a month and it still frequently ends up that late. And so in an effort to organize what needs to take place and spread that business equally throughout the year, when do you not agenda because we all know the laws regarding agenda setting. How do you handle or how do you experience effective boards handle that process of the calendar with this context in mind that that's specifically what I asked about this year-long skeleton that continually gets updated and continues to be repopulated with board member feedback and suggestions. I'm going to jump in because I didn't get to talk on the last one and I'm
127I'm in there. But yeah, uh we have a basically there are certain legal things you have to do, right? You have to do truth and taxation in August. You have to have your budget. So those are all on our yearly calendar. Um we the board members probably don't pay that much attention to them, but the board presidency does and the superintendent. And so um I think that's that's how we end up doing it. So it's mostly just as issues arise. We also have so we have a study session between 4 and 6 and then we have our board meeting from 6 till it's done. And so during that study session right before the board member is when we mostly ask all of our questions and have really robust discussions and uh but we do that
128that twice a month. So it just gives you an idea of another another way of doing it. But, uh, either way, um, I think that we also don't, uh, have a real rule on how many readings some things get. The ones that have legal precedent, like changing boundaries, you got to do it, you know, have so many public hearings, we follow that. And they're they're all just noted as discussion items. Everything else are discussion items. And so, it's like if you feel like making it action item, you can. If you don't then you just it's just discussion and there are many boards in the state who who run with a study session and then a board meeting right after on the same day. Um our board isn't willing to sit in a meeting for four
129or five hour or in meetings for four or five hours. um with the current current board members uh vocational loads that we have on our board. That doesn't work for us. But we have dinner between the two. So you go 4 to 5:30, then you have dinner between 5:30 and 6, get a little break, and then you go on. That's awesome. But there are there are multiple boards in the state who do who do work with that structure. Um there are also boards in the state who still only have one meeting a month. So, it's it's kind of all over from a lot of time spent together to not so much time spent together. And there are some boards who start their meetings late, like a half an hour late. And I should have said
130this when I gave my example of the calendar, but I think we also know about that calendar from a person who could have been giving us this training in your shoes in recent years, right? like we had Christy on our board who cycled off and who used to do this very training and she's very aware of what these norms were in the recent past and what the governance kind of structures we used to have in terms of governing ourselves and our meetings not governance big G is your I'm just curious is your um agenda and um attachments all in all hard copy no I was giving the again the old example okay it used to be like that and now it's not like that and things are also online. So my request would not be
131to return to only having the paper copies which I'm sure Alan would love to distribute to our home says the paper packet like days of your but I think it's a an updated version of what the historic model actually used to be. Yeah. And that's just an example of how it used to work. I think um work in my experience working with a lot of paper is a lot slower and you can't possibly I mean well I guess you can possibly but then you've got to hire someone just to make copies right because of the amount of information that a board needs. So, um, so I I rely we rely so much on our um digital information and our digital agendas and all of that stuff and the repository of of minutes and a library
132for um uh board members to for reference to to um look at different information happening in the in the district and things like that. And and um the calendaring is is different in every district um depending on the types of things that their that their issues are um or the types of things that they want to discuss or those types of things. But I was going to say earlier, it's really important to remember that in order to have accountability, you have to have goals and direction for what you want to see or where you want to go. Um, it's hard to have or ask for accountability if you don't if you haven't got those goals and directions spelled out. So having a calendar where you have an idea of what's coming up would be a
133great idea. Um we don't personally have one in in cash, but um that's uh a great idea that I'm going to take home and share with our board as well. Thanks for sharing that. By the way, it might be in your coming to order document. whoever had that. Uh oh. My so um first I I wanted to to express to Ashley that I really appreciate her thorough research and digging into things. I I do think that your questions are very very um helpful. Yeah. And then I also wanted to mention that maybe one of the ways, one of the things we could do to get this started is to do a board evaluation evaluating our board meetings or you know and that was something you brought up, right? And that's in coming to order. So
134that might give you direction as to what what we think is going well and what we think is not working so well. That's definitely one of the the aims of tonight is to kind of set that stage and foundation um when we had the chance to talk about both sessions of group norms and then this oversight and overreach. Um and I know folks are really hungry for these group norms and it's just how do we how do we get there? You know, I think the one salient one that keeps coming up is this element of questions and timing of the agendas and can we make a commitment, you know, and maybe establish, you know, this and and I think we're pretty good about getting the agendas out Thursday before um you know, in some cases
135we get the skeleton out, you know, a few weeks before um they're actually published. You know, they're very skeleton, don't get me wrong. Sometimes the titles change a little bit or what have you. Um but you know there I there is some time where I think we have to to start raising these questions and um and maybe establishing that norm tonight is if we do have these agendas by Thursday night um you know what is a reasonable time frame for you Dr. Grant and Allan to say, "Hey, if I get questions by, you know, six o'clock on Friday, you know, I should have some answers by Monday or Tuesday, you know, so that you're prepared." And this piece that Brian brought up is if one board member asks a question, does the response go to
