All
right, let's go ahead and get started.
Um, Evelyn, will you do the roll call?
>> Trusty Lee
>> here.
>> Trusty King
>> here.
>> Trusty Marquez
>> here.
>> Vice President Weekly
>> present.
>> President Wels
>> here. Uh, okay. Welcome. Good evening.
And it's the welcome to our September
10th, 2025 meeting of the Redwood City
District uh school district school
board.
interpret
signs
and persona solic
again. Welcome. Uh thank you for joining
us and being our partners in education.
Um the board encourage en encourages you
uh to participate and provide comments
on issues of concern regardless of
whether they are on the agenda. If
you're here in person and you wish to
speak, um there are speaker cards at the
entrance to the room. Uh just grab one,
fill it out, and hand it to Evelyn. If
you're on Zoom, uh then you can complete
a speaker card online that's linked from
the agenda or raise your Zoom hand when
the item comes up. And if you're
addressing a subject uh that's on the
agenda, you'll be called with at the
time that that item is being considered.
If the issue is not on the agenda,
you'll be called shortly during the oral
communication agenda item. And then to
be fair to all speakers, uh we limit
public comments to three minutes per
person per topic um unless otherwise
noted. All right, let's move on for
changes to the agenda. Um I have one
proposal. I don't know if anybody else
has any. I was going to propose that we
move the um the board self-evaluation
discussion after like all our regular
business. So probably after information.
Um that way anyone that's here for like
regular board business is free free to
leave. Okay. So that's concretely that's
9.1 is going to move after 12.3.
Perfect. Any other changes?
>> No. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve?
>> I'll make a motion.
>> Second.
>> All in favor? I. All right. We'll move
on to public comment. I'm looking to see
if there are online cards.
There are online cards.
Oh, I'm looking at the wrong date.
>> Cindy Meek.
>> Yes. Let me um
I am not sure why I'm not seeing it. Let
me refresh the
>> Can you hear me?
>> Yeah. Go ahead.
Uh my name is Cindy Meek and I have been
a teacher uh for 14 years in the
district. For the past several years, I
have attended the new teacher
orientation meetings that RCTA has with
new teachers. Every year there are about
60 new teachers. We have approximately
320 teachers. So the retention rate is
running 75 to 80% per year, which means
we are losing 20 to 25% of our teachers
every year. Studies have shown that
replacing a teacher costs an average of
$25,000.
That includes onboarding, training,
mentorship, and 60 new teachers a year
at $25,000 is $1.5 million.
The low retention rate indicates that
many teachers have low morale. Part of
the reason that morale is low is the
lack of support, respect, and
professionalism from senior management
at the district. When you think of a
teacher's classroom, think of it as
their office. This is their office where
they conduct the business of teaching.
their clients are the students. In a
business office, the temperature of the
building is consistent and you have the
supplies you need for your job. The roll
out of the permit AC installations at
four four schools has been a hit and
miss. Many teachers are happy, but other
teachers have complained that some
classrooms get cooler than others. There
are also some classrooms that still
don't have AC. There are examples at
some sites where the AC is running along
with the heater running at the same
time. At Kennedy, we have four we have
portable AC units in all of our
classrooms. And there are times when
many classrooms have their portable ACs
running, but an electric breaker goes
off. All the classrooms lose power. The
breaker is reset. Teachers are told that
only some of them can use the portable
AC units at the same time. All students
in the district should have Chromebooks.
However, most schools are short
Chromebooks. It does not appear that
student Chromebooks from last school
year were repaired over the summer as
many students received the same
Chromebook with the same technical
issues. With many students still waiting
for Chromebooks, the students should
have alternative hard copy materials.
There appears to be some classrooms that
do not have enough textbooks for all
students or any textbooks at all. There
have been major issues regarding the
Wi-Fi over the entire district for the
past month, not just the past week. Many
teachers experience slowing Wi-Fi after
11:30 a.m. As you can see, teachers are
challenged with many issues out of their
control. This constant struggle to get
the right temperature in a classroom,
chrome Chromebooks that work for
students, and Wi-Fi that can be counted
on eventually takes a toll on teachers,
which leads to low morale. We bring this
to your attention in hopes that the
senior management of the district hears
and addresses our concerns. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Cindy.
Um, and yeah, and thanks for sharing the
experience at the school site with us.
Um, Evelyn, I I have the wrong
spreadsheet. So, do you are there any
other speakers on?
>> That's the only one here. Okay, great.
And then let me just double check Zoom
to make sure that there's no
participants raising their hands.
Okay, let's move on to our next item,
which is the approval of the bond
consent items.
Can I We're going to approve these all
in one motion. Can I get a motion to
approve?
>> I move to approve the bond consent
items.
>> Second.
>> All in favor? I. Okay. Let's move on to
the bond action items. Um, and 7.1 is
the approval of the pre-construction
service agreement with Seaman's building
management for phase two of the HVAC.
>> Good evening board. Uh, Dr. Baker.
>> I'm sorry, there's a Yeah, we have to
turn the microphone on so we can hear
it.
>> Yep. It's like it's my first timer.
>> Uh, good evening board, Dr. Baker and
staff. Uh thank you for having us here
again to uh talk about moving along some
projects for Measure Espawn. So the
first of the two that we have on the
agenda is the approval of the agreement
for Seaman's building management system
to help us with the pre-construction
services for phase two of the HBAC
upgrade project. Uh the board may recall
back in June the board approved phase
two of the HVAC upgrade project to be
Kennedy Middle School, Orion, and
Clifford. Um so this is the next phase
in design for that. Um and you also may
recall from phase one that Seammens is
the district standard for building
management system and mechanical
controls. Uh so on the agenda is the
proposed agreement that is a piggyback
contract uh from source well for the
seaman's pre-construction.
So the recommendation is approval of the
seaman's agreement tonight.
Great. Um do any of the trustees have
questions or comments about this item?
Okay. Um sounds good. Then I will look
for a motion to approve.
I'll make a motion.
>> Is there a second?
>> I'll second.
>> Okay. All in favor? I. Great. Thanks. Uh
let's move on to 7.2. So that's uh the
contracts with QKA for design services
for the HVAC upgrades.
>> Yes. So again um this is for phase two
of the HVAC upgrades. Uh we did do an
RFP, a request for proposals to all the
architects in our architect pool. uh we
received four proposals
um and QKA was the lowest proposal and
they had experience from phase one. So
uh that's why QKA is a recommendation
for uh design services for phase two of
the HVAC project tonight.
>> Sounds good. Any questions?
Sounds like a good match. Uh is there a
motion to approve?
I move to approve the QK contract.
>> All right. And a second.
>> All in favor?
>> I. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. All
right. We're going to move on to our
action items. Um 8.1 is discussion and
action on the superintendent search firm
uh with presentations and then
selection. Um first I want to say thank
you Evelyn for doing all the
coordination work. I think you'd reached
out to like eight firms to try and get
um people to respond and send in
presentations and proposals. So, that
was a a pretty good set of outreach and
I know you're very responsive to the
other trustees that added in their
additional firms. Thanks for se um
suggesting those. Um I want to remind
everyone tonight's an important step in
our our superintendent transition. Um
we're going to be hearing presentation
from three what look like really three
strong search firms. HYA, Leadership
Associates, and Zel. Um each of them are
going to bring relevant experience and
could support our district successfully.
And so then our goal tonight, just as a
reminder, it's not to just listen and
ask questions, but it's also we want to
take action and select one firm. Um the
reason it's really important to do that
tonight is just the timing. Um we want
to begin the process right away so that
we can have the most robust community
involvement and feedback. Um you know,
we want to be able to get us new
superintendent in place. Um and and
possibly, you know, if it if it works
out, I mean, I don't know if this is all
going to work out, but it might be
possible to even have some overlap in
transition time alongside Superintendent
Baker before the end of the school year.
Um delaying a decision even one meeting
and and if we delayed it, it would
probably actually go into like October
or later would really push that whole
timeline back a bit. Um so I want to I
want to encourage us all to listen and
focus on fit and readiness. Um no firm's
going to be perfect. Um no offense to
any of our presenters um but uh but each
of them is really more than capable. Um
so the critical thing is that we come
together tonight and you know we reach
consensus and move forward with a
partner who we think can help us recruit
the very best leader for Redwood City
School District. Uh so with that I think
uh our first presenter is going to be
HYA. Is that right Evelyn? Okay. And
then I think we said we were going to do
30 minutes for presentation and for the
trustees to be able to ask questions. So
if you could try to keep the
presentation in like the 15 to 20 minute
range. Does that sound reasonable?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Shorter shorter is fine too.
Um and that'll give us enough time to be
able to ask questions.
>> The one on the right. Okay.
Oh, perfect. Well, what I realized as I
was uh sitting here at the uh in the
back is that some of my slides that I
meant to skip actually got printed and
are in your packet. So, I may not go
through every slide in the packet. Good
evening. I'm Dr. Stella Kemp. I am an
associate with HYA. It's a national
superintendent search firm. We're
located in Illinois, but we serve all of
the United States in superintendent
search. my colleagues uh who will be
assisting on the search are on vacation
right now. So um they were unable to
attend. I want to start by saying
congratulations to my colleague because
I used to be here in in this county um
with Dr. Baker as a superintendent in
San Bruno and had the pleasure of
visiting your schools to um as we were
looking at launching the SEAL program uh
in San Bruno Park some time ago. And um
so congratulations to John. and I think
he's done a great job as I've watched
from afar and congratulations to the
board also on being proactive and
starting early. Do you want me to just
tell you when to go to the next slide?
Okay, so next slide please.
as you mentioned earlier um you know the
role of this of the board is to hire the
superintendent and that is super
critical particularly I think in the
last several years that work has become
very politicized and is um and and the
community watches what the board is
doing because you're essentially your
representatives of the community hiring
somebody to lead your schools. So, um,
HYA, what's different about HYA as as
you look at hiring a superintendent is
that we are a nationwide, uh, company,
we have the ability to recruit, uh, and
we have candidates that have expressed
interest in districts like Redwood City
that, um, that we can select from to
bring to you as possible candidates. And
that really happens after we have done
the um the community input and we kind
of see exactly what the community says,
what the board says, what the leaders
say, what the teachers say, what the
classified staff say, what your parents
say and so on. As you were looking for a
candidate, we build a profile out of
that candidate. Next slide, please.
One of the things that I wanted to
mention to you is that we have a large
network and that network includes
individuals who receive our monthly
newsletter, but we also have a pool of
candidates that um have that go to and
maintain an active personnel file with
HYA. What's interesting about that is
that, you know, very often when you're
looking to hire a superintendent, the
individual that's looking either to
change positions or leave a
superintendency to another school
district is they want to make sure that
they their identity is maintained
confidentially. They don't want their
community knowing about this because it
could create a problem for them later on
down the road. Our large network also
has a number of um associates. So, we
have associates all the way across the
country. And so if HYA were be were
selected to be the firm to represent
Redwood City in this in this project, we
would put the word out to our associates
with the profile and saying we're
looking for someone with this particular
profile. But in addition to that, we get
uploads every night into our system so
we can see when new candidates are
applying to positions. And frankly,
Redwood City has a great reputation. So
I'm sure there will be lots of
applicants for this position. Next
slide, please.
Uh, next slide. Thank you.
Keep going. Sorry about that. Okay. So,
I wanted to share with you just really
briefly, these are some of the past
school districts that we have done
searches in the Bay Area and a lot of
them are right here in the county. And
so, you've seen that um most recently uh
we completed Santa Clara Unified and
that was led with my colleague uh Dr.
Valerie Pittz. Next slide, please.
So, this is a team right now that we
have. We also have on standby uh Dr. um
Camila Franco. She is part of our group.
She usually works in Southern
California, but she is helping out
Oakland with some of their uh their work
that they're working on right now. And
we are here uh we have Spanish speaking
uh colleagues in our in our team. And we
will be here to support your community
to gather input. And the input is going
to be a variety of different ways and
I'll share that with you in a little
bit. All of our colleagues that are will
be representing are uh former
superintendents.
Thank you. Next slide.
So uh generally when you do a search you
you have this process where you have you
engage with your community you build a
profile then you begin your recruitment.
What I what we will be doing is we will
actually start the recruitment when we
start the engagement process so that we
begin to see who's out there as we're
hearing things from the board and from
the community and so that we can
actually because this is an accelerated
search you you want to finish this by
January. So we want to make sure that
we're recruiting and getting the word
out and we have a variety of different
ways that we do that through postings uh
through links through our website. Um, a
lot of people who are out looking for
superintendent positions actually go to
the HYA site because we publish
everybody's. We have everybody's um, uh,
openings of all the firms are posted to
our site. I'm sorry about this. Should
get a little bit further away from the
microphone. All right. And then then it
becomes time once we've recruited a pool
and we've you know we have the
leadership profile now it's time really
to sort sort through the candidates work
with the board to identify which
candidates you like to bring forward for
uh for an interview and and those that
that process really involves both
training for the board on interview
protocols to make sure that you are um
you are not violating any state or
federal laws during that process. And I
I believe all the board members are new,
have not gone through the superintendent
search before. Is that correct? No. Yes.
Okay, good. And um and so we want to we
want to protect the district and protect
the board. And the role for HYA is
really we are you we we are your face.
we are you out there in the public and
uh and then we protect you and make sure
you do everything by the book so to
speak so that there are no questions
about the process or the interviews or
the questions or any of that. It's all
very clear and transparent um to the
candidate. One of the unique things that
we do is we publish a leadership profile
for the candidates that will be part of
the interview process in a um an
activity that they have to engage in. Uh
so we'll give them data about the
district's finance or maybe uh
educational data or something and we'll
give them a scenario then that will
assist them in a in an activity that
they will present when they're when they
come forward for an interview. And then
the transition time and there's a
variety of different things that could
happen in the transition from HYA
sitting down with a candidate and
reviewing the community feedback to a
transition with the board and helping to
establish goals or uh coaching and so
on. But the first thing that happens I
think the most important is the next few
weeks and that is engaging with the
board. uh my colleagues will be back on
the 17th of uh September and we're
excited to come and meet with the board
shortly thereafter if we're selected and
and plan out meeting times uh look at
look at the survey uh look at um when
the board wants to have their um their
their interviews all kinds of things
that are going to happen. We intend to
uh bring the leadership profile to you
at the November meeting which would be
by the by the way the time that we would
fed had all of our engagement our focus
groups and have all that calendared
ahead of time and then probably we'll be
working closely with Evelyn on a lot of
these things and getting this
calendared. All right, next slide
please.
