Board of Education Special Meeting 9/5/19

001This is the special Board of Education meeting that in open session interviewing the consult consulting firm and responsive impressed with proposal to conduct a superintendent search we had an interview yesterday so we'll follow the same procedures and process and the interview we boring tool that will remain the same so just use the one that we used last night and just as instructor just put the number in at that last for that last question or the first column I think the other ones are inside we good to go so everybody's already doing and you know know you and I'm sure these rings in in yeah cuz it's jr. itself so make sure just say that into your laptop that's what I get roads okay yeah I know I've seen that the rockwork they again otherwise you're

002gonna lose everything then you stay up here our first render is Macpherson thank you for being here today and so we have we said about 10 minutes and that we're going to and then also yes thank you okay a reminder please have your mics on yes it's so hard let's just leave it on yeah yeah that's the same you do yeah sign conversation you will be cool yeah shut it off when you want to do that yeah okay all right go ahead great thanks Gloria thank you everyone for having us we're honoured with privilege to be here my name is Daniel McRoy this is my colleague Brian Haines and we're representing Macpherson and Jacobson they sign for Nebraska permits been around for a long time and you've obviously read materials and we're not here to

003really do a presentation because you don't want a presentation you've told us that when we have the opportunity to watch your board discussion about these these opportunities and so we really love to have a conversation with you tonight and it's clear to us that you have specific priorities and topics that you'd like us to address relative to race and equity demographics communication and community engagement and the board relationship is that is that an accurate representation yes that's great well with that as an introduction I could go through my credentials I could talk about McPherson and Jacobson but I don't think that's necessary because I think you did that as basis for inviting us here to dad rather tell a story about Who I am because I think you're interviewing me and Brian as much as

004you're interviewing our firm and I think the obvious question I'd be wondering if I were you is how does the composition of these two people sitting at this end of the table that represent the richness and the diversity of the Madison metropolitan school board and the community that you serve and that's that's what I'll address through the course of my story also allow me to say Javon Dixon one of our colleagues could not be you got her credentials in front of you that I would be remiss if I didn't point out that if we had the privilege of security the service this this job search she will be joining us in the process okay so let me begin by saying just I am a descendant a fourth generation descendant family that emigrated here in the

0051850s spoke no English at the time and over the course of four short generations I now have the privilege of serving as the superintendent of schools in the greater Green Bay Area of story--the in my capacity for the last 15 years so work with the Board of Education and I value and recognize and appreciate just the incredibly important synergy that needs to be present between the board and the superintendent as we serve the needs of the children the families and the community that has entrusted us with the stewardship right of responsibility for a governing and leading the school district well at the time my family arrived in America in the 1850s Horace Mann I guess the father of public education at the time made this comment he said that public education is the great equalizer

006and public education is the balancing we love the social machinery of America the time when millions of immigrants were coming into the country we as an institution one of the most enduring and enduring institutions saw it as our right side as our responsibility to embrace and to accept and to take all we are I told my staff when I welcome them back two weeks ago that we are the Ellis Island of institutions because we take all children regardless the background of experience race gender and that's that's a high calling and that's the reason why I've dedicated 29 years of my life to this pursuit that's the reason why I wanted to accept the invitation to be here it's not to interview for this job because I share that passion and well I might not necessarily

007reflect the diversity of this area I share the commitment that I think you have as a governing body to ensure that those values are reflected in the search firm that you partner with here tonight you know we're a great institution if you think about Annie Sullivan most people know Helen Keller right but we are the institution of Annie Sullivan who said that I need a teacher as much as Helen does I loved Annie Sullivan's humility and she went on to say that my ability to educate this child will be the distinguishing event of my life if I have the brains and if I have the perseverance to accomplishment so Nikki I know you're an advocate for special education you know Annie Sullivan was personalizing the learning experience for her before people were using the term

008personalized learning so I love the fact that our institution represents her we are the institution of McCulloh right the first woman teacher astronaut who signed up for a job that she knew was dangerous right she was one of eleven thousand applicants she knew there was danger involved in the space shuttle Challenger and yet she said I touched the future because I teach I'm proud of that heritage that we represent Christa McAuliffe would the institution of Hercules Demetrius Anastasius Nicola you've never heard of Hercules Demetrius Anastasius in the club and he became my best friend in college he was from Chicago he was the byproduct of an arranged marriage dad who was a butcher on the south side who died when he was seven he had a middle school teacher who said you can go to

009college and he chose to go to college come home for Christmas one time and because his brother wouldn't pick him up his brother was in a game his mom didn't have a driver's license she spoke no English I pulled into his neighborhood and he lived and boarded up what's your shop on the second floor with an uncle who was sick and a brother of you was unemployed and a mom who spoke no English and yet that's part of the American Dream right that we represent and today Hercules Demetrius Anastasia Snickle ah was an elementary principal and Kimberly Wisconsin we are the institution of Sam's system at summing sisamouth when I started teaching one of the things I had my students do on the first day of school stand up in front of the class introduce

010yourself tell us something you don't know or others rather don't know about you and why this is going to be your best year yet something stands up in front of the class I remember it like it was yesterday although it was probably 25 years ago and he said I'm so mein sis of F my family escaped from Laos by crossing a river at midnight we ended up in a refugee camp and the Philippines before a family in Chicago sponsored us he arrived in Chicago moved to Wausau where he worked at a ginseng farm while he moved to Green Bay subsequently he became the state powerlifting champion and then ended up in my high school in suburban Green Bay and I as a wrestling coach at the time I said have you ever wrestled and of

011course he hadn't and long story short he joins the wrestling team we're in the state semifinals against Wisconsin Rapids and Sammy had never wrestled in a varsity match that night we put him in the lineup he looked me in the eye he said coach I may not win this match by guarantee I won't get Penn he didn't get Penn that night he bridged for five minutes off of his back we won the match by two points to go to the state tournament some in graduates goes on to serve with distinction in the Navy and finally were were the institution that allows a community member like me to go to the Western Sahara and North Africa to be part of an event you've never heard of it's called the dialogue for peace there is a refugee

012camp in North Africa that I had the honor of going to and it was Christian and Muslim leaders for three days dialoguing not about their differences but rather about their similarities and the interesting thing is this gentleman's name is a da he was the principal or is the principal of a school within the refugee camp and he spoke no English and I didn't speak his language and yet we have this common connection as educators and I gave him a token of appreciation she loved his children a few hours later he comes back he taps me on the shoulder as I'm listening to the dialogue for peace and motions me to follow him out into the parking lot with another man who is with emotions me to get into a truck that was sitting there and

013mind you I had just met him a few hours earlier and so there's a leap of faith right involved in that I got into the back of the truck at which point he turned around and presented me with this ceremonial garb as a gift of appreciation and I started crying it touched my heart because while we were separated culturally and otherwise we had this commonality and that was caring for and educating children so what does all that mean that it means that I recognize value and appreciate diversity it's part of who I am as part of the leadership experience I've learned tonight school district in my community I was born in Madison in 1968 so I've got a personal connection to the city I still have relatives that live in the Greater Madison area so

014well professionally I have a goal of working for you personally I have a goal of serving you and the community by giving you a great quality experience that results in an excellent leader that's going to partner with you for the betterment of Madison the family thank you so I just turn on your mic so I'm Brian Hanes and one of the areas you're asked about is hearing a little bit about our community engagement process communication in our relationship with a board just a little bit about Brian Haines I guess my connection to Madison Madison really in a lot of ways transformed my values and belief experience I grew up in a little town O'Connell Wisconsin just north of Green Bay and went to two music camps here starting my junior year in high school senior

015year in high school long story short I ended up going to school here to be a teacher and did all of my course work here undergrad masters and the doctor at work and ethnic wise funeral come to Wisconsin it's a very homogeneous community it was a second child in our our family to go on to college so it was there was a lot of delft when I go back in my childhood and wondering if I could even do this and Madison was all big and encompassing and it opened my eyes to a world I'm proud that we're proud we have a daughter Kate graduated from college and they went out and served two years in the Peace Corps she was in Moldova for two years and speaks fluent and mania now and speaks German and

016I'm going to see her actually next weeks she now lives in Colorado so a lot of that impact changed us and changed our whole family as far as communication I served for 17 years on Wisconsin school on public relations board as a volunteer and as a superintendent Oh as a superintendent for 21 years and I always said to that group I was surrounded by communication gurus if you will I felt like I took so much more from them that I could give them as a superintendent but a lot of discussions and presentations and seminars about community engagement and relationships something that's very close to my heart I say to the staff when I said to the staff every year we hire is the most important decision we make there is no more important decision than

017that and the new teachers were always introduced that way because the the leaders that I worked with knew that that was something I highly valued that they put a lot of time and effort into that decision whether it be a teacher an administrator there is no more important decision and around that just other values of mine I would say life is about serving others and it's about relationships and with that intertwines if we don't have to make this really complicated sometimes this is that golden rule that we learned when we were very small goals at a great distance so communication you'll find that our communication is is very fluid I think if you would look at pages 21 through 23 when you have a chance in the RFP there's an actual checklist there there are

018three sheets this what we offer you is a defined process to follow we work for you and we certainly are all ears and eyes and willing to revise that there are certain areas as I talk about formulations at the end here where if we need to challenge you on something you still have the final say I'd say going to that last area you've asked the question if we would share a time when we had to challenge the board I worked with the West Bend School District in their search a year ago and at some point in time we're talking about the issue of referendums came up and I have a lot of experience in passing referendums and and they they were they were considering moving on with a referendum prior to making their superintendent hire

019and that was one where I felt like I really need to weigh in on this I I felt strongly that that relationship with the community and that that's a piece that they really should think secondly you know think seriously about going in through with that even though a lot of it was planned I don't know what the outcome of that was but that's just and you wanted an example of when I challenged the board on that another example if it would have ever happened I'm glad it's never happened with Macpherson if the board would bring up something that would be unethical or illegal or immoral you know something like that was just that out of bones asking us to do something that would be an opportunity where I would challenge the board to reconsider because