136the whole board? And Terry, you kind of talked about that as um a practice that a lot of boards are using. Um, so and maybe settle some of your your thoughts, Amanda, about hearing the different perspectives and questions that board members have that things that you didn't think about and but at the same time, you know, we're a team here, Liz and Allen. And um, what are your thoughts to some of the conversation that we're having as a nine member team um, what things do you think make sense, you know, as as we might move forward and establish at least one norm tonight about communication and how do we disseminate information back out? Um, I'm not going to set the norm on what that is. Though I will share or even throw out onto the
137table what that is because I' I'd rather have you all decide that. Um, I can give context for what is working and what's not and what the workload is for staff under the circumstances depending on the load that's given in that questioning and things like that. So, I can offer some context on that. I appreciate the conversation and centering on these ideas of norms. I do think we're missing that and a clear understanding of how we operate that way. I think we've got nine different ways of thinking about those operations. Um, and coming in as a new superintendent, I didn't bring a lot of perspective on what that was and um perhaps thought it was one direction just because I hadn't been exposed to the others. Um, so I appreciate that we're heading the conversation
138in this direction to get those clarified and I think it will really help us. Can I just add one thing? So, what one thing that we do is when we meet with the superintendent with three board members, they raise questions and we have our secretary for our board taking minutes and then um if there's questions before that gets sent out, the minutes get sent out to the rest of the board. The superintendent puts the answers in there if they're easy. And so, so that that's one way that you you know, you're asking how does this how do we hear what other people are asking? That's one way that they get the answers. Right now, our secretary is our business administrator. Yeah. But I just want to address, you know, some of the questions. Questions come
139in all shapes and sizes. So, kind of like we've had Well, it depends. I mean, often I'll get the question of I'm just giving you a heads up. I'm going to ask this in the board meeting. I love those questions because it makes me look so smart that bam, I had the answer and the audience doesn't know that I had had been primed for that question. [Laughter] Thanks, Mike. And then there are the there are the questions that take a lot of research to figure out. And so to to say, well, when should they be there? Well, it depends on the question. And I would say to go back to what um was discussed earlier in the conversation, I said I used to send my questions without necessarily the expectation of answers. And there are
140exceptions to that. If I'm emailing Allan a question, it's usually about a purchase order that I do not understand. And he can answer me offline very efficiently and I don't then have to ask that question or don't have to request to pull that item. a discussion question that requires an answer. I continue to think there's this misconception that they are our questions. We are not the ones asking the question. We are asking the question on behalf of the people we represent. So if I ask a question about a topic, it's not because I personally need the answer. It's because that information is relevant to the decision that is getting made because those are questions that come to us via people, right? So I think those questions are meant to as multiple people have stated not
141be a surprise. They are not because an answer is required before the meeting. They are because that question should be answered in the context of the meeting so that the people we represent actually feel like their concerns were assuaged or addressed or minimally just at least mentioned before decisions are made that impact their lives. So, I think there's different I I would echo that and I think it's very reasonable to to acknowledge that multiple questions will not have an answer until the public meeting. But if we're aware of the questions, that would be nice. Yeah, we we're supposed to we are counseledled to avoid surprise in our meetings because it can um Well, you don't want to be the one who's surprised because then you look stupid. Yeah. Or could look stupid. I would look
142stupid. You probably wouldn't, but I would look stupid because I may not have the answer ready to hand. And um I mean it's okay to say I don't have that answer. I'll come back with it next time or in a month or whatever I think it's going to take me. But um it it's it's in my mind sort of disrespectful to spring questions on people with the intent to surprise them. By the way, it's also helpful not to surprise other board members. like if I'm gonna make a motion to pass uh something, I'm not going to make that motion if I if I haven't kind of talked to people and like know that that I've got some support for that. But if all of a sudden you make a motion and everyone else votes you
143down, it's like, whoa, that was a surprise. So, it's nice if you kind of know where everyone's sitting and have a way of coming to that. I would say if I could just the we've got some complications with these questions that are coming in. There is um I think it's very hard for us to answer constituent so many constituent questions in board meeting or to prepare those responses between a Thursday and a Tuesday and get those done. Um it often requires time of cabinet over the weekend to to pull together those answers. So the load itself I think is something that we need to take into consideration when we're building the norms and the load has been at times overwhelming. So much so that I have felt as a superintendent it's my role to protect
