Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Date: Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 4h 5m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyF2EvnTpis
Official School Board page (FCPS): https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/leadership/school-board

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-11-03. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] history of this work, what we've been doing, just to make sure the public is well informed of the process and sort of the thoughts behind working on these executive expectations. We are hoping that after all the work that we have done, that any changes today will be very minor, and this will change our governance manual.

[00:00:26] So the items that were posted on Friday afternoon for the meeting this Thursday is actually a change to the governance manual, so we were taking out those operational expectations that we were working on and inserting these executive expectations.

[00:00:44] So the rest of the work in the governance manual is simply like changing the word operational to executive, you know, et cetera. So that is what was posted last Friday and what we'll be taking a look at and going over here today.

[00:00:59] Yes, Ms. Keyes-Gamara. So in reviewing the documents today, they are not focused on the expectations that we covered in the retreat.

[00:01:14] They're more toward board governance documents for the future. So I didn't see anything further explaining the expectations, and you said this is on the agenda. I'm, is this, are these documents that we have received today on the agenda for Thursday or?

[00:01:33] No, no, no, no. I'm confused. No, so the items that are posted for the work session today, we will be discussing in the afternoon. Okay, those are the board and superintendent relationship documents.

[00:01:49] The items we will be going over this morning were posted Friday afternoon for the business meeting this Thursday. so that they are publicly available and the public could take a look at them as we were taking a look at them. So what we're doing is following up on this session that we had last month to just finalize these expectations. That's what we're doing this morning. So let's make sure, I think everyone has your new binder. There should be a copy in the binder of, do we have in there

[00:02:27] the governance manual changes? We do not have the red line governance manual changes in there. They are on the board docs for this Thursday, Ms. Hollen. Okay, so let's make sure that everyone has a copy. That's how many board members do not have a copy of the redlined executive expectations. No, the ones that were posted on Friday. Madam Chair, I think that they're

[00:02:58] in, aren't they under tab five where the blue is the new additional language? Ms. Cohen, that's a previous version. So it's the red line version of the governance manual because it's the changes to the operational expectations and then any language that refers to the operational expectations had to be updated. Okay, thanks. Okay, so we had minor updates after the last meeting. So those have been incorporated. They were sent out to the board in the Monday letter last week, and then

[00:03:37] they were posted for the public on Friday afternoon. So if we can please make sure that all board members have a copy of that who does not have a copy of that we will we'll just

[00:04:05] get everyone a copy of the document that was posted on Friday okay so if we can okay thank you let's do that let's take a five minute break so we can get those copies on ever in front of everyone the idea is to go through those minor changes this morning to make sure that everyone is prepared for later this week

[00:04:33] okay so let's take five minutes thank you as I mentioned at the very beginning of this meeting we're short our Christina Setlow our amazing clerk is out with some medical issues and was out yesterday as well so we're we're doing the best that we can we'll get those copies brought down but we do have a

[00:05:11] presentation that has been put together with some of the history of this topic primarily for the public to understand the whole process that we've been going through so and some looks at what we're going to do with this down the road so why don't we get started with that the copies will be here shortly thank you chair tolan if we could go to the next slide so we'll just start off with kind of talking about the outcomes for today's work session give you a little orientation to the binder materials you'll need for the first part of our

[00:05:48] work together before the lunch break and then we can dive into our work focusing on closing out sort of this EE portion of policy governance so good afternoon good I think we're still in morning good morning everyone so today's outcomes we're gonna first talk about the history as Ms. Tolan was saying of policy governance and FCPS and the work that the board has done to date on this topic thus far this year we're going to go through a process of looking at the executive expectations monitoring report process so the board and the public have an understanding of how these reports will get reviewed and what to expect when the first one that's scheduled to come to the board on September 28th, what that looks like.

[00:06:28] We'll have an opportunity then to address any final EE concerns that the board may have prior to Thursday's board meeting. So those copies that were posted for Thursday's board meeting are coming down so we can take a final look at that.

