Study Session Meeting

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[12] Maria Huffer: Number Rodriguez.

[14] Megan McMillan: Number Nguyen.

[18] Nancy Thomas: OK, we have two requests to address us on this board self-evaluation workshop. Mr. Cary Newk.

[31] Cary Knoop: Hi, and Happy New Year to the board and to staff. I just have a couple of quick things I would like to talk about. I looked at the self-evaluation last time, that document, and I looked at all the answers, and I thought it was kind of biased towards, you know, thou shalt not interfere with management, which of course I totally agree with. But there are many more things. It doesn't mean that you just have to cut ribbons and rubber stamp either. And so I just want to go around a little bit quickly. One of the responsibilities of the board is to monitor. monitor financial stability, academic results, and also employee satisfaction. All these pillars are very important. How did that go with financial stability? The district has done deficit spending for years and probably would have continued if not the county slapped the district on the wrist. The board never took action. The board never said we stop and we're going to do it. The county had to come in, slapping the district on the wrist, and then the board complied. That's, in my opinion, not the way it should be. The board should have stepped in earlier. Debating in public, I think, is so important, and I miss that. I understand that there's guidelines in the board where you say we don't want surprises, and I understand where that's coming from. You don't want to have a board member being rough and saying, oh, I want this. And you want to have proper decorum. I understand that. But you want to make sure that the issues are debated in public, not one-on-ones or with the superintendent. These issues need to come out in public. That's democracy. The public has the right to know what are the issues. Interact with citizens. Do you interact with citizens? When a citizen sends you a mail. Do you reply? Or do you say, oh, no, no, no, I don't want to say anything because you know what? When I run for election, I want to talk with the citizens. I want to talk and I want to feel about them and I be with them. But once I'm sitting there, I don't want anything to do with the citizens. No, no, no. We're doing a private business right now. Do you do that? Do you set policies? What are your priorities? Look at facilities. Newark Unified has too many buildings. So does it make sense to add a new school, even if you get the land for free? Is that a rational thing to do? Think about these things. Then I want to talk about subcommittees. How efficient are our subcommittees? I attended last audit committee, which was really disastrous in my opinion. Nothing came out of that. It was suggested in a meeting like let's do it for the next round of people who come in. Let's not do anything. Let's not do any work. That's not how you do it. Subcommittees need to come up with a report to the board and give an update and do work. Then the last one is you got to defend the educational interest of Newark. It's good to talk with the city. It's good to talk with management employees, but they have common interests but also different interests. Make sure you think of the interest of the education. and not just city or other things. Thank you.

[228] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, Mr. Newk. Ms. Parks.

[237] Cindy Parks: That was really good, Carrie. Before you start your evaluation process, I wanted to remind the board you only exist to oversee the district, which only exists to educate the children in the community. Fancy programs and awards such as the AP recognition you received about three years ago mean very little when the high school offers 20 AP classes, yet only half of the students in those classes take the AP test, and only half of those taking the test pass. About 25% of the incoming freshman class don't graduate. Depending upon the academic area, only 25 to 45% of the students pass the state test. Around 20% of the high school students pass A to G classes. I shouldn't say pass the test. That's the percentage that they get. You wonder why there are so many students in private schools, and yet you're not getting the students from the new developments? Ask a realtor. Buyers and renters look at school test scores. Until you get comparable test scores to Fremont, you are not going to generate a significant increase in ADA. A condensed version of Board Bylaw 9000 says that the board shall work with the superintendent to fulfill its major responsibilities, which include setting the direction for the district through a process that involves the community, parents, guardians, students, and staff, and is focused on learning and achievement. Establishing an effective and efficient organizational structure for the district. Provide support to the superintendent and staff as they carry out the board's direction ensure accountability to the public for the performance of the district schools, provide community leadership and advocacy on behalf of students, the district's educational program and public education in order to build support within the local community and at the state and national levels. The board is authorized to establish and finance any programs or activities that is not in conflict with or inconsistent with preempted by the law. Have you done this? Have you even looked at what your bylaws say as far as how you're to conduct yourselves? Based on, in fact, some of the points that Carrie made, your financial responsibility that, like I said, the test scores, I don't know that you've actually done that. Here's a condensed version that I put on one page that is your board bylaw.

[379] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, Ms. Parks. I have asked the superintendent to be our facilitator as we move into our board self-evaluation. So Mr. Superintendent, what would you like?

[403] SPEAKER_14: I'd like to move down to the table so we could have a little more of a conversation and a work session. And then we're going to start by looking at compiling. Would you look at Mr. Preciado's monitor and keyboard? Might as well check them all before we have a moment.

[422] SPEAKER_25: So let's meet down at the table here.

[434] SPEAKER_14: There is water in this sandwich. You want something?

[437] Michael Milliken: We can walk. We can walk. Yeah.

[440] SPEAKER_14: We can walk all the way up.

[444] Bowen Zhang: Oh, I'm sorry.

[447] SPEAKER_25: I just got you.

[475] SPEAKER_14: I thought we would start by just kind of looking at the data and the scores before we get into... Excuse me, do we have copies for... I do have a few extra. I could make some more. Yeah, for our... Yeah.

[489] SPEAKER_14: So while we're making copies, I think what we're looking for is a couple of things as we start having this conversation. is first of all by category and then where there's areas of agreements, where there's large areas of agreement and where there's areas of disagreement. Those are good places to start kind of the conversation. But let me kind of explain to you how we created the code here for the document. So if you look at the first one, team building 1.1, two board members marked the rating I'm sorry. One board member marked the rating as a 2. Three board members marked it as a 4. And as a whole, you see where the board scored. So the tally marks are equal, you know, that's how many people thought that rating worked.

[553] SPEAKER_25: There's only four of the evaluations.

[555] SPEAKER_14: Yeah, we only have four. I didn't have the fifth one. We'll probably have that when the time comes. But we wanted to at least have a starting point to see if there's areas of agreement. So overall, I think there's a fair amount of agreement about how the BERT works as a team. But as we start this conversation, I think it's important to think about if any one area, it might be good to think about, like, if we see that there's an area in team building that something's not where we want it to be, what would be a goal around team building, or decision making, or any of these broader categories. And then we'll do after, we'll track and take notes, And then we'll try to take this first run at creating some goals or some board actions that they may want to do to help further that goal. And I think that would be very helpful. But I think that, like I said, let's take a few minutes just to kind of look at it and mark the ones that stand out to you, and then we'll come back and have a conversation, and we'll go area by area, starting with team building.

[638] SPEAKER_25: When we did this, when we're talking about individual trustee, we were talking about our own personal.

[643] SPEAKER_14: Yes.

[644] SPEAKER_25: So in this one, we were judging ourselves. Yes. But that's the basis on which I did. Right. That's correct. If we were judging other people.

[814] SPEAKER_14: I do have your individual scores if you want those back. That's helpful if you'd like to have that as reference. Sometimes it helps to remember what you did. There might be an assessment at the end. So a couple ways to do this. I think it's important to look at kind of go through one by one, we can start with team building and think about, I think there's some positives here for sure, and maybe some areas for improvement to look at, but I think that just looking at the data, there's some real positives I think as far as, I think 1.1, I think by and large, you guys work as a team, as an example of something positive. But in contrast, 1.3, I think there's some conversation needs to happen there. I think that was across the board as individuals, and together it still kind of averages out to about a 2, 2.5 maybe. So is there something we need to do to make that better, and what would be something we can do to improve the rating of that? So I think what I would say before we go into like crafting some of those This is good to remember as a baseline. So if we're starting from here, in a year from now when we do this again, we want to see some progress in certain areas and see that we've made improvements. But what I'm seeing in 1.3 is there's kind of across the board perceptions around how we're handling differences and disagreements between members of the school board. And are we working through it, or are we just allowing it to continue, and what is that, and how can we make that better with the structure of the meeting? So hopefully that gives you an idea. But I'd like to hear from you guys. And I'll take notes and I'll compile kind of some notes for us so we can come back again.

