Special Meeting

Introduction

• Meeting Type: Special Board Meeting
• Date: February 22, 2023
• Location: Newark Unified School District (NUSD) Boardroom (in-person/virtual hybrid)
• Key Themes: Superintendent search firm selection, board vacancy process, and equity-focused public comments.

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Agenda Items

Superintendent Search Firm Selection

• Description:
  • Three firms considered: Leadership Associates, McPherson & Jacobson, and Hazard, Young, & Attea (HYA).
  • Leadership Associates and McPherson & Jacobson presented in-depth proposals; HYA did not attend.
• Key Points:
  • Leadership Associates:
    • Emphasized California-specific expertise, stakeholder engagement (including students), and administrative support for logistics.
    • Highlighted 85% retention rate of placed superintendents and 64% diverse finalists in past searches.
    • Proposed $25,500 fee (no hidden costs).
  • McPherson & Jacobson:
    • Focused on national reach, stakeholder interviews, and post-hire support (e.g., first-year performance objectives).
    • Cited 75% retention rate over five years.
    • Proposed $17,000–$22,000 fee.
  • HYA: Submitted written proposal but did not present.
• Decisions Made:
  • Leadership Associates selected unanimously (5-0 vote).
  • Rationale: In-person engagement, equity focus, and alignment with district priorities (e.g., bilingual programs, student input).

Board Vacancy Process

• Description:
  • Discussion on filling the vacancy left by Trustee Zhang (resignation effective February 28, 2023).
• Key Points:
  • Options: Special election (cost: ~$100,000+) or provisional appointment until December 2024.
  • Board consensus leaned toward appointment due to cost and timeline constraints.
• Next Steps:
  • Draft appointment process (application, timeline, eligibility review) to be finalized at the March 2, 2023, regular meeting.

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Public Comments

• Key Themes:
  • Guadalupe Lopez (community member):
    • Highlighted systemic challenges:
      • Student mental health: 24% of Bay Area students report anxiety/suicidal ideation.
      • Academic gaps: 40% below grade level in English, 52% in math; 62% not meeting UC/CSU requirements.
      • Equity concerns: 53% Latino student population underrepresented in leadership/tech careers.
    • Urged prioritization of programs supporting low-income families and bilingual education.

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Follow-Up and Commitments

1. Superintendent Search:
   • Leadership Associates to begin stakeholder engagement (surveys, focus groups) and draft a recruitment timeline.
2. Board Vacancy:
   • Staff to develop application materials and eligibility criteria for board review by March 2.
3. Equity Initiatives:
   • Commitments to center student/family input in superintendent selection and vacancy appointment.

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Conclusion

• Outcomes:
  • Leadership Associates hired to lead superintendent search.
  • Provisional appointment process advanced for board vacancy.
• Next Steps:
  • March 2, 2023, regular meeting: Finalize vacancy process and review superintendent search timeline.
  • Community updates to be shared via NUSD website and Comcast Channel 26.

Audience Note: Summary balances technical details (e.g., LCFF, Ed Code references) with accessibility for families/staff. Neutral tone maintained throughout.

1. CALL TO ORDER

1.1 Meeting Practices and Information

1.2 Pledge of Allegiance

[124] Nancy Thomas: It is the February 22nd, 2023 special meeting of the Board of Education. Newark Unified has opened its boardroom for in-person meetings and will follow the state's and Alameda County's safety guidelines for public gatherings. Please refrain from attending in-person meetings if you have any COVID symptoms. Members of the public may observe the meeting via NUSD YouTube channel, live transmission on Comcast channel 26, or in person at the NUSD boardroom. Please join me for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Ms. Johnson, would you please call the roll?

1.3 Roll Call

[186] SPEAKER_28: Student Board Member Torres? Here. Member Nguyen? Aye. Here. Member Jones?

[192] Penny DeLeon: Here.

[193] SPEAKER_28: Member Zhang, absent. Vice President Hill? Here. President Thomas?

2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

2.1 Approval of the Agenda

[198] Nancy Thomas: Here. Thank you. Thank you. Next, I would entertain a motion for approval of the agenda.

[205] Aiden Hill: I move to approve the agenda. I move to approve the agenda.

[209] Nancy Thomas: I'll second. Motion by Member Hill, second by Member Jones to approve the agenda. Please vote. Oh, Member Torres.

[220] Diego Torres: Yes.

[222] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[242] SPEAKER_28: I believe the online voting is open.

[246] Nancy Thomas: Do you see it? We don't see it. Do you want to do a manual roll call, please?

[255] SPEAKER_28: Now see, I think it's coming through now. Could you check, please?

[260] Nancy Thomas: Yes, it is.

[271] SPEAKER_28: All votes are in. Five ayes.

3. OPEN SESSION

3.1 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[275] Nancy Thomas: I believe there is a public comment. Ms. Lupe Lopez.

[305] Guadalupe Lopez: Good evening. Good evening, board members and administrative staff. In choosing the new superintendent and the new school board member, it is important to keep in mind our school population and the needs our student currently facing. Number one, anxiety. In the Bay Area, at least 24% of our students have reported feeling anxiety and had thoughts of suicide. Poverty. Many of our families are below the poverty level and are living in multifamily quarters. Three, hunger. In California, one of every six kids live in poverty and are considered at risk. Four, the school performance. 40% of our kids are performing below level in English. 52% are performing below level in math. And 62% of the kids are not meeting the UC and SU standards requirements. These statistics are even higher among Latinos, which our district makes up 53%. Our Latino per capita income is $32,255 here in the Bay Area. Latinos make an average wage of 64% less than similarly educated white residents. In the tech industry, Latinos represent only 3% is represented in this industry. Leadership roles represent only a 5%. It is crucial we have adequate representation in programs that improve education, especially on our 53% population. In closing, I would like to remind you that a school district cannot be successful without developing programs in support of the 53% of their student population residents. Thank you.

4. OLD BUSINESS

4.1 Public Employment (Gov. Code, § 54957, subd. (b)(1)) Title: Superintendent Search

[419] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Next, we move on to old business, public employment, superintendent search. Ms.

[432] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Pierce. All right. Good evening. We have three search firms available this evening. First, we have Leadership Associates. Then we have McPherson and Jacobs, followed by HYA. We're going to start with our Leadership Associates who are here in person. I'd like to bring up Dr. Eric Andrews and Dr. Jacqueline Horwich. If I said that incorrect, please correct me.

[463] SPEAKER_37: Very good. So good evening. Thank you so much for allowing us to come and present to you in person. We really do enjoy being here among you, and we look forward to being able to present our proposal for the superintendent search. I'm going to start by having my colleague Eric Andrew introduce himself.

[489] SPEAKER_09: Thank you so much. My name is Eric Andrew. I am the retired superintendent of the Campbell Union School District. I've been with Leadership Associates for the last six years, have convened about 30 plus successful searches. And one of the reasons why we're here is because with Leadership Associates, we do believe in building relationship. And building that relationship starts with meeting people where they are and in person. So we were pleased to be able to come here tonight to meet you, put a name to the face, face to the name, and be able to present our firm's attributes so that you can make a decision.

[526] SPEAKER_37: Thank you. And my name, although it does say Jacqueline Horsch, I go by Jackie. And I, like Eric, have been a superintendent. I was superintendent for nine years in a district in the west side of San Jose, Union School District. And I have been doing superintendent searches for the last, seven years, although I will tell you, full disclosure, I did work for HYA, Hazard, Young, and Atiyah, for several years before I saw the light and ended up going with Leadership Associates, so full disclosure on that. So next slide, please. This is us, obviously, and if you'd go to the next slide. So one of the things that we want to do tonight is really try to show you how we're different from the other search firms. I know that you've spent a lot of time and you've read the proposals and you may have even heard some of the presentations the other evening when we were doing those Zooms. But we really feel that one of the major differences that we have is the administrative support that we have available for your administrative assistant. So again, as I mentioned, full disclosure, I worked for another firm. I know that they don't have this kind of support. So those two people that you see there, Serena and Penny, one of them would be assigned to your search if we were lucky enough to be selected. They will be with you, honestly. We laugh and say it's 24-7, but it is. They are there to help guide your administrative assistant through all of the logistics. And I know some of you have been through a search before, so you know there's a lot of logistics. There are all kinds of things that have to be posted. There's stakeholder scheduling that needs to be done, input meetings, posting on your website, communication with, you know, colleagues about our search, all kinds of things like that. And those administrative assistants, both of whom have been executive administrative assistants in districts. So one of them would be assigned to your search. And I guarantee you, it really, it's a critical difference. So I'm going to have Eric walk you through kind of the phases of the search.