144staff from that load at times and they already carry a heavy one. So it's, you know, they're already doing such a great deal of work. Um, and trying to get a sense of what are the important questions that drive decision making for the board. Those questions that are the curiosity of the community feel to me a little different than the ones that are the curiosity of you as board members as you're trying to make decisions. I would just and I'm unable that I'm not I don't think any of us are making decisions on behalf of oursel. Community questions are what drive our work. So it to say there are too many curiosities coming from the community that aren't ours. My my curiosity is intertwined inextricably linked with the people who I represent. Because if we
145go back to the central vision of our purpose, right, which is serving kids, no one is asking questions that aren't about how we are in service of their kids who are in our community. So I I just need to interject to say it sounds like if the amount of questions coming from our community are too overwhelming, I would pose a counter question, which is what information have we given to the community to preempt some of their concerns or to address some of their past grievances? But then also in solving for that, it seems like rather than limiting the number of questions we can reasonably expect the public to have about the things we do that impact the public, I would say the question is do we actually then need agendas sooner or do we go
146back to that question of what is the bare minimum that Terry shared of the amount of times things would be discussed to provide time for that? Because if it is so ownorous between a Thursday and a Monday, I would say it sounds like the problem is what's being packed into that. I mean, the agenda doesn't appear. Poof. And there are questions about it that are too many. we should be able to reasonably predict like oh the community will be very upset about XYZ curriculum change or they will have a lot of feedback about our email inboxes are full as you all know about planning time and the addition of 30 minutes to the school calendar so rather than say well we're asking too many questions about that I think it's how much time do we
147actually need to discuss those issues and also sorry I had like a little weird tickle um how much time do we need to discuss those issues and also how much are we overloading the agenda with things that people really do have a vested interest in our discussion about. Let me clarify um the difference between we've given a great deal of information and answer to questions that have not been brought up in board meeting and I have never known which are constituent questions and which are board member questions. nor has it felt that the information provided has been used for decisionmaking. Instead, it's used and the reason I used curiosity is that people ask a great many questions which actually don't drive the decision- making in my view of what the board's doing in their decision-
148making. So that if we're spending I think it's the representation. I do have a different sense of this I guess which is that the board is representing not channeling all of the pieces. If you, as you said, and I think this was a good example that you note something that might be um that the community may dislike your AR, your understanding of those questions and presenting those to us are more valuable, I have sensed, because it then leads to the discussion that the board needs to have, not that the public needs to have so much as we're trying to move things along and have questions about those. So I think there is something example of what you mean by a question that wasn't used for decision-m I don't understand what that means we have provided
149so I worked hard at to give you answers to the questions before board meeting and in an attempt to actually serve your interests as board members um and there have been times where they're never referenced never talked about never brought to the rest of the board never discussed further. So they sit as answers often to a single board member. I have not followed the practice which I think we should talk about as a possible norm of replying to all. Um sometimes when doing that it's created other contentions too. So, um, I think we need to figure that out as a board. And I know previous superintendent have made that a norm that if I get these kinds of questions, I'm going to reply to the whole community of the board on those. So, you know,
150I ask staff to provide all this information and it it doesn't come up in discussion. and it doesn't come up with other board members and it feels like it just sits there and isn't really a value to determining what we're doing next from what I'm seeing. It may be it's a value to an individual board member as they're thinking things through, but the communication during the board meeting doesn't seem to reflect that. I still don't understand an is there an example of this that would help me? I don't remember one right now. The only thing I could think of is that the example that Allan shared, which is I would like to know why this purchase order says this and then he would provide an answer and that wouldn't come up in the board meeting,
151right? Because it was resolved. Check it off the list. And that comes back to like tiers of question types. Like some are uh compliance questions like did this SEC land trust plan have all the signatures on it? I want to check that before the meeting, but it won't come up in the meeting because I checked it before the meeting, right? So, without a specific example, I guess I'm really not sure what a question would be that wouldn't inform decision-m, but I will keep thinking about it. Well, and I can bring up an example, but I don't want it to become a a fingerpointing thing because I think that's more harmful. Um I think it would be helpful if we could um start developing um structure and norms. I like the suggestion of um like if
152a question's sent to you then the automatic is you reply all back to the whole board so that we're aware of the question and we're aware of the response so we're informed of that piece and that like fills at least in my mind that that that void that I've been feeling is um having more information in preparation for these upcoming conversations because we're seeing um the the concerns and the questions going on and we're getting we're all getting informed of that. So, we're relatively on the same page and prepped for generally very um well, not generally, but always very important topics so that we can be more cohesive and effective hopefully. So, personally, I would I would um advocate for that being one of the um normal um procedures. Um I can think of a