[00:06:43] So that will be the focus for the morning before the lunch break. lunch break and then after the lunch break we're going to shift gears and talk about our next quadrant of policy governance which is looking at the board superintendent role. We're going to look at where some of that language already exists in the existing board governance manual as well as some of our policies and then we're going to engage in an activity to start to develop out some of those policies. So in your binders just to kind of give you an orientation to where you're going to find some of the materials for the first part of our work session under section one there's the current calendar for policy governance

[00:07:19] reporting so that information is in there your presentation materials are sitting under section two of your binder in section three you've got some sample materials that we're going to have you pull out as we talk through the EE reporting process and then in section six again we'll come back and have you pull out some materials there's a form that the board's going to use as you're hearing the reports that Dr. Reid will make when she brings forward these executive expectations, what you'll be filling out as you're listening to those reports and preparing to vote on the executive expectations. So just to give you a sense of what's in your materials for today for the first part of our time.

[00:07:58] We can go to the next slide. So we did a deep dive into the board docs archives and FCPS has a long history of engaging in policy governance work and a tradition really of excellence around this work. Starting in 2000 as we look back the board was having conversations about looking at the Carver work and looking at this as a framework for really organizing and overseeing the work of staff in the division and the superintendent. In 2005 the school board brought in the at the school board at the time brought in the Aspen group to

[00:08:34] work to set up a policy governance structure in FCPS and then during sort the window of 2006 to 2007, the board engaged in some work to develop and implement those operational expectations. And that's the work the board has been doing right now to update those operational expectations to our executive expectations that we'll be voting on on Thursday.

[00:08:59] In 2007, the operational expectations monitoring reports began. So that's when that information first started coming to the board in 2015 fcps adopted the strategic plan ignite and i know many of you were on the board at the time when that happened and then in 2023 we've up the board has voted to pass our new updated strategic plan so this engagement is really a re-engagement around policy governance for the board and really deepening again sort of that how we're going to monitor the strategic plan how we're going to evaluate the the impact of the

[00:09:37] strategic plan on our work and how the board is going to hold the system accountable for that work so that with transparency we can ensure that we're being efficient and effective in our work we're going to go to the next slide and for the public awareness the board's been engaged in a number of sessions to on policy governance this topic since last spring so in June 21st there was an initial conversation about looking at policy governance and reengaging in this topic the board engaged in work over the summer to develop and refine those

[00:10:15] executive expectations which is a quadrant of the policy governance work we have today's work session as well as one scheduled for October 10th to continue this work on policy governance so there's been a significant amount of investment and time in the board to to get this set up to again oversee our new strategic plan. Next slide. Good morning to you all and we're going to continue with this slide show to think about what Marcia was just talking about where we've come in the last few months but also along the lines of informing the public of some of these key ideas around this policy governance approach. The

[00:10:53] slide that you see on the screen right now is a graphic representation of some of the key components of the policy governance structure. If we can go to the next slide we'll take a look at what each of them mean. The policy governance has four key parts, our goals, our expectations, the board superintendent role, and that governance process.

[00:11:12] So through our strategic planning process last year, the board and the community have identified the goals for our division. What we've been working on recently over these last several retreats and work sessions is this idea of the executive expectations. So you as a board, your expectations of how Dr. Reed will lead the division and going about achieving these goals.

[00:11:33] What we're going to look at in the afternoon today is starting to think about this board superintendent roles and how that relationship works, how you work with the superintendent, how you delegate authority as a board, how you evaluate the superintendent, how you monitor the work of the superintendent and the division.