All right. So, um, um, one of the things
I want to point out here is that as
you're looking at the slides for for us
is that if you see the slides that have
a blue box around it, that's really
where we are different from the other
firms. Next slide, please. So, the, as
you can see, there's a lot of different
ways and all of the firms, you know, do
a really good job with community
engagement, community input. I think
what's really important is that we set
up a schedule. Um we have a a point
person that we probably Evelyn will be
our point person at the district or one
of the board members. Uh and and we'll
set up these meetings, come out here for
a couple of days, meet face to face with
people and then also have an opportunity
to meet with people in the evening. Uh
if it's on the weekend that the board
desires that we ho host something for
the weekend, we can schedule those um
focus groups and community forums. We
can do it by I think by trustee area
might be a good way to do that. um and
be available just to listen because this
is really what it is is listening and
and hearing what the community would
like for two things. Where do you see
the district needing to pivot or
improve? Where's need of improvement?
And then what is the leadership that's
going to go with that? So, it's kind of
a two-prong thing which gets really into
our survey and that stakeholder survey
is um is if you go go a couple more
slides forward. One, two, three, three
slides. Slide 13.
Yes. Yes. Thank you. Slide 13.
I think it's back.
There you go. Is this survey, you know,
in order to build a a good picture of
the school district, you you're also
campaigning for candidates to come
forward. So, you want to make sure that
the candidate understands what the
community's desire is. So, we can match
the leadership style with the community
needs with the board's desires. And so
that what we do is we really look for um
assets that uh that are we look for what
are the strategies or what are the
qualities of a school district that has
high high student outcomes uh and are
showing growth and then match that with
the right leadership style. And so we
look for that and we want to hear what
the community has to say and that kind
of blends into that survey. So you're
going to get a survey results from us
and the survey is uh is in Spanish and
English. We can add other languages if
you'd like that. And we'll give a resort
a a report, not a resort, a report in
Spanish and English as well. And so we
disagregate it for you so you can see,
you know, what did the teachers say,
what did the admin say, what did the
parents say, what did we can sort it by
grade level. Any any way you want to
slice and dice that data. It really
helps to give that information to you.
Um, and we can customize the survey if
you want to add some other other
elements to it. So I think this is one
of the big strong things that HYA does.
Okay.
All right. So can you go to slide 16
please?
So um in our recruitment phase one of
the assets or one of the aspects of HYA
that's kind of different than um than
many of the firms that are out there is
that HYA is a partner with AASA. So at a
national level, we're partner with the
American Association of School
Superintendent and we also are a partner
with the uh the AASA and Howard
University urban superintendent
um certification program. And that's
actually how I came to know HYA was
because I was in that urban
superintendent program with them. And so
they have a a large uh pool of uh
individuals that are interested to
become superintendent. They also have a
partnership with CALSA and with ALIS
which are the Latino associations
national and state and they are
represented at state national
conferences. The one thing about the
timeline is a little unfortunate is that
this national superintendent's
conference is in February this year. So
hopefully we'll have this wrapped up by
then, but the state conference uh state
leadership conference is coming up in
November. So um you know for sure we'll
have individuals there to represent HYA
but the word will be out already.
All right.
So also I wanted just to mention that um
you can also go to our website and hya
has active searches page and has um a
network of associates and you can see
all the associates that we have across
the nation who would um be contributing
to this project. All right. So if we can
go over to slide number 19.
Thank you.
So because we tailor the candidates
skills uh with their competencies our on
our in our candidate profile system,
this allows HYA and potential candidates
to match. Not saying we're matchmakers,
but we do as best as we can try to match
the leadership skills with um with the
desire of the district and within the
system based on our on the leadership
profile that's been developed. So and
again I want to just reemphasize that we
um build real a lot of uh
confidentiality within the system. so
that uh candidates feel comfortable with
applying to us and they know that their
name is not going to going to get
released unless they have to be
released. In some states, it's required
that you publicly notice when you're
bringing a finalist forward. Okay. All
right. And if you could go to I think
you've seen the recruitment and the
screening and the recruitment
consideration slides. I wanted to go on
to um the interview protocols slide 23
and just point out that on the interview
protocols that we work with the board
just to make sure that you're following
best practices and all legalities around
that and we will have um case study
that's developed that's based on the
data brief that we prepare for the
candidates and that really helps them
and when I was applying for
superintendent positions they didn't
have any of this so I've did my own data
brief of every school district that I
applied to and it's and it's a really
great asset because you come in already
having an understanding of like where
the where some of the academic
challenges might be or um or uh other
factors that uh appear like on the
dashboard. Um you these were days before
we had the California dashboard the way
we do now. So um a lot of research goes
into helping prepare the candidates so
they hit the ground running.
All right. And then uh if you would go
over to slide number 25.
So um one of the things that we do in in
the uh selection of candidates for the
interview is we do this blindly. So we
will try to reduce bias as much as
possible by providing the board with the
applicants but it's it's been lots of
stuff has been redacted in there. So you
uh you know don't you can't make an
opinion of whether it's a male or a
female or you know Asian, black,
Hispanic um or whatnot. And so this is
really kind of kind of behind the
scenes. We do this blind review to help
you make sure that you're looking at all
the candidates sort of on on an equal um
playing field and reduce that bias.
Okay. All right. And if you would please
go over to slide number 30
1 31
32 I'm sorry.
So, one of the things that um that HYA
does as part of our recruitment is we
create a portal for the board. And in
that portal, we do we dump all of our
documents in there. We have everything
there for you. So, we we try not to
print anything out. Uh we can if you'd
like for that to happen. And if you go
to slide number 33, you'll see the um
the examples of things that are in in
that. So, we have all the updates, we
have our Zoom links, we have our our
candidate posting. You can go, it's
linked there. You can go to it. You can
see the interview schedule. You can see
all of the different things that we have
in place for uh for the board to help
them through this process. And it's
available 247. And of course, uh Valerie
and myself and Bob will be available
24/7 for the board as well. Um 247
maybe 227.
Anyway, so um I wanted to um just kind
of in closing before I move on to the
timeline is I wanted to talk a little
bit about the interview process. You
know, I
Eric knows this. I was always a brides
bridesmaid, never the bride. I was like
number two. I interviewed so many times
before I became a superintendent. And
I've been through a lot of interviews
and um and and I've been where the board
has decided that they want to do a
community forum and they bring a group
of people in and they do that. I've been
in interviews where it's just the board
at the at the Audi dealership in town.
You know, they were, you know, hiding
hiding from the small community and they
had us offsite. Um, I've been in in
interviews where they had us do group
interviews. So, there's a lot of
different ways the board may want to do
the interviews. And so we'll talk with
the board, find out what's been done in
the past, you know, look at what the
best practices are, um, and talk about
the pros and cons of all the different
ways that you guys could conduct the
interviews, whether you want to bring in
a community group, just uh, you know,
the the, uh, complications that might
arise around that. So with that, I'd
like to go on to slide number 30.
I think it's the next one. It's a
timeline slide. So I was I tried not to
be too specific on it. Um but I think
the looking at the timeline um September
15th 16th through um the beginning of
October would really be that first set
of events. Um we would launch the survey
as soon as we have that ready to go. So
that could be earlier in September. That
would go through November, December.
We're going to try to wrap all of that
up. you know, you might want to keep the
survey open a little bit longer, but our
survey is is is um it's in-house
developed and it's researchbased. It's
really targeted on leadership qualities
and high performing school districts and
looks for that match. Um and then we
develop a leadership profile along with
the profile of the district. We'll
present that to the board in November.
And then um I'm looking at interviews
probably after CSBA
the 12th and 13th of December is kind of
what I had pencled in. Again my
colleagues are in Europe I can't ask
them. So um but we'll be here middle of
December and then with the appointment
in January. So um that is
kind of very quickly an outline of the
process uh for HYA superintendent
search.
>> Thank you. I see the next one's
question. So, I will um turn to the
board and see if anybody has questions
that they'd like to ask. Um
Jen, please start.
>> Thank you for that. Um I was just
wondering in terms of when you present
the slate, what information is coming
with the candidates that you're
providing us?
>> Yes. So, we have we'll we'll do our due
diligence. So, we'll we'll start
reference we'll start reference checks
on the um people that they provided to
us. We'll do the deeper one deeper
deeper reference checks following the um
as we get closer to the interview. So
once you've decided, okay, we're going
to interview these five people, we'll go
and start doing our deeper reference
checks, but we'll do initial reference
checks at the beginning when you bring
the slate.
>> How can any like analysis against the
leadership profile that's built?
>> Oh yes, all of that. Because we will
tell you that and that match uh when we
bring the slate to you. So we'll say
this person has the strengths in, you
know, ELD development, uh, in budget
development and, um, you know, fiscal
services or something like that. Yeah,
we'll bring all of that to you with
that.
>> Great. Yes. Anyone else? David,
>> really appreciate the presentation
there. Um, I do have some hard
questions. They have I have them for uh
the the other ones, too. So, it's not
just you. Um, but there was a case in
where a Minneapolis board had to rescend
an offer just a couple days after
extending because of discovery about a
candidates's performance in a prior
role. There's another HYA pick um where
a superintendent was recommended in
Flint whose resume included degrees he
didn't earn and a Nashville pick
resigned uh after uh turned out that
there they didn't have full disclosure
about what happened with two prior
posts. So, I'm just wondering what are
you going to do differently to better
diligence the candidates that your firm
presents us um that happened in those
cases.
>> So, I can't speak to um the work that
happens outside of um the California
myself, Valerie, and yes, that group. I
I think that um due diligence like I for
example you know uh personnel records
and and sometimes they're not public
site you know you may not know that and
um there might be examples of why a um
information was found out later. Of
course when we're doing our due
diligence we're turning over every leaf
that we can. Yes. And so we're doing you
know Google search is calling calling
people off the list. So that's the thing
is like well you do your first reference
checks you're looking for people they
put down their friends but then you do
the second one you you're diving deeper
>> and that would include like degree
verification as well.
>> Oh yeah absolutely. Yes.
>> Okay.
David,
>> uh I think you mentioned that some of
your colleagues are also doing some
other um work in Oakland and it sounds
like right now is maybe a little bit of
an off season compared to relevant rel
um other engagements relatively at any
given time. How how many other
engagements are would the team is the
team typically working on?
>> Well, right now u there aren't a lot of
superintendent searches occurring. So
that usually starts to spool up after
the holidays, but we are working on
strategic planning and coaching for
school districts.
>> I guess underline my question is um
everyone wants to be the the special
snowflake, right? And get all the
attention.
>> Yes.
>> Um but obviously they're competing
demands. So I'm trying to get a sense of
what is the
>> what are the other competing demands
like? What does that realm look like for
the associated consultants that are
working on your team during this time
period that we're projecting?
>> I think the comm competing demands would
be those who have pre have have tra have
travel arrangements already that can't
be rescheduled. I actually have a
wedding my daughter's uh wedding in
October, but I can be here you know
we'll work around that. Um, but you
know, for the most part, I think that
some of the some of the engagement, like
if we do the engagement at the very
front end, like early October, then it's
just a matter of putting the profile
together, looking at the survey results,
making sure we're working with Evelyn to
get push out messages through your
communication channels, you know,
letting you guys know how many
respondents we've had. Let's do another
push to get people out there and so on.
So, it's it's really, you know, getting
the system set up, doing the face toface
early, and then letting all of that
middle of October when my daughter's
getting married to um to to um let that
sort of, you know, um start to start to
come in.
>> Got it. So, I think if I heard you,
sounds like the heavy lifting is upfront
and then that hopefully is leading to a
relatively light lift through the
majority of the process in your view.
Okay. And then we'll come back in
November with a presentation and then in
de and then and then start working on we
may have to have a a you know board
workshop uh on uh or special board
meeting uh on the uh interview and all
of that stuff. So we'll do that. That's
all happens in close session that piece.
>> Yeah.
>> Um a separate question. I would be
curious to hear if you have any um any
experience or anecdotes that you can
speak to where um you've worked on
community engagement the full community
where the community is maybe fragmented
in some ways either racially,
socioeconomically, linguistically or
otherwise. Um if if you can share any
any challenges or experiences that
you've gone through where you've worked
through that sort of uh dynamic.
>> Oh, I don't know which one to pick.
Should I pick the school closure in in
San Bruno Park?
Please if you'd like.
>> So, um, when I was appointed
superintendent in San Bruno Park, um,
the county was it was short on state
receiverhip and the county uh said, "You
need to close three schools." And my
first day there, actually, even before I
took the job, I u drove the district and
I went, "There is no way you can close
three schools because you have the
school down on El Camino, then you had
the hillside going up to 280, and then
you had a school above 280." And I said,
"How are we going to get move people
around? It was impossible." So I went
and negotiated that. But we ended up
having to close. We, you know, we
negotiated two schools instead of three.
And then started looking at the impact
of this. And there were a lot of people
that came out and and and the schools
that I was recommending, one of the two
schools I was recommending actually did
not did not get selected for a potential
consolidation. So then we had to think
about okay so what are we going to do
given that access to the school that was
that we were recommending for
consolidation was on the side of a hill
and very challenging to get to. We had
to re regroup. So through this entire
process though we were out talking to
the schools. We were getting input. We
were asking for alternate solutions. We
tried to develop out those alternate
solutions. And then finally when it came
time we said let's do one at a time.
We're going to we're going to do one at
a time. So we ended up closing the
school that was the smallest that had
the most students that were on inter
intrad district transfers and and then
in the process it was a very simple
process of we're drawing the boundaries
because we basically had El Camino and
we had like what is it east of El Camino
west of El Camino and that's kind of how
we drew our boundaries and we were able
to balance the students out in other
existing campuses. So I guess maybe more
the question is focused on the community
engagement piece to get a sense of how
you were able to ensure that you were
>> um getting input from the the wide
variety obviously a very complicated
situation but I guess yeah how were
tactically how are you doing that and
then how were you able to ensure that
you were actually getting the views of
multiple
>> yeah so we had a committee and we
engaged our committee to help us get to
the parents so they understood a the
story that they were like understood
exactly what was happening so we
leveraged um in in in this case a
superintendent search, you would
leverage your principles to get your or
your PTA presidents or the board members
to, you know, to help us engage the
community and get a message out,
inviting the community to come to a
forum or to an open house. You know, all
those kinds of things are really kind of
word of mouth, but also the publications
and then making opportunities available.
Like, you know, we created, for example,
we created a a web page that was a Q&A
page. somebody had a rumor rumor, you
know, I heard a rumor, send it in and
then we would we would respond to that
rumor so we would were able to keep the
message straight. Yeah.
>> Did you have a question? I have one
more, but wanted to give Cecilia a
chance.
>> Um, thank you again for the
presentation. And, um, my question would
be obviously you're going to try to find
the best fit candidate. um at the end of
the day is going to be up to the board
who they decide to hire. And from your
experience and placing superintendent,
how
long do they stay at a school district?