153specific uh thing in a meeting maybe not not that about your questions but about a surprise you know um it was when you had heard I don't even need to bring out up the subject but you were you heard from over 50 constituent constituents and and received emails But we I didn't know that. And so we're all trying to make a decision. But I had heard from none or maybe one and another board member heard from 53 constituents. And so to hear that right when we're trying to make a decision, it it it um I I would have liked to hear that ahead of time to ha to have a more informed to make a more informed vote. Does that make sense? I could speak to that example. I mean without also additionally referencing the
154example because I think we or all now I I kind of get it that this would go back to what I asked about which is the number of average times something's discussed because I in my perspective would not call up every person and say hey did you know that I heard this this and this uh I would raise it in the public meeting that would be abundantly appropriate to do right so it goes back to the amount of time between a proposal and the passage of something I feel has been very consolidated with the expectation there will not be questions or concerns. So my thing is not about um the processing of questions or the processing of dialogue but the amount of time between A B C and D and voting. I think that's the
155norm that's worth establishing for sure. Terry, can I ask you on this one because you had mentioned these between times and then that you have two weeks to ask questions. how you manage that as a board in not getting into the violating the public meetings and things like that, but having that discussion time in between that two that two weeks between board meetings. Well, it's not discussion because the the board members who have questions direct those to the superintendent, not to each other. And so they direct the questions to the superintendent and the superintendent said and our board has been instructed. When the superintendent sends you uh an email with that'sformational um you can respond with okay thanks so that he knows you got it. Um but there's not to be discussion back to that.
156Um because we don't want to we don't want to violate those those uh laws. But while we're while we're sharing uh information, but sometimes it's a text. Um he texts he he decides on the fly which type text or because we have a group text and we have uh and a group email. And so it depends on the type and amount of um information that he's trying to share with us. like if there's been some emergency, some kid got lost or on the bus and went over to Boxelder County or something, which has never happened, but um it would be really bad. We don't want to share our kids with them. Um anyway, something of that nature where it's really um uh emergency type, right? then urgent then he'll he'll just send a quick text
157and say this has happened I don't have all the information I will get some and get back with you but just so you know this has happened he also um just established two years ago what he calls e admins um an email an email title called e admins and then all principal all um school administrators and district uh district leadership have um access to that and if something happens like um a kid goes awall you don't call that at school what do you call that absconding no I'm trying to remember it's a really cool word they use eloping if a kid elopes from school then the principal gets on e admins really quick gives us a a heads up this happened at school this is how we solved the problem so that um in our
158communities when we're at the grocery store and someone says, "Hey, what happened with such and such?" Then we're not like, "Huh?" But um we can say, "Oh, that was taken care of by the principal." And um so that those types of things, you know, eloping kids, that's usually the thing we have. And I can't figure out why it's mostly in elementary, but anyway. So those types of things are really helpful. Uh and that part takes takes part of the load off the superintendent because um the district uh or the school level administrators have been trained to if when something like that happens, especially if you think that it's going to blow up in the community or the or a school board member is going to hear about it, send us this information. That reminds me
159that I know that there's another thing Alpine District does where where parents have questions. Can you explain how you have on your website your question box? Yeah, that's what I was going to actually say is we have a feedback button on our our our base uh website and we actually say that if you submit feedback, we will get back to you by the end of the next business day if you submit a question. If you submit a question. And so it it's not always the answer, but it's we're going to get back to you. And um so what we then try to train our public to do is go go to that feedback, but as a schoolboard member, I'm going to listen to somebody and at the end of it, I'm going to say, "Okay,
160I will try to resolve this for you, but if you want to hear back by the next business day, go to the feedback button. It's better than me as a schoolboard member." And so then you s you start training them to go to that. And it's actually uh been pretty effective. Um part of it is because I don't always know, right? It can take me a while to figure out and to send it to the superintendent and get that whole thing done. Whereas the feedback button, it goes directly to the person that's going to answer that question and then they try they respond within the next business day. I'm not sure why, but the next business day seems to make a huge difference. Um because uh Right. Yeah, one thing I was going to mention
161um regarding Ashley's um question about the amount of time that you take to discuss things. Um there are some school a few school boards in the state who set time limits and say this needs to be you know they and the president and vice president along with the superintendent and business administrator look at the agenda and say okay this one should be able to be resolved within 10 minutes of discussion. This should be 15, but um this one is going to be bigger. So, we're going to need about 30 to 45 minutes to discuss this. Um and and set that time limit and then board members know we're done. We're done there and then you're moving on. Um it just depends on how rigid you want to be with your norms. The hard part though
162is that it's also been the contention dysfunctional and for us is trying to be like these are our hard stops and then there's just frenzy at the end of the meetings. Um that uh really great discussion at the beginning and then when we're hitting that like hard stop it's like all right flush it through. Okay. Or table it or whatever. Yeah. Okay. So, I just wanted to go back because it seems to me like it would be at least helpful if we had established just a couple of norms. So, we felt like, oh, okay, you know, we identified something. And when we were talking about um the superintendent responding to a board member question, what I saw was a lot of agreement where the board members were saying, "Yes, superintendent, if you get a question
