001The goal here is to connect, to share information, um, and to get to know one another. And, um, we also want to just clarify best practices in your role. So, you saw when you signed up and registered that each, um, session has a different focus. This one's kind of, um, working collaboratively as a team and understanding your role. And next week, uh, we'll talk about this more next month, but you'll start with OPMA and kind of meetings. And then you go through each of the key six roles and responsibilities that are outlined in board boot camp. and we'll spend some considerable time kind of going through what that role means, what does it look like in practice, you know, um how does it look for different districts, things like that, and we'll often have a
002guest speaker um to come and kind of share from their experience as a board member, what this has looked like and what best practices are. So, the goal is to share information, connect with one another, and not feel alone and feel like you have a place to go to pose questions um and learn insight. And, uh the last thing is to have fun. Actually, you see in these pictures, board members, there's a lot of responsibility. There's important work, governance, all the things. But the best boards have a good time together. I was recently in a board workshop where one of the board members does medieval style joust like fencing. And so we brought in foam um swords and they like learned the moves from medieval Germany. I don't know. But they were laughing hysterically and
003like having a good time together. And so ultimately fun, you know, as I know as a teacher, when you have fun in the classroom, you set a dynamic and you feel like you can grow, you can ask questions, you can be vulnerable. Those sorts of things are the the foundation for learning and growth. So um that's a thing we hope that we foster within boards and support them to develop and something that we try and create statewide at our conference and that we hope really uh can be created with this network of new board um uh school directors. So that's our goal and we just um encourage fun and thanks for being here. So um let's get a little bit to the to the business. Okay, we want to talk a bit about roles and
004responsibilities. So um if you're in board boot camp, you've seen this slide. I'm going to go through it quickly. This is kind of a metaphor to help understand which is a which is a a little bit of an art form and looks differently depending upon your school district, right? Because you are self-governing your governance team. So the way that a school board um works together to figure out these roles is is determined at the local level. So we honor that while still providing a a metaphor to understand what the different roles are and how they really intersect. So a key thing to know is that at that tactical level, the superintendent is the person who is creating um who is in charge of the district, right? they they are determining who and how is happening
005at the district level. But as you can see, right, that's a wheel that needs to go. But you have a governing support um system that's determining the what this is sort of what the goals are, right? Where are we at and what's our what's our mission, right? What does the community want for this school district? So that's what the board is determining at that strategic level. So that helps move the work of the tactical that work of the superintendent to kind of make it all go and it's the superintendent's actions that are creating all the operations that excellent teaching right the um the wonderful CTE pathway program administration um the the assessment all those things that um are are facing students right the people who really get to support students that wheel is being driven
006by the tactical level and it's the board that starts. Does this make sense? We don't ever have the wheels of the superintendent or of the board interact here with the operations, right? The superintendent is the in between there, right? That's fostering it. And you can see that if you aren't working smoothly, then the work of the other two are also um stifled, right? Or prevented. Worse yet, if you're going a different direction than the other, then work is really stifled. So, the idea here is is that we're all working in tandem through really good communication, through excellent superintendent evaluation process, right? Through a really strong strategic plan, each of these key roles that will be the focus of our future months together. Okay. Um, but we got to move it together. So the strategic level
007determines the what that um superintendent determines the who is going to be doing it and how they're going to do it. And then we got operational level really executing the how because they're the ones delivering um the teaching and the learning and connection with students. I hope that helps as a metaphor to kind of figure out what the role is. But some people need a list and listen we're here for that too. So there's some just there's some dues. you have some responsibilities and if no one else does them, they won't get done. So, it's really important to take what is in your lane really seriously and to do it um to figure out what information you need in order to to do it. Um so, we evaluate and oversee the superintendent. Um I just
008was emailing with a new board member um yesterday who was saying, "I don't really know how to do this." And I want to I want to share that um we have a new model that's called a goal- centered model. But the first 15 pages is all just good practices for how to evaluate the superintendent. So even if your district is not using that model, it's just it's good instruction so I can send it your way or meet with you to help figure out how to do this evaluation process, which is hard. Um uh approving curriculum, right? Um, this is often done with a committee of experts and you do the approval process. Okay, so that verb approval is key here. Um, create policies that will be enacted through procedures. Okay, you're not creating procedures, you're