020likely the outcome of that wouldn't be sustainable for a successful candidate or for a transition so who we hired is the most important decision as far as community engagement the community engagement process Madison it would be very important to reach all areas and in a diverse population and just the contacts and the information in this room as board members we would be asking you to make recommendations where should we make those contacts and what are what are the key groups and based on our experience we would also make suggestions and there are some obvious connections as far as you know internal but internal external and certainly the community of the diverse community making sure that you have all of those people in a nominal group activity we would make that transparent by literally recording and

021posting and paraphrasing to make sure that if someone is providing input that we're characterizing exactly what they meant to say so that that paraphrasing so it's accurate that would be compiled in a detailed report the board would get that report and that that would entail asking questions like what are you most proud of in the district what are issues that the district is facing and you know I think there was a third one there characteristics what characteristics would you like to see the new superintendent hold and and that that does a lot in terms of selling and telling the story of Madison it is really a really fun part of that experience is listening to all of the strengths and what people are proud of in Madison okay Madison is obviously a destination that a

022lot of people want to be and obviously you know you know what I'm saying I spent a lot of time here and I have a very close friend that lives in Fitchburg so I I certainly would love to earn the search and will be open for any questions you have that we can go into more detail now about the P RFP thank you Richard thank you you're welcome on the table and we'll get started with Kate thanks thank you both for being here do you race this already but you speak a little bit about racial equity strategies that you're using and in particular experience with anti-racist leadership experience how you access that type of talent and what the community and staff engagement process for look like so Kate just for clarification purposes he's speaking in

023regards to specifically in my case like my district and or at Pearson in general mostly on the ladder so I think how would you support us from a search perspective and in terms of accessing talent that has experience with anti-racist leadership yeah so you know equity is all about fairness right and equity is really a mindset and a value and it comes through loud and clear when you take a look at the work you've done and specifically I've spent a lot of time looking at your strategic framework very impressed with it and actually using some ideas in my own district so thank you for being a leader I think it's arguably one of the strongest documents I've seen and I hope you're very proud of the work you've done and what caught my attention right

024away is a framework that engaged 2,000 participants right in over a hundred different meetings leading to deep engagement with your leadership team that provides a perspective so I think the model that you're accustomed to as a district as reflected in this document is the same model that we to get at the equity issue and now if you've heard of Jamie Waller buddy's author of a book titled schools cannot do it alone it talks about this great conversation that needs to happen at the community level and my sense and my belief is that in your case that's an ongoing conversation about things that really matter and I think you've taken some really bold stands and some really important topics that aren't typical in most school districts in America even in urban settings I want to applaud

025you for that regardless of widget whether we get your business I think you're champions and leading the way it's really critical areas relative to equity race and diversity and those are hard stands to take and sometimes bring opposition and I'm sure you know preaching a little bit to the choir in terms of saying that so one more talks about this process where cultivate understanding that leads to trust which leads to your ability to ask for permission which leads to support and then it's continuous and ongoing right so think understanding that happens to a dialogue that happens through time that happens through shared experience we have these stakeholder listening sessions part of what we're going to do is ask those questions that Brian reference a few moments ago to engage your community so you on the

026process we are going to spend time with you before we go to the community and we're gonna take you through a process whereby you'll identify five key qualities or attributes that you're looking for in the ideal candidate and then we're gonna ask your community to provide us with the input then we're gonna aggressively search so given the fact that race and equity and diversity are values that you have as a school district we have pretty strong profile of the candidate that we're looking for and now we recruit aggressively to get that candidate to come on board now in our case we've got 134 consultants across the country in 34 states composition of our team of consultants is around 30% diverse in terms of gender and race and so we feel like that gives us the

027bandwidth to really take the values of this community and you know is let's face it Wisconsin the pool isn't probably that deep in terms of the ideal candidate that you might be looking for it doesn't mean the candidate doesn't exist but as the second largest school district in the state and a very uniquely comprised district there aren't a lot of other districts like Madison and so we've done searches recently in Rochester we've done searches in Columbus Ohio you know another pretty diverse Big Ten City so we've got experience we've got boots on the ground that's going to help us take the qualities or characteristics you're looking for and then aggressively search for the candidates that fit the profile and certainly I think and I don't know if this is a question you're going to ask

028to be able to find a candidate or candidates that are willing to continue the good work you're doing here my assumption is while it's not perfect I'm betting that there's a lot of what foundation groundwork you've laid that needs to continue with the leadership of the new superintendent and so will the new superintendent be able to embrace you know the vision you have the ambitious goals you have the leverage for change you have and the way I love the way you articulated at the end the way that you're going to work as an entity as a governing body ways of working you know an example being I'm going advocacy the superintendent with our Board of Education and other elected officials and school districts and institutions will advocate change at the local state and national levels

029to assure policy and funding supports teachers the profession public education children and families so I know I'm giving you a broad-brush response to your question Kate but hardwired into all of that then are the value is our own equity and making sure that we're recruiting the right candidate who shares common beliefs in that area give the lecture to invest but I want to ask have you often worked with school districts around this size is the first half we're gonna give you two responses I'll go first and I'll share a list of districts like Madison I just referenced are not Chester and Columbus I was involved in the DeForest search where we were able to recruit in the higher air Prunus anaphora says you know neighboring in a way to Madison and probably remember this past

030spring they passed a significant referendum in excess of 100 million dollars with Eric and I swore he was working with that community so I'm proud of that search it's the closest one to Madison that I've been involved with there are others at the national level Wake County in excess of 100,000 students Scottsdale is open right now we're doing that search as a firm and a number of others on the sheet pretty substantial pretty large districts anywhere from three hundred to three hundred thousand students who you see you see some big ones that are identified there and the other half of my question and they're little disjointed because I put a plate on his own your firm's one I appreciate your quote again II Sullivan most people mentioned Helen Keller very few men to the teacher

031but my question is what is your firm's experience with special education and inclusion and and whether you believe that collusion is a necessity when recruiting diverse Canada so we have a mission statement that basically it's simple but I think it's inclusive of your question Nikki it states that every child deserves a great educational experience in every school district then requires great leadership in order to make that happen and marrying the two together is gonna be for the benefit of children and certainly philosophically inclusion is is one of those values one of those pillars that that's a critical important toss importance to us both personally within this role and then professionally during during our respective leadership and just for the other board members I haven't seen the list yet apologies we have one copy I'm circulating

032for the public also if you're watching this what I'm circulating as a list of districts there are about twelve districts on there that are Madison size and as Damian mentioned some of them are two or three times larger that the firmest work for they've firms placed over 700 725 superintendents and positions over time there there's a stable of about 900 applicants on file there's a website that this website gets about a hundred and fifty thousand hits a day or a month rather so I mean there's significant activity that that's generated as a result of the organization it obviously it's been around for quite some time now legally were not able to require that when an applicant fills out an application that they answer the race ethnicity or gender criteria on the application of the brinel

033shares some of the data that we have and I think maybe it skews a little bit better to kids earlier question and and Nikki also bringing up some of the questions there you know we watched your tape and we took to heart all the questions that you raised at your meeting as you're preparing for this so this is just a listing of the number of applicants over the last five who specified you know what specifying what their ethnicity is so there were 78 percent of them were white 22% were non-white 2% were American Indian or Alaska native with one percent Asian twelve percent black and six percent were Hispanic just to give you a breakdown and an example of the school of gender gender doesn't apply it so as far as gender the agenda was

034twenty nine percent female and seventy seventy one percent male great thank you very much you're welcome um so again you kind of touched on your working relationship at the board but I would like to give you the opportunity to tuck and a little bit more depth about how you see your working relationship with the board when you engage in a superintendent search yeah we have a process Chris that activation anyone we refined it over a period of years working with over 700 boards during that time and a placement of superintendents in 41 different states through about the country so we feel like the process is good and we don't hire the superintendent right we provide the board with a great process to make a decision our job is to be a resource to the board

035so the way we're gonna support the board in its effort is really plan the work and then or work the plan and then plan the work and work the plan and as it relates to the process in place your packet has great detail it goes through the process that were selected as your choice our next meeting would involve a lot of time walking through the logistics of that ultimately however you are the boss and we work for you so we're gonna make recommendations based on experience if you have other ideas or thoughts or opinions about what might be best in our job is to listen to understand every context is different right so it would be presumptuous to come in here and say this is you know an ironclad process that works in every situation

036so we need to have the flexibility and the numinous to listen to understand to share an opinion about what has worked in the past of then if at all possible to accommodate your ideas and your preferences to make sure this is a process or works for you so so within that process there are five phases just as an example Chris and that first phase one of the most critical and important tasks would be asking the board through through a formalized process a systematic process to identify what what are those key characteristics that you'd want the superintendent to to have what based on the needs of the district and based on the input that we get from the stakeholders remember that's a question we ask them as well we also use the information from the stakeholders

037what are you proud about in the community to put together that pitch to the community that's definitely there's a lot that people don't realize in every school district frankly I think that's something we can do a better job within public education is telling our positive story daily what happens in the classroom and across the district so very good question so a little bit more detail on community engagement both um how you're gonna do it in more specifics like the types of forums or focus groups or whatever you might organize and also at what points in the timeline you're going to incorporate the information you get from the community into the the process what the community engagement process one of the initial steps would be asking the board to identify where are those subgroups throughout the

038entire community representing the entire district the obvious ones would be internal and teachers students other administrators certainly you have your voice at the table throughout this whole process as a school board but then we get into the business community be at the Chamber of Commerce there may be churches there may be other subgroups that we want to have around that table and we would advise 8 to 12 people in that process because we find people are more willing to share but what happens is we schedule those days that gets scheduled we communicate that out and there inevitably there are conflicts because some of these people are very busy so we also have an online component that will allow them to do this online so that we can get that input and let's face it certain