163from a board member, when you respond to it, respond all." Um, did I get a correct read on that? I don't think that it's wrong. I think it discounts what Allan has raised, which is if you would like to know many small very resolved non-discussion questions, then we could certainly take that approach. But I think there have actually been more complaints from our board about many, many reply alls in inboxes. I don't know if you want to Oh, okay. So are you saying that we should delineate between what is a question that should have the response because what I can see is I I can give you an example of something that I think that just came up today that um there's a difference between I think the superintendent has good judgment in knowing the
164difference between these things and here is a perfect example from today that Bryce heard a rumor on social media and this is a great chance for the public if they listen to the audio of this meeting to know the truth. Um, there was a rumor circulating that the clock tower at West was being torn down with no exceptions. It was definitely being torn down. And Bryce wrote a message and included me because I also represent West High to say, um, excuse me, could you please validate this rumor or, you know, fail to corroborate this rumor and let me know how we're reaching out to the community to clarify that the clock tower is not being torn down, that the preservation, as we know, is delicate and there's a whole process, but that's not happening. That
165could be the kind of response that I think is reasonable for Dr. Grant to send to all of us to say, "Hey everyone, you may have heard a question about West High, da da da da da. Um, here is my answer about West High." There there's a difference between, "Hey, it seems like all the numbers are inverted on these POS. Would you like Allan to reply all and explain to you every number of every PO or if someone else reached out to him say message, you know, resolved fixed?" Does that make sense? I think people have pretty good judgment and it's an it this is why I think you can correct me if I'm wrong anyone who's presenting to us operational norms are not written in policy for this exact reason that you don't want
166to be locked into well but you didn't reply all to us about every single question that we sent why didn't you do that it's not written down as a policy because it's meant to be a norm a guidance of she receives these questions okay there's questions about this start and end time it seems like everyone is asking about that, I will talk to everybody about it. If someone has a teeny, you know, correction to make, I don't think as a monolith we say reply all to everyone all the time. Okay. So, I guess what I heard there was the expectation is that the superintendent is using her judgment as to those things that are pertinent. But when it comes to like you're talking about PO numbers, I never talk to Liz about PO numbers. She
167doesn't know anything about PO. Well, and I'm not saying that in a demeaning way. You don't you don't do PO numbers. Okay, that's Allen. So, if I see a problem on a PO thing, I call Allen. And I guess my thought there is I'm not thinking that Allen's going to, you know, email the whole board or whatever. You know, I did you get the PO? Oh, no. I forgot that. I mean, I remember asking one time where the it was the on the budget report we twisted the sales tax number like it had switched around. So, I called you and I said and you went, "Oh, yeah, that thanks. Appreciate the heads up." I mean, I get what you're talking about there, Ashley. Although it would be nice that that's been addressed because then the
168others of us that are dissecting stuff. No, this issue has been addressed. I don't need to like dissect that with him again. So, oh, okay. Because I've sent emails to Allen about it. You've sent emails. I mean, whoever. So, it would be nice. Okay, that's address. It's going to be fixed done. I would recommend you send all emails to Allan. Well, what I was trying to get at was it seemed like there was a consensus when we were talking about reply all that it is nice that the board is included. And I guess to me one of the things that that addresses is then there isn't a situation where there's a feeling that one board member had more information than another board member. No, the question was raised, the answer was given, the answer went
169to everyone. So that there I mean to me it goes back to what we were talking about respectwise and okay I respect the questions that you're asking and that you have thought about the questions but then I also respect that the answer is coming back and that we're all on the same page. I'd like to put that together with what Ashley said about the discretion given to respond way. You just gave a nice um cut point on that, which was would the does the board would the board appreciate or want to have this would every member of the board want to have this information to be able to participate equally in the conversation? Whereas the issues of budget numbers and things like that aren't things they're going to be in the conversation because we'll update
170the agenda and send out a new updated version with usually a statement says we've updated these POS or something like that so you know where that change happened. Um and then we mark it on the agenda where the change happened on which item. So, I like the idea of saying discretion, but with the understanding that the information you're sharing, is it of value to the whole board as they're contemplating these things is perhaps a good way to use that discretion. Well, it goes to and it goes to what we were talking about. Does that help them make the decision, the necessary decision that we're going to be looking at? and those things that information of value, right, that you all feel like you ought to have that. Okay, so that was the first one. Then
171the second one that I heard was um how many times do we hear something before we take action on it? And I guess I just wanted to interject here and I know that others have heard me say this but one of the mantras that I use in my mind is is the house on fire and it goes back to what Terry was talking about. Okay, you know what the house is on fire if some student is eloped or whatever and we all we need to know oh you know a child's missing or something but it's the same sort of thing. Well, one happened today. You sent out the thing. I need you to know that there was an incident at Glendale. Okay. Yeah, we needed to know that. Um, but a lot of the other
