001for the education Tuesday night service or but this time let us technology and place and patience. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this amazing day and rain and the sunshine throughout the state and the rain blessing. Thank you for the opportunity each and every day to serve the children in the community and your services blessing. Please help us tonight to stay focused on you so that we may make smart decisions, intelligent decisions. Decisions that are based with you in partnership. Lead us forward deep in this society and give us the strength to take so much of our fears and give us courage. That's what we want. Let us do the pledge. Pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one
002nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This time I entertain a motion to adopt the agenda as distributed in the Senate. I like to motion to second and Mr. Craig Mr. Rogers. All those in favor All right. At this time I'm calling Mr. Sam Ford. He's the director of executive the executive search and member engagement for the North Carolina School of Science and Math. Good evening. Thank you all for having me. I appreciate that. I thought I You know. >> Well, I was just I was just thanking you for having me here tonight. I know you all are busy winding things down in the school year. We just had a long weekend, so I appreciate you all making time for me. Um as you know, I'm here to present the results of
003this survey that you began sharing with your community and staff about a month ago, roughly 3 or 4 weeks ago as part of the public input portion of your superintendent search process. Um what I'm going to do is walk through a PowerPoint that I've prepared and give you a little bit of detailed information about what sorts of things specifically, characteristics, and types of experience are most important to your community and staff when it comes to selecting a new superintendent for the Cleveland County Schools. I will also, in going through this PowerPoint, reference a draft leadership profile that we created and shared with your board. I'm sure you saw that posted to the assembly. That draft leadership profile, as I said in my email, includes the top 10 characteristics and top five types of experience identified
004by your community and staff as being most important to them in the new superintendent. You are welcome to use that profile as a tool to inform in the next several weeks your review of applications, your decision about which interview questions to ask, your interviews with applicants, and then of course your ultimate decision about who your district's next superintendent is going to be. As I said in my email to you, that is a draft leadership profile. You are welcome to keep it as is and use it as a tool moving forward. You are also welcome to update it and revise it as you are able. Some boards keep it as it is and it functions more as a community and staff leadership profile. You are also welcome to update it as I've said. >> [clears throat]
005>> And it can function more as a board and a community staff leadership profile. That's entirely up to you. At the end of the PowerPoint, I will answer any questions that you have. And then the next step in the search process, just to orient your board and more importantly to orient your staff and the public, the next step in the search process is the application deadline on June 8th as you know. That if your application deadline on the end of the day on the 8th or the beginning of the day on the 9th, already going to look at it, your application window will close and you will get two emails from me. The first email you will get first thing in the morning on the 9th, I will tell you that your application window is
006closed, how many applicants you received and from how many states. I will also include in that email the draft press release that you're welcome to share with the press and the public and then add or subtract from as you see fit, revise as you see fit. Um you will get a second email from me later in the day that lets you know all of the application materials are available on Simbli and you can begin reviewing them. I will include in my email to you um an explanation of everything that we've posted. I will also reference a memo that will post to Simbli that will explain to you everything that's been posted and um I'll have some advice on how to begin your review how to begin your review of the application materials. With that introduction
007out of the way, unless there are any questions right now, um I'll transition to my PowerPoint. One last thing I wanted to mention is we are planning tentatively at this point to meet. Uh we decided at our last time that we spoke that we would meet tentatively on June 16th. It's impossible to know if you'll be ready for certain to begin your discussion of the applications on the 16th because you haven't looked at the applications. You haven't begun your review of it. I think it makes sense to keep the 16th since you all all put it on your calendar. If we as we Oh, forgive me. Forgive me. Thank you. Let's say the 15th. So, is that a That's a Monday. It's not a Tuesday. Got So, we'll stick with the 15th. If for whatever
008reason as we're getting closer to the 15th, we need to change that date, I will work with you um to do that. So, unless there are any questions now, I'm going to transition just just Yes, sir. Just to feel to tell us at the June 9th we sent this email Yes, sir. Number of applicants Yes, sir. Thank you. having a day where you will not send your application that day. We will never send any application materials via email. What you What I will do later in the day is send you Once we've gotten everything posted to Symplicity, um I will send an email later in the day letting you know all of all of the application materials and all the additional stuff we posted to Symplicity is available for you to review. Um and I'll
009explain all of that in the email. But, I will not share any application materials or names of any applicants. And really, the press release is letting the public know that the application window is closed, how many applicants you have received, and from how many states. We really discourage you from sharing any additional information about your applicant. Your applicant. We don't do that because then it becomes identifiable if you start getting into gender and and things like that. So, am I assuming correctly that the 15th you'll bring those with you? So, I guess I'm trying to figure out when we will know who and be able to look at the applications. On the 9th, what you will do is go log in to Symplicity. I'll send you an email saying, "Everything's available on Symplicity." You'll go