>> HYA's um candidates u more more than 95%
of our candidates stay within the f stay
beyond the first term of their contract.
So, but it it there are so many factors
to a superintendent's longevity that um
you know, you're trying to find the best
you're trying to find the best fit for
the day that you hire the superintendent
and things change. Boards change,
things happen. So, you try to find
somebody that's going to fit the best at
that point. And you know we HYA
candidates they stay in the districts
and sometimes they even move to larger
districts beyond this. Yes.
>> Uh David Lee, you said you had one more
question. Go ahead.
>> I mean by by all means.
>> Uh I just curious very specifically for
Redwood City if you um think you
mentioned that your perception is that
Redwood City is an attractive district
for potential candidates. I'm curious
what specifically what what assets is
specifically you have or that you have
identified for Redwood City in that
respect and as well as any challenges
that you foresee.
>> Well, the asset I think is the strong
leadership that currently exists in the
district and uh you know Dr. Baker uh is
um has has set quite the bar, has set a
high bar and um someone coming after him
will have, you know, large shoes to fill
uh because he's an amazing
superintendent. And so um those in the
area who know Redwood City know about
the longevity of leadership. They know
about the solid school board which is
important for a candidate coming in
knowing that the school board uh is you
know is is uh focused on the right
things and um and I think that that
those are the two big things for
candidates. They're looking for a board
that's that is focused on on every
student being successful that there is a
system in place and a plan in place and
and that leadership has led that and
there will be a transition plan for the
next superintendent coming in that will
be based on uh your input, Dr. Baker's
recommendations and also what the
community says in terms of what um their
desires are for the school district. The
challenges are that um there might be a
lot of really good candidates that come
forward and so you know sorting through
those and finding the one that's the
best fit for the board is going to be
the challenge.
>> You're welcome.
>> Sounds like a good challenge to have. Um
the one question I wanted to ask was
just to clarify, you mentioned that
there are um Spanish speakers on the
staff as associates. Does that mean that
the community outreach events can be
held directly in Spanish, not
necessarily through interpretation?
>> Yes. Okay, great.
>> 20 seconds. One more question. David
Weekley,
>> you mentioned that um there aren't a lot
of other superintendent searches
happening right now. Are we doing this
process strangely uh to go and pull
things up so much?
>> No, I know Sonoma Valley is doing a
superintendent search for a
superintendent right now that's being
run through the Sonoma County Office of
Ed. Uh but otherwise, that's the only
one that I know of in the area. There
might be others. Um but
>> so it's more just coincidence, but
nobody else.
>> Just coincidence. Yes.
>> Thank you. All right, Dr. Kemp, thank
you so much for coming and presenting
HYA for us tonight.
>> Appreciate it. Thank you.
>> Yeah, we can move on to
leadership associates, right?
>> And I'll I'll give the same time kind of
constraints. You know, we want to maybe
keep it in the 15 minutes to 20 minutes
for the presentation side and then
that'll give us 10 to 15 minutes for the
trustees to be able to ask questions.
Perfect.
I'm uh well good evening and thank you
all so very much for allowing us to come
and make our presentation to you. We uh
certainly appreciate it and uh are very
very happy that we were one of the firms
selected uh for you to uh take a look
at. So next slide please.
So, this is your team. Um, my name is
Jackie Horsesh. I was a superintendent
for nine years in San Jose in Union
School District. Um, I was also uh I do
just a lot of things as Eric and I both
do. Um, I teach uh in the administrative
credential program. I do superintendent
coaching. I do board workshops. So, I've
had an awful lot of experience and I
have been doing searches for the last
nine years. Um, and I full disclosure, I
did work for a large national search
company for a short while before I
joined Leadership Associates. And I say
that because when I was listening to
your last board meeting when you were
talking about how you were going to
select a search firm, you talked about
wanting to really see what's the
differentiation. you're going to see
very much the same processes. So, we're
going to spo focus on trying to let you
know what's the difference between these
firms. So, um I'll let uh Eric introduce
himself next.
>> I'm Eric Andrew. I am a retired
superintendent of the Campbell Union
School District, which is an interesting
district in the sense that as 12
schools, uh six were title one, six were
affluent. So, it was quite the dichotomy
to make sure that all of our students
make got the same type of education
along the way. Um, I will tell you that
this is my only search. I've been very
discreet. I'm very discreet on taking
searches. I only look at districts where
I feel like I want to make a difference
in that district and I think I want to
work with this particular board and this
community. And so, I can dedicate myself
to this particular search. The only one
that I have, the only one that I
volunteered for was Redwood City.
>> I'm not sure he volunteered. He was
solicited.
That being said, let me introduce um by
way of her picture, the third member of
our team. She will be boots on the
ground, but she's in Turkey right now. I
received her latest email and she
couldn't make it. didn't feel she'd be
able to zoom in, but she is a fluent
bilingual Spanish speaker and she will
be right here working with us. Between
us, Eric, how many searches would you
think we've done?
>> Probably in the 40s.
>> Yeah, we have a lot of experience. Many
of the searches that you're going to see
in your packet, Eric and I have done
together, uh, some of the other searches
I have done with Blanca. So, we're a
very experienced team. Next slide,
please.
So, speaking of teams, I really want to
point this out as one of the
differentiators.
We have our search specialists, and
you'll see Linda, Penny, and Serena.
They have all been executive assistants
in school districts. So, they're going
to be working really closely with
Evelyn. They know what it takes and they
know what her job is. So they will be
providing 247 assistance both to her and
um you know your board leaison, the
board president or whoever you select.
Um we really you know believe that you
need to be communicated with. You're
going to get weekly updates from one of
us uh possibly all of us. So you'll be
kept in the loop the entire way through
the process. One of the things that we
believe strongly in and I'm sure you do
as a board, no surprises. This search is
your search. We customize it however you
want to do it and we know that you need
to be in the loop on every step of the
way. Thank you. Next slide.
So I want to let you know that we didn't
bring a canned presentation.
We looked carefully at your criteria. We
tried to design our presentation to
specifically meet what it was that you
said you wanted. And I remember hearing
that you wanted clarity and
differentiation. So, um, this gives you
just an overview of our process. And
it's going to sound an awful lot like
what you just heard because the
processes are very similar, but as we go
through the process, we want to point
out what makes us different. Why would
you select us instead of another firm?
So, um, we're going to go to the next
slide, and we're going to ask you to
take a look at that next page on your
handout, please.
Okay. So, and I didn't bring my hand out
with me. So, one of the things I want to
talk to you about is the process we're
going to use, and that will be the um
initial meeting that we're going to have
with you. And hopefully you have it
there.
Everybody have a chance to look at it.
We're going to finalize the timeline um
with you. So on that very first meeting
that we have, we're going to go through
all of those questions in the initial
meeting so that we can find out what
works for you. How do you want to do
this? When do you want to do it? And
make sure that the calendar is set for
the entire process. And this is going to
be done in an open session so your
community will understand what we're
doing.
Mhm.
>> One of the questions that was asked
before was how do we know that we hear
the voices of the various community
members? And what we will do is ask you
specifically who are the voices that we
need to reach out to and who are who are
the voiceless? Who are the communities
that you have here who you have not had
a chance? They've not come to your
meetings. They aren't as engaged. And
what we've done in the past is we are
willing to go to those communities. An
example, I was in a situation where
there was a apartment complex, very
large complex, very much a a pillar in
the community, but the parents weren't
involved in the school. We went to that
apartment complex to do the community
input. We didn't wait for them to come
to us. And so, we're willing to do those
types of things, but we want to make
sure that we hear from you. And as we
are working with other community groups
and they we will ask them the question
who's missing whose voice is missing in
this group and who else do we need to
reach out to? And so as a result of that
we are willing to have as many uh
community input sessions as we need to
make sure all voices have a chance to
participate.
And I want to point out that when you
take a look at fee structures,
you're going to see that the fee
structure of most of our competitors has
x number of days that they're going to
do. That's not us. What Eric is telling
you is the absolute truth. I can't we
spent two weeks uh doing community input
sessions because it was a district that
had a lot of a lot of different
stakeholders. We've talked to fire
chiefs. We talked to city council. We
talk to whoever it is that you want us
to talk to. And that's why it's so
important during this initial meeting
for you to identify all the various
groups in your community. Now, that
doesn't preclude the survey because
we're also doing a survey and we do it
in every language that you would like us
to do it in. There's no extra cost. And
again, I think when you take a look at
our competitors, they're going to have a
survey, but their survey has an
additional cost. Our survey has the same
analytics in any language that you want
and it's there's no hidden fees. We're
not going to nickel and dime you. We're
here to serve you and that's what we
believe we do best. So going along with
that, you can see that um we're going to
talk with you in this initial uh meeting
about all of these things and most
importantly finding out from you what do
you want to see in the next
superintendent? What are the challenges
that you need to make sure that that
next candidate that you're going to look
at has the skills in order to meet those
challenges? Next slide.
And again, I please look at your packet
because this is far too small, but this
is the timeline and hopefully it's in
your packet. You can see it a little
larger. We believe that we can
accomplish this without any problem at
all. We believe it's very realistic.
There are three of us who are going to
be boots on the ground here with you.
Um, in addition to, as you'll hear, the
partners that we have. Next slide,
please.
Okay, we've talked a little bit about
that. Um, we have, uh, not just a
consultant, but one of our team members
is Spanish speaking. Um, we talked about
the survey and all various languages
that you need. One of the things that's
important for us is finding out from all
your stakeholders what the entire
community, those voices that may not be
the loudest, what does everybody want?
And we put that together in the position
description. And that's what we use as
we advertise and recruit, which we'll be
talking about in a minute. And then you
are going to get an executive summary of
all of the input that we have. And in
addition to that, you will get all of
the actual raw data with all of the
comments and everything from both the
stakeholder input sessions as well as
the survey. Eric,
next slide, please.
One of the unique differences with uh
leadership associates is that we are all
partners in the firm. We're not
consultants. This is our main job.
And so every other Tuesday, we just had
it a couple of yesterday, yesterday, we
have meetings with all of the partners
and we discuss every single search. So
although Jackie, myself, and Blanca will
be the faces here, the reality of it is
you will have all of our partners as a
part of this particular search. And that
makes us very much unique. You see, we
cover California. Well, yes, we are
Californiaentric. Absolutely.
But we do have a wide range of national
presence because as we are considered
the number one search firm, people come
to our websites and we get people who
are applying from around the world
actually not just nationally but around
the world for our positions. Next slide
please.
our advertisement
we will put in all the trade magazines
for those of you who are familiar with
Edcow which is the California
Association of School Administrators uh
magazine it's probably the one newspap
newsletter that's read from the back
forward because all of the jobs are in
the back and so people look at that we
will absolutely advertise there we
currently have about 1500 subscribers
we'll put on all of the various social
media aspects in those types of things.
Um, our reference checks, we do a a good
job of ensuring that we are doing our
best to make sure that our candidates
are who they say they are.
And then finally, finally, uh, we do
conduct screening interviews with all of
our candidates. One of the questions we
ask both the candidate and the
references is, "What would your uh,
admirers say about you and what would
your critics say about you?" and we do
some triangulation about that to get a
sense of if the candidate says here's
what my critics would say about me yet
the people we're referencing would have
something different that kind of is a
red flag for us because that's uh we're
looking at self-awareness and so on so
we want to know how well can we get to
know that candidate next slide please
I'll just kind of skip through this one
these are just some of the organizations
that we are part of there are others
there but uh very similar to our pre the
previous presenter we are a part of
those organizations. In fact, one of the
differences that our partners have been
the executive directors of several or
board members of several of those
organizations.
Next slide, please.
Recruitment.
We currently not only have a search our
search firm, but if you notice our
title, it's executive leadership. We
currently have for example over 200
current superintendents who are part of
a leadership development pro program. We
have 45 uh leadership networks that we
have uh between five and 10 various uh
superintendents in each of those. We are
out there not only uh developing the
skill set of current superintendent but
it also keeps us informed as to what's
happening on the field. we're retired.
And so we want to make sure we're in
contact with the current superintendent
that they are informing us as to here
are some of the context and the
landscape that we're are dealing with.
We give them an opportunity not only to
talk and to share ideas and get the best
thoughts but also it does inform our
thinking as well.
>> And before um I ask for the next slide.
So, I am doing I have done um an
aspiring superintendent series and I'm
doing another aspiring superintendent
series this fall. So, we have an
opportunity to meet those candidates
that are interested in becoming a
superintendent and that have the
experience that will enable them to
become a superintendent in the future.
So this is why we tell you that we
believe that we can give you the deepest
pool of candidates is because our
business is about leadership and we do I
think an just an exemplary job of
building the leadership capacity so that
we have a number of people who are ready
to go into that next level. Next slide
please.
So one of the things that we're very
proud of is that we have an electronic
portal for all of you. You will be given
access to all of the candidate materials
electronically. You'll see everything.
We don't screen it out. You see every
single piece of their uh packet that
they turn into us. Okay. Um we will be
looking at all of the candidates. We do
a pre-screening interview with everyone
who is a viable candidate. And I say
that because honestly, you won't believe
it. I had a search where a person who
was a manager at 3-day blinds um and was
substitute teaching applied for a
superintendency. So, and believe it or
not, I did call her anyway, but um we do
do pre-screening interviews with all the
candidates. And one of the things about
that map that you saw where all of our
14 partners are, we know people who know
people, okay? So anyone who's most
people who are going to apply for a
superintendent position have worked
someplace else. And so because of that,
we're able to really do a deep dive and
a reference check. And unlike some of
our competitors, we don't just do that
with the people that you've decided are
your finalists. We do that with
everyone. And the reason is we're going
to give you a tiered list of candidates.
Now, this is just a recommendation of
those candidates that we think best
match what you're looking for, have the
experience as well as the skills and
attributes so that they can meet the
challenges that your district faces. We
give you these recommendations after
you've had a chance to look at all of
the applicants and we don't tell you our
recommendations. We allow you to look at
everybody so that you have an objective
look and then we'll talk to you when we
meet with you and tell you why we've had
the people tiered as we do. We tell you
the good, the bad, and the ugly. Trust
me, there are a lot of candidates who
have baggage and we want to share that
with you. It's your choice. If the
baggage is something that that candidate
may have that you don't feel is going to
be a problem for you, if the person is
selected, that's fine. You get to pick
any of the candidates that you wish um
to interview or not, but we do try to
give you at least an inkling of people
that we really feel meet what we have
found out in our extensive uh
stakeholder inputs. So, also I wanted to
let you know that um we participate in
all of the final interviews. Um I know
our competitors do not. So, we're there
with you. We hold your hand. We make the
questions with you. Um, we're there to
help facilitate the interviews and help
with contract negotiations, etc.
