LRSD Special Board Meeting/Agenda Meeting: April 9, 2026

001Okay, stand by in the board room, please. Hello and good evening. And welcome to the Little Rock School District got talent. Okay, that was an ice breaker. Hello and good evening again and welcome to the Little Rock School District special board meeting. We are so glad that you tuned in and we would really appreciate it if you would encourage others to do the same. We have a lot to do tonight and we going to go ahead and get started. Dr. Wright, you can take it from here. Public comments. Guidelines for public comments. This is the place in the agenda where we hear from the public, parents, stakeholders, alumni, friends of LRSD. We like to hear public comment regarding the LRSD issues. We allow 3 minutes for the public comment. Our responsibility is to listen to

002your comment. We are not allowed to respond or have discussion. Members of the public may address the board. Our first person would be Ashley East. Okay. Is that Kareem? I'm sorry. Yes, would you How y'all doing this afternoon? All right. All right, doing fine, thank you. All right, good afternoon. I come before you all as a Central High School softball mother, a coach of my own 12U softball girls team and a former softball player. The Central High School team is in dire need of their own softball field. They currently have to borrow the usage of a field from the city while the Central High boys have a brand spanking new baseball field that the girls have to pass every day to get to the field house where they don't even have their own lockers. As

003a former athlete, I know all too well how important proper facilities are when it comes to building confidence and skills. The team has so much potential, but the lack of proper facilities hinders their growth. They spend precious time traveling to and from a borrowed, unkempt field for practices and with the added stress of figuring out how to get there some days. The team and some families, including mine, even my 11-year-old daughter daughter, were out there literally picking grass off of the field to get it ready for our first home game. We were also taking dirt to and from to try to fill in holes on the outfield. I know that the district is well aware of Title IX and with that cares about all students, male or female, and care about ensuring equal opportunity for

004all of its students. I am sure that you all would do what is right to ensure that this disparity and unfair situation is discussed, addressed, and rectified as soon as possible. I would like to thank you guys for your time and hope and pray that you all would do what is right for our girls, specifically mine as right now. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Is that Ayana Prince? Ayana Prince. Ayana Prince. Thank you. Um good afternoon. My name is Ayana Prince and I'm a junior. I'm 17 years old. I'm new to the team, but I can already see the the unfairness this is. Our field is garbage. Meanwhile, the guys field is well kept and already ready to play on while we have to maintain our own field. We had to come

005out on weekends multiple times just to weed the grass out of the field and we attempted to level out the field, but there were there were some people that rode on the grass while it was muddy and now there's tire tracks in the outfield, making it really bumpy and uneven and that's not entirely safe to run on. I've almost tripped just walking on it and after games, we have to scratch out the lines, take out the bases, and clean the bathrooms. I can only assume that the guys don't have to do that because it's at the school. All they have to do is not forget their stuff in the dugout and then leave. Oh, that's it. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Girl, you look like a real slugger. Julia Taylor? Push the green button, the

006button in the middle. And I'm sorry, number Yeah, sorry. Where it says push. Uh my name is Julia Taylor and um welcome to our new board members. Um I work with a group called Public School Strong. Um I am here um just to make a couple of public comments to the board, but also to those watching at home um to remind you that the fiscal session started yesterday um and our governor proposes um about 380 million for vouchers next year. Um uh the 70 million, that's including the 70 million that would be quote set aside um in case it is needed for those vouchers or for those EFAs if you want to go with her language. Um I just would like to point out that um that could take care of many of the district's

007woes um four times over. And while I know that's not something that it we're going to ask for or that will happen, I do want to encourage people to contact your legislators um to please encourage um a cap on the spending on EFAs and to uh fully fund our public schools, um specifically um special education, more parapros, social workers, and I had one more. ELL. Um I also would like to encourage people to um look up for AR Kids ballot initiative because I wouldn't normally bring this here. Um I've worked on ballot initiatives for several years and I've never brought it up in the board room, but um I feel things are pretty dire for our public schools in Arkansas and if um those watching are interested in finding a way to help, um this

008uh ballot measure uh would put an amendment on the ballot to uh that would really help our public schools. So, again, consider that. Um finally, I would like to encourage you to consider for the 2027-2028 school year, so no pressure there, um to I've asked for this before, but asking one more time, um to consider a formal no ICE on school campuses policy and placing signs on school campuses that clearly uh mark that it is a no ICE zone. Thank you. Thank you. Laura Webb. Thank you for having us. Well, okay. Sorry about that. Good evening. Thank you for having us. Uh my name's Laura Webb as stated and my daughter plays softball at Central High School. Same daughter also plays basketball at Central High School. And big difference in the way the basketball team

009is treated and the softball team. Um but we are here right now to address um the field. Um I met with the CFO of the Little Rock School District and their then athletic director, Mr. Roberts, a couple of years ago to address this. Um I was told that Central is landlocked. I wasn't told that the uh district doesn't have any money. So, I'm assuming we do. I was just told that we are landlocked and that there wasn't any space. This was before the baseball team the baseball field was built. If there was any even an inkling of a thought or feeling for the girls, something could have been done at that time to maybe include a field for the girl maybe make accommodation so they could both fit in there. It would have saved the

010district some money and all of that. Um I was given the task to work with the city, a parent, okay? I'm not an employee of the district, but I was tasked with getting a meeting with the with the mayor of the city. Have you ever tried meeting with the mayor? Okay, and um so I was tasked with that or working with city officials to get the field. Well, we were given a field which we don't have access to until March. Softball season starts in February, not March. We don't have a coach until January. Again, softball season starts in February. You cannot compete with other teams in zone six or whatever whatever district, whatever six is, whatever that is, we cannot compete with those teams if we're starting practicing um a month before the season starts.

011Um I think it's unfair. Um a lot of that has been addressed before me and um I'm hoping that you would address it and make it right for our girls. Thank you. Is there anybody else that didn't have an opportunity to sign the paper who would like to speak? Yes, sir. And you are? My name is Ryland. Say it again. Ryland. Okay. Mr. Wright. Are you related to Dr. Wright? No. Oh. Ryland. R Y L A N D. Ryland. Okay, I got you now. Thank you. I hit this button or Okay. Uh First I want to say uh thank you guys. I know that you have a amazing job and work to do for the school district. My son is a student at Pinnacle View. And I'm here today because I know that this is

012not the format for discussion or anything like that, but I'm here today to put this on record. I want this on record. Uh concerning the issue this morning at Pinnacle View, there was a mess going out uh concerning a student with a possible gun. Um So, the parents were made aware of this issue at 7:45 this morning. Uh And at this time I was taking my son to school. I had already dropped my daughter off at Roberts and was taking my son to Pinnacle View. And the reason that I'm here today is because of the meeting the board meeting that you all are having and I just wanted this to be on record. Uh concerning the issue of violence possible violence at the school and the parents all parents being aware and knowing the situation

013or knowing what's going on because afterwards uh I talked to some other parents and they had no idea the issue that had had been this morning. And while I was taking my son to school uh I I decided to just go and look and make sure everything was fine. I drove around the campus as I usually do to drop him off and I didn't see any type of apparent urgency with the or concerning the issue. And so, my son didn't go to school today. I kept him home because I felt very very uncomfortable. And while leaving the school, I noticed that there was a police uh vehicle in the parking lot next to the school. I stopped. I asked the officer was he there for the issue concerning uh a gun violence at school today.

014And the officer had no idea. He patrols that area. And this message apparently happened last night. And the message went out this morning to the students. And the police officer that patrols that area had no idea what had happened. So, I have to apologize for not being as involved and being at some of the board meetings. But for me I will be more involved. I will ask questions and hopefully I get some answers and some more discussions. And hopefully parents are informed and know the situation that's going on with their kids at their school. It was very very very very troubling this morning. Very troubling. Uh I hope that we can have further discussions and I look forward to that. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to We've got a

015written comment. Oh, okay. Go ahead. I'll go ahead and read it. Oh, you don't usually read the written comments. Okay. I mean did we get it? Okay. Well, we'd like to thank all of you that spoke today with your concerns. We really appreciate you. Um Okay. So, consent agenda The chair will entertain a motion. I move that the LRSD Board of Education approve the consent agenda items as follows: 3.1, 26 2026-2027 round 2A staff recommendations and item 3.2, principal appointments for 26-27. Second. It has been moved and seconded that the LRSD Board of Education approve the consent agenda items as follows: 3.1 2026-2027 round 2A staff recommendations 3.2 2026-2027 principal appointments. Discussion? No discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All those say nay. Motion carries. Dr. Wright. Executive session. I I move that the

016uh Board of Directors go into Go ahead. If you don't mind, I appreciate you. I can do that for you. I'm going to open up the floor for a motion so that we can go into executive session. I move that the LRSD I keep forgetting my microphone. I move the LRSD Board of Education enter executive session to discuss personnel matters related to specific employees including positions being eliminated. I second. Executive session. Okay. It has been moved and seconded that the our Board of Directors go into executive session so that we can discuss personnel issues. All in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Okay. >> Mhm. >> We are now returning to open session from the executive session where no actions were taken. The chair will now entertain a motion. I move that we come out

017of executive session. Second. Second. It has been moved and second that we come out of executive session. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? It's unanimous. Board comments? No board comments. I I do have a board comment. I just noticed and I'm pretty sure everybody does, but I was thinking about did you know? I think every board member maybe will find out something that's going on in the district that we can share with the community. And I do know that Rock Region allows students and staff to ride the bus free. Um I don't know if that's on the weekend or if it's just weekdays. I also know that in order to ride a bus, you have to be taught how to ride because my mom taught me how to ride a bus when I was 12. But

018now they have brochures. My mom just said do this and do that. Go up two blocks, make a left. You stand right there by the green house. When that bus come, you get on it and then you go downtown you stand beside JCPenney's and then when that bus come, you know, you give them your transfer. But now they have brochures. Are we teaching the It's a free resource, but are we teaching the kids how to ride the bus? Are those brochures in the schools where they go? Because you have to do it cuz I ride the bus now and I look for the bus. Okay, this is the bus that comes to my house at 7:40. It'll get me downtown at 7:50 and then I can get on this bus to 8:05 and then it'll

019take me to Central and I'll be there by 8:30. So I'm just wondering, Dr. Wright, do you know if that's something that the brochures are in the schools so that the kids, you know, and it may help attendance. It's strong possibility. I do not know, but I don't think so. You know, that the brochures are not I don't think so, but we will Stephanie, we will check. Just Oh, well, I'll tell Stephanie to check when she comes back. Director Valley. There is an There is an app that students can download for free that'll tell them everything they need to know about Rock Region Metro system. Everything from a timer on when buses will be arriving at their stop >> Okay. and the estimated time it'll take them to get to the next stop. So I

020would recommend that uh we can share that with the schools. The kids can download it on their phones while they're not in their pouches. And and it should also share with the parents too as well. Okay, thank you. Pam just let me know that we do share the app information with all students. Okay, thank you. Do they ride free on the weekends? I think it's every day. Every day. Okay. Superintendent comments? None other than want to make sure that we invite everybody out. Pam, do you have the the information about the parade, citywide parade? It's on the flyer outside, but we are celebrating Parkview, Hall, and Pulaski County Pulaski Academy state basketball championships um citywide parade on the 19th, Sunday 3:00 to 5:00 starting City Hall and ending at First Security Amphitheater. So, come out

021and support. Okay. Is there anything anybody else want to add or Okay, the chair will entertain a motion for adjournment. I'll make a motion to adjourn. for our special board meeting. Second. Okay, is it moved and seconded by It was moved by Anna and Ms. Strong. I'm just really trying to be real personal. I'm sorry about that. It was moved by Director Strong and seconded by Director Jackson that we adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We're adjourned. It's Okay, so now we're getting ready to go into All right, so welcome again. We're getting ready to transition into the Little Rock School District Did anybody need to be excused for a minute or two? Do you need a recess? Are you okay? Everybody's okay? Okay. I was Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes, ma'am. I was going to

022see if you'd entertain a motion to amend the agenda. Okay, what do you want to change on the agenda? We don't have to do that. We don't Oh, I guess that's true. Okay. Oh, I forgot we had a big thing with this one like a couple weeks ago about whether we can move the agenda around. Um Be prepared. Well, I was going to suggest we move item 6.4 up to the top since we have a lot of families here interested in this topic. And go ahead and get that update on the Title IX issue. If ever if everybody is comfortable with it. I'm sorry. My microphone is not Is the thingy broken? Mr. Cazay Can you step forward, please? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I didn't know. Would I be able to set this up for

023just a little bit cuz I'm kind of asked for this report or Mr. Cazay, would you rather kick it off? I'd rather kick it off if that's all right. >> fine. Hey board. Um As you all have heard in board board comments, there are concerns about the Central High School softball program and the differences in playing surface and playing locations. The boys baseball team plays there on site at Central. Uh the girls team plays at Interstate Park, is that right? And um that's a city-owned property that LRSD has use of and there are concerns about uh disparities between the boys baseball program and the girls softball program. Um that kind of in a nutshell. Yeah, that's just an issue I've heard from a lot of constituents here also. Yes, and as you can see, board,

024there are plenty of people who are concerned about this and share that concern and want to express that to the board. Uh the district at this point has had a couple of meetings. I've reached out to Chris Heller with Friday firm. I've reached out to uh not one of the current softball parents, but one of the folks who's articulated concerns about the program. And this is said as a preliminary report just to kind of let you know what we're doing now, but really the substance will probably be in your April 23rd board meeting where there'll be a more fullsome report on that. Uh right now we've taken a we've taken really three actions. Um mainly to understand what the facts are uh and to understand the the current status of the law and then to

025think through some alternatives so that we can present the board with something that is substantive in nature. Um Since the so many of the parents are here, I am more than happy to talk to any of you all uh over the next couple of weeks in advance of that meeting because I want to make sure that your concerns are reflected and that your concerns are taken seriously and your lived experience is understood by me. Uh you guys have been on the field, I have not. Um So, that's sort of what I would propose. Uh Mr. Heller is out of town, so that's kind of taken my thought partner uh out of the process for a week or so. Uh when he gets back, I want to provide him with facts so that we can think

026through this in a real intentional way. Yep. Adam, Mr. Cazay everybody in this room may All of us are well aware of you and your role and Mr. Heller and and his role, but I'm wondering if some of our parents maybe are not aware of of your role and Mr. Heller's role. Would you mind adding that information? Thank you. Yes, I'm the staff attorney for Little Rock School District, David Cazay. Chris Heller is our outside counsel with the law firm of Friday, Eldridge and Clark. He's represented the school district for decades on all manners of issues related to facilities, education law and just about every other legal issue that the district has faced for probably the bulk of his career. Thank you. I was just going to add one other thing. I just wanted to

027say thanks to the parents who brought this to my attention. I know I've been putting you guys off for a few months until our new board kind of came together. I thought this would be a great issue for us to work on together. Um And I also know that there was a big team meeting. Thank you, Dr. Wright, for pulling the team of folks together to talk about this internally. So, um I feel comfortable we can find a good solution. If not, I got a good resolution in my back pocket that Mr. Heller drafted if I need it, but um hoping we don't have to do that. Thank you. All right, moving forward, board training. Uh Dr. Barbara Jenkins Excuse me. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, so just for my understanding, so did we just have

028the 6.4 pre-discussion? Pre-discussion. >> So, we're removing it now? Yes, we're removing it now. >> I thought we were voting on it, so I was asking. Okay, Ms. Dr. Barbara Jenkins with the Council of Great City Schools as uh As Dr. Jenkins gets prepared to uh come up and as we get her slide deck up and all the things, um I would like to say and I'm stalling. I would like to um state how happy I am to have someone of um Dr. Jenkins's uh Let me just say what I want to say. So, Dr. Jenkins was superintendent um in Orange County, which is Orlando, Florida, my home state, and she was one of the How long you've been retired now? 3 years. She was considered uh one of the few um what we used

029to refer to as the the goats of the urban school superintendency. She has been around for a long time, survived um not necessarily survived, she has thrived in her superintendent um role. Um I don't know how many black women were superintendents in Orange County, but over 100 How many students? 210,000 students, which was a humongous uh district in the state of Florida, and I know she remembers, but when I was assistant superintendent in Philly I asked to my boss at the time uh to send me to the best superintendent that there is on the face of this earth so that I can shadow them and spent a whole day uh with Dr. Jenkins years and years ago. And it's funny that here we sit here today uh sitting in this seat and she is here

030to uh help uh our superintendent and board team develop to be the strongest board and superintendent team that we can be. So, I'm delighted to have her um here with us today. That was my attempt at an introduction, um but I'm sure she can fill you in on more information um about herself. So, glad to have you here. Just suffice it to say, it's good to be here. I am I'm so happy to be here. No, they don't. No, they don't. Okay. Anyway, I like direct flights. I we searched high and low. Nonetheless, it's just good to be here. I'm happy to be here. Let me thank you for your service to the students here in Little Rock. All over the country, board members for various reasons agree to take part in the governance model

031for public school systems and quite often it's a thankless job that doesn't get a whole lot of notoriety for the sacrifices that you have to make both superintendent and board members. So I want to thank you for serving as board members and for the tremendous work you do here on behalf of the children. I watched your board meeting online. I certainly think you have so much going for you that can be built upon here through this notion of governance and teamwork and working to together as a team by what we know from research methods that will best positively impact student achievement. And so let's just go ahead and jump in and get started. So I'm clicking and nothing is happening. I like to drive but it's okay. Part of my person when we do true