039populations it is difficult to connect with them face to face sometimes so we want to have altar ways of trying to get that feedback and sometimes we provide the technology that's another option to do that so how that's used that information gets taken and that information is summarized again we paraphrase to make sure we're characterizing exactly what someone is saying make sure we have agreement before they leave they see the entire list I want to just go to how we how this played out in West Bend on the screen as they are providing the input open transparent to the community input is provided people can come and observe this we had a few people come and observe those activities that information is shared its summarized it goes to you in in the form of a

040formalized report so you have every comment that everyone is saying now you're able to discern that and you're able to compare what you as a board for example identified as those five key characteristics how aligned are you to the community and at least the perception of the community in terms of what what you need in terms of qualities to hire the superintendent so I my answering your question Chris was just at Chris and it comes to the search then we've got that document basically feedback we hand that to individuals that were recruiting and we say this is a feedback from the community so they're able to have a thorough knowledge understanding of the community input values comments questions concerns to fully understand the uniqueness of Madison based upon I'm doing courage school boards to participate

041in that process at all like school board members to be there and participate or not we we have not actively recruited school board members to be part of that you certainly are welcome to sit there and you know to serve maybe out more in a listening role would be advantageous so that you can glean additional insights I think whatever as a board what we call them listening sessions or linkages in my community or meeting with different stakeholder groups every month so it's pretty consistent with my experience my current district so I think we're totally open to that it hasn't necessarily been part of the process we've used in the past but I see no reason why not I would say the same Chris in my experience when you ask that question what issue is do

042you see facing the district as a board member you just have to ask that question would that person with that group be willing to share X Y & Z if you were in the room I don't know you know the community better than I on that I mean if it's an obvious issue that people are aware of likely and they we want people to share we want to get honest data and information like I said the list of positive things I'll guarantee you you will be very proud when you hear that list one that that's garlis whether you will report back to the board and share that menu you'll get a written copy of that thing that I'm gonna a third part of my set of questions is um filled searches or sometimes inevitable um

043what happens if we reach a point where we have three finalists and I come to interview and none of them are acceptable for some reason or something comes up in the interview process that didn't come up in background checks what happens at that point it hasn't happened before but obviously that I would hope that the process and the thoroughness of the process on the front end and the vetting that we do we spend a lot of time a lot of energy both aggressively recruiting and then vetting candidates per your or the qualities of characteristics you're looking for so I haven't personally experienced that and I would say that would be a result of a process it wasn't executed as early as it needs to be and then I think we have a conversation around what

044does that mean and perhaps starting over or looking at some modified form of the process perhaps going deeper in the candidate pool and exploring other applicants that maybe didn't make the final cut list of options and I just have one quick follow-up question I noticed on your website that in addition to doing superintendent searches for districts you guys also provide candidates with things like resume preparation services have you ever run into a conflict of interest situation where you've sold your services to a candidate and that candidate is then applying to the district and you've like helped them prepare that resume not that I'm aware of but I can certainly check and it would be good to know if that's ever come out okay so my thank you so much for being here my my questions

045are also a comprehensive with different buckets but I will start by saying this it is possible that this might be a very unique experience for you all where you may be contracted with a very diverse for them many different aspects we know that there's not a lot of public school boards that reflect the composition that we do currently so given that aspect the complexity of that what what can we expect of like a working relationship with you in very particularly if you can kind of give some examples and how would we how would you challenge us in certain aspects I know you mentioned like around legal pieces which I think it's pretty a straight line but other things that there are not necessarily under legal rule but it would be sort of like an expertise

046situation can you either of you sure Alvin I'll start over I mean I think one of the things I would ask you to I know there's a lot of information in the RFP but in the back part of the RFP there are a number of testimonials coming from districts after the hire about the communication the relationship the quality of the candidates you know McPherson and Jacobson in the proposal we will will stand by this process to the point where if the person leaves in the first two years will repeat the process for free the exception would be the expenses that would come but that's how confident we are in placing an individuals so you'll see that in in the left side of your folder on the back because is the I think the financial request

047but that to answer your question about what we would challenge I'm trying to think in in a search I remember one time being nervous about what Damien just characterized about the thoroughness that we put into the background checks vetting information checking social media we really want to know everything we can about that individual if that window isn't large enough that's where I would caution aboard and ask them to please reconsider allow us more time because I really we're passionate about what I said at the beginning who hires is a very very important decision it's worth the extra time and effort to make sure you get the right who and you find out and if and we do it in a you know in a way that we ask people to also provide other recommendations of

048people to call rather than just calling references if you will so we try to dig deep and we do a lot to vet that information out so where we would challenge the board again if it's illegal or immoral or unethical sergeant is like how how how would we do that how would you do that well your white men there's no white men in this board how would you challenge us given that there is like there is no necessarily a cultural bridge how would you challenge us listening to understand another big part of communications listening right would pull out a value an emphasis and speaking but that's not the most important part am i listening to understand the concern that you have am i asking clarifying questions to be clear that I have what the issue

049is and so I would say also if you have protocols or norms or agreements as a war because obviously you have disagreements right your diverse board how do you resolve those and to the extent that we can co-op those in a meaningful way to support you in your work that's what we want to do I mean let's face it we have the same goal in mind we want to remember we won't have an excellent process of results in a really high-quality outcome that everyone feels good about so it's in our mutual best interest to make sure that there's no contention and if there are issues of disagreement let's challenge ideas not people and you know that's a distinction that's important subtle but important so another part of the question was how in your discussions in

050preparation of the RFP given that you already said that we are in a new position both from our demographics perspective than demographically our students given that our demographics of the city is not that representation our demographics of our board and the explicit mission and vision that we have with our strategic framework around anti-racist work how what sets you apart with what you or your firm says you know or what you prepare to kind of expand to ensure that the demographics that you are that you are both being able to bring and attract the demographics of the pool that we're looking for and these your particular tools or strategies around that then you can mean yeah it's a great question I didn't mention in my introduction but I have experience working in Chicago public coaching Prince

051opportunity it's like all of my experience isn't limited to Northeast Wisconsin as it relates to that the other thing I would say it's important for you to know is that I'm a member of the urban superintendant Association of America there's approximately a hundred of the best I would call some of the best superintendents in America they actually asked me to present to them during their summer conference in Boise so I've got a strong and deep network and access to some of the most diverse and capable educational leaders in the country and I've already been thinking about individuals that I could potentially call up in fact I'll be before I even knew about this opening and this opportunity had made arrangements to shadow who I think is one of the leading African American women superintendents and

052the East Coast I'm spending a day with her in early October because I wanna I wanted to have the value of that experience and I would consider her a close personal friend and she's embraced that opportunity with open arms I'll also then go up to Washington DC where the League of innovative schools is convening so there's about 80 national superintendents again a pretty rich and diverse group of thought leaders with specific emphasis on technology and so I've got access to that group from a recruiting standpoint so between the urban superintendent Association and the league of innovative schools I would encourage you to google either one of those organizations I feel like I've got access to some of the best education leaders in the country many of whom I would consider close personal colleagues or friends

053so I don't know someone they clearly know someone and I can leverage that for your benefit thank you for so much the richness of examples from the from a candidate full perspective can you a bridge to also how are you thinking about given that we're going to also expect you know the first representation diverse voice on the community engagement process with some of the strategies have used or you're planning to use too you know when you were speaking to among the elders refugees to clear and trans folks you know so how with some of those things that well you know I mean any consultant who comes in here and claims to understand the community really well is being disingenuous you know it better than anyone and while we have a working knowledge you know there

054are certain things we don't know and we're gonna rely on you for that I know you have translators for example when for your board meetings like if you call in advance and someone wants to come and it doesn't speak English as a first language so I think that's a great example a great service and I think we would lean on your knowledge awareness and expertise of the community to help us with that process I don't want to walk into a situation where there surprises that doesn't reflect favorably on our farm or you as a board or of this school district so let's be sure we clearly understand the dynamics that we're dealing with and trying to anticipate potential challenges or issues like that and then just collaborate and making it happen we will have a

055point of contact in the district and there's a page within the planning document that spells out all of our duties and responsibilities and all the duties in response was at the point of contact when a contact would help us anticipate some of those issues of challenges is not aboard remember because you've got too many other things to take care of but I would hope whether it's barb or someone else who's got a good working knowledge of seeing the issues here that we would rely on leaned heavily on that person to help anticipate and and from your firm is the two of you plus the germination that that's the time all right I found the case of listening sessions we got three days of listening sessions due to the size of your district typically we do

056those in a day we're going to go three days to engaging your community and we're willing to bring in a dish support including diverse consultants to help us with that recognizing that we want to engage in a meaningful life thank you alright just timing um so we'll move on to ally all right how will your firm take an intersectional approach to inclusion to ensure that candidates are added to group diverse group of people spoken to that pretty obsessed makes sense it looks I'm like yeah what language will you use to ensure members of the LGBTQ community are engaged to apply so I noticed when you had the breakdown of genders Green Bay has trans inclusive policy Madison has trans inclusive policy I noticed in every single submission that folks used he or she frequently and

057yeah you know so how would you make sure that the LGBTQ community is you know encouraged to apply how will you represent the the district's ability to support diverse leaders so how will you talk about is why this is a good place for candidates of color for candidates with disabilities for candidates of color with disabilities who are LGBTQ to be leaders how you talk about our ability to support those people in this community I'll start with the very last piece that you shared how we would do that to me that's part of telling the story of Madison is it not the diversity the richness of so many cultures here and then you add the University influence and potential impact I think there is a lot to sell to any population given that richness and that