>> I'm just going to do a quick time check
to let you know there's only about three
minutes left.
>> Okay. Do you want to go to uh if you
look in your packet at our searches, our
recent searches, if you look uh the last
couple pages, two pages, Eric, if you'd
speak to that.
>> Slide 15.
And so one of the things you did ask as
part of the profile was what are some of
the uh u searches that we've done in the
Bay Area. We're based uh we're basentric
the two of us. And so we do a lot of
searches here in the Bay Area. And this
this is just an example of some of the
the districts that we've had the
privilege of recent privilege of
conducting some superintendent searches.
>> And the next slide.
>> Next slide.
And you asked about regarding Spanish
speaking communities. Here are some of
the Spanish speaking communities that we
have had the privilege of of working
with. And Jackie and I have done several
of these together in fact.
So we just wanted to make sure that we
are touching bases to on the things that
you felt as a board were important that
u um we were responsive in that sense.
And if you go to the last slide which is
the why us
costed services. Yeah. Why us? Okay. Let
me just close with this because I think
this is what's really important. As um
you said at the beginning of this
meeting, you're going to be making a
decision. So let me let you know why I
think the decision
should be that we're selected in the
first place. Um, we partner with you to
make sure that the needs of your
district are going to be met. We work
hard to understand what those needs are.
I told you about our broad network of
leadership development. That's why we
think that we can give you the best pool
of candidates. Um, our website, we're
the go-to place. If somebody wants to be
a superintendent in the state of
California, they go to leadership
associates. We are the go-to place for
placing people. If you take a look,
we're we're very very um committed to
diversity. If you look at our statistics
last year, 66% of the finalists were
either women or people or of color. Um
we've done over 750 searches in the
state of California. And even though
we're based in California, we've placed
more national candidates in California
than any other search firm. As Eric
said, we're partners. There are 14 of
us. This is what we do. We're not hired
guns. We do this full-time. Well, as
full-time as a retired person can.
And we're we're very active in all of
the aspects of public education. We
teach, we coach, we work with boards. Um
over 85% of the superintendents have
been in their position for more than
five years. And trust me when I say
this, not only are our our fees what we
believe competitive,
we have no hidden fees other than what
you see on that cost structure. That's
it. We don't charge you by the day. We
don't charge you for the extra time. We
don't charge you for the survey. So what
you see is what you get. And yes, sorry.
>> No, I was I was going through that's
great. So you hit the last bullet and so
I was going to pivot into questions from
the trustees but thank you so much for
the presentation. Really appreciate it.
Um who would like to who has a question
that would like to start?
David Lee I see you look thinking
looking very question. Yeah.
>> No. Uh I think you have the
um I think you had the benefit of
hearing the other questions. So thank
you for already answering many of them
in advance. I think the only one I had
left was um the I think the last one I
asked was just basically um if there are
any challenges uh or particular assets
that you see with Redwood City in
particular that you would bring that
come to mind um looking uh forward in
this
>> Well, I know um declining enrollment is
always a concern. I know in the past
you've you know closed several schools.
Um, I think everyone in the state of
California, of course, is looking at uh
budget reductions potentially. So,
that's always going to be a challenge
facing districts. Um, hiring highquality
staff because of the cost of living in
your area, I think, is is also something
that's challen challenging for you. Um,
you have in in terms of things that
I think you should be so proud of, of
course, all the things that our
colleague has mentioned, you have a
great board. You have had wonderful,
stable, highquality leadership from um
your superintendent in the past. You're
a destination district because of the
programs that you offer students. you
have so many alternative programs, high
quality, uh you serve your multil-
language learners uh and support their
success um amazingly. So there just a
lot of things that that I think will be
very attractive. I have no doubt that
you'll get a huge pool of candidates who
are interested here. Um, Eric,
>> the only thing I wanted to add was in
all of your documentation, watching your
board meetings, you're student focused.
>> Yeah,
>> you are very, very student focused. And
I think that will be an attractor for a
lot of people to realize that no,
they're about kids. Your board goals,
they're about kids. Your programs that
you have for choices and so on, it's
about kids. And so I think that is
really something that's going to uh pull
uh great candidates to your district.
>> Uh Jen, do you have any questions?
>> Thank you for the presentation and I I
like this um discussion sheet for the
initial meeting. Um I was just wondering
um of your recent ones which you would
consider a successful search and
process. What has the board kind of done
to prepare or done differently or done
during these initial meetings?
I think uh most commonly is that they've
read the materials, they came prepared.
They literally just came prepared and
they asked good questions. You know,
they they challenged and pushed back and
we're we're very much open to that. But
we really want you to feel this is your
search. Our our role is to to
accommodate what you need as a district,
as a board, and we're willing to to do
that. But they really have done the
work. We're going to do our part by, as
Jackie mentioned, giving you talking
points so that when your community asks,
"What's going on in the superintendent
search?" We're going to give you talking
points to be able to use to to let them
know here's where we are in the search
process. So, we're not going to wait for
the the markers on the timeline to do
that. We want to make sure that you and
the and the community are are engaged.
>> And actually, real quickly, the most
important thing for that initial meeting
is bring your calendars.
Cecilia, do you have any questions?
>> Um, not really. Um, I really appreciate
the thorough presentation and the fact
that you did your homework by listening
to our board meetings prior to this, so
I appreciate that. Um, when you ask
candidates or when you're looking at
candidates, um, do you ask them the same
questions, um, to move through the
qualifying process?
No, if you're well, if you're talking
about the pre-screening questions,
because we do pre-screen all of the
candid the viable candidates. No, you
know, um we we look at the paperwork and
every person has different experiences.
So, depending on what it is that they're
that that we see, you know, we'll ask
them, look, you've you've left your job
every two years. Why have you bounced
around? what was that about? And then of
course, as I mentioned, because we know
people who know people, um, we then call
those other districts, the people that
we know, and say, "Hey, you know, so and
so told us this, what's the scoop?" You
know, so it does depend on what we find
out about the candidate, what we ask
them when we screen them. And then after
the pre-screening interview, we really
start getting to know those candidates
that we believe will be your top one or
two tiers. So, we have lots of follow-up
contact with them.
>> Yet, there are some standard ones.
>> Why Redwood City?
>> You know, why are you applying? What
makes you a match for this district?
Again, I mentioned earlier, what would
your admirers say about you? What would
your critics say about you? And so,
those types of standards, but as Jackie
said, as we look at their uh profile,
that will help uh drive some of the
other questions that we do have.
Dave Weekly,
>> I promise tough questions for all the
different firms and I've got one for
you. Um, leadership associates withdrew
from a search in Fresno after
insufficient community feedback and
failing to provide community listening
notes to the board president. What are
you going to do differently here to make
sure that the community is fully engaged
and the board can be kept appraised of
the listening tour notes?
>> I can't answer all that.
And the reason for during conf
confidentiality, we willingly pulled out
of that search.
We pulled out it. So it wasn't a case
where we pulled out of that search
>> for a number of reasons. Uh but here's
the thing that does happen. We're not
perfect.
But what we do do is go back on these
Tuesday meetings, have conversations,
and think what can we do better? And in
fact, we've had three incidents where
we've changed our application
to ask more specific questions based on
this incidents that happened in other
districts along the way. So, we take it
seriously. We talk about it and our job
is always to get better at what we do.
And let me just add also that
our firm is now much more discriminating
about which districts we're going to
work with. And I hate to say it that
way, but there are some districts that
we simply will not put in an application
because we don't want to work with them
>> there.
>> We learned from past mistakes.
I'm assuming that the fees that you
quoted include the background checks,
validation of credentials, all that.
Yeah. Okay. I noticed the statistics
that you gave indicate uh 85% success
for 5 years. And I'm just wondering how
that compares to the previous firm that
presented that 94% uh succeeded in
making it through their first term. Like
how would you compare those apples and
oranges? Well, the first term is
typically three years, a three-year
contract,
>> whereas ours, we're talking about beyond
that three-year contract, but for five
years.
>> Yep.
>> And would you say that that compares
favorably with other firms in general?
>> Uh, I think we are by far have the
longest longevity. We are very serious
with the candidates. You were asking the
common questions.
If we bring a candidate forward for your
your top one, two, three, four, five or
six candidates, I will tell you we are
very serious with them. We need you to
stay five years.
Second of all, if they choose not to and
they want to apply for one of our jobs
within uh the leadership associates, we
will not take them on. We will tell them
you cannot apply for that particular
job. So that's one of the reasons and
how we are able to do that. But we talk
about it. No, the expectation is 5
years. After 5 years, all bets are off
to be frank with you. But five years is
what we tell our candidates.
>> Other questions in the last minute? Um
I'll ask the same one just to absolutely
make sure that um because you have a
Spanish speaker on your team, um does
that that means the community outreach
to the Spanish community will be held in
Spanish, not through translation? Right.
I almost recommend both.
>> Okay.
>> Almost recommend both. I do. I think
there will be some who will be more
comfortable if that's the format that
you've used in the past.
>> Not only translation, I should.
>> Exactly.
>> Yeah. Exactly.
>> Perfect.
>> Uh all right. Well, Dr. Hors and Dr.
Andrew, thank you so much for coming and
presenting uh leadership associates to
us tonight. Um I see that we have Zel
online, so I think we can switch to our
next presentation. Thank you guys and so
much. Good luck to you.
>> Hello there.
>> Hello.
>> I uh my name is Jeff Melendez. I
apologize for the uh the the the
background here. I'm I'm actually at a
truck stop on my way home from uh an all
day flight uh back from Bogota, Colombia
where we were doing some work and um so
I apologize but I'm really of this
opportunity. I had sent um am I my
screen or um would are are you guys
going to share our presentation?
>> Jeeoff, whichever you prefer. I have it
ready here. Or if you want to share your
screen as all that works.
>> Yeah, I can share my screen. That'd be
great. Um, just give me one moment.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. Can Can you see that?
>> It hasn't quite loaded.
Sorry, it hasn't quite loaded up yet.
Um,
>> okay.
We see uh we see that you started screen
sharing but not the content
>> here I can share my screen do it and
then you can just next slide during the
presentation.
>> Okay sure that's not a problem. So I'll
stop sharing. Evelyn I had sent I had
emailed you a a a slightly updated one.
Um I don't know if you saw that or not
but if if not that's fine. There was
only one little thing which I can point
out.
>> Yes. I I I opened up the one you just
sent me via email.
>> Oh, great. Great. Thank you so much. So,
um
>> I want to start just by um setting the
time expectations. We're we're looking
like 30 minutes for the whole thing.
Maybe 15 to 20 minutes for the
presentation and that'll leave the
trustees 10 minutes to ask questions.
>> Absolutely. We'll be we'll be right in
that time frame. No problem.
>> Outstanding. Thank you.
>> Okay. So, thank you. Um I'll if you
could go to the uh the first slide
there, Evelyn. Thank you. So, just a
quick little bit about our firm um and a
little bit about me and then I'll have a
couple of our team members introduce
themselves who are here this evening.
So, um I've been in education for my
entire career, 25 years. Was a teacher
principal, superintendent, uh on the
east coast. I was an adjunct at Teachers
College, Columbia University for about
uh 12 years where I did my graduate work
and um started Zeal three years ago. And
our um approach is is a little bit
different than uh the the um leadership
associates who just presented. Um we
don't just do superintendent searches.
In fact, our goal is to be the um the
firm that can do and help in any type of
need uh that a school or district has.
We have over a 100 consultants with a
wide wide variety of um of
specializations and interests and
passions. And uh so we we like to think
of ourselves almost like comparable to
the Mayo Clinic. A patient comes in and
doesn't exactly know what he or she
needs, but um or may know, but we bring
the specialist to to them. Um and so um
everything from security audits doing uh
one in Minnesota right now. We're doing
another one in Connecticut right now. We
do leadership coaching. We do
professional development, financial
audits, we do we do uh just about
everything. Um I'd like if you could
click to the next slide. I'd love to
just have my colleagues do a quick
introduction of themselves. David, I
believe uh you can go first.
Good evening uh governing board. My name
is Dr. David Miaur. I'm currently the
superintendent in the Coahone Valley
Union School District and have been in
California schools for 25 years, five
different districts and have been
working with Zeal for the last couple
and I'm really excited to share this
process some of the innovations in
search and the fact that my sister
Xander Joe Galvin and I are on the
committee I think strengthens with two
sitting very successful California
superintendents. Thank you.
Sandra, do you want to uh introduce
yourself there?
>> Absolutely. Thank you. It's a it's uh an
honor and a privilege to be in front of
you today to share a little bit about
our expertise as a team. Uh I've been a
educator in California for over 30
years. Been a seated superintendent
entering my ninth year in all levels of
school districts from preschool all the
way to 12th grade. and I bring to you
expertise from the state of California
uh working very close to the Bay Area in
the Selenus Union High School District
in the Monterey County area. So very
familiar uh with the Bay Area and of
course uh California. Honored to be
here.
>> Um the other uh person on this search if
we were to be awarded this opportunity
is Dr. Ian Saltzman. Um I'm sure you
were able to read his bio. He's the
superintendent in Everett, Washington.
um and uh just incredibly um
well-connected. All three of the people
that would be um on the search and I I
would also be a part of this team um and
very active in the process, but um they
are all current sitting superintendents
with recent um knowledge of all of the
um um opportunities and challenges that
are being uh experienced in the field of
education and in you know across the
country. If we can go to the next slide,
please. So, um you've just sat through a
few presentations. Um I was able to
listen uh to um the um leadership
associates um on the call. So, I won't
go through um you know all the all those
details. What what you will see though
obviously is that there's a lot of
overlaps. Most national search firms are
going to have teams of experienced
superintendents. The differentiator
being in our case uh that our our
superintendents are not retired
superintendents. They're they're active
superintendents. So they have um maybe a
little bit more um experience with the
currency of you know what is happening.
Um all firms are going to talk about how
they engage stakeholders. Um we we think
that is essential to this and we go in
my belief a little bit a little bit
further um in some ways to do that. um
any search firm that is good is going to
um you know do leverage their extensive
national network. Um I have a almost I'm
almost a 10,000 uh followers on LinkedIn
um which has been um which has been uh
you know exciting to to almost get
there. Um and like I said we have a hund
over 100 consultants from around the
country and um uh so we have an
extensive network as well. Um and um all
firms are going to describe and and the
I'm sure my uh the other firms also
described how they're going to you know
screen applicants and narrow the field
and recommend strong candidates to the
board for interviews. Um if you can go
to the next slide.
