Northshore School District School Board Retreat May 16, 2026

001All right. Good morning. Welcome to all of you that got up at 8 a.m. on a Saturday to watch the board retreat. But here we are. We have with us today all five board members. Superintendent Irish Peggy King. And we have a special guest today. I'll let him introduce himself. >> And I'm Jonathan Alton Swells and I am interning here and learning in the process. >> Yep. Learning how to be a superintendent. Um that if that name sounds familiar for any of you, he used to be a principal at Frank Love. So, welcome back. Um, all right. We have a variety of topics. We are going to start with because there was a little bit of a scheduling hiccup uh with the strategic plan refresh. So, we are going to actually start with talking about

002how we want to engage with the community next year. Um, it has been a practice in Northshore that we have taken opportunities over the course of the school year to go out and meet as a board with the community in an to give them an opportunity to have a more meaningful two-way dialogue. We recognize that public comment is awkward and one way. Um, we only uh had two this school year because lots going on. So just um it's a holistic conversation. There's nothing more to it other than just what are is our thinking for next year? How many and what should it look like? I I don't drink coffee, but close enough. Tea. Um, as far as communication with the community, I think that well, I agree with the fact that public comment can seem

003very formal and it can be intimidating. You're facing people who are sitting up higher than you. There's just this positional and power aspect to it. Um, not saying Or maybe I am saying that the dis you know maybe during public comment could look different or we could be in a different space for that to happen so community community members don't feel so intimidated. Um as far as the conversations with the board which I assume that's part of this discussion too. It's >> that's the whole thing. Yeah. Okay. >> The whole thing. Yeah. How do we want to do that next year? I think the way that we've been doing it is good picking a topic because otherwise it can just grow and be anything at once, right? And have its own feet. Um I guess

004what kind of input are you looking for beyond that? >> Well, that was excellent. Is do we want to just keep doing what we're doing? Um I really valued the let's make sure we have a topic. Um I have some thoughts on what that might be. Um, how many do we want to do? Um, again, the practice that I'm just again touching base. Um, the practice we've been is to have it in the four corners, if you will, of the district. Um, if we have four, do we want to be intentional with uh the demographics that we engage with? Again, a practice we've had in the past is having a Spanish- speaking conversations with the board. >> Oh, okay. I a lot of the demographic related um meetings with the district have been under the

005superintendent. >> So, we're we used to do that then with the board. Okay. I have to gnaw that a bit. My gut just kind of says that the year is already naturally broken into quarters. So having one each quarter of the school year seems to make natural sense and somewhere in the middle so that it's not like when parents are overstressed with their kids trying to finish big projects as we're getting to the end of the grade period or that that they have more bandwidth to attend as well. Um, I'm just curious what other models or what other districts might be doing. Um, not that this isn't a great idea, just curious other ways that um, districts might engage with the community or what best practice is maybe above and beyond this or um, yes,

006there's certainly the town hall model that we see with our state legislators. So our conversations with the board having not um typically there's a presentation and then we break people into groups. So it's really and I'm we're not doing that Monday by the way. Um but um typically we would divide and then each board member would have a group if there was enough people for five groups and then again you could have a much more in-depth conversation. Um, so the town hall is more kind of that sit and get. If you've ever been to a legislative town hall, there's that. Some boards, they it's a one or two that say we will be at this coffee shop on Tuesday morning um or Saturday morning or whatever. I'm not recommending that, but I am letting you

007know that is an option that some um districts use as a way of making sure they're engaging with community. Um I haven't seen anything more effective in terms of best practices than having all five of us at the same event at the same time. Um but and then the intentionality of making sure that it's not just come yell at us, but it's an opportunity for two-way dialogue >> Elizabeth. Um, I think back to I think this format was really helpful, especially when we started talking about budget stuff like when we had so many big changes that were coming down the pipeline. And it gave us an opportunity in a larger forum with everyone there to talk about the what people could expect um and giving them information ahead of time before we you know we

008did the study sessions and stuff. So it's like a preview for things that we're going to talk about. Um and it also gives us an idea of how people respond to that information and then what we need to change in how we are presenting it. Um so that's kind of what I've found beneficial from that format. Um and um I I think the the structure is helpful so that uh it's staying on topic um for what we want to talk about um because not having that structure it things can go off in other directions that maybe we don't have a fuller full enough picture to talk about at that time. So I I like the idea of having things that we are going to talk about and then time for conversation after it's presented and

009the information is shared. I'm having a yes and moment. Um I I definitely appreciate the opportunity to actually engage with the board on a topic that is coming up that is of interest to the community that they will, you know, definitely see effects of and and want to have input on from the beginning as much as possible. I also really appreciated having the opportunity to go have like coffee with Dr. to read and whether I had an issue that I wanted to bring or not to hear what issues were going on around and sometimes I learned something that I didn't know I needed to know because I was there. Um, but the opportunity to just have that actual conversation about your issue without having to like send an email and schedule an appointment and all.

010And I'm wondering if what might work to do that would be maybe if we had a model where um, Java with Justin came or something, but maybe two two board members attended as well. Um and so that there was still a board voice and and ear and sort of as we meet with um other partners in the district that we were there to hear and if it was more of a board thing we could report back to the rest of the board what it was that happened or give them the board perspective of that. But have the pair >> also a yes and the I'm just thinking about how we make the conversations with the board more accessible to folks who don't typically have the means to come in and the time and the resources

011to go to a place. Nor do they probably know it exists. I'm just thinking about my family's experience how we had to learn the K through2 education this my parents had to learn it I had to experience it um and I didn't know about a lot of the things that were I didn't even know there were school board members when I was going through school let alone a superintendent so I I wonder this is I don't have an answer to this but I wonder how we bring the board and the superintendent to the communities as opposed to them coming to us. And it may not be a conversations with a board thing. It might be us, all six of us going out to a community. Um whether it's a dem a specific demographic or whatever

012it is, right? Or the four corners. I know the four corners are supposed to be a way that we go to the community. I'm wondering how we can even be more targeted. I don't know um what kind of idea I'm putting forth here and so if everybody keeps a big frown I will not be offended. But as I'm listening to um Director Sanderson and director Tran talk about how we can think about opportunities to meet the community where they are. I wonder if there's like existing events that we might be able to attend. Um, I don't know if this is a thing that anybody does and I don't know if it's a good idea, but like, you know, like having uh like a table at like I don't Well, I don't know if we'd want

013to do it during the summer. Oh, sorry. It's time for my cat seizure meds. Um, yeah, Charles is home. Um but you know ha having a table at an event with a few people if that might just allow people walking by to be to realize oh we have a school board and meet us in a way that is uh doesn't feel um intimidating that we're just like normal people in the community too doing this work for free for everyone. asterric in case you're wondering how much we get paid. Um, so yeah, that I I don't know if that is an effective way to engage with the community, but I thought um hearing hearing Dr. Director Tran I keep giving you a doctorate um director TR talk about like how we can meet them where they

014are that occurred to me. >> Have we done something like that before? like gone out to table at a community event like say one of the municipalities or the districts. Yeah. >> Um no is the short answer. We h we under Dr. Reed we did have fairly regular um where we would go to the mosque and meet with community there. Um we were trying to do that with the Hindu temple. never quite got there. Um and then under um Superintendent Tully, there was the listen and learn chore which again were targeted and um some turned into great big parties that were fantastic. But um no, we haven't done that. That's a really interesting idea of um looking into that because there are some things that I think that could really work. >> It might be

015really easy to try it at the back to school resource fair, which granted is the summer, but does bring lots of people from all over the district to come get backpacks and such. >> Yeah, we can. Yeah, we can certainly do some brainstorming where that might make sense. To be clear, my thought was like not on in district sponsored events, but ones that are by the city or the county um where people who may not normally engage with a school event at that level will be there with their kids doing something fun. >> And realize like, oh, that's where my kids go to school. >> Um, so I don't know, like parades or I wouldn'tville has something coming up next month. We don't really have kids in Duval, but there Duval days, you know, like

016things like that. Yeah, there's the concert series for I think all three cities do that now. >> There's also like Woodenville Pride and I know Kimmore has a farmers market every Wednesday in the summer. Um Woodville does as well. So yeah. So, um, yeah, I was just going to say I think things that are well established and especially where municipalities have a booth, we could just if we so chose see if we would be able to cidle up next to them um, as a way of like showing how we're connected to the different municipalities. >> I think both had like the summer Saturdays. I'm not sure how you might get outside of just the three cities because like that does I mean it mostly encompasses people but there are places that don't totally like I