[672] SPEAKER_09: And before I do that, I'd like to let you know, although Jackie and I are the two people standing here, You actually have our entire firm as a part of this process. Leadership Associates has partners. So we don't have consultants, we have partners. So we're all vested. In fact, every two weeks, we all meet as partners and we go through every single search as a team to get an idea of where the progress is. are the candidates throughout the field that we may be able to tap into for other searches. What's going on in Horizon? We also have what's called Superintendent Leadership Series, where over 250 superintendents are part of our group that we meet with once a month in order to help develop. And it keeps us relevant in terms of what's happening in the field. In fact, I can say that because I was looking at some of the programs. You have your STAR programs and your STEAM programs and projects. I really was impressed by a lot of that, and your dual immersion program, because I was a part of that, starting something like that in my own district along the way. So I'm very impressed by that. Next slide, please. So if we were to take you through our process, all of us, meaning the three search firms processes, are going to be pretty similar, to be frank with you. So first button, please. Starts and ends with the board. You are the ones who would hire the superintendent and hire us as a framework. We recognize that, so we take direction from the board. We spend a lot of time with the board, much more than just the initial meeting, etc. We check in on a regular basis to ensure that you are getting the information that you need. And in fact, what I like to do is about every two weeks, send you a little brief update. Here's what's happening. Here's the number of people who have pulled applications. Here are the number of people who have applied. Here are the number of people that we're talking to. So that you could keep abreast, so that your community can know, here's what's happening regarding the superintendent search. Next. Stakeholder input. As I said, we've done this in person or virtual. Jack and I usually will come and just camp out in your district for a couple of days and we will give you a list of stakeholders that we recommend that you take a look at, but every district is different. There are people who we will encourage you to invite to be a part of this process by attending one of the input sessions. In fact, this is really a time that I encourage districts to Seek those voices who have not been heard. Don't typically come to your meetings or don't typically participate in your school, in your district events. But to make sure that they are heard, that they have a personal invitation to come and be a part of the community input session. We will be recruiting. And part of that is once we have gotten information from the outreach for focus groups and online surveys, develop what's called a professional profile which we will get approved by the board that says here are the characteristics that the board and the community says they want to see in their next superintendent. And we really take this part of the process very seriously because we want not only the board but the community to know their voices are being heard and they have a seat at the table. Once we've done that, Jackie and I will start the recruiting process And that outreach will be based on that professional profile, because we're going to be looking at candidates who meet that criteria. There are going to be a lot of people who will apply for your district, who will not meet with you. The board and the community says the same one. And so we will not bring those forward to you. We will show you the names and applications, but in terms of being serious candidates, We will not, we will tell you, they do not meet the criteria that the board and the community said that they wanted to see. We spend a lot of time that, during that, during our meetings, in fact, with our partners, we will say, here's what the Newark district is looking for in their next superintendent. What do we have? Are there people out there that we can encourage to apply for that position itself? And so we will do that. Next one, please. And then we will present to you the candidates. We will go through everyone who has submitted an application. We will put them in tiers to say, here are the five, six people who we believe 100% or at least 90% meet exactly what you said you wanted to see in your next superintendent. We will tell you the next group. The next group, we will say, these people are pretty close. For example, one of the things that may come out of your community input session is that we want someone who is bilingual. And we will say, the second group, they're pretty good, but they aren't bilingual, or they don't have financial experience, and so on. So we will tell you this is why they're a two versus a top group. Then we'll look at the threes. The threes will be groups that we say they do not meet the criteria at all.

[977] SPEAKER_29: Next.

[981] SPEAKER_37: Okay, and I do wanna talk to you real quickly about why us, but also wanna just piggyback on one of the last things that Eric was talking about with the tiers. The choice is totally yours. Even though we look at all of the candidates, and you will also be given an opportunity to look at all of the candidates, all of their materials, we have a portal, it's electronic, you'll see every single thing that the candidates send in to us. We put them, as Eric mentioned, based on what you have said in your community that you're looking for. But if we have a candidate in Tier 2 and you say, you know, we really want to see that candidate, that candidate goes up to Tier 1. It's totally up to you how many candidates you want to see for your interview, how many you feel should be in Tier 1. and if you want to move any of them around. It's really not up to us. It's totally up to the board. So just real quickly to try to differentiate why we really do believe that we're the best firm to find the right match for your district. First of all, as Eric mentioned, we're all partners. We have a vested interest in leadership associates and in your success. This is our full-time job. We don't have other jobs. We aren't hired guns, so to speak. The other thing, and I mentioned this, how important it is that you have an administrative assistant assigned to this search. That person will be with you throughout every part of the search. And honestly, it's very, very important. Another thing that's really important is that we actually customize the search. If it's elected, we're going to meet with you and we're going to talk about the various aspects of the search and you're going to tell us what you want. Do you want us to see? 20 stakeholder groups, do you want us to see 50? Recent search Eric and I did, we did 50 stakeholder input groups. You know, people wanted us to talk to city council, they wanted us to talk to the mayor. Whatever you want us to do, we'll do. And this is a very important difference and I'll talk about that in just a second. Eric mentioned our broad base of candidates. We do an awful lot of outreach, we do superintendent, aspiring superintendents, instructional leadership, all kinds of professional developments. We presented CSBA, we presented superintendent symposium. People know us. If you're a person who wants a superintendency, I know that you have leadership associate right at the tip of your tongue. So we really do make sure that we have a deep, deep and broad pool of candidates. In addition, what I think is really important is that we're California based. As Eric mentioned, all of our partners strategically placed throughout the state are in various areas of California. There's a reason why we've done 69% of the searches in California. People trust us to know California and the candidates. We also are very proud of the fact that 85% of the candidates that we placed are still in their positions. And I think when you see our guarantee, we guarantee at least two years as long as the majority of the board who hired that person. is still in place. We really are committed to equity and ensuring that we meet the diverse needs of California. You can see 64% of the finalists that the board selected, that we held place, were women or candidates of color. And the next one I think is really important. If you look at other firms, you will see that although they have a base price, they have all kinds of add-ons. We're going to do one day of stakeholder inputs, but you know, it's $1,000 a day for any other days. We're not there for the candidate interviews, but for $1,000 a day, we could be there. We have nothing like that. We are yours throughout the search. We actually, you know, meet with as many stakeholder groups as you need us to meet with. As I said, you have 24-7 call in on anything. And more importantly, we're there through the interview process too. None of the other search firms do that. We're there with you to help guide you while you're interviewing the candidates, to answer questions you might have about the candidates after they've left that maybe you didn't have an opportunity to ask. So I think it's really important for all of these. Eric is just going to try to put together some closing thoughts and take questions from you.