032colors you'll see it's just part of my personality I like to drive. Okay. So so what do I say next? Okay. Next. So we're going to talk about governance and teamwork. Typically we do a day-long workshop on this 4 hours at a minimum. I think I've compacted enough just for a couple of hours for us to get started at least and then we can talk about how you might want to complete it in the future should you decide to do so. Let me tell you just a little bit about myself. So I am I was the first female superintendent in Orange County, Florida after 17 men back in I believe it was 1870. Whatever the date was and we were proud to accomplish the things that we accomplished and I love telling folks it's not

033because Jenkins was so brilliant it's because we had a board a phenomenal school board that understood governance and worked as a cohesive team to get the work done. And then I had a phenomenal leadership team when Dr. Wright visited my cabinet was just phenomenal and so the work that we were able to accomplish is because of that leadership team and a phenomenal board who understood governance and helped us practice those policies and practices that we're going to help move student achievement forward. Orange County Public Schools has about 210,000 students about 80% free and reduced lunch. That's an indication of the poverty level. It's Orlando and surrounding vicinities. In Florida there are county districts and so they are much larger than than some you may be accustomed to. About 12% special needs students and about 11%

034ELL. Last time we checked it was around 60% Hispanic about 30% about a third I'm sorry about a third Hispanic, a third black and a third white students. Couple things we're proud of that I'll mention and then we'll move on. We did win the Broad prize which was a half million dollars worth of scholarship for our students based on how we were improving student achievement and narrowing achievement gaps at the same time. Won that Broad prize very proud of it. We're also proud of passing two sales tax initiatives as well as a property tax referendum that brought dollars in to rebuild all of our schools. Average age of our schools go high used to hate it but I'd say this average age of our schools is like seven years because we renewed rebuilt all of

035our schools and had a wonderful infrastructure because our community supported our schools as well. We're also proud that we reached nearly 98% graduation rate for our high school students. Very proud of that and what it meant for the future of our children. I also like to mention next slide Jim McIntyre typically in the past has partnered with me in some instances. Jim is actually dean of the College of Education in Belmont at Belmont University. He was former superintendent in Knoxville, Tennessee. Periodically Jim will go with me on the road show. We've done this in a few districts across the nation. His wife is ailing and so he's not been able to go lately but I always like to mention it because part of his research is what we've used to put together the presentation. Let's

036talk about our norms for today as we are going to push through and get as much done as possible. I was told 2 hours it's 6:37. Here are the norms they're simple. If we just stick with this we're going to fully engage, listen and seek to understand, assume good intentions, be both candid and kind, self-regulate our airtime. I always like to warn people as well it's not a sit and get kind of workshop. I will ask you to stand and talk sometimes with your partner we call those standing meetings. Think pair share where you have a shoulder partner that you have to talk with briefly get up and move so you have a different partner. Can't bear just have you sitting adult learning theory says you're not going to retain a whole lot if you

037just sit and get. That's not the way she's applauding. Not not going to not going to torture you that way. We'll try to get through it as painlessly as possible but some things we just have to get through for laying the foundation. So here's our agenda. Going to do a brief icebreaker then we're going to talk about those true colors. Everybody did their true colors survey? All right going to talk about true colors a little bit fascinating. Then we'll go over some research on effective school board and how they interact. Look at your state statutes and your policies compact that as much as possible so it doesn't um overtax attention spans and then I want to talk a little bit about governance and roles and then we'll go to a little on teamwork. Some of

038that will have to wrap around to next session should you decide to do that and then we'll wrap it up. Sound like a plan? All right here's our first assignment. So I want you to think just for a moment. You're going to reflect going to jot something down before you actually share it. I I had the team here in a blitz trying to find a chart stand cuz I like to be able to record but we can work just as well without a chart stand. Um I want you to think for a minute. Why did you seek the role that you're in? And I say the role because I need superintendent to do it as well. He's part of this team that's got to come together and coalesce so why did you seek this role

039that you're in? Want you to think for a minute want you to jot it down and then we will share. Let me let me give you my example cuz I don't want you to write a dissertation. I don't need you to write too long just couple of sentences will be fine. Let me give you my example. Just for a second stop right and look look right up here just for a second. So here's my example. I believe public education is the linchpin to our democracy. I believe our young people have got to have a sound high level education because they are going to be in charge of this nation and it is critical. And I also believe it's the only means by which some children will have a brighter future than their parents had. See

040that little elevator speech? All right now write write it down we'll let you share. I'll wait till I see folks stop writing give them a few more minutes. All right. Any volunteer who wants to go first? Krupicka Yes, ma'am. So my parents and I fled from the former Soviet Union came here when I was a month old and so we grew up here and I attended public schools here because of the education I received it's why I ended up having the opportunities I did. All right so Harvard undergrad law degree MBA in finance. I now have three children that are all in this school district. I know the education that I received growing up here and I think it's incumbent upon us to ensure that my children and then the children that come after that

041have the same opportunities that we did growing up and I think it's incumbent upon us to make that happen. All right. Very good. Thanks for jumping out there going first. Another volunteer. I can do it. Um you know I didn't really know that a school board existed during that time but actually some strangers knocked on my door and they asked me if I would run for school board and I was like run for who? I didn't understand what. And so me being a volunteer that I was, I said, "Yes, I'll run." So when they left, I started researching and I was like, "I got to raise money. I got to do this and I got to do that." And so they came back 2 days later and said, "Are you sure you're going to run?"

042I said, "Sure, I'll run." They said, I said, "Well, why would you ask me?" They said, "Well, Ms. Johnson, we've been watching you how you move around in the schools. You coach at the community centers and you just so you speak up for the kids, you know, I can put 20 kids in a car, okay, and take them all through the drive-thru and buy them a hamburger." I started was doing things like that and they said, "We've been watching you a long time." I said, "Oh, really?" So sometimes you never know when people been watching you. And so I was like, "Yeah, I'll do it." And I got a little nervous cuz I felt like I had to go and speak to people and I'm a little You could tell I'm shy. I had to

043speak to people and I had to raise money. I had to do forums. I'm like, "I don't want to do this. This is not what I want to do. I just want to be around the kids and I want to help the kids." So finally got comfortable with that and I ran and I was elected and I'm still trying to figure out, you know, now I got elected, you know, two or three times. And so I think for me now is that I am a voice for the kids and that's all I know is the children. It's all about the children to me. I understand adults have issues, too, but we have kids that can't speak up. We have kids parents don't know how to speak up. And so if I can just help that

044one or two, then I'm very comfortable with that. Very good. Thank you. You're welcome. Someone else? I'm going to jump right in because I'm going to piggyback off Ms. Johnson. I'm here for the students. Um as a product of Little Rock School District, I think the primary reason I'm here is because I observed from a distance the direction LRSD was going in and I wanted to be a part of it um in some capacity. And once um the learns and all the other things start happening in the community, my background is the students, all about the kids. I'm like Ms. Norman, we've just been with the kids always and I'm like, "How's this going to impact our children? How's it going to impact these students?" And everybody did same thing, "You're the one." Start saying,

045"Ms. Jackson, you need to This is you. Get involved. This is you." So I'm here because um the community believed in me and I believe in our students. Very good. Someone else? What did you write down? I'm I'm just throwing it out there, happen to look in your direction. >> jump in. Uh I'm an advocate for kids. In my day job, I spend all day thinking about how we can build a better state and system and policies for our kids. Um I'm a solution seeker. Um I like to find common ground in places where we can make progress even when it doesn't seem like that's possible. And I'm a mom. My boys are 5 and 9 and they are both here in the district and have been since they were infants. And um I care

046about all the kids in our community and I believe in public education and importantly I believe in all of the wraparound supports, the the food, the health care, community schools, um the work we are doing to help engage families in this work. I believe in the wraparound supports that we provide that empower families to change their trajectory. Um And part of the reason I'm here is because I was asked several times um and I said no several times because it's hard to figure out how you fit it in your life, right? This is a big commitment. We don't get paid. We're here um out of the goodness of our hearts and all of us are here for that reason and that gives me so much joy and power to know that you all are here

047because you care. Um and and I think I this is a place where I can make a difference um from a governance perspective. All right, got it. Who's left? Eric Bonnie. Yeah, so um I just I'm here because uh I represent the people, the people that who don't have the privilege to attend these local meetings uh to listen to them on live streams. I could be a liaison and communicate the information that's going on and uh communicate their concerns as well. I'm here because of the investment, because I believe that you show what you care about by what you invest in and I think that anybody who cares about public schools and education should be invested in some way into the school district uh just beyond the regular school hours. Uh I also want to

048see my community and our city become a healthier and more productive community and part and one of the first steps to that is having a strong and positive public school system. Uh the last two things I'll say is uh the youth. Uh they are very I'm very passionate about that and they I want them to know that they're asset of the community and not just uh students that we monitor. We have to respect their ideas and regardless of their age, they should always be a part of the decision-making process and overall if we if I can help to make this school district better, then I know we're improving the quality of life for all the people in this city. Very good. Who's left? I said, "Who's left?" and look right Well, for me it comes

049all come from a place of help. That's that's just who I am from my inner bones, someone who like like Richard Strong said, is part of the solution. Anybody can be part of the problem, but who's stepping up to be part of the solution? Um being a champion for public schools is is my top priority. Uh people tend to be what they see. So being a product of the Little Rock School District uh is is the veil for me. Uh just letting people know that yes, it's possible and yes, it can be you because I was once you. Um so for them to be able to see that, number one. And then number two, a voice. Uh we are the voices for all of our zones, uh for those students, for those parents, for the

050teachers as well, the staff of the district. We represent them all. So being able to be that that link, that liaison betw- I mean, when you look at it, we put the public in public education. Uh when we look for the community, we link here with the district and then the voice of the superintendent. So it's it's it's all we have to have the collaboration that all come together. So I feel that I can assist in that matter, be that voice and I'm proud to be that voice. Very good. This is my second time been on the school board. The first time that I ran, um my both our our children came through Little Rock public schools and really they had a great experience and were well they were well educated. That wasn't true for

051everybody uh that they were in school with and that was a real concern. And my son was in middle school, the school was struggling more than we knew and I got more involved and got involved in the PTA and and then one of um my friends who was on the school board at the time said that there was going to be an opening in my zone and he said, "You ought to run for the school board." I never had thought about that. And um but I thought about it and thought, "Well, that's I could be kind of what Auntie said, I could be part of the try to be more part of the solution." And so I did that um until the state took us over and sent us all home and and then when

052we got a board back again, I was just really concerned about how it was going to go cuz I thought it was a really vulnerable time for the school district to come back. And um and I decided that I I wanted to be involved to try to contribute to help it go as well as it could go. And um cuz I don't think my kids will ever move back to Little Rock, which is um kind of a sad thing, but I think that's true. But if they ever did, I'd like to them to live anywhere in this town and be able to have their kids go to any school and feel really good about it. And and the kid people who do live here, I want that the same for them, too. Very good. Superintendent.

053All right, for me um I chose this career. This is actually the only thing I've ever done. Um I've known from the time that I was a child that I wanted to be a teacher um and I wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to prove what could be possible um for children who most folks didn't have a lot of high expectations for. Um and after having some success as a teacher, I wanted to have a greater impact and so that led me to becoming a principal, then a district um official and um now I'm sitting in the seat of um the superintendent position and the goal is still the same. I just want to prove what is possible um for children who most folks just don't have high expectations for. So when you

054hear one another's whys, what is the common theme in what all of you shared? Wanting the best for kids. Outcome for students. Everyone was focused on what can I do for children in this community and as well as for their parents and for the community as a whole, but this focus on children. We'll come back to that later. That moral imperative that you're passionate about is really what helps to drive teamwork and success, quite frankly. All right, so let's do True Colors. You did your inventories. Everybody know what their color is? So So I want you look around the room and think and think whether or not you can spot someone who's the same color as you. Don't say it out loud. Just kind of looking around before we do the reveal. Did Oh, you've

055already told each other what your colors are? Okay, how many Well, let's just see where we stand then. How many blues in the room? Two blues. All right, how many golds? Three golds. Three golds. Okay, how many orange? Only one. How many green? Yeah, so so let me just say a little bit in uh for foundation building. So, if you've ever done Myers-Briggs, same researchers, same um uh scientist did a shorter version called True Colors. Um it is still highly reliable, even if you take it some years or weeks later, your numbers come out fairly similar. The issue is most of us can morph into blue, gold, orange, green if we need to over time, but there's one dominant color for most individuals as well. And the reason it's helpful is because when you talk

056about team building, just like it's important to know the why of why your colleagues are on the board, it's important to also know how they operate, personality styles and dispositions. It helps to know the why. And so Dr. Wright mentioned he came and saw my team first time few times we met together with my team. I had to say few things about my personality you need to know. So, you won't be disturbed or alarmed. I'm a green. And so, if you come into my office and say kind of got this problem and we're thinking this and we're thinking that, a green is highly analytical. And so, I'm trying to rush toward trying to get to and I'm going to ask questions and people say, "Well, it feels like an interrogation." It's not an interrogation. I

057gather information. That's part of my personality trait. So, knowing that then folks didn't have to be concerned, fearful. Go Jenkins off, you better be studying like you're ready for an exam. No, they they eventually said, "Hey, she's going to ask very thoughtful questions cuz that's just the way she processes and it's more helpful." So, as you know what your former I'm sorry, for what your um colleagues and team members um believe and how they operate is going to help you coalesce as a team. So, we're going to have an activity. I'm sorry there's only one orange superintendent, but you're going to you're going to get with your color cuz we're going to go through some of the tips um that various colors have to deal with. Uh for example, you've got a a handout that

058says True Color Tips. And it says greatest sources of stress. Here's what stresses out the various colors. And then we've got working through your color. Here's how you can operate to help other people understand and give you what you need. And then the third one talks about communicating. It looks like this. I'm sorry. Looks like this. It says tips. Yeah, it's in your packet. And uh communicating with other colors is there as well. We're going to work through it. Don't try to go over it all right now. The first step is I need blues here, golds here, orange here, green here. It's actually a standing meeting. That means you get up and go to the corner where you're pointing. See the See the screen up the screen up there gives you your geography. Blue, gold,

059orange, green. Yeah, take your paper with you. Take your tips with you. Uh yeah, you can't be eavesdropping on them while they're talking. All right. All right. So, here's the assignment. Don't don't go through your tips yet. The assign the the first the the first assignment is look at the the descriptors for your particular color that are up on the screen or on your handout and talk among yourselves about whether or not it's accurate. Does that describe you when you look at those basic indicators? Will they report out? That's for the next activity. Yeah, it's in the packet. Oh. The reporter wants a copy. All right. Look at that handout. Guys, look at the handout. Let's do Okay, Mr. Lovett, thank you. Greatest sources of stress. Stay with your group. Greatest sources of stress. Discuss

060that whether or not that's accurate. Talk about what stresses you out in your particular color. I'll be back, Dr. Wright. All right, move on to the next section that talks about uh working through your color. Here's what you need to do for your color to be successful with others. Working through your color. Working through your color. Orange. It's okay. We'll take care of it. >> All right, everybody freeze. Everybody freeze. We're going to move to the next section, which is communicating with, but you're going to switch up your groups now. You have to find someone who is not your color and talk about communicating with the various colors. Find someone who is not your color. Got to mix in. Find someone who is not your color. 2 minutes. 1 minute. All right, making your way

061back to your seats now. Making your way back to your seats now. Back in your seats. If we can make it till 7:30, I'm going to give you like a 7-minute break. Oh, thank you. If we can make it till 7:30, let's keep pushing cuz if I give you break too soon, break stride and we won't get through what we're trying to get through tonight. So, what what you learn? What did you gain from from that? Talk to me about it. I learned I have a lot of commonalities with the the groups I was with. We had a lot of things in common. Um yet we had some different things, too. But for the most part, we did have a lot of common things. All right. Someone else? I think it's good to know that

062we have a very balanced board, right? And that all the colors are represented equally, um except for Dr. Wright. Um and so that will allow for good balance, I think, when it comes to conversation because we have some folks because they're blue, they're very relational. Um and so they're going to look at things different from a gold or a green. So, I think having that diversity is actually going to be very helpful for this board to work together. Someone else? I think your second color matters a lot, too. Like I don't know I don't know all the research on what happens there, but I'm gold and then green, and I felt it was a little bit different than Ms. Jackson, who is gold and then blue. You know, we had different takes on some of

063the pieces of it. So. Very good. Do you want to add to that? All right. Anyone else? I just want to say that I wasn't surprised by anybody's primary color. At all. All right. Thank you. I was getting ready to say that. Is that a compliment? Thank you. I was just a little surprised at a person cuz she has a peacemaker in her life, and I think sometimes she just want a little hail. But did I say that? But anyway. But anyway, so she was kind of like, I got a peacemaker and you know, sometimes I just want a little something, but I can't get it cuz he's a peacemaker. I thought that was kind of cute. See, I was going to mention, sometimes if you look at your spouse, how many can probably place

064their spouse in one of these colors? If you have a spouse or partner, you can kind of place them, and and certainly some of those same tips will be helpful in dealing with a partner, a child, a mother-in-law, anyone that you may actually anyone that you may actually have interaction with. Not bad idea to kind of be able to place their color and decide how you can best work with them. Bottom line is, we're all different. A little bit of each color is probably present in each personality. Usually, there is a primary, a dominant, and a secondary. Uh and it's useful for us to have that information because it helps us work together better as a team. When you understand where I'm coming from, you understand my tendencies, then you're not likely to misunderstand my