017I only knew about the summer Saturdays in both because one of my kids had a friend who lived much closer and they walked there when she went over to hang out. Um it wasn't something that really made it to me just outside the city limits. Well, I mean, we don't want to let the perfect get in the way of good, right? So, we don't have to create a perfect way of doing this, but it does sound like there's enough interest that we can look at brainstorming and half a dozen things. And so what I'm hearing is in in addition to our more formal conversations with the board that we do those four and then we look for ways to and and Peggy will get to create one of her sheets where we sign up of

018two people at a event. there are already public events but it also is a workload capacity issue to be thinking about and how much of this um so we could do some just give it a go see how it goes maybe yeah well yes but we're advertising something that's already being you know they will see it as free advertising great anyway but yeah I think one or two just again because of capacity issues um we can talk about some things over the next um four, five months that we know are happening. Summer is certainly one where there are a lot of community events that we can look at having a table and figure out how to do that. Typically, there's a fee in charge. So, we'll have to see how that works. Well, that's why

019I was thinking if we were somehow in contact with our municipalities and they are aware of how much how much extra money we have floating around um that that maybe they would be generous and we could even maybe share a table. I don't know. But that's something to think about is um ways that we can join the community. Um yeah, I like it. Okay. Any any other thoughts? If we do have events at the district that are districtrun, I think as part of accessibility providing child care and food and continuing I know that some of the listening sessions that our previous superintendent had, we did that and then as part of um superintendent Irish's um listening sessions with the community, the translating helps too. So just thinking about accessibility. >> Are you proposing that for

020conversations with the board that we provide child care and food? Yes. That that would possibly limit where we would be able to have those events um because of space and and of of people being allowed to have food in those spaces sometimes um because then there's extra custodial stuff that might and a staffing issue as well. So there would need to be extra I mean like the child care I I love that idea. Um but the having to get that and have it in place um there would need there there's a lot of extra logistics I think that that go so if we're if we're assuming uh responsibility for care of children um there's all kinds of um they have to be CPR first aid certified that kind of thing. So, it's not like we

021can just pick an executive director here or an executive director there to take this. So, it's it's a logistic thing, but when you have staff, you add cost. So yeah, >> as long as we're just brainstorming because I'm not saying this makes any sense to do for Monday or maybe even like for every opportunity, but this could be an opportunity to like reach out to community groups like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts who might just come have an activity table for kids to like come pick something up to do um so that they can have something so they can be entertained more quietly as opposed to like completely completely taking over care and removing them from the space with their parent. Um, and it could give them opportunities for volunteer hours or other leadership. We

022could um maybe like together we shine would be another group that might want to come in and help like have a space on the side um for those sorts of things. So maybe brainstorming community groups that might come in and help co like come with us or partner with us just to like have an activity table. Also, we have 6,000 high school students who have a variety of reasons for needing volunteer hours. All the honor society, key club, DECA, I there's a ton of those. So, that um the teaching Yeah. So, I think we can we can look within. I like that idea of reaching out to our own students and saying, "Do you want to come work with kids?" Okay. Sorry, just one last thought on the table. If we're going to table somewhere,

023uh maybe have an idea of what we're trying to accomplish there besides being present, right? Are we trying to inform the community of something, some big change that's new? Because I'm looking at the municipalities when they table at their events, usually it's about, hey, we're going to, you know, make this there's this construction project going on and they they say they put out a couple boards and they're like, hey, vote for which one. you know, you would prefer um which style. >> We can bring some pretty pictures from our capital projects. >> There you go. Yeah. >> Update. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah, we can we can definitely come up and that's a a good point to make sure that we have um some talking points >> and then again back to the point that a lot

024of people probably don't know what school board members do. So considering how we provide a little bit of that education at that table as well and superintendent of course. Okay. Um All right. So just to summarize that we are going to continue with our conversations with the board for the 2627 school year. We'll try to get four in and all the four corners of the district. Um we will have a format of a presentation guiding talking or a guiding um topic and then an opportunity at the end for what brings what else bring may bring you here tonight. Um I will just preview that I suspect given that what's going to happen next year that it's going to be around um changes in enrollment and the impact to our schools on that and getting people's

025input and understanding of that. Um and then we're going to look at maybe finding three or four events uh over the summer since that's a big you you missed some. We we signed you up for all sorts of stuff while you were wandering off. That's what happens. Um uh some existing events that we can have tables at. Talking to the um the presenters of those events to see how we go about getting a table and and being there just to I we're gonna need some swag of a banner to Oh. Um, and then, um, thinking about how to have activity tables for younger kids that come to the conversations with the board and inviting our high school students that need uh, volunteer hours to come and facilitate those um, activity tables off in the corner.

026Not that we will not be alone. They'll be in the same room. they will be supervised. And also with the tableabling at community events, we could also ask students if they're interested in joining and helping out as well. >> Okay. >> If that's more Yes, we'll have lots of ideas of what we want to say at the tableing events once we figure out when and where and how, we'll do that. So, okay, great. Thank you so much. That was a really good conversation. Um, I am going to turn this over to Dr. Irish for our next part because now we're going to talk about we got so much fun stuff coming up in our next year. Um, and we're going to start talking about this strategic plan refresh redo. I don't know what we're labeling

027it as. >> Fantastic. Thank you, President Hayes. Um, I am very excited to um introduce Dr. Tammy Campbell from the Scholar First. she is um on her way up right now. Um but as you know, we have a great opportunity and we've been engaging in this conversation for quite a while now. A great opportunity to relook at our strategic plan and refresh u the work that we're doing. Um streamlining it, creating coherence across the organization. Um and really thinking about one of the problems of practices that we have talked about is this notion of focus and that we need to focus and create better coherence across the organization and that when we try to do too much um especially in an underresourced world um that we sometimes um have a harder time doing um going

028deep and instead um have way more breath. And so this is our opportunity to find clarity, to create coherence, and for us to be very focused on creating incredible outcomes for kids and aligning every human in this organization and outside of this organization towards a common purpose and common actions and common strategies. Think about it as a a bunch of arrows all moving in the same direction all at the shared purpose of creating um specific goals and outcomes for kids to achieve and continue to achieve at high levels. And so we have um partnered with Dr. Tammy Campbell again with the scholar first to help us um with creating this clarity and this coherence and this focus across the organization. This is not um a complete redo of the strategic plan. There are great things

029that Northshore is doing and um and will continue to do and we want to be able to enhance that plan um and focus that plan. Um and so again, Dr. Tammy Campbell will be here. She's going to share a overview of the work that we're planning to do, how we're going to lean into that work and the um engagement um with our staff and community and students um in making this work happen. So, thank you Dr. Campbell for being here. I'll turn it over to you to further introduce and if we want to do a quick round of introduction around the table as well um so you know who is in the room that would be great. So I'll turn it over to President Hayes. >> Okay. Thank you. Before I introduce myself just for

030anybody that did get up at the crackon to watch this um just so you understand we didn't actually create extra work for ourselves. The original strategic plan was created in 2017. It was a 5-year plan uh sunseted in June of 22 and uh in the midst of the pandemic. We did a refresh again for 5 years. So this um current iteration of the strategic plan ends next June of 27. So we are um taking this opportunity. That's 10 years. That's a long time. That means it was a really good strategic plan that we're still using. So that's hence why we're doing this today. Um, so welcome Dr. Cam Tammy Campbell. I'm Sandy Hayes. I serve as president of the board. I'm also a Decar High graduate. >> All right. >> I'm Elizabeth Sotac and I'm

031the current vice president of the board. >> I am Carson Sanderson and I am a board member. >> I'm HR. I'm the legislative rep for the board as well as the FI federal liaison. I'm Kimberly Kimberly Kelly. Uh I am also on the board and um a veteran teacher. >> I'm Jonathan Alton Wells and I am interning with Dr. Irish. >> I'm Peggy and I am administrative support to Dr. Irish and our board of directors. Well, good morning members of the board, Superintendent Irish and the team. I'm excited to talk to you about the process of strategic planning. I have this on. I don't know. Is it is it working? Okay, awesome. I'm excited to talk to you about the strategic planning process and I'm really coming to you uh as a former superintendent, a

032former assistant superintendent, a teacher, a principal, all of those positions because often strategic plans are not necessarily driving school improvement. And it's that sort of vision, frustration that sort of helped me to think about the design for the strategic planning process that I'll be sharing with you today. So, please know uh open I'm open to questions all throughout and I know that there's a unique perspective you play as a governance team in wanting to be sure that you're positioning every single one of your schools for improvement and it and this process hopefully will sort of reveal how we go about doing that. So, the scholar first I founded this uh my company four years ago. I was right at the end of my six years with Federal Way. I was not sure if this was

033the thing that I could actually pull off. I had done some consulting uh in years prior to that, but really wanted to take what I had learned from that time in federal way and design a process that could actually help system leaders make changes in every classroom, not just siloed kinds of changes. And so we do strategic planning. I also do principal supervisor coaching. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. I've got some examples of what that work looks like. I do schoolboard professional learning specifically on the policy governance side. I was a superintendent who used and utilized policy governance with the governance team and central office leadership coaching. We figure we've touched about three million students nationally about 65 superintendent 2,000 administrators. I you heard me talk about uh this classroom teacher.