So a couple of things that I think
differentiate Zeal in in this um and so
you can see these here. I'm going to
walk through pretty quickly. So if you
can go to the uh the next slide, the
first one is concierge level service and
and what I think about when I think
about the word concierge, it's
anticipating needs. So what we do is we
really and I'm sure you've heard this
from other firms, you know, have a
planning meeting. um we we actually
delineate very very clearly um what
roles and responsibilities Zeal has,
what roles and responsibilities the
board has and what roles and
responsibilities we have together. So
that's our chronological search
timeline. You can see that there and
it's more detail in your proposal. Um
that's important because it really
clarifies expectations. Um, and we want
to and we think about this concier level
service as eliminating anything that
would take away your ability to focus on
choosing the right leader. So, we try to
handle all the things from, you know,
having professionally designed
invitations to members of your community
to let them know that the board wants to
hear their input. uh providing every um
uh providing every week a progress
report that can be um you know
transmitted easily to your community to
give updates on your website or through
your email or other social channels. Um
and in terms of concierge we we go way
above and beyond. I think we support um
with you know if you'd like to the
extent that the board wishes u
negotiations with a successful candidate
we help with the development of an entry
plan which is a very important piece. We
help with onboarding of the
superintendent um and and I'll get into
a few other details and things that
we've included in this proposal. We
really pay attention to detail. You can
go to the next slide.
Proactive stakeholder engagement. So, I
know you've heard and actually I was
really impressed with um um Leadership
Associates. I heard them talk about, you
know, going to where the people are and
um we did a search in Rock Hill, South
Carolina. We we take that very seriously
as well. We we had um a community of
Native Americans on a reservation. We
went and sent our team to the to the
reservation to to listen, to hear, to
really proactively engage people in the
community. A lot of firms will say we
sent out a survey. Um we go way way way
beyond that. Um you can see the
engagement calendar. That's a sample. Uh
the yellow are the virtual meetings. The
blue are the in-person meetings. We do
virtual. We do in-person. We do um town
hall meetings, meetings with individual
board members, meeting with every
conceivable group that you think is
important for us to hear. Um, and what
this does is it really makes sure that
the stakeholders in your community know
that their voices matter and have an
impact and influence on the on the
superintendent um the leadership profile
that we develop. Um, I will um talk a
there's another piece I'll go to the
next slide and we'll talk a little bit
more about that. So when we talk about
surveys, you know, um I did I I I'm very
familiar with HYA and um and I know that
um Leadership Associates also does a a
multilingual um uh survey. They they
mentioned we don't charge extra either
for that, of course. Um we don't charge
extra for for anything. Everything in
the proposal is pretty clear. Um, if you
have your phone and you wish and you can
see that little QR code, it'll give you
a chance to actually experience what
Thought Exchange is. If you're not
familiar with Thought Exchange, it's
been around for probably two decades.
It's a it's a very very um um exciting
way of engaging people in in expressing
their views. So whereas most surveys are
are developed to force you into choosing
from several options, a thought exchange
will ask the question um you know and we
could develop it however we want. It
could but typically they say what's your
priority for the next superintendent of
schools and what that does is it allows
and and you can the person taking
participating can uh
experience this in in over a 100
languages on their cell phone and then
when people start writing their thoughts
and and adding those they get to star
those thoughts in real time it all gets
translated
languages are translated it's pretty
phenomenal. And um and then the the
thoughts that have the greatest merit uh
by the highest star rating get moved up
and and then so we use this data to
inform um really um you know what the
people that are participating think. So
in terms of engagement, we we go to
where people are. We we do it virtually,
we do it in person, and we um also use
thought exchange to develop that
leadership profile and to really engage
folks. If you want to go to the next
slide,
another thing that we um we think
differentiates us is we've come up with
these six personas. Now, um I would love
to tell you that, you know, the
superintendent we find you is going to
be perfect and can do everything, but
that's just not that's not the case. Um
different superintendents, different
leaders have different skills and
dispositions and proclivities. And so
depending on the needs of your community
at this time, which may, you know, be
different than when you hired your
previous superintendent, um we use this
as an additional lens to help the board
think through and evaluate candidates.
So is is instruction a concern right
now? Maybe you need an instructional
leader. Is are there crises that are
going on in your community? Maybe you
need a crisis manager. Maybe you need
somebody to build community. So um now
every superintendent and every you know
leader can adapt. So I'm not suggesting
that that that there are these these
personality types and archetypes that
that are very fixed but it part of our
process of of of evaluating candidates
is we ask them and by the way this is I
think pretty cool. We um we ask each
candidate when they are the ones we're
recommending for the slate, which is
about 10, to record themselves for 90
seconds in a little video, answering the
question what persona they they believe
um they bring as their greatest strength
and why they want to be a why they're a
fit for for um for your community for
Rockwood. So, uh I'm sorry, Redwood. So,
so it's a very personalized thing. So,
you get to not just read resumeumés, but
we we curate a package for you and we um
show these 90 second uh videos and you
get to really meet the candidates before
you make decisions on who to interview.
Uh, next slide.
The last thing is, and you know, I know
there are questions and there's always a
question about a guarantee. I don't like
to think about um I would disagree with
the with with um um respectfully
disagree with leadership associates
about you know a particular timeline and
saying you have to stay five years. I
mean, we want to find a fit and we want
and we me we would measure and we're a
new firm so it's I don't have a lot of
data to to provide you in this but we
try to mitigate the the sort of problem
of it not being a fit by ensuring that
we're doing everything to support the
candidate and creating a high performing
governance team. Um we we do that by
facilitating a board retreat which we've
included in this proposal and we do that
by providing executive coaching um with
the with the new superintendent to make
sure that these relationships and the
foundation of trust is developed and um
and ensure their success. So those are
some of the things I think we do
differently. Um, and I would love to
entertain some questions and would
welcome my colleagues to join uh join in
and and and jump in where they can.
>> All right. Thank you, Jeff, for the
presentation. Um, I will turn to Jen to
start with our questions.
>> Thank you for the presentation. I just
have one um clarification question.
>> Sure. Sounds like we have a pretty short
um timeline from what I've been seeing
on the process and it sounds like your
um team is all active superintendent
kind of what is the
how how does that work?
>> Um well I think I I I could let them
answer. Um what superintendents are
really good at is getting the job done
and um and they are in a pos place in
their careers where uh this is something
that they are passionate about doing and
want to do it and and we have I mean I'm
I'm part of the team too. Uh I'm part of
the support and I think we have three
people on the team plus me. Um, I don't
think that there would be any any issue
with that, but I'll let my colleagues uh
respond to that because they're actively
working.
>> Yeah, I'm sure that that my other two
colleagues both have in their contracts
the provision to consult and we take
vacation days when we do that. We're
very excited to to help Redwood City in
this search. Um, working with Zeal and
seeing the process that Jeff has put
together and providing coaching for new
superintendent really got me excited
about this. And locally in Powe Unified
School District in San Diego County, the
recent search that they just went
through, they had active superintendents
from San Diego as part of the search
process. And I can tell you from just
conversations with my colleagues, having
people that are vetting candidates,
having conversations with your cabinet
and your governance team about the
current political issues, the financial
issues, the federal and state
conversations that are happening are
really important to make sure that you
have someone that is going to be able to
handle the diff difficult conversations
that are coming to you probably right
now. And especially with Dr. Baker who
has been so successful in region 5
superintendent of the year and the
longevity he's provided really
understanding the vision of the school
district and the history of the school
district is important and I think Xander
and I in our current roles can do that
quite well sis
>> absolutely I concur with um all of what
he shared and I'll also share with you
um our locality right so I'm not very
far from you and uh being able to be
able to meet with our families and
oftentimes it's not during the workday,
right? We're going to have to have
evening meetings. Sometimes it's going
to be Saturdays or Sundays and those are
all days that we work around. In
addition to that, like um my brother
here, my we call each other brother
Soups, Sister Soups, because we take
care of each other in this this crazy
world, right? Um, but we also have
provisions in our contracts to be able
to have additional days that if it's
needed during a workday, that's
something that we absolutely could work
around because we have all those days
that are available. The other thing I
will tell you is um the availability to
speak in the language of the majority of
your population. I did notice you have a
lot of Spanish speaking community. So,
um to have meetings in um Spanish is
going to be very important to you. And
as we know with hardworking families,
it's the evenings is when they're going
to um need our availability. So,
and and in a way that they feel seen,
valued, and heard. And so, I think
that's um a level that we would bring um
to your to your district and and treat
the next candidate exactly as what I
would want for my children and what we
would want for our children as well. I
know it's a really big decision that you
have to make when you're looking at your
next top official and it's not something
that you can take lightly. And so our
availability to meet your needs is going
to be of critical importance and so we
would make ourselves available.
>> Next question. Um Cecilia, do you want
to do you have a question for Zeal?
>> How long have you guys um been a um
organization?
>> Three years.
>> Thank you.
>> All right. Uh, David Weekley,
>> how many Bay Area superintendent have
you placed?
>> Zero.
>> How many California superintendents have
you placed?
>> Zero.
>> Yeah,
>> those are great questions. Um, I if that
is the the primary criteria or concern,
I certainly don't think we'd be the
right firm for you. But what I will tell
you is um we did a search in Rock Hill,
South Carolina. Um, we're not from South
Carolina. Um, the team that I had on
that project, I had a s uh I had
somebody from North Carolina, somebody
from Texas and somebody from Ohio and we
recruited 25 qualified applicants across
17 states.
Um, so if if that's the metric that is
of biggest concern, uh, we don't have
the experience yet. We're a new firm. Um
but I have absolutely no doubt and
confidence in my colleagues that we
understand what is central and
foundational to the success of a
superintendent search and that is we can
work with boards, we can work with
communities and we have a network and we
understand the job and we understand how
to put it all together and bring you uh
candidates that to select from.
>> Jeff, can I speak to that too? Yeah.
>> Yes. I think HYA and Leadership
Associates talked about partner
organizations like AXA and CSBA.
Xandra and I are are members. So, we are
part of CSBA. We are part of the
association, California school
administrators. Xander, I think you
should share about CLSA and the work
you've done for the statewide
organization, but we're also part of a
national network. So, as opposed to just
posting advertisements in Edcow and Ed
Join, we're going to go out and recruit
because we're in the in the weeds and in
the trenches with the best people in the
business all over the country and
certainly well connected in our state.
>> Absolutely. And I'll echo that. We
currently mentor across this great
nation and through several organiz David
and I are both adviserss to uh future uh
ready schools which is based out of DC
and are looking for a large pool of uh
seated superintendents or aspiring
superintendent. Uh I also mentor for
AASA which is the mothership for AXA. So
the local California organization has um
cohortsmies
of aspiring superintendent and I
currently mentor for not only the Latino
Latina academy of aspiring
superintendent I also mentor for female
aspiring superintendent. Each one of
those have anywhere from 30 to 75
members and I most recently joined um
faculty to mentor the aspiring supernate
academy. So, not necessarily female, not
necessarily of ethnicity, but a larger
pool of all types of candidates. Um, we
meet regularly. I meet with three
candidates who I'm assigned to and I
mentor with them virtually and then we
meet in person at the national
conference which happens February and
March during that time. And so, we're
quite a bit of our imprint is throughout
the nation. And so, David is very
approachable. I'm very approachable. And
so people often will message us and ask
for advice um on what they're trying to
do in the in a particular um you know
event or situation that they're
experiencing both in the seauite level
and in the superintendent level. So our
reach is pretty far and um we're very
active in in those networks to help
support those that we serve.
>> Thank you. I noticed the presentation
put a fair bit of stock in the thought
exchange platform which seems like a
neat platform but uh many of our
community members are likely to need on
the ground outreach in person and in
Spanish and not just AI powered
engagement surveys. So I'm curious what
your plan might be for that.
>> That's a great question. Maybe we could
go back to that slide um where let's see
Evelyn it should be uh number two
proactive stakeholder engagement. So, if
you can pull that slide up, um you'll
see that there's a calendar that we put
together and what we do is we recommend
so it's um it's uh yeah, it's down one
more. Yeah, right there. Perfect. So we
recommend that the that the board and
you know working with your tech
department or whomever is in control of
the website or other channels for
communication. We publish a engagement
calendar which which identifies and in
this case it was a full week um of
opportunities for both inperson so those
are the blue ones um virtual and and um
and then the thought exchange the
surveys is separate on top of that. So
we will we will do that. We will be on
the boots on the ground in person day or
night. Um we also recommend duplicating
the opportunities. So we don't just give
a a um an in-person meeting for
principles. We do an in-person meeting
for principles and a virtual meeting for
principles. And what we do is we work
with your leadership so that we don't we
don't you know set it at a time set a
meeting with your power professionals
when it's it would cause a contractual
interference or a familial interference
with them having to go and take care of
their families. So we we we generate
this calendar with the input of your
leadership to make sure that we maximize
the opportunities. We publish it and we
say and and then we send individual
invitations
um you know personalized invitations to
to these stakeholder groups to make sure
that they're invited um in in one of the
other searches in Rock Hill. We they
want them to meet with the NAACP. We
sent a personalized invitation. We met
at a specific location to meet with
them. So um yeah, absolutely. Great
question and I'm glad I got to point out
that we do virtual, in person, and
thought exchange.
>> Thank you,
David Lee. No questions. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, I think this covered um anybody
else more questions.
Go ahead. Yeah,
>> I just noticed in the presentation there
was a mention of we don't charge extra
for anything, but then I did see in the
proposal that background checks were
extra and that AASA and targeted email
sending were also extra. Is that
correct?
>> That's correct. Yeah, those are
third-party charges. So, um any any
thirdparty
um so publishing a uh and getting a top
spot on AASA's website is a third-party
charge. Um and then doing a doing a um a
criminal background social media DUI,
you know, state, all of that background
background check is uh is additional
because it's it's engaged by a third
party that we we h can handle for you.
It's also optional. So, you know, that's
that's your call if you want to do that.
I recommend um at least for the for the
final candidate that you do that third
party background check. Um but some some
districts have their own internal
processes for that. So we leave that up
to your discretion.
>> Great. And I think I mean for me your
presentation pretty much covered
everything. Um I nor I already got the
answer to uh you do hold community
outreach in Spanish not just through
translation. So that was good to hear.
Um if there are no other questions
then I can say thank you to Drs.
Melinda's Mia and Galvin for your
presentation for Zeal. Um and I think we
can move into board discussion.
>> Thank you.
>> All right. Thanks.
>> Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
>> Yeah, we do too. Thank you.
>> Okay, have a great night.
>> Um, okay. Uh, so I want to again thank
all the firms for the presentations and,
uh, I thought maybe to get us started,
we could just go around real fast and
just take take each um, name one
strength or positive impressive you had
from any one of the firms. Um, not all
of them, just pick one uh, strength that
you wanted to do and like let's just
sort of start the conversation out with
that. Can I start with you, Trustee
Weekly? Sure. Um I I have to say I
really did love seeing Eric's passion um
and just the comparability of Campbell
as a district and this is a leadership
associates. So thought that was
impressive.