009um, creating the policies and talking about the policies and deliberating and sometimes revising um, representing the entire community including students. Right? So, your goal is to learn as much as you can about what the community thinks and wants and feels and to do your best to represent that at the at the board meeting level and on your governance team. And then you approve district policy and budget. So, you do that important approval process in both of those key areas. Um, you don't evaluate or terminate staff. That is decidedly outside of the role of this of the school board. Okay, that's the superintendent. um you don't oversee how things are taught. You are approving curriculum, but you are not in the weeds, we call it, with kind of what's going on in the classroom um or
010on the field as it were. Um you create um you don't create procedures, right? You are at the policy level and it is at the operations level, superintendent and principles really that are creating those procedures of how the policies enacted. Um this is really important to learn. there's a skill to develop and I was just talking to a student board rep about this. Um the student rep understood that he was one student right and then he was bringing his idea but that he had to gain the skill and asked for support on this on how to learn the ideas of other people right of other students in his district even beyond his school. So I said that's the same skill that a lot of our board members are working on. How is it that we
011that we learn from constituents that aren't in our normal daily life? Right? And so there's the whole set of learning there, but you don't represent just one constituency. You represent the whole community. Um, and you don't set school rules, right? Those kind of procedure rule, that's all at the principal superintendent level. So those are two different ways of making sense of a role that's pretty complicated to understand and has some nuance with every district um that you're in. I'll stop there to see if there's any questions before we move on to the next part. Trisha. >> Yeah, there's a question in the chat from Andrew. What's the difference between a school rule and a policy? For instance, if you want to prohibit cell phones at school, is that a policy or rule? >> Love that.
012So, the there could be, and Trisha, you should weigh in here, right? Um the district can have a policy that that determines whether and if school um cell phones are allowed, but the actual procedure of what happens and how that actually gets enacted is done at the local level. Trisha, go for it. >> Yeah, I think you described it accurately. You know, every school is going to have different rules. A high school um it obviously needs to have different um rules for their for their school than an elementary school. So, I think just using the example that Heather just shared, when it comes to cell phone use, the elementary school polic uh rule might be different than the high school rule, but overall the board can adopt um policies that relate to um overall cell
013phone use. And those are going to be broader generally. Again, the the policy is the here's what it is. Uh and then the procedure describes how it's done. And I see that our president Melissa Beard wants to weigh in on this as well, which would be great. >> In in Tom, so I forgot to say I'm in Tom. In Tom Water, we don't have a policy on cell phones, but our schools have rules on cell phones. So that's another way to think about the differences. >> Yeah, thank you Melissa. And so if a policy happens, then the school has to have a rule, right? But if there isn't a policy in place, the school can still, right, kind of determine that within, you know, support of the superintendent. Mhm. Great question. Any others brought to
014me that you saw come through before we move on? >> Um, that was a question and Andrew um confirmed that that makes sense. So, thanks for sharing. Thumbs up. >> It does. But if you don't know, right, then like it can be confusing about what is actually being asked. >> Um, so far so good. We're we're going to continue to try to make sense for the rest of the the half an hour today. So, we're going to go into some discussion about collaborative governance teams and Melissa and I are going to tag team this a little bit. Uh let's go ahead and get started with the next one. We want to hear from you. So what are some characteristics of a team? Go ahead and pop those into the chat. Also, if you want to
015unmute and speak, you can do that. If you want to raise your hand, we can call on you. Um just in general, as you think about teams and how they work together, uh what are some characteristics of those? Um collaboration for sure. So, you know, a team can be anyone. It can be a a group of co-workers. It can be a a board superintendent team. Um it could literally be a sports team working together. There are some good answers here. Willingness to listen um to perspectives and insights from others even if they differ from your own. Really, really good point. Yes. And that will happen to you. If it has not yet, it will. You will you will disagree with other people on your board and on your board superintendent team. And um and good