[940] SPEAKER_25: I'm kind of looking at the format and I'm seeing that any time we have more than or we have a disagreement, we have more than three different answers, then there's a problem when they view the board as a whole. Oftentimes people figure that they're doing it but no one else is. So that may indicate that's part of what may be happening there. So I think that... so these are the... anything I see where I have three, a range of three, it means that there's a disagreement in terms of whether the board's doing a good job or not. And so to me that's something that we need to look at and need to address. That and the

[990] Nancy Thomas: from low to high or high to low from the individual trustee scores to the board as a whole. And when there is that big difference, it seems to me there's a difference of opinion from an individual board member about the rest of the team.

[1017] SPEAKER_13: Well, I guess my thoughts are, I want to step back a little bit in terms of the wrinkle and in terms of the process, but maybe if we can come up with, like, what are the big picture goals that we, the outcomes that we want at the end of this conversation? What do we want? What are tangible next steps that we want? So that we know as part of the conversation that we're having with each of these areas, we know what we're going to do next. So that it's,

[1048] SPEAKER_14: So if we were able to, I think part of what I would suggest is to facilitate is if you could pick one to two areas in team building that probably are going to, which are the most important ones that are going to move the board in the direction they want to go. If we could identify one or two, then it might be wise to come up with potential ideas around what can we do for the individual increase in that and then in the group for those two. If we pick more than two in each area, it's going to become very huge very quickly. But one to two in each area is good because then I think we start figuring out. And what I would suggest is looking at all of them, which one's going to raise the floor more than any of the others, which is like the most important standard on team building that we think is going to have a high yield. So I don't know, what do you guys think? Maybe that's a good place to start. Which would be your top one or two out of team building that you think we probably want to spend some time on?

[1110] Nancy Thomas: I think 1.3. And I'm not too concerned about the others, I think.

[1117] SPEAKER_14: So how we resolve conflicts is going to be important. Individual and as a group.

[1121] SPEAKER_25: Well, addressing conflicts. or they're bringing it out in the open to a point where people are not feeling it. I'm looking at 1.5. Everyone feels that we are worried more about achieving results rather than getting good appearance. But when we judge the other board members, that's not true. And so we feel, I think, as individuals, we feel we are doing what we need to be doing. It's just that somebody else isn't pulling their load the same way. And so whether that's a perception, whether that's typical human behavior, or whether it's reality, I don't know. So if we're talking about, and that may be part of what's happening when you neglect or allow things to continue because you figure it's not my problem, I'm not doing it, somebody else is doing it.

[1164] SPEAKER_14: Or I brought it up and it's not going anywhere and how do we, you know, I'm tired of bringing it up.

[1169] Nancy Thomas: Right. Well that's a good one maybe to add also. In fact, I put an X next to that one.

[1177] SPEAKER_14: So is there a potential number two? out of team building, is there a second one that would be important?

[1185] SPEAKER_13: I think Jen said 1.5. Yeah, 1.3 and 1.5.

[1189] SPEAKER_13: I almost feel that maybe we can kind of start the conversation around these, but like our overarching framework isn't like, oh, we're going to have a specific goal for 1.3, 1.5. It's like out of team building, what is our specific goals and how are we going to work together and develop as a team? And from my perspective, I would focus more on the board as a whole versus individual trustee because each of us have our own kind of needs and understanding or analysis of what makes a good team, but I think it's the team is the board as a whole or at least three members at a particular vote.

[1233] SPEAKER_13: But so if we focus on, from the team building specifically, so we can look at 1.3, 1.5 and mesh them together and be like, what is our plan for how we're going to move forward this year to be able to build on these things?

[1248] Nancy Thomas: Right. You know, I think about 1.5 is do we move forward on things we say are important? If we're concerned about achieving results, we're going to want to move forward on things that we have said are important. And the things that we've said that are important, I think, is certainly fiscal stability and strategic planning. Those are two that stick out in my mind. So to me, if we don't, If we pay lip service to some of those ideas that come forward but don't act on them, then we're not really working towards achieving results. Right.

[1305] SPEAKER_14: So part of what I'm hearing is relative to team building, it's almost how are we structuring meetings and the time together as a board? not only to stay focused, but also to resolve any disagreement or, what was the other term, differences, so that things that are being neglected aren't being neglected anymore. So how do we keep things from falling off the radar? And I know one of the things we've talked about is just basic project progress monitoring. We went through the pain of making cuts. How do we know that we're going to be able to maintain those cuts and how are we monitoring the budget monthly to know that we're on track. So I kind of, I wrote down just the first idea was just how do we begin working as a more functional board team that also resolves disagreement and conflict and minimizes that in a way that everybody kind of doesn't have surprises, doesn't feel frustrated that their concerns aren't being heard or they're not being addressed appropriately. But we can, I think we can wordsmith that a little bit more to be more of a statement of how we want to operate. Because I think ultimately it would be nice to have something in each category that says, relative to team building, this is really kind of what we're working on right now,

[1402] SPEAKER_25: Well, I was looking and I wrote down, what is the plan to address differences? And so maybe our goal would be to create a plan to address. We have in our policy handbook what happens when people disagree. If you're not in the majority, you have to suck it up and you have to go along with the majority. That's essentially what it says. Three people, do it. But it doesn't mean that the minority is not being heard. And my feeling is minority is being heard.

[1433] Nancy Thomas: Well, is the minority being heard through omission? Is the minority being heard because the board doesn't act on whatever the minority or individual or minority number of board members wanted to have a conversation about? Is the frustration that comes between and among board members because there's no conversation about things that a board member may want to have a conversation about. And I think that comes down to setting up the calendar, and I think that also comes down to how to handle board requests. Once we're talking among ourselves, I think then if the majority of the board makes it clear they don't want to move on forward on something or that they make a decision on something, then it's easy, I think, for the board member to accept it. But when there's no plan to even discuss it, that I think can be a source of frustration and conflict among board members.

[1500] SPEAKER_25: So your feeling is that there's a feeling that minority issues have not been heard, have not had a chance for a full discussion?

[1510] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, there have been many board requests that have never been addressed. Board member requests and So that's certainly a source of frustration. If the answer is we talked about it, we said it's not a priority, we don't want to talk about it, then it's over and done with. But if there is a collective silence, that's a message in and of itself.

[1541] SPEAKER_13: I guess for me that would be kind of issue by issue because in one instance you may be in the majority and the different, you know, in the minority side.

[1549] Nancy Thomas: No, I'm sorry.

[1551] SPEAKER_13: So I was going to say, but it looks like we're jumping to board meetings, which is okay, which was my... kind of initial thing that we should focus on that as a priority, but maybe what we do as a next step for the team builder would be something like, okay, we commit to having an annual team builder to discuss interpersonal relationships and board discussions themselves, and there's a specific forum that is outlined as a team builder within the current structure. That's just a suggestion to give you whatever, but I'm just trying to.

[1582] Nancy Thomas: Could you say that again?

[1584] SPEAKER_13: I said an annual team builder to discuss interpersonal relationships and board interactions.

[1591] Nancy Thomas: I think board interactions. The fact that we feel that we respect one another, I don't think we harbor feelings toward one another. So I think it's board interactions that I think, out of the two things you said.

[1608] SPEAKER_13: And this is a suggestion in terms of taking something tangible for the team, because I think with any team, If you're not, we only have, we have the We work together in these kind of formal settings, but we don't really have time to discuss like, okay, how do you think through a specific project, or how do you project map something? Because of that might be what we want to receive on the other side of like, here is the report of this particular program. It might be okay for me, but it's not okay for somebody else because of how you think through projects. So even having those discussions as a team for me would be like, then we're all on the same page of, Like any time we're receiving reports, everyone is seeing it the same way, at least in terms, or we all get the same information, but we can get on the same page of like, these are the specific outcomes or how we want to be presented. The outcomes or the progress monitoring, as the superintendent mentioned. So I'm just thinking of like something concrete that we could do.

[1678] SPEAKER_25: I see your concern is more a matter of bringing the discussion up, not what happens when we have the discussion.