[1251] SPEAKER_09: Again, thank you very much. We are very pleased to be here. As I said, we decided that we would come in person. We wanted to meet you. We wanted to get a chance to see your faces. We want to get a chance to get to know you a little bit better. Our firm is serious about the business of hiring superintendents. This is what we do. We are California based. However, what we have found is that through Jackie's influence in some cases, We get applicants from throughout the nation and in some cases throughout the world. And so we do have a very broad base of candidates that we look for. We do not have a set group of people who we move through every search because every search is different. Whenever you and your community decide that you want to see the next superintendent, we find people who match that criteria along the way. And it's like to close by saying, we know this is a tough decision for you. You have a lot of important decisions to make and hiring your next superintendent and hiring for him to do so is extremely important. The last piece I will say is that we are student based. We believe that the job of education is ensuring that every student, regardless of their zip code, has the best education opportunity possible. And we find educational leaders who support that, who will help you drive your vision and your direction for the district to ensure that students really do have a voice. And in fact, during our focus group meetings, we insist that you have students in that focus group. Not only the students who are your student body, but other students along the way as well, because we want you to hear the voices. That information is critical not just for hiring your superintendent, It's a great environmental scan for your board, for you guys to get after the fact to say, here's what our community is thinking. Here are some of their thoughts. The online survey usually produces between 200 and 400 comments or participants. That's great for the board to have in order to get a sense of what's happening in their community. And I'll close by saying that we are very interested in this search. We are wrapping up a couple of searches, in fact, Saturday. And so we will be at your beck and call. We do believe that it's important that you know that. We just closed the search on Saturday. I am still working with that board in order to make sure that, yes, you've hired a superintendent, but we're still here with you. If you want to do a community visit at the end, how is the contract negotiations going? So it's not a case where we leave. We do believe in being successful. And we want you as a board. to be successful. So thank you guys so much. We're here to answer any questions that you have.

[1419] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Just because I didn't at the beginning. So I just want to frame this for the board. So we have three firms. We'll do a question and answer after each session. The third firm, HYA, is not present here. So we won't do a question and answer. But you have seen their proposal. After the question and answer period, then just to be fair, we'll go ahead and, you know, We'll say thank you. But then we won't come back to it. So then after everyone has presented, then we'll have sort of a discussion of the board. Of course, as the president, you can change that at any time. That sounds good. But that's been the framing. OK. And we also have Dr. Milliken on Zoom. So if you have any questions or you want to consult, our interim superintendent is available via Zoom as well.

[1460] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Board.

[1469] Kat Jones: I have a question regarding the reference checks. Do you do, does your, does Leadership Associates do that yourselves or do you kind of hire that out as part of the service? And I ask because that has been an issue in the past where the company that is doing the search is also doing the reference checks and to me that seems like a little bit of a conflict of interest. So if you could speak to that, I'd appreciate it.

[1497] SPEAKER_09: Yes, we do do the reference checks, but we also do it with our other 17 partners. And so everybody's involved in that reference check, because sometimes we have applicants who've been in multiple searches and that other partners of ours know. The other thing that we do with reference checks is this. I've never seen an application come through with a bad reference check letter. Never have. They've all been great. But because of our popularity in the community of education, we will call people. There will be people, superintendents who will write a glowing letter of recommendation for someone. But somebody in our firm knows them and says, let's have a side conversation now. And that's how we get down to the depth of, OK, this person says, here is something that this person needs to work on. Another piece of that is, We never do a background check without asking the question of, what's their area of growth or where's their blind spot? Because we want to know that, and we want to be able to tell you. If we are selected, when we're going through the candidate review, to say, hey, here's their blind spot. And they're new to the superintendency, they aren't a detailed person, or they're kind of a top-down manager. Because you need to know that, and we need to know that, and be able to tell you those types of things. So that's really how we do our reference check. It's very few situations because we are throughout the state from upper north to the southern border We all know people and we do talk to them off.

[1589] Kat Jones: It's our offline Conversations that are really the most valuable because as I said never seen a bad reference letter That's part of my concern is that reference letters are they're always glowing, you know, you get the print you get people to write you and the glowing reference when that's not necessarily how other people have perceived them or experienced them.

[1615] SPEAKER_09: And then the other thing is, we will find people who know that person who's not even in that circle of references. So sometimes people will get upset saying, you didn't call all my references. Well, we knew three other people who've worked with you who know you, who give us references, who can really give us a truer picture of who you really are along the way and so on.

[1636] SPEAKER_37: And, you know, another piece of our reference checking is we do a deep dive into social media. And we find somebody's name who says, you know, came and did public comment at a board meeting, for example, or, you know, wrote a letter to the local newspaper. So then we follow up with those people because we really find out and we get two sides of the story, right? And it really helps us then as we talk with the candidate to say, hey, You know, we checked on this. This is what was said. What can you tell us about that? Lastly, though, I will tell you that sometimes when we present candidates to the board for, of course, your selection, we have to tell you, you know, this came out about the candidate and this could be blowback for you if you hire that candidate. But oftentimes, the boards decide, you know, we're willing to take that risk. We really like that candidate. We understand. So always remember that, you know, our job is to present the people and everything about them that we feel you need to know. But ultimately, it's your decision.

[1701] SPEAKER_09: And in fact, I talked about the two, there's two questions. One is, where's the area of growth? And the other is, what's their digital footprint? What can we find out? What do we know that they have in the past? And as Jackie said, we present it to you, and then the board gets to decide what your tolerance is. In some cases, if a candidate who may have had some issues in another place, but may fit your community well, the board gets to make a decision on that. But we will present that to you, those two things. What are the areas of growth? And what's their digital footprint?

[1732] Nancy Thomas: Member Hill.

[1734] Aiden Hill: Thank you for the presentation. I have three questions for you. The first question is, oftentimes in the consulting business, you'll have partners come and make the sales presentation, but then when the work actually happens, oftentimes it gets delegated further down the chain and you don't see those partners as much. In my experience, an important factor in a successful project is the people that you have on the team. So first question is, what level would you be dedicating to this? So that's the first question. The second question is, what's your approach to looking for diamonds in the rough? So, you know, there's been criticism of search firms that sometimes they just have a stable of candidates and they recycle those candidates. What's your approach to be sort of reaching down and finding some of the emerging stars? And then number three, in doing my own research, I noticed that, Jackie, that you had been involved in a search in Mill Valley and you were quoted about sort of the importance in getting community input, but at the same time, You know, potentially, I'm not sure what the right term is, but I think conducting, in the end, a closed search so that you can encourage as many candidates as possible. And so just would like to hear a little bit more about that. So those are my three ones. Level of commitment or time that you would put into it. How do we find, how do you help us find diamonds in the rough? And then your thoughts on sort of open and closed searches.

[1833] SPEAKER_37: Okay, I'll start with the first one. I'll let Eric do the second one and then I'll loop back to the third one since you were quoting something that I had in fact said and I'd like to clarify that. So the first question is what you see is what you get. We're here, we're the people from our firm that you will be interacting with all the time. If it isn't Eric or me, or one of our administrative assistants, probably Penny. These will be the people. You'll see us. As Eric said, we're going to be here. We're going to be talking to your stakeholders. We're going to be interviewing you. We are going to be, you know, heavily involved, and it's just us. We don't delegate out to anybody. We wish sometimes we had other people to delegate out to, but we don't. So we take this work very, very seriously. As we said before, we're not hired guns. This is what we do because we really do have a passion for leadership. So I hope that answers that question.

[1889] SPEAKER_09: And I'll be, I'm always frank. I was going to say I hate when people say I'm going to be frank when I'm obviously not. But the reality of it is my integrity is on the line. My integrity means more than the job or the position. It really does. And so when we commit, and we have options of districts that we get a chance in our firm to say, hey, who would like to take on this district? We took this one. We said, we would love to do this district. So it was something that we are committed to. We're going, as I said, give you updates on a regular basis. You will always have contact with us at any point during this process, if we're selected. In terms of diamonds in the sea, yeah. And so we don't have a stable. There is no such thing as a stable with us. I do not believe in a stable because I believe that every district is unique. And so my job is not to try to find people a job. I have friends of mine who have applied for a position. And I have told them, this is not the job for you. You don't meet the criteria that's in the position description. So I will not do that for sure. In terms of diamonds in the rough, a couple of things that we do. We have about another 150 assistant superintendents in various workshops that we give that we have basically once a month. So we are able to see here are their up and coming superintendents. I also do an aspiring administrator institute. And so again, helping those who say they want to be superintendents understand the role itself. And so we really are out there looking for diamonds in the rough. We also have colleagues who are current superintendents who will give us names and say, hey, understand this district is open. I have a great assistant, Sue. And even when we hear that, our job is to call that person and do a little personal interview ourself with them to get a sense of would they be a good fit, even though we know this. The superintendent thinks they will be a great fit for you. But we're not sure if they're going to be or not. So we interview to get a sense of, OK, maybe they do ask for resumes. Sometimes we have coffee with them just to really get a sense of that.