016teams uh uh take the time to listen to each other and think. Sometimes our minds are changed by other people and sometimes our perspective changes other people's minds or at least adds to a deeper understanding. Listening is really important. Um ensuring that everyone is heard and valued. Respect and listening. There's that listening again. Love that teams are willing to work together. Sometimes sacrificing personal preference for the good of the whole. That is beautifully put. Um that was a learning that I had as a as a schoolboard member. Sometimes your sometimes your perspective isn't the one that folks go with. Um and so you need to be uh find ways to be supportive of that. Um let's see where teams are willing to work together. We got that one. Shared vision with varied varied experiences, shared
017goals and values. Sometimes you develop those shared goals and values together as a team. work together to come up with um one way to do things. Looking at multiple perspectives, we've got a lot of that respecting multiple perspectives that I really appreciate. U Melissa, is there anything that jumped out at you from any of those? Um those are characterist I I would I was just drawn to the WADA board had our retreat um last week and these are characteristics of a team, but it takes work to get there. So, and we worked and our your W was board worked hard to start creating our team and that the other thing I I've been on to school board since 2016. It has turned over so many times. I've welcomed on so many new board members since
018then and every time you get a new board member, you are the new ones, but there'll be new ones after you. You have to have a new team building time. You know, that new one doesn't just sit there and have to figure it out. Like you have to create in order to have a team, you have to be intentional about it. >> And sometimes those conversations are uncomfortable. And it's a special it's hard enough to have an uncomfortable conversation, but then you add in having that uncomfortable conversation in public, that makes it even harder. What I will tell you is that over my almost 20 years of being a schoolboard member, I got a lot more comfortable with having those conversations in public because what you can do is you can serve as a model
019for your community and for your students on how to have respectful conversations even when you um disagree with each other. I think Michael put in a great uh point here. It's important for the team members to recognize that not all of them will have the same idea. Definitely not. They won't always. There may be some differences and not everything's going to be a 50- vote. You can support each other as a team, but not necessarily always agree with each other. That makes so much sense, Michael. I appreciate you putting that in there. and the way that you conduct yourself in those times, especially if you're if you're not getting your way, so to speak, um speaks volumes about um the kind of leader that you are. So, let's jump into the next slide and talk
020a little bit about what are some of the characteristics of a team. Um uh teams that um are, you know, working together really collaboratively, they um have some established norms and operating agreements. Some of you may already be aware of operating agreements or norms um that your board already has. Oftentimes those are enshrined into the 1000 series of policies. So if you're not familiar with that yet, uh feel free to ask your board chair or your superintendent or take a look in your own policies to see if you have those. Those are really helpful for establishing this is how we agree to work with each other. Um often they have some of the same characteristics that you all put into the chat just now. um working um uh sharing and working towards common goals. Again,
021that's really important for you to um understand what the goals of your district are and work toward those together. While at the same time, again, you identified this recognizing there's value in varied viewpoints. Um there's a reason why there's not just one person on the school board, there are five. And that's because you bring different perspectives to the work. and you often will have the opportunity to interact respectfully even in disagreement. Uh certainly that's um that's a skill that I honed over my years of figuring out wow it's really it's really hard sometimes when you have strong opinions about or or beliefs about what students um should be learning or where the focus should be. And that's when you can really lean into that work of of um working together with other people in a
022a respectful way um and and collaboratively. If you are working together, you can achieve things. When you're not, you can't. And we can talk a little bit more about that here in a bit. Melissa, do you have anything to add to this list before we get into the um a comparison of what it looks like when you're not a team but just a group of individuals? Uh I from experience have um when you don't have the when you don't have these things that's when things go wrong. So you if you are part of a well functioning team he's like we don't need to do any of this stuff. You don't need it while you're functioning well. You need it for when things don't you know may not get so well you have uh you you
023have a foundation to go back to. So, if your board doesn't have these, um, I would really encourage the conversation about just enshrining what it is that you currently do. If everything's working great, then just enshrining that so new people that come on after you understand how you work. >> That's yeah, great, great point. And and also when your board superintendent team is is struggling with something, sometimes it's helpful to have that um enshrined so that you can go back and say, "Okay, just a reminder, we you know, we've all agreed to these and we're going to work together to solve this problem." Um Carson has a great question, which is what do the different policy series correspond to? So there it's the 1000 series, 2000, 3000. Those apply to the different categories. So the