172things, the house is not on fire. And, you know, we can take time to discuss that. Maybe we need to figure out what the norm is for when is the house on fire and when is the house not on fire. But I'm just tossing that out there that to me that is a way to be thinking about this because it leads me to one other thing that for me is a concern and that is um in the Salt Lake City School District we have two committees that are really the driving committees There is the finance committee that is operating under the direction of our business administrator Alan Kersley. Okay. And there's the policy committee that is being driven under the direction of Christina Kindle, the general counsel, so that we know that we are meeting
173all of the statutory and legal requirements um related to school board governance. and the superintendent, she participates in both of those committees. The way that I look at that, and maybe you board members look at that differently, but I take my assignment on the policy committee very seriously. Um, I I schedule my time. I want to be there. If there's something that really happened, I try to say, "I'm really sorry. I can't. But no, I try to beat and when I come, have I studied all of the material they gave me? Yeah, I have. And so when for me, when the policy committee makes recommendations, a lot of thought has gone into that. And I give that same consideration to the finance committee because I don't have time. I'm just telling you where I am.
174I don't have time to understand all of the nuances of what's going on with district finances. Of course, do I want a report on that and do I want to understand it? Yes. But if the finance committee makes a recommendation to me, I'm going to pretty much go with it. Unless, you know, I'm just looking at it going, "Oh my gosh, I don't understand this. Please help me understand this." Okay. To me, with some of those things, it's really valuable to be taking that sort of outlook because some of those are timesensitive. You need to have some of those policies in place in order for you to be able to operate the school district in upcoming district meetings because if the policy isn't out there, how do you operate? But it also goes to the
175same thing with the finance committee. some of those things. Okay, if they said that that money needs to go there and we don't have time for Brian Jensen to ruminate about that or whatever. Okay. So I would suggest it would be valuable to have a norm there as to okay how do we regard the recommendations that are coming from those committees and do we say okay there's one time that we will take that up for discussion and then after that okay we discussed it the finance committee They made their recommendation. We're now voting on it. Or do you understand what I'm saying there? I understand what you're saying and I totally agree. Oh. Oh. Nate. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Um, I wanted to just explain a little bit since I'm new to the policy
176committee, right? Very new. Um, I don't think I really felt the real importance in when we're when we were discussing the G5. Wait. Yeah. G5 policy. Um, that that is well, I mean, I know it's not set in stone. we can change it later. But um as a member of the policy committee, I felt like maybe we needed to spend a little bit more time on it. Okay. and that especially in light of hearing from parent and constituent concerns regarding this because school closures are something we are going to be facing ongoing in the future and we want to make sure that we've learned from the past and improved our process. So part of that is my my fault. Um I I don't think we can just blame members that are not on the committee
177and not trusting our committee. But anyway, just Yeah. No, I I hope it's not that I'm, you know, trying to put blame or anything. I'm just trying to establish a norm. Yeah. Okay. And like with the G5, I mean that was something that we had been looking at for oh a year before you had come because we knew that we had gone through that process of school closure and that we were and we had talked about it in board meetings that we were going to need to go back and look at that as policy. So that was something that we had. I mean, Bryce, I feel like we had been working on that for a number of months. And I apologize if we weren't giving you the the information that you needed as well. And
178I I'm sorry if if you felt like I need to make sure I ask for it and and let you know that I Yeah. Anyway, it was a learning experience. You know, I think um I love this discussion, but I'm not sure we're contributing much to it anymore. So, we might take off, but thank you so much for letting us visit with you. There's something you got to do before you go. And I don't I definitely want to get to everybody's questions and comments, but we only got, you know, 18 minutes with you or so. Okay. Um and we had talked about kind of establishing a baseline of a board self-evaluation and um you know maybe Richard I don't know if that's something that you could speak to but um it's something that you know
179Bryce and I tried to do um it's something that we are obligated to do based on when Ashley and I joined the board we were I was asking for board evaluations. Yes. And so um and it didn't go without trying. I'm going to defend you know Bryce and me on that one. Um but nonetheless um we are at a point where we still need to establish that. And Terry, I thought when we talked um previously about it, you said it perfectly, which is like no pressure. Let's just establish a baseline, right? Let's just figure out where we're at as a board and these are the things that we're going to improve upon ideally um between now and next year when we do this again um to look at that self-improvement. And we've kind of talked
180about that loosely here tonight too as as an option. But I I don't want to disrespect our time commitments that we we established as well. And Amanda and Ashley, do you really need to get out what you got to say? I would say that the norm we need to pick up on, which Brian seged to the agendas. I would empower the policy committee and the finance committee to place things on the agenda where they feel would be most appropriate through that process to meet their needs and out of respect for those procedures. But I think we'd be remiss to not acknowledge that agendas do not appear out of nowhere. So we get to decide where those things are on there. It's not it I would empower us to look at the agenda as a norm