[1684] SPEAKER_22: Yeah.

[1684] SPEAKER_25: Because I think when we have a discussion, I think we do well. I firmly feel that none of us feel hesitant to say something if there's something that we feel we need to say. So it's a matter of whether in truth an issue is addressed. So maybe our goal needs to be around not the interpersonal relationships. Because I feel that all board members respect all our board members. I really do. I think the problem is if there's an issue that is not being brought up, then what's the process to go through it? We have a finite time. And so all issues that may be our favorite issues may not be fully addressed.

[1725] SPEAKER_14: Let me step out of facilitator role for a minute. One of the things that might help this that I would really appreciate is it's like How do we get better at being a team? And I think part of that is spending time working on that. And I think from my perspective, something that might be something easy to do that might help solve a lot of this would be, can we commit to four retreats a year? And if we can map it out ahead of time, because that's one of the biggest challenges we have as a team is getting this all together. That's really difficult. And if we can just say, OK, Going forward, we want to identify four dates in the year that we're going to try to hold sacred to have a real board retreat. And then these can be kind of a starting point for us. I know we have a retreat mapped already for some of that, but I think that's part of it. And I think within that, I wrote down besides team building retreats, somewhere in there I think there's room to develop some norms around conflict resolution. And one norm that I, you know, that I've used that might be something for us to think about is, it's actually pretty simple, but it actually, if you're able to do it, it's very powerful, is no talking about someone without them in the room. Just, if you've got to be direct with the person. I like that. No talking behind, no talking, hey, if you want to ask about Francisco, let's call him and get him in here. I know you're upset at him. I have a draft of some norms that might help, but it does help conflict resolution, and that builds trust, because then, there's not speculation, there's not rumors, they're not, you know, I think especially in Newark that's really important because I think that, you know, there's that element of a small town that plays into that, but I think that I just feel that like as a, if I were coaching you guys as a facilitator, I'd say, well, how often do you spend time working together as a team? And if we can nail down some dates That's a real tangible thing that I think will show benefit for all of the organizations.

[1853] SPEAKER_25: I would like to underline this to say that I dislike sitting around talking about process all the time. Let's do something and then work out the processes we're doing. So if there's an issue, it may be graduation rates. That may be a retreat. manipulate and work out how we work out together as part of that process of taking something that's concrete and something that we need to address as an issue. So if you have four retreats, which I'm fine for, which you do it, you have a major, this retreat is going to be graduation. What's happening at the high school, graduation classes, this kind of thing. And then whatever we do around that, then you build how you talk into something that's really concrete. We can come up with something that's good.

[1902] SPEAKER_14: I just know the sooner we can get things calendared, the more likely it is that we can spend time. And I think even going back to, I know there was a model for a while where one of the retreats would be paired with CSBA, where you would go out early to CSBA, you'd have a day before the conference started together. It doesn't have to be that, but I think that just mapping that out would help. For me, I think that's what, out of this, and I think to stay within the protocol, The team building piece I'm hearing the loudest is really we need time to work on it and we need kind of norms and protocol around how we're going to resolve conflict and disagreement that we're all willing to agree on and adhere to. And I gave the one example. I think that's a good starting point for that. And I could start grafting some language around that so we don't, I don't want to spend all the time talking about team buildings. I think, and if I were to say like the, 1.5 can be addressed as we get into running board meetings and some of those pieces. I think that can be captured in how we monitor and progress, progress monitored. I think we're going to catch that somewhere else in our conversation today. But if you guys are okay with moving to decision making, I would, I've kind of captured the Is that an okay idea to put in front of you? Are we willing to commit to four dates a year for a full day retreat as a board? And I know it's hard, but I think... What is considered a full day? Or whatever, half day or something.

[1995] SPEAKER_25: Like six hours in the morning or whatever it might be.

[1996] SPEAKER_14: I think that... I think it should be at least four to five hours if we can. At minimum, a full day is great. Or maybe there's a combination. Maybe sometimes a year we do a half day and sometimes a year we do a full day. I think that keeps us on as a team. And I would suggest quarterly, some kind of quarterly structure. Because every time of year, we have different topics that we're looking at.

[2019] Nancy Thomas: I think, you know, your schedule is impacted as well as Tom's. I know in Tom's case, he wouldn't necessarily take advantage of it. But I remember from Janice Schaefer being on the board, there's some kind of an ed code. Do you remember that, Jan?

[2035] SPEAKER_25: But that's for a teacher in the situation, I don't think it works for administrators. Probably doesn't now. Because in other words, the school district would pay for the substitute. And that was fine, because then the teacher could be released to do the things they needed to. I'm not sure administrators have the same kind of thing, because you can be on campus or off campus as a principal or someone in the district office, I don't think. There is that need. The problem is, as a principal of a high school, it's the worst job. I'm sorry. It's the most involved job in the whole school district. And as a result, you have responsibilities that you cannot always predict.

[2068] SPEAKER_13: Yeah. OK. So anyways, back to Mike. I mean, I'm on similar boat. Right. And on the fact that any time I just have to take time off early, whatever, which is OK. It's just it's hard to map out when things pop up. And then the weekends, I'm trying to make them sacred because in terms of the family, right? So that's where I'm trying to balance. But if we had like four spots that noted out that maybe two of them were within the time frame we have here and then two of them were on the weekend, And we mapped it out, like then I would just make it happen. You know, something like that. Yeah, that's fine.

[2105] Nancy Thomas: It really comes down to... So that would be a compromise.

[2107] SPEAKER_25: Two during the week, and two days before.

[2111] SPEAKER_13: And I might be more flexible on Friday to try to figure out, like, doing a whole half day on Friday more regularly.

[2119] Nancy Thomas: Fridays work for me.

[2120] SPEAKER_25: Work for me too.

[2125] SPEAKER_14: So there is an interest in trying to figure out, can we get four times a year to meet together with some at least the quarterly structure. I think that's a good step in the direction. That's probably enough for team building for right now.

[2138] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, except that I think in the past what's happened is we haven't met because we haven't been able to get five people to agree. Right. Is there ever a time or a room when we say, okay, if we can't get five, we'll go with four. I mean, maybe at some point we just have to buy the bullet.

[2156] SPEAKER_13: I mean, it says three right now, so I mean, we should just say, like, well, you just have to have at least three, and then we're moving forward, and that's part of the process. I mean, like, there's a difference between, like, that's where, like, that's my pet peeve, like, if it's making a decision about a particular meeting without asking, and then it's like, oh, how come you're not here? And you know the second four Tuesdays I can't make it, right? So versus me committing to a meeting or time or any of us, and then being like, oh, we can't make the last minute. But that's on us as opposed to something being sprung up. So I guess there's a different accountability piece of like, if we all agree to these particular days and these times, then as long as we have three, we move forward with them. We have that discussion.

[2205] SPEAKER_14: Well, I'll take a draft, Craig, some language around this. And we're kind of bleeding into the next one, so might as well move on to 2.0. We decided to look at it this way. Well, I'll do a draft, and then we can look at it again. And we'll send it out to you guys. What stands out in decision making? Is there areas there that we, I had asterisked 2.2 and 2.4. Well, 2.2. Kind of stood out for me.

[2232] SPEAKER_25: I'm surprised at the evaluation of the board as a whole. I truly am. The fact that two people felt that it was a three, that concerned me because there's no something I don't know in terms of having a job.

[2248] Nancy Thomas: I probably put a three in because of a direct knowledge of something not being

[2256] SPEAKER_13: kept confidential. So I think to address that one, because it's, exactly, it would be, it could be as simple as having the attorney write a memo and send it out to all of us say, when you are in closed session and information is confidential, you cannot disclose it. And if you do, you will be held personally, it will be outside the scope of your. And I think that if there is,

[2284] SPEAKER_14: Let me hold you for a minute, because I want to make sure I'm honoring some of the protocol. So you kind of gave, is there your top one or two? And I'd like to go around to each of you. And for decision making, which were the one or two that resonated with you the most? And let's go around the table with that. Then we'll come back to this conversation. I started with 2.2, 2.4. I don't know if you guys agree with that or not. What are the two that stand out for anyone that wants to go next? I think it's important to hear from everybody before we jump into a conversation.