[2020] SPEAKER_37: Yeah, definitely on that. And then the last question had to do with comments about having an open or closed advisory committee who would ultimately be interviewing the candidates. When the question was asked, I believe that I stated that it's not something that we advocate for, but we will do it if that's what the board wants. There are lots of things that you need to take into consideration if you're going to have another group of people, some type of advisory group, interview the candidates prior to you selecting them or even concurrent with that. A couple of the things that make it problematic are, first of all, who gets to be on that community committee? How do you select the people? You're going to have some people who aren't selected to be on the committee, and they're going to have questions and concerns about why they didn't have representation. Another problem is that you can lose candidates. There are a lot of candidates who, for example, are sitting superintendents in their district, and they don't really want their board to know. that they are, you know, looking for another job. I know people sign, you know, all of those non-disclosure agreements, but I can also assure you that it's not as tightly kept secret as one would like. And so there are some candidates that will ask us, is it going to be a community interview process? And if we say, yes, it is, they say, you know, I'm not interested in that one. So confidentiality is a huge concern. Now, if that's what you want to do, we'll do it. but we want you to go into it with your eyes open and know that there could be some issues that might be problematic. Another issue, which we've seen happen before, is if you do have some committee interviews, and if the committee happens to really like candidate A, but the board really likes candidate B, then you're faced with a decision that do you go with the candidate that maybe wasn't your first choice because this is what your community group wanted. So are you forced to maybe then go with candidate C because neither group was in accord? So again, it's just a little more problematic. You've all been elected to the board. The one employee that you have is your superintendent. And that decision and that responsibility really rests with you. And so you can do a community advisory if that's what you'd like to do. And we're happy to do that for you if you want it. But I think we'd have to really make sure that it's tailored to the point that you're not having a group vote on a candidate. They can tell you what the strengths are. They can tell you what their concerns are. And that would be fine. But having them actually come to a decision that they present to you, we really don't recommend.

[2207] Aiden Hill: And thank you, Jackie. And my question wasn't meant as accusatory. I appreciated the candor in the interview that you conducted. And I think that you've just explained the complexities. And I think that your message, from what I've heard both from Eric and from you, is that you're going to spend time up front gathering community input and figuring out what the criteria are, the qualifications, et cetera. But when it comes down finally to looking at the candidates, that it's really going to be, I mean, your recommendation is that it be more of a closed process at a minimum because of confidentiality issues, right? You're not going to have the diamonds in the rough that are associate superintendents or sitting superintendents who are going to publicly acknowledge that they're looking. OK, thank you.

[2261] Nancy Thomas: I have a question, and it's how do you get at some of those intangible characteristics that we want in a superintendent? We want a superintendent that's not egocentric but has more humility. We want a superintendent that is going to build his people up, not hire people below him so that he or she can show that they're stronger. We want someone that is, ethical, and honest, and transparent, and a great communicator. And sometimes if you dig too deep, meaning you hire someone that hasn't had that public persona shown in board meetings or in their communications, you end up being a little bit surprised because they have characteristics or personality traits that that you wouldn't have known in an hour or two interview, which is what we get to see. Could you address that?

[2325] SPEAKER_09: Sure. So there's a couple of ways. One, those qualities you talked about oftentimes come up in the professional description because your community says they want those things too. And so we will take, when we interview you as a board, we will ask you about all the skills. So we'll look at professional skills and personal qualities. And that's how we start to look at candidates who meet both those criteria. They have the pedigree in terms of maybe a K-12 experience. They may have a doctorate. They may have whatever you decide you want professionally. But we will also look for qualities like empathy, compassion, visible, easy to get along with, capacity building, how they recruit people from within and outside of the district, and so on. So that's how we find out. We also, when we talk to people who know the candidates, We ask those questions. We ask about the personalities about a lot of the people. The other thing we'll do is we know quite a few people who apply for jobs. And so we interview them. We spend a lot of time interviewing, having time with them, talking casually about things. So you get a sense of who they are and what they're all about. So that's really how we spend the time to ensure that some of those qualities are there.

[2405] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you. We very much appreciate your time.

[2413] SPEAKER_09: Thank you guys so much. We know you have a tough decision to make, and we wish you well in your journey in making that decision. We really appreciate being here. Thank you.

[2421] SPEAKER_37: Thank you so much. We hope to see you again.

[2424] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Thank you.

[2428] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Thank you again to Leadership Associates. Next up on Zoom, we have McPherson and Jacobson. We've got Mr. Bill Hewitt and Dr. Daniel Moreo.

[2445] SPEAKER_11: Hello there. I'm hoping that you are hearing me. Is that correct?

[2451] Nancy Thomas: Yes, we can hear you.

[2453] SPEAKER_11: Great. Well, first off, it's delightful to be here and be able to see you rather than talking into a screen. But thank you for this opportunity. In just a moment, Bill and myself will introduce who we are. But we do represent McPherson and Jacobson, and we're here to help you to facilitate your most important decision, and that's hiring your next superintendent. If we can have the next slide, please. I wanna open up with, from our executive director, Vernon Billy, who talks about hiring the right executive and why CSBA selected us as their representative to move forward with hiring. Next slide. Our mission is in fact, that we really believe that students in this state deserve a high quality education. And so we believe that that, is dependent upon a quality leader. And that's what we bring talent to you to review and to look at. Our mission is to ensure that the search process gets you that quality leader for educational excellence. Next slide, please. Here's are the two of us. I'm not certain if Bill got online yet or not. I'm online. I am online. Great. Bill, you want to go ahead and start off and introduce yourself?

[2541] SPEAKER_13: Sure, yeah, yeah. I'm Bill Hewitt and I have been doing these searches now for nine years with MacPherson and Jacobson. My background is a math and physics high school teacher and then a high school administrator for 14 years, high school principal for 10 of those 14 years, and an assistant superintendent. All that was in Elk Grove. And then I was a superintendent in Dixon, in Lodi, and in Berkeley for 16 years. During retirement, I've been doing this, and I'm a consultant with WAAS, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. And I also do board governance workshops and mentor superintendents. And I've done about 40 searches for McPherson and Jacobson.