010log in to Symplicity. All of the application materials will be there, and you'll have as much time as you want to review those just like you've been able to review the service. We will be able You will be on Simbli. Yes, I forget. Okay. I misunderstood. They'll be published on Simbli. You'll be able to go look at them. It just won't be first thing in the morning. It'll probably be early afternoon, maybe even just When will we actually get to lay our eyes on the application? Yeah. Okay. On the 9th, on Simbli. Yes. Can we get a Will that be sent to me in the end before we can get a hard copy? Me and that telephone and this iPad, I don't know. I I need paper. Right. Huh? We'll work out the details to
011keep it keep your confidence. That that Not necessarily like paper. I will work with your board attorney to figure out a way Okay. to get smart copies of of the materials. Are there any other questions Okay. Um So, you had very good very very good excellent really participation in both your community and staff. So, yes, specifically, in total, um you received 808 responses to the community survey and 579 responses to the staff survey. And of those who responded, 272 community members and 165 staff members also submitted written comments. In some cases, fairly detailed, extensive written comments discussing issues that are really really important to them that they really want you the board to take into consideration as you move into the next steps of your superintendent search process. Um again, these are really really good
012numbers, excellent numbers given the size of your school system and your community. And so, I just want to thank your board, especially thank your school system staff, your public information folks, all of the folks that really got the word out and encouraged those to respond to the surveys. Most importantly, however, I want to thank on behalf of the CSBA, on behalf of this board, I want to make sure to thank very sincerely all of the folks on your staff and your community who took time out of their busy schedules to respond to these surveys and inform your super in the search process in a in a meaningful and productive way. So, thank you to all of you who responded to the survey. Uh briefly, just to give you a little bit of demographic information about
013the survey respondents, of those who responded to the community survey, the vast majority live within the attendance area. Uh and the great majority have one or more children attending school within the district. You also had a fairly sizable number of alumni graduates of your school system who responded to the survey, and I always think that's worth noting if you have that. Of those who responded to the staff survey, not surprisingly, the vast majority are teachers, followed pretty uniformly, roughly uniformly, by school and district-level support staff and administrators. You also [clears throat] had a reasonably large number of folks who identified as other, maybe didn't fit evenly into one of those categories that we provided in the survey, and I always think that's worth noting as well. What the survey did first is it asked respondents
014to rate New Milford based on importance level of importance, the characteristics that are most important to them in a new superintendent, with one being not at all important and five being extremely important. And within the top five characteristics, you had a very, very high level of agreement between your community and staff. Specifically, within the top five, four are exactly the same, They're just in a little bit of a different order. And those four overlapping characteristics are understands how to provide safe environments for students and staff, models the high standards of integrity, understands how to effectively advocate for needed resources, and is willing to listen to input. The only different characteristic for the community in the top five is knows how to encourage staff, students, parents, and community members to work together. The only different for
015the staff in the top five is communicates well with people of all races and socioeconomic status. Within the next top five, so six through 10, characteristics also create high level of agreement. Three of these five are exactly the same. They're just in a little bit of a different order. And those three overlapping ones are um is accessible and responds to concerns in a timely fashion, has a strong understanding of school finance, budgets, and business management, and is able to develop and effectively communicate a vision for the school system. The two different for the community in six through 10 are communicates well with people of all races and socioeconomic status, and has ideas and approaches to improve graduation rates and prevent dropouts. The two differing in six through 10 for the staff are knows how to
016encourage staff, students, parents, and community members to work together, and supports firm discipline in schools. Okay. Next, the survey asked respondents to again rate numerically from one to five the types of experience that are most important to them in a new superintendent. And within the top five, extremely high level of agreement, the five um are exactly the same, just in a little bit of a different order. And those are has been a successful principal, has been an effective classroom teacher, has experience with building, maintaining, maintaining, and managing schools, has experience in curriculum development and instruction, and has worked in North Carolina public education. In addition to these survey responses, um these numerical rating uh responses, you also receive, as I mentioned at the beginning of the PowerPoint, written comments. About a third, almost exactly a