>> Cecilia, would you like to name one
strength of one one of the firms?
>> Um same for leadership and associates.
Um, as I mentioned before, I appreciated
the fact that they did their homework
and um, not just presented, but also saw
our meetings uh, prior um, knows that we
are here to serve our students. So, I
really appreciate that.
Mine's for leaders leadership associate
also, but thinking about what I I need
as a board member to get through this
process. I liked that they were detailed
in the guiding of what are the steps,
what are kind of the process.
>> I I will say I do appreciate all of the
presentations and the the firms. It's
very clear that very smart people are
working um on all these things and I
would I think we would probably be in
good hands with any of them. But I will
also add with leadership associates that
I think one one strength that stood out
to me was the degree to which is clearly
customized to uh the specific comments
that we've made both in past board
meetings as well as today. Um so that
gave me confidence of um any handholding
we'll we'll need.
>> Yeah, I think I started this out saying
we're going to see three firms, all are
qualified, all are very strong uh and
put it there. So I think we put that
together. Um I'm going to jump to straw
poll. I think I know where it's going.
Um, but I wanted to just do this, it's
not a final vote. Um, I just wanted to
do this to get a sense of where
everyone's leaning so that if we're
going to have a discussion afterwards.
Um, so I'll just ask you to share which
firm you'd be most comfortable moving
forward with if we had to decide um
tonight, which I'm hoping we do. This
isn't lock anyone in yet. It's not a
vote. Um, you know, we're just trying to
see where it is. So maybe we'll go
around backwards. Um, David Lee,
>> uh, I would go with leadership
associates. All right, Jen.
>> I would go with leadership associates.
>> Celia,
>> same here.
>> Oh, I'd like to be the contrarian, but
I'll go with I'd say leadership
associates as well.
>> I'm going to say it's looking like
leadership associates probably has the
most support. Um, so unless anyone feels
strongly otherwise, I suggest we just
move to a formal motion to approve. Um,
do we remember like what the language
was from the memo for someone to be able
to make the formal motion?
Okay. Can someone make the motion then?
>> Yeah. I move that the board of trustees
approve Leadership Associates as the
superintendent search firm to assist in
the recruitment and hiring of the next
superintendent of the Redwood City
School District.
>> Okay. And is there a second?
>> I second.
>> Okay. All in favor?
>> I.
>> All right. Thank you. I want I really
want to thank all our three our three
firms that came and presented tonight
this evening. I mean it is just first of
all these 90 minutes were super
educational for me just about the whole
process because as as you pointed out
from the very beginning none of us have
gone through this before and so every
minute that you spent here was was super
valuable and I really appreciate it
and Evelyn you too thank you for
coordinating as always. Um okay
can I thank you? Yeah, I really
appreciate it. Um, okay, let's move on
to 8.2.
>> Just one quick remark I wanted to throw
on. So, thank thank you for helping put
that together. And I also just wanted to
say that we we did try and I want to
congratulate uh Evelyn and Dr. Baker for
doing pretty extensive outreach. So, we
actually went to many more than just
>> firms, three firms. I I couldn't believe
how few re reached back out. I actually
personally went and reached out to a
bunch more to try and uh fill top of
funnel but um you know the these were
the three that were the most responsive.
So thanks so much for your work on the
process.
>> Yeah, outstanding firms. Thank you.
>> Um okay, let's move on to 8.2 which is
adoption of resolution number eight and
this is approval of education code
options for teaching assignments. Um we
know this.
>> Yes. Any questions or comments?
>> Does anyone have questions or comments?
No. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve?
I move we approve at 8.2.
>> Is there a second?
>> Second.
>> All in favor?
>> I.
>> I. Perfect. Uh 8.3 is the second reading
and
>> 8.3 is the second reading and approval
of BP 3320 which is claims and actions
against the district and adoption of
resolution number nine.
>> Yes, thank you for that. I did want to
point out on the board memo there are um
two versions but the one noted one has
the most recent very small edits that uh
we needed to make. So those upon
approval would be the two that would be
uploaded the resolution of course and
then the board policy 3320.
>> Are there questions about the resolution
the memo? Everything's been if anyone
had questions and beforehand they've
been addressed. Feels good. Okay. Then
is there a motion to approve?
>> So move.
>> A second.
>> Second.
>> All in favor?
>> Perfect. Okay. Then remember 9.1 we
moved to later. So we'll move on to our
consent agenda. We're going to approve
all the items under section 10 in one
motion and vote. Can I get a motion to
approve the consent agenda?
>> I move we approve the consent agenda.
>> Is there a second?
>> Second.
>> All in favor?
>> I.
>> I. Great. Um then just by order of the
agenda, we're going to move on to this
board and superintendent reports. Um who
would like to start?
>> Yeah, go for it.
>> Uh went to the Taft Elacprincipal coffee
um which was great. There were about a
dozen parents which is great to see just
the engagement in general um
particularly in Bayside school but also
just the report that was clear from um
the principal David and uh the families
there a lot of topics were covered um
that we've gone through before cell
phone chronic absenteeism uh and lots of
opportunities for volunteers uh to keep
folks engaged um and that yeah I thought
it was super helpful just to to see that
happening um soliciting folks to to join
DACA and solve problems there to extent
there were any just again making sure
through representation. Uh and then RCF
uh was also present and presented a
check. Um very helpful to have our as we
know um funds are necessary. So whenever
we can get them that was great. And then
separately I uh joined the
superintendent's uh advisory council
meeting earlier. Uh again very helpful
um for for those who do not know it's a
way to disseminate information to all
the different representatives at the
different school sites. This was the
English version. Um but uh great to get
some questions and engagement
specifically on the parcel tax effort
that we've obviously been a part of. Um
lots of good questions and it sounds
like people are thinking about a lot of
the uncertainty. I think we all share
simil um similar concerns just about
where we are and uh but I think it
sounded like folks are um trying to
solve the problem together. So that was
great. Uh and then Dr. Dr. Baker did a
great job of also just getting input for
all the other open positions for bond
oversight uh par all the other meaning
DAC budget committee etc. So, um, that
was a good meeting.
>> Great. Thank you. Uh, Jen, do you have
anything to report?
Oh, coffee.
>> We had policy meeting this week, but
other than that.
>> Okay, great. Cecilia.
>> Um, I was also present on Monday um for
the superintendent advisory committee.
So,
>> nice. Okay, good.
>> I am bereft of things to report.
>> Yeah, me too. It's okay. Um, Dr. Baker,
anything to report?
>> It's already been mentioned. and the
superintendent's advisory.
>> Great. Let's move on to the information
section. Um, three letters from uh the
CBO's office uh for the three uh charter
schools. Um, anyone have questions about
the information? Rick, anything to add
on top of what's there? I don't I think
it's your item, right? Yeah.
>> I'll just mention uh on the letter to
Kip, there was some requests for
corrections and they have made those.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
All right. That's it for information.
Um, then we are up to uh 9.1 again. Uh,
and so we're going to do the uh this is
9.1 the school board self-evaluation um
discussion of results. Uh
so
this is our first time we've done this
at least as when I've been on the board
a self-evaluation. So I think it's uh
new to all of us. I've been been here
for five years. um you know if we find
it useful I hope that we'll continue to
make it part of our governing practices
um according to the survey it's supposed
to be so uh um maybe maybe we can start
that um I I do want to say that you know
this this we use the CSBA
self-evaluation and uh just as a
reminder it's designed to assess how the
governance team operates like the roles
the norms meeting craft clarity with the
superintendent board's core
responsibilities it doesn't really judge
the wisdom or the impact of specific
policies right so we're going to be
talking more about like how we work and
not necessarily whether whether the
right thing's being done necessarily. Um
but hopefully that if we establish great
practices, you know, that should make it
so that our processes will drive better
outcomes for every student. Um you know,
and keep equity at the center. Um and
then also the other thing that I I noted
there was that CSBA emphasizes that this
is perception data. It's not really
facts. Um but it's supposed to spur our
learning. Um so we we'll use the
self-perception to confirm our
strengths, identify growth areas um and
you know focus areas and then we'll set
some goals. Um
>> and then I guess the last thing I wanted
to say is that we have um uh as you can
see from the results we uh perceive our
culture is really good. So I'm but I'm
still going to set some sort of norms
for this conversation. Um we want to
listen to understand and assume positive
intent. Um, we're going to speak to the
board performance and systems, not to
individuals. Uh, we're going to stay at
the governance level and not dive into
operational rabbit holes. And then we're
going to use evidence and examples and
we will uh disagree agreeably. Um, I
have a presentation
um that can walk us through some of
these things that I will uh attempt to
see if I can share it if I'm allowed.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, there we go. I'm uh uh so
we'll review the self-evaluation. I have
a little fiveminute warm-up exercise for
us. Then we'll go into the different
areas. I took an attempt to try and like
pull them out and put them into focus
areas for us to sort of guide this
conversation and then I think at the end
of this we're going to set three goals
um out of this. Uh we'll do a little
voting exercise um and go through that.
Okay. Um, so the one thing I want to do
is just round robin. Uh, one board
strength you're proud of and one
surprise you want to understand. David
Weekley
>> strength is just I feel like we work
really well together as a board and it's
something that brings me joy.
>> Cecilia,
>> that's actually my most favorite part
about Robert City. Um, we are a cohesive
team and so I appreciate the fact that
again we could maybe agree to disagree
at times but respect each other. So I
really appreciate that.
>> Wait, I forgot um something you were
surprised of, something that surprised
you.
>> I didn't realize until the packet came
out that we really don't have much
formal process for onboarding new
trustees and it was like ah yeah, we
probably should have.
>> Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Uh, Cecilia, you're surprised.
That wasn't a surprise cuz I I felt it
when I came in, but again, just because
I work for another school district, um,
>> I think I am going to skip the answer. I
don't know that I think a price.
>> Jen,
>> I agree with both um David and Cecilia
on the strength. Um and then the
surprise I guess for me was
I was surprised at the onboarding
process, but seeing that it kind of
>> Yeah,
>> that's not my own perspective was maybe
the surprise.
>> Got it. Uh David Lee,
>> um I'll I'll try something different. Uh
one of the strengths that I saw that was
echoed during one of the presentations
was also that I think we are all um
agreeing that we are student focused um
which is great. Uh and then one of the
surprises I think on the flip side is
despite that um there's also some
unonymity among the degree to which
we're um setting clear goals on what
that looks like or like having a system
in place. Um so I want to understand
like how we can move that forward.
>> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And for me, the
strength is similar. Like it's just it's
obvious the sections that are all really
green. So that was uh I was proud of
that. Um and then the surprise was, you
know, I was really surprised that nobody
knew law for selection. It's kind of
like right in the bylaws of like how to
how to put that in. That one really I
mean to me I thought that bylaw was like
way over prescriptive. So I was kind of
surprised that the rotation wasn't
known. Um okay. Go ahead. Yeah. I I
think the wording was whether or not
everyone agreed to this the mechanism by
which officers are decided. Ah
>> so that might have been some of the
unknown people.
>> Okay. Okay. Yeah. Maybe I misinterpreted
it. That's why it surprised me then. Um
okay. So I went in and sort of looked at
some strengths. Um and I just wanted to
pull them out. You can agree or
disagree. We can use this as a framework
here. But um you know this kind of goes
to what we just talked about. Um it
looks like we're doing pretty well on
mutual respect and confidentiality.
Um those kind of came up as you know
pretty solidly green and as a reminder
green is top two box um score. I can't
remember what they are on the top but
the top is the left and the um un no
idea is on the right. Um so I thought
these were the items that fit into it
but I think there's a good culture of
mutual respect and confidentiality
um preparedness and uh meeting
leadership. Thank you. Um, but I know it
goes to all the uh other board
presidents that were there. Um, but
everybody comes in prepared. Um, and it
seems like we're doing okay on that
front. Um, then there's unity and focus
on achievement. I think you've called
that out, David Lee. So, uh, I think
that that's that's great that we all
perceive that we're doing this. We're
working well together. Um, we're, you
know, not undermining our decisions and
we're focused on achievement for all
students. Um, so what I want to ask is
like what behaviors and patterns are
creating these wins? In other words,
like what do we need to keep doing to
make sure that uh you know we continue
these strengths? Um I'm going to go
backwards. Uh David Lee, you can start.
>> I I think for us, and I think you
mentioned this before, really having
these formalized conversations and
putting them on the calendar of the
board's self-evaluations and reflections
this year for sure like this is great.
And to continue doing that, I think is
going to really help force us to
continue to be mindful of like how we
can improve on all the things we're
doing and maintaining all the strengths
that we're doing as well.
>> Jen,
>> yeah, I agree. I think um the last
session we had where we were able to
focus on a couple topics and also get to
know each other um really kind of will
keep this section green very easily.
Cecilia,
>> I appreciate the retreats and so um and
I know we've mentioned it. Um I know
it's hard with people's times, but I
think that brings us together and then
we could talk about certain um topics
that could benefit the district. So
>> David Weekly,
>> yeah, I feel like a lot of what board
meetings constitute in terms of just a
regular day-to-day board meeting is like
tactics and tactically executing. Uh but
I think it's important that we intermix
that with strategic discussions. So
things that are important but not urgent
and therefore have a tendency to just
get kind of pushed out. And so things
like retreats offer a time for us to
talk about some of those things and get
those things calendared. I'm looking
forward to having us lean more into
that.
>> Yeah. Okay. Um and then I think that
behavior I think the preparedness
actually is the thing that kind of adds
to all of this. It's really easy to be
respectful when you've like understood
and like taken the time to look at both
sides or whatever it is around the
issues. So I think that's definitely a
um behavior and pattern that we should
continue to you know to keep creating
these wins. Um okay. So now let's talk
about what we really want to do here
which is where are the areas that we can
start improving. So I highlighted a few
growth areas um like six. So uh but you
know if you have others by all means
suggest them. Um clearly we don't
perceive we have a good uh governance
clarity with the superintendent. Um you
know that we're you know this is around
giving direction only at board meetings
and making sure that not individuals
aren't trying to direct the
superintendent. Um
uh board development onboarding cadence.