[00:11:48] And then finally, there's the last component, this idea of the governance, how you as a board work together to support those previous three areas. We can go to the next slide. As was referenced earlier, one of the key outcomes for this morning is to talk through the executive expectations we've been working on, and to do that in two parts. The second part is going to be looking at if there's any final questions or things that we want to look at before the board meeting on Thursday. But we're going to start by talking about what it would look like when an executive expectation report comes to you as the board. I'm going to refer you to two areas in the

[00:12:27] binder that might be helpful for this conversation. One of them is in section six, and there's a few examples of what actual monitoring reports look like. We have two examples from that Dr. Reed has used in the past, and they're at the back of Section 6. So this will help when we get to the part about talking about how she'll bring a report to you as the board and the public on a Thursday evening regular board meeting. You'll have an example of what that would look like. The other -- excuse me, that was in the back of Section 3. That's my mistake. In Section 6, the second document you'll see in Section 6 is an actual -- the monitoring response form that you as board members would use to listen to Dr. Reed's

[00:13:06] report on one of these executive expectations and provide notes and feedback and determine whether she's in compliance with that expectation or not. So both of those are just artifacts that might help some of this conversation. What I'm going to do now is talk through what this process might look like on a Thursday evening regular board meeting with an executive Expectation Monitoring Report. At least 10 days in advance of the meeting the board members and the public will receive a copy of Dr. Reed's report. During the performance review agenda item

[00:13:40] on a Thursday night evening Dr. Reed will present the report connected to the specific executive expectation for that evening. There are 13 of them under consideration by the board and they're laid out throughout the school year. The first one that is scheduled is for September 28th and and that's on executive expectation number two, the emergency superintendent succession one.

[00:14:03] So in a few weeks, we'll have an opportunity to work through this process. Dr. Reed will provide that report. She'll provide her interpretation of that expectation. She'll talk about whether she thinks she's in compliance or not. And then there'll be several pieces of evidence to show whether that compliance is there and the effort she's been making to meet that executive expectation.

[00:14:26] Board members will have the opportunity to ask Dr. Reed clarifying questions around the report that she's presented. And then you'll have the opportunity, and again, the form that I was referencing from section six, to fill out a feedback form. Throughout the course of the year, there will be 13 of these forms that will be put together that you'll use as part of that monitoring process for the superintendent.

[00:14:51] Those forms will be retained by the board office and a member of the superintendent's team. Following that opportunity to complete that feedback on Dr. Reed's presentation, the board will take a vote of whether to approve or not approve that monitoring report. If the report is not approved, Dr. Reed by the next meeting will submit a corrective action plan related to those expectations.

[00:15:15] The final step on that meeting would be on a different part of the agenda, the policy review agenda item, the board would have an opportunity to look at the expectation and say, is this meeting the needs of our board? Are there any revisions that we wanna make at this time? As a board, you're able to revise the executive expectations at any point during the process, but there'll be this explicit opportunity every time Dr. Reed presents a monitoring report.

[00:15:39] So that's an overview of this process of what that will look like and how you'll interact with it as a board. I'd like to see if there's any questions or clarifying statements we can make or any additional information we can provide about what this process will be like for the board and for the public.

[00:16:04] So do you just want questions on this process at this point in time? Because I know Ms. Kees-Gamara and Ms. Karen Corbett have your... I know, okay. Ms. Karen Kees-Gamara then? I can speak when he finishes because there are going to be general comments.

[00:16:25] Yeah, I think we just wanted to see if there's any questions on this process. I appreciate you laying out the process and what we can expect.

[00:16:43] I'm a little perplexed as to why we would have a executive limitation report on something called the emergency superintendent succession, since that is something that we adopt in July as part of our regular business meeting and is required by state statute.

[00:17:07] And so it seems to me that taking up a business meeting on something like that is not necessarily the most effective use of our time, and we have limited time with us. I also have some questions as to what's been presented so far in light of our conversations of a couple weeks ago in how we are going to be approaching this work.

[00:17:36] And at that meeting, we were very clear, it came back saying that we are not wholesale adopting the Carver book, but throughout this presentation, we have a registered trademark associated with the operational governance model and presuming that that is the model we're adopting.

[00:17:56] So, I would like to better understand that. And additionally, I would like to provide some background on what prior boards did and did not do regarding this. You are correct that the Aspen group was hired to work with the prior board.

[00:18:17] And that prior board chose not to fully adopt the operational governance structure. But similar to what this board did two weeks ago, decided to adopt parts of it and to tailor it to the work of this board.