065comments in some instances. Make sense? All right. Hold >> shirts in our colors? That's all I wanted to Hold on to that. You can Hey, it's tight budget time, but you can ask Dr. Wright. You can ask Dr. Wright about a shirt for your for your color and certainly uh review it from time to time. Let's go ahead and talk a little bit about research on effective school boards so I can get you to break time uh in a in a reasonable amount of time. So, we're going to do choral reading. That means I know you're engaged and you're listening to me and and taking some of this in. So, let's do a little bit of choral reading. What do low-performing district board meetings look like? Number one. Less orderly. Okay. Choral meet Choral reading,

066I'm sorry, means everybody. Choral I may do round robin, but this is choral reading. It means everybody. Number one, what do low-performing district board meetings look like? Number one. Less time spent on student two. Less time spent on student achievement. Number three. Not listening respectfully and attentively to the person speaking. >> Number four. Members advancing their own agenda. Number five. Less than working relationships with the superintendent >> Number six. Fewer members rely on the superintendent for advice and support. Number seven. Member other than chair taking excessive meeting time. Number eight. Less focus on policy items. Those are the things you don't want your board meetings to look like. Low-achieving districts and low-performing boards look like this. Research is clear. Oh, it's so it's not what advancing a full slide, it's giving me like a half

067slide. I don't know how to fix that. Yeah, so when I try to go to the next slide, it doesn't advance. Scroll me up so you can see the book. Cool. This was a 2015 um compilation of research around how board practices affect student achievement. And then there's one as late as 2023 that corroborates much of what was discovered in the former research. So, that is on the next slide. Very good. Yep. 2023 research. So, we're going to do think-pair-share on this one. Take a look at those boxes around uh effective school boards, factors associated with student achievement, and then talk with your shoulder partner. This is the think-pair-share. Uh talk with your shoulder partner about what stands out to you among those tiles. Uh-huh. Shoulder partner means you touch a shoulder. Jamal, Dr. Wright,

068you're Yep. One more minute. All right, let's come back together. Volunteers, what stood out to you and your partner? What stood out of the tiles? I could hear most of your conversations. I'm looking at you cuz I knew some I knew some things stood out. What um For me personally, uh I talked about four things that stood out to me for student achievement was uh engaging the community, developing policy with a focus on student learning, using data, and providing staff development. So, those are some of the things and I I spent the majority of time talking about the importance of engaging the community Mhm. uh because I feel like when the community knows what's going on in our school district, our issues. We um immediately we have thought partners and thought leaders to assist us

069with our issues. And when we have positives, uh we uh I guess we inflate the positivity, I guess. So, uh I was just the example that I was sharing was that uh if we engage the community more, when we talk to them, we can see the vision of the district and we can see through the numbers and statistics and data when certain schools are headed towards uh closure. When you communicate that with them three or four years in advance, then we don't deal with issues where in the second semester, oh, we might be facing school closure and they we just started the school year four months ago. >> Mhm. So, if we start communicating those type of things and say, "Hey, traditionally, when a school heads in this direction from performance, from grades, from enrollment,

070this is usually what's happened historically." Speak from a historical context. We can prepare our student our students and our teachers and our staff to um improve the conditions so that we can keep the school open. And not only that, uh figure out ways to bring people into the district so that uh we can um compensate that. And I And I just said on a like a light-hearted note talking about Hall and the schools that we have a parade coming up soon. Uh a lot of people in the community didn't know how some of these school how well some of these schools were doing all year as far as performing in basketball. And I just said, "Hey, if there was more engagement in the community about how great this basketball team is, you could improve attendance,

071you could improve team morale. And so, uh when you don't find out on championship weekend that the school down the street from you was in Hot Springs playing, you support them all year, uh that's more money in the district, that's more support for the team, and it just overall builds up more joy in the community as well, too. So, just using that engagement with our issues and our positives. Excellent point. Use whatever you can to draw the community in and and stir up passion around the school's success. Very good. Other thoughts among the tiles. What stood out to you? Ms. Johnson, I we we ended up we served on the board twice together, now and and then in the past. And and I and we were talking about that on the unified governance that in

072our experience that that that's always been way too aspirational. You know, we have fallen really short of being able to do that, you know, between board members and between the superintendent at the time. And that that um that that's one thing that we feel like there's a lot more potential for because it's it's historically in our in our district for not just in the last couple years, but for many years, it's just been a struggle. Great point. Thanks for sharing that. Someone else? Um we talked a lot about vision, the climate, and the culture, and the community, and how it all ties in together. Um Does the community have a true understanding of the strategic plan of LRSD, the culture that we're trying to um achieve as a district? Each school, you know, has their

073own identity, but does the community understand who the district is? And that's what we spend a lot of time on. It's a school district, not a district of schools with lots of individuals, but the school is a cohesive whole. All right, very good. More? And Dr. Wright and I talked a little bit. I I don't know I I think one thing that the district does really well is talk is use data. And I mean, I love our data conversations that typically Ms. Goody and her team come do for our board. Um It it it it's obvious that the district staff are using data to uh to really drive improvement, and I've loved being able to see that at the school building level and at the district level. And I think we can continue to do

074that um as as we continue moving forward. And we as a board, I mean, I think that, you know, we we said that we are doing some of that, but are is the board applying pressure where we need to? I think we are We have pressure from the state. I mean, I know we have pressure on the state from the state on third grade reading, and that has inspired some inspired, required um some, you know, very uh intensive action this year. As a mom of a third grader, I've been very very tied into the requirements for third grade reading this year, and that's been different. Um so, I think as as we can um use the that data to continue to apply pressure. I know you guys use it in your work, but as we

075can kind of bring up to the board factors that we might want to put pressure on. I think there are opportunities there, and and then just like we we talked about the bottom right box about unified governance, and that we just really I think have a great opportunity right now to kind of have a fresh start. We're all super new to working working together um as a team, and I think we have a lot of opportunity right now to to build and share and and share with our community through the marketing and communications efforts that we're going to do what we see coming down the road for the district. and It's something else that the Director Greg and I had talked about, which was creating the climate. And so, when you create the climate, it

076actually can entail everything that we've heard here because it says characterized by participatory. That means everybody. The cuz I mean, the parents, the community, the board members, the staff members, everybody participates in the decision-making. So, I think once you create that climate, then you can really create a very very um positive outcome for our students. Excellent. All right. All very good points. That was the 2023 research. Um scroll me up a little bit. Jim McIntyre, Dr. McIntyre that I mentioned to you earlier, summarized other research. You won't find anything different on this slide. Essentially, they understand the difference between governance and management. Board is the government governance, the superintendent is management, and they focus their work on policy and governance. Create compelling vision. They carefully select and then evaluate the CEO. They define and refine

077the policies. Utilize data. Develop a future uh I'm sorry, develop a culture of collaboration as you just mentioned. Engage the community. And they fo- focus on high-quality instructional instruction and student learning. Take out your highlighter that are there in front of you. So, I want you to highlight focus in number one, focus their work on policy and governance. Number two, I want you to highlight carefully hire superintendent. Articulate clear expectations. Delegate appropriate authority. Number five, you've already mentioned, but we'll highlight it again, utilize data. Number six, if you'll highlight culture of collaboration. Number seven, highlight engage the community. And focus on high-quality instruction and student learning. Boards can't do it all. This notion of governance has to be clearly defined so that you can work cohesively as a team to lead the district along with

078the superintendent. Now, after we take about a 7-minute break, we're going to go through as painlessly as possible the actual statutes and your policies that deal with this notion of governance. It is now 7:31. You have 7 minutes. We're setting the timer. When the buzzer goes off, back in your seats. All right. Break time. Is 7:30 my time or 7:39? >> All right. Let's go through what the statute say and what your policy says about the responsibilities. We are on next slide. Just one one quick question about this if I may. Um are these poli- are these the current statutes updated after the 25 legislative session? I know I sometimes have trouble getting those right away. It's what I was given when I asked for the policies. So if you got changes after this, um

079you can certainly make note of it. This is the latest version that I'm aware of. Perfect, thank you. I I and I'm and I rather doubt there were any significant changes made to the duties and responsibilities of the board, but it's a possibility. There were there were a lot of bills in there. >> your attorney would be on top of that. I thought I saw him sitting over there. He ran out. Yeah. He ran out before I could All right, let's do round robin this time. There are 11 items there for the statute and a couple of instances through kind of odd the way they're written. Number five and number six where it goes into more detail around personnel contracts and such. I left that portion out just to summarize. So let's start um to

080my left, uh Director Nichols, if you don't mind. The statute say what? Number one. Attend meetings of the school district board of ed. Number two. Director Jackson. Determine the mission and direction of the school district. Number three. Adhere to state and federal laws governing public schools. Number Enact, enforce, and obey school district policies. Five. Employ staff including A, a superintendent of schools to oversee the day-to-day operations of the school district. >> Number six. Understand and oversee school district finances required by law to ensure alignment with the school district's academic and facility needs and goals. Number seven. Number seven. Ensure that A, necessary and sufficient facilities are built or obtained, furnished, and maintained, and B, all properties belonging to the district are managed and maintained for the benefit of the school district. >> Number eight. Approved

081the selection of curriculum and ensure that students are offered and taught the courses of study and educational content required by the State Board of Ed. Number nine, back over here. Visit the district schools and classrooms when students are present no less than annually and attend some events and functions. That's That's an unusual requirement that it is in statute that you will visit schools when students are present. Number 10. Obtain the training and professional development necessary to serve as active and informed members of the school district board of directors. And Number 11. Do all other things necessary and lawful for the conduct of efficient free public schools in the school district. It's a pretty thorough statute that clarifies the responsibility of boards of directors in the school district. Pretty precise. And then your policy, as it

082should, goes into further detail but comes under the umbrella of what the statutes actually say. So legal status of the board of directors, that introductory paragraph is important. Get your highlighters out again. Look at that second sentence. While the board has a broad range of powers and duties, its individual members only have authority when exercising their responsibilities in a legally convened board for a I'm sorry, meeting acting as a whole. Acting as a whole. That's important. Sole exception, of course, you don't have to highlight this part, but if you are delegated authority by the board, then certainly there is an exception made there. But it's important to note the board has authority as a whole. Not individual board members. Which is why it's important to have a cohesive team to move the work of the

083board. There's also mention here of being careful as you serve in a judiciary role. Shouldn't be involved with members of the community and folks who may be coming before you. As you serve that appellate role, you have to guard yourself so that you can be an impartial judge as well. All right. Next slide. I have a question. Yes. And I've often wondered this. Um when an individual board member may ask me or request me to do something. Uh not do I have to, but like that happens a lot. But is there are there is that considered like the whole board can't come together and you know, I guess the question is how do you mitigate an individual request from a board member when it's not the whole board? That's an excellent question. We're going to

084get to the stay in your lane discussion shortly. But the immediate answer is when board when individual board members come with information in a one-on-one meeting there are appropriate ways to share opinions, to share preferences, but individual board members should not try to direct the superintendent. The board as a whole directs the superintendent. We used to use the terminology, that's why I said my board understood governance. I used to say I have eight bosses cuz we had seven single member districts and one elected countywide, but they had more no more authority than the others. So I I would say I have eight bosses but one boss. So individual opinions, certainly conversations, relationships, going to share with you my opinion, my thoughts on something, but direction to take action should be by the board as a

085whole. And usually that happens in a publicly held meeting. So everybody's aware of it. It's very transparent. We'll talk more about that cuz I got a little game for us to play called stay in your lane. All right. Uh next slide. And you have all of this, so you for for your homework you can read and memorize all of the statutes. There'll be a test the next time we get together, an exam. Um uh public exam to see if you've read all of your homework. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But I But I do want you to go through actually the entire I'm asking you to highlight portions of it, but please go back and look at the entire statute. Director Johnson. I thought you were holding up to ask a question. All right. Next page,

086duties of the president. Director Johnson, what are your duties? Come Sorry. Sorry, Pam. Appointing all committees of the board and serving as ex officio member of such committees. And number six, appointing board members to serve as representatives of the board on committees and or task force until the beginning of the next school year if needed. And performing such other duties as may be prescribed by law or action of the board. The president shall have the same right as other members to offer resolutions, make or second motions, discuss questions, and to vote. I like being clear on the duties of the president. Your policies are very clear. Um the vice president or the second in command takes these duties over when the president is not available to do them, but it's very explicit around what the

087responsibilities are. Um not to oversee or direct the superintendent independently, but to run the meetings and with the superintendent come up with the agenda. I think it's important for everyone to understand it. And I And I know your um board attorney went over parliamentary procedure and such with you. It helps meetings run businesslike when the chair is in charge and performing her duties. Powers and duties of the board. So standing meeting, told you we can't just sit and get. Standing meeting, powers and duties of the board. Find someone you've not spoken with in a standing meeting already and go through the 15 powers and duties of the board. Take your highlighter with you. Highlight where where you think there are strengths or weaknesses with the current board. Strengths or weaknesses, highlight them. Strengths or weaknesses.

088>> One more minute. One more minute. 30 seconds. Talk talk talk. All right, let's come back to our seats. What works well? What are some strengths of the current board? I know we haven't been convened as a group too long, but what works well and where are the weaknesses? We've been working on a Is it a Sorry. Okay. Um I've been part of a group um of teachers and principals and district staff working on going through line by line all of our policies. We started with a couple sections at Dr. Wright's uh request like a a year and a half ago maybe? Yeah. Almost two years ago. Um but we started on this um going through our personnel policies for our classified and certified staff and we brought those back um and we're working with

089our state's model policies to help restructure our policy work. So, that has been a lot I love that. Um it's been a lot of fun. Um and I'm sorry Mr. Mr. Boley and I were talking about how um when we bring that back and it's a 120-something or 130-page document, it feels a little overwhelming to just bring all of this work that we've been doing over many months and just say, "Here it is." You know, and so that has been something though that I feel like we've been really doing our due diligence on going through that and we've got that done now sections 1 2 4 6 uh 6 7 and maybe 9. I think there is all of them. Yeah, 6 7 6 7, right? Um to get through all those. So, that's a

090long-term project, but I think it has been um an important one. Very important. Very important. Other strengths or weaknesses? Well, I also sit on a committee and it's called the bilingual committee. And I don't know if that committee has been approved the ADA ADE. Has it been approved? Well, it's sitting in in in limbo and I I don't really understand why because what it would do would create an environment so schools where they could start at kindergarten teaching actually just teaching kids to be bilingual because we know probably next 5 to 10 years um if you're not bilingual, you're going to kind of leave some behind and I really didn't get the full effect until I went to a school and I had a small group and there were two that spoke Spanish and there

091were three that did English. And so, there was one young lady in there I just couldn't reach her and I I was feeling some kind of way. She just sat there and she would just look at me, but then there was this really cool guy. His name was Gabriel. I'll never remember Gabriel. He said, "We can help you. We can help you." And so, he was kind of like my person that when I would say something, he would tell her what I said in his form and she would just smile. But I just felt I can't reach her. So, how is she learning? I don't know. She probably is learning, but for me it was kind of I just felt so ineffective. So, I think that's a program that I think we need. Why it's

092on hold, I don't know, but it would definitely be a benefit from this point on. So. Dr. Wright, do you know why they're putting it on hold? It was a parking lot issue. But if I had my chart stand, I'd say I'd put that on the parking lot for future discussion. Any other strengths or weaknesses around duties of the board? >> I I'll mention a couple couple quick strengths. One we talked about I was sharing this with the Miss Miss Jackson. Um in my time on the board, this is the first superintendent that we've had where we have stayed on an evaluation schedule. And um not that that's perfect, but we have stayed on the schedule and and done that. And the other thing we didn't get to talk to you about in the last

0936 years since we came back to the board governance, we have done a ton of work on district finances. We've we've improved the salary schedule, we improved teacher in you know, increases. We we have um had to reduce expenses several times. We're in the middle of that right now. So, we have done a ton of work on on finances. Okay. Excellent. Last call. We Me and President Johnson spoke on being intentional about um providing sufficient facilities, grounds, property. Going out to the property. We don't we don't know if we don't see it, right? Um and then when we're there, what do you see? Are they Is it being reported or are we just accepting the bare minimum? Or things that Oh, that hadn't worked in 3 weeks. You know, it's important that we do have

094suitable facilities and it's important that we understand the process in which about to get it done. Excellent. All right, next slide. Every board member needs to be familiar with the duties and responsibilities, but here is how the board gets its work done. 1.8 you govern by policy. So, you see an issue, you have a concern. The question you raise is is there a potential policy the board could put in place that will direct attention to this issue. You don't micromanage, you don't try to tell the superintendent what to do, how to fix it. The question you pose is there a policy that we should have in place that will help correct or direct uh this particular issue. Policy governance is critical. Otherwise, everyone's trying to tell the superintendent what to do. Everybody's got an opinion.