034You know, I always said I was a superintendent who just so happens to be a teacher who's metriculated up and that's something that I utilize when I apply design work. Uh mass staff developer. I was a principal in Central Valley School District on the east side of the state, assistant superintendent in Reton. Uh I was also chief academic officer in Spokane public schools, principal supervisor there as well. Um, I worked for the center for educational leadership uh with Steve Frink and Max for about a year where I did central office transformational coaching all over the country and as superintendent in federal way. There are a lot of pride points that that board and I worked together on and we were quite the team. I I I would always say I had the best board when

035we worked there. My last year we were large board of the year and a lot of that was driven by what was in our strategic plan and a lot of that work has continued uh with Dr. Feifer who was deputy uh when I was superintendent that board took a lot of care for transition so that a lot of the things that they had in their ends policies and a lot of those sort of strategies and practices could be maintained yet built upon. And it was in that uh during that time that we were recognized. I was recognized but really it was Federal Way public schools as one of the 25 most influential leaders in the area Seattle area and it was because of the work that we were doing around advanced placement. When our students

036graduated about 80% of them will graduate taking a certain number of advanced placement courses. And the reason that was a highlight is that we were the most diverse district in the state of Washington at the time. And when you think about that many students having that kind of experience, it was really important that we did that we had that result. And the other thing that I would say that would tell you the type of rigor we were experiencing for our students in the most diverse district in the state is that we were looking at our postsecary data. And we had more students who were going back and being successful in their second year of college as a result of the rigorous transcripts and the rigorous experiences they were having at all of our schools. Not

037just having it at, for example, TJ. it would be at all of our high schools where these experiences are middle schools and our elementary schools frankly. So, uh I also do work for the Bill and Meinda Gates Foundation. I lead a um it's called a post-secondary round table. We have half of that group is students. A lot of the work you'll hear me talk about is student voice, student centered work. It's what I did my dissertation on. And we look at uh what kinds of things position students for post-secary success. So, OSPI, some of the college presidents, um the state board of education, all of these leaders are at the table with students looking at what are some of the problems of practice that we're faced and why are some students not postsecary ready. Last

038year, one of the highlights we brought back students who were either in their first or second year of college. We asked them, what did what would you tell superintendents or school districts to help them improve? It was interesting. A lot of them talked about they wish people had had higher expectations of them that they wish that they had been held to uh meeting deadlines because what they found is not having that practice surprised them when they were in higher ed. They wanted to be seen there. Then that after we had that roundt we brought their parents back and we listen to parents of these students tell us what they wanted us to do. So we do that kind of listening and forums along with looking at data both economic data as well as what do

039we know about what employers are looking for in graduates and so when I take that work and the research from Gates I will apply that when you're helping to frame up your profile of a graduate. Um, also doing work with OSPI. Um, I've done some work with the Oregon Department of Education, helping them with their um, their new accountability system. So, coaching from behind the scenes. Why do you care? I'm coming to you not just from one chair, but from multiple sort of angles that I will leverage all of that knowledge and expertise to help position your team to make this the best reiteration refresh of your strategic plan. We've done about 15 strategic plans. We've done them in big districts like Beaverton. We actually did one in South Carolina in a district that was

040about 50,000 and there was some upheaval that had nothing to do with our strategic plan, but they had a new superintendent and they wanted to do it again. So, we we I never list this district, but we've done them in pretty big districts as well as as small districts. Districts as small as Quincy. Quincy lives by that strategic plan. Nick will tell you it drives everything that they do. And one of the things that I love is that we never hear when we reach back out to districts, what we often hear is our principles are collaborating in ways that they never collaborated before. And it's because they have now common goals. There is a way we frame up that design. I learned this from being a superintendent. Often strategic plans can be just like the

041Dead Sea Scrolls. Your schools won't even know that they exist. But because we involve teacher leaders, we involve instructional coaches, we involve everybody. By the time your plan is done and having all of those leaders uh and participants really weighing in on the plan, you have such broad ownership. So I often will say the process is the product, not the actual plan. It's getting all of those people um involved and thinking about and reading research and naming what they're going to do over the next six years. So, you can see we've been both inside the state, outside the state, uh doing this work. When you think about a strategic plan board members, what words come to mind? This is probably not the best, but like lofty and ideal are what came to my head first.

042And that doesn't necessarily make it something that's applicable. >> Yeah. >> I think about it as a guide. >> So, it's basically your instructions of what we want to accomplish as a district. >> Yeah. I think about how it gets implemented throughout every school and for every person all the way over to the student, not just the staff members. So, it is lofty, but there's this hopefully this string that attaches everything. So, the students know why they're in school, the teachers know why they're teaching this, the principles know why they're doing that. >> Yep. Um I see it as um providing the vision >> um for the overarching picture of of where we see ourselves going that kind of informs all the smaller decisions that we make. Um and the opportunity to make sure that

043that vision includes all learners, all staff, all teachers. Um so that everybody feels seen and prioritized in that vision. thinking a little more. I'm hoping it's like the guardrails on the highway that keep you from falling off into the lake or whatever danger is on the side of the road. >> Yep. Great ideas. Okay. So, when I think about it, I think about much of what you said. I also think about it as a road map. Um I think about it must be student centered. I think too many of them are almost like here's an initiative we want to do and you build a strategic plan for that. We works we start out with student voice. So right now school leaders are listening to students and they're asking them questions about their academic experience and

044they're asking them questions about their social emotional belonging sort of experience and we're going to take what they say and the first thing we're going to do is create something called a student a vision of the student experience driven by your student voice. And I believe if we listen to students, they can teach us how to teach them. We just have to make that a habit and make that a practice. That's another thing that's unique I think about federal way is that we have at all of our schools student advisories. I had a student advisory. We had students involved in so many ways and not just superficially and not just in sort of token ways. They were really involved at the heart of the work. And if we listen to them, we can actually really

045find that they are saying things that are that that are grounded in research. They're pretty expert at what um they need to be successful. And a good strategic plan should also name what you actually want to see in classrooms. And so we spend a lot of time talking about that and putting that and codifying that in the actual document. When I go to districts, often I'll hear things like we have too many initiatives. We have too many things going on. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Each school's working in silos which makes the collaboration difficult and there's not a focus. And I know in some places there's this thought that if we don't write it all down, we won't do all those things. And what I like to think is

046you can write it all down. You're not doing all those things. You've got to have some real focus so that schools can actually execute what we want to execute. And you got to pick the highest leverage things. When you do this and the strategic plan is designed that way, you'll actually start to see things moving in a more focused coherent direction. You're going to see school leaders better able to collaborate with each other and there's a focus. Battel put out research. Um, one of the things that I've had the opportunity of doing is through AASA, I have scored some of the lighthouse school district applications all across the country. And you look at these applications of these districts that are seen as lighthouse uh districts and often what I notice and what Battel has highlighted

047is that they will not have a lot of initiatives. These districts will have four to five big initiatives, no more. the schools will have two or three. When you're overloading the school, often what happens, the principles sort of nod, but when they go to the school, they can't execute that. And we're sending all of that sort of mixed messaging to teachers. So, how do we get real clear and and this was founded in the research. There are other things that are here. In fact, I was doing some professional development with the district's cabinet yesterday talking about how cabinets need to really be sure they name what success looks like. That's that third bullet. But for the purpose of strategic planning, we want to keep it lean and we want to really name what it is

048and you want to monitor those things. I do a lot of work around coherence. So, one of the early practices strategies that we'll do, we'll take that vision with all of your school leaders and your cabinet and we'll work backwards. So, we'll say here's what the vision is. Now, what do we want educators to do? What do we want school leaders to do? What do we want your principal supervisors to do? What do we want the central office to do to execute that vision based on that theory of action? That will drive the design of the practices in your strategic plan. That's how you build coherence. So it's an architecture for coherence, not just saying the word coherence. Guiding principles of the scholar first. We believe that when the plan is done, you should see

049improvement. That's as simple as I'd like to say it. Things should get better. Here's a big one. The work has to be done with the district, not to or for the district. So there's a lot of co-construction. A lot of these committees will be engaged in these messy processes where people are grappling with what they want to actually commit to write down. Um, and facilitating it can be sometimes maddening. Sometimes it can be the most exciting thing, but at the end of the day, it's a necessary thing. You have to have it done this way. And it's it's worked, you know, all of these times. And whenever it's done, everyone says that's ours. and it's not sort of uh handed to folks. Another guiding principle you heard me talk about is anchoring the work in