[00:18:36] And so, once again, I just think that we need to be very intentful in the words we use and the approach that we are suggesting that we are wholesale endorsing. because this board very clearly did not wholesale adopt the carver model and if we were to adopt the carver model then that would require significant changes from where we are today and the board in 2015 once again addressed the issues associated with the carver model

[00:19:15] and chose not to adopt it then but to continue with the operational expectations and this board two weeks ago was very intentful in making sure that we talked about executive expectations would you like to address that no i thank you miss corbett sanders and certainly the the framework of the carver model is one model and there are multitude of models and we see different boards adopting pieces of it and so i appreciate you sharing those comments well so are we going to

[00:19:51] change our presentation which seems to only address one model with the registered trademark of the carver model throughout i mean i think that's a direction from the board that we would look to take so we just talked about that briefly here um with that um the policy governance trademark i mean i think we are in agreement ms corbett sanders based on our conversation

[00:20:23] at our last retreat that we are using harder as a a reference um as we're doing this work and not fully adopting what was presented to us and not have that wholesale adoption which is what's been presented in this with all the registered trademarks so we can look into that we'll have to make sure that our wording is such we don't want to run into any trademark issues but we'll make

[00:20:53] sure because i completely understand what your comments are dr anderson okay i'm confused and i feel again i know i said this before but i continue to feel as if i've missed the boat on certain things but i'm going to at least try to get some parts of this in the way that i need i understood this first part of the conversation was for us to kind of fine-tune the executive expectations that's the conversation i'm prepared to have right now because these questions jump

[00:21:26] into the afternoon session so can we pivot into what is targeted for this section because that's where i'm going um madam chair i guess i'm looking at you to give that direction we were hoping at this point to get any questions about the the process that we will be following next at on september 28th how i i don't know because i i'll be honest elaine i'm very confused because the questions that are being asked for us to respond to are not the executive limitations which was the

[00:22:02] first part of this discussion so i would like to go to that because i have some comments on the documents and if you well you may not recall because i sent it this morning and i'm sure you were very busy getting ready for this meeting but i actually sent a request for us to postpone the vote for thursday because this is the first time that people are seeing what we're doing here and And we won't have enough time for, I believe, for our public that we are representing to give us feedback on this.

[00:22:35] Because the work was done in a retreat in a matter that was not accessible. And these documents were not posted last meeting on the 31st. There was nothing posted for our community to respond to and to give us feedback over these last two weeks.

[00:22:52] So now we'll have two days for people to absorb this and give it to us and vote on Thursday. So my one ask is for us to postpone that vote to the following week so we have real time to absorb. My second request is are we going to be talking about the executive limitations now?

[00:23:11] Because I have feedback on that that I'd like to engage with. And, of course, I have feedback on the other components, but I thought that was for the afternoon. All right, I think the way we had set up the presentation was to give you an overview for the day and an overview of the process so that the public would understand how this all fits together.

[00:23:33] And then, as I mentioned earlier, we would finish our morning with a take a look at the final edits to the executive expectations. so may i just respond to that very quickly i think my confusion is the process that is being explained is not the process that the board has requested as per the conversations for a couple of weeks ago i don't want to belabor the point because my time is up but um miss um corbett sanders said that very quickly i feel like cart is before the horse here and so i'll stop here i

[00:24:09] know my time is up thank you miss heismerheiser yeah i appreciate the conversation for my colleagues And I understand this as a lawyer there's sometimes trademark issues. I don't know I didn't read it as adopting the whole scale framework I just read it as making sure that we covered that it is a framework based on you know the book And so we're just looking at it from that perspective But I guess I'm really confused myself as to I'm struggling to understand why this feels so rushed I mean we started talking about this. I mean the previous board adopted this policy governance structure as the presentation said in 2007 and

[00:24:48] It's been in our governance manual ever since, and for a while, I guess we're reporting, since I've been on the board, there hasn't been the reporting, but we agreed to the structure many, many years ago. Then last year, when we, after Dr. Reed just started, in July, August, and September, we had retreats that talked about our strategic plan and the policy governance structure, and we decided to re-engage the community on the strategic plan and then refresh the policy governance structure to go along with that.