[2591] SPEAKER_11: Thank you, Bill. And I'm Daniel Morreo. I don't have quite the tenure as Bill, but I have done about eight searches at this point in time. I too am a former superintendent. I've also been a state administrator for a district that was taken over by the state. I have had the opportunity to teach at all three levels, elementary, middle, and high school. I've been an administrator at the elementary and high school levels. I don't know why, but I skipped middle school. And this is the third time I retired. And if you talk to my family, they will say I still haven't retired because I'm doing things like superintendent searches, because I feel a real passion that we need strong leaders in those positions. I also have a little bit of history with Newark in that I was at one point your interim assistant superintendent for HR. My daughter taught in the district her first year of teaching and I've had family live in the community and have their children go through the Newark schools. So I've got some familiarity with who you are. Next slide. We are a national search firm, one of the leading ones, which means by default, you will have access to national search venues. And we do have a nationwide cadre of consultants. And the California consultants all have the background of California and California schools. We even have some former school board members who help us conduct searches. And as I already mentioned, McPherson and Jacobson was selected by CSBA to represent them in superintendent searches. If we could go to the next slide. As already mentioned, our consultants have extensive backgrounds in education and public service. Some are current and former superintendents. We have assistant superintendents, university professors, and school board members. 30% of our consultants represent groups that are typically underrepresented and or female folks. And we have 65% of us hold doctorate degrees. Next slide. The most, as I started with, this is the most important decision you will be making. And we do not hire the superintendent. We are the recruiters of talent. We bring to you the talent and then help guide you through the decision-making process. Because this is, again, quite a process that you go through one of the most important decisions you'll make. We represent you as a board and we work strictly for you. feel that we are transparent throughout the process, and we too involve stakeholders, and I'll elaborate on that in just a moment or two, and we have a reputation of sustainability. Speaking of sustainability, Bill, if you want to jump in at any time, please feel free to do that. You're doing fine. We have, for a five-year period, over 75% of the folks that we help select are still in place. Over 10 years, we have about 60%. And over 15 years, we have about 50% of those that we helped board select are still in their positions. Now, the next slide, if you would, you have this page in our proposal. I'm not gonna try to read it to you from there. I just wanted you to reference it so you can see what pages it looks like. And then if we can go to the next slide, I'll walk us through this. We have a five-phase process. The first phase is where we will sit down with you, we'll spend some time, we'll need a special board meeting or a significant chunk of time on a board meeting, where we review criteria and bring you to a place where you can start to select the criteria you want in a new superintendent. We'll also, with you, develop a timeline. and talk to you about advertising. There's certain pieces that are in the proposal we have, and there may be other places that you want us to go to. The second phase is when we start to work with stakeholders, and we meet extensively. The proposal always says, and I keep talking to the office about this, one day, we can't do this in one day, and we end up spending many days meeting with stakeholders and gathering input from them. The important part of this is from those stakeholder meetings, we prepare a report that we present to you based on what your stakeholders have said. We typically have four questions and we present that to you, which then it makes it a public document. And we find that the candidates, once they see that document, they really start asking questions from that. And they really start to address that as they make application to the district. We also at that time are developing the application and getting ready for advertising. And then we recruit and advertise. Phase 3 is where we evaluate reference checks. And as somebody already said, we know that on the applications, candidates are going to put those people who will speak highly of them. And we do check those out. We typically ask them, is there somebody else that we could talk to? But we go a step further than that as well. Again, we've got consultants all through the state and we tend, we're a small community. And so we will call up somebody. If we see something on an application of where the candidate is or has been, we'll go on our own and reach into that district and talk to somebody and get some additional information. And that typically becomes very revealing, and we learn a whole lot more. So we go deep. And then when we get down to the finalist, we do have professional criminal investigation, financial investigation, as well as determining that their credentials are all appropriate. We then, with you, develop the interview questions. Then we go to phase four. And here we identify the candidates for interviews. We will provide you all the information on everybody who applies. We will come to you based on the criteria and the reference checks we've done with those that we think you should consider for an interview. And then you will have the opportunity to determine who do you want to interview. We also, when we get down to the final few, we have them do a video recording. based on a few questions. And so you have an opportunity to see them do this particular video before you actually meet them for the interview. Then we then move into the interview process. And then another slide, I'll be talking a little bit more about that process. And if the board chooses, there could be a stakeholder interview. And I want to talk about that a little bit more in a slide or two ahead here. You will have the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion and make your selection of who you think fits best. We're not done, though. Once you've selected and appointed, we then go to phase five. And with you, we establish performance objectives for that first, particularly the first 100 days of the first year for your superintendent. What do you want and hope that they can accomplish or do during that initial year? So that you're starting off on a platform where everybody knows the expectations. And we also have that guarantee that if for some reason something goes awry during those first two years, we will come back and conduct a new search if it's deemed appropriate. And the only cost to you for that would be the expenses of the consultant's travel and this and that. It's not an additional entire fee. If I can have the next slide, please. This slide shows you all the different associations that we are members of personally, as well as as a company and throughout our division. And what we find is we typically dip into these associations and we make contact with them. This is where we can broaden the pool even further. I finished a search last spring for a very small school district and spend a lot of time with the executive director of the Small School Districts Association. And because of that, he put me in touch with some other superintendents and suddenly our pool expanded significantly. We do that with many of these other associations that you see on this particular list. So you see that we're not just in California, but we also have a national presence. Some boards want to go nationally. Some boards want to stay within California. That's one of the determinants that you will tell us. Next slide. Now this is a very rough timeline. If we were to be selected by you. I left the date last week, this was the timeline I had. And I left that first date there because I'm thinking about Okay, let's get this process, be thorough about it and do it in the most efficient way. Those March 1st or 2nd dates, you may want to change. But this is what would happen. You see those different dates there. We start from the end. June 1st, according to the resources I looked at online, is a regular meeting of you as a board. And that's where you need to announce your new superintendent and appoint him or her. As we're working from that date, working backwards, you see the different activities that would occur along the way. Next slide, please. So let's talk about those interviews. Now, we offer three options, and you may even have a variation on the theme of these three. There's the traditional board interview, and that's where you as the board, you interview the finalists. You may want to call some back for a second interview. Another option is a board interview and social interaction. And what this does is we typically set it up with the finalists that you determined, a couple of finalists. And we set up so that a couple of you, we can't have three of you at any one time, but a couple of you have literally a social situation. It may be you meet at a Starbucks and have just a more informal conversation. and then we rotate the candidates through so that all of you have an opportunity to talk with them, like I said, on a more informal basis. This gives you another perspective on the candidate, not just the traditional face-to-face interview, but now we're getting a little more informal, and you have the opportunity to kind of get to know their personality, and does it feel like it's going to be gel or not. And then the third option is a little more open. And this is where you may have, and here it's listed multiple stakeholder panels. In the searches I've done, it's only been one stakeholder panel and you. And how we set this up, because we too get very concerned about confidentiality. Typically the stakeholder interview will be a day or two before you interview. And And that way, there's less chance of things being revealed. We do have them sign a confidentiality agreement. And we try to really hammer in, you know, the importance. And if they violate that, you know, there'll be folks knocking at their door, so to speak. But that we're trying to maximize the confidentiality because it's been mentioned before, some people won't apply if they know that it's gonna be public information and they're not quite ready to share this with their board or not. In this process also, the third one, we can also work in the social interaction with you. Now with the stakeholder interviews, it's important to note, we do not have them identify the top one, two, or three. Everybody they interview, we sit down and talk with them after the interview. What do you see this candidate's strengths are? And what are the concerns that you have about this candidate? And that's as far as they go. And that's what we bring back to you. Your stakeholder panel saw this and had concerns about that, giving you a slightly different perspective. And again, trying to avoid them having their favorites. And if you don't choose their favorite, what does that mean or look like? Next slide. This next slide does reflect our equity policy and practice. And first off, we want everybody to be treated with the utmost respect and dignity. And we want fair and equitable treatment of everybody. And we are truly work very diligently to bring you a diverse pool of candidates. so that you're looking at some strong talent, but also talent that represents all the different subgroups within our society. Next slide. As you see in the proposal, there's a cost of about $17,000, not to exceed 22. And where you start getting the additional cost is if you choose, and you see in the proposal, there are certain venues where we advertise certain pieces that we will do, but sometimes boards want something in addition to that. Maybe they want to have a very national exposure. Well, that's going to cost a little bit more for advertising. Maybe you're going to want to visit the candidates, your finalists at their current site. That's going to be a little bit of expense more for you than for us. But those are the sort of things that add on to the potential costs. And then the next slide, if you would. We will assist you in updating the job description for the superintendent. We'll assist in developing an effective contract, although typically your district legal counsel takes over on that piece. And then, as I mentioned earlier, if you want to do a site visit, we will help arrange that for you as well. Next slide. We pride ourselves on being transparent. You will always know if in fact we're selected, I will be your lead consultant and I will be communicating with you. We will be sending you updates. We will ask that on your district webpage that updates are also produced there so the community knows where you are in the process. And the other part that we really pride ourselves is how our sustainability of leadership, the number of superintendents we've placed that have stayed and have been in their situations for a number of years. We do have the involvement of the stakeholders, as I've already mentioned, we have the stakeholder meetings. And then if the board chooses to have the stakeholders be in the interview process, I've outlined that for you as well. As I mentioned in our phase 5, we're committed to have this first year transition be as smooth as possible. I am still in contact, regularly coaching two superintendents who I was one of the consultants on the search team in their first and second years. who are just still needing a little coaching and still wanting an ear to bend. And so I have one who every other Sunday, Sunday afternoon, we're on the phone together. And again, that's us wanting to support your selection so that they can be successful. Next slide, please. So Bill and I are now here to answer questions.