050student voice. It's all it also has to be driven by student centered goals. So the goals that we'll share with you, we really like to bifurcate. Here's what the goals are for student outcomes and here are the things that we want the district to do and we separate those initiatives versus trying to merge them together. And I'll illustrate that for you in a moment. And it's by starting with the vision of the student experience that you're embedding equity in your plan because that's what's driving the design is how students describe the experiences that they want to see. And then we work backwards from there. We're utilizing research. There will be a time a little bit I want to say twothirds of the way in where we'll have maybe 130 140 teachers come instructional coaches they'll

051be broken up into each of the goal areas they will have read research about their goal area and they will pick three to four practices per goal area that they are going to master over the next six years and that process will actually help school leaders because it's not doing it because we told you you're we're doing it because you helped us to think about what are the kinds of practices that you want to really invest in and implement. We never hear about push back after these plans are done because so many people were at the table to sort of have ownership and of course the process is the product. There's a lot of learning and PD that happens in this in this sort of uh facilitated process. And there's work that we do around

052alignment with the theory of action. And I'll show a sample to you from Portland public. As a governance team, it's critical at the very beginning. And I think about the work we did when we did our strategic plan, our boards were observers on all of these different uh groups. the uh because we were policy governance, we knew that the board saw the strategic plan as the way to accomplish their ends and that I was going to be put in a position in our team to execute so that they could hold us accountable for the ends. But they were observers on many of these committees. And so I'm I'm looking forward to seeing how you can be ambassadors and champions and sponsors of the work for the teams. Also, I know you already have uh processes

053for monitoring. When I talk to boards that don't have this kind of governance mindset, I talk about it's critical that you calendar now times to actually look at progress by goal area so that you can start to see what's working and what's not. but also partnering to figure out where might you make adjustments and what does that mean in terms of but whether that's resource allocation whether that's just being really clear about whether or not we're using the right strategies. So here are all the deliverables from the scholar first. We start out with this vision of the student experience. Uh we then will have a group that will meet in the fall. It's a core planning team and Dr. Irish and I have broken all of these out. he's already actively recruiting and thinking about

054how these committees will be comprised. Uh that group will help us with the core values. We'll ask them to look at the vision of the student experience and we'll say okay if that's what our vision is, what would be the core values of an a group who would actually execute that. The theory of action is something that your administrative group will do. I'll show you a sample of that. Board members, I will have you I know you were doing a refresh. What I'm curious about when you look at this vision of the student experience, do you think you need to do an update or a refresh of your of your mission statement to see if it aligns? It may already align, but often boards will choose to do that. We'll do listening and learning in

055person. We'll we'll be here all day, a team of two of us. I'll be one of the listeners and another one member of my team will be here. And then that next day, we send out a district-wide survey asking the exact same questions of what we asked in person. We then will work with your uh administrative team to name the goals, outcomes, and uh performance targets. You already have goals. You may decide you want to keep similar names, but it's a good time again if you're doing a refresh to look at it to see if there are some tweaks that you may want to make some of your KPIs, KPOs. I know that there's some commitments around them. So, you would keep the ones that you think still align, but it's also a good time

056since you're doing a refresh to look to see if there's a an opportunity to strengthen in the practices and that second row in purple that that really is the heart and soul of what's going to happen. And I'll show you what I mean about that and how we come to that. We'll also work with you to do uh to finalize and co-construct your graduate profile. For example, when we did that work in we just did it in in Long View, we did it in all of our districts. Half of that committee of about 80. We'd like to see about 20 30 students uh participating on that committee along with your counselors uh high school principles, parents, uh large committees coming together uh doing this work. And one of the things that I'm adding as a

057part of the partnership here is that to then meet after the fact to talk about how you operationalize it with units and things like that so that it has legs and it's not just on a document. Foundations are your district initiatives and um this is really what the district will do to help the schools achieve the goals and that committee that your core planning team and I'll explain in a moment which is parents, staff, students and community members at towards the end of the process we ask them what's the new statement you want on the cover of your strategic plan and we take four or five versions of that. We send it out for a vote and your community votes on the one that they think is the most uh resonant. We will then create

058an internal and an external strategic plan document for you. And we also have a short video of the process. We take pictures all throughout the way so that you can use that to sort of um really put out socialize the process and get folks excited. Uh it's a great way to capture the process. These are all the deliverables for what you are uh commissioning the scholar first to do opportunities to participate. We have a group called the district leadership team. They write they will be the people who will get feedback. So for example when I come to you with the vision of the student experience you'll see that and I'll say at a board meeting board members give me if you choose to revise your mission statement you may decide to keep it as is.

059I will say to you, what are words and phrases now that you think should be in that new mission statement? We take that to the DT. The DT will draft it and we'll bring it back to you for you to see. That's an example of what I mean about this co- construction. And so that group writes anything that's going to be written in the plan with the exception of goals and outcomes. We want a larger group to do that, which would be principles and all of your district leaders. The administrative team is another group. the core planning team. This is going to be a big group. We do this remotely. And the reason this works to do it remotely, we have very little attrition because people can parents can attend that from home. Students can

060go right home and be on their laptops and do this. And so this will be uh central office staff, building staff, students, community, family, school board. In a district your size, we'd like to see about 90 100 people on this particular uh committee. The graduate profile team, this group will meet uh later sometime in the fall. This is an in-person four three to four hour afterchool time and then we'll meet another time after this to do some review and tweak and then there's some followup on actually how do you want to implement the actual graduate profile and then the instructional planning team that's that group that writes your practices. This should be in a district this size about 150. This is where your teacher leaders instructional coaches and building principles will meet after school. They'll

061be broken up. They'll have a room looking at research and they'll name their practices. Lots of touches. And when you look at the actual products, you can see how we distribute these products across all of these groups so that we get this wide sort of scale touch. We're right now just starting with principles listening to students on the vision of the student experience. Every time I meet with a group, I give them an update on the timelines because there's so many moving pieces. This is such a complex process, but by the time we're halfway through, most people kind of get a sense of how it all comes together. >> Here's an example of what a strategic plan would look like. Can I interrupt just a second? >> Who picks who which students are on the

062teams that inform you? Because I feel like sometimes when we go on visits, we get very cultivated groups and we're not hearing the full diversity. >> Yeah. So even with the groups that they're listening to right now, I talked about the importance of diverse voices, diverse academic voices, diverse gender in every possible way. We talked about that with the school leaders when I was here uh last week. And so I we will continue to push this idea. We want the full span of the students who attend your schools. Um that will be critical and that's why um it's important that we not have small groups. So you'll see we like to have lots of students and that also increases the likelihood that we're going to get that diverse voice. So here's one uh strategic plan.

063Uh this is Mount Vernon. So their tagline, their promise statement on the cover that they're remember I said they send out the ones to vote. Their community voted for this one. We inspire, we dream, we achieve. So imagine these breakout rooms. They all have students in them and a lot of the students are are sort of informing you know that wouldn't sound too catchy. It just they just changed the way adults show up for them and so this was what they selected. Uh inside the plan you'll see a table of contents. This is the mission statement the school board uh sort of reconstituted with this new strategic plan. The DT drafted this after the board gave words and phrases. I talk about what a mission statement is. It describes why the district exists, who it

064serves, and what actions you're taking. And we really work to do that in a sentence or two. Again, working at simplicity, superintendent message. And in Mount Vernon, they had over 3,200 people participate from start to finish of their strategic plan. This is their vision of the student experience. they really wanted to uh they're doing a lot around equity, student voice and it was important that they had this sort of multilingual sort of uh signal even in how their vision was played out. I tell people you know often they will say okay that vision looks like this vision and I say why do you think that is? Students from one district to the next are not very different. They want similar things. What districts though will do is put their own the lexicon of their own

065language in that vision. But ultimately what Mount Vernon is stating here's what they're saying the strategic plan will cause every student to experience. You can see the core values that the core planning team helped inform. They're saying that if this is our vision then our core values are we're going to be student centered. We're going to be a unified community and we're going to have academic excellence. And then we define that very simple ways. this vision of the student experience. The other thing I'll add to this, especially as you think about what we know needs to happen if we're going to actually cause student results. We've seen these visions that say things like every student 21st century ready almost kind of catchy phrases but that are such a high level we don't see how it's