181that in the future. That's all. And just an add-on to that, I really like the idea of if something's going to need to be decided on, if you're wanting a a minimum on how often we're discussing before deciding. Um that generally a study session would be lovely because then we could really have that more in-depth discussion on a subject that needs to have action versus trying to have a really quick discussion and then we're frazzled in the process of like for me feeling like I don't it we don't have enough information. we don't have a good enough opportunity to really discuss out the misunderstandings or the nuances. So that would be a a a norm that would be nice is um the study session then it goes to the discussion agenda um for items that
182are going to need to go to action um unless there's the fire is on h like the house is on fire type thing and we have in my experience so far use study sessions differently to introduce new topics to consider in the faroff future perhaps sounds like you use a more Terry to discuss things that are on the agendas ahead. So, we've been we have to set up a norm of what we want those study sessions to address and then maybe that sort of thing because we've been using them differently. Yeah. The way that you've been doing it as a new board member has been hard for me because I'm sitting here trying to get context to what's going on because the study sessions about all this stuff. We have all the stuff happening over
183here on our agenda that we have to decide on. And I feel like it it it's disconnected doing it the way that we're currently doing it. Yeah. And and we do it that way. Our our study sessions are are to study the issues that we're going to um take action on. You have presentations by staff in those. Yes. We do that during board meeting the presentations by staff which does take a great deal of time. Yeah. Yes, we do. But yeah, but you you tend to have most staff presentations during a study session rather than a board meeting. Yes. Because during a board meeting, so we uh any recognitions we have that you know of teachers of the year for different schools or things like that, we do we spread them out throughout the year,
184but we do our recognitions strategically. We place our all of our happy recognitions in our business meetings just before public input. Oh, now that's smart. I think we're close to actually close. So, so we don't have recognitions in our study session. Our study session is strictly for discussion of upcoming it close upcoming items the next meeting or two. Long distance things we reserve for a board retreat. Okay. And we do that once a year, but I know boards that do retreats twice a year. We do them twice a year. Yeah. But I would never ever recommend a a full day board retreat. Thank you, D. Just from experience. From experience. And from what I see in other boards, we were we did a presentation recently at a board that was having a board retreat and
185we were there at noon. They started at 8 and they were going to finish at 5 and by noon they were already glazed over. Oh. So, gotcha. By the way, just to answer your question, um Richard has a set of questions for a a board uh evaluation. It's best if they if he sends that to the leadership. You can decide which ones you want and then he sends it out so that it's kind of anonymous and then he'll send you back the results. So then PE board members feel a little more like they can be open. Is it from the coming to order manual? No. No. Different. Okay. But we have I mean we we are committed to to doing this evaluation this year. Well, the good thing about doing it through USBA is that
186um Richard if you want Richard can bring the results and explain um the results that came out in in the board review, board evaluation. That was some of the rub that Bryce and I encountered is that that has to be done publicly. You know, it does have to be done publicly. And that's a commitment that we're going to have to make to ourselves and to be super and brutally honest and be okay with those results. And how do you learn? It often works best to have a outside party present the results. And one thing we did last time was we came in and we said, "Okay, here's here's how your board answered these questions. This is pretty normal for boards to have this kind of result. This one you're a little low in. That's probably
187something you could work on. So that's the kind of thing that USBA can actually provide a service because often even if you just look at the results in isolation, you may not know is this good or bad. I don't know. You know, I think um I my aim would be to try to have this done before the summertime, you know, and if we could work pretty hard over the next few months, I I think it could be. You'll have to decide as a board, but my experience is that uh people answer within a week usually, but you got to give them a full week and it'll take Richard a while to get it all activated. So, give yourself a couple a month maybe or something to determine what question criteria of the bank that Richard
188has with USBA that we would actually select and pick and and decide to evaluate ourselves on to the ones that make sense. Yeah. Let me let me send that over to you and then you'll have that then you guys could go through and see if there was other questions you wanted to add or change. Um Mark went with me just last week actually to Davis School District. So we just did their evaluation and I can tell you Davis did not change one question. The only thing they did is they added a couple at the end that they thought would help. Um, so anyhow, but you know, and and that's probably more the case is that the boards have not changed many of the questions because they go through them, they go, "Well, yeah, that sounds
189great." And there's about, you know, 20 to 30 questions. So, um, I think you can go through it pretty quickly and and then you guys could decide if you wanted to add some and we certainly can do that. So, I'll I'll get that over. um through you and then you guys. No. Uh knowing that Dave has added some additional questions, do you mind sending those to board leadership as well? Just maybe as something we can look at. Yeah, absolutely. And they were real easy kind of questions they wanted to add. It was like, you know, what what does the board do well and and you know, what would you like to see the board accomplish this next year? I think that was the two questions I had. So, you know, very helpful kinds of questions.