[00:25:17] and we had several conversations then about it we did i thought really great work on the strategic plan thank you very much we voted on it in june and then we had a retreat almost immediately afterwards on policy governance at which point we looked at the structure that was already in our governance manual that the board had committed to and decided what we wanted to do was just kind of um you know edit the structure we had over the recess and i know um miss tolan and dr reed was taking responsibility for doing that alongside two by twos with board members who could sign up for that over the recess so we talked about it pretty extensively and i think the board as a body

[00:25:53] committed to um just refreshing what we had here whether it's limitations or expectations were part of the conversations but really just revising it to be in alignment with strategic plan we did edits of those over the break i know i think you worked on some of those miss corbett sanders we came back in august and we've had a couple retreats where we've really fine-tuned the language we've changed it to executive expectations instead of limitations, et cetera.

[00:26:17] So I guess I'm not sure -- at this point, we've gone through several rounds of editing this document starting in July. So to me -- and the retreats are all open to the public. The documents were posted online for the retreats for people to access online to see them, all the iterations.

[00:26:34] So I guess I'm confused as to why we're not ready -- it seems like we've been working on this for several months now and we want to kind of get it locked down so we can start the reporting which will be so in the public to have all the reporting on the executive expectations so the public can really see where we are all along so that's where my confusion lies I think it's we've done a lot of work on this and we're just kind of down to a few nitty-gritty looking at to finalize it Ms. Kees Kamara I'm sorry I was trying to limit my comments based on what was

[00:27:10] said but we've drifted into the area that I'm very concerned about I'm gonna have to agree with dr. Anderson I on the one hand we've done some tweaks on the executive expectations I agree miss Sizemore Heiser but what was presented to us today is beyond that right and so I'm still confused I was hoping for some clarity because we when was there going to be discussion about these executive

[00:27:44] expectations. I appreciated the discussion in the retreat. I'm going to disagree a little bit because I don't think those retreats are as open to the public as a work session. And so I was grateful to see this being brought here. But the discussion as being led by our facilitators appears to be about the next step, not about the executive expectations. So I think that's where at least for me the confusion is and and and there has been no real I mean I

[00:28:23] don't know that people have objections based on the previous and maybe that's the question that needs to be asked if if people still need to if they have comments they want to make I say that with the caveat that I don't think the retreat was provided the level of transparency to the community that I'm i'm comfortable with because we typically would be having those kinds of conversations in a work session like this so with that regard it would have been helpful i think to review for the public

[00:29:02] what we reached and then that would have led to a fuller conversation where people felt that it wholesale allowed that conversation so i think that may be the missing element here um i just offer that for consideration. I agree with Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, there has been extensive conversation with respect to, at least I think I'm agreeing with you, executive expectations.

[00:29:29] I think there has been extensive conversation there, but what's in these documents is different and what he just asked us is different. So what we were hoping to do this morning, and I will take responsibility for this, was give you an overview of what has been done to date a historical perspective and sort of the big picture of policy governance what we would hope to continue to do over the next month and then take a look at the expectations that's what we were thinking about doing this morning so I'm sorry if it's

[00:30:07] confusing and perhaps that I made it confusing when I started the conversation saying we would be looking at these expectations this morning so that is part of what we will be doing so so the majority of my comments were on the structure of what we're doing I withheld that because you said we were talking about the expectations so thank you like it's a little reverse but okay

[00:30:41] oh let me know miss cohen oh i just i don't want us to get mired in like the how we got here and what to do um i i think especially being someone who missed the retreat i had a family emergency that i appreciate so many of you um reaching out about um you know seeing just these even though it's all red line like it's a little jarring because it's just been changed to um executive

[00:31:17] expectation so it is a wholly new thing even though it is really all that we've talked about kind of a lot so i look forward to digging into these guys and then getting to have the conversation about policy governance and definitely understand i mean the larger point being this is where we're trying to get this is more aspirational the presentation and this is kind of the beginning of of setting that actual physical work so um i'm excited going i hate that it's noon and we're still doing this but um i would love to take a look at the uh expectational