[2321] Nancy Thomas: Well, I think 2.3 is something that... Okay.

[2326] SPEAKER_14: That stands out?

[2327] Nancy Thomas: That stands out, yeah. Okay.

[2329] SPEAKER_25: I think an issue of 2.1 is going to be an issue of 2.2.

[2332] SPEAKER_13: 2.1. For me, it's 2.3.

[2335] SPEAKER_14: 2.3. Okay, so there's some agreement there. Okay. Now, we'll go back to... For those two, What are you thinking?

[2348] SPEAKER_25: Yeah, I think that your comment about the lawyer sending out as a reminder that they're there, because to me that's negligible. There's just no reason in the world, unless you have a brain fog, that you would repeat something that is confidential.

[2367] SPEAKER_13: But it's understanding the difference, the line between what's that piece and what's not. And that's why we have closed sessions.

[2374] SPEAKER_25: I know. You're better off shutting your mouth and opening it.

[2381] SPEAKER_14: So 2.3 can be handled. That's an easy resolution.

[2385] SPEAKER_25: What you're saying is 2.2.

[2398] SPEAKER_14: Okay so that one's off the table as we say address it legally just to clarify. That leaves 2.1 and 2.3.

[2408] SPEAKER_13: I think for me this also goes to the board meetings again but it's in terms of strategic planning like if we don't have an agreed upon strategic plan of how we're going to move forward. It's hard for us to make decisions that advance those goals and objectives if we haven't agreed on those goals and objectives. I mean, we have the three kind of broad points, but within that framework, or I guess.

[2437] Nancy Thomas: You know, so much of what we want to accomplish happens through the LCAP planning process, and we don't involve ourselves, or we involve ourselves very minimally in that. So it's kind of like that's not our plan, it's their plan. And I've always kind of lamented the fact that we don't speak up or have an input into, for example, what are the measurable goals that we want to see the district achieve. If everyone's going to increase 5% and I've said this repeatedly, 5% in math and 5% in and there's no differentiated goal for our at-risk students, to me it's almost meaningless. So I feel that we're not engaged. And if we're not engaged, we're not making decisions that impact.

[2490] SPEAKER_13: So then, I mean, it goes again to figuring out we have to structure our board meetings, and I'm trying to stay away from that. But it does, in a way that we outline what is our strategic plan, so it includes LCAF budget facilities, like all these pieces, kind of the big framework, and then we agree that these are the big picture goals so that when we're making decisions, it's like, okay, does this decision to support this particular program or this textbook adoption fall in line, I'm making this up, fall in line within the our big picture goals or is this a new program that we haven't even discussed that's outside of the realm that then how is it moving towards so just kind of bridging the fact that when we make the decisions it's towards we're in unison with our outlined goals and objectives and maybe it's as simple as decisions that are brought to us or suggestions aren't tied

[2556] Nancy Thomas: for our discussion purposes to what the goals are and how the decision that we're being asked to make fits with forwarding that goal. Does that make sense?

[2570] SPEAKER_14: No, it makes sense. So part of it, this 2.3 really begs the question, do we have measurable goals? to start with and work backwards from there. I think that's kind of the first step of what I think the desire was in the strategic plan and even part of my evaluation process is let's get really clear about what are the deliverables in the sense of six months, 12 months, 18 months, you know, two years. How do we want to look at those deliverables and get you a copy? Hi, Tom. So I think that's part of it is, so one thing that would help this is really get really clear about what are the established goals and objectives that are really measurable. Because I think that the next piece, which I think we'll probably get into, there's a section here about board meetings, but it really is about how do we inspect what we expect? in the board meeting, how do we progress monitor, how are we doing towards our goals of MTC? I know that it would be good to look at each school, how it relates to the dashboard, and are they moving towards blue and green, or where are they, and what are we doing about that? I think those things are very relevant. But that's kind of where I'm coming from. So I think for me it's really What's resonating is the established goals and objectives and really defining that. That will help us kind of anchor to, you know, and we know that academically it's really about getting to blue and green on the scorecard.

[2671] SPEAKER_25: I'd like to say a positive thing, concern 2.4, and that is up to this point it has been sporadic in terms of we had all the information earlier and I certainly appreciate the push to make sure that all documents are there on Friday because everyone's home situation is different. And we have a very, the agenda today had an awful lot of stuff. And there is a limit to how much time we have outside the board meetings today. Not everyone can spend the same amount of time as somebody else. So I think that we need to make sure that this keeps on happening. sure that the agenda is set up so it isn't so heavy, so that there's an equal kind of subsidy when we have audit reports and stuff, maybe it's less and other things, maybe the policy. So that's management and I think it can be done, but I want to say that I think that we have definitely moved in the right direction so I think that goes nicely and I appreciate it. Now whether in truth people take advantage of it, that's another issue.

[2745] SPEAKER_13: I think that definitely tying them together, the team building one, that one definitely helps support the idea of, like, if you have differences in disagreement, so it's like, if you look at the specific kind of data thoroughly, then it's like maybe that's miscommunication, or maybe that could be a potential disagreement.

[2765] SPEAKER_25: There also needs, when you plan it, there has to be a time that a disagreement happens. There's time for it to be held off to the next meeting. Because disagreement is something that can happen. And if we're at a deadline, and the fact that we have to pass something, we're in a different situation than if you can sit back and say, we need to resolve something. And as an individual talking to someone on staff or talking to Pat, saying, you know, I don't think we have enough information for this, whatever, you're putting a disadvantage in terms of being realistic, in terms of getting that information out to everybody.

[2804] Nancy Thomas: One of the best practices of other districts is that they never bring a major decision to the board at just one meeting. It's the first, there's always a first and second reading. So the first meeting is for discussion purposes so everyone can ask their questions, get their views out, and then it's at the next meeting that, and then they can sleep on it. The board members can sleep on it for, a couple weeks. And get input from the community. And get input from the community and everything. I just think sometimes we, it's like the Russian, I like to get specific, but the whole merger was brought to us almost quickly and overnight. A workshop one time and then make the decision the next time without us really having a chance to think about it and get input about it. So especially with complex things like the merger and putting a budget together for the bond. Are you talking about Birch Grove, not the Russian? The Birch Grove merger is one, and the Russian money budget was another. Those are two big things that were, in my mind, really given to us in a very hurried fashion before your time, Pat.

[2890] SPEAKER_14: But here's, let me kind of read back to you what I'm hearing so far, is there's an interest in doing some goal setting with metrics, looking at structures for progress monitoring, folding in the LCAP planning process, getting to some agreement on strategic plan, and this idea of when we can, let's take our time on big ticket items, and if it takes two meetings, we queue it up in one, and then maybe decide on the second one so that there's plenty of time to process the volume of information.

[2922] SPEAKER_13: Yeah, that one is really key for me in terms of community input and figuring out, like, it's not fair for folks to be like, for us, we're looking at this information, but if you're a community member also, it's your first meeting or whatever, and you find out about a particular issue, not having the time to be able to process or be able to analyze everything. So it's for everyone's interest, if we can, to gather as much community input for big decision-making pieces.

[2955] SPEAKER_25: The 2.1 is an issue that has been sort of under the radar, underground kind of thing in terms of people requesting under excessive preparation by the staff, superintendent staff. Has that worked out? Has that gotten less?

[2980] SPEAKER_14: It has. It has gotten less. And I think part of it is, as we become more focused in our goals, it will be more aligned. I think it does help. And I think just getting to a better routine. I think part of the other challenge though is, you know, in Char and I's effort to get everything into the agenda, now the agenda's giant. So we do have to kind of get back to striking a balance, because I was teasing Donna this morning that if we make them bigger, she won't have any daylight coming in that front window. But the good news is we've been able to hold the line. If it's not ready, it's not going in. It's not going on the agenda.