0241000 series applies to the work of the board. Um you have the other series apply to the work of staff um to community interaction uh to >> students students >> 3000 series are students I believe >> students. So um and you know what uh when I when we uh get done with this I'll I'll drop a link in there that uh goes back and shows you what our policy series is for the model policies. And I'll just share that policy adoption is actually the focus of June's um network meeting and we already have our um in-house policy and legal team joining us for that so that you'll have a chance to learn directly from them all about policy that u that month knowing that you may need to deal with it earlier than that. But
025>> perfect and mo um I'm sure all of your policies are um online. If you have not browsed through your school district's policies I highly recommend it. It might not be the most stimulating reading, but it's really important for you to know what those policies are. Um, take them in chunks, maybe for a little before bed reading if you um if you need uh to do that instead of counting sheep. So, as as we think about the characteristics of a team, that's a group that again has all of these qualities that are on the left hand side of this of the slide um that have have agreed with each other that they're going to work in certain ways. that's different than just a group of individuals. So, you know, if you think about a group
026of individuals, that could be a workplace um or it could be um it could it could in in uh some cases it might be a group of parents. Um it could even be uh people who show up at your board meeting. That is a group that is a group of individuals who've shown up who um may or may not be working towards similar goals. Um there's generally no agreement where they've said we're this is how we're going to work together. Um this is how these are the expectations we have of each other that we're going to agree on. Um they're often working towards their own individually identified goals. um they operate from a personal individual viewpoint, not necessarily from a collective viewpoint that Heather described where really you're here to work for the betterment of
027the community um of the students well-being um representing staff's perspective as well. So all of those all of those constituents are part of the work that um you're expected to do as a schoolboard um team. there's no shared agreement for how to navigate uh uh disagreement or respect. Uh you can see that if you uh look at some board meetings, you'll find that maybe the board superintendent team is operating in a way that um shows respect, but perhaps the people who are attending are not. And those folks are really there to work individually. Um so they have their goals. Um you someone else's goals might not be theirs and then they're not interested in in working in those. So I think it's it is important from your perspective to think about we need to act
028as a team. Um and we need to recognize that people coming to us aren't necessarily. Some of them are but some aren't. Um and then you need to think about how do you incorporate that. Melissa do you want to add anything to that piece? Okay. Go to the next slide then please. So here's here's one of the challenges. So, as you come on to a new school board, you all are new school board members. You probably have some reasons why you wanted to be a school board member. No, most people don't do it just for fun, and they certainly don't do it for the high pay, right? Or or all the kudos. It's hard work. It's really, really important work, but as your elected um community representative, you want to ensure that um things get
029done within your district. you may have come with some campaign promises that you made. Those campaign promises may or may not be part of the district's identified goals and strategic plan. And so that's really the position that you may find yourself in. Um I know certainly I came at my work early on with u a really clear idea of exactly what needed to happen in the school district and then I learned more about the school district. And that's what happens is um as you gain more knowledge uh and more understanding of of what's happening because you'll you'll start to get the insider's point of view as opposed to an outsers's point of view. And when everybody's pulling in a different direction um or you know you've got the you've got the rowboat folks there, they
030are not going to go anywhere cuz one's going left and one's going right. They're working against each other and that's not at all helpful. And then I'm really worried about that poor guy who's about to get run over by the giant boulder. Um, but you because you don't want to bowl anybody over, right? You want to make sure that you have ways that you're working together. Let's go to the next slide for for a little bit more inspiring visual. Uh, you can see that if you're working together, um, you're going to go further. Now, I will say not everybody here has the same role. If you just look at that boulder again, one one person's pushing it and the other one's pulling it. Uh I don't know very much about rowing. Um although I did
031read boys in the boat. So I know that rowers have different uh different jobs. The the one who's in the front and I'm sure there's a name for that um has a different role than the one in the back. You know, one of them is providing some steering. Um some of them are really providing just just that um thrust forward. So, you can have different roles on the board um and even different things that are most important to you, but um making sure that you're moving it together in the same direction is the only way that you'll see your district make progress. Melissa, do you want to share anything in this area? I I I think a good way to think about what Trisha was talking about with the different perspectives is I'm like we