[00:31:54] or expectations executive expectations um as soon as we can yeah um a lot trying to move us along i just had a couple of questions so for the vote on thursday will that also include the board roles and responsibilities component no that's only the executive uh okay expectations with that said i think as you guys go along maybe in the presentation it would be helpful um just because of how the red line is set up i guess uh to just point out where the changes occurred because the

[00:32:31] red line is a little bit more of like everything is is out and then the new is there but it's i I can't really tell what was different in the two. So I think that's going to be a necessary piece of moving forward so that we can identify what's changed.

[00:32:48] Thank you, Ms. Omesh, and I can address that just briefly if it'll help the rest of this conversation. So what the red line document will have is it's your governance manual and it only addresses anything related to the changes around executive expectations.

[00:33:04] The bulk of the changes you'll see, And if we really want to talk about these executive expectations, it starts on the bottom of page 29. So from the bottom of page 29 through the end, that's when you'll see the text of the new EEs. Any other red lines that you see is just something that would change operational expectations to executive expectations throughout the governance manual.

[00:33:26] So bottom of page 29 is probably a good place to start to look at the content. Yeah, no, and so when I looked at that, I was trying to track it, like looking at that compared to 15, which I guess was the old language. And that's where I noticed that the meat of it is different.

[00:33:42] But it was harder to trace what actually changed between the... I would have to look line by line myself, right, comparing those two. So I don't know if you guys can point out maybe where... I assume some of it was reflective of our discussions last time, right? Yeah.

[00:33:57] So ideally, that's where I would have seen the redlining. But since we have this right now, I don't know if you guys can just point out maybe... Or if all of it's changed, just let us know. I can also just look at it as a new document. - So, Ms. Himesh, the place that may be most helpful for board members is the content from the Monday letter and we can walk through where the changes were, but that's gonna reflect the board conversation from our last retreat and where we are today.

[00:34:23] - Is that, okay, okay. More specifically about what's changed here and, all right, I think we're gonna have to pull that up.

[00:34:42] - Ms. Tolick, may I? - Ms. McLaughlin, please do press yours up for a while. so dr reed i think what i would share is that um having that you know i was at the first retreat and then i had a family commitment and missed the second one um and i had expressed concern that while i do believe the work we were doing on the operational expectations and that we are now looking calling them executive expectations is important work because it's been a triad of i

[00:35:21] believe of strong policy governance. But I'm also mindful that in our time with you and this board's tenure with how much time we have left, that we spent an enormous amount of time on the strategic plan. And I am thinking about the work that this veteran board has left to do before there will be an election and a brand new board in place. And because eight board members are retiring off,

[00:35:57] that alone speaks to the changes that will come with a new board. And so I had thought that we were going to just focus on revising and improving and strengthening these to help you in your work with the strategic plan. But beyond that, in terms of whole scale changes to how the board and the superintendent and the division operate. I've had concerns that that is a very big project to take on, and I'm not certain right now that that is maybe even appropriate, because you're going to

[00:36:36] end up inheriting a whole new board come January 1, and we could do all this work, and they could come in and just wipe it away. And so thinking about staff time, board time, your time, public time are we better off focusing on this work that we did to refine and improve them and then maybe engage in some more additional conversation about what what is optimal for superintendent and board

[00:37:12] relationship work what can we learn from best practice but i i don't really feel positioned even right now today um to suddenly green light what i think is really heavy lifting and given how amazing your commitment is to the strategic plan that we've now established i would rather see us spend that time together focusing on that i think the second thing i would say people know

[00:37:46] about me is i tend to do really well um with some clarity of specificity so i feel like we're embarking on this sort of philosophical esoteric conversation about policy governance and meanwhile i'm trying to think from for us as a board and for the public what's the why of what we're trying to solve in the urgency here again knowing we've got about four months left collectively is there a problem and if there is then maybe working with the chair and vice chair