095Everybody wants to hold them accountable for their direction. The board governs by policy. So, look at that second sentence. I love highlighters because someone there's a lot to go through later on when you're reviewing it, it helps to have some highlighted portions of it. The legal frameworks governing the district shall be augmented by policies adopted by the board of directors, which will serve to further define the operations of the district. When necessitated, unforeseen circumstances, what have you, the superintendent is authorized to put uh frameworks in place and then to bring it back and inform the board about it. Something's critical, something's jumping off, got to deal with it, uh then the superintendent is authorized as well and inform the board of his action. Think of the policies as being the overarching direction and the superintendent

096has to actually use management procedures and regulations to get the work done. Governance by policy. I'd like to mention also it's important to note um superintendent does not correct board members. Board members hold each other accountable for their duties and responsibilities. I heard your um uh attorney talk about parliamentary procedure. Respect to the chair, so she calls on individuals, but also if somebody's off If I'm one of your board members and I'm off on a tangent saying I demand I'd like to make a resolution that we do A, B, and C and it's totally outside of our duties. The board is responsible. Point of order, Madam Chair. Point of order, Madam Chair. Can we get back to the policy level discussion that we should be having on this topic? So, the board helps corral each

097other, not the superintendent. You don't need He didn't need to have individual falling out because he's tried to correct someone at the board table. The board governs and keeps one another accountable for what their responsibilities are. Speaking of that relationship, go on to the next slide, 1.13 in your policy. I like a countdown three lines. See that sentence that says the board and superintendent? Let's read it together. Everybody see it? Let's read it. The board Keep going. I like that. Highlighted. I like that. Your policy is very clear on that expectation. And again, the superintendent is authorized to put together regulations that put the teeth or the meat on the bones for your policies. Is that pretty clear? We're still going to get to that stay in your lane test, so keep all of this

098in mind. All right, so now we're going to have teams of four. There are two policies I'm sorry, go ahead. I thought you had a question. So, there are two um 1.23 and 1.25 I didn't actually put on a slide. I have the handout for you here. We're going to have two teams, four over here and four over there. Don't worry cuz you'll both get the handouts. I have them here. This team is going to have chart paper cuz you're going to summarize the code of conduct. Got to summarize it cuz you got one sheet of paper. This team of four will summarize. This team over here, four of you, you're going to have to summarize visits to school property by school board members. Not to worry, when they present their summaries, everybody will get

099the full copies here, but we're going to cut our time in half by these two teams summarizing what those documents say. Everybody understand? Four on this team, four on that team. Got to summarize it, put it on the chart, you're going to share it out with the group. Make sense? What I say this group's going to have? Code of conduct and this group? Board member visits, all right. I have Uh let me ask you as a I have trauma around this. One is you write with a permanent marker on a dry erase board, that that's really bad. The other is you put chart paper up on the wall and it bleeds through. So, you're going to write on your table and then stick it on the wall. Okay? I don't want to be responsible for

100Dr. Wright needing new cleaning for the board. All right? Here are your handouts. Even put two pages together so there wouldn't be bleed through issue, but do not Don't put them on the wall until you're done. I'm assuming we should probably use the highlighters if No, they're markers. >> Oh, they're actual real markers. >> What happened to the Yeah, they're real markers. >> Oh, I think they were under Did I see Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Markers. I thought you were gold. My green is my favorite color. You have 8 minutes. You got to summarize. Can't get all this on the chart. You got to summarize. Praise in public, criticize in private. Praise in public, criticize in private. With the superintendent, that that's the board that We're going to talk to the principal Think about

101praising the The other is policy will be Uh that's not a sign. I like what you said before is Well, you're giving to me or praise in public. And there are policy outlines of ways that we can do that. Board member makes no promises. >> Sorry. I have too many. Okay. No, no, no. No. No, they No, they No, they can't see that. I thought you were pointing both. Sorry. I thought that's where you were pointing. One more minute. All right, ready to report out? I have your extra copies. This group You have your copies. And then I have your copies for the policy that they are covering as well. All right. Everybody ready to give your undivided attention? Let's hear from the from the code of conduct team. Let's hear it. But so we

102have I think the high ethical standards go along with the no financial conflicts. Um that's pretty pretty pretty self-explanatory. Um govern as a group as a group. As we just read um there's no power in one. Uh pretty much we over me. We We speak as a whole. We move as a whole and not individually. Uh pi- positive climate. Uh we want to continue to support the superintendent, support the district. When decisions are made uh we support those decisions. Uh even if you didn't agree with it, we support it inside and outside. Never make a promise you can't keep. Again, we we've learned that no individual uh has authority. We have authority as a group, so don't make promises you can't keep. Um let's see here. Board members follow follow board member procedures and policy.

103No making up of your own, but yet follow what's there. Policy. Govern by policy. Um preparation or always be prepared. Um you you really can't speak to something if you are not prepared. You can't act on anything if you're not prepared. So preparation is key. Uh please be sure to always be prepared. Um let's see here. Stay student focused. Uh that's our number one priority. What is impacting our students? What can we do uh based on policy to make sure that they are being impacted in a positive way and they continue on a high trajectory. And then to wrap it up, teamwork makes the dream work. Thank you. All right. Code of conduct. You can pass those down so everybody has their own copy. Excellent summary. Let's hear from the school visits group. Okay. Well,

104Dr. Wright wanted us to use the ChatGPT version of it, but um we summarized it ourselves. I don't know that I can read that green, but um in general the idea is when are we allowed to be on campus and not. Um here we're expected to visit schools and that can happen in a number of ways. The first is through campus tours. The second is when there are public events. Um so like you think about what happened at Central a few weeks ago with the announcement of the principal, that would have been a public event. Um then volunteering. So if we're there as a volunteer, that is completely okay. Or as a presenter um and by invitation. So if the school district is inviting us um this morning yes yesterday we were at Parkview. Was

105it yesterday this morning? I've I lost all track of days. It was yesterday. Yes. Um the second is that we can uh be present as a parent. So if you're a parent, obviously you're allowed to be on school campuses, but therefore you're in a parent capacity. Um and then also for district related business. So if there are specific district related business, we can be on campus for those items. And then otherwise um if we are going to be on campus, we should inform the administration um if we have intent to be there for another purpose to make sure that it's okay um and that it's being um that people are aware in the administration that it's happening. And follow the visitor rules. Yes. Yes, make sure that like you're doing the things you should be

106doing when you're in a school. And did you come up with a theme mantra like they did? We're not that special. Um so Follow the rules. Yeah. The golds like it. All right, very good. Board members have to be aware of your policies and your rules. You don't have to memorize them, but you ought to be able to refer to them and certainly to help hold each other accountable. It's okay, they don't have to stay up. So and the and the other thing I didn't mention this earlier. Jacob Oliva, your your state commissioner actually came out of Florida. Uh friend of mine, in fact. He was part of Chiefs for Change, Future Chiefs. Used to coach me and say, "Got to go get your own state." Because I didn't see it happening for him in

107Florida. I think he's brilliant. I think he's student focused. Um and certainly has his challenges at the same time, but I did want to mention that um Jacob Oliva, friend of mine. I forgot to text him and tell him I was coming in his neck of the woods. So LRSD also has this specific resolution. Uh so you've got policies, you've got state statutes, and you've got policy that help help flesh it out. When the board passes a resolution that rises to the level of policy because you have documented by board action. Uh it's probably um one of the more unique strategies, but I think it makes very clear what the expectations are and the roles. And it covers several different areas including board job description. Role of the superintendent. There's a typo there. r o

108l e of the superintendent. Apologies. The board's expectations of the superintendent, the superintendent's expectations of the board, meeting and operational agreements, annual planning and evaluation including that is specific to board member performance. We just remember that was one of the high-performing school districts evaluate their own performance as well. That's in your resolution. And then policy leadership and development. I commend you for having that specific of a resolution to help direct and set up guardrails for the board to operate efficiently. So, let's talk about those roles. We've mentioned it a couple of times, but I want to get more into a little bit of detail before we conclude. NSBA has a a position around the board members' responsibility. What is What do they say? Anybody? Board members? That's a National School Board Association's quote. I like

109also what Campbell and Fullan have to say. That this notion of a governance system is that the board and the superintendent work together as a cohesive, unified team. Highlight cohesive, unified team with a common vision driven by a shared moral imperative. I love that statement. I love that statement. They have to function together as a cohesive, unified team with a common vision driven by a shared moral imperative. So, I I I used to always use this example. I'm less inclined to use it now because of what's going on um with Golden State Warriors, but but um so, a team doesn't necessarily have to love each other. They don't even have to like each other. If they can be convinced to coalesce around this passion, this shared moral imperative. Very different talents, very different personalities. Somebody

110on the team I think should have been fired and traded years ago whose initials are Draymond Green. I'm sorry. I I said initials, didn't I? Initials, didn't I? I I wanted to send Steve Kerr a personal email. Get rid of him. He's tearing your team apart. And I was right. So, anyway, but Steve Kerr was masterful at helping the team coal- any any winning team helping those individual personalities coalesce around this passion, this shared moral imperative. What's the moral imperative for Golden State Warriors? Win. We want to win a championship. So, we can put up with individuals if we all have the same vision of winning, then we can make it work. So, what is um the school board and superintendent's shared moral imperative? You got a vision and a mission. The LRSD inspires a

111lifelong love of learning in every student. Our mission is student success achieved by empowered, supported, and inspired teaching, engaged in very free partnership with families, and well-earned community trust. That is your shared moral imperative. Your dream, your vision, your aspiration for what you want the district to do for children and mean in this community. And then of course, the superintendent takes the ball and runs from there with his strategic themes and objectives. That makes sense? So, the cohesion is around what you're passionate about. You said it in the opening when we talked about why did you seek out this role? Most of you talked about engaging the community and supporting our children. Pulling everybody in to support our children. Helping our children be successful. That is your shared moral imperative that causes that creates cohesion

112among the team members. Look at the next slide. Governance relationship. So, I'm going to play the little game called take the little test called stay in your lane. Because essentially on the left side the board adopts the vision and the goals and the policies and evaluates the outcomes. The superintendent develops plans and regulations, implements the operations, and evaluates progress. And he's got to report it back to the board. And then the cycle goes again. The board makes adjustments. The board stays in their lane. Superintendent takes a handoff, does his portion, and then the board evaluates. Governance on one side, management on the other side. There's another model that says above the line and below the line. I like the the lane version rather than what seemed like a hierarchy for above the line and below

113the line, but it's this notion of board members have to stay out of the weeds. They stay at the higher level of policy and setting the expectations. The board determines the what. Here's what we expect from you, superintendent. Here is the what. The superintendent determines the how. If you were board of directors at a local bank, you'd say, "Mr. CEO, we expect by the end of the year these will be your dividend dividends, these will be your outcomes, this will be your profit margin. End of the year, you evaluate." Board of directors does not go to individual branches and assess the branch manager or the tellers or give specific feedback on how things ought to be run. The board sets policy and expectation, the what. The CEO deals with the how. At the end of

114the day, the board holds the CEO, the superintendent responsible for those outcomes. Next slide. Good way to summarize it. The school board does what? Let's do choral reading one more time. Got to keep you awake a little bit longer. The school board does what? And? All right. And then the superintendent does what? What did you say? The superintendent As a whole Next. All right. Look on the back of the paper. Here's time for your test. There's no test. You just need something to write on. Flip to flip it over or you can write along the margins of the where the little car is. Stay in your lane test. So, I'm going to um read the scenario. You're going to individually write one of two responses, and then we'll see who gets it right. These are

115the two responses you have to choose from. One response says green light, proceed. The other response is beep beep, stay in your lane. Means you're out of your lane. Either the superintendent or the board in the scenarios. Green light, proceed, or stay in your lane. Ready? Number one. A board member asked board member B asked the superintendent to remove teachers in his son's Algebra II class because constituents say he is too harsh with the students. Don't say it out loud. You need to write down. Number two. Superintendent creates a policy on dress code and immediately implements it throughout the district. Number three. Board member A lists items critical to the budget and makes a motion to include them to include them in the budget for next year. Board member A lists items that are critical

116to the budget and makes a motion to include them for next year's budget. Number four. Superintendent asks the board to evaluate each of his cabinet members and draft evaluation documents. Number five. Board member F asks the superintendent to support to appoint a very popular middle school principal as the principal of the feeder high school. Number six. Board chair asked the superintendent to present the strategic plan outcomes so the board can evaluate. Number seven. Superintendent asked the board to create bus stops for next year so she can implement them. Superintendent asked the The superintendent asked the board to create bus stops for next year so she can implement them. Number eight. After input from the community and edits provided to the staff the board adopts a new policy on vaping. Anybody need a repeat 1 through

1178? After input from the community and edits provided to staff the board adopts a new policy on vaping. All right. Number one, when I ask you to you're either going to say green light or beep beep. Everybody just got to shout it out at once. Can't wait for someone else. Got all shout it out at once, okay? Number one. Why? That was the test to see if you would remember. You're absolutely right. That board member B asked the superintendent to remove teacher from son's algebra class cuz they're sarcastic and everybody complains about it. Number two. So the scenario was superintendent listen Listen to this. Superintendent creates a policy on dress code and immediately implements. Okay, so that's a beep beep then. He's out of his lane. He's out of his lane. Yeah. Green light means

118you're you're a straight, that's a good idea, move ahead. Beep beep means stop, you're out of your lane. So what what what's the problem there? Remember He needed to take it to the to the to the board. So so there's a provision in your policy that says if the That's that's the key That's the key. That's the key. That's the key. Dress code does not Now, unless kids are coming in showing every vital part and it's just swept through the whole district children are coming undressed that would be an emergency. But if it's dress code, it goes through the policy process and the board approved the policy. Superintendent, in your policy superintendent has the authority the delegation if there's something critical and there's not time to immediately implement something. Let's say you you've had um

119uh vaping has up to the number of um uh um I don't want to say death. I don't want to say death. It's a Something has happened as a health and safety issue, the superintendent has the authority to immediately push something out to regulate because it's an urgent matter. Then he brings it back to the board later on. Dress code would not rise to that level. He shouldn't be coming up with his own dress code and immediately implementing it and the board has not had input in it. So I wasn't clear on on the response. So when you say he's out of his lane, it'd be a beep beep. Get Get back in your lane. When you say when you when you say it that way then I would agree with you. >> on that

120actually because to me like does is dress code a thing that our board needs to be deciding or is that something that we could have clearly delegate? I mean if it's a I guess more of a if it's in that code of conduct or a our handbook cuz that's actually where it lives in Little Rock School District I think is in our handbook and not in our board policy. We do we vote on the handbook every year? Okay, then I guess it is board policy. It it it it usually rises to a policy level at the at the overarching level. In some districts actually let individual schools deal with Yeah, it's not it's not a problem. The the issue is the issue is if it is something the board wants to see done consistently throughout

121the district then they have to create a policy. I just wondered cuz I I think you can over maybe this is cuz I'm a lobbyist in my day job but I think you can over policy, right? I think you can put things into policy that don't need to be in a policy that then has to be changed and go through all of this process and dress code for me would be in that bucket. Yeah, you don't have you don't have to. You don't have to. There's no rule around it. The superintendent's authority for usurping the board on policy has to be because there's something urgent. Health and safety issue, something critical. Otherwise it goes through the board's process for policy. Number Now, let me be clear. Beep beep means this individual is out of their

122lane. Green light means they're okay, proceed. Number three. Green light. Board member A list items critical to budget and makes them up and makes a motion to include for next year. So the board approves a budget to individual board members sit around the table and say, "I'd like to also recommend that we add a line item in here for this." And then another board member says add a line line item in for that. Another board member says, "Let's add an a line item in. I want to see um um lights at all of our baseball fields." Do individual board members make a motion to put that in the budget? Or does the superintendent after discussion with the board bring a budget forward for the board to approve? Uh So let's play that scenario out. I

123like I like the discussion. So Madam chair says superintendent has provided a uh budget for us for our approval. We workshopped it. We've had conversations about it. We've had uh community input public hearings, that's what we have to go through in Florida and we are ready now to approve the superintendent's budget. And I hit my buzzer and say, "Madam chair, I'd like to make a motion that we add A B C and D to this budget." Which essentially throws it out of balance. Superintendent has provided a balanced budget usually statutorily. I say "Madam chair, I would like to add these items. I've passing something out to everybody else. I would like your support to add these items to the budget for next year." For me that depends on where in the process we are. Like

124if we are right now and I said, "Doctor Wright, I really like to include or not include something in our budget for next year but we haven't seen a draft." I think that could absolutely be a conversation. It depends on if we've already been presented a budget and then want to add something to approve in the moment or if we're saying, "Hey, next year we're going to do something a little differently and we're going to try to add something else new to the budget." Like just like we're talking right now about taking things out of the budget. You know, I think we could I would think we could make a motion. >> So I understand your point at the this scenario was considering that you're actually at the decision point and somebody's trying to make

125an an individual is trying to usurp the board and move in a different direction. Now, board workshop work session around budget, everybody's throwing out their ideas. Mr. Superintendent, I'd like to see us consider lights in our softball field. The girls need this, the boys need that. I'd like for us to consider we had announcer booths one year. Uh there's some leftover money, some um dollars that are not committed. I'd like for us to see consider this project. In that discussion in workshopping and work session, absolutely everybody's throwing out ideas. This scenario was more uh along the lines of we've got a proposed approved budget and somebody tries to usurp it. Ready for number four? Yes. Green Uh superintendent Superintendent asked the board to give him feedback to evaluate his individual cabinet members and help draft

126their documents. That's a definite beep beep. The superintendent is out of his lane, that's his responsibility. Number five. Beep beep. Hm, board member F Board member F asked superintendent to appoint a very popular middle school principal as principal of a feeder high school. Out of your lane, get in your lane. That's a beep beep beep. Now, let me let me just say human nature is going to say periodically if I have a one-on-one meeting with my superintendent, I may have ideas, I may have recommendations, but I can't direct him. I may say "Doctor Wright, I I just wish I know this is your decision, but I just wish you would consider someone who has a really clear understanding of that community and the middle school principal from Aggard Middle School might be a great consideration.