[3632] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much. I'll open this up for board questions. Student board member, Diego.

[3647] Diego Torres: Thank you for that presentation. It was very informal, and I liked all the information that was gathered. I just wanted to know, in what ways the community and students could be involved in this process, if they could be?

[3660] SPEAKER_11: And that goes back to our stakeholder meetings. And we would have some of the stakeholders being students that we want. And as was mentioned by the other firm, we don't just go with the student leadership group. We wanna hear from all the students because your superintendent is gonna represent all of those students. And again, depending on the board's choice, some students may be involved in the stakeholder interviews. And I should also point out that the stakeholder meetings, we do face-to-face, sometimes at a convenience for them, we will also do it virtually, but we also have it online so that anybody who cannot get to a stakeholder meeting, they have the option to do it online. And we have it in the languages that are predominant in your community.

[3715] SPEAKER_13: I wanted to mention that with stakeholder input, that we really go the distance on that. We talk to the board about who it is you want us to talk to. We oftentimes will talk with your professional staff about who are the groups that are invested out in that community in your school district. And I know we have some kind of a limit in the proposal we make, but we oftentimes go beyond that without additional cost. And we use the free venues. We like to do more in person now that we're past COVID. We also like to do Zoom. Sometimes that's very effective with parents because it's easier for them. And then we also have the survey where we encourage the district to put a lot of publicity out about the ease of going ahead and responding to four questions that we ask. We ask the same four questions of everybody. What are some good things about your community? Tell us some good things about your school district. What are the issues that the next superintendent will be expected to know about and work with? And then finally, what are the skills, attributes, and characteristics you're looking for in your superintendent? And we ask these consistently to all groups. And then as Dan said Daniel said we put together a report for you. The other thing I wanted to mention about this is then we do go back to the criteria and see if we see if we got everything. See if the criteria really does meet what your stakeholders are saying. You know we're known for stakeholder engagement. That's one of the differences. that we have with our competitors. There are a number of good firms that do searches, but we have some differences. And I would say that we'll develop a search, any type of search that you want, but we do recommend a significant amount of shared decision-making with stakeholder engagement. And we're known for that. Most boards that pick us do that because they want their stakeholders to have a certain amount of appropriate involvement. Dan mentioned that stakeholders are not allowed to give priorities or prioritize or rank order, because that's your job. And in fact, we tell the stakeholders, it's actually much more important for you to talk about the strengths and concerns that you see in each candidate, because that's what the service to the board really is. You get to see the candidate in many venues. You get to see them in a social venue, you get to see them In your interview, sometimes we have candidates perform for you, might have them do a board agenda presentation for you. And the stakeholders don't get to do that, but they get to interview, we'd like them to interview the candidates and to give you perspective on how they see them. And then interesting thing about that is sometimes the candidates are different with you than they are with the stakeholders. Not often, but sometimes they are. And we're right in there watching and listening, and we facilitate this and report it back to you.

[3903] SPEAKER_11: And one thing I just realized I hadn't mentioned was that what we will ask is somebody in your district be our point of contact. And it's typically the superintendent's executive assistant. And we need that person because there are things that we just don't have access to, you know, the facilities where we hold these stakeholder meetings, you know, how to contact some of these stakeholder meetings. And there's information that we need to put out as part of the brochure in advertising this. We have an office staff of multiple people. in our office who then once we've got that information help us put it together and be able to distribute it. So we have a strong clerical

[3949] SPEAKER_13: One other thing we didn't mention, Daniel, is that we do this in multiple languages. Daniel is fluent in Spanish. And we will ask you what your major languages are. And the survey that people can write to, the written survey, if they wish to go that, we will put out in multiple languages. And then also translate it back so that you can read it in English.

[3977] Nancy Thomas: So I have a question. How do you determine the soft skills that we may want in a superintendent? How do you gauge their ethics, their transparency, the way they work collaboratively with their staff, the way they recruit the best and most talented? How do you go about ascertaining those things?

[4000] SPEAKER_11: that's a couple of different ways. That's where we go beyond the references and we go deep and we look at what's listed on their application as places they've worked or people that they may know. And we find out that sort of thing and ask those sort of questions. And then also in the setup as we look at the criteria, We may then gauge some questions around that. And then the third way is if you go with the social interaction, you're going to be able to pick it. You're going to be able to ask about that. You're going to be able to pick up on that. And part of what we want to do is, particularly as we're doing the reference checks, is ask those sort of questions of some of the people we talk to and find out what is their actual track record. What are some things that demonstrate that they've been collaborative and that they know how to communicate and they do communicate. outward. Thank you.

[4056] Nancy Thomas: Well, I don't see any other questions from our board members. Oh, yeah, we have a question from Member Hill.

[4062] Aiden Hill: Yeah, thank you, gentlemen. So on the last phase of your process, you talk about establishing superintendent performance objectives. And then you say you come back and you measure them. And at some interval, And then if there's issues, you somehow address them. Could you describe that process in a little bit more detail?

[4087] SPEAKER_11: Bill, I may have you step in on this one. But what we do is right after you've identified who you want, we set up a meeting with you and that new candidate and establish these goals. The goals and the monitoring of those goals really becomes your responsibility as the board, because you know the level you want them to perform in each of those goals. We are, you might say in the background, working both with the superintendent and with you as the board, if there are things that need to be addressed. Bill, I don't know if you want to add to that.

[4125] SPEAKER_13: No, I think that's a pretty good answer. I just want to be clear that in our proposal, we help you set the superintendent objectives, which aligns to the district goals. They're really objectives that you're asking for the superintendent to work on and be evaluated on during either the first six months or first year. The follow-up on those and the evaluation of those would be a further contract, which I've done with with boards of education, but that is outside of the contract for us to come back and help in the evaluation of the superintendent. That's an additional cost and an additional task.

[4163] Aiden Hill: Great, thank you.

[4168] Nancy Thomas: Okay, any other questions, comments? Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate your presentation.

[4177] SPEAKER_13: Thank you very much. Have a good evening.

[4179] Nancy Thomas: Good evening.

[4186] Nicole Pierce-Davis: All right, the final proposal you do have in front of you is HYA, Hazard, Young, and Attea Associates. They are not here this evening, but you have the proposal. So the next step is discussion.

[4200] Nancy Thomas: I'll start out by saying that I'm disappointed that HYA isn't here. It's pretty important that we hear from them. And is the superintendent online?

[4216] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Dr. Milliken? Give me two minutes and I'm sure he'll be online.

[4229] Nancy Thomas: I'd like to, yes.

[4231] Phuong Nguyen: Actually, I think we should just eliminate HYA. We have two that are equally qualified and have the ability to do what we need to do. I don't think that we really need to hear from them. If they didn't have if they didn't want to show tonight or have Interest in showing I'm okay with disqualifying them and going and work and just focusing on these two I Agree with member win because if they can't show for this way, we'll make something what makes us think that they can show for the actual search Well, I understand that the one of them's out of the country and the other one is traveling as well, so

[4276] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, so in fact, I asked the superintendent if there was any way they could find out if they could come tomorrow night. I would be happy to come back and listen to the last presentation tomorrow night.

[4288] Phuong Nguyen: No, I don't think we need to. And I don't think we need to waste our time.

[4293] Nancy Thomas: I kind of feel bad that we put them all on a real short time frame. We give them less than a week to bring their proposals to us. Yeah, member Hill?