032all want our students to succeed and we might have we might have different perspectives of what will help them to succeed. Um and uh like I'm big on student voice. my staff know that if they're going to come out with a new initiative, especially like the high school and beyond plan or, you know, those types of things, I'm going to want to hear from them how students, you know, were a part of that, you know, part of that planning. Like they just know, they just know that from me that that's really important. I had another schoolboard member previously who was really into data. Again, all of this about how students can succeed. she was really focused on understand that knowing that staff were looking at the data and using that data to make decisions. So,
033you know, it's not that we were working against each other. We just communicated to staff that we were going to be interested in these things and, you know, to give them an opportunity to shine and, you know, share. Um, but making that really clear to staff rather than having it be a gotcha is what helps students succeed. So, you know, everyone in that that's what I was thinking about when Trisha was talking about everyone having their role. Uh I'm, you know, I'm a oh gosh, we can all do this together, you know, type of thing. And and Darby was like, "What's the data? What is the data showing us?" Um, both really, really important roles on the board. >> Yeah, I appreciate that a lot, Melissa. And you know, one of these graphics that you're
034seeing, the one on the bottom left is is the puzzle pieces. Those puzzle pieces are different. And that really represents the superintendent's work, the school board's work, the students work, the community and parents work. You all all bring different puzzle pieces to complete the puzzle. um you have different roles and um I think understanding those I think back on my time as a school board member um understanding that the roles are different but complimentary and it takes everyone um to pull in that same direction or to complete that puzzle um that's something that uh it took me some time to learn and I think if you can start seeing some of that happen within your own team that can be really helpful. Let's go to the next one because I think we're going to now
035give you some challenges for this month. So, um, as you start your work with your board superintendent team, take some time to notice where do you see your board members and superintendent working as a team or are you seeing some of them um, work as individuals? I would uh, put the mirror up and think about that to yourself too. Where am I engaging as a team with others or where am I really advancing um my own individual perspectives? I am not telling you to not have um strong opinions or desires but but just to think about how do you incorporate those into the work of the team. Um and then think a little bit about um when that's not happening versus when it is. Um how are the outcomes different um when the team is
036you know rowing in the same direction or working together uh to uh to uh calibrate differences or um uh different ways that they'd like to do things. How does that work um in terms of the outcomes? And then I would also challenge you to um make a commitment to yourself about how you could contribute as a collaborative board member. There are a couple questions in the chat. Yeah, >> I wanted to just take a look at Do you want me to answer the one about the online >> documents >> if you want to? Yeah. And then um I can get started on the OPMA and you can finish if you want. >> Perfect. Yes. So um WASDA itself does not um does not assist with your own district online documents. All of our model policies
037are online and you have access to that. Um, we do use board docs um to organize all of our model policies and a lot of your districts are board docs too. So if you have a specific question um feel free to reach out to us by email and we can yeah put you in the right direction. >> Yeah, Kelsey Winters is going to be a great um resource for that. She supports boards often. And then I would say this question about how to actually collaborate um given open public meetings. That's the focus of next month's. We're gonna have Patty Wood, a really seasoned um board member, kind of talk through OPM OPMA and and best meeting uh board meeting practices. But um in general, you want to be mindful that whenever there's three of you,
038it's considered a board uh it's considered a meeting, right? Where you could make quorum based decisions. So you have to be really mindful to not gather as a group of three. and that includes over email, that includes Facebook posts, that includes any any potential collaboration of three um three or more of you. So, it is complicated. So, I'm so glad you brought up the question. Um what I would say is that this is a really good thing to bring to your board because every board handles this differently. What the process is, okay, given OPMA, how is it that we are going to communicate so that we all have the same information, right? um and so that we um don't put ourselves in trouble of having decision-making conversations that are not publicly referenced where you can
039also have public meeting. Um so Trisha, you just unmuted. Go for it and share what some examples are maybe of how >> well I was actually going to add to the list of ways you shouldn't be talking in threes and that's texting. Um, all of all of those your own personal cell phone can be confiscated um if there's uh if if there's a determination that there is potentially some kind of public records request um because you've been communicating via text with two other board members. So, it does really get tricky. Uh most of your communication needs to take place during meetings or or just in pairs. >> And this is a good question. Um, uh, does does, um, bccing emails help with this? >> No. >> Go ahead, Melissa or Trisha? >> No, >> don't