Um we just talked a little bit about the
retreats um and being able to do that
but uh obviously onboarding has room for
improvement. Um
uh setting direction and indicators. Um
this was around like you know yeah you
can see it here adopting the long range
priorities. Um pulling in community
input. Um this one I think we could try
and if we wanted to spend some time
unpacking it we we could a little bit
there because there is if you think of
like the direction set through the LCAP
there is an extensive stakeholder um
engagement thing there. So it might be
something to think about on that one
like what what do we think is missing um
the and then around the district and
mission tied to like where the outcomes
are. Um so that this one I call setting
direction and indicators. Um I said
there's like this policy and
accountability followth through that
there sort of perception. Um there's a
you know you can see the the items that
sort of fit in here where it looks like
uh we don't we don't think that we're
doing so well on these things. Um
community leadership and communications
like this is just the whole section. Uh
I just you know I just took it. We we
feel like we're not doing a great job um
as a board of being leaders in the
community. Uh, and so what I wanted to
ask if we go back through there and I'm
happy to um go back to any of the slides
if you want to see the questions.
Actually, I sent it to everyone, right?
So you you have it. Um,
if we think of those areas as like
places where we could say, hey, this is
one of the ones that we want to work on,
um, and we want to put some sort of
action in there. Which one of them, you
know, if we improved it, would be the
most beneficial for students and the
district this year? Um, I'm going this
way this time. David Weekly.
>> Yeah, I think framed that way, the
answer is clear to me that setting
direction and indicators is the most
impactful thing that we could do just to
align the whole district around like why
are we here and how will we know if
we're successful? Okay,
Cecilia,
>> that would probably be an important one,
but I also feel obviously we're here
now, but on boarding could probably
be the first step to actually
do better as a board.
So perhaps the board development and
onboarding um would be one.
>> Jen,
>> um I agree with Trusty Weekly, but I
also would think that the policy and
accountability follow through kind of
work hand inhand with those. I think at
least what I've seen more recently
bringing up and reviewing the policies
has kind of also driven conversation
about setting directions and kind of
where the board
puts things in importance.
>> Okay. Uh David Lee.
>> Uh yeah, I think I'll I'll echo what U.
Trusty Weekly and uh King said. Um and I
think maybe very tangibly in my head I
think it would be really really helpful
in term I'm looking at number 39 in
terms of the measurable indicators to
assess the district performance. I I
think part of that is having a very
clear board developed calendar of
expectations of like what are we
monitoring and when are we monitoring
that because I think everything else
flows from that as well. like then we
can have a cohesive community message
then we can also orient board members to
what we think is important but I like
again we can do all the things but I
think that's that's the fundamental
starting point
all right then just to keep splitting it
I'm going to I'm going to say that I
think that actually governance clarity
with the superintendent because focus on
the right things is more important than
like scattering across all of the other
ones and so that might be something
going to be different but don't worry
we're going to get a chance to vote on
these to decide which ones we want to go
after So, I'm kind of glad to see that
there was a split vote here. Um, and uh,
table your ideas for how to improve it
because um, we'll look for like what a
good action item could be coming up
after this. Um, was there an area that
we thought was that did anybody have
anything that struck them as like, hey,
there was this like clear growth area
that didn't get covered in these? um for
me that last section, but it was
probably more about being new and not
knowing
>> what were the community events, what's
kind of the typical presence of board
members,
>> right?
>> Um
>> Okay. So, yeah, the onboarding kind of
back onto the onboarding here.
>> We weren't doing a good job. It was more
just uncertainty of kind of what was
available out there.
>> Okay. Okay. I mean, there was kind of
one that wasn't really in here that's
been a persistent bug bear of mine,
which is just making sure that we set
aside time regularly to go and have the
important strategic dialogue because
that's ultimately what the board meeting
needs to be about is us as trustees
convening to engage in earnest dialogue
about where the district needs to go to
best serve its students.
>> All right, I will I will keep that as a
That was something to stick on the
board.
Move on. The bunch of that were unclear.
Um unclear items are the ones that were
split votes. You know, it was sort of
like wasn't clearly red, not clearly
green. Um so somewhere in the middle
probably opportunities here. Um so I
think this might be kind of where you
were going about bringing up new ideas a
little bit. Um but there's some there's
some sense around processes like maybe
we need to um work on some of our
processes. Again we might end up pairing
that with like onboarding you know that
kind of thing of like how do we how do
we do these things? Um
the uh um this kind of like the meeting
craft like how we do our meetings. Um
you know do we are we reflecting the
right priorities using the right data?
do we have the right time on the right
items? Um, that kind of thing.
Uh, and then there was visibility, which
kind of goes back to the community
events. This stuff was kind of split.
Um, are we seen at at um key district
events and are we celebrating district
accomplishments? Um, and so
Jen, you kind of touched on this one a
little bit earlier, but like if we look
at these three areas, um, you know, I
guess one of the questions I had was
like are they are they process gaps or
just undocumented expectations.
Um, when we think about like the
processes for bringing things up, the
muted craft and visibility.
Dave Weekly, I saw you reaching, so go
ahead.
>> I was literally just adjusting my
microphone, but also I have something to
share, which is that any time I've been
part of an organization or a meeting
sequence that has gotten really good,
it's because we've made a discipline of
making it better each time. And so if we
had uh I'm just making this up on the
fly, but if after every board meeting we
were to send uh we have some place to
say at a meta level, how could that
meeting have gone better? Okay.
>> Right. How could we have had an even
better meeting? Then that'll make sure
that the next meeting will be better.
>> Okay.
>> Right. So are you suggesting that as
like that could be like a a goal that we
add in to improve our processes if we
decided that processes was an important
thing we wanted to go after?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay. Just is there some way to
provide feedback on like how might we
imagine
>> future meetings to go better? Yeah.
>> After every meeting.
>> Yeah. Makes sense.
Um Cecilia thoughts about um our some of
our split areas.
So the meeting craft um I think to me
just with the time being here
um there has been times when the right
time on the right items feels a little
like we kind of moved fast even though
we do try to make the best decision. Um
and then there's times when I feel we
spend a lot of time on something that
could probably could have been shorter.
I mean um
when we talk about process and
procedures maybe I mean one of the
things I know it has nothing to do with
like board but when like somebody's
presenting to the board um if we say
it's 15 minutes it goes 30 minutes so
now it's 45 minutes but if we try to
bring everybody together and everybody
be on the same page then I feel that um
it would leave has that extra time to
then have the time to discuss those
important items.
>> Great. And I'll uh I'll call out Evelyn
adding the time to all our agenda items
has been outstanding. So uh yeah, and
the clock is great. Um okay, Josh,
>> I personally think if we did this board
evaluation at a regular cadence or the
postmortem, post meeting, a lot of these
unclear items would be clearer.
It's just for me. I think part of it is
my responses are from being new versus
>> so a little bit of undocumented
expectations is kind of what you're
saying here. Yeah. Okay.
I I would agree. Yeah.
>> I think I'm probably in the same boat.
Well, I think I'm specifically think of
the visibility pieces maybe something
that's a little bit different where I
think there may be both a process gap
and an undocumented expectation concern
where kind of just trying to go to as
many things as I can and like that can't
be the right answer. Yeah. But we should
have that discussion of how we're how
we're thinking about it and document it.
>> Yeah. And by that you mean you're saying
like beyond like um uh the graduations,
retirement ceremonies, induction
ceremony, like all the ones that were
already going to, are there more out
there? And that's the part that like
you're you're saying, I don't know
what's out there. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Um
yeah, and I I look at these I think, you
know, I think,
you know, meeting craft is probably a
place where it probably is a process
gap. Um you know, and being able to
really focus on those not not just an
undocumented expectation. I think that
that one there's probably things that we
could continue to do better. And so
maybe maybe we'll find out what the
action item is from there. Um
>> I feel like on meeting craft there's one
that's related to the superintendent
direction one is that I feel like if it
was easier and almost more casual to go
and put a small item on on the agenda
for upcoming meetings and that board
members were expected or encouraged if
like you see something in the district
and you'd like to discuss it with
trustees and you'd like to give some
direction to the superintendent that it
becomes a regular thing um to go and
like check in before the agenda gets
finalized. Like, hey, did has anything
come up that you want to make sure that
we discuss at the next meeting?
>> I hear us problem solving. So, I think
we should move to um No, I think it's
great. I think we should move to like
let's let's we're not going to we're not
going to fix everything all at once.
Let's pick three. Um and I think three
is a reasonable number and then yeah,
then we can start saying like what do we
think that the action should be from
there. So, I've conveniently written
them down on a sticky note that I'm
going to stick onto the wall and Evelyn
has kindly brought stickers for
everyone. You get four votes and we're
just going to pick the top three and
then we'll come back and say what do we
want those actions to be so that we can
improve our meeting processes. Sound
good? Um,
>> I added in um I added in David Weekly
your additional one of uh Okay, sorry.
Just gonna make it a little bit more
difficult.
Oh, thank you. You're so kind. I was
worried that you would be able to read
it.
>> You're no doctor.
>> I'll leave my mic on so
>> yeah people can hear what we're saying.
If AV could maybe switch off the
presentation and zoom the
>> Oh, I'll stop.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> Stop sharing.
>> Folks online may need the power zoom to
actually see what's on the wall.
>> Um,
>> that's okay. I'm going to read out.
There'll be a read out so they don't
have to if if people can't see it. Um,
we'll read it out. Okay. So, Jen, just
take your stickers and go vote for the
four or There's no rules. You can put
all your stickers onto one thing if you
want.
>> No rules.
>> You have uh
or virtual credits.
Minor all the colors.
All
right. So, we're done. So,
that is three. That is three. Okay. So,
I'm going to see if I can combine these.
[Music]
It's not that one.
>> Yeah, we have a tie, but I think we can
combine these. Um, I'm disenfranchised.
>> So, Oh, yeah. Well,
>> okay. Um, sorry.
>> So, I don't think we going to sit down
and solve it all at once. So what I
wanted to do was say like is there
something we can set as like a goal and
like a time that we'll come back and you
know and say like hey we've got to this
part. Um so it doesn't have to be like
uh we need to know exactly what the
solution is. The goal might be we're
going to go back and you know um
re-evaluate what our plan is and like
come up with a new proposal for how we
want to be able to do that. Um so the
one with the the highest votes was
setting direction and indicators. I'm
going to go back and remind myself what
we were actually talking about as the
metrics for that one. Um,
setting directions and indicators. So,
as a reminder, um, this was providing
opportunities for community input when
developing districts, missions, core
belief, and vision. Of course, we don't
do that every year. Um we probably do
that every like five to six or seven
years, but we'll probably have an
opportunity coming up. Um you know, the
change uh adopting long range
priorities. Um we we felt like we were
either not sure or didn't think we did a
great job on that. Um the board uses the
district's mission, core beliefs, and
vision to drive district performance. Um
and the board adopts clear and
measurable indicators to assess district
performance. Um,
so if we think of that, um, I guess we
should try and figure out what would be
a good goal to propose,
um, to help start making us feel like
we'll feel like we're doing stronger on
that. Um,
trying to think of what a good
suggestion might be.
Um,
I don't know. Does someone have a
suggestion on what we could take as a
goal for that while I um, pull up my
notes?
Do do you want to talk it through again?
I I didn't quite catch the what is the
level of specificity we're getting here.
>> Um so what we're trying to do is say
like hey we want to try and make an
improvement in this area. So I don't
think we have to get down to I mean
unless we have a suggestion of like if
we do this we're going to go all green
on on these indicators in the future.
Um, but it could also just be like,
okay, we don't know what to do. So, why
don't we have a board member go off and
maybe talk with the superintendent or
one of the people in the cabinet and
figure out like, well, what could we do
to set this stuff up better? Um, so like
if for the indicators part, I would say
maybe it's not um, you know, maybe it's
not like let's pick indicators right
now. like that doesn't have to be the
goal, but maybe it's more like how can
we tie our mission and vision, you know,
like let's go in and say like let's have
a plan for how we're going to tie our
mission, vision, and and values into
um our decision- making more closely.
>> Sounds like a strategic discussion.
>> It could be. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
>> so I'll just I'll I'll reiterate what I
uh mentioned earlier, which I guess was
untimely, but I I think a good goal
would be to develop together
a basically a governance calendar on
accountability. So I think that will
force us to have the discussion of what
are the things that we really care about
which should reflect our district's
mission core believs
that we are really gauging performance
on and how are we going to look at that
throughout the year.
>> Okay. So
>> and those could be the LCAP. You're not
saying that those are not the LCAP.
You're just saying like we just want to
make sure.
>> I think I mean my personal opinion is
like we should be narrower. The LCAP's
very long with a lot of metrics. I think
we we should be more discerning in what
specifically we we want to to focus on.
>> Okay. So what I hear you saying is like
maybe we should have a a goal to adopt
like maybe three of them as like these
are the ones that were three to five
student indicators that we're going to
look at and say these are the ones that
obviously when I say adopt I don't mean
into you know the alcap or something but
the ones that we're going to say at the
board level these are what we're looking
at and want to be able to follow
>> identifying as our focus areas or
whatever for the year and then having
the discipline of and this is how we
will be evaluating our our performance
>> okay
>> throughout a given year if
>> okay so
so do three to five and again like I
said we can pick them from existing ones
you're not saying we have to go create
new ones or start something overact
>> um
>> then the assumption is that those three
that we've picked will drive a decent
amount of our agenda items throughout
school year or
>> No, I don't think I think it's more just
having clarity I and maybe this is part
of the this is all bleeding into the
orientation of like I just don't know
when things are coming up but I think us
knowing and having the foresight of okay
we should expect if we take chronic
absenteeism as an example like that's
something we really care about this year
that's not saying that means we're going
to have a meeting every single time
where we talk about chronic absenteeism
but it is saying we know that this is a
focus area and we believe that we should
be checking in on this on a a semianual
basis or a quarterly or what whatever is
the right cadence like we just have
identified that I see we're going to go
in. So what you're really saying is
let's clarify what are like the three to
five student indicators the board should
really be focused on out of all the ones
that are out there and at what cadence
should we be looking at it because right
now we don't really know like if it's
student success is it only at I ready
time or not at I ready time which ones
are end of year which ones aren't end of
year like when can we look at all of
that stuff and just bringing clarity to
that to the board is kind of is almost
kind of what I hear you saying is
>> yeah I think that's a much better
summary. Okay. So, bring clarify which
three to five student success metrics we
should be looking at um out of all the
ones that are that we should make our
priority ones to look at. We'll
obviously look at all the data um it's
all important um and figure out when the
the timeline is. Okay. Uh so that that
could be a goal for um
uh sending direction indicators.
Yes.
Oh yes, you can. Yeah, sure. Um then for
uh we had set a time for strategic uh
dialogue tied with u meeting craft. So I
thought maybe we could do those uh
together. I think I think this was the
one that got disenfranchised.
Um but it feels to me like that's kind
of they they could be kind of related.