127That's harmless enough as long as I understand. You don't have to take my opinion. Cuz that's his job. That's his role. Cuz when he puts that middle school principal in there and they crash and burn, he's accountable. He's responsible for it, not the person who said I wish you would consider. I recommend board members stay out of personnel matters. Hey, I'm not crazy about who you picked, but at the end of the day it's your responsibility. You you have to be accountable for the outcomes. So, that was a definite beep beep. Get in your lane. Number six. Love it. Give us your strategic plan outcomes. We're holding you accountable. Need to be able to evaluate you. Give us a presentation. Number seven. Oh, superintendent asked board members, oh my gosh, creating bus stops is just

128like pulling wisdom teeth. Board should not have to create bus stops. That that that is that is an operation. That's the superintendent's responsibility. Uh number eight. Green light after getting input from the community and edits being provided. Um superintendent certainly gives input as well, but the board adopts a new policy on vaping. You know what? I think you did pretty good. How many got them all right? There was that one set set aside the one on the budget cuz that was a You missed one? Missed number three? Okay. Missed one? That's pretty good. A lot higher than the last board I worked with. Pretty good outcomes. All right, let's talk about teamwork a little bit cuz I need to be getting you out of here. Um this notion in the state of Texas, one of

129the um greatest concerns among school board members was we don't know how to work together as a team. We don't know each other. We need to work on teamwork. It's the number one concern um for school boards in the state of Texas. Scroll me up a little bit so that shows on the screen, please. If you want to go fast, but let's do one more choral reading. I just I just love to hear your voices together. If you want to go fast, do what? You go really fast, you look back, nobody's following you. That's not teamwork. What's the other quote? Teamwork is critical. And so, I'm going to be wrapping up here because this is some of the um work that we can do in part two cuz I don't have time to do any

130go any further than this. But look at that next slide. Just some ideas. The notion of boards or cabinets, wherever there is a team, of doing specific intentional team building activities is critical. You get to know each other, you get to trust each other, you get to work together, you get to have fun. Sometimes board members actually start to like each other. My board My board My board used to say, "People are amazed. We actually like each other." They they worked very well together. Didn't mean they didn't check each other. They didn't always agree. They were always holding each other accountable. They took no um sympathy to say, "Mr. Chair, point of order. Can we get back to a policy level discussion?" They helped manage each other and keep each other in line, but they

131also did things like um So, there's a local bar. They didn't just go to drink, they went to compete in the bowl games and the quiz bowl game, trivia night at a local bar. Uh and they won. Several times they went, they won. They did a talent um the the county commission uh put on a talent night and they went together as a group to perform so they could try to They didn't win that one, but they did go to try to to compete. Holiday gatherings, talent night, charity events, dinner at conferences, um indoor rock climbing, um crew rowboats. Uh there's another word they use for those. Um they look like little Viking ships. It'll come to me. Um but but row learning to row a boat together, those kind of things are significant team

132building activities. Not a list of what you have to do. It's just a notion that you make some effort to build your team. And there are a few activities we can do um should we get together for a a part two that we can do as well. I'd like to consider uh if we are together again, there's a wonderful case study on the Harvard Business Review. Uh someone mentioned in the board meeting the other night that they had gone to the Harvard um training session for board members. There's a wonderful case study we could work through. Some team building activities, the difference between discussion and dialogue and active listening. Uh the work around a school board self-evaluation, which is pretty critical, and any other needs that the board might come up with. So, our next

133steps, wrapping things up, is around timing for part two. I want to do some pluses and deltas quickly, and then we will just end with a thank you. Um Madam Chair, next steps timing, you want to have that discussion, Dr. Wright? Board members, did you have any suggestions or any ideas on part two? What I would strongly suggest is that we do it again at another um work session next month. If anybody has have any ideas, the time, date. I mean, we're going to all most likely be here. And the timing is not bad. Do we know what when that date is going to be? The only reason why I'm a just a little hesitant about May, I feel like during graduation, do we have like less board meetings? Or >> just double up. Yeah.

134It'd be like May the Two weeks, okay. Probably about May the 6th and May the >> All right, never mind then. May the For the 14th, though. My bad, 14th to 28th. How long will this second part be? About two hours. >> About two hours, okay. It can go longer, but two hours minimum. Say two to three. Any ideas for the 14th of >> Yes, the 14th. I guess I guess my question would be with this or or What What is this as it relates to the overall training that we've talked about, the ongoing training and support that we've talked about and haven't yet made a decision on. Are we going to do this regardless, phase one and phase two of this, regardless of whether we do the longer term piece that we were going

135to vote on I think next board meeting. That would be my recommendation. The two are not tied together. They don't have to be. We've done the same training. It's usually in the a day, four to six hours. Um but it's a foundation building for teamwork and governance understanding of a board. It's not inextricably connected to the council's lengthier coaching, which I highly recommend as well, but the two are not uh joined at the hip. I would recommend whether a board was going to do something extended or not to at least have a day invested around getting everybody on the same page around governance and teamwork. And then trying to do some follow-up teamwork throughout the year is helpful, which the council's program works well with that. I just wanted to to to add a lot

136of what we discussed tonight around like governance and working together and building an effective team were all tied to this idea that the board and superintendent team had a vision and had identified goals and had identified like we have district goals, a district vision. The board, since I have been here, hadn't like done that type of work. And so, I think that has always been like the missing >> That would be huge with the council's work, too. Yeah. I mean, if it's not clear, I am absolutely a fan and support the the longer term engagement with the council um and I would love to Yes, I support President Johnson. I support moving ahead with the next phase of this. This has been I have been really enjoyed tonight. Thanks. George Jackson? I was just going

137to say that um I think we should move forward sooner rather than later on the next step, phase two, to keep the process going and to keep the continuity and the unity. So, May 14th? It's it's it's a it's available on my calendar. If you said 28th, I was going to say I can't come on 28th. That's why I brought my travel calendar cuz things get kind of jammed in there. >> for you? 14th looks good. 14th it is. All right, one more thing for you to write down. Pluses and deltas. So, at the end of any interaction, I'd like for folks to be able to give feedback. One thing that went well, one thing that could be improved. Pluses and deltas. Take a minute to reflect. Something positive, something that could be improved for

138your time together invested here today. One plus, one delta. Round robin, give me your pluses first. For me is the material that's provided. Um it's very beneficial to our individual growth as well as our collective growth together. All right. Informative. I mean, um good information for new as a new member. All right. Um I like the spirit of collaboration and teamwork. All right. I love the true colors and the implications it could have for us working together more effectively in the future. Okay. I love the adult learning structure where we have breaks and we get up and we engage. Um and also a little bit of bonding time. That's good. >> Got it. I know, but I'm saying that's good. I positive interactivity. So, interacting with each other. All right, what could we do better?

139What could What could improve our time together? Let's start on this end. Um so, I put under the powers and duties for the board. We had a lot of strengths that we talked about, but we didn't necessarily touch on as much of what could we improve on. Yes. Um Honestly, uh I would just say uh For me, I'd say what I'm doing a better job of visiting our schools and understanding those environments better so that we can probably our students and stuff. Okay. I would love to have had one last little bit where we kind of tied the true colors piece of this work in into the board like the board roles and responsibilities and kind of talked about where our personalities and our strengths came into how we come together as a board. And

140that might be phase two of this, but I feel like that would have for me tonight just helped me tie the little tie the evening up into a little bow. All right. I had something similar, but I'm going to go to my next one. If at all possible on the 14th, we're going to try to avoid a special meeting so that we can not be here as long. Okay. I I don't know if this is re- I didn't feel like it's realistic for this very first time, but I'm I'm looking forward to um a time when we would have a a common whether it's a common statement or vision or or or position. You know, we had that common thing that we we talked about in the very beginning where everybody had a common thing

141about students. And we then we talked about other people's expectations of us, the statutes and the laws and things like that, but but I don't think we haven't got to yet our own expectations of us. And and I think I would like to I look forward to getting that, what what our own expectations of us You you thinking vision of what the board will produce or say more so I'm clear. I don't I'm not sure I honestly just something that we could own to say this is this group of people, this seven plus one group of people, this is what we want this next year to look like. Um you know, whether it's what we how it's working together, how we want to work that way or what we want to the outcome to be

142at the end or maybe some of both. Okay, can I ask a question? Are you Are you talking about the outcome or is it almost like a board code of conduct, which I've done before as well, how we hold each other accountable in those standards or is it more of the output that you're I I think I'm agnostic about that. It I don't have a a strong feeling about whether it's the process or the or the outcome, but it's something that that this again, the people around this table feel like particularly at this moment that we own. Like your own mantra. So, so the So, this board was not around when the vision was created. >> Uh-huh. But did the Did the previous board have input on the vision? Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. It was part

143of the strategic plan. So, are you on the brink of a strategic plan update or reboot? Is it a five-year plan? Okay. Okay. Okay. The There is a potential of um We'll We'll talk more about I'll talk to the superintendent and the chair about it, but there's a potential of looking at what's in place and saying whether or not this board wants to tweak it slightly, the vision statement, not all the goals and strategies, but a way to tweak it so that there is a um a a a mantra, a market line, uh a a theme, something that's shorter that this board could get behind. That might be a possibility, but it's still the same foundational strategic plan. Just might want to tweak the way the vision is stated so that this board owns it.

144Possibility. I will tell you the vision and mission across the country, they are all very similar. It's the details of the strategic plan that are most critical. But if this board needs to own something, I wouldn't recommend having a separate vision or mission statement. It may just be there's a tagline or some way to bring ownership to the charge of how you're moving forward. We'll talk more about it. I'll talk to the chair and to the superintendent. I've always been a little confused about Well, we've got a lot of district goals connected to our strategic plan. And I've always been a little confused about cuz I hear sometimes board goals referenced. I don't know that we have board goals, but I also don't know if board goals and district goals are the same thing. They

145So, in my opinion, they should be the same thing. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah, not board has goals over here and the superintendent has separate goals over. Now, where you where you may see this is in districts, there's still some in Florida where there are elected boards and an elected superintendent. They have no reason to get along. They have no reason to agree. So, superintendent runs on his own platform and he sets his goals and the board runs on their own platform and they set their goals. It's highly inefficient and it doesn't drive student achievement forward. So, I My recommendation is always that they be singular that that the board's goals are the superintendent and the district's goals as well. Worked on collaboratively. Some of that Some of that Some of that's down the road aways,

146but but trying to build teamwork around here, I mean, what was your tagline at at the end of your I mean, as something that's just um See, that marketing communications folks that would say they're much better equipped for helping advise a board on that, but if this board wanted to help drive the vision and they came up with something like that that they owned, then that would be reasonable. I do not recommend setting a whole separate set of goals and a vision and a mission separate than what's been put in place. And I was I certainly don't want to I'm not suggesting something for the big picture as far as like the whole district, the whole thing. I'm thinking more just even about how do we want to work together as a group? You know,

147something where we agree, okay, this is what we want to do. Not Not because it's what Not because anybody is telling us to do it, but this is what we want to do like in this next year. This is the kind of group we want to be, the kind of climate we want to set, the tone, the We want to get out of here by 9:00. Whatever it is we want to set up, you know. I know some people who pick a word of the year. That could be maybe a fun thing. Like it's kind of their theme word for the year and that could be maybe a fun word for a fun something for us to do as a group that wouldn't be anything like binding or unofficial. No, just a theme. kind of

148set a tone, I guess. Maybe if if that's what you're getting at, maybe. I don't know, just a thought. Okay. I would keep it short just I was kind of thinking along the lines with um Greg just like what is it going to take for us to have our a new identity for this board. A lot of people are excited about the board and they think we can work together. So, together, teamwork and um in doing the exercise in this training um I was thinking this would be great to do outside of here so we can move around and get to know each other but I you know you gave some great suggestions when we're not doing the school work. Well, we well, the LRSD board work. >> Mhm. But when we're trying to um

149come together because I think once once we really figure it out like we're a team then I think following the s- the master plan, the strategic plan is going to be easy and we'll be able to resonate it to the community and everything else but I I definitely think we all need to be um cohesive. Like you said, we don't have to agree on everything but we all agree that we're here for the same reason. The reason why you can't build a team >> stay here till 9:00. Teamwork. >> All right. Uh in regards to this session, I have no doubts. I'm good. Okay. Oh, thank you. Dragon boat was the term I couldn't think of when I was having a mental moment there. Dragon So, think of a rowboat that has the little Viking

150looking So, my team almost did it and a couple people freaked out. They like no, I don't want to and I and you can't do it if everybody's not in agreement. Kind of like the ropes uh team building or you know, are you going to fall back and believe your team's going to catch you? I never want to do that. But but the notion of building camaraderie and teamwork and familiarity with each other uh is certainly helpful for effective board. We are uh done, Madam Chair, Mr. Superintendent uh with our time together. Want to thank you again for your attention, for your studiousness, for engaging and and uh for participating without grumbling. I appreciate that especially getting through all of those statutes and policies. It's critical. So, thank you again for your service. Not paid

151for it. You do it for the children. I want to commend you again. Want to thank you. I have one question for you. Is when the boards you served on and everything else, well, you're superintendent but when you saw the uh success, was it because of a large part because of the teamwork? Mhm. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. And I >> Teamwork make the dream work. Yeah, how how how did you all get there? But anyway, I I'll save that for next time. I was superintendent for 10 years so it didn't start out first year. Okay. Um but but we I I had a board that understood governance. >> let's move on to the next item We'll get there next time. >> understood governance and had a great team and it was wonderful. >> thank you Dr.

152Jackson. Have a great day and we'll see you in May. Absolutely. All right, moving on. And and for the record, I highly recommend that lengthier coaching interaction with the Council Great City Schools. You won't regret it if you if you invest the time there because it holds you accountable and helps you move forward. All right, thank you. >> Thank you. I also just wanted to let you know um the nonstop flight from Little Rock to Orlando and back um starts June 6th. Oh, after I come in May again and spend all day. >> only on Saturdays. >> Only on Saturday. What airline? >> are starting that >> What airline? It's uh Southwest. >> Okay. Yeah, that'll be after I spend another whole day and then get switched from DFW to Anyway It does say Allegiant

153also offers some sometimes. And I'm See, we're still on mic. We're still on the mic. I'll tell you about Allegiant. Thank you again, Madam Chair. Superintendent board members >> Okay. Thank you. God bless you for your work. Keep up the good work. All right, thank you. School and academics. All right, we're going to try to uh not rush but go as fast as we possibly can. Melissa Paloma? Yep. And how many of you were at the the thing that I can't Yes. Well, you saw uh the pilot that we implemented >> of the district? State of State of the district. Yes. Mr. Mustache. All right. Um Yeah, so you you heard a little bit. Good evening. Sorry, I just sat down and um you heard a little bit about Paloma. Um in a nutshell, it's

154uh very exciting. I think the the potential of this tool being something specific for families. Um two, you know, we have families all the time ask about how they can support students and you know, one thing we often say is read with your kids at home and that's so great. Like please read with your kids at home but this is so intentional and so you know, when we think about the science of reading in K to 2, this is targeting those specific phonics skills that kids need. Um and so we we are putting this in front of you now because if we have the opportunity to engage leaders over the summer to make sure we can start off, you know, getting the word out over the summer and getting this in families' hands to start

155the year, that's the goal. So I don't really have anything else to add but happy to answer questions um that that you may have and we're not voting tonight. This will come up on the 23rd for a vote um but wanted to just get it get it out tonight. So, happy to answer questions that that you have. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I was reading. Director Strong. You're good. Um I just wondered, I know you say that this and maybe I missed it somewhere in the documents but you say that it is from already identified federal funds. Is there anything we are trading off to do this? I just want to make sure I understand that. No. So, these are new federal funds? Yes. So all these funds are I mean, there are funds specifically I

156think like as we thought about allocating federal funds, a portion of those to go to support families and that's where this is. So, they're Title I Title I? Yes. Okay, so we're but we they're they're not we're not getting more than we've gotten before. Maybe this is No. The the our federal allocations for next year are level. So, we're Is there anything that we have been funding with this $173,000 that we're not So, we It's hard to answer because we all In In addition to the allocation that we get over here, we also have carryover funds because we don't spend everything all the time and so it's it's it's we're not we're not we're not we're not To answer your question, we're not I mean, there may be some things we stop doing that we

157have that we have identified that you know, maybe not a good return on investment or we're not seeing um an impact but but this isn't sacrificing. Like like for the pilot that we did this year I know it was funds that we just haven't we haven't allocated yet. Okay. So, it's kind of out of reserves kind of? No. It's just that we we To to to try to be simple uh we don't allocate all of our federal funds 100 100% of those funds every year. We always have things set aside because things come up. We want to pilot certain things. We always keep things We always keep Yeah. >> allocating 100% of your No. dollars to very specific projects which are set. No. And the things you might be considering not doing anymore have not

158been identified yet. Correct. Okay. There's a certain amount that goes directly to schools um and then the Anyway I just know there's so much we want to do with Title I dollars on all the tutoring and the what you know, the you know just so many things and uh I just wanted to understand where this fits in. love the idea. As a mom, love this idea. As a school board member, love it, too. Yep. So, how long have we been doing the um the uh pilot program? About a month, maybe a month and a half. Yeah, it hasn't been incredibly long, Director. So, you don't really have any data to see We've early I mean, I can tell you so at three schools, um it's uh Otter Creek, uh Martin Luther King and Mabelvale are