040do that. It's still unlawful. >> It It is. And And it's also It's also sneaky is what I would say. Um, I I think it's really important to be above board all the time. Uh, and and BCCing people. Um, you're Yeah. Don't do it. It's it's bad practice. Melissa, do you want to add to that? >> Um, what so I will say our superintendent BCC's us so we can't reply all and start a conversation. So it is a technique to save us from ourselves that the superintendent uses. So I if if that's what you meant then that and then I I understand that. Um the the other thing, you know, I I read Andrew's, you know, want and then I heard Trisha's like making sure everyone has the same information. Um again, it's talking with
041your superintendent and your team um about how things happen, but when one board member asks the superintendent a question um and it may be on a topic that's coming up at a meeting, then the superintendent sends the answer to all of the board members. Um, and so to make sure that everyone has the same information and it's not something that that board member now has to share with everyone to make sure they have it. It's the superintendent's job to make sure the board members have all the same information based on one board member's question. That's one way to do it. >> And if I could add to that quickly, um, some of your superintendents may not blind copy you all. They may just send an email to all of you and you can see that
042they've sent it. Um, as Melissa suggested, you do not want to do a reply all back to that. If you want to have a response, you could respond to the superintendent and your board president, for example, but don't copy others. It's you just want to be careful not to get into that loop. And then there was another question just to me which I think is um valuable to share with everyone which is if you have an idea like you would like to have a retreat or you would like to have something you share that with the superintendent and then the superintendent does the work right with their EA and with others to kind of figure out schedules and see if you can then have a retreat. Right? So the superintendent as ends up being the
043kind of hub of communication sometimes in order to get questions like that um to come to reality or to kind of have an opportunity for you all to talk at a retreat or a workshop which again still has to be posted um but that you don't need to have the same expectation of public comment. So it's really a nice chance for the board to collaborate and talk together and learn something new but not decision make. Um and Michael I see your hand up before we keep going. Yeah. So, um I was going to ask about the BCC emails and then you started answering it, but then now I have a question again. Um so, are are you saying that cuz our superintendent blind copies us, which is fine, but I also get blind copied emails
044from board members. And are you saying we should never as a board member send a BCC email to the rest of the members? Yes. Okay. That's Yeah, because you are now having a you are all of you are having a conversation outside of a board meeting. >> Okay. And that Yeah. Okay. So, I will So, how would you suggest that I approach that? Because I can't send out my own BCC. Do I just let the superintendent know or >> I I would talk to your board president. Um your board, you know, letting your board president know. Same with if you have, you know, an idea that you'd like the, you know, your board president is really the one who um navigates the planning of of board agendas with the superintendent. There are lots of different
045ways districts do that, but if you're concerned about um blind copying, talk with your board president. Um it's just really important again that integrity of ensuring that everyone knows who is communicating with whom. Um, and if you if you there were to be some kind of an investigation, um, those blind those BCC's would be considered, um, a violation of the Open Public Meetings Act. >> Right. And I'll just add here also that, um, our district um, offers a cell phone and a laptop to board members if they wish to take it. and I wasn't going to, but the more I thought about it for the very thing that you mentioned, your cell phone being confiscated and stuff, I went ahead and took one. I mean, they pay almost nothing per month for the for the
046phone. And I I have a separate email cuz I'm still subbing also in the district. So, I have a separate email for board stuff. I have a separate phone for board stuff. And they're supposed to be getting me a laptop here in the next day or two. Um, and I will do nothing on my own on my own computer. >> Good decision. It it's smart and and and I I'm not I'm not sure what board you're on, but you know, I I can see >> uh Moses like I could see a situation in which the board president sends an email out that says, "Hey, there's a meeting time change, you know, and just wants to save time." Like I I can see that the problem comes into the reply and the conversation. That's where the
047problem comes in. Or if the original email is, "Hey guys, you all have to vote yes tonight." you know, like like that kind of thing. So, some of it could be benign, but it's the it's it's the conversation that is the violation. >> Okay. So, the time the time changes and different things like that should come from the district then, I would imagine, from from our communications director or somebody. >> Yeah, I I could I could see that. >> Yeah, I know they're always careful about they begin all those BCC emails with do not reply to this email, >> right? it is still it just never seemed right to me. So >> great. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Thank you. Yeah, these questions are really great. It's like the initial what do I do about this