[3022] Nancy Thomas: So that's important. I feel the need to speak up, because I know that there's been concern that I've sent too many emails. But very few of my emails, and I've got them here if anyone wants to see, very few of them are requests for information. Most of them are forwarding information from others. Most of them are giving my input or asking questions regarding agenda items. And others are info like reports from CSBA and things that are for the superintendent's consumption or not. I just think because this data hasn't been provided to the board members, you don't know other than Nancy Thomas had 50% of all the emails. I was at CSBA, the annual conference, and the former superintendent from Palo Alto said he got 1,000 emails from his board members every year. He counted them. And he said that was a good thing because it was communication. The emphasis was on board members communicating.

[3091] SPEAKER_13: So I just wanted to throw that out there. I mean, for me, it's more of looking at the languages, whether it's undue or that requires excessive preparation. So even if it's one email, you might see it, or any of us might see it as, here's just FYI. But on the receiving end, if you are superintendent or the staff, and you're overseen by the board collectively, that's your number one priority. Even if it's your FYI, it's here that you read that. You know what I mean? So we just have to make sure that we.

[3122] Nancy Thomas: We need to make sure the superintendent understands that one board member can't impact his time unduly. And that means that he doesn't need to read it if it's an information item if he doesn't have time. It's his decision, not.

[3139] SPEAKER_13: It's that combined with. The piece of like, I guess with board superintendent relations, the next, and I'm thinking about like, do all the board members feel that they're being listened to by the superintendent, right? So you can't say whether or not you have time, but then if he or she doesn't have time and doesn't respond, then it's like I'm being ignored and I'm not being listened to.

[3163] Nancy Thomas: We have, and we should continue to meet monthly with the superintendent. And in that one hour that we were meeting monthly with the superintendent, we can hash these things out. We can talk to him about if anything that we sent him as information rises to the level of, you know, is it required, you know what I'm saying?

[3187] SPEAKER_13: But yeah, I guess for me, and then going back to Superintendent's point, would be thinking about if we're all on the same page, or at least three of us, on the goals and objectives, right, of how we want to move forward, say three only because, right, that's what it takes, but hopefully it'd be all five of us about how we want to move the district forward collectively, then the information that we collectively seek, or even individually, it's going to be in the aims of supporting those goals and objectives, and part of it right now, or the maybe The reason why it's been a little confusing is that because we haven't been on the same page on what are those goals and objectives. It's like, we talked about the water issue, whatever, and I'm thinking about like, if I was curious about figuring out an analysis of how much water we're wasting, and that's just my personal thing to make sure we're not doing that. Is that what we've collectively decided, as opposed to doing a report on where are we at with graduation requirements? Not to say that, both of them can happen, it's just we haven't discussed collectively which of these things would be a priority and how are we moving forward. So maybe with the goals and objectives collectively, we would say, here's kind of all the issues we're all interested in, this is how we're moving together, and then getting on the same page of how we're prioritizing it. Because then it's like, can I move up my water issue in the priority or someone else? How are we collectively moving forward with our priorities.

[3276] SPEAKER_14: Let me, let me nudge us back to the topic here and then we can move to the next one. So what I added under decision making was, you know, creating some understanding or some writing or some, I think we already have it in the handbook relative to giving permission to the superintendent to say when something's undue and it's causing too much torque on the staff. I don't think it happens that often. I can say it in reference to your comments, Nancy, it has gotten better. And I think we've been able to work through some things, and I do see us being able to respond to things in the appropriate way, and I don't feel inundated by any board members' email. And I think that, so the work we've done so far has helped, and I feel good about that. But I think relative to decision making, it's not only this idea of the board having clear explicit metrics but also me knowing kind of what role I play to kind of be the referee to say sometimes hold on a second we can have that it won't be this board meeting because Shara's got 20 things to do and you know we started three o'clock and you know as much as she doesn't want to live here she's been living here so So I think I have enough to craft something on decision making.

[3355] SPEAKER_25: Can I just make a statement? Sure. And that is that we all have different needs in terms of our information, in terms of the depth. And some of us drill down differently than others. Right. And I think that having information available for us to do the drill down is fine, but we cannot expect the staff to do the drill down to suit us. Right. That's our job. Exactly. So the information needs to be there. And it needs to be there for community members to do that same kind of thing. But I think that it's very important that because you have a different method of gaining information and gaining insight for making your decision, it doesn't mean that you're as good as somebody else is. I think they're different. They come at it a different way. And so we need to make sure we do not impact staff to take care of our particular need past a certain point.

[3407] Nancy Thomas: developing the calendar. The superintendent and I talked briefly about this. If we have a calendar that's built out for a whole year, here's a sample that finished, the CSBA gives, here's the template and the start of perhaps superintendent and I working on getting things calendared that board members have said are important and the staff agrees are important and three months out at least it gives us the knowledge that we're not being ignored, that something is going to happen in that regard.

[3444] SPEAKER_13: And I think that's the discussion that I meant that we need to have in terms of prioritizing, because then if we can get three or four or all five of us to say, look, this is the number one priority, and we actually map it out together, like here, in terms of the calendar, the board workshop, for example, and the theme is going to be this. And then we're all on the same page then. So if I come up with an individual thing that's different, then everyone will say, oh, hey, we already agreed to this. Like, we're not going that way. We can wait. And that's part of the process, as long as we collectively have those conversations.

[3476] Nancy Thomas: But that wouldn't include putting something on the agenda in a couple weeks.

[3481] SPEAKER_13: Oh, yeah, you're right. But I guess I mean, like, I couldn't then I'm just giving myself an example. I'm not going to sort of have done this, but would be like, hey, demand that way we discuss this particular thing, because this is my topic. And then it'd be like, no, we already agreed collectively, this is how we're moving forward. Unless something changes, right, the landscape where we need to address it.

[3507] Nancy Thomas: I think there's some the There's difference in monitoring and a difference in discussing for the purpose of moving something forward or changing it. And so in the past, we shouldn't require any staff time. We've had standardized reports, which staff has prepared, which at the push of a button, Char can send out in the Friday update. And those are the things that some of which have fallen off And so it doesn't feel like we're monitoring like we have in the past because those things that staff should have reports on aren't being shared with us. That's the monitoring part I think. And then important things to monitor in public I think are like our student achievement scores, our progress on monitoring the budget because we've been in trouble. If we weren't in trouble and staff was doing everything perfect every year, we wouldn't have to have monthly reports on the budget. The first and second interim would be all we would need to look at and approve the final budget. But because there are issues where things haven't been, deficit spending hasn't been contained in the past, it's raised the issue to being monitored more frequently.

[3596] SPEAKER_13: I mean, there might be just a personal approach. I still think that even if we were perfect, or in terms of where you said there's no issues, I think for the purpose of transparency and community input, it would be good to have the monthly budget to actions, just from my perspective. So I think that's just the approach. But it doesn't matter what any of us individually think. It's how we work together as a team and how we're saying, this is how we want to move forward.

[3627] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, I mean, more is better for me too, but, you know, I'm just.

[3632] SPEAKER_14: Can we move to board superintendent relations? And just to get you caught up, Tom, what we've been doing on each one is pick one or two areas that really stand out that you think we need to pay attention to. Yeah. And we'll go around and hear everyone first, and then we'll start the conversation. So you want to take a minute to look at that? Unless someone wants to go first.

[3658] SPEAKER_25: On number 3.4, we are working to get that on a more timely basis. I think every single year that I've been here, it's only been a couple of years where we've been talking about that, which is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It should be a set time. It should be an evaluation point.

[3675] SPEAKER_13: There's no excuse for it. And one way to adjust that could be an ongoing thing as part of the like it's scheduled quarterly in the calendar for the closed session so that it actually happens. And it's not, oh, we got something else that came up, so we'll just talk about that later. So.

[3689] Nancy Thomas: Exactly. And that's the purpose, I think, of the calendars. Making sure that it's on there.