066going to actually look in a school. When you listen to students, they help you to think about it in much more uh simple yet clear ways. And that's what caused me to think about how to describe a vision that's much more from the student perspective. This is what you want to have happen every single day for students. And the core values really describe how you behave. You should have this on your website on job postings. This is a new way to socialize that refresh. Goals. Four goals. And the goals are basically goal one is this sort of social emotional whole child goal. Goals two, three, and four are academic goals. Goal two is what your elementary schools will use to focus. Goal three will be what your middle schools will use to focus. And goal

067four will be your high schools. And within each of these goals will be these crosscutting strategies around things like teacher clarity, around rigor. Every single goal will have that in the academic area. But the schools will have two goals. Goal one everybody has. Elementaryaries will have goal one and goal two. Middle schools goal one and goal three. High schools goal one and goal four. Now imagine that day where all those teachers come, we break them up with the high school uh teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators are in a room looking at goal four. They've read research. Now they're naming the practices for their level. So that creates that ownership by grade level, by your context. You'll also see the outcomes that are in the middle as well as the performance targets. The names are by

068district. So what I what I set up as a framework is that the goal one has to be whole child. It has to cover belonging and the social emotional aspect. What the district does is chooses the way it wants to name it. And so for example, in this particular district, goal two, they were using some work around strong foundations. So they named their early learning elementary goal strong foundations. So it's not cookie cutter, but it's framed enough that you have this consistency. And uh their their high school goal, they wanted to call that navigating for the future. That's our college and career ready goal. So the principles and the leaders will come up with these names >> and this is an example where we might keep ours success in the early years for example um

069as a frame and then it could be success in the middle years and then it could keep >> the same language we use for our high school. Um so it could be or it could be different. a really good strategic plan. I once the practices are framed up, I I tell leaders, you should not ever have a strategic plan that causes you to throw out everything you've already done. That also is what causes staff to be just exhausted. It's like, okay, what yet again, we're doing the restart. And the more systematized you've been, the more coherent you've been, you'll find schools are getting really good at things. We call those sustaining practices. So, I have a way to name those and you just bring those forward. You pull those in with you and you keep

070doing those practices. But there's also a reason that you have data that suggests some of your some of what we're doing is not working for all students and you've got to be looking at how can you do some things better and those are things that we call implementing or new and developing practices. >> So, Dr. Campbell, we have a tradition that when they put their sign up like this, it means they have a question. >> Oh, thank you for letting me know that. I I we do this because I can't interrupt. It's very just against my culture. Um okay. So, first of all, I want to um reassure everyone in the room what uh Dr. Campbell has described as very much the process we used a decade ago. So um the it reassures us all

071that this is going to be a successful process because our current strategic plan is has been so impactful um and that it did not just go on a shelf never to be seen again. So um I want to start there um before we go any further in this process I just want to u raise a concern. >> Sure. So, uh, when we did this, I'm the one that only one in the room that was here the last time we did this. Um, I talked about that there was, um, a group brought together. It was 10 university professors. Um, and they put together, here's what we're looking for from high school students to enter university, right? What are the skills? What are the things that we want for our students to enter university? >> Yep. Um

072and they came up with, you know, three years of science, um math instruction, couple years of foreign language. Um that's that's where that came from. And so I was sharing that with the room and then I said, and this was 1892, we are still using the same criteria from >> Wow. >> 30 years ago, right? Mhm. >> Granted, the foreign language was Latin and Greek, but that same thinking is still how our schools are run. And >> our world does not look like that. What the skills that our kids need, >> yes, they still need math, yes, they need still need science, but it's for a a world we cannot predict. And so that's why goal four in our strategic plan exists. It was trying to get because we couldn't >> we couldn't totally upend

073the system. That was too hard. >> But that's why goal four exists. It's that acknowledgment that we cannot predict what skill what the future is going to look like, what jobs are going to look like. Um my generation is dealing with that. When our kids were in school, it was software engineering, computer science, computer engineering. That was the ticket su to success and all our kids went out and get it. and now they're all unemployed y because that industry just disappeared and that was only a decade ago. So we have to have some way of acknowledging this system that we're putting together is was designed for the industrial revolution and that's not the world our kids are going to enter in and we can't predict that but we've got to have some common ideas of

074the skills that they're going to need. I'm just going to add to what you're saying. Uh which is this is a a conversation that I've had in our 21-onone meetings. We've had um and actually we're preparing for goal four to be presented to the board here soon. And um just a reminder for the audience, goal four is innovative and creative and critical thinkers. Um and um this is a very very very difficult goal to measure. Um, and those of you who were meeting with Craig and um or um and and Obie, um you saw that in action. And so, um and it it's um it's important for us to think about and what I really appreciate about Dr. Campbell's approach is how do we embed this into the other areas so that this ideal these

075um we we do want to create innovative, creative, and critical thinkers. and as a standalone goal. What what's nice about the standalone goal is it's calling attention to it. Um but what happens when it's a standalone goal is it becomes very siloed. And so how do we create and and build upon these practices and what are the actual best practices to create innovative critical thinkers um and creative thinkers in goals one, two, three and five. um in our current iteration um that can be measured um that we can actually show the community, show our students and show our staff that we are successful in moving these things forward and I think one of the things you all mentioned at the beginning is um this is an ideal that one of the purposes of a strategic

076plan is to talk about the ideal is to talk about the vision area like what what is possible and how do we create a vision a mission and a vision and the belief systems and the core values that sustain this important factor of our community that I'm hearing over and over again. We don't want to lose sight of um we live in a very unique community that is of parents who are very working in professions that are innovative that are creative and that are critical and thinking skills and we want to be able to master continue to master that. So what I'm hearing and how I'm kind of like pulling it together is that it may make sense that there is like a line that is common for every level of the academic goal that

077embeds goal four. So they aren't thinking, oh, I'm only picking two from so I'm going to let that one go for now. It's actually part of one of the two. You only have two, so you have to do all of two. But that it's a line. Maybe it's the same line in each of them. or maybe it's changed a little bit for what it looks like for that age group, but like because it's in each goal, it doesn't need to be its own. Does that sound or is that part of the process of inventing all of this? >> I think what I what I would what I what I wouldn't say to tell teachers right now, you're going to have this in the second line. What I would say is they're going when they look

078at the research, the research bears out that you'd want every academic goal to have some component of that there. And my my hunch is that when they frame up those practices, you will see it stratified across the academic goals as a practice. I want to talk about the piece you brought up though about what we're preparing for in goal area 4. One of the things that I will also say is we want each of those academic goal areas to deal with what's happening in the classroom, the day-to-day pedigogy. Often we talk about just things like high school and beyond planning. We only talk about uh transcripts, but we want to make sure goal area 4 hits on good pedigogy, challenging students and this strate this this particular skill you've talked about. We want to call

079that out because if not, you only touch counselors and people outside of that that core work that happens in the classroom. So when you see a good goal four, you're going to see practices that touch everybody in the high school. Secondly, the role of AI and what AI is doing right now. We that's where that gradual profile will also capture some of what you're talking about, but we want to see that also in the practices of goal area 4. And so I agree with you that we've probably thought about this this goal area 4 in antiquated ways, but I have research and some of the work that's coming out of ASA's convening of all these different organizations looking at what ready is and it is a whole lot more recent. But I will still say

080because of what we know that's happening real time with AI and how it's impacting the workforce and how many of our students are graduating right now with degrees that may not actually even have jobs. And so some of that information I will be sharing and we and I believe you will have leaders in your schools who will be able to sort of grapple with that and put us in a better position. So pretty confident that that will happen. Thank you for that. And I I want to acknowledge what both of you said, Director Hayes, and in acknowledging that we're working within a system that is um centuries old and designed for the industrial revolution and and we are no longer putting kids in factories on these conveyor belts. Um and also, Dr. Irish, what you

081said about our goals needing to be measurable. And so I'm wondering um when we talk about coherence and that process as a as someone who's been in a classroom, you have these lofty ideas of what you want to teach kids and then you get to the point where you're you want to assess that skill and you find it's not a it's not easy to quantify that that skill has been gained. Um so what is the process for how we um both are developing those goals but at the same time we are looking at you know backwards planning. Is this a goal that is something that we can measure and how would we measure and how would we measure in a way that gives us holistic data and not data that might look siloed or specific

082to just the people who might choose to participate. Um but really getting uh the kind of data that allows us to know that what we're doing is is working. >> Yeah. Let me I'll illustrate this for you uh when we get to the outcomes. So just try just give me two minutes. I want to get there and because it'll build. So the four goal areas that you see goal area one is the social emotional belonging whole child. You have three academic goals and I've given you more examples of how school districts have actually named these. And then I outline for you how every school will have one goal which is goal area one and then your elementary, middle, and high will have goal area 2, three, and four uh respectively. So I want to show