058diversity so I mean that I think you have you have the ability to do that here unlike many other places in terms of the way market and promote avastar our home office in Omaha to assist with that because candidly I haven't passed that question before nor have I been involved in a search or that's going to play an emphasis so there again I think from an HR standpoint I think we have something to learn I love the fact that within your strategic plan especially when you talk about black excellence you come right on the saya there's there's certain things we don't know as a school district we need the engagement and help of the community you come right out and you say that you're strong and continuous improvement right but you have work to do

059an innovation and we need help and innovation so in that particular case I guess I would ask from an HR standpoint let's collaborate on that to make sure that the way we're doing that is reflective of your values so you know that better than maybe we do give them a lack of experience in that area so let's collaborate great thank you see ya so I think we have a community that wants to have a really hands-on process with the search can you you know over your years of experience and leading searches can you highlight some practices or strategies you think really stand out in terms of how you embrace community engagement and what makes your search process very transparent and just any lessons or insights you've learned over the years and conducting these types of

060searches I think is it goes back to Brian's introductory remarks this is a relational process you know we can talk procedure we can talk process all we want we've got a great system at the end of the day it's about quality of people treating others with respect engaging and a vulnerable often anyway I hope that the way we're coming across tonight is reflective of what you could expect to see and hear back from stakeholders that these individuals were real they were authentic they were humble they had experience and they were willing to share that and yet they were open to the idea that they didn't know everything and we're okay with acknowledging that rather than making up an answer to sound or look good and very collaborative in the process I think that's the value

061proposition that we bring to the table is you know real people doing important and meaningful work in a human way at the end of the day how do we engage in a very human and open way so I would just add within that process just the phrase no surprises you know say what you mean mean what you say we have the process we have the agreement of phase one phase two through phase five this is what is entailed and this is how it plays out and it has been replicated and it's been revised slightly to answer your question what's different from one district to another some districts have suggestions so it's not like it's it's cut in stone that it has to be exactly that way but there are certain components that are effective in

062terms of following that order and ensuring that information so I think that transparency to the community and that's a compliment to the community that they want to be actively involved and that's music to our ears right because as educators we want the whole community to support such an important decision the leadership of superintendent of the school is sighs that's just really listening carefully and paraphrasing like I said we were transparent in the sense of we could just take notes during those input sessions we have the ability to put that up on a screen and make sure what we are hearing and paraphrasing is exactly what the intent of an individual you and I can say the same thing but it might mean two different things we want to make sure we're we're clear and that

063goes back to all the diversity and understanding one another the same and we're an extension of you as a ward and we take that responsibility very seriously I want others in the community when they have the opportunity to interface with us to say the board made a smart choice they made the board made a good choice these individuals listen these individuals care these individuals are doing more than a job they have the best interests of our school system in our community and mine and that's portrayed through their attitude in their actions thank you great thank you and then just one last question follow up with the community engagement piece as saving I mentioned you know we have strong partners in their community I think and they're hearing the voices of our teachers particularly right in

064this process it's so important and our strong relationship with the teachers union and I'm just wondering how in your former it your experience around working with teachers in our you know unions and really helping them and engaging them and being part of the process throughout the process and not just like one engagement session can't give me experience or an example my experience is with the breakout if you do it in a day and madison's case three days you could do this by level it might make more sense like elementary middle and high school because of the magnitude of how many teachers and certainly you want union leadership invited they could be present at all three typically though to answer your question it has been in one session with that group and then one session with

065the Chamber of Commerce other leaders in Madison Chief of Police Mayer Chamber of Commerce then all the internal and external and when I say internal I think it's very important to include support staff bus drivers not just the you know the cooks that made the supervisors very important to get those voices around the table so for that reason thinking this through we would need more hands on deck to do community engagement here and to do it really well I mean that's a good question yeah thank you that was 29 years of experience hundreds of teachers at my school system and do a community engagement survey or rather a perception engagement survey with their staff ninety-eight percent indicated that the superintendent was a palpable flex of our school system in response to my leadership last year

066and that was seventy percent of our employees or thousand employees I know you know five thousand so what a fifth the size of you so I only offered that try not press you but I'm very proud of that and work hard to ensure that people are treated well and valued and respected and so you've got an ambitious goal that deals with thriving right driving schools thriving teachers thriving students so to me this is just an extension of that effort and I think that's the way we contextualise it as we talk to teacher leaders and leadership how can we embody it within that strategic idea that you've already put on the paper so to me this is just an extension of that gloria another belief and it's research-based I respect so much what you just asked

067particularly in regard to teacher involvement the process this isn't it puts the superintendent down at all but the research clearly shows the most important decision and impact on learning is putting a quality teacher in front of students obviously a superintendent leadership is important I don't want to upgrade that but from my training right here of all five blocks away that would be that would be that's that's key and it's critical that they do have a voice and that there's harmony between you the superintendent and the teacher union in the district that the the your relationship working with the superintendent those characteristics that you identify and then really holding to that when you make that final decision to hire that's that's when that match comes together that's very good very good question thank you all right

068those were all our questions we have some time for you to ask us questions if you have any of us what mine would be I know listening to your board meeting you are leading again on the 9th what what do you see is your timeline for making a decision you want to get into a test and yeah okay that was my question Kate is what help us understand that means it's because while we want to support you in that goal we also want to make sure there's a balance between you know getting you thorough and also having the time to recruit and appropriately about the candidates typically it's a two to three month process yeah and square with what you're thinking it does we have a timeline that I don't have in front of me

069right now but we do have a draft timeline accepting that it's a draft timeline and the reason we're looking at for a vendor to support us is that you guys have more knowledge about kind of tactically how to accomplish this successfully directionally that timeline would have us in making an offer in February with forums in early January here in Wisconsin and I believe kind of in-person interviews or interviews of some nature right before Christmas that's my memory and Deirdre is nodding which nights were are actually correct here so that's the draft timeline we have out there and I you know certainly for whoever we end up selecting that we need to finalize what that looks like giving your experience in knowledge and I just have one more question and that question is is there anything

070at all in the back of your mind that you're wondering about Anna Pearson and Jacobson or maybe Brian or Damian that we didn't bring out in this this interview anything you want we would not offend us with this item just well I want to make sure that you understand what we have to offer and the transparency is real I mean I any question that you have that I do actually I just wanted to kind of drill down Chris asked or maybe Anandi you did in terms of who exactly is working with us can you guys just get a little more tactical on you know who's our primary point person that's our everyday call I mean you're a active superintendent in a non small district I appreciate that's kind of a big job so just can

071you talk a little bit about it very actively who's who's our phone no friends and well the broader network has certainly that given what what's going on in Damien's life if that becomes an issue as being the lead you know then I could certainly take you know we're willing to add even while we talked about the third person with Janet for the community engagement piece depending upon the feedback we get from you to reach out to the community we've already talked at the office we could add a fourth person to help assist with that but if your concern is with follow-through or not I just want to understand tactically listen you should support a feeling I've got 18 consulting days and my contracts my board has been really generous in terms of allowing for this

072there's a benefit to my district as well because I'm going to learn and see things that are going to make me a better leader I'll bring those homes to my board with values and appreciates the opportunity so I would be the point person I've got the days in the contract to commit to the project I take this very serious and really selective candid lead for the reasons that you brought up Kade so if I wasn't prepared to make that investment I manage and here tonight because that one make sure at the end of this you feel great about it I feel great because I'm making an investment in you and the community and there's a there's open relationship so Brian and I then work very closely and then Janet we have a point of contact

073the connector should bless you anybody else have anything can you talk about really briefly about what a successful match looks like for you well good so let's go back to phase one as a board you identified the following five characteristics to me the answer to that question is the person that best meets the five characteristics and what you and the community and the staff in general and the district that's the match and certainly after a thoroughly vetted reference checked in the you know that person has really checked out through every other way that we can check them all right that's that's the match in my mind it's the yeah it's a unanimous up 7 to 0 vote in every you was casting that book decisively because it's so obvious and apparent to you that this

074is the right leader to take us forward and let's face it superintendent jobs are three and a half to four and a half on average that's not good enough we know that systemic deep sustainable change is minimally a four to seven year process that previously and hopefully you saw the impact that that can have so the issue isn't the cost on the front end for the service that you're providing the issue is the opportunity lost in the cost when you lose a person in the first three and a half to four and a half years so just to give you an example Little Rock Arkansas search we did hear the qualifications that their board came up with an ethical and courageous leader who possesses great leadership skills an experienced analytical academician who implements best practices

075and student achievement an excellent communicator who can build consensus through the community a culturally sensitive administrator who has progressive experience in similar sized urban schools a wise recruiter who aligned talented personnel and about the world so their board came up with that and then it was our job to find the match so that the board when it came to the vote said absolutely this is the person the process worked trust the process that we do our homework on the front end I'm confident it'll result with a great choice on the back end 80% of the candidates replaced in the last five years are still in the wall that we hired them for that's a pretty good statistic I think that's better than the national average I think it's as good or better than the private

076sector so we're very proud in fact almost 50% of those who place in the last 15 years are still in the role we hired before those 750 so pretty strong track record I guess off tools with that because I think that's me thank you so much you like to be absolutely good sorry I know what I'm telling like so can you talk about just internal and local candidates in other than your other searches if how that has worked out for you yeah I think that's part of our early discussion is are there any internal candidates who you consider to be viable and it's important for us to know that on the front end to two aspects so number one is that the case and it's important for us to know that number two are there

077any candidates who are once here who have gone elsewhere that you are interested in us recruiting back to Madison that's another effective strategy that we've used in the past so we would have that conversation early in a process and frankly you've got probably some names in mind that are important for us to know now that how has that worked in your other searches you know I it's mixed about frankly I think my opinion is if there is an internal successor who the board regards as a really highly qualified candidate than from a transition standpoint that obvious works better or almost all these works better whether or not that's the case here I don't know I know you've got an interim right now with jane and my understanding is she's not been considered as candidate we