159the three elementary schools and you know, early data on like what percentage of families are, you know, accessing the the the lessons. Um you know, in terms of student outcomes, it you know, we really in that short amount of time, I don't know that we could pinpoint and say that, you know, we have specific uh return on student outcomes. But I think overall if Pam scrolls down a little bit, Paloma has done quite a lot of research, right? In In districts where they've worked for a whole year and I think they've got some early returns that look very promising for just accelerating um student growth. And I don't know if it's here but, you know, they they've they've talked about like how many hours of additional instruction students actually receive through this support from families

160and you've heard us come up here multiple times and talk about like you know, when it comes to teaching kids to read, the reality is that, you know, we know all kids can do it. Some need way more at bats than others and that's just reality and this is really, I think, where this um can be a huge support and give kids that need additional practice opportunities that that opportunity. Thank you. I'm so sorry. Does this Does this operate in Spanish? Yes. >> Okay. I couldn't remember. I think I thought that was Yes, they can choose the language. And I think I think what's also really cool, and I don't know if you you can kind of see it in the bottom picture, but I think one thing that's very unique about Paloma is the

161way that they've thought about representation. So, um students actually can see themselves in the book that they get to read with their family at the end of the week. And I think, you know, one of the really positive things about what AI is doing uh behind the scenes um in in terms of applications like this. But, that's super powerful for kids to see themselves in the book that they're reading with their um dad, grandma. And that was really the one of the major reasons for them to, you know, to create this was was access from from his own experiences. Yep. All right. If any others come up, let me know. You Okay, great. You got one more. Oh, no. I'm sorry. Oh, no. You know. There's nothing under finance and operations. So, the next one

162is Apptegy uh we sent a video to hopefully um give you a good idea about what this is. And so, we'll just open it up for questions. And I hope the finance part was clear. So, this isn't costing us We're getting two things for what we were paying for one prior to. So. Wonderful. Oh, sorry. No, I I was I was just going to say I I I didn't have a question specifically, but as a parent, what I really appreciated about the program was two things. Number one was the interactivity. Because right now, as a parent, we get bombarded with a text, a phone call, and there's nothing in response Like, if we want to respond, or sometimes we will call in and say, "Hey, our kid's going to be gone." But, because it's not

163recorded, then all of a sudden we still get bombarded with all those messages. So, I appreciated that. But, the other part that I really liked, if you watched the video, was all the data-driven analytics behind the scenes to be able to actually do some intervention with children when you can see trend lines as to why they're being tardy. So, they can track if it's buses, for example, then we know that's the issue we've got to address. If it's, you know, constantly out because of doctor's appointments, hey, maybe there's a bigger issue like towards your wrap-around model, Anna, that you were talking about, and early intervention there. That I thought was really, really amazing about the program, and I think could be a huge plus. We have uh Woody here, too, who's joining us via uh

164Zoom. He is um with Apptegy. And one of the things that we discussed when we met, and we haven't came to a uh decision yet cuz there was a question was, do we continue the one-way text messages and this? Um there were some who believed that the text messages um would reach But, I you know, some people were saying the text messages would reach Sorry, I can't remember the Woody, can you help me cuz I can't I can't remember, but Yeah, I can. Hey, everyone. And just for fun, I'm I'm on West 7th Street, so I'm just down the road. So, joining from my house over here. But, um it's really up to the district on how you all want to approach it. We've had different districts take different strategies. So, lots of districts have

165said, "Hey, we're just going to send the text message, and they can reply to that so that they can just you get the one text message, and that's the only thing we're going to worry about." Other districts have thought through like, "Hey, you know, what if somebody doesn't have a you know, they just have a cell phone, but they aren't getting text messages, or it's grandma, grandpa, and they don't know how to text. So, we still want to do the phone call. Um we'll really follow y'all's lead, but we can do either way. Hopefully, that makes sense, Dr. I That was what we were doing. >> call that I was that not the text message. Yeah. So, I do have a question to that. Is there a way for the parent, or the guardian, or

166the grandparent to select an option that becomes the default for them so that we're not getting hit with five different levels of communication at the same time? So, what we would do for Attendance Pro, which is what the program that the the video goes over where you could reply and say why you're absent, that's exclusively going to be over text message. For the attendance calls that go out, that would be a decision we would need to make like in mass, like for the whole. So, you know, at this school, how do we want to handle this? And now, that being said, that individual can reach out to the school and say, "Hey, you know, put me on a do not contact list for attendance calls." And and they could get put on that list. Now,

167then you run the danger of if, you know, we're canceling school for snow or something like that, then they're they're on the do not contact, and then they say, "Why was I on that?" Well, you you asked us to take you off. So, um we we do have some override in the emergency scenarios where we'd call everyone anyway, but they can't ask to be put on a do not contact list for the robo calls. Um this may be more for the district, but um I love this. I love the data. Um I know chronic absence is something I think a lot about in my work world um just as it relates to kids thriving. And so, one of the questions I had is I know we just invested last year in that Aubrey database, and

168and I cannot find that right now. But, um but all that being said, is this going to be integrated with Aubrey? Can we put all these reports on there so that we can see this all in one place for the schools that we're that are in our zones and for district wide? Yes, we actually talked about that. Great. Yes. And just for some of the newer board members who are not aware, we're actually our develop We have several dashboards that are available now, and there's a board-specific one just for you that we went over with some of members of the previous board. But, what we are going to do soon is uh allow you to schedule one-on-one time with a member of our um team to help board members know how to um access uh

169the dashboards that you have access to cuz you actually have access to a lot of information. Um and it helps to keep down on on us having to like email reports. You can generate your own reports on anything from whether it's uh assessment data, attendance, grades, school information, absenteeism. Um so, it's taken us a while to get the dashboards up and running. But, once you see them, I think you'll be you'll be greatly pleased. We actually have the dashboard with our strategic plan, all of our goals now, so that you can actually monitor and see how we're doing. Um so, we've been doing a lot of Yeah, doing a lot of work with it. But, we'll be We'll you'll get communication on how to schedule your own time with a member of our instructional technology

170team so you can see how to access um the dashboards that board members have access to. It's taken a while, but we're we're Thank you. I just have a very brief comment. I just wanted to say for this program and for the Paloma program and other things, I just really appreciate the approach of doing pilots. And where you pilot it, and you see if it works. I know some of the things y'all have piloted, and they haven't worked. And then you pilot things that have worked, and then you've talked to the staff and and get their input on which what thing they like the best. And that is just really um helpful as a board member. And just so you know, our our attendance clerks were like, "Can we do this now?" Cuz they don't

171This actually takes a big workload off of off of them. Yeah, my question is just for clarification. I know we're uh talking about the um Attendance Pro system. And I just want uh just some clarity or just some confirmation that this is not a system uh that is being shared with law enforcement as a way of us a surveillance tool with our students uh cuz I'm I'm just very passionate about not uh allowing our truancy issues to become an issue where uh we're feeding the prison system and we're using it as a school-to-prison pipeline. So, I just want some confirmation that it's not something used as a surveillance tool to assist in policing uh ramping up truancy. Yeah, so everything here in the system it's it's a closed system. So, this is LRSD's data. You

172all own the data. You have full rights over it. Um and Apptegy, obviously, is not taking that data and going anywhere else. So, when it comes to security, uh obviously, working with a lot of student data, already working with a lot of LRSD student data today, take that very seriously. So, if you go to apptegy.com/trust, it actually has a lot of our certifications and just like the training that our team goes through on like how we're handling data. But, in terms of who has access to everything, it's just the district. It's not going anywhere else. I have a question, but I'm um it's not Okay, so the children that are incarcerated, do they fit into the attendance circle any any kind of way? So, Attendance Pro would be used for any student in any of

173our any of our traditional schools. So, the the students that are in our JDC or uh we have two now. Um this would not apply to This would not apply to them. So, let me ask you this. I'm going to ask for this list. Can you uh get someone to compile a list of all the students that have been Now, I do understand about serious crime. I'm not referring to that, but I also understand about minor crimes and maybe a a mishap or a hiccup. Is there any way that we can get a list of all the kids? I I don't need any names. I just need to know from the beginning of the school year to present have been incarcerated and for what reason? I'm going to say yes because we have provided that

174data to the board already this year for a specific amount of time, but if you're asking for the whole entire year, yeah. Yeah, we've we've provided it. Um It was very very vague. Very vague. It didn't specify Okay, you had five seventh graders that went for maybe breaking a pencil or you had two going for throwing milk across the room. It was just schools and then how many students were incarcerated. See, the thing is that if we can just identify specifically what's going on, maybe we can do some intervention. And then I need to know if if possible if somebody's referring them to be incarcerated. You know, for one point in time people would say, "Hey, you need to come get this student." Is that being done? I'm not In other words, the list needs

175to be a little more We're not asking for names, but the list needs to be a little more detailed. So, I'm going to go back and look at what we provide cuz the first report we provided there were a lot of questions and you guys were asking for more specific things and then we tweaked it and brought it back again and that second time we brought it back I didn't I don't I don't recall anybody saying that this wasn't sufficient. So, I need to go back and look at the last thing that we provided and bring it back to the board and see if this is what you're asking for and then if it is, all we do is complete it for like the rest of the school year from the time frame that it

176covered before. So, I just need to go back and look. Um I think I remember seeing Wasn't there like a software presented or a link presented where we'll be able to see You see it >> It's on the dashboard. Yeah, it's on the dashboard. >> of the It's part of the dash It's part of the data on the dashboard that the board has access to already. That's what I was thinking. So, a lot of that information is there and that's what we would need to look back at. Okay. >> I'm going to go back and look at the last thing that we shared just to make sure that that was sufficient. >> Okay. Thank you. Any more questions? Concerns? Okay. Um I see personnel and legal. The first item on here, I know that Akita

177has already gone, but we've had some conversation and and I think I communicated to the to the board. I would um strongly advocate and ask if the board would just instead of going with this PPC proposal, if they would just if you all would be open to just providing the certified staff um the six personal days that will be that they'll be able to use for the days that they missed um so that we can just move on. I really don't want to spend a lot of time on this. We are already in April. We're already getting closer to the end of the school year. There was actually an alternative proposal that we um came up with, but you know, some of the concern is is this late in the school year um anything that

178we would ask certified staff to do now that is different than what the calendar and the days suggest would cause It would just be too much. So, um I'm asking that the board would just um give the certified staff the six days that they can use towards those days missed and we can just move on and not even entertain the proposal. Is what I'm asking. They already knows. What? Do we have a current policy in place for uh camp closed or inclement weather days? Meaning? What is the policy? So, when we not in school when the school is canceled because of inclement weather or for whatever reason, what's what is the policy? So, I don't know that we have Typically, the days for employees I don't know. I'm just going to say I don't know.

179I'm not going to make up anything. We I We don't have a policy for what happens for the teachers make up days. I know I know you and I talked about this in a one-on-one earlier this year after this because what what happened earlier this year is that we we missed those six days and there was an opportunity for us to make some of the not non-student contact days into student contact days and there was not buying from the educator community for that. And so, we ended up in a place where we we wanted to like I think some of us would have liked to have seen the kids be back in school for some of the days that were were already scheduled to be out. But we weren't able to get the buy-in for

180that really. And so, my thought would be that we have a policy on that that and actually that was going to be my comment is along with approving this, I would like to see within the next maybe six weeks the district bring a policy forth on how make up days for educators and and and ensuring that we maximize our student contact days. Um and maybe that comes with approving our calendar this year. We acknowledge that certain days are scheduled to be off, but they are held for inclement weather. You know how we used to do that at the end of the school year? We'd say these are our make up days for snow. Well, maybe we do that during the school year instead that we are only off on these days if we don't have

181inclement weather days. I think that would be a really great way for us to approve this, but we've done this the past two years in kind of a haphazard one-off way that has not felt like it centered student learning in my personal opinion and student outcomes. >> Oh, I would totally agree. >> you agree with this, Dr. Wright. But but yes, so I think that that is really absolutely something we need to be doing is bringing forth a policy to say this is what happens because we have for the new board members, y'all may already know this, but we count our student days by minutes and we count our educator days by days of contract and so, we end up we have now slightly longer days and fewer student contact days, but we still want

182to maximize the number of days before testing. So, anyway, that's my two cents, but you know, that was going to be my comment on this one. Yeah, actually like that. So, no, we don't have. And then second question, I know we said that we talked about certified give them those six days. Uh what about any certified staff that took days during that time? Um would those be restored? >> From I understand they will be restored. Okay. And she's nodding her head, so yes. Yes. Thank you. I just want to say that I agree. We need to get a policy in place. Um and I agree with you uh Director Strong, the sooner the better. And I also agree with you, Dr. Wright, on moving forward with let's let's go ahead and do the six days

183give everybody so we can move forward and focus on policy My >> next school year. My plan was to um in the consent agenda just like for for Appogee and for Paloma, some of these items will be moved to the consent agenda to be approved on the 23rd. My plan was just to put um a uh an agenda item that uh aligns with what I just said uh for the board to approve, but am I hearing that you want a policy in place before you approve those six days? I don't think we have time to do that. >> All right. I was about to say that cuz that yeah. >> go through the piece of PPC um cuz it's a personal policy. >> Correct. >> So, that would need Yeah, we won't have time for

184that. But I do think it should be something that we have in place before we do our calendar. The calendar for next year is already been approved. >> true. Yeah. But we can still We can still work on getting something in place by the end of the school year, early summer, definitely before the new school year starts. I think we can we can commit to doing that. Can we reapprove our calendar with those days as alternate like make up snow days if needed? Yeah, you're the board. You can do what you want to do. >> I just didn't know what what the timing was if there was a I didn't know I didn't know if there was a state statutory requirement for that if we've already passed that time on. I'm looking at Sean, so

185okay. If If it's a personnel policy, do we have to have that approved before July 1st? Oh, yes. That is true. Those will have to be approved before July 1st to be effective for the next school year. Yes. >> yeah, so we would have to move more more quickly then before the Yeah. Okay. More questions? Concerns? 6:42. We're watching 6:42. As David is coming up to uh share some information about employee hearings, we do have two um employee hearings that we need to schedule. So, one of the things that we we struggle with as a board and administrative team is efficiently and quickly coming up with um the days where we will have a quorum of board members. It It sometimes y'all they drag on for months and months and months before we can actually

186schedule them. So, our goal today is to identify um a day and time before we leave today that we can say that we're going to have these two hearings. And these are, if I'm not mistaken, these are appealing uh the suspension days. Yeah, so this isn't a termination hearing. This is um employees wanting to appeal um suspension without pay. Um Oh, yeah, that too. So, uh I know there's been some conversation in the past, too, about do we want to continue having In the past we uh contract with a hearing officer who facilitates um the hearings. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Uh the board chair uh can facilitate um as well. So, those are decisions that we kind of need to make before we proceed with these two these two hearings. And

187that, you know, we have options to have the hearings after regularly scheduled board meetings or they can happen on any day of the week at any time. Well, not any time. They have to be at 5:00. And FYI, these things can sometimes last often last three or more hours. So, just know that. The latest I've ever been here was I think it was 1:00 something a.m. and that was a different employee hearing. And most of those are termination hearings. Um the other ones typically don't But if every side gets to bring in witness, I mean, it can last a really But that's it, David. Board members, now that we've got the preliminary things out of the way, we can get to the real meat of the meeting. Um Let me see if I can No,

188I can't. It's exciting. I don't know. It says it is. Look at that. Uh we're going to start with due process, which comes up from time to time. Uh and due process is a very simple idea. Uh I've borrowed from the Arkansas School Boards Association Handbook for school board members. It's on page 77. It is an orderly procedure that protects a person's legal rights. Due process gives an individual a meaningful hearing and an opportunity to provide a defense before the person or body that has authority to limit or withdraw that individual's rights. And that really is a fancy way of talking about three things. Does Does a person have a legal interest? Uh so, for instance, if you're under contract, you have a property interest in the contract that you're working under at that time.