083these outcomes because this is a great question you posed. So for example, I'm an elementary teacher and you I see we have goal area 2. One of the first outcomes is to increase the number of students achieving grade level proficiency in reading. That is the whole sort of school. That's one of the ways the schools will know that they've improved. But the teacher knows that you don't just measure that. What you're doing is looking at your assessments that align with that, your formative and your summitive assessments that then would build to that. and through that school improvement process, that's what the school leader is going to position those grade levels and those PLC's to focus on. So this is sort of like the summitive part, but there are these things that are happening every four

084to six weeks with teachers who then would do the alignment work through the school improvement planning process. But that's what I love about this type of strategic plan. Principles aren't going to have to kind of do the zigzag to say, "Yeah, we're kind of doing it." It's going to drive that those conversations by grade level, by department because we're using those student centered actual outcomes that are classroom based. Does that help? >> It it does, but um I guess my question was more in in this process, how are we making sure that the goals that we develop >> as we're developing them are also measurable? So, as Dr. Irish kind of noted number four is quite difficult to measure. So in the process so that we don't get to the end and end up having

085goals that are tricky >> to to actually quantify or measure. How how is that process of kind of make maybe going back and forth between goals versus measurable outcomes or what that measuring looks like? Are we using surveys? Are we using rubrics? Is this being measured through um student >> formative assessments or is it through um you know like staff um performance like >> how is how do we navigate that through this process so that in the end we have that coherence that alignment from goal to um to measurement. So the first thing that we're doing is that theory of action work happens very early where we work from the vision out and everything that's in that theory of action has to be observable and measurable which you you don't see right now. Every one

086of those outcomes right now are all measurable. We do the outcomes and we do the performance targets quite early in the process. Every single one of those are measurable. You will not find the kind of goal area you talked about. We too had performance fact that did ours and one of ours was like that. So this process that I have refined all of them are all measurable. Every single one of those outcomes are so that happens very early on where I facilitate the administrative team in doing that work. And if you were to look and and you know sometimes what will happen is this. They will say we don't have that survey right now. I tell districts, don't stop deciding you want an outcome because you don't have the way to measure it right now,

087but make sure it is measurable. And often what that would mean is they'd have to revise the survey. They might be looking at a new adoption. They may look at new ways to assess it because what that could also mean if you stop doing something because you can't measure it, you're staying stuck. But you do need to be sure that it's measurable and and all of our outcomes are are directly measurable. So if you were to look in any of our strategic plans, it won't get beyond that first sort of phase where I'm pulling them together to create the outcomes. And so there's an actual design to those that we make sure they are. >> Sure. >> One of the things that I I've heard expressed by um members of the community, staff and students

088is an an abundance of assessment or survey. Um, so how do we also make sure that uh these measures are maybe like grouped or um refined so that we have the smallest amount possible to get the most amount of information particularly in things that might be um you opt into, right? Like a a survey that people can choose to take or not take. Um because one of the things that we're hearing is people feel um that they have give they're given too many things and so they're not completing them and so we're not really getting all of that information. So hopefully you hear me agreeing with you which is why they're only going to have two goals now. They won't have so many outcomes. So if you have just two goals and each of those

089goals will typically for example there are four outcomes for goal area two as opposed to having all of these goal areas with all these outcomes. We're funneling it down. So there going to be fewer of them which by its nature will eliminate all of these different things that you're looking at to measure. So that would be the other response to that. >> Can I just say one thing before you do? I just want to say thank you so much because I really love that um we are grouping the goal in in the way that you have brought it to us in social emotional learning and also with each of our blocks. Um yeah I appreciate that. Sorry to cut you off. I just really >> No, you did not cut me off. I >> to

090state that when I had the >> It's really good. And I think that um when I look at how we're operationalizing right now and you're all familiar with the annual operating plan, the AOP that I'm creating because our current strategic plan has under each goal six or seven or sometimes eight or even more bullet points of outcomes and there's five of them. Guess how long our AOP is drafted right now? It's over it's close to 30 pages. um and it is um way too much for the organization to manage um and it's overwhelming. In this type of a plan where you're really focused that AOP will be shrunk down um to half the size and will be more focused so that we can actually spend the time measuring what we need to measure and addressing

091what we need to measure. And at the end of the day, it's going to create more clarity for our teachers and for our principles um who are the ones doing the work, the heavy lifts in the in the in the schools. Um, and I will say, and she's going to get to the theory of action here in a moment, and I want to make sure we can get to that. Um, but when I when she presented when Dr. Campbell presented to principles and assistant principles last week, I had this is the first time in 10 months that I had unsolicited phone calls from administrators saying, "Thank you. Hallelujah. This is amazing. I'm bought in. This is one of the best professional developments that I have had already this school year. Um, and so, um, it

092was, and those are unsolicited responses to what Dr. Campbell brought to the table in front of all of our administrators last week. So, um, so this is they are signaling to us right now, thank you for giving us focus. Um, and then, uh, President Hayes has had her card up, so I want to make sure she has an opportunity. >> Told you I can't interrupt. Um, so I'm a Yes. I'm not disagreeing with streamlining. I I totally understand all that. I also will remind everyone what we measure, what we assess is what we do. And I do not want us to stop the understanding of the importance that our students are critical thinkers, creative creative thinkers, innovative thinkers because we can't figure out how to measure that. Those are the skills we know whatever the

093world looks like they have to have. And I am going to be a dog with a bone on this. If this gets lost in the system, I we have to make sure that that is part of our work and it is called out. Even though it's hard to assess, we cannot lose it. This is critical to our work. >> I want to also add that when you think about how that manifests itself, it manifests itself within classroom environments. And where I see teachers calling it out is when they have success criteria that deter that define what you described and how it shows up in an assignment. How does it show up in a presentation? So that's the kind of practice I want to see teachers using. And when they're using success criteria and they clearly

094name what does creativity look like in this project, that's the that's the level of which you can be sure it happens. So, how do you look for practices in your strategic plan that cause that that lift that up? That to me is the way we operationalize it because as someone who's led a large teaching and learning department, I would hear that, but we never unpack what it actually looked like. That's what it looks like. And so, we should be seeing success criteria, self assessment that value this. And when you see that, that's how it translates in the classroom. Um I appreciate that what you're sharing here is um an example of another district's goals. >> Um I want to voice one concern that I have that I'm seeing and that I feel overwhelmingly comes in

095this process. >> I want to ensure that the goals are not just about reaching a baseline. >> Oh yeah. I want them to be lifting the ceiling because I find so often I hear from students that are saying, "Well, I didn't really learn anything in those grades. I was waiting till I got to the IB program or I was waiting until this or I had to take an AP class because I needed to have like a" And so I get we don't want to like silo kids away from each other. We want them to interact, but there are also times when they need to be with like the group that thinks as they do and have and be able to like reach as high as they can as opposed to we're just going to make

096sure that these kids read at second grade level and I don't care if you're reading at the sixth grade level, read your book over in this in the other room, the other space. And I feel like we do that a lot. And how do we bring that focus in as well? >> And I I hear you. And we certainly don't want what I call a strategic plan that starts out with low ceilings. And ultimately your team, the team of leaders here after having read research will co-construct these plans and the culture of your district will drive some of what's in that content of those practices. So I would be shocked if that were to happen because research does not tell people to do what you've described. It tells people to make sure they're pushing towards

097rigor, pushing above grade level, doing the kinds of things that I think you value. So great conversations and I love you're in the work and you're thinking very complexely about this and so I'm going to just sort of skip through what I've already discussed. The performance targets uh also, you know, are written in ways that districts, some of these districts are nowhere near these performance targets, but they've set big bold goals to close some of these gaps. That's one other way to think about how districts are pushing the needle, and they are now clear about how they're going to get there year-over-year. They break up each of these performance targets and they start to think about what will improvement look like in that first year to get us there. The second year and the third

098year working with their assessment teams so that you don't just sort of think it's going to happen in year six. You want to actually work backwards and now you're you're the strate the actual theory of action. I don't know if I put a copy of that in this because it's not actually in your outward plan, but I'm I'm I'm just realizing I did not do that. Justin, profile of a graduate. Uh this is an an example of what a profile of a graduate looks like. Each district has a different set of competencies. This is where we have a lot of uh student voice, parent voice, community voice, uh university voice, different stakeholders at the table. we write them uh in sort of I am voice. We want student voice again to come through these competencies.