078made that public who make that not clear so are there others within the system that you're thinking about and we want to know that and you know the value of that is if you've been able to create that immense strength as an organization that's an asset because the person can avoid all of the transitional challenges that come with trying to get to know the staff the community policies the board so there are some advantages to that but that's really got to be predicated you collectively telling us that this is a person we're seriously considering and they're not guaranteed anything right they've got to go through the process but you want to know that great okay thanks we'll start back in again you logistics of the process here I'm we you will have a maximum of

07915 minutes to do a presentation to press and just share a little bit about yourself and your experience and so forth and then each of us will have a session for you leave about 10 minutes well thank you so much for the opportunity to spend time with you tonight and and to get to know you and we are very excited about job thank you about working with you we hope at the end of the evening you will actually feel our energy and enthusiasm and since our expertise and experience because we we are here to work with you and for you and today and we have put together rather than having a literally death by PowerPoint slideshow we we put everything in a series of number two handout so we have up and we'll talk about

080this as we go through it and then I also wanted to include a one-pager we were big on one pagers just to show some of our track record or not be referring to that in just a second and the president of the hazard young a teen associates have been a superintendent in state superintendent of Illinois and my whole life has been literally devoted to serving students needed historically underrepresented students starting with 24/7 residential program in Harlem New York in 1969 through the abettor chance program unfortunately just had the opportunity to submit a chapter for a book called have-nots to have minority achievement and talent of and so as you you sent in here about our experience as well from my colleagues here we take this incredibly serious and driven by this mission of assuring opportunity

081and access for every child every day so that I'm gonna turn this over to or at least ask them to introduce themselves or to great Wisconsin superintendents former superintendents outstanding leaders known across the country and certainly throughout the state Sarah Jerome and Pat new door so whoever wants to introduce themselves first go right ahead please 15 in Wisconsin and eight in Illinois 46 years all told in education and had experience kindergarten through graduate school in terms of teaching and administering in terms of being brief and I know that's one of the virtues here I want to just talk to you a little bit about that my credentials in terms of equity and social justice because I think those are things that you have talked about and have great passion for and I want to just

082share some of my background there I have a Duke masters and a doctorate from education education and did my postdoctoral work at Marquette for my superintendents license and have worked in both urban and large school systems starting with Prince William County in Woodbridge Virginia and Cypress Fairbanks in Houston Texas and in Rockford Illinois I spent time with the court-appointed Seventh Circuit federal court appointed master in a desegregation suit and one of my tasks was working with closing the gap in terms of achievement with those students and reporting that progress to the courts in addition I have very recently had some experience teaching at Concordia University in a program called project invest and that has been a program funded in both public and private ways to encourage teacher aides primarily of color to become graduates and

083teachers and the class that I taught was all african-american and women from inner-city Milwaukee Racine and Kenosha working on their baccalaureate and our course was learning theory and it was a wonderful experience in terms of seeing the progress and how proud they were of the progress they were making some of them first entries into college of their families and so it is definitely makes a difference to have an investment of time and resources in that program in addition I would just share with you my commitment to hiring practices and the Arlington Heights School District experience was one where there was a large commitment to trying to diversify our staff and to creating an opportunity for people to have experiences and interaction with people who did not look like them and so hiring people who had

084different backgrounds with an important goal in addition to our goal of global citizenship so I think that might hit on some of the high points that I wanted to share I do have a great connection to have served on the wisconsin school music association board for many many years know some of your administrators and teachers quite well particularly the music ones so it's been a close relationship Pat great thank you and I echo that - thank you so much for having us I'm excited to be here and I will start out with a similar message that read your material and certainly knowing what you're about I can assure you that my beliefs and core values are very much aligned with the work that you're trying to do and certainly I practice and believe in and

085guess the practices and promise that we will go about this work with great intentionality important in the kind of work that we're all trying to do I'm also a lifelong educator I finished my career as a superintendent predominantly in Oconomowoc I retired from Oconomowoc about six years ago and I've been doing search work and other professional work since then I have a small career in education beginning when we lived in Illinois and Aurora outside of Chicago and also in Eau Claire before we move to this area so I'm familiar with with our two state certainly I've been very active while I was superintendent in a sa both Sarah and I had the the honor if you will to be elected female presidents of aasa we were number two and three since 1835 the year 1835

086so we were honored to be selected by our peers to help with that organization and we continue to do work in leadership development attracting all kinds of candidates and making sure that they are developing superintendents especially for schools across our country since my somewhat semi-formal retirement I've done some work and in higher ed specifically at Alverno college in Milwaukee where I'm the director of the administrative leadership program a part-time position if you are not familiar with Alverno we the undergraduate students are predominantly first-generation college students Alverno last year had the distinction of being designated a hispanic-serving we are the only one I believe in the state of Wisconsin and I don't share that I have any responsibility and getting that us there but I can tell you that it has been a tremendous learning experience

087for me to be and have hands-on experience with the kind of students and beliefs that I've talked about my entire career so that has been fascinating I also participated Alberto does a wonderful project in the summer called urban plunge and I participated in that where you really immerse yourself in some of the quickly growing almost majority communities in the Milwaukee area to learn some of their issues in that so I shared only to bring a sensitivity forward I'm a local gal I actually grew up in around the Chicago but I've spent most of my married life and career in Wisconsin did my Master's my PhD at uw-madison so I'm very medicine eyes very very lot of that and currently I'm serving on Dean Diana houses School of Education Board of Advisors at the University so

088I'm very very proud of that - I love to stay active and busy I think you'll hear that as we move forward so thanks again for having us no more stories I will proceed because um this process will involve us working very very closely together and I hope that we will have time for all of your stories in the future but I'm going to continue with page the first few pages here and I'm not one to read slides I know you all are accomplished readers so but I also want to point out that these are not your standard internet stock photo these are your students and we seldom see such a photogenic launch point out we tried to pick out one to the fifth with the with the topic so why Madison matters on page

089two is truly because of your commitment to students like jalan joe and into all of your 26,000 students we know about your commitment to a culture of excellence we've read through the your community engagement report we've read through all your data we've read through the student surveys and I don't know who runs your research department but they certainly do a fab job and and so we uh we are here to work with you and for you to find the leader who will be the perfect fit moving to page three we do have a broad and deep national national network and you'll hear shortly how we use that network to recruit candidates for for searches of this size and larger only about half the candidates come through the application process the rest are aggressively and assertively

090recruited from across the country and I think you'll see that we are committed to equity not just a name but walking the talk and we believe that actions speak louder than words that includes our own network of associates and it also includes this handout in your packet we in that since 2015 we have served 25 districts of 20,000 or more we only have data on 20 or 19 of those since I became president I've really wanted to get this data but 53% of our slated candidates more than half of our slated candidates were men or women historically underrepresented populations so again this walks a talker so not just the applications these are candidates given to the board to slate 32 percent were women the national statistic for women superintendents is 21% so we believe in

091walking the talk at hazard young Motty and associates and I think her record speaks for itself page 4 and I love this shot from from East High here because we are we are about engagement and in communication you'll hear shortly from Sarah about our in-depth engagement process where we we really work with focus groups I ran the search in Glendale we worked with more than 20 focus groups we did a search outside Cincinnati we had 47 focus groups in addition to individual interviews we deeply engage a community in Glendale we had over 1,500 responses to the community survey in three different languages and this is what we will do for you so that I'm going to move on to the signature search process and hand this over to Pat on page 5 and he'll talk

092a little more about the engagement process as we go through this so all yours Pat Sarah and I are going to talk about the engagement and recruitment phase five six and seven of your notes and reach going to take apart and highlight that for you but please know that these two phases happen simultaneously so this really isn't a linear process these are things that really are are happening in tandem with each other so I'm going to talk a little bit about the engagement phase and I think through our career as well as our search work we know for sure that engagement is about listening perhaps in our professions sometimes we confuse that it's about telling it isn't about telling it's about listening so our engagement process has really predicated on listening to your community your

093concerns your staff your students all your stakeholder groups if you'd like to call it but you're ready to find out to find out what they say about you about your district and about your future in your future leader so I'll just walk you through briefly and then we can come back to that we if we are fortunate to be selected we'll meet with you very quickly in the next couple weeks to establish a planning meeting that will establish our calendar at the same time we'll be doing some back work which we've already begun actually looking for certain candidates to make sure we can tell you firsthand that we know available people that we would like to tap for you we have a direction Turvey that we conduct it is research-based and it pretty much illuminates

094for you the state of your district and also the leadership profile that people are looking for and Hazzard young anitya has a very strong analytical arm so you will when you have time to look through your packet you'll see a very I think impressive report and style of reporting that gives you the information that you need in an organized way and one that can really publicly understood as well so we would begin the survey the survey can be offered in multiple languages if you desire and we also will tabulate the demographics in any capacity that you would like to set them up so any stories you would like surveyed we can accommodate that as well we move then into interviews and interviews take the look of individual perhaps each of you as a board member

095individually certainly key stakeholders people that you would suggest to us that you want interviewed individually we are very very comfortable doing that we also do group interviews sometimes you may ask us to look at for example a select teacher group or a select parent group or a select group of whomever and we are very comfortable doing that we hold very large forums and focus groups as well and that's when I know when you're in you're working in your request you asked about transparency and about engagement and inclusion that's really where it's more than optics it is a real process that is people to come forward and share in this important work that you're doing and as you've heard we are prepared to do as many as it takes to really get a handle on your

096community and and what your people are asking from that information we create a profile and that profile does two things we present it to you first to make sure that we have captured and that we've represented what this search is all about and then that profile becomes sort of the backdrop if you will for soliciting candidates so they're able to read to and learn more about who you are and what you're looking for I think we all know this marriage is really about a fit and so we are committed to bringing you the very very best that is the right fit for your community later when you get to the finalist phase if you desire we also would do public days with your candidate if they are interested and there are some sometimes confidentiality issues