189So, yes, you have a legal interest. And as a part of the state or the government, the school board has the opportunity to in a termination hearing to extinguish that right to a contract. So, that triggers due process under the 14th Amendment Second Amendment of Arkansas Constitution. Um even though the Arkansas Constitution Second Amendment sort of or it deals with criminal, too, but it tracks the federal jurisprudence. And then the the second thing is has the person gotten written notice so that they can prepare an adequate defense? Do they know what they're there for? Do they know why they're there? Nobody's being surprised with anything. There's no gotcha. And then third, has the person gotten a chance to be heard by an impartial decision maker? And for our purposes, that is you all. Uh in

190policy 1.1, uh you all have a have a role um that in these hearings you serve as a finder of fact. And that's a fancy way of saying that you all are kind of like a jury. Uh so, you hear from witnesses, you review some documents, you hear arguments from each side, and then you make a decision on which what you want to do. And I'm going to talk through three set three different types of hearings that come up fairly frequently for you all. And I put policy 1.1 on here uh for for this reason, that remember that part of due process is an impartial hearing panel. Uh so, it is it is your responsibility to not be involved in or to know about the facts or the allegations prior to hearing it. So, if

191for instance, if I wanted to talk to you about the substance of a hearing before a hearing, your answer is cuz I ain't talking to you about that. We're going to hear it, we're going to decide it, and you do not get to lawyer me before the day of the hearing. I don't want to hear from you. And that is the proper response. And if an employee tries to reach out to you, the same thing. Anything that's going to be considered here by you, uh in order to be impartial, you need to come at it to hear, all right, I'm going to hear the witnesses that day. I'm going to hear the facts that day from both sides and make a decision that day. And I've also quoted in a in a bigger section, and

192I'm happy to send this out to you all if to the extent you want it um digitally. Um in the Basics for New Board Members by the School Boards Association, they walk through this Keep Hearings Fair. Um and that that idea is that you all need to come at it with a a fresh open mind without having heard the facts of the case before you're there to hear it. Uh and that's the that is a basic principle of fairness, and that's where the due process come uh prong comes in. That's your responsibility under due process. And basically, you're going to hear three types of hearings. >> ask a quick question on the previous one just from a conflict of interest perspective? Um obviously, for those of us that have been in this community for a

193while, we will have had interactions or relationships, perhaps if we had a a student that or a child that was a student of a teacher who is now up for a concern, right? Or or has brought a hearing. Where does that line from a conflict of interest perspective where we need to recuse ourselves? Is that a fair question? It's a reasonable question, yes. Uh and it's not unfair. Uh Mr. Adams and I have talked about this from time to time for quite some time. Um Generally speaking, the closer the the closer the relationship, the the greater the possibility of a conflict of interest. So, a spouse or relative or something like that would probably create a conflict that you all would need to recuse on to maintain that impartiality. Um That being said, most school

194districts in the state of Arkansas, including this one, uh are from pretty close-knit tight communities. And so, if it became, for instance, I go to church with some of these folks. Well, you're going to you're going to disqualify yourself from hearing a whole lot um on those kind of on that kind of standard or you know, my child played the same Little League as uh this employee's child. Uh at that point, I think it gets into the nature of the relationship. So, in your hypothetical, if, all right, my child was a student in, say, this employee's classroom, does that create a conflict? I don't believe so. Um but the nature of that relationship might create a a perception of impartiality. So, for instance, if that employee comes to every one of your child's birthdays for

195the past 5 years, then that starts to look like you might not be as impartial. Mr. Kazee, can I make a just a comment to that? Yes, sir. We talked about Earlier this evening we talked about the code of conduct. And on the code of conduct, it says that board members will avoid not only actual conflicts of interest, but appearance of a conflict of interest, which to me I really appreciate the question because I think it's it's it's tricky, but but I think it's one that we have to be especially careful with because it's just not I think I'm going to be fair and everything, and yet if this is my next door neighbor, then the appearance is of a conflict. It Your comment's well made, and I'll I'll give one illustration. Uh many of

196y'all know that years ago I ran for office, and um I had a I had a next door neighbor riffing on your example there. Uh there's nobody in the world that thought we were friends. Uh he had one of the one of the highway sign, not a yard sign, one of the signs that you'd see on the side of the highway for my opposition in his front yard. So, nobody was going to mistake that we were for Um but my other side neighbor, uh, there was, you know, one afternoon where my lawnmower blew up and my other side neighbor was like, "Hey, you're about a third of the way through your yard. How about you borrow mine?" Uh, that would potentially create a a conflict cuz we were friendly. Uh, so, you know, the nature

197of that contact is going to be very important. Um, the three types of hearings that you all are most likely to hear, one of them is short. Um, and it's the waiver hearing and that's a creation of Arkansas statute. Uh, the second is grievance hearings, which are also a creation of Arkansas statute. And then termination hearings are more of a common law matter because, like we talked about earlier, you have an ownership interest in the contract that you are in. So, if we were to terminate that contract, you're extinguishing someone's rights. Now, that is governed by Arkansas statutes in some ways and I've I've cited two statutes here, both of them that come through the revisions to education law back in 2023. Um, the the salary statute and then the statutes about all hiring decisions

198being made and we're going to delve into those a little bit more as we walk through it. Um, waiver hearings tend to be really, really short and they are created because classified employees, and that means just folks that don't have a teaching license, uh, may have a prior criminal conviction and if so, they can seek a waiver from the school board and the the board has the option to grant a waiver. Now, these criminal convictions would be things that would ordinarily be a disqualifying offense from working in a public school district. The Department of Education has created a whole series of rules on factors that the board may grant a waiver for. The board is under no obligation to grant a waiver. But you can. And some of those factors might be, and just thinking

199about things that we've heard since I've worked here, things like, uh, somebody would be like, "Well, I was 19 years old. Um, I committed this offense. I'm now 48 years old. Um, there's been maybe an expungement or I've got a whole lot of life that shows that I am not the same person and I don't make the same decisions as when I was 19." Um, and so those it's a totality of the circumstances. Generally, the employee will have the opportunity to, uh, speak as to when that was and what the circumstances were to the board. You will generally get a uh, recommendation from the district because sometimes, uh, things will be discovered that weren't discovered in an in an initial hiring decision. Uh, criminal records electronically are getting better. Uh, so, the department might say,

200"Hey, we're flagging you for a disqualifying offense." And then that sets in motion the opportunity to be heard on a waiver hearing. Um, these things are generally very, very brief and they are generally not all that adversarial. Uh, so there's something that's that's pretty easy for the board to decide and they're statutory creation. Where things get more interesting, uh, are in grievance hearings and there's a statute under state law that defines what it is and a grievance is any concern related to personnel policy, salary, federal law and regulations, state law and rules, or terms and conditions of employment raised by an employee. Uh, that can be a whole lot of things. Um, that can be from, "Hey, you all didn't put me on the right salary step uh, and you won't fix it." All the

201way to, "You all won't give me a contract for next year and I think you should." All of those things fit under under grievance. In this, uh, under the grievance statute, the employee is the moving party. They're the ones that are are in that role of plaintiff. They're not the the defendant in these cases. They're like, "You all have done me wrong and I'm going to I'm going to prove you wrong." Uh, so the employee starts first. It's their job to to put on their their side of the case, to bring whatever witnesses, whatever documents they want you to consider. They have to they have the burden of proof. They've got to make their case and persuade you that they're right. Um, the statute allows that these can be individual grievances or they can be

202group grievances. Uh, if you had 15 employees that were that were situated similarly, the board even has the option to consolidate those and say, "Well, we're not going to hear all 15, but we're going to hear all 15 all we're going to hear the 15 of you collectively once." Uh, so if if Frodsnegel has the same problem that Smith has, all right, well, Frodsnegel may be sort of the lead plaintiff there. So, we're going to we're going to hear that. Uh, the board does not have to consolidate if you don't want to, but for convenience's sake, the statute will allow it. Um, the grievance statute is also interesting because it can be open or closed at the choice of the employee. Uh, which just means that there can be public hearings or not. Did that

203law change? >> That did not. It's the termination changed. Only terminations. Only grievances changed. Our grievances did not change. Terminations did. So, it's super weird, but it still sits there. Uh, so they can be open or closed at the choice of the employee and state law allows 90 minutes to present the grievance on the part of the employee including all testimony and witnesses and this permits the district 90 minutes to respond. So, for those of you keeping up, that's 3 hours potentially just in the employee side and the district side. Now, I do know something about um, the the district's representative and he's usually trying to be pretty efficient uh, with time uh, because there's only so much that folks really want to listen to after they've worked all day. Um, and sometimes he's more

204successful at that than others. And that doesn't count the deliberation time that the board has. Nope. Right. The third type of hearing that you all will be, um, most likely to hear from time to time will be termination hearings. And this is we've talked about, the employee has a property right to the contract they are in. They have no right to a future contract. Uh, that was extinguished under the law changes of 2023 with the repeal of Teacher Fair Dismissal and Public School Employee Fair Hearing Act. So, there is no right to renewal anymore and there is no process that is specific to non-renewal anymore. Those things were, uh, repealed. These will all be in open session. Uh, there is no right to a closed hearing except for some policies will create a very narrow

205window that if someone doesn't want to contest that the superintendent can present to the board in executive session and it can be, uh, deliberated there, but you still have to vote in open session. You know, there's no there are no votes in executive session. But for our purposes, it's the easiest and best and far most likely thing that you will hear are open session termination hearings. Um, and this is done because, uh, under the 2023 changes to the law, in order to qualify for the minimum teacher salary or compensation schedule, which is the $50,000 minimum salary, um, the district cannot allow more rights than state law allows and the district also has to provide due process rights that are set out under, uh, 6-13-636. And the statute there just says there will be due process

206rights essentially. Now, one of the things that also fits in that same 636 statute is that all employment decisions are made based on an employee's performance, effectiveness, and qualifications. So, generally, uh, the district in making a termination decision, and those are not made lightly, in making a a termination decision, there is a compelling reason that we believe that there should be one. Um, and it is generally tied to one of those three hooks because it tends to make more sense to you're looking at the statute, so you need to meet that statutory standard. That's something that the district has undertaken. That's something that we undertake seriously. Um, now, those categories are somewhat broad, so performance or effectiveness can be a lot of things. The facts may change or the facts will be unique to each

207individual. Um but those are generally the the buckets that uh I try to think about in presenting a termination to you all. As a matter of practice, uh we follow the same process as the grievance hearing and do 90 minutes 90 minutes per side and that includes everything. Questions to witnesses, cross-examination, everything that's done by each side is timed. And that still comes to about 3 hours if both sides use all their time. Now, there are a couple of things that and just so you all can take heart, this is the last slide I'm going to show you tonight. Uh in terms of process matters, these are sort of housekeeping matters that you as a board uh can decide and make decisions on how you want to do it. You may use a hearing officer.

208Uh previous boards have done so. And in some ways that makes a lot of sense uh because if you have a hearing officer, you got somebody there as a practical matter, you're you all are listening to the case. So, you got somebody keeping time. Uh the hearing officer's job is to is to expressly assist the board chairman in conducting these hearings. So, sometimes your board president's going to be like, it would be nice to have somebody to help me with that. The uh hearing officer will instruct you on what the law is and will take questions uh around what the law is. And that can be quite helpful. And generally speaking, uh a hearing officer is is a lawyer and so they are pretty good at handling objections and and legal arguments from other lawyers.

209Uh and they're not shy about saying, "Mr. Kazee, it's time for you to move along." Um And so that there are certain advantages to that. Uh by state law, personnel hearings may not begin before 5:00 p.m. So, you're you're boxed in on when you can hear them under the law. And you know, we've talked about 90 minutes a side in the grievance hearing and how we handle termination hearings. But there's no statutory time limits on board questions. And this is where it really gets sticky. Um because there's no prohibition on the board and a 2 and 1/2 or 3 hour hearing can stretch to 5 um shockingly easy um by board questions. There are certain things that are not entirely unreasonable for a a finder fact to to want to know. When I used to

210try cases regularly in court, it was not uncommon for each side to ask questions of the witness and the judge might the judge might have a question or two of the witness uh before they before the witness would step down. So, it's not unreasonable to think that you all as a board will have questions. Politely, um it might be nice if as a board there were some um guardrails or constraints on the amount of time that you all would use uh to make to make these hearings move along a little bit more expeditiously. But that is that's a that's a selfish David request. That is not a that is not legal guidance and uh you all can say "Go kick rocks, Kazee. We're going to ask all the questions we want." Uh and you are

211completely at your rights to do so. You may also uh limit yourselves if you wanted to as a board. You could set an overall amount of time. We're going to take this number of questions. You could set a number of questions that each board member might ask. There are seven of you and if each of you got three, uh you know, that's that's 21. But that may not be enough, you know, if if you all don't feel like either side is doing a very good job of presenting their case, you might have more questions than that. You can set time limits on speaking if you wanted to. Those are all things that that by rules or practice, you could adopt for yourselves. There are a few things that I'd like to for you to at

212least consider in this. Remember in the very first couple of slides, we talked about you you operate in the position of being a jury and you're coming to these things with no prior information about the about the case, about the matter, about the grievance. So, you're being impartial. So, there are certain things that can't be provided to you like document packets uh won't be provided to you before a hearing. Um for what it's worth, I've learned a lot about how many documents so I feel comfortable giving the board anymore uh and I've I've trended down uh in the last several of these that I've done. And I think that's a pretty good practice because there's only so much that you guys can can digest in a in a document-heavy question. Yes, ma'am. Is it Are

213we allowed Could we set a policy to limit the length of documents that each party may can bring? I mean, we've gotten packets, you know, I mean, 200 probably pages long and it's impossible and we don't get it ahead of time. It is literally impossible for us to digest all of that. And that may be a question you have to go back and look at. As it relates to to the employee's due process right to put their case on, I would get a little nervous about about capping them. But I will also generally say that once you get somewhere above 50 pages of documents, particularly the density of the documents or the technical nature of those documents, it's sort of like are you doing the best job of presenting your case if you're giving a

214phone book with worth of material to folks and hoping that it's persuasive. But I would I'd be a little uncomfortable about being told, "All right, you can't defend yourself with this or you can't try to make your case with this." Um This is not necessarily a question for the attorney, but uh just for understanding for myself, is there any information that could be given to us on how much money for us personally, how much money we spend by getting a uh hearing officer and how much we're spending at the same time for representation in those matters? And I got a follow-up question on why I'm asking about this type stuff. Um Yes, uh you could we would have the invoices from any hearing officer we've ever hired uh and that's certainly available to you all.

215And as far as uh anything I do, you all you all know what I make. Well, no. I'm not Okay, so from my experience with being in in a hearing, there was somebody else representing the Little Rock School District that was in that grievance hearing. And so that's what that's why I was asking about that because I didn't think that was associated with whatever your salary was. Yeah, if if there was if there's somebody else that's going to going to step in on on a matter that theoretically maybe I'm conflicted on which as time goes by, that's going to become much less common. Okay. Um then yeah, any invoices that we would have on legal services that we have obtained, you all are certainly welcome to. Yeah, I I think that'd be great for us

216to have just in case we whenever we plan for the next time because in my experiences and this is just my opinion, uh it almost seemed like an exercise in futility to be sitting there sometimes because I I felt like it was almost purposely being prolonged and I didn't know were we paying for by the hour or was it just a a a all-encompassing cost for what what was going on. But I think that also helps us determine when we're talking about if we're going to limit what the board can do as far as like questions or we're talking about packages as well, too. So, all the time it takes for those hearings. Yes, sir. I mean, generally speaking, at at some point there once you get outside the the statutory, you have to do

217these things, anything else on top of that is you all you all run your your operation as a board. You all are the jury. You all are the finder facts. You all are going to conduct them. So, so I have I have two questions. One just to confirm with Mr. Kazee, all we need is a quorum. So, we simply need four of the seven to preside over a hearing. Is that correct? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. And then the second question, and this is maybe for the the board members that have been on the board for a while. Um I watched a number of board meetings uh over the last few years where you had a board meeting and then a grievance hearing afterwards and you were here till 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.

218From a process perspective, um are there alternative times of the week that you all have preferred to have grievance hearings or termination hearings or whatever they may be? Or does it make more sense to do them as part of the agenda on a Thursday evening? Just from an experience perspective, what what is y'all's preference, I guess? I'll be quick. I preface this never to do it at our Thursday meeting. Always pick a day where it's just focused on that because, like you said, it could go that long and it's not predictable. So, I would prefer to just have that be set aside for it, Tuesday or Wednesday, Monday or Friday. So, actually, I think it's a board decision. Um I am That's fine. I am available about 90% of the time. So, I'm okay with

219either or. But, we do have two hearings com- coming up and we are going to have to decide when do we want to do that. So, at this point in time, it it's kind of like a board decision. But, we know everybody's not going to be available. If we find a day where everybody is available, they need to bake us a cake. So, if I can follow up and and maybe this Mr. Adams to process, since we only need four, is there the ability for us to either put out via email or whatever that you all propose as the chair two or three different days and then we can say, "Hey, I'm available that day. I'm available." And so, as long as we have that quorum of four, is that process-wise what you have used

220before to be most efficient or has it been different? >> And that's normally how they do it. They do put out dates, but we would prefer for everybody to be in attendance. Uh if you can't, you just can't. And so, if you can get four, that's great. If you can't get four, that's not great. So. Valerie can probably speak more to this to confirm, but it is hardly ever successful putting out emails asking for dates. We always have to end up calling and calling. It it it never works out that way. And I tell y'all, this is a struggle. It's a struggle. Thank you. I would add that I I agree very much with with uh Mr. Dabali. My experience has been that that we are not at our best when we start something in

221late in the evening. Just like right now, if we were starting I've been in situations where we started a hearing right now, 10:00. And and we're not at our best. People are having to wait all the all the time. Our staff are going to be here that long. I think it's just if if to me, if it's at all avoidable, we would want to avoid that. Uh I don't think we do our best job of deliberating. Um And I just want to give a couple unsolicited opinions or biases about about the board's role because of what I've seen over the time. Uh I think that I would agree with Mr. Kazee. I think that board members have the right and the responsibility to ask questions if they have a question that they need to hear

222the answer to in order to make the decision. I think that we don't need to ask questions if we already know what we think. If we already have enough information to make a decision, then there's not a need for me to ask any more questions. But, if there's something that I'm not sure about and I'm trying to still figure it out, then I think I need to ask that question. I do think that it's important for us to ask uh to try to be impartial and ask an impartial question as opposed to a leading question where we make it clear like, "Well, you didn't really mean that, did you?" Or, you know, where we we you know, we're um asking that kind of question. And there have been times in in past history where board

223members have not have made a lot of editorial comments with their questions. As in like, you know, "I can't believe they treated you that way." Or, "That doesn't seem right to me." Or, "You're expecting us to believe that." Or, all that kind of thing, which I think is is not constructive. And those are appropriate things in the back room for us to make our argument about whether or not we believe something, but I don't think it's appropriate in some ways to tip our hand and and make editorial comments here because, particularly if it's an open hearing, then we want the public to perceive that we are being fair and objective and and impartial. And we're not doing that if we're if we're doing that. I just like to say that um I totally agree that