099One best practice that I've seen students should start to be able to self assess themselves on these competencies as early as elementary school. You should have ways in which they're interfacing with it again so it's not just a poster on the wall and to be self assessing progress all along the way. The vision is what of the student experience is what you want students to experience every day. the profile of a graduate is what you want to leave your system with. So that's the difference between the two and the practices. This is what I think I'm hearing the board express a lot of interest, concern, hopes, aspirations. And this is what your leaders, your instructional staff, your teachers will actually write. I don't tell them what to write. I give them as much research as

100possible. They're going to be in large groups. I know you'll be observing some of this and you'll see what comes out of that and that's where we capture what you've described, Sandy. This is where it will be captured. And so for goal area one, you can see the outcome on the left. You can see here these are the things that teachers are saying they're going to do in the classroom. This is what the school leader will do and this is what the district will do. How do we come to this? we do a theory of action where we actually have big overarching um concepts and actions that this process breaks down into what actually will happen in the classroom. So here is an example in Mount Vernon around belonging. They want to have student voice

101structures throughout their district. They want school leaders to develop and promote this practice. And they want the the school district to do things like support schools in implementing this and helping with professional development. Where you see developing in the right hand side, they are not doing that. This is brand new. So this is the first year of it. That's how we categorize it. Because if we don't categorize it, what happens? You just have a bunch of things that are brand new and you can't do all those brand new things at once. And so this is to ensure uh what I call balanced implementation and something you can actually pull off. And we do this for every single one of the goal areas. So where these practices are will be where a lot of what you've

102talked about will live. Um basic here they didn't use the language. I have a suggested language called sustaining. They chose basic. What this means is that they're already doing it and they want to keep on doing it. Right? I know this is small, but I want you to see what's described here is literally what will actually happen in the classroom. What will we want our school leaders to do? So, you get a new principal to your district. They don't necessarily get to start all over again. They're going to use this as a driver and they don't have to guess what we want leaders to do to support it. We've called it out now and we've framed up what we want the district leaders to do to support all of these schools. So now I'm an

103elementary principal. Guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to partner with other ele elementary schools about these practices because we've named similar pra we've got the similar practices that we're focused on. And so those are the practices. Now this is what the district does. So in this district, if they're wanting those schools to accomplish those practices in those goal areas, you've got to name what the central office will actually do and they have four big things they're going to focus on. And what's the requirement is you have to have a teaching and learning foundation and you have to have a family partnership one. Those two have to be called out because they're not called out explicitly in the foundations and you've got to have some best practices there. and they've named what they're going

104to be doing to cause these two areas to be supported in those goal areas. And then the district also picks two other ones. This district chose high quality operations, facilities, safety, and financial stewardship. And the fourth one was equity centered, continuous improvement, accountability, and effective systems. And below are the initiatives that the district or the central office will be leading over the next six years. This would be you go right ahead. I know. >> Yeah. I was just so so just to make connections to our current system. >> Um a major initiative that we know is coming forward is MTSS and UDL. Yes. And so that could be a foundation. Not saying it will be, but it could be as we start to engage people, but it is a major lift for us. So um

105and then there are um we need our operations foundation three down there. We've heard from our operations that they want to see themselves in this plan. We want our bus drivers. We want our um business office, we want um those highquality people who are employees working towards a common goal in this plan. And so this is another example of some of that work. So it could be around we're having big work around enrollment and and you know and so this might be where that lives. So, think about our current like our big district initiatives right now and how we're going to focus those and this is what what how this currently connects >> and pulling them out so schools aren't trying to figure out how to navigate to an initiative. They're focused solely on student

106outcomes. That's how you're accelerating that school improvement. >> And I wanted you to just see some examples. One of the things this district knew they needed to do a better job was their data systems that they had these new outcomes, but how do you actually get that information to school leaders? So, that was one of the things that they had as an initiative. The other way reason this is important is if you've got developing things that are brand new, often a building can't do these new things without PD, without resources. And so you want to have the the district initiative, the foundation to support that, to lead it first before the buildings start to be accountable for it. Oh, actually we do have it in here. I didn't realize, Kylie, I talked to her about

107it. I didn't know if it was behind here. So I this is the quote that I often will share is that a vision without a strategy is just a hallucination. We can write this down a thousand times. If you don't actually backwards map and design what you want to have happen, you're not going to actually see it happen. And I share the research on theories of action, I'm not going to necessarily belabor that point as to why you do it. Often when you see theories of action, they're what I call smallcale theories of action. What's unique about the approach I use, I'm using a very big global theory of action for your district and we're doing it on an asset base. We're not problematizing the theory of action saying here's the problem we're trying to

108solve. We're starting with what students say and that vision and it's an aspirational theory of action. So we start with the vision of the student experience. It's right now we're early in the process of framing it up. We say what do we want educators to do? What do we want building leaders to do? And what do we want the central office to do? I've even had some districts do what do they want the school board to do to support it. So, from a policy frame, and here's an example of one for um East Valley, and I'm going to just sort of show you how it aligns. One of the parts of their vision statement is I learned that's an abbreviated statement. There's more underneath it. This it's just a lot to write in that box

109there. Here are the two things they want educators to do and here are the things they want school leaders to do. So for example, if this notion around creativity and innovation comes up, you'd want to see it in your theory of action. That's how then when they pull from that the practices that you want to see in the classroom, they're going to see that that's what we want to cause. What practices causes teachers to do that with teach with students. This is the best way to attend to that in this design. And here's what we want the district leaders to do. I want to show you this is Battle Creek, Michigan. I did theirs last year. Uh this is a district that had a lot of documents. They had a lot of things they had

110created, but nothing was really being implemented in the schools. And guess what they figured out? They had a lot of things and people couldn't choose. So we they they used that time to get a little bit more focused. And I love that they were able to create a very concise theory of action because they recognized they were just so busy stacking. I call it stitching versus stacking. You want things to be stitched together so that they flow as opposed to just piling the pylon. Um, and here you can see their learner, their vision for the learner. What do they want educators to do? And what I encourage districts to do, do not have more than four things for the educator to do in terms of the big buckets. We don't want to overwhelm. We want

111them to be really good at a few things. And here's what we want school leaders to do. And here's what we want the district to do. why this district leader thing is so important. I uh as as superintendent wanted my nutrition services team to see their through line to the learner. I wanted Mike Benzene to know how our facilities was connected to the learner. I there's nobody who can be on the sidelines of your strategic plan. And by doing the theory of action process, you get everybody with some skin in the game. So you can see recruit and hire talented uh educators to implement this vision. you'll see every single player involved in thinking about how to backwards map and not just thinking this is a function of teaching and learning. The other example that

112I want to show you is the one from Portland. What I love about theirs, they actually added a column for principal supervisors in a district your your size. I think you need to do that as well because you want to really call out what will principal supervisors do to support school leaders. In a smaller district, that's a superintendent and so the district column helps. But in a district your size, you want to do this. I actually did a facilitated session with Portland where they had to ask themselves how have they drifted away from what's in the theory of action. They listed ways that they've drifted and they made some commitments to go back to this theory of action. It should be something you're constantly utilizing. So this is a sample of what I mean by

113theory of action that'll drive those practices. I want to show you one other way in which this actually happens real time. So and I'm skipping a little bit because I want to get to this example. So across the top is this district's theory of action and it's only one row. Okay? See the vision right here. Educator here, school leader here, district leader here. This is for goal area one. These are the two outcomes. Increase in student report of physical and emotional safety. Measurable. Yes, they're all will be measurable. Increase student self sense of self-efficacy. Right now they do not they did not have a way to measure it. They've now figured out how they're going to measure it. Is it measurable? Yes. And we took that this part of the theory of action and this

114is where the practices are coming out of what they want the teachers to do, the school leaders to do as well as the district, the central office leaders. So when you see and hear the kinds of things you value that you're talking about Sandy team that's going to drive those practices as opposed to us just keep if we were to repeat to teachers we want you to have creativity and risktaking and you just say it to them you've got to have a way for people to actually codified backwards map from it and once they see this then that uh increases the likelihood that it will be actually accounted for. So, wanted you to see how we use theories of action to create alignment. And guess what else is happening? Everything is aligning because they're all

115nested. Okay, that's sort of the big picture. I know I've told you a lot. I'll be coming back to you intermittently all throughout the process to give you updates. I understand that you'll also be on different committees and and the in different roles of observers. So, it'll all come together over time and through these updates, I I don't have a doubt that you will feel involved and feel like we're addressing some of the things that I know that are so important to you. >> Can I ask one quick question? Um, is there a way that we can access some of the research if we want to like it dive into some of like I'm sure I can't read every committee's research, but >> Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, one thing that um I will talk

116to you about in our next iteration of our two-on-one meetings is I will share the various opportunities to observe um this process and um ask you which areas you want you would be interested in and then I'll um figure out a way to try to meet everybody's needs. Um I'll have two board directors on each of the committees. there's 10 open spots. So that allows each of you to be on two um or two of you to be on each of the five um areas. Um and then um and then I just want to reiterate that it's super important in this process as we're talking about the policy governance model. It's really important to me is that as observers you're observing and that you're engaging in that kind of a way. when you ask questions