097that may have to be ironed out but we also can engage the community all the way through the end of process if you so desire to share that and the end of the road story with you again high engagement comfortable we certainly are comfortable with wisconsin-madison and I know you're gonna hear it from Sara and I all three of us really but you know these are our kids these are Wisconsin children we live here this is what we're about and whether you choose us or other another firm I really wish you the best and and really really wish you the best in getting the very best candidate this is very very difficult work very important right now we'd be thrilled to hear from your community how we can help you please yes that's the next

098step process and as Pat says it is tandem it is simultaneous we're already thinking about recruitment and connections that we might activate that would bring people to the application pool we want to clearly take advantage of what you say you want and what your community says is needed here and translate that into finding that right person we do it through advertising we do it through linking and making connections to our really vast network national network regional network local network of superintendents that we know are administrators or teachers or parents that we know throughout this whole system that can recommend people to us that are the right people for us to look at for us to vet and then to bring to you for you to go through that process so it we it's never just

099one we don't sit here put the application out and wait for applicants to come to us that's one step they there are many who will do that and we will look at them every application very carefully but we are also on the ground looking for people at the telephone weight reaching out to them so that they know about Madison we tell your story and we encourage high quality applicants to come forward and if they are interested we nurture that interest if they say oh no I'm not ready and we know that they would be just the right candidate we go back to them more than once just to say you might want to rethink that because this may be a wonderful opportunity for you so we are out of time so if you just want

100to finish up oh ok so anyway once we post this and we have the applications we give you back the analytics on who's applied what the demographics of that looks like so you know that we are trying to meet the criteria that you have set you've said you wanted and the clothes that your questions so it's time for your questions and in a spirit of transparency walking the talk we actually provided in brief written answers because we think it should be a public record and so well there you go so we will be glad to walk expound on those if you wish but thank you very much for your time it is yeah I'm not a handout they gave me papers they're here at Mia starts on page 13 and she is repeated on page

10114 and positive there you go thank you all thank you let's go ahead and start with questions how you can access this type of talent and what the community and staff engagement process looks like sure so let me talk for a moment about the a little more depth about the engagement process and then maybe one of you can talk about accessing the talent oh the the individual interviews with you and key stakeholders are important so when we've done searches and I Colette Denver and Glendale so I'll talk about for example we interviewed personally that mayor we interviewed some City Council members we interviewed people from the faith-based community who the board members picked out on the focus groups were determined by the board what which are which stakeholder groups are important to you oftentimes is

102there a group of special education parents or maybe a in terms of a gift and talented Hispanic african-american and Glendale was Armenian huge Armenian community and so we set that up at the first planning meeting with the board as far as the the survey we provided in English and Spanish it's research-based we can add a few custom questions if necessary and we can provide an additional languages again we've got a Armenian Mandarin all different languages we can turn that around in 24 hours the results on that and we expect about 1500 the town halls we like to have forums maybe one at each time one at West High or West and laugh a lot whatever we'll also do a community a virtual forum because not everybody can get out and so we I run a

103virtual forum so we have people from sit in their homes and can contribute and ask that so it's it's a significant depth engagement process and against Pat said we write this all the results into a leadership profile in the engagement approach area and I think there's a sample just a survey report in your packet and you want to either if you want to talk more about how we get candidates besides just through applications sure we sometimes we use the Wisconsin story or Wisconsin analogy that we don't subscribe to the deer hunter methodology where we sit back and hope somebody walks by if you will um this really is going to be an aggressive search and we will reach out into our network so in addition to hya having the reputation that it does nationwide and

104I believe will we should mention that the H way website lists every single position that's open whether we get we get a lot of action a lot of candidates looking at positions so in addition to H ways quality reputation Sarah and I both have personal connections nationwide from our work in AAS a and to be honest especially with what would have been called minority or underrepresented populations alas and certainly NAB see the to Superintendent groups that are made up of minority men and women and we have a lot of first name connections and so I really see us using our careers and the path that we've both chosen and the network that we've established to really make sure we can show Wisconsin in the best light but also bring you people that you might not

105have otherwise had exposure to so I think that I hope that answers for you how the how is what as we all know how is what we can target but I promise you we can do it my question I have to actually I'm going to break it into two parts one is on how do you the experience you have working with communities around the size of Madison you know we are a university town at the same time where breath are unique you have a strong history working with schools around our district size yes so they on that one pager in here these are all districts of 20,000 and more that we've done and again then you know Denver was 92 thousand I work with down for Glendale was almost identical size for high schools 26,000

106students in an alternative school as well so and yeah some are connected with universities in some art you know Crowley Texas not necessarily but certainly USC was a partner with Glendale both University of Denver and and what you write in there so yeah they were used to that in fact we had a a slave candidate come from the University for the Denver search so so we're familiar with that and I actually served in the university town in Palo Alto literally in this shadow Stanford University and learned a lot about design thinking and all sorts of other things so the universities I think can be can be great resources but the experience is extensive and what year was Denver just excuse me what year was dead roomed kevro's this year oh they it was a very

107short timeline we started in August and in place in Bali in December of um so it was it was tough my second questions are a totally different vein and yes but also one diversity um as a special advocate disability advocate I'm interested in your views on inclusion and how you make sure that individuals with disabilities are able to access the process sure so a few ways and we have um and again you can please jump in I'll give a first start so you know we we think it's important to have those focus groups first of all for parenting advocates for parents for individuals of disabilities in places that are accessible so whether you know I don't know you're set up in Madison well enough what kind of centers are but I will tell you where

108I work before work for example we had a County Center where we were an inclusive district but we educated students from the county so we would hold meetings in there completely accessible we found that also the frankly the the virtual forum when we did that and in Glendale especially when people could be at home or be with a caregiver and listen and respond and have somebody speak for them if they were not able to speak we use padlet technology in our focus groups and padlets a free app if you were familiar with it and it's su they they aren't I am yeah okay great and it is so empowering and not a problem because people can do that they are so they make sure their voice is heard no we leave it open after the

109focus group it's critically important yeah you're familiar with that out of us they have good support how do you use your virtual form the virtual form we use they either zoom we have a zoom license for 500 we found that's the best we can use Google meets but we like zoom yeah I just wanted to clarify is both phone and in phone and video yeah both right right right and I think it goes without saying too that sometimes the non school sites are as important whether you're accessible it it's more about just perception sometimes so holding these forums in school sites in addition to school locations we have found to be equally important appreciate the connection to your right leg Kiki I think you'd become a member all right Chris oh I have kind of

110a three-part question here and the first one is how you get more specific about how you see your working relationship with us throughout this process ourselves as your ambassadors we are taking your message and your mission and doing our very best to find people that we think meet that and bring them to you and we want to engage with you we want to listen to you carefully we want to give you our very best advice but we also recognize we are your employees and we do your bidding but we also want you to know that we have an experience that we want to withhold if you want to hear what our best advice is we want to give it but we also respect that it's your decision and we will do our very best to

111help support that and guide you in this process we recognize that you're a relatively new board and that you might have some questions we have had I would say maybe a hundred years experience collectively working with boards and so we might have some things that would be useful to you and would want to share those if you want to share them and we would do that gladly that will help if I need to quickly hyl solar provides aboard portal you have your own electronic portal where records information files applicants are kept it's a confidential portal unique to you and you have 24/7 access to all the materials all the applications and we enter into a confidentiality agreement of course because you are reading people's personal records but you have that enter access through that mental

112process that doesn't come to you at the end so you have through a choice organization you have your own Madison Area School District Court so just a quick follow-up to that the proposal you sent I said that somehow it would be working with us and I just wanted to confirm that and get more specific about like who's our point person what are your specific roles in working with us Sarah and I would be the are your neighbors we are yours 24/7 wars and we're divers in each way I'd be working with us as well so in my role and this will be it I'm also Wednesday resident my wife is from Evansville so quad zero so anyway but they yeah my role is is really I run the virtual forum and in the back office

113and take care of the survey administration should spend more than back office support but I also will assist with interviews and focus groups and forums is needed and again adheres 24/7 you'll have all our self all you have now I think we need new cars and bandits are our cell phones are in there and as Sarah said we've worked with boards for five hundred years I was 24 P and so we're used to were used to that relationship very and most importantly very comfortable and with it I think the details of that will become clearer once you have selected us and going through that calendar and designing exactly where each other plan and then having the opportunity to interact with you around those particular meetings so the second part of my three parts here is

114about community engagement which you've already spoken about quite extensively so I don't want to make you spend more time talking about that but um one one piece of that I'd like some more information about is during the actual meetings forums what you see is the board role do you see the board being present do you see the board doing more than being present so we like when I've done this I prefer not to have the board members there but we're very that's me personally I'll let Patton Sarah is that I always like to have a board member introduce the community forum to be there to introduce and talk about how important this is to give it really a sense of gravity and and credibility that this this really matters to the board but then you

115know I'm going to excuse myself what we're going to excuse ourselves because we want to have this third party in place so I think that that's how what I've done services in the past I found most effective experience both ways in communities that have considerable dissension sometimes it's better not to have the board present because sometimes the community members have things to say about the board they feel somewhat less intimidated if the board isn't there but our job is to listen and to bring all of that information back to you to have you filter that to through the leadership profile I would agree have done it both ways and in either case we would be very clear upfront that we that we work for you and then we are there to really solicit and point

116and collect that on your behalf your community has access to you already and we encourage them to continue that access which I'm assuming and I think are looking at some of your past history people are comfortable doing so we encourage that and frankly we can do it either way and just to follow that up can you get a little bit more specific about what format the information will be in from the many community meetings you do and how you use that not just to develop the list of characteristics for the superintendent but throughout the process of this hire so we have samples we can share so we write up a report up from the focus groups the survey is actually turn around 24 hours that's a standard the questions drop into that report I think