[3700] SPEAKER_14: I think for me, 3.3 stands out because I know we're in the process of creating those goals. But the more tangible goals that you've given me, As I said, what are the deliverables you want to see before the end of this year, by mid-year next year, end of next year, two years from now? That's really helpful. For me, that's one that stood out, is just that explicit direction and strategic plan, even, if you will. I think that's part of it. That's important. And I think that helps with all the other things we've been talking about. It's the foundational pieces. What does the board majority say is the most important thing? And how do we monitor that?

[3750] SPEAKER_25: I think 3.2 is the important thing there. As individual trustees, we get sort of the range. I think that we should have a 5 on that. There should be no reason not to have a 5. That's something that is controllable. And no gotchas.

[3770] Sean Abruzzi: Right.

[3771] Nancy Thomas: And that's the purpose, I think, of forwarding information that we get from the public. It's the purpose of our voicing our input thoughts on board agenda items and questions on board agenda items ahead of time. And if we want to repeat them for the benefit of the public at the meeting, well, I think we've been good about doing that correctly, judiciously.

[3801] SPEAKER_14: Tom, did you have one that stood out for you under 3.0?

[3804] SPEAKER_15: There's one where it's the, I think it was already brought up, But not necessarily just forwarding information ahead of time before the meetings and whatnot. But also, I think we've had instances where, you know, board members kind of know the line of speakers who are going to speak on a particular item. I don't know how cultured that particular is.

[3852] SPEAKER_14: Any thoughts or ideas on what might be an area of focus here besides? I mean, this is pretty straightforward. Sounds like what the interest is is really around reinforcing the idea of no surprises and giving specific direction. Formally.

[3877] SPEAKER_13: Yeah, so my thoughts are 3.3 and 3.4. And they are, like you said, they're kind of together in terms of by us providing that direction, then it's when we're doing the evaluation, it's like, well, you were given that direction, so we're evaluating things off of that. And then that it happens in a formal manner. I guess formal and timely manner.

[3904] Nancy Thomas: I think it would help to have what The superintendent is telling us he plans to do, which is to have maybe some intermediate goals and some success indicators, you know, numerical goals and timelines that, you know, would guide him and would help us in monitoring whether we're making sufficient progress on the goals. Okay.

[3934] SPEAKER_14: And I think we're going in close talk about that more and I have some specific things for you that will help. So I feel pretty good about where we're going with this. What I wrote is really how will we evaluate based on district approved areas of focus and really clear deliverables that that are kind of prioritized by the board. I mean, you may want me to do X, and you know it's going to take a year to do that. So let's not put it in the queue before the end of this year. Let's put it in the right sequence, and there's time to do that. So I think it's not just the metrics and the goals, but the due date. So there's no surprises in that regard as well. I think we'll be able to address some of that today in the evaluation conversation. Do you guys feel comfortable going to board meetings next? Any more comments on 3.0? Okay. Let's go to the board meetings. This is kind of back to what you were talking about. So you've been waiting for this one. Okay. Say more about that.

[4027] SPEAKER_13: Sure. So us having 30-minute conversations on on the consent agenda item, when it's on the consent agenda item, it should be relatively straightforward as opposed to having a 30-second conversation on a policy decision. I'm not saying you need actual specifics, but there's been several instances where we spend the bulk of our time on something that's like, oh, well, you should put and instead of or, or discussing that piece, as opposed to the policy, which is going to affect more people. So it's thinking about like, what is our role? And what is our primary focus. It should be looking at the overarching policy and what are the key performance indicators for us accomplishing those goals and spending our time accordingly so it's not three hours.

[4091] SPEAKER_25: But there are times when items are put in a consent agenda that we need to discuss for some reason and so whatever reason that's put in the consent. So I think that you know I think we have done pretty well in pulling things out. I don't know that we've spent too much time. If we've spent 30 seconds on a policy, it's probably because we all agree with the changes. It's not that we think the policy... It doesn't matter. It's a matter of the fact that what CSBA has said and how it's changed is what we really want to do. It's a matter of modifying things to suit the law rather than to suit how we approach something.

[4130] Nancy Thomas: Well, policies are not allowed to meet consent agenda. Exactly. No, exactly.

[4134] SPEAKER_25: There are always separate discussions. But there are times when there is no, I mean, maybe what we need to do is state why we support that policy. And maybe that's something that's important for everyone to understand that this policy, sexual harassment, is very important. And it's good that we've included transgender in there, or whatever else we might like doing. But if there's no discussion, it may not be because it's not important.

[4158] SPEAKER_13: I guess what I'm going to say. in my relatively short time here, we haven't been, from my perspective, been focusing on the academic success indicators, the programs, and evaluating them as much as we should. And to me, that's the core of what we do. And maybe that's just a disagreement that we have of what our function is. But I see that making sure that we are creating the, a good classroom environment in terms of being able to perform or succeed academically. That's what I think we need to focus on and that's what the majority of the board meeting time should be on and having those discussions. Like, hey, we started to have some of these discussions on what would it look like to have a, I think we said like at the high school, like a medical specific AP program versus something else. Like focusing on the academic pieces for me is where I think we should spend most of our time as opposed to, I'm trying to think of a good example I can't have. other things that we're spending our time on, or it's from my perspective that we shouldn't be?

[4237] SPEAKER_25: I've been pulling something out of consent today, passing into the cost of copiers. In terms of whether in truth that's the cheapest way to go, I don't know that it is. But it's an awful lot of money we're spending, $500 a month for, $300 for an elementary school a month for, and I don't know, but I'm assuming that due diligence is there and that this is better than going back to the old staples and the old coffee machines that we have. And so then that needs to be stated, I think, because that's the cost item. It's a really big cost item.

[4271] SPEAKER_13: Yeah, no, and that's fine. And that's from... And I'm not saying... Because you're right, because I've had issues with both from consagent and genetics, too. So it's not... I mean, because we keep talking about what's the process for them going on there. Maybe that would be different. But it's more of like... things like that that impact the budget. And I know that, I know myself, it's like, well, this is $3 million when we're trying to cut and we're spending on this. So that is not what I'm talking about. I guess it's more, I wish I had to think right now off the top of my head like a specific example where we.

[4303] SPEAKER_14: Well, I think that, let me try to help. I think that really what it speaks to is are we spending time on the most important things in the board meeting? and to try to limit times that aren't the most important things, to not spend time on those things. So even in your example, it's very relevant to our strategic imperative number two, and that's why you're bringing it, calling it out. Now, if it was, we're buying a $30 sprinkler head, is that really worth spending the time on?

[4337] SPEAKER_25: Or accepting of... Right. Unless there's a real flaw.

[4342] SPEAKER_22: You should know that before.

[4344] SPEAKER_25: It might be. Someone should have told you that before we get to the board meeting, that there's concerns about many of the major contracts that are in there.

[4354] SPEAKER_14: Part of what I think, and just prior conversations where I think we've talked about is, can we structure the board meeting in a way and the agendas in a way so we are heavy on the things that are most important? I know that we've talked about how do we really We should be looking at some aspect of academics every single board meeting. I mean, we don't have enough latitude, or we're not performing high enough that we can ignore things. But I think that's kind of the spirit of what this is about. Is that what you're saying?

[4383] SPEAKER_13: That's what I mean, yes.

[4384] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. And I agree. I think two examples are the LCAP and the budget. Too often, we have not seen the LCAP until the very last minute. It's obvious that the budget The budget has not been married to the LCAP plan, you know, so from finance to ed services they have not married it until the last minute. That the budget that we're given doesn't, it's not something that's easy to discuss and we only get it on Monday before the Tuesday meeting. It's just, and that's against Ed Code I'm finding out. So those are things I think that that's a strategic imperative number one and strategic imperative number two are wrapped up into those things. So to just have them at the last minute instead of discussing student performance and programs as they are listed in the LCAP, not having regular discussions about that in, in reference to the LCAP, because if it's not in the LCAP, we shouldn't be doing it, you know, in terms of student programs, correct?

[4457] SPEAKER_14: Yes. So it really is answering the question, are we inspecting what we expect at every board meeting? That's really kind of the essence of this idea that you guys are talking about.