017third, actually, of your overall total uh survey respondents also submitted written comments. We in CSBA uh do not summarize those comments. We We don't ever want to misinterpret, editorialize, miscommunicate in any way the feedback that your community and staff are trying to give you. What we do instead, which we did last week, was we post full unredacted PDF copies of those comments to assembly. We give you as much time as possible to review them. I know y'all have been reviewing them very closely over the past week. Um we also redact those comments, uh which I've done, and I'll email your board chair at the end of this meeting. Um we redact them to exclude any confidential personnel or um personal identifying student information that legally, under our state laws and under the federal law, the
018Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, that legally only you, the board, and or your board attorney are permitted to look at. Um for better or worse, under our Freedom of Information Laws here in North Carolina, the surveys are a public record. And so, we redact the comments so that you as a board are prepared to respond to any public records requests you get about the survey. One really important point I'll want to make about um the public records piece is that all of the survey respondents are anonymous. They have been, are now, will forever be anonymous. No one is ever going to know who responded to what numerical rating response, or who wrote what in a survey. Um the surveys are already public record in as much as they don't contain any of that confidential
019information, and we want you to be prepared um to respond to those requests if you get them. That being lastly, as you know, I have gone ahead and created the draft leadership profile that includes these top 10 characteristics, top five types of experience into a leadership profile that I know you will use and will be posted along with the application materials so that you can use it as you're reviewing them or begin reviewing them rather on the 9th. That concludes uh my PowerPoint presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions about the surveys or about the search process if you have them. received the sir, the That makes no sense. Yes, sir. Uh what kind of time period are you looking at between the June 9th and the end of time that we have to review
020those resumes? Right now, we your board identified June 15th as being a tentative date when you could get get together in a special called meeting to discuss the application materials. What kind of How much time do we have after that before we actually start working on the decision? That's up to us, It's up to us. It depends on the number of resumes we receive. I don't know. We're going to be able to call a uh time as far as when to the June 15th be able to discuss those resumes. What I That's just my suggestion is I mean, after we know how many we got, everything, The 15th. And think about the date. Or we plan on the 10th. And tell them that we have that we can just review everything the 15th and then
021get together and decide when to make dates or move on Friday a goal for interviews or whatever, but I don't think we set that until we know how many we got. Some of these serve the uh some of these uh resumes uh they don't come in one or two pages or whatever in the state and they can be 12 pages, especially if you're a doctor. I I just suggest we make that a decision on um uh something we decide as a board on the 15th and then I would I would move forward. Does that Does that seem okay with everybody or we need to vote on that? Okay. All right. I know Stokes I think. All right. It It will be clear to y'all and to your board of chair that you are ready for
022a company to make a decision. And if you need to to move it out, that's that's the whole reason we built in the flexibility. But I think it does make sense to aspire to the 15th given to all of our calendars. Some of these we move them to the end. 30 minutes here to some of them is going to take today. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I would just like to thank you everybody that filled out these surveys. I said I would read every one of them and I read every one of them word for word. The staff and the committee. Matter of fact, I've read them probably twice. Maybe some of them three times because it was very interesting what some people put on these things. And I just want the people to know that
023I did my job and I am going to keep doing my job for us to select the best person. I hope that we can select the best person. I can't say that we will. I can't say that we won't. Thank you. But I'll do my best. Yes, sir. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions? Thank you, Chairman. I'm concerned that all of the information about the district Our recommendation is whenever we do give a superintendent that same information, we need to be able these comments that were made by the superintendent say I thought it was very helpful. Uh as he said, uh everything's public record and since the names and some names have been redacted, so I'm assuming that there will definitely be something that the superintendent from the community will know. So But you
024won't have it unless you request for the reason. So the vast majority I don't say all cuz it's never all, but uh the vast majority, certainly the ones that are seriously considering this vacancy will ask for the redacted survey comments. And [clears throat] will actually watch this meeting and will watch several of your meetings, sometimes going back a year or more. Um because they want to know what you're like as a board and what your school system's like. Um and what the community has to say after seeing about about the district. Anything else? So I guess we'll see you on the June the 15th. The 15th. Look forward to your email on the June the 9th. Yes, sir. If I got everything right, you told me. Yes, sir. You guys said it was the 16th,
025but I now know it's the 15th. All right. Is it wrong to say now how many people have applied up to this point? I >> [clears throat] >> We strongly discourage any any discussion of the numbers until after the application window is closed. I I wouldn't want to discourage anybody from submitting an application. Um, by hearing the number. All right. Okay, thank you. Appreciate you traveling. Be careful. Are you going back to Raleigh tonight? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I will. Thank you. All right. Next on the agenda is closed session. Do I have a motion Mr. Brutus for closed session? So, the general statute 143-318 discuss confidential personnel matters concerning our town attorney. Mr. Brutus, I'll have a second. All those in favor? All right.