117there's we include this handle so you can see the survey report in the focus group we write in the executive summary but you know it's anywhere from whatever Florida four to eight pages but we also you have to access again to all the focus group notes are dropped into the board portal and we have a format like you did for your own community engagement process a fill in form so so the recorder takes notes and then so you can see the raw notes and then our final report that goes that goes to you both of those reports go to each other remember the nice big things yeah we came up with these representative evidence a further part of my question is about failed searches because we know sometimes searches just don't work if we were

118to get to the point where you bring us two or three finalists and it turns out none of them actually are a good fit for our district what happens we're going to stay with you and not charge you any more money and so on the class page we have the boys with a port or the broccoli and they're smiling about it because we're going to stay with you till you get the right person even for taste another year and you need an interim for a year I don't recall the ones that we've had I've been with a firm about too little about two years now yeah you associate longer but we will stay with you - it got the right person and we have not had that yeah that I know I've had of you

119know they've been happy and they're still working with their boards and boards with them and you probably read it's a little bit of a tangent but you probably read to that we go out and poach other superintendents that we've placed so while we talk about an excellent track record and these great candidates if they are new in those positions we're certainly not going to go and recruit them to move them into a new position so that's I think demonstrates our integrity a little bit in Norwood that happened to you so if we bring you the best it's with a strong commitment for and it's alright if it gets to that point where you are not the perfect fit because it really needs to be someone who is or is the perfect fit for the community

120so we have our commitment to stay with you yeah so this is a good segue so we have the first well one of the most diverse boards in Wisconsin the state of Wisconsin and potentially one of the most diverse schools how do you see the relationship with that how do you see your relationship with us in particular just speaking to disagreements or our recommendations from us that you find it to not be fit beyond what its legal requirements or did just in general know that Pantera could jump in with specifics we I said it in that on that last page you know are we work with you and for you so our job will be to provide pros and cons cloths and benefits when there's conflicts and because what we want to make your selection

121very difficult let me give you a slate that you're going to go instead of these two or three outright what sure we have two or three fabulous candidates which and make that difficult but but we're not going to recommend a candidate to you we will provide different scenarios different options and again I think the best we can do is pros and cons and maybe bring it to similar situations that we've addressed before if you are if you wanted well Pacific's because we all have specific stories yes in terms of having a board work together well we have a vested interest in helping you do that and we know that having you be a board that can discuss things even disagree about things and come together around a decision that ultimately is driven by the good

122of the students is in everyone's best interest and so we certainly want to facilitate that kind of conversation amongst the board members and we'll do everything we can to do that and that's what we have done with our own boards when we were sitting attendance so why would you challenge us I would agree and I would say that there's there's probably three big buckets that we would work from one has to be mutual respect you certainly are representing your community and we represent the work you're doing and likewise I would assume that there would be respect for our background and our expertise there would be no one in the room that sort of would override somebody else's thought or process because we're all in this trying to do this work collectively so I think that

123mutual respect really leads to trust and that's very important in this process the other is communication because I think we all know in our roles as superintendent but also in boards if you have good communication you can eliminate a lot of problems and a lot of issues so we work hard with you to make sure you have information that you need so that you can and then we welcome because without that or not none of us are going this is difficult work which we don't have to tell you that so the dialogue is essential and I think to create the kind of environment for where you respect and trust and have good communication so that you can have that dialogue is something I hope you see we'd be pretty comfortable with I wouldn't want to

124call it conflict I'd call it healthy dialogue so 100 joints aborted Jennifer so we presented a slate of six candidates and one of the members was adamant about dropping one and including one who was because everybody has access to the applications including another local candidate from the University and the Haitian Metro and I did that search and we challenged it through questions you know so what is what is a perceived value of bringing in this person and dropping that person well what how can we get to YES on this and what turned out to be of both and so we kept all six and and added the seventh is it worth an investment of your time to bring those seven candidate is it worth is it not worth investing in somebody who we slighted whereas

125these credentials but frankly didn't meet the diversity requirements of the board at the time what we thought was a spectacular candidate neither of them made it to the finalist which is interesting but we but we thought that you know challenging through through really questions and here's the pros and cons of okay and that's just that one specific example so the another part of the question is around what sets you apart from other firms in particularly regarding tools and assessments that you use the you know the upkeep are the outreach to diverse demographics of candidates around race ethnicity disability gender sexual orientation and what's in it cetera these two people I'm serious about that and and we we spent intentionally a lot of time have been introducing ourselves because you're going to be working closely with

126us and the people and we think everybody has a similar process we think our engagement process is more robust it's certainly broader and deeper than other firms but it comes down to you're going to work with the people and you have to trust and believe in the people and have that communication so that's why we'd ask Pat and Sarah to spend some time at the beginning getting to know them and certainly the the national network is terrific we have a back office staff so you get your results you get your reports the board portal you can see everything I don't know if that's a distinguishing difference I happen to think it is you know probably the other firms will say that the same things but I think in the long run it comes down to

127you know this is truly the a team of leaders and they have in their devoted to this search so I don't know from other search firms perhaps you are sir but I think it's a more sophisticated system I think pretty sophisticated your your portal that we mentioned it's customized for you certainly the materials you received back in the analytics that think as as you've heard the behind the scenes work in the back office that does the analytics for you and you know everybody loves and hates data all in one so you can but it does contribute your to your and our credibility and I think that's what's really important when you have printed reports our research-based and very much analyzed because of your community input it gives you a very strong leg to stand on

128I think that's very very sophisticated on the hym thank you can you bridge now to the capacity or strategies to both understand summarize and interpret the data you've been gathering from diverse groups example like among others refugees immigrants transgender communities so how what what some of the strategies that you have used in the past to both understand and capture the the sentiment of those communities so my story you know the the specific the focus groups for that particular for that particular for the particular group and then we try to capture stories of people in that and there are their thoughts and really probe on you know why you believe this why do you think this tell us tell us your story and you know we scheduled the focus groups for 45 minutes and most of

129them will go an hour and a half and we try to meet in smaller groups and larger groups and that's something we plan out so if we have to do weather or a special type you know going back to to Nicky's question to be inclusive special education represents at different schools or different times but we think it's important that they feel the sense of intimacy that they can share with us too and the numbers matter but sometimes in New York matters would be a healing even more and then so we really put that in the executive summary pull it pull call outs I think the access is what's going to be critical in your size because none of us would want to act on assumptions without checking them with you first so we would really

130I think rely on you to learn who are these groups and what are they are they're formal and informal communication chains within your groups because I think the more were in this work and certainly in our professional capacity we've learned a lot about culture and how culture works and how it influences then the conversation so I we would I think it's fair to say many of them rely on you to help us you're the ones that really suggest and put together the groups and we work with with your central office staff as well to help organize that and that's everything from where what's comfortable what time how do you do this and then how do these people expect to be heard and we've learned it's different across and again I don't mean to create assumptions

131so we would want to check that with you but but I think we're aware we're sensitive to the fact that people perceive and communicate in different ways we've done this with students we can't you know I was so impressed to see your work with a student engagement but we haven't talked much today about students and teachers so we think for example it's important to have one meeting just with it you're frankly your union leadership but I was with it with teachers high school middle elementary another with it with your school administrators what were the kids that you know the going to you know frankly we've done groups every high school for different high schools and sometimes you get several students sometimes we don't but I think including student voice is essential in this process so

132you're gonna and that's what we like to we hear stories and then try to put this into a part that the mayor's and gives us a picture of what they're looking and we have something that information already in your reports but I think it's time to do it again and I know we're running out I'm so sorry one follow-up okay we're just just that in all of this the critical and active listening that we bring to that meeting is crucial and we do that thank you so the three of you worked in Denver or just oh yeah I was a co-leader again familiar was Denver the system and done some work with them what's some of the transferable skills or lessons learned from Debra because I find them to be very provide two different things

133right so so the community engagement process they actually hired a difference they hired a local firm for community engagement they had eighty focus groups and it cost them three times as much as we were going to charge but there was a basically we want a local firm for their own credibility though so one of the the great learnings from there again is how important that having these small focus groups are and having the we did for down bro we did weekly reports we did a weekly phone call with a board that the board could catch onto we did a weekly written report for the board we learned for the application process we'll working with a board they just wanted a and a cover letter they answered tour I think there's two questions one was about

134an achievement gap issue and then a resume rather than a long list of written references and that was super helpful and it was helpful to the board it was helpful to us and coming to the board meetings and so they had update sessions the board did on the superintendent search during their meetings and then Hank attended most of those because he was uh he could be based out there how will your firm taking an intersectional approach to inclusion and ensure that candidates are a diverse group of people what language will you use to ensure members of the LGBTQ community are encouraged to apply so I've noticed in everything that folks submitted he or she was used pretty frequently how will you represent the district's ability to support leaders with disabilities LGBTQ leaders in the leadership

135of people of color how will you talk about what it means to work with this community and be supported as a diverse candidate yeah so we again I think are a record of slated candidates as strong may I challenge any other firm to say they slated or more than half their candidates were historically represented populations so be as far as the inclusive in the transgender I think the yeah I mean we use they instead of he or she I mean we under we understand the pronoun so you'll see in our materials were used Latin X versus Latino and Latina okay so we understand these things I and again I was superintendent palette but we were the first district to have transgender policy to have transgender washrooms I mean we were a leader frankly in the

136country on that so this is something that I know the three of us a new role is an AAS a it is all about this so um I think when by putting this information on that on the HOA website so what if you go with us you you get the premier posting and we post everybody's position so even if you don't go with us it'll be posted but if you go with us you can put any kind of information you want on there and so the Denver Board wrote a letter about they get a position today I can't remember what they call it as probably still on there about this and I think that's an important voice to the board to put on there and so I my slides are almost up here but you'll