048email that's coming in? It's really really helpful. Thanks so much Trisha and Melissa. Um uh Rossy, do you want to move us along then? >> Yes. Um, we're nearing the end. We're the last five minutes here and I want to dedicate some time to maybe snap a a group photo. And so, if you're comfortable um just having your camera on for like a few seconds, I'm going to take a screenshot because we want to share this in the newsletter and our comm's person will probably really appreciate a picture of all of us together. So, if you're comfortable um just putting your camera on if you're not, that's totally okay. And then I pray would take two to three to get a really good one cuz you know sometimes one person's looking their way with their
049eyes shut. So hopefully we'll get one good one out of the three. So I'm going to do a countdown here in just a minute. Fix your hair. I see Melissa getting ready. >> Where's my >> uncomfortable? But of course I can't get my no worries. >> No worries. Not at all. And I'm going to pause the recording because we don't want to give bloopers >> at everything that's taking place um in the legislature regarding education. Is there a newsletter that would go out to legislative reps once a month or something to say, "Hey, here are the things going on." I'm I'm I'm a little bit of a loss of where to get started. >> Yeah. Um love that question. So, I'm just going to put a link here that's something uh to some something called
050um in session. Our advocacy um director Logan is um on it. He's at the uh capital every day. Um and every week on Friday, he's going to drop the in session update. So, he's going to let you know what happened that week, what to look forward to. Um uh Trisha, you should weigh in here. Uh share anything else you want to >> Yes. So I also dropped a link and that link will take you directly to the ledge rep ledge legislative representative advocacy is the page basically it's the ledge rep network there's a whole network um they meet regularly um through meetings like this virtual and and he has a whole program around that um I think during this time of year they're they're meeting weekly as well >> okay um there were I can't
051even remember what it was but I noticed that there was something that they were considering that was coming up. It's about um teaching. Oh my goodness, I can't remember the topic. It might have been about financial literacy. Anyway, it's being sponsored by somebody on the west side. Um and as I went through and and looked at the sponsors of various bills, you can't even email anybody. It's I mean, at least I can't figure out how to do it. You can't make a connection with somebody and reach out to them and say, "Hey, can you tell me a little bit about this or I'd like to visit with you about this?" >> Yeah. >> How do you how do you do that? >> That's a really great question for Oh, go ahead. >> The key there.
052The Ledge emails are usually first name.wah.gov. I I'll I'll type it into the thing, but you can kind of make it up. I get it. like if you don't know their email address, you have to like show that you're put an address in and uh show that you're a repres, you know, you're you're a constituent or whatever. But you can >> Well, there was even there was some kind of a link or something that you were supposed to be able to click on in some of these, but it took me nowhere. It was like nobody wants to nobody wants to be contacted. I mean, I I'm sure they do, but I I'm sure they probably get thousands and thousands, you know, a month or whatever, but I it would be nice to be able to
053talk to somebody about some of the stuff. So, >> and and and lo and Logan will have that information, too. Like, >> yeah, I'm gonna put Cynthia's email in here. Go ahead, >> I had a question. You'd mentioned earlier that you were going to put a link to a guide or something and I I didn't see it or I missed it. Do you remember what that was for? >> A guide. Same word. >> I'm not sure. We were talking about um Gosh, was it for policy or procedures or um policy? >> It was the cataloging system for policies. The 1000 that was >> 2000 series. >> Thanks. >> Okay, >> Trisha's on it. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks for the followup, Kelly. Um, yes, Melinda. >> Thanks. Um, going back to kind of clarifying
054what we do and we don't do. So, um, one of the things was how, you know, we don't oversee teachers or coaches and how they teach or or coach and I totally understand that. But on the flip side, we do represent our community members, our parents, our students. So when there is a problem with a particular staff member or something of that nature, what is our part? How do we um support the feelings of our community, our families and students um without overstepping uh our expectations, I guess, of controlling who and what and where. >> Such a great >> That makes sense. >> Yeah. No, it makes perfect sense. It's really hard to figure out. I I'll let Melissa or Trisha weigh in after I say that often it's um your role is to communicate
055that the concern has happened and that's really an important role right you let the superintendent right the tactical wheel you let them know that there's been this feedback right and then you also follow up right in a few weeks you say how did that go did what did you do what action did you take so that's that kind of oversight role where you're communicating and then you're checking in but you're not directly going into that wheel, right? Um, uh, Melissa or Trisha, anyone else want to weigh in? I >> think that's good advice. When someone stops me and Fred Meyer, um, I ask, you know, it's typically a problem between a teacher and a student and I'll ask I was one of those parents who who tried to teach their kiddo to advocate for themselves.