We could kind of put them together. Um,
so is there a goal for how we can
improve like what we should do to
improve our meeting craft
>> I uh did have some suggestions okay
there but
>> yeah just I think
>> yeah throw them out again
>> so postmortem so like after every
meeting just even if it's just like a
sentence capture what could have been
better about that meeting right um then
we have to have obviously some place to
go and put that in review um I
>> Yes, we'll need guidance on if we can if
we can do that, but that's a great one.
Okay,
>> probably the So, just to I'm I'm I'm
making things up as we go, but um I
could imagine a standing agenda item at
the beginning of every meeting where we
share our feedback about how the prior
meeting could have gone better. Um
>> yes,
>> that'd be one way of doing it. I'm not
saying that's the best way to Why don't
we make it a goal if do people think
that this is a good way to focus on like
strategic stuff and like and the meeting
craft and kind of fit into that area to
improve those those indicators there?
Why don't we make it the first Cecilia?
Does that sound like being able to just
come back and reflect on how did this
meeting go? What could we do better?
What are we missing?
>> Yes. Um but one of the things too with
the meeting craft and talking about I
forget because I don't have it in front
of me. Um,
>> me neither, but I can tell you
>> the item and for how long?
>> Yes,
>> that would have to be something that in
order for the meeting to
flow smoothly, it's like how much time
are we going to dedicate to that
particular topic when in fact it's
something that we're going to talk about
that something that happened at the
prior meeting. I mean,
>> right,
>> everybody has different opinions. So,
>> yeah,
>> I mean that would be I mean it's a good
idea. It's just how much time are we
going to dedicate and maybe or maybe if
it's taking longer then maybe it could
be something that could be agendaized at
another meeting where
>> then we're not violating the Brown Act
and all that,
>> right? So may maybe a simpler way to do
it is just at the end of every meeting
right before we adjourn we we we do a
quick round robin. Hey, how did this
meeting go? Is there anything that we
could have done better about this
meeting?
Let's
>> and and that way it's real time, it's
timely, it's not taking up a lot of time
in the next meeting. It doesn't need to
wait for the next meeting. I just
>> Yeah,
>> just a thought.
>> I um so yeah, I hear what we're saying
and I think that um we should just just
I think the goal should be then to
establish a process to provide
permeating feedback. We can evaluate
what those are. Then in terms of um I I
think Trustee Lee had a great suggestion
on the prior topic to go and set up a
calendar for review of strategic goals
and objectives and like how progress is
looking uh o over the course of the
year. And I think that is related to uh
when we are establishing our meeting
calendar for the year looking at what
stuff do we want to talk about right
having that kind of stack rank of like
well what are important topics for us to
discuss we probably can't get to
everything maybe even in the course of a
year and then just and maybe this is
this was something I was thinking we
would get done at the retreat we we'd go
and map it out and say well we're going
to talk about medi topic x at this
meeting date that otherwise does not
have a superpacked agenda. We're going
to talk about medi topic Y at this other
date that doesn't have a superpacked
agenda and so on and so forth. So we
sort of build a content calendar
effectively or when are we going to have
the media discussions that help provide
strategic guidance to the district.
>> Yeah. So I do believe I mean our
calendar does have some of the stuff in
it on there. So I think that maybe we
want to just review the way the future B
mean business items are on the calendar.
>> Yeah. My my perspective is that most of
what's there is given to us and is not
directed by the board. Right? They're
not subjects that the board is itching
to discuss. They're subjects that are
either statutoily required to be
presented to us or or that are are
determined by staff that they're going
to go and present.
>> Last when I looked at last, I think
there's this suggestion of topics at the
bottom like that are getting slotted in
there that are not the one that are more
like how's this thing this program
doing, stuff like that. But but again,
I'll take it as a goal to review the
agenda for the future and say like, you
know, how do we how do we fold that into
the process there? Um, I think that
seems like a a good goal for someone to
work on. Um, okay. And then that was
that one. Setting direction indicators
was the other one. Board development and
onboarding.
Um,
what would be a good goal for that?
Would it just be um develop an
onboarding handbook? Maybe that would be
a good start.
Yeah,
>> necessarily an entire like
>> a cheat sheet,
>> a cheat sheet or you know a few pages.
>> Okay. I mean there there's a lot of
things that if you don't know I mean I
don't know right you ask a
superintendent
>> but there may be other questions that I
mean like I would appreciate if say for
instance cabinet can actually chime in
and help the board out when needed
because maybe we think that we're doing
the right thing but the educators know
what's best. So
>> I I would
>> Oh, sorry.
>> I would I would say maybe we don't need
an orientation handbook so much as we
just beef up the governance handbook.
>> Yeah, for sure. And we have we have
revisions from the session with
>> Lan. Yeah, I I think
>> Yeah, if we make it in a an annual goal
to like revisit and revamp it with all
the stuff we're talking about a lot of
stuff.
>> Okay. um uh that might be a good way to
um to just it prepare for any onboarding
that happens with new trustees like to
keep us apprised of like all the things
we're doing to be current on it and then
if there's uh turnover then it's ready
at hand.
>> So are you saying that there should be a
goal to review the governance handbook
annually?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. which we kind of already did like
we could right check but okay
>> we we took the survey before that was
released
>> um
>> no no I'm not I'm not talking about that
I was just wondering like did that like
that kind of thing that we just did
maybe not as involved on that one maybe
we just have like a person or two go off
and say what's missing in the governance
handbook what are we doing that's
different than this practice and put
that in
>> yeah no I think that's right okay
Um
okay so I think we have three things
here that we thought would um improve
the way that we operate. One was clarify
which of the three I mean obviously I'm
working with the Dr. Baker and whoever
you wanted to delegate us to, but help
us clarify which three to five student
success um metrics, you know, the board
thinks and and you think we should all
be focused on um and what the review
cadence is and sort of have that upfront
um so that we are doing all of this work
um and having it in there. I think it's
just the setting the expectations and
making sure that that's clarified for
everyone. Um establishing a process to
provide per meeting feedback. Um, we
have to figure out exactly how that
works. That's in compliance with the
Brown Act. Um, and then review the way
the the the the set of the agenda for
the future. Um, and then review the
governance handbook annually. Um, so we
need someone to
can I pick a trustee to sort of own this
goal and maybe they can talk with you
about how to take it forward from there?
Okay. Is that all right? Um, is can does
someone want to be the owner for
clarifying which three to five students
success um and talk about it with Dr.
Baker in his next in your next oneonone
of how to proceed on that?
>> I I can't I I do actually think that the
identification piece should be a full
board exercise.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, by all means,
I think we're going to come back and
talk about it like if that's if that's
the case of like, hey, we think we
should come in and have this agenda item
to come in and do it. Um, but we'll
we'll schedule a check-in on how these
things are doing. Maybe in today's
September. We can check in in
December or January. Probably December.
I think December is a quieter month. No,
>> quiet.
>> Yeah. Yeah. January is not really quiet
either.
>> This J.
>> No, this January is gonna be busy. Oh,
yeah. This December is going to be busy,
too. Maybe we can check in in like
February and see how we did on on making
progress on these goals. And obviously
if something comes up beforehand, um we
can put that in. We'll figure out a time
to check in on it. Um
>> yes, I can be the person as I brought it
up.
>> Um and then establishing a process to
provide permeating feedback and review
the agenda for the future.
>> Okay. David Weekly. Um yeah and again it
we'll see we'll see how it does. I mean
the the outcome will for this will be do
we think that we're actually doing a
better job as a governance team um and
uh do we think that um
you know it's uh going to uh improve our
you know how we evaluate our perception
of how we're doing our work.
Anything else to add?
Thank you for all that you're doing for
us. So, I appreciate your
>> Yes. Your self evaluation, too. It's not
just mine. Of
>> course. Yeah. You know, you all took the
survey and put it in. So,
>> uh I don't know if this is going to be
helpful, honestly. Um we'll find out. I
think that'll be part of the um we
should be honest with it of like, do we
think that doing this is helpful or not?
There's a lot of different ways for us
to do self vows that it's our first
time. So I think we can be um
>> I I I remain a little bit hungry to
learn from the new trustees ways in
which their onboarding could now be
completed. Uh having not given them the
best polished uh onboarding experience,
what are what are some things yet
remaining that we could do to finish
fully on boarding both of you?
I actually think the survey was very
helpful because the questions led me to
things that I hadn't even been exposed
to or been thinking about. So maybe
timing wise doing this.
I don't know. I mean, I guess it's not
super helpful for a new trustee to
answer some of these questions, but at
least seeing the questions or providing
to them up front when they join is a
probably helpful. Um, still thinking
about how we update our governance
handbook. think we'll have to be careful
on the level of detail we need to put in
there, but maybe even having some side
FAQ that Siccilia was kind of some kind
of informal FAQ might be like what we're
Yeah. cheat sheet.
>> Great. And you know, you you reminded
me, by the way, um, with AEC coming up,
um, and we kind of picked these three
areas that we're focused in, we should
should take a look at the sessions that
are relevant to, particularly if you
took one of the um, priority areas. Like
it might be worth looking at some of
those as a way to like get ideas and
inspiration about like how are people
doing it and pull that stuff in and kind
of focus on that part. Um, I think that
these three things might be that's
another good board development area. Um,
and since we've identified areas that we
want to develop, um, it might make sense
to like overlap that on the AEC, uh,
course selections or session selections.
Cool. Did you want to add anything um on
the onboarding and then otherwise we'll
move on
the onboarding? No, it didn't make it.
It was uh we just have review the
governance handbook on boarding was uh
we that's what we it sort of came out
with like uh review the governance
handbook. We didn't assign it because we
we just kind of did a session on it. So
we'll come back and review it unless you
think we should do more for a specific
one. What we can add a third goal of
review the governance handbook for on on
boarding.
>> I'm loathed to assign myself homework.
>> No, no, no. I'm I'm happy to take that
one. I'm I'll happy to go through it. I
have to
>> No, I was just I was just thinking that
because Jen and I are the most recently
oriented, whether or not we should
whether or not it' be helpful for us to
>> like somehow brain dump the things that
like we didn't know that would have been
helpful into the the governance handbook
or something.
>> Well, we're going to have an item to uh
adopt our governance handbook with the
changes that Lan brought in. So, I don't
know when that's going to come, but that
would be an excellent time.
>> Anytime.
>> Yeah. So whenever we want to bring it,
if you want to think about suggestions
in there
>> and if there is an informal supplement
to that of like here's the cheat sheet,
here's the stuff I wish here's the one
page of information I wish somebody had
given to me.
>> Yeah. But I think that the thing that's
important is that getting in that
cadence and reviewing it and then
reading it um so that we're making sure
that we're putting it in and then we're
giving everybody an opportunity of like
this thing is missing it. So I think
that that having that as the goal is
really probably the important one. Um
and then yes, these are other tactical
things that we can roll into it.
Great. We have one public comment that I
think we missed. Um, so I will go back
take the public comment and then we'll
wrap up the meeting. I don't know who
it's from.
Oh, okay. Thank you. I know I'm not in
the agenda, so I really appreciate the
opportunity to speak tonight. I thought
that the public comments came at the end
of the board meeting, so I apologize
that I was mistaken. I'll try to keep my
comments succinct. So, my name is Jackie
Selby and I'm the parent of an incoming
TK student in Orion Alternative School.
And I wanted to share our family's
experience um and some concerns about
one of the district's vendors for
afterare, Catalyst Kids. So on August
13th, the first day of school, there
were more than 70 families at Orion who
had applied to Catalyst Kids who were
weight listed for afterare and they were
not informed on the first day of school
that they were on the wait list. The
parents had made concerted efforts to
call customer service, email the site
coordinator, and we had formed a group
on WhatsApp, and uh Catalyst Kids, I
have to say, had a perfect record of non
non-response to all of our efforts to
reach out through email. So, we were
told by other parents, don't worry, they
often let you know the night before
school starts. It always works out. But
for 70 families, it did not work out
this year and they were left scrambling
without afterare on the first day of
school and working with each other to
find temporary solutions. I have heard
cases of moms who have taken absence
from work to try to work this out and
and other really difficult situations.
There are families that are considering
transferring schools midyear because
this is a really serious problem. Now,
per my understanding, Catalyst Kids
opened one classroom, but none of the
incoming TK children received a spot
unless they had younger sibling
priority. Now, this situation was
avoidable. Catalyst Kids knew in the
spring that there were two new
classrooms that the school had made
available to them and as part of their
contract with the district. They
understand having been working with the
district for decades that they are
responsible for obtaining and
maintaining the licenses for these
classrooms. They have had many months to
do so and they have not compounding
this. They have not communicated that
this is the situation until I reached
out by phone to the site coordinator to
ask what was going on so that I could
share this with the parents who were
wondering why there was only one
classroom and not three classrooms and
what the timeline was and whether we
would ever hear an update from Catalyst
Kids about whether we would get into
aftercare. Now we're now four weeks into
the year. The families still have no
timeline for when those two new
classrooms will open and they are left
in complete limbo about their status on
the wait list. I do know from speaking
to Catalyst kids that even when they do
open those classrooms, not all the
families will be served and they should
really on top of the general
communication be letting families know
if they are very very unlikely to get
care even when they do license the new
classrooms.
>> All right. Thank Thank you. Thank you
for sharing your experience. Um I just
wanted to check did you already were you
already I don't we don't need to know
what's going on. And then is there a
correct person at the district that she
should be talking to?
>> We've already we're working on it. Um
>> yeah they they have two extra classrooms
which they we we agreed to
>> and
yeah I have an email here from Rihanna
House.
Briana House who is the
>> Rihanna Hull the site coordinator. Hus,
is it Hus?
>> H USS
um
regarding the fire marshal has come out
and cleared for licensing. We are
currently waiting for licensing to
schedule our visit. We have called and
left messages to get a time frame and
have not heard back from him yet. And
this was done last week on this is from
Friday of last week
>> and Winn's been on top of it. So I know
Rick, you know about it. So there's we
have said that we might have to go out
and look for another vendor, but it's
really late for us to look for a vendor,
too, because
>> yeah,
>> they've all been taken up, but
>> Callis Kid asked for the two rooms. They
got them.
>> Okay. Well, thank you again for bringing
up the comment. Um, and I'm I'm glad to
hear that it's it's being looked into.
>> I know it's a difficult situation right
now, but I wanted to raise this issue
because in the under for decades. Sorry,
we have to keep comment limited to three
minutes just to be fair. Yeah, we can't
have a back and forth conversation.
>> Um,
thank you though. Uh, okay. So, we have
just like the last couple items here. I
think it's um correspondence. Anyone
have correspondence to share? Seeing
none, we'll move on. Other business
suggested items for future agenda,
trustees calendar, meeting, meeting
calendar or anything there?
>> No changes to the calendar.
and adjournment. Action required. I move
to adjurnn.
Second. All in favor? I
>> I. Perfect. Thank you everyone.