137you'll see a picture of our website and it says we're here the postings so yours goes up there we can put on anything you want about transgender disabilities and Fujin and we and that's right up there in our materials so there you want to add to that what page is it hey yeah thank you I think - it's fair to make it another distinction but broad bring two big ideas together one would be an understanding of the superintendent pool that we'll be talking to and with you you might know that now there are many of us working in the leadership and talent development entrance into the pipeline because frankly as we've all seen underrepresented groups they're just not there currently in the superintendency less than about 20 percent are female and we're at about a

1385% percentage of what would still be called candidates of color so we all have to be honest about the pool that we're drawing from and I think to your point about looking at the complexity of the whole self it isn't just it isn't just gender or ethnicity or it's all of that together I assume that's what what your question is really getting to and how we get at that in addition to that though I think our language our presence how we represent you as a school district and and help people understand the work environment here's the people the community and your mind setting your belief of the candidate that will work here is the other part of of the picture as I see it so it's how we represent within the pool but also how

139we communicate who you are what your values the beliefs which I think in fairness we know takes a multi-dimensional approach now it isn't a one check box approach anymore so I do think also I want to move on yeah yes that and they want to move on because we are right in front of enemy AAS a is doing that's the National superintendents group is doing very deliberate educational piece for urban superintendents and historically underrepresented groups urging them into the profession and that is something that Pat and I are very closely linked to and therefore the conversations that we are having around this table are very much a part of their curriculum and so they're its ever-present in a super-intense we've dealt with Waka Flocka hiring I mean with hired my student services director was transgender

140I have so there we would he had this experience of hiring in all three could tell our own stories about that but we know it's time to move on okay but we all we would love to tell them the truth so go a Savion and Nikki will be the last very actually just got answered okay great okay okay can you talk about how you plan to engage really diverse community as three white folks frankly and yeah and you know different tactics or practices that you found out over the years that really bring out the insights that the community wants I think we have one that really wants to be involved in an intensive process I'll just start with my personal experience the first time I went to an AAS a meeting all of the presidents

141of that organization were spent sitting on stage they were all old white men and so I said to myself how can I relate to that group I'm going to run for president because that just isn't me who's up there although I respect these people I thought they had done a wonderful job but it wasn't I wasn't seeing myself in them and I think part of what we must do is bring people to our students who they can see themselves in those leaders those teachers those principals who will inspire them to reach and to stretch and to grow and that's what our job is and we've experienced that personally I would agree and I I think it goes without saying I have never met a parent a community member a staff member who doesn't care about

142their kids so I don't mean to minimize this but it kind of to me sometimes doesn't matter who they are because we're all they're about the kids and I think then the way we do it and the skillset that we bring in our experience that we bring is to make people feel welcome and to feel valued and to learn from you how do we access groups and how do we let's be honest check our own unintentional biases and things and to make sure that we are representing you correctly so that we get the best input each one of us we are where we are and I I still believe strongly that this kind of work begins with strong deletes those beliefs turn into actions and then those actions doing turn into the policies and procedures

143that that really show people that you are who you say you are and all I can do is it is an average white female above average right is promise you that will do that now in the locations where we hold the forums and meetings matter I mean we yeah others in the church yeah we've hold meetings in mobile home parks we call them churches and that mayor's going out into the community it's one thing to have an open-door policy it's quite another to go out through the the doors and you know were the kind of people that do that and I'll tell you a struggle that I have sometimes in this in some bizarre but it has to do with clothing because I know clothing sometimes itself is a barrier so to mitigate those barriers

144I think we have to be sensitive we've all been professional people you know do we show up with closed toed shoes and suits and the world that we came from but we also are very aware and sensitive to making ourselves as accessible and I think it's about being approachable and how do you do that how do you create an environment where you're one of I think you could find us dressed up and I think you could find us probably sitting on a bar one less fellow can you talk about how your perspective on making this a transparent process or as transparent as possible yeah yeah Pat touch on that and maybe if both of you and that the transparency through the engagement piece is incredibly important we want to work with you we again we

145work for you and with you so we will be as transparent as you desire or require you know I think when you get near the finalists it's time to have that discussion do we have and we like open meetings we like having the finalists and sometimes we'll scare away of fineness so as we go through the process we will have that conversation with you but we we much prefer having as open as possible that being said the applications that come in those are private documents those are your documents we ask you to sign a confidentiality agreement because I was you know what just the general applications I think we need to respect that and frankly if those were every application we're open to the public it would it would impact the applicant that do you

146want to add to the thank you so now we got about five maybe less than five minutes if you have any questions for us I have one can we start what are you here to get started as soon as possible I mean that Nelson series but anyway going after does relate to that start time and I've seen on your materials that you would like the person in place and working in February and I just wanted to bring this topic to you that there are some people who will be under contract and both for contract purposes and their own ethical commitment to their current position they may have a hard time leaving in the middle of that year and so I wouldn't want you to be surprised by that that you may in fact fall in

147love with someone hmm who says I just can't come until July 1 so you just probably need to think that through on the other hand you might find just the right person who says I'm available and I'll be here everyone but it's one of those possibilities and if you do think this person is the right one and can't come and told later it may be worth your while to just wait because sometimes that right match does it come along every day and it is worth the wait yes thank you for that yeah no I mean I think that's fairly we and we actually had a discussion about the timeline in our last discussion as well and certainly are open to feedback on it based on your your experience and I think the the timeline that's

148written is not intended to mean that someone would show up in February but not wanting to miss a great pool of people available in the that q1 timeframe but I think you want just one one quick change to say maybe announced fine anyway yeah you know it sounds to me like you want this you want to secure this first right you want to know where we're headed and that's very much in line for how this works we this is urgent work we need to be out of the chute fast because the best candidates are going to be available now in the fall the ones that are looking you know we're up and running people are thinking about their next step so we have our work to do as well as yours but the timeline I

149think can work for Sarah and I personally if maybe february-march great okay do you have any other questions anyways we're gonna close out there just curious what kind of help do you think you need is there anything that we haven't been able to address that you feel would help you that we could maybe think about or ponder a little bit I mean I think that it's a challenge just across recruitment is ensuring that we are not following systems that historically we relied on that eliminated people and so I think we are really looking for innovation in really thinking outside the box of reaching out to candidates who we've historically missed and so you know particularly you know Kennex of color women I know and we want to really a diverse pool and it's a challenge

150all across the gamut but I mean I think it's important right that we you know you really look at that process of broader outreach gasps well goodnight and I think to if I may I'm sure you all feel because I feel your sense of passion and your commitment to your students that I'm sure you feel that the changes in Madison in the last couple of years and the pressures that a lot of you are of experiencing are unique to Madison and I'm sure you feel and internalize that and and we would never minimize that but you are very similar to most challenged urban communities across our whole country and it isn't just schools this this is the nature of our country right so I think we have to be honest about the work that's ahead

151of us in our in us doing our search in the work that you're doing in being community elected officials to carry on this you know Yeomans task of making sure you have great schools and not not to use anything as an excuse but you have a lot of variables here you I hear a lot about your ethnicity and diversity it appears from your data that there are serious economic challenges too which are certainly not excuses for student achievement or performance gaps but their variables so the person that we bring to you has to have that understanding of how you mobilize a community because I'm we are sure your teachers are working hard and we're sure you're working art and it's gonna take it takes more than that if we're gonna move this needle so I

152think your candidate has to work with your community health services Housing Services Community Services this is this is a pretty integrated position and that's who I hope we can find for you great well thank you so much for coming here today the depth of the questions and curious if there was you know another energy around that so I'll say one of my lenses going through the vendors we're really like how our community will feel comfortable with this one or two individual or this team of folks in like sharing pretty vulnerable you know information with people that they have never met or people that look very different from them and know none of the farmers have a you know or bringing a broad representation of our communities in a ways that I think that we would

153want to so I'm curious dude I think we're out of scope for tonight's discussion so I appreciate I think that there's we don't talk about whether or not we're gonna have a potential community and get another farm to do the community engagement piece the the I'm talking about the it's just what's nervous for tonight is only interviews there's no board discussion notice for today so it we can't discuss it so but I like where you're going I think that that's a good point and I think you know we'll bring it up on Monday yeah I know it's still hard because everything it's so fresh and plain and we just want to get into it we're going to make a decision on Monday and then if we don't have that so anyway that's it you don't

154understand thank you yes your final your scoring your final comments I'm this boy's shoes yes I have those I work on those and then send them in to Deidre and Bertram and Baris so the first cell does not add up you know that yes yes yep so deadlines on that bar before I'm just I'm asking the question so preferably what is today's Thursday tomorrow by noon if that works for people to get it in that would be great that would give us time to turn it around and do what we did similarly for you and just rolling up the full so you have what have your individual notes and you'd have the full board mom sort of scoring and ranking great and when we were gonna get everything back like the references the everybody scores

155what is the scores have once all scores have been submitted to us it is our intent to then send out the costing information so that you guys have that we have that perform on Friday or yeah the scoring information comes in as to not to impact right we want all scoring to come in first and then that'll be your lucky day fingers any things that the board will get in and the public they'll be public is a part of the public notice for Monday it's the scoring referring to this worksheet that we've all done from there use the references and the cost is that great and do you want to include also just some form of the original scoring of the RFP the roll up mm-hmm just a roll of both yeah just so that

156that's kind of a part of the discussion okay I don't know what you just said it the first six that we say first oh yeah that's going to be given to the bus so that is all yeah right there for us all right good so we'll try to get the references to you on Saturday yeah we might be able to do it by the end of a tomorrow that would be great okay we understand can I get a motion to adjourn so no okay second okay on favor aye any opposed yeah thank you lord hallelujah