[00:38:17] we can address where the board or individual board members are creating challenges for you to lead in the way you'd like to lead and i i mean i'm not putting you on the spot in a public meeting at all i think i'm just trying to speak my heart here that i think you come with incredible commitment to this work as a partner but i do think that as of today what i'm hearing and even what I'm experiencing and especially you know I feel about the Carver book I'm not sure that it

[00:38:56] necessarily is applicable to in wholesale an elected board of this size of this complexity of a school district with a community of expectations of a million people I just don't know how we tackle all that meanwhile knowing that we need to start drilling down to what's happening in our schools and what can we do to help you in these next four months and i i think it it might be better served this is truly retreat work when people say what's the retreat

[00:39:32] and they say well the school board meets in cafeterias and conference rooms at the gatehouse so it's not a you know a luxury but the bottom line is this is important work i don't know that we're positioned to be doing it right here right now today and I just I think I'm wanting to just make sure everybody understands I appreciate the good intent here but I am worried that we've got a lot of important work we've got to try to get done and I don't know that beyond the executive

[00:40:05] expectations um how we're going to get past doing some some of this heavy work right now okay let me make a suggestion all right it is a little bit afternoon i would like to see if this is if the board is amenable to this um we have done work for weeks and weeks a month on the executive expectations we had a very very good session at our last retreat um discussing you

[00:40:42] know the semantics and what it meant to people and i think came to a very good um compromise and conclusion for many of us to move forward. So we have a strategic plan in place and part of what we want to do with that strategic plan is hold Dr.

[00:41:00] Reid accountable for accomplishing the goals in that strategic plan. So part of that is, as we've discussed, is having our goal reports and we're working on scheduling those out between now and June to cover all five of those goal reports. Now, in addition to that, we have put together what I feel is a very good body of work taking the operational expectations, revising them to these executive expectations, which are part of

[00:41:33] what we are expecting from Dr. Reed as she is accomplishing those five goals. These two pieces help us to, as a board, be accountable for what she is working on. So, let me propose this.

[00:41:50] Let's change our gears a little bit. Our lunch is ready. I double checked. Let's take our lunch break just a few minutes early. Let's come back, focus on these expectations, make sure everyone is fine and we've got them ready for Thursday night. We would like to be able to finalize these Thursday evening so we can begin this process of accountability. I mean we are here on the board and serving for the next three and a half months and I would

[00:42:26] like to make sure that good work and accountability is happening. So we would like to begin the process that we were hearing about on September 28th. We chose just the one of the easiest expectations to hopefully just run through the process and we get the board and the public familiar with the process which is why we chose that particular item so if I would like to see if we can have some consensus around changing our agenda slightly in having our lunch

[00:43:01] coming back more focus on this just finish up the details we will get a copy for everyone the Monday letter materials have exactly what miss summation is asking for is you know the copy showing exactly what changes were made based on our last discussions. I think staff did a great job of incorporating all of our comments. So with that can I just see a general a show of hands of people that are amenable to that adjustment? Okay excellent. Ms. Seisperheiser, quick

[00:43:37] comment. Yeah just I think one caveat I think it would be I think we should have that and kind of finalize this as ready to vote but if there's time at the end of that perhaps we can start some of the other conversation just to have some ideas because I do think you know we've been talking a little bit individually about some of the next steps around the board superintendent relations but having a chance for the spot us as a body to talk about that as a good starting point for conversation I think would be helpful if we have time at the end of that no thank you for that clarification I wasn't necessarily planning to take that off the table just retigger the schedule so much all All right. Thank you. Ms. Corbett-Sanders.

[00:44:15] And if we could just, because I think the public is going to look at this operational expectation report on Thursday night as being something that's like, are you kidding me? Because it is such a, you know, it's something that we already know the succession planning.

[00:44:33] So, if we can change the agenda item so it clarifies that this is being used as an example of how the process will go forward, I think that that is an important piece.