[4305] Aiden Hill: Yeah, I'm in agreement with everybody. I mean, it's unfortunate because I did read through their presentation. And I thought they had a lot of good information and methodologies. And I thought that the two people who were identified as the lead consultants both had really good experience. But again, I think that they could have figured out a way to provide at least some representation. If it wasn't them, bring somebody else in from the firm.

[4334] Rachel Bloom: Dr. Milliken, can you hear me?

[4347] Nancy Thomas: Well, I think we've made our decision anyway. Our decision. Let him know that we feel that we will go with one of the two that presented this evening. So I'd open it up to thoughts.

[4367] Kat Jones: My first concern is that the two that we heard from tonight are the two firms that brought us the last two superintendents. And unfortunately, neither one of them seemed to be as successful as we would have hoped. I mean, they both did accomplish some things. So that's a little bit of a concern for me. To be honest, but listening to the two presentations tonight, I do have one I would put above the other, just in my reading through and listening to the presentations themselves. So that's all I wanted to say.

[4413] Diego Torres: Just a clarifying question, what firm exactly got us the last superintendent?

[4418] Phuong Nguyen: Actually, I have a comment. I don't necessarily think it's the firms that brought us any bad superintendents, I think it has a lot to do with the leadership on the board. With that being said, I think that we all need to look at ourselves in the mirror. When we ask about integrity, transparency, and ethical ethics, I question those qualities on this board. Thank you. Especially the board majority.

[4455] Nancy Thomas: Member Hill.

[4457] Aiden Hill: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I mean just to follow up with Member Jones, you know, I think that oftentimes the, you know, firms have great consultants and sometimes just okay consultants and I think the real key is just to make sure that we have the great ones that are working for us.

[4486] Nancy Thomas: Well, I have a favorite, I think. And I'm satisfied that both of them are high quality firms that we couldn't go wrong with either one. So does anyone want to speak to their preference?

[4510] Kat Jones: My preference would be leadership associates. And part of the reason is I definitely felt like I could connect with the people that were here tonight. I appreciate the fact that they did make an effort to make sure that there were people here. I think that really shows that they're interested in the position. And I really liked what they said in reading through the three proposals. That was my first choice before even hearing things tonight. Member Hill.

[4544] Aiden Hill: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, of both the firms, I thought Leadership Associates did a better job. I mean, I appreciate the fact that they did come in person and that, you know, that means a lot because, again, it just shows level of commitment. But the other thing that I liked was the candor that we heard about. you know, again, the complexities of the search. And then also, I also liked their commentary. I didn't realize that they had developed sort of a whole network of, what do they call it, where they're pulling in seminars with, you know, essentially people below superintendent level to sort of recruit the diamonds in the rough. And that's the other thing I liked about them.

[4593] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, I read all three proposals, and I think, I agree that Leadership Associates has a very robust, complete package. It's a little bit more expensive than the other one, but it seems that they are very detailed. And I like the fact that they had their own executive assistants to help. Member Torres?

[4618] Diego Torres: Yes, I would have to agree with everyone. I thought Leadership Associates was the better one out of the two, even though I know the other one is very qualified as well. I did like how they came in person. They introduced themselves to everyone. And that really showed that they made an effort to come. And also, as a student, I really liked how they prioritized the students' input as well. Whereas the other company, they said that students could just be a stakeholder, not necessarily that they are going to be one. So that's why I was in favor of more of the leadership associates.

[4648] Nancy Thomas: So are we waiting for a motion?

[4650] Phuong Nguyen: I move to approve leadership associates.

[4655] Aiden Hill: I second.

[4657] Nancy Thomas: win moves and member Hill seconds that we give the contract to Leadership Associates. Please vote. Oh, member Torres. Yes. Preferential student vote is yes. Please vote.

[4691] SPEAKER_28: All votes are in. Five ayes.

[4694] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, board members. Next is Pierce.

5. NEW BUSINESS

5.1 Filling the Expected Board Vacancy

[4700] Nicole Pierce-Davis: All right. The next item is 5.1, filling expected board vacancy. Again, we do have Dr. Milliken online. I'd like to go ahead and allow him the time to frame this. Hopefully it works. If it doesn't, then maybe we can take a two minute recess.

[4716] Michael Milliken: Sure. OK. Nicole, can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Wonderful. Yay. Hi, everyone. Apologies for the technical difficulties 10 minutes ago. But I was able to listen to the discussion, listen to the presentations, and wholeheartedly support your decision and will do my part in working with leadership associates to help facilitate the process. Just with regard to filling the Board vacancy, I apologize that the supporting materials were a little bit thin. Our thinking here was that we would have a preliminary conversation, get the guidance of the Board, and then bring you a more fully prepared outline of the process at the next regular board meeting next Thursday. Just to clarify a couple of things, you do have a board bylaw for filling a vacancy, and that's board bylaw 9223. So it was our mistake for not attaching that to your materials. And also there is relevant California Ed Code on filling a vacancy. And that's California Ed Code 5090 through 5093. So we'll make sure that as we conduct this process, we're mindful of both your board bylaw and California Ed Code. Trustee Zhang submitted his resignation to the County Superintendent of Schools on February 17th, for it to take effect on February 28. However, when we have our 60-day timeline, that 60-day timeline begins on February 17. It does not begin on February 28. So in that regard, I want you to know that, you know, the timeline has begun with regard to filling this vacancy despite the fact that his resignation hasn't taken effect yet and will at the end of the month. You have two options. The first is to request a special election at the district's expense. In my experience, in a smaller district, those costs, even when an election was scheduled, were six figures, over $100,000. So that would be a very expensive option. The other option is a provisional appointment, which would go until December 2024, the end of member Zhang's term. And that is the time when there is the next scheduled board election. So, It's the Board's decision whether or not to have an election or an appointment. We can research the cost of that election, but I believe in your experience as in mine, those are prohibitively expensive. So I just wanted to share a couple of those points and references in addition to the packet that we gave you from CSBA. and apologies on a thin set of supporting materials.

[4934] Aiden Hill: Yeah, thank you, Superintendent Milliken. And I discovered when I was going through my email today that when we the board had an earlier appointment process, that DWK also put together a document, which much of it is similar to CSBA's. But there are some additional things that were customized a little bit for our district. And it would be great. I forwarded it to you. It would be great if you could send it to the rest of the board for them to look at, because I think it could help us take action quickly.

[4979] Marie dela Cruz: Will do.

[4982] Nancy Thomas: Comments from any other board member?

[4986] Phuong Nguyen: Considering we never really had a special election for a board vacancy, I'm just going to, my option is for us to have an appointment.

[5002] Nancy Thomas: Is that a motion?

[5004] Phuong Nguyen: I can make a motion. I move that we appoint, appoint to fill the board vacancy left by Member Zhang.

[5016] Nancy Thomas: I'll second. Member Nguyen made the motion. Member Jones seconded it. I'm not there yet.

[5029] Phuong Nguyen: Actually, this is a discussion session. So maybe we need to re-agendize it for an action at the next board meeting.

[5038] Nancy Thomas: Why? Because it's a?

[5039] Phuong Nguyen: Discussion. This is agendized as a discussion.

[5043] Nancy Thomas: Oh, OK.

[5046] Michael Milliken: Yeah, I apologize. We were seeking your guidance. And then what we would be doing is bringing a draft appointment process for you to approve and revise. So I apologize. That was me setting it up as discussion. And the thinking was that we would get your guidance, but not necessarily require a board vote. So that's on me.

[5069] Nancy Thomas: I think you've heard our guidance loud and clear. OK. Member Hill has a comment.