224it should be on a separate day, but I also um I just it makes sense just to say we're going to have the hearing on the those hearings. I'm just giving out a day, on Tuesdays. It's not hard. And then I I'm going to have to adjust my schedule or and I'm just saying me personally and everybody would have to do the same. And if you come up with a quorum, so be it. I mean, but what is this Wednesday the 16th not work? Does this Tuesday the that Monday or that? I just think as a board, we should say the hearings will be on that day. And however, hope hopefully a quorum will be present. And if it's not, then we move forward to the next Tuesday. But, if I know that on Tuesdays

225a hearing may be coming up, then I know to adjust on my Tuesdays. That's not every week. That's not every Tuesday. Whatever day it is. But, my initial thoughts are it won't be Friday. It's not going to be Thursday. So, now we're down to three days of the week. It's going to be Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. It just be People are Yeah. So, you're just saying just make it a Tuesday throughout. Just just know we're going to schedule one on any given Tuesday. >> Correct. That's that's what I suggest. I know why I'm not saying Wednesdays and I know why I'm not saying Mondays because it's the first But, if you just say it's going to be on Tuesdays and I think if it's a standard practice, then I know in June, July, August, oh

226darn, here comes a hearing on that particular Tuesday. Either I can adjust my schedule or not. But, out of the seven of us, maybe four are available on a Tuesday. As a personal request, I I would ask if we could use our first line of possibility being all alternate Thursdays. Um Just because it for my day job, I I work half the year I work on Tuesday nights and a third of the year I work on Monday nights. And so, those nights are already out and I and I want to do my job and and participate and carry the load like everybody else. But, but Thursday night I generally try to save as much as possible, you know, for things. I know I know for the parents, too, like we try to probably schedule our

227practices and things, I don't know, for our kids on not Thursdays, too, when we're trying to divide and conquer with the rest of our family, too. That's cuz I know we have all the other sports on. We like Thursdays over here, too. I'm I'm in I'm good any day of the week. You too. But, also, I want to mention something about hearing officers, which I do feel strongly that when you have one, you minimize the risk of making big mistakes because I'm not a legal expert. I'm not a I don't have a law license. And I can't challenge a law that I don't know anything about, unemployment law. I can't do that. And so, we don't want to make the mistake of somebody trying to be a hearing officer and they just not learned to

228be one. So, um we need to think about that as well. I just want to echo and second that. I think um I think the hearing officers are a critical role. I think it I I think we definitely need them. That's my my two cents. It's worth the investment for ensuring that we as a district are accountable and are we are following our process and procedure. And I think it's a really important role. And I agree with Derrick Dabali, also. I'd like to see what that expense is, but I do think that we need it. So. Sounds like every other Thursday. Board members, I can I can generally comment on a couple of things, not so much related to cost or housekeeping cuz those are board functions and whatever you all decide as a board,

229I'm I'm here to to do the work. Um At this point, it's it I think I'd be remiss if I don't mention that the human resources department has made extremely diligent efforts to resolve grievances at the lowest level possible uh before they ever get to the board level. Um and I I think that well, no, I don't think. I know that the HR department is approaches employee grievances along the lines of "All right, if we have done wrong as a district, then we're going to try and make it right. Um so I don't really want to ruin this, but we haven't had a lot of hearings here in quite some time. Um you will hear a couple um but the and again I've been on both sides of these things. Actually, Director Adams and Director

230Johnson have both voted for and against me on whichever side I was at at at different hearings. Um So, I I never I never felt like when I was representing employees that I had a ringer in either of of those directors. And when I went to the district side, I never felt like I had a ringer with either of them. I felt like both of them were going to consider all the facts and you know, sometimes they wouldn't see it the way I did. So, generally speaking uh the human resources department tries very diligently to to resolve those things where we can. And then there are some things that just can't be resolved and those those rise to your level and the board will decide those. Um and I there's been a lot of work

231done on on trying to resolve disputes before they escalate. I think this has the question. Excuse me, you. Board members, what do you think about just picking the day doing it on Tuesday or Thursday? And it would help Valerie out a lot cuz I mean she has to really go through calling when you don't hear from people. And then you say yeah and then you cancel, she got to call again and she got to do this and she got to do that. So, what do you guys think about just picking a day and see how that works? Is that work for everybody? I mean Who's not available on April the 30th? You You available, Dr. Dr. Stone? That sounds good to me. Stick Director Bailey. Is that a good date for you, April the 30th?

232Okay. Oh, jeez, I like this. Okay, so we're going to shoot for April the 30th, just put it together and send it out. And board, that's that's all I have on on this item. Uh there are I think there's another item that you may want something from me with. I am going to mention this. It's not on the agenda, but uh at some point either in the next board meeting or the board meeting after that, there's a a resolution uh that will be circulated and it when you all elected officers, you elected a board dispersing officer and statute requires a resolution on that. Uh so, um there'll be there'll be a resolution that makes Mr. Nichols official. Uh so, when you see that, that's what that's coming. It is It It's basically memorializing the election

233you've already had. Thank you, Mr. Kazee. So, I think we missed 6.3. 6.3. We did 6.4, but I think we missed 6.3. Yeah. I mean I I have some comments on that one. Um So, I I know there will be a larger discussion on 423 and I um I think Dr. Wright, I don't know, did you the the question I posed to you and and uh Mr. Bailey about how much we've spent at this point? Do you Do you have that information by any chance? >> I was supposed to send it out to you all. Okay. Yes, I do. It was uh give me one second. And that's my fault. I sent you 30,000 emails It uh amount to date is $40,949.73. So, I First of all, I I commend the board previous board for

234starting this action and and I I want to preface my comments by saying personally I have a lot of concerns with the Learns Act, right? Um in a personal capacity, the amount of money that the state is spending towards education savings accounts and vouchers, the fact that we know that 80 to 85% of those dollars are going to kids that were already in private schools. I could go on and on and on. I imagine most of you share those same sentiments and concerns in the impact on public schools. Um at the same time, I think as a board member my obligation is to look at this specific lawsuit through a board lens and not my personal opinion. And what I mean by that is I think there's two specific pieces that are important. The first

235is looking at it from a fiduciary capacity. And the second is looking at it from a student outcome perspective. And so when I kind of look at this analysis that I know is coming up at the next board meeting I kind of ran my green self through that analysis. And and here's what I kind of look at it. So, from a fiduciary capacity, I go when we're going through the amount of budget cuts that we are talking about can I justify continuous expenditures on this lawsuit? And I say that because the lawsuit existed before we looked at joining it and would continue to exist whether we are in it or not in it. Now, if that lawsuit didn't exist and we were concerned about um the outcomes for students if we were concerned about the

236fact that um students were leaving the school district and it was having a direct impact on us and no lawsuit existed up to this point in time, then from a fiduciary capacity, it might make sense to initiate that lawsuit. But when one already exists and our capacity to join it or not is a lot of expenditures of dollars my concern is that we're not necessarily acting in the best fiduciary duty as a district. My second question is this. And that is from a student outcomes perspective. Um and and let me backtrack for just a second. There is a pending question before the judge right now as to whether we will be allowed to join into the lawsuit or not. There are two outcomes to that, by the way. One is that the judge says no,

237we're not allowed to join and then we could appeal that and spend additional dollars. Or they will allow us to join, which means we're going to spend additional dollars. And the question is whether that's the best use of our resources when we're already struggling from a financial perspective to cut $15 million off of the budget. And so my point is is that the outcome of the lawsuit is not determinant based on whether we are in it or not in it. And the final thing I'll say is this. When it comes to student outcomes, my biggest question mark and and this is just something for all of us I think to think about between now and the next meeting is does this lawsuit directly impact student outcomes? When I think about it, the answer is it

238has nothing to do with student outcomes. Now, it might make me feel good from a personal perspective because of my concerns with the Learns Act and its impact on private schools. But the lawsuit itself, the Learns Act itself, vouchers themselves don't directly impact student outcomes. And so if those are dollars, when I think about the long-term financial impact of the lawsuit that could in fact be spent on additional teachers or could be spent on additional programming that directly impacts student outcomes, that's my concern from a fiduciary perspective that I hope you all would at least think through between now and the next meeting. Thank you so much, uh Dr. Director Kipnisky. Um You said a lot of what what I had kind of planned to say on this and I know that the board members

239who are already on the board heard me. I was one of the two people on our previous board that voted against joining um joining this particular lawsuit. Um I will also say that uh at you know, I I asked Dr. Wright about a month ago, I think what we had spent and it was about $30,000 at that point. So, at this rate, we're looking at $10,000 a month on this lawsuit um at at the rate we're going right now and that is, you know, it I think is, you know, Mr. Krupicki said um regardless of what the judge decides, um if we decide to appeal or if we decided to um you know, or if we ended up being able to continue being part of this case, we are spending a lot of money on

240this. Uh I also said this at the time, I do not think we are a great plaintiff in this particular lawsuit. I do not think that we bring much to this specific uh the complaint that was in this lawsuit. And um I don't think that our joining this is really bringing a lot to what they are trying to do in in this and then, you know, I think as we look at but numbers like 40,000 40 almost $41,000 that we spent on this so far, we were $15,000 in the black last year. Our job as board members is to keep us in a financially secure place so that we can continue to educate our kids and to me, one of the reasons the state could come back and take us back over is if we

241do not keep ourselves in a financially stable place and when we were $15,000 in the black and having to cut out $15 million for next year just to meet our budget numbers and put a little bit in our savings account our our our fund balance, I think that is where I have spent some pretty significant worries and and finally, I just want to know um I know Hall High is not in my zone anymore. It's just outside my zone, but um the state board recently made some decisions and put and put off some decisions and question whether they wanted to approve our um our internal district charter district trend charter uh for Hall High School and one of the reasons that we've kind of heard that they were waffling on that was because of the

242fact that we're suing the state. And so I think that being said, I think that this lawsuit is putting our our current students at risk and we may not be doing our best for our current students because we are putting our relationships with our state, with our funders, and with other partners at risk for a lawsuit that I honestly just don't think we bring a lot to and that I don't think we can afford. Um so that is my two cents on this and um and I know I've been talking with Dr. Wright about this for a little while now, but um I I I don't think it is something that we need to be focused on right now. Thanks. Director Adams. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to make a few comments and and

243share my questions about this because I had it was not an easy decision to support this the last time and I still have some of the same concerns, but I do have questions um One question that I have and it may not be something that we could answer and it may be something that we may or may not trust the the opinions of our attorneys where um outside attorneys with thought that they might, you know, there could be a vested interest on their own, but part of the reason that I supported this before was that I felt I thought that that our participation could strengthen the case. Um to be able to bring not just the plaintiffs themselves, but be able to bring the perspective of the school district and the school district's concerns, you

244know, to bear in the legal argument. So that's the question that I have. Is does does it help? You know, does our participation help? And there could be obviously there's could be a different honest opinions, you know, around this table and and in the broader community you know, about that. And then the other thing that I wrestle with is the question of how does it affect our students and I think about it in the short term and in the longer term. In that if if this lawsuit were successful and and we had a different funding model in the state then it seems to me like it would have an impact on our students. And and if we continued and if the the state budget continues with an unlimited way as it is now to fund

245students who don't go to traditional public schools, is will that eventually have a an impact on the funding that's available for traditional public schools? And if so, then is that could that affect our students because there's only so much money that the state budget has. And I don't I know that the argument from the state, I just heard somebody recently say, "Well, you know, it's those are two different pots of money." And and I could concede that they're two different pots of money, but it's one state budget. And so the state budget, you only have so much money to spend and so if I have, you know, if my own budget, if I'm spending a a lot more money over here, then I just have less money to consider expanding over there. And so I

246I don't think it's I I don't think that's happening in a vacuum. I think it does impact us. So I I just raised those concerns that those are the things that I'm think wrestling with and thinking about. And and I appreciate the concerns of my fellow board members on this and the questions that they raised and I have no objection for us to wrestle with it some more and to think about it, but those are the things that are that are in my mind as I'm thinking about this issue. Anybody I just had So Director Adams, I I want to appreciate your first point because when I was a candidate and I watched you all debate this, I actually did a very lengthy social media post with that exact same concern. And that I thought

247the question that the board did not ask from a due diligence perspective the last go-around was this question. And that is if we decide to join the lawsuit, does it strengthen the outcome or the likelihood of its success? And I think that may be as a question that we need to pose to Mr. Heller at the next meeting because that to me is really the most important question. Meaning if the lawsuit stands on its own merits without us, then my question would be why we're spending those dollars. If, however, the argument is, "Yes, the likelihood is because it's one of the largest school districts in the state and therefore it makes the case stronger." Then it is something for us to have a much, much deeper conversation about because my point is is that if

248it doesn't improve the outcome, I don't know that we, especially in our current financial state, should spend those dollars if the lawsuit can stand on its own and be successful on its merits because then those long-term implications you were talking about would happen regardless of our involvement and Faulknerberry was would be decided on its merits and if it stands on those constitutional grounds to find the LEARNS Act unconstitutional, then we still benefit from that without necessarily having to spend the resources and the dollars and that's what I'm trying to balance is knowing the current state and what we've seen from a budgetary perspective, how do we balance that financial concern with the long-term implications um and again to the point of student outcomes, how do we balance those two interests? I appreciate the point that

249you raised. No, I appreciate that. The other the other comment that that I would offer is that as somebody who did supported at the time and and would be willing to consider thinking about it here is is that I would before making a decision, for me before making a different decision, I would like to hear what the judge says. Because I think that's going to make if the judge says no, then I would I would want us to think about it again before we appeal because I think it's the time for us to think about it again. And if the judge says yes, then I definitely want to have that first conversation about what's what's the likelihood that that we strengthen the case or not. Director D'Amico. Yeah, I'll be quick. Uh I voted how

250I voted because of how I felt then and nothing has changed. Uh so I would just say this uh I think it is important that we are part of this lawsuit right now and it's important that us being as that one point the biggest school district in the state of Arkansas now down to number two uh Three. Three. Well, that happened this year, too. So uh so now we're at three. Um but the importance of always being on the right side of challenging the state's funding mechanisms. And so um while certain people might feel that it's pointless or it's not a it's not a win-win situation, uh when I'm looking at it from a long-term lens as far as like equity and uh also hearing the the statistics just stated yesterday during the fiscal session

251at the beginning of it about how this money has been used to support the 88% that already were in private schools and I think it may what it was it was it a 2% bump from public school to private? It's important that people should know that and if our participation helps to expose that and it strengthens that message around the state that's what I feel we should do. But I'm not going to you know speak on it any further. I'm just speaking on on that from that point of view. Thank you. Director Strong I really appreciate our very respectful and thoughtful discussion about this tonight. So thank you all for that. Um I just want to make one point that you know Director Adams I think you made the point that you know there are

252two sets two pots of money um and I think the state has made it very clear that what they are pursuing as a reduction in our income taxes in the state of Arkansas. And so I think that if the dollars that are going to learn right now we're not going to learn. I don't think that there is a remotely clear path that those dollars would go back into public education. I think those would probably more likely go into tax cuts or other priorities that the state might decide that they have rather than because they are two pots and I think that um I just don't think that that is a if this then this statement that can be accurately and and confidently um we we can't confidently come to that conclusion. Um that that if

253if this lawsuit were successful then all of these dollars would go back into public education. I'm suggesting that it that that it affects the state the opportunity cost for what they could choose to do. And if we ever wanted to advocate in the future for for greater funds funding and we may never and we may not have that but there could there may be a day where we would have a receptive state government to public traditional public school concerns. But if if the status quo continues there if we had a more receptive state government and that would they would be um hamstrung about finding the funds if so much is given somewhere else in this in the limited state government situation and that that may be pretty aspirational but but things do change. Okay. Can

254we not continue this discussion on the 23rd? That way it give the new board members time to do some research and talk to some of their legislative constituents or whatever they need to so that they can be a part of the conversation. All right. Did you have something you want to say Director Jackson? You good? Okay. Uh 6. Do we is So Mr. Heller is coming I guess on the 23rd correct? Okay. Okay. He >> Is there anything specific that our our our board would like him to bring or address and or any other resolutions or other things that we'd like to bring on the 23rd? Is there anything you guys need? If you can think of anything send it to the superintendent. Or you can send it to him Mr. Heller. You have his

255so Okay. Okay. 6.4. We did that one already. Okay. 7. Preview of the 423 draft board agenda. Is there anything anybody need to add delete or whatever it is you want to do. Anybody? Moving right along. Board and superintendent comments. Any comments? Sounds good to All right. Testing is happening for our third graders particularly in the next few weeks. I know at our school it is next week. I would like to just say to all of our kids in LRSD who are doing testing right now you rock and you're going to be great and be your best self. Um believe in yourself. Um but especially to our third graders know that this does not completely define you by any means. We are going to do our best as a district to help you guys achieve

256and thrive. Um I know this is a big year for those kids. I just want to say that out loud that we're thinking about y'all and know believe that y'all are going to do awesome. That's right. Go to sleep and eat your breakfast. Okay. The chair would entertain a motion for adjournment. >> one comment. Sorry. Um sorry. Go ahead. >> Yeah. Did a um I'm going to visit one of our elementary schools tomorrow to give some type of inspirational pep talk about the importance of testing and doing well. So definitely want to give a shout out to all the teachers that are helping prepare and all of the staff that are preparing the students. Last meeting board meeting I did bring up that I at some point I would like to get some type of

257presentation or report about our community school sites and I hear from our site coordinators. Don't know when we can put that on the agenda but I I just want to bring it up until we can have a conversation. So hopefully we can get it on the agenda in the next couple of months. Thank you. And you're welcome. The chair would Do we need a motion? We are adjourned. Go home.