190Yeah. And would our student board member be able to I'm I'm assuming she would be able to participate in that. I would be really interested in her. By the way, if you want to really live on the edge, you could actually send it to your administrators, too, and have them evaluate the board. That um and so Richard can actually break those out. Can you see what they thought about us and what we thought about ourselves? But I'm not sure that you're brave enough for that one. I'm down. Um, so is is that something that we could do in a study session? Like for you to come back, Richard, and give us the the feedback, you know. Um, we could do that however you would like. Um, actually in Davis, I was that an open meeting?
191I mean, they did it up in Clarefield and I I think that was an open meeting there. I think it was part of kind of a retreat though. Yeah. Oh, but it was an open meeting and Okay. And well, yeah, but I mean a study session is an open meeting as well, but um study sessions. We always do it for our study Oh, we do it in close session. You do? Some of them. The the superintendent, the BA, the superintendent, BAS, we do, but the board ones we've done in study session. Okay. All right. just trying to figure out where to study session, board retreat, that sort of thing. And you're you could certainly send it to your student board member. Yeah, I'll say. Yep. I would absolutely include her in that. Might be interesting
192to see that, wouldn't it? But it is anonymous. She may not want to be anonymous, right? So, she can really turn loose on it. As long as it's anonymous. There we go. There we go. I think we've covered a lot of ground. Um I know Brian and I, it was it was interesting as you were reading off your notes. Those were the same two that I had and then I've added a couple more just throughout the conversation. And I think Brian, it'd be good for you and I to kind of type these up and send these back out as a recap for everybody. Um and then really work together collectively with the team to figure out how we establish these dorms, right? and and vote on them um and where they fit. Um and again,
193since this is a long process, um you know, it's probably going to take us some time to establish more and more and dive into that element of just working well together as a team. As Brian mentioned, that's certainly my aim and where I've always wanted to get us. So, um and then we'll be working on some board evaluation stuff, too. By the way, we did put our norms into our board handbook. So, it's not like they're binding, but at least they we they were has some perpetual. I think that's valuable. Yeah. While you're at it, can we all be on the same page that Dr. Grant can automatically go to the with discretion reply all to questions so we can get that moving sooner than later. And Allen as well. Alan with discretion. with discretion
194discretionary spending. Let's do it season. Thank you. That would help. Let's revisit important topics coming. Okay. So, we clarified those two. Amanda, what was the second one? That Allan can do the same. So, you guys are go immediately while we're working on the other pieces. Deal. Thank you. Anything else folks want to close on? You guys are great people. Thanks for your service to Salt Lake District. Lest anyone think that that we think our boards are perfect, uh we do not. We have a lot of problems. In fact, I'm now going to confess that we have enough problems with getting along with each other that we're actually going to have there's actually a board therapist that is supposed that I I do not know how they're going to go, but we have them scheduled. they're
195g supposed to say, "Okay, here's how you work out problems with each other." Um, I'm just saying that that we are also dealing with issues, so it's not easy. We're not ignorant to the fact that every board has problems. It's good. I thought outside input though on trying to work through things. That's awesome. Thank you all. Thanks. Thank you, USBA, for Thank you for that time commitment you gave us. Yeah. Well, thanks to all of you and thank you for dinner. That was Richard. Thank you. Better. Yeah. Good.