[5076] Aiden Hill: Yeah, and so I went through both documents, both the CSBA and the DWK one, and my interpretation kind of extracting out the key steps. But again, I think we should all take a look and sort of confirm. But since I was a former project manager, I can't help myself, so I apologize. But I think the steps that we have to do, in addition to confirming that it's an appointment. So per the bylaw, we have to have a small committee that all the committee does is just once the applications are in, validate that the people who are applying actually are eligible to run for the, or to be appointed. But then next, and I've just kind of put together a timeline that may help us. So our next board meeting's next week, right, 3-2. We need to finalize an application that we need to send out, and the DWK document actually has a sample that we could probably leverage and maybe we all look at it in advance and if we want to provide input we could. We then have to post the application and advertise and we could do that, you know, maybe the following Monday the 6th. Let's see here. We've got to have a close to the application, and just to make sure that it's fair for everybody to have an opportunity, try to give it roughly like a couple weeks. So if we could then have the application wrapped or the submittals wrapped up by the board meeting of 3-16, we'd have everything in. Then the committee would go in and spend a couple of days just, you know, again, it should be a pretty straightforward process, validating and then announcing who the candidates are. let's say by 321, and then, or 326 at the latest, then have an interview process maybe at the end of March, so like Thursday 330, we don't have a board meeting then, and then we could make the decision and then announce the appointment. And there is a step after you've made the decision that you actually have to publish out, you have to send it out to the local media. The decision, that would happen 4-3. So that would all happen before the next board meeting, which would be 4-6. And that should put us within the timeline of getting within 60 days. So that's just an off-the-cuff, thought process, but obviously we can sit and discuss it and confirm what the approach should be next board meeting.

[5241] Nancy Thomas: Okay. I'm going to be out of town at the end of March, but maybe we can, maybe I can phone in.

[5249] SPEAKER_29: Okay.

[5250] Michael Milliken: And also the... Go ahead, superintendent. Member Nguyen, you were speaking first, please.

[5260] Phuong Nguyen: No, I just wanted to clarify that that Member Hill had made regarding the committee, and it's a subcommittee made up of two board members, not a general committee.

[5273] Michael Milliken: Understood. We'll follow the direction from the district's board bylaws and make sure that we bring you both a draft process, draft timeline, and a draft application for you to review and give us feedback on. And we will do our best to get it out to you early so you have an opportunity to take a look and digest and give us feedback.

[5306] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah. We probably, I mean, I'm pretty sure since we've built plenty of vacancies that we do have a copy of our previous applications that we can review and make changes to.

[5319] Michael Milliken: Yep. Understood.

6. ADJOURNMENT

6.2 Adjournment

[5328] Nancy Thomas: If there's no further business, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

[5333] Diego Torres: I motion to adjourn the meeting.

[5339] Nancy Thomas: I second. Member Torres makes a motion to adjourn, and Member Hill seconds it. Please vote.

[5361] SPEAKER_28: All votes are in.

[5362] Nancy Thomas: Five ayes. Well, thank you, everybody. I think that was a very productive meeting. Appreciate your coming out on a non-regular board meeting night. And have a good weekend. See you next week. Meeting adjourned. Pardon? Meeting is adjourned.

6.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting (Not Found)

[124] 1. CALL TO ORDER

[124] 1.1 Meeting Practices and Information

[124] 1.2 Pledge of Allegiance

[186] 1.3 Roll Call

[198] 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

[198] 2.1 Approval of the Agenda

[275] 3. OPEN SESSION

[275] 3.1 Public Comment on Agenda Items

[419] 4. OLD BUSINESS

[419] 4.1 Public Employment (Gov. Code, § 54957, subd. (b)(1)) Title: Superintendent Search

[4700] 5. NEW BUSINESS

[4700] 5.1 Filling the Expected Board Vacancy

[5328] 6. ADJOURNMENT

[5328] 6.2 Adjournment

[99999] 6.1 PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting (Not Found)

1. CALL TO ORDER

Meeting Practices and Information

Type Procedural IN-PERSON MEETING INFORMATION:

NUSD has opened its boardroom for in-person meetings and will follow the State's and Alameda County's safety guidelines for public gatherings. Please refrain from attending in-person meetings if you have any of the following symptoms: Loss of taste/smell Difficulty breathing Vomiting Diarrhea Fever Cough Headache Sore Throat Runny Nose For additional COVID-19 information please go to https://www.newarkunified.org/covid-19 or https://www.acoe.org/guidance

OBSERVE THE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING:

Members of the public may observe the meeting via the NUSD YouTube Channel, live transmission on Comcast Channel 26, or in-person at the NUSD Boardroom. Spanish translation will be available via Zoom.

PUBLIC COMMENT:

The public will have the opportunity to address the Board of Education regarding non-agendized matters and agendized items with a live audio-only comment via Zoom with advance notice requested by email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org, a written comment by

submitting a speaking card via email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org, or with live in-person comments by submitting a speaker-card with the Executive Assistant.

Pledge of Allegiance

Type Procedural

PURPOSE:

The Governance Team will recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Roll Call

Type Procedural TRUSTEES:

President Nancy Thomas Vice President/Clerk Aiden Hill Member Phuong Nguyen Member Bowen Zhang Member Katherine Jones

STUDENT BOARD MEMBER:

Diego Torres

2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Approval of the Agenda

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting. Action

PURPOSE:

Members of the Governance Team may request that the agenda be amended or approved as presented.

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting.

Motion by Aiden Hill, second by Katherine Jones.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Phuong Nguyen, Aiden Hill, Diego Torres, Katherine Jones, Nancy Thomas

3. OPEN SESSION

Public Comment on Agenda Items

Type Procedural PURPOSE:

The Board of Education encourages the community's participation in its deliberations and has tried to make it convenient to express their views to the Board. If a constituent wishes to address the Board on any agenda item, please fill out a virtual speaker card via email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org.

4. OLD BUSINESS

Public Employment (Gov. Code, � 54957, subd. (b)(1)) Title: Superintendent Search

Type Action

Fiscal Impact No

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education choose a search firm to assist in the Action selection of a Superintendent. PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is for the Board to review proposals, discuss them, and choose a search firm to assist in the selection of a Superintendent.

BACKGROUND:

On February 16, 2023 the Board of Education received proposals from three search firms to assist in the selection of a Superintendent. The Board requested a Special Meeting to fully consider the firms' proposals and hear their presentations. Leadership Associates expects to present in person, and McPherson and Jacobson expects to present remotely. Unfortunately, both representatives from HYA have conflicts that cannot be avoided.

File Attachments Leadership Associates Proposal for Newark USD - 2-16-23.pdf (2,035 KB) Hazard Young Attea Associates Proposal for Newark USD - 2-16-23.pdf (1,409 KB) CSBA-McPherson & Jacobson Proposal for Newark USD 2-16-23.pdf (1,781 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education choose a search firm to assist in the selection of a Superintendent. Motion to select Leadership Associates.

Motion by Phuong Nguyen, second by Aiden Hill.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Phuong Nguyen, Aiden Hill, Diego Torres, Katherine Jones, Nancy Thomas

5. NEW BUSINESS

Filling the Expected Board Vacancy

Type Discussion PURPOSE:

The purpose is to review the attached California School Boards Association (CSBA) document on filling Board vacancies and discuss next steps.

BACKGROUND:

At the February 16, 2023 meeting, Board Member Bowen Zhang resigned effective February 28, 2023. The Board will discuss how to fill the expected vacancy.

File Attachments 2012_05_Filling_a_BoardVacancy.pdf (524 KB)

6. ADJOURNMENT

PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education extends the meeting to ____ P.M. Action

PURPOSE:

This is a placeholder, only to be used if the Board adds a motion and action to extend the meeting.

Motion & Voting

Adjournment

Type Action, Procedural

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education adjourns this meeting. Action PURPOSE:

No items will be considered after 10:00 p.m. unless it is determined by a majority of the Board to extend to a specific time.

This action will conclude the meeting.

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education adjourns this meeting.

Motion by Diego Torres, second by Aiden Hill. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yea: Phuong Nguyen, Aiden Hill, Diego Torres, Katherine Jones, Nancy Thomas

No minutes available.