[4468] SPEAKER_15: I think it goes back to what was mentioned earlier, where the, giving us the information, especially when it comes to important heavy-duty items, Maybe not wait to the very last minute, you know, and just meet the statutory, you know, Brown Act requirement, but if it's something really important, give us a week in advance, right? And so that we have ample time to sit through it and digest it. Because there have been times where we've, at least I feel that we're rushed or forced into a decision because a deadline is coming imminently and we have to decide tonight or it's do or die.

[4509] Sean Abruzzi: Right, okay.

[4512] SPEAKER_14: I think I have a good handle on everything I can grab from there.

[4517] SPEAKER_13: That's the calendar mapping in terms of, so if we know the budget is due May 15th, then we know that we should set it up so that we have conversations January, February, March, April, so that we'll have enough time to discuss it so it's not like May 15th, it's like, hey, this is the first time I'm seeing, to Mr. Wood's point,

[4538] Nancy Thomas: Or like when there is, when we're getting community input on the LCAP, that we get a board report or discussion on that input, and that we're part of the process. We understand what's happening with the development of the LCAP from the beginning.

[4563] SPEAKER_14: Okay, can we move on to vision and planning? It was kind of leading into what we were talking about. Which of the five series stand out to you guys?

[4579] SPEAKER_25: It's on the top of page four. The heading is at the bottom of page four.

[4595] SPEAKER_13: I've been stepping up too much, so I'm going to step back. Sorry. I'll wait.

[4606] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, you know, 5.3 to me is the thing we need to really pay attention to. I mean, I went to the LCAP meeting, and it was a list of accomplishments. But they were activities. We did training on this. We spent money on that. But it didn't say, here we are halfway into the year, and we've been spending this much money, and here's... You're talking about outcomes?

[4646] SPEAKER_25: Huh? You're talking about seeing outcomes?

[4649] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, there was no outcomes. There was no deliverables and no no mention of how well we're doing it just here's what we've done so it's an accomplishment because we've done it but how well have we done it um you know is it being successful what's working and what's not and how we're looking to change direction next year or or ongoing to to just because nothing's perfect i mean we've got to be able to look at what's working and what's not working and say okay this isn't doing as much for our kids as we thought it would And we're making some adjustments. Oh, we weren't able to get substitutes for this training, and we're going to have to leave it out. Whatever. You know what I mean? There's just specifics on, rather than a list. We can go to the LCAP to see the list. It doesn't tell us anything about how well we're doing.

[4707] SPEAKER_25: Oftentimes, when you look at assessing progress in education, it does not happen the same year. It's a multi-year kind of thing. So what you do this year will show fruit next year and can be identified as making a difference next year. So if we do something in terms of getting the kids ready for high school math, we won't know really what the outcomes are until those kids get to high school and go through and see what it is. So we're looking at a multi-year kind of assessing the progress. And I think to expect progress evaluation before that is not being realistic. And the only thing sometimes you can say is, this is what we tried. Let's see if it works.

[4754] Nancy Thomas: But what is the success indicators, intermediate success indicators that would tell us that we're on track?

[4759] SPEAKER_13: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. So I think it could be a framework kind of combining both. It would be like this. We've developed a two-year plan that the outcome is to get X amount of people at this level by the end of the second year. And this is our plan to do that. And whether or not it's successful, like you're right, We can evaluate it and we'll change it after the two years. But in the meantime, we're not going to wait a year and a half and say, oh, well, we were supposed to have that extra course where we developed it, but we didn't. So now we're behind. The measurable thing would be this is the plan. Maybe it is those activities of saying these are the activities because this is the goal. So here's the goal in two years. and we're going to do these classes or this specific enhancement at these levels, and then reporting back on whether or not they did those pieces.

[4814] Nancy Thomas: But all along, we do get, we should have indicators. So, for example, if we do a training, you know, what did the people that went to that training, how effective did they feel it is? If we are doing a textbook adoption, what is the results and input from the people that are piloting the material. Those kind of benchmarks that give feedback. And what is our already testing telling us about the progress our kids are making? Those are all kind of measures that kind of, it's a feedback loop that tells us if we're on the right track, rather than waiting a year and a half.

[4857] SPEAKER_13: So I think you should have qualitative and quantitative. Right. indicators of success, the only thing I want to make sure we don't dive into is saying, oh, well, what did that teacher feel like in that particular training that they had? It's like that's not our prerogative at all, right? So we would say, in terms of effectiveness, we're not looking at that type of data. What we would do is we would look at, OK, if the outcome was for this group of students to to progress towards this particular goal, then we could say the qualitative data would be like, did the educator feel that the training that they received helped support them towards that particular goal, right?

[4901] Nancy Thomas: Not any individual teacher, but the trainings and overall. So for example, one year we had an RL cap that we do this summer, on math academy, and then we found out, oh, no, we didn't do that. Well, you know, we need to know why we didn't do it and why we diverted the money to something else.

[4928] SPEAKER_13: No, you're right. That would be a key thing in terms of evaluation, but not. Yeah. So I would say 5.2 because it's having the plan.

[4946] SPEAKER_14: 5.2, 5.3 is kind of what I was hearing.

[4949] SPEAKER_13: Because you need to have the plan in order to assess the progress.

[4952] SPEAKER_14: Well, I think part of the establishing the baseline is that now we've gone to the California dashboard. It's a little clearer to know that we really want, I mean, without knowing anything else, we want every school to start moving towards green and blue. And where are they not green and blue? What are we doing about it? Exactly. I mean, that's really kind of an oversimplification, but that's part of it. But the other part of this inside, the annual plan is really something internal that we use to drive the calendar and drive where we're spending time. That's the progress monitoring I'm hearing there. And really this is the largest overarching theme that I've heard throughout is developing a really clear plan, executing it, and progress monitoring. That's really where we are right now, which makes sense that we've carved out some time to do that. Okay? And just because I'm a nerd, 1.5, 2.3, 3.3, 4.2, 5.2, 5.3 are all around plan development. And they're all things you guys have brought up so far. Can we move to community leadership? There was one no in 6.5 I thought was interesting. What resonates for you guys out of a 6.0 community leadership gap? Somebody said no.

[5039] SPEAKER_21: They said no instead of what?

[5045] SPEAKER_14: It probably means no, we haven't funded it appropriately.

[5049] Nancy Thomas: We haven't done it either. I mean, we haven't done the free stuff.

[5054] SPEAKER_14: So community leadership, which standards stand out?

[5063] SPEAKER_25: I think number two, something that we've talked around, public information about education and school district, and that is we don't get the paper. We don't.

[5073] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, the Tri-City Voice, we have something in there every week. I love the new newsletter that was in the, from Ed Services, Amy Black's newsletter. I signed up for it. It gives a lot of information about what's happening. Good. We can wrap that into an article for the Tri-City Voice.

[5096] SPEAKER_14: So just overall increasing communications.

[5098] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, yeah. It's stuff that she's communicating anyway.

[5107] SPEAKER_13: I think for 6.4, it would be for me because accepting responsibility for adding positions and programs within the community. Part of it is without having a plan or having Everyone has their own program or thing that they're pushing. So it's like, well, I'm supporting this. It's like, we're not on the same page of what we're collectively working on.

[5129] Nancy Thomas: It's kind of hard to even be knowledgeable about the piece of message that we should be sending out. Because if you look at our LCAP, it's five different goal areas. You know, how do we communicate cohesively to people in the community that we have a very good plan for moving forward and including students?

[5155] SPEAKER_25: You know, I think here a little bit of leadership from Pat would be helpful. And that is, what is the message we want to get out? I mean, it's like when you run for board member and say you have your stomp speech. So we need to have it there. It needs to be consistent. And people are bad-mouthing the district. as a board member, that's a negative thing. That's a negative thing.

[5179] SPEAKER_14: Social media, I mean, all those things come to mind.

[5182] Nancy Thomas: I mean, I've gotten so much recently negative comments from community members and city people, you know. They don't see what we're doing. They don't know what we're doing. And as a result, they don't think we're doing. They dismiss.