056So, when my kiddo came to me, she came to me as her schoolboard member sometimes, too, cuz she's cheeky that way. Uh, I asked her like, "Did you talk to the teacher? Have you talked to the teacher about that?" And it's the same with the parent. "Have you talked with the teacher?" Well, I don't feel comfortable because I I don't want anything to be taken out on on my kiddo. Okay, that makes sense. Have you talked to your principal? We in Tumb Water, we have a you know, like what the process is. Some people will come straight to the school board and I tell you what happens in Tumbwater is the superintendent then goes did you talk to the teacher? Did you talk to the principal? So there is this escalation um you know because
057most of the time what I have found by talking with the teacher it can it can get fixed if it's a it's a bigger thing your superintendent is going to have to go through and and in fact I think what Trisha would say because I've heard her say it so many times you getting in the middle of it could mess up the process of anything related to a collective bargaining agreement. You know, like staff could be have could have done something wrong, but by us getting into the middle of it, we may have messed up that whole process, in which case we can't take any action. >> I'm in Melissa's camp of helping people um advocate for themselves. Don't carry other people's water. Um they need to carry their own. Um, the other practice I
058always had is sometimes I would have um a a a staff member or a parent um contact me and say, "I want to keep this confidential. Don't tell anyone, but here's the thing I want to complain about." Um, and I just told them upfront, I believe everyone needs to um, advocate for themselves and um, I can't bring um, I I can't bring anonymous information forward because that undermines the whole process. No one knows where that's coming from. I would really really encourage you to go to the appropriate person and share with them your concerns. >> And I see >> so I I Yeah. So, I have a question kind of along these same lines. What who who oversees the board? Who monitors to make sure the board is doing what they're supposed to do? And
059I'm going to give you an example. The last year that I was a principal, um, in our school district, we had about eight employees that were out on administrative leave. Um, the board at some point ordered every employee that was on administrative leave back to the buildings. I I don't think that's a board role. And I my head was swiveling around trying to figure out what in the world was going on. Um, and I knew a little bit about one of them. Uh, it shouldn't have happened. So, who who says, "Wait a second. Wait a second." because I pushed back on it myself as a principal, but it didn't do any good. >> Well, the board should police itself, number one. >> Um uh so if there if there is a a a problem member
060or someone who's having a difficult time being a good team member, that really is going to be your board leadership who's um often called in to I mean that that's your role if you're a board president. You also can just do it to a colleague like, you know, hey, I noticed that, you know, you're um you're asking things of our superintendent that probably need to go either through our president or take a look on our calendar and see if they're coming up. So, the board's role is to police itself. I think in that particular instance, um that would have been the superintendent's role to step in and say, you know, um I hear what you're saying. That is an administrative decision. Um that's a decision that I would need to make. um board does not
061oversee staff. And then I'll remind you again, WA was no regulatory authority. Um they're elected officials just like the legislature. There's also really nobody who governs the legislate our elected officials there. You you we can unelect them just like any of you >> voters. Yeah. >> The voters. Yeah. >> Right. >> That can be tough to hear though. I know for the community and and for your board. Great question. Any other questions of folks still in the room? Are some of you just staying to listen to the good questions? I know I do the same thing in other contexts. Good idea. Anyone else before we close? All right. Thank you for being here. We really look forward to seeing you next month and reach out in advance um any other time. And then on the
0621 of um February, look for our newsletter. Um and yeah, just don't be a stranger. reach out. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you.