117in those meetings or when you start to share your opinions in those meetings, it influences people um because of your positionality. Um in the same way that if I got into a room and I'm in there and I'm starting to share what I think they're as going to dis I have to be careful about my positionality. And so when you're in those meetings, I'm I'm going to be asking each of you to be observers um and to be ambassadors. That is your role is to ensure that you're helping sponsor and to create and and and the third is for understanding. So you understand the process, you can speak to the process, communicate the process to your constituents, our constituents. Um and to come back to our governance meetings to just make sure that we're moving

118in the governance model in the in the same direction. Um so um so we'll talk more about that throughout the week. One quick, maybe I've missed this, maybe this is part of the road map. Um, so I'm hearing a lot of what different groups are going to do. The only thing that I've heard that board members do is observe and possibly rewrite a mission statement. Are there other parts to this process that we engage in actively? So the mission statement work is certainly an important part and we'll be bringing updates to the board so you're aware of what these groups are creating and board member participation on the committees. Once the plan is sort of finished, we we share that with the board. Different districts do that differently. Sometimes the board approves it. Sometimes the

119board sort of cheers it on and then they set up their monitoring schedule for it. So that's pretty much it. And so ultimately I'm not doing your plan. Your teacher, you your teams are doing the plan. They're doing the work and the board is actively engaged in becoming so fluent on what is actually happening. That graduate profile committee, we actually have had board members sit in those in that that particular committee. I will tell you, we've actually had board members who are part of that group. But uh as observers jumping in making sure that you're aware of the process. >> Yeah. So we we will vote on it because um our practice is that our five goals are part of our monitoring. So we will vote on it as a board. Um yes you are

120observers because just raising an eyebrow or smiling and nodding. I've had my own experience where people come back and said, "Sandy said that we were doing this." I was like, "Oh, no. I was just nodding in agreement that I understood what they were talking about." >> When you whisper, it's a shout. >> It is. So, uh, however, and, um, if they if you are in a group and you see them starting to go down a road, you know, we're gonna demand that only purple carrots are served at lunch, that you can come back to Dr. Irish and say I'm I'm a little concerned about the sustainability of what is being proposed in this group. That's you know I'm I'm worried that our community is not going to support that. We given where we live know

121that if there is not a conversation around um future work future ready right give our community is demanding that um that our students are prepared for this world of technology this world of AI that is healthy and um that they're safe and able to use it product right so if there is If we're seeing that there are gaps that we know because we are the liaison from the community that there's gaps in the conversation that's also we come back Dr. Irish and say, "Hey, I'm not hearing any conversations around music. How do we make sure that that's part of the work that we're doing?" Or I'm just throwing I love my purple carrots example. >> And the other the other thing to recognize, you have experts in out in your schools. I have never seen

122a group of leaders come together and have a plan that isn't solid. And so I would just also know and trust after they've read the research, after they have integrated that. I have rarely seen poorly written plans. And so certainly you're you're going to be wise to listen, but I would also just know that you've got some incredible leaders in your district who I think will probably position you in ways that are going to be nice. >> Yeah. And I wasn't quite I was just trying to answer the question, what's our role in this process? And so understanding that's that it's we're not silent um in this there we are active participants in monitoring ensuring that we understand there's no surprises we don't get a strategic plan where we're like wait what is happening here

123that we are involved throughout from day one all the way to the point where it comes up to us for a vote but it is it has to be community, staff, and student driven because that's how it becomes a living document. If we, the five of us put too much of our fingerprints in it, it goes on a shelf. Six of us, if the six of us put too much of our fingerprints on it, it um it will end up on a shelf. >> It will. Thank you for that clarity on the school board's role in this and the pathway of of giving feedback where we see there might be a little bit of um purple carrots happening. Um I have or no carrots. Yeah, I have two questions and maybe when we get into

124the nitty-gritty of it, it will be sorted out and it's not the appropriate forum. So the first one is we know that racial educational justice is crucial and important to our community. They've they've made that very clear and I'm wondering how REJ is involved in all of this. I know they're one of the community groups and the students who are part of it are going to support it some way somehow. And I'm I'm wondering how we we involve that group especially just because it is a through line through everything that we do in the schools from the students all the way to the the district. That's my first question. The second question is going back to what President Hayes brought up is that we are operating in a very outdated system and we're still operating

125in a very outdated public education system where it still feels like we're trying to teach students how to be industrial workers. Um, and we see these other ways of learning and other ways of being for students. And I'm wondering, maybe this is too big of a question and this isn't where this needs to sit, but this is very philosophical. >> How do we incorporate some of the different ways of learning within our goals, within our our eventually our parameters, and and how do we Yeah. tease that out because this is I want to acknowledge what everyone has said. It is very outdated. Read your handwriting. Sorry. Um thank you for trying to guide me. Um thank you uh director TR for reminding us how key the equity racial educational justice is. And absolutely that is

126going to be and that was kind of where I was going with the innovation critical thinking that that's something that has that racial educational justice has to be woven into every component of this. This that's how we ended up with the equity means >> column in this was that we realized it couldn't we couldn't silo it. So um I'll just echo that that is going to be part of it. That's our job as observers is to make sure, okay, don't forget our students. Let's make sure that their voice, our our job is to make sure their voices are being heard. Um, and if I'm sitting in a room and I'm realizing, oo, I'm not hearing equity means, I'm not hearing about racial and educational justice, then again, back to Dr. Irish and saying I'm I'm

127worried that this group seems to have forgotten some of our students. But yeah, at the end I promise you we will see a strategic plan that that is again to my point if we don't talk about it doesn't right if it's not measured if it's not called out we don't talk about it. So um that's the goal is that we have a strategic plan that the goals when they come in front of the board that's what we're monitoring and if so it's going to have to be >> and when I think about it you know we had the equity means column as well and what I will also say what I love about what Mont Vernon did they actually unpacked it because when you think about equity I think for me as a woman of

128color and I think about how important it is to listen to people's perspectives about how they're seen, how they're heard. We need to operationalize it. We need to actually see it everywhere. So, in your practices, teachers should be using practices that allow students to be seen and heard, their stories told, their communities honored. That would be the way in which you would actually start to operationalize some of this. And certainly, when you think about the different voices at the table, they will be at the table to help us and hold us accountable to that. it should be all throughout your plan. >> Um I think you mentioned briefly that there was a possibility of having like a board role in this um in the direct like the theories of action and I think to an

129extent where it works that would be really helpful because it would also help define to the community what we actually can and can't do >> in a in a very structural way. So they you know they can refer they can understand like we don't do we don't go talk to teachers at schools and hire teachers or fire teachers or discipline teachers like that it it becomes a you know this is our column of it also to help explain that so that we're not always trying to like be the only voice that can teach that. I think that's why that board that chose to do that did that very thing. is was it something along the lines because you know we do the you know we look at the goal review reports and give feedback um

130and we obviously vote on whether or not work towards the goal has been continuing and and things along those lines. Um is that kind of what was >> in that column? Yes. The responsibilities of the board. They also talked about socializing it like when they were out on whether it was Rotary or whatever it was that that community participated in they were going to champion the goals, give updates. So it's the kinds of things that you would be doing from your policy role that would be written out. >> Right. Are there any I want to honor Dr. Campbell's time? We did go over about a half an hour of your time. So sorry Dr. Gamble. >> Thank you for your engagement. >> No. >> Um so, um I appreciate you being here. There any other

131last comments or questions? Because we'll have many opportunities with her again. >> So, I was just going to say thank you so much for the thorough presentation and really looking forward to >> all the different updates and working with you. >> Yep. Thank you board members. Thank you. Great questions. That tells me your commitment. Um, you know, I've been a part of a governance team and I know how important >> Thank you, Dr. Campbell. So, next steps, I will be sharing with you in our 211s opportunities for you to observe um the process. We will have um meetings scheduled next fall um and winter and spring for you to have governance check-ins regarding this process. Currently, principles are working and their principal teams are working with students to gather the ideal student learning experience. All

132of that information will be collected and um provided to Craig and then Craig will um synthesize that information to help us identify what that ideal student learning experience looks like. Um and then um we will have a our first session coming up and we have two more sessions coming up with our administrator teams in June which you will be some of you will be a part of as you observe. So I'll share that out more um in on our two1. >> Okay, quick break and then I don't have the agenda. I don't have a copy of the agenda. Okay, >> I looked in my folder. Oh, okay. Hence my Okay, quick break.