[5201] Nancy Thomas: And yet, the city puts their message out in their quarterly

[5207] SPEAKER_13: newsletter that goes to every... So one thing I think that, to Pat's point earlier, in terms of we're moving to green and blue everywhere, is figuring out, like, I think we'd be figuring out in terms of, okay, in comparable districts, this is where we're at, and this is our plan to move forward, or whatever the kind of message you develop, that... Here's what we're doing for the red area. Exactly. And doesn't have to So here, it's more thinking about how we're presenting to our district as a whole, because then we have different schools, right? It's like, oh, this one is, and this is blue, and this part is green, and then so figuring it out like that. We don't have to dive into that. We could just be, as a district, this is where we're at, and this is kind of where we're moving.

[5255] Nancy Thomas: And you know, we can't expect to say, compared to Fremont, you know, we want to compare ourselves to Fremont. We have looked at similar districts, and look it, we are excelling in these areas. And we're working with our parents and our community to make sure that our students are getting the support they need outside of school, as well as in school.

[5279] SPEAKER_14: I don't know. You know, that kind of thing. But even celebrating, there's a lot of things that are going right, and we haven't got that out either. We have to answer what we're doing with the areas that are low, but we also need to. I mean, I know we had a group of kids at robotics in Sacramento And that's something we should celebrate. I mean, those are important things, but.

[5299] SPEAKER_13: Right, the fact that going to nationals in terms of the rocketry. Yeah. So figuring that out, it's like we're one of a handful of junior highs in the country that has a team consistently over the last two years that has sent the folks. And we're, like, those specific things, like having a message like that, this is what we're selling as

[5321] SPEAKER_25: And I think that we need to do more in terms of where our graduates are going to school, what they're doing, what their graduate outcome is. I mean, we've got a lot of stars that are graduates. And they need to start thinking about what kind of education they got. And I think back 50 years to the education I got, I can still tell you, Some important concepts that became part of my concept were due to what happened in a particular class on a particular day. And I can relate to that, because it was something that was just right for me at the time. And I think that we are educating the whole kid. We are not educating for just college. And I think that's a piece that we need to endorse, the fact that we are looking at the whole child.

[5376] SPEAKER_25: And I think I would take any of our students against anybody else in the school in terms of their ability to be around diversity, a whole number of areas. That doesn't mean we don't have some kids in jail and some of the kids that are becoming lawyers.

[5392] SPEAKER_14: OK. That's pretty good. And that actually came up as a theme as well in my evaluation. draft ideas for you guys to see for us as well.

[5404] SPEAKER_25: You know, I don't know that we can fund this community relations piece.

[5410] SPEAKER_25: And that's, that's, we have to decide whether, because if we look at our board budget, you know, what is it that would give us the most bang for the buck? And is it a matter of just getting the information out there?

[5428] SPEAKER_13: And this is the piece that we have the conversation about the catch-22 that like if we don't reach out to people to let them know how good Newark is, then they're gonna get the information from the community and say, oh, well, this is what I've heard. Or worse from Facebook. Like you're not at this level, so that's why I'm going somewhere else. But if we don't have a concerted effort to address this, you know, like all of these kind of rumors, like, here's the facts. This is where we're at. So it might be worth, in terms of the investment, to say this. We're doing this to do a big media blitz and a media campaign because we know all the new folks who just moved in, and they're going to get the information somewhere. And if we don't provide that, then they're going to get it somewhere else from outside entities.

[5480] SPEAKER_14: I think I have a pretty good handle on it. At least I can take the first draft out and bring it back to you probably by as soon as Friday. There might be a lot of Friday updates we can look at and we can begin fine-tuning. And I'll just say it for the sake of the recording is this is really Strategic Comparative 3, which is around increasing enrollment. And that's not going to happen unless we start communicating what's going right, what are we doing about our challenges. I mean, it really is in line with the imperatives that we've been given.

[5517] SPEAKER_25: And maybe it's a matter of, I mean, we are a service industry, OK? And it's a matter of plugging in with the kids, what is right. Find out from the kids. Because part of it's them being happy and involved in their education. I mean, parents see it from a different perspective than the kids do. And I don't know whether the kids' perspective is better than parents', but it's different. So there are strengths there that we may not think about. I mean, we're talking about the athletic program, and 50% of our kids are involved some way in that.

[5566] SPEAKER_13: Are we going to do areas for improvement or?

[5568] SPEAKER_14: I think I would suggest, let me draft it because I know that, just I can tell you that it's already merging with a lot of the goals for my eval that I think would make sense. And I think I've already had more detail than we do here. I think we can do this if you'd like.

[5584] SPEAKER_13: Oh, that's fine.

[5584] SPEAKER_14: I was just asking. I think that, and I know that we have a, I was also going to try to draft something to share with the facilitator of our retreat that we're having at the end of January. What's the date on that? Can you tell me the retreat date? January 30th. And it's in the afternoon? It's a Tuesday. Is that Monday or Tuesday? 5 to 9 p.m.

[5603] SPEAKER_25: Because that was the Tuesday we were talking about. The 30th.

[5608] Nancy Thomas: The 30th is, yeah, the 5th Tuesday. Right.

[5611] SPEAKER_25: At 4 p.m.?

[5614] SPEAKER_14: So I'd like you to give me a chance to draft something. I think it'll still connect with all those pieces that we've been asking about. Not that, you know, I know you want to spend more time in the meeting, but we have a little bit of a waiting window.

[5628] SPEAKER_25: We can eat our dinner.

[5629] SPEAKER_14: Yeah, you can have your dinner. We have a sandwich here for you, Tom, if you'd like something.

[5634] Nancy Thomas: OK. OK, well, I was hoping there would be one other thing that's connected with this that we could talk about.

[5642] Nancy Thomas: And this is something that I think Frankie and, well, Tom might not have ever seen. But this is, this is something that we adopted but never actually were implemented with fidelity. Yeah, and it's kind of like, you know, it allows, if we have a request to, state what it is and everything, and then give staff a chance to say, you know, we can do it or not. And then next steps and whether it should be a board agenda item, a study session item, a written report, a board presentation, Friday update item. You know, sometimes it's just a matter of wanting some information.

[5709] Michael Milliken: Can I share a copy with Shar? Do you have an extra one I can show?

[5711] SPEAKER_25: So at this point, so if we fill out this information when we were talking about our report back at the end of the board meeting, instead of saying I'd like to have something done, you turn one of these in.

[5721] SPEAKER_14: Just leave that for Shar.

[5722] SPEAKER_25: Then it becomes something that Shar's got there, something that Pat's got. And it becomes, I mean it functions well if people use it, otherwise it's just, yeah.

[5731] SPEAKER_13: I mean the other piece of my piece, someone might want to say that they're going to do that because they want to, say like this is what they're moving forward on, or this is what they're trying to push. So they can just say like, I want to bring this, I'm going to provide this, but here's the topic.

[5750] SPEAKER_25: Right. And so it's very clear. It's not a matter of me interpreting what you said. You're putting it down. You can write down your own.

[5757] Nancy Thomas: Then there's the negotiation with staff on something very quick, something they already have, something they're willing to put on the agenda.

[5768] SPEAKER_25: So if this becomes what the member does, then this is all requests come this way. So it's not a matter of calling up Pat and saying, hey, by the way, I want something else. It comes on this form. So that if we have a tracking of what people are requesting that may take staff time, then there's a paper track in terms of what people are requesting.

[5792] SPEAKER_13: Okay. So we need this in WordDoc if we're going to. I think it should be in your work.

[5798] SPEAKER_25: I have a template.

[5799] SPEAKER_22: I have a template.

[5801] SPEAKER_25: That's good. I like it. No, we worked hard on it.

[5803] SPEAKER_14: I see a spot to put your credit card in case you want to find it.

[5810] SPEAKER_25: Can you email that?

[5812] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, I'll email the form.

[5817] SPEAKER_14: So that concludes my portion then, President.

[5824] Nancy Thomas: Okay, if there's no other input, this study session is adjourned and we will reconvene at 6 o'clock for a closed session.

No minutes available.