[00:44:51] And then, similarly, if we can be very clear that what we're really talking about is not um policy governance but strategic governance of the system because the policy governance is something that we aren't wholesale adopting and so we shouldn't be using a term that gives an indication that we're wholesale adopting something that the last board didn't wholesale adopt and we did not wholesale adopt thank you we heard that comment loud and clear we were already discussing

[00:45:24] it. Thank you. All right, let's take a half an hour for lunch, so we'll reconvene at 1240.

[00:46:10] Actually, I think I was in trouble for talking. Okay, let's move forward. We've already overstepped our break here. We have lots of work to do, so we have, we're reconvening, and you should have on your desk this document in addition to the red line that you received earlier today.

[00:46:39] So this is the document that Ms. Amesh was asking about that was given out to board members a week ago Monday that shows in green the words that were changed based upon our discussions that we had at our previous, our last retreat.

[00:47:00] so um marcy and dustin graciously will walk us through each of these and take what we would like to do if there are any comments on any of these we would like to reach consensus on that today and repost this so that we can get this information out and be prepared for the meeting on thursday if there are additional changes um after tomorrow morning those will have to be amendments at the board table.

[00:47:34] So let's turn it over to Marcy and Justin and let's start it out with number one. Thank you, Ms. Tollin. And just for the public's awareness, publicly posted is the red line version of the board's governance manual that has the current version of what we're going to walk through today.

[00:47:50] The original operational expectations, there were 12 of them. In the process of developing these executive expectations, the board determined the need to add an additional executive expectation and that's number 13 focused on safety and security. So we're going to talk about today. These have evolved over time as the board has engaged in discussions in both two by twos and then through the retreat processes.

[00:48:12] We're going to share the changes that occurred from the board's last engagement with this at the last retreat. As Miss Tolan has pointed out, those changes are highlighted in green. So we'll walk through each one of them and then confirm that there are no additional changes as we move on to the next one. So we're going to start with the first one which is the global executive expectations. So based on the consensus feedback from the board's discussion at the last retreat this was updated and I'm going to have Ms. Cornell pull this document up as well so the public can see what we're talking about to include data informed

[00:48:50] systems and adding in language on language that was in the previous operational expectations about a system of continuous improvement monitoring our efforts towards achieving our goals. So that language in green was added. So that's the change from the last time the board discussed this, the feedback that was provided, and the edits that were made.

[00:49:09] So we want to just make sure there are no additional changes to this one before we move on to number two. Page 29.

[00:49:28] Board members, can you put your placards down, please? Thank you.

[00:49:46] Okay, seeing no comments on number one.

[00:50:02] So number two. Executive expectation number two is around the idea of the emergency superintendent succession.

[00:50:18] There are no changes from the last retreat on the 29th.

[00:50:33] We move on to number three. The third executive expectation is on the relationship with families and community stakeholders. And there was some revision in number one F to add in clarification about providing information to families in multiple languages and modalities to support the engagement opportunities within the community.

[00:50:58] Ms. Tullin, I think we need to pause. just in Marcy you just mentioned modalities to support engagement opportunities within the community and what's written is and supports engagement opportunities within the community I think your language is actually the more appropriate which is to support engagement opportunities within the community because it's an action versus an open-ended supports

[00:51:35] engagement opportunities within the community but not connected so i think what you've said is more appropriate but just leave that to this is on page three because you're talking about both the linguist language and different modalities which means it's you know written it's verbal

[00:52:02] it's going out to have a town hall it's doing all of the above are there any additional comments on that I I think if you look at D is where we are asking the superintendent to go out into the community and have opportunities for information flow he is

[00:52:35] open and honest communication so I would agree with miss color centers we're agreeing with Mars and we can't since this is a change I would just like to ask board members if you I could just see a show of hands if we have consensus

[00:52:52] around the change of that word and to to and supports to support okay great or number four is the executive expectation around human resources miss tollen if you don't mind before we move on i i wanted to ask what of the feedback was not incorporated i'm kind of trying to you

[00:53:31] know rapid fire in my brain of what things came up in the discussion um to make sure that we have an understanding of why certain things were not included if they weren't do you yeah from the - I don't have all my notes in front of me.

[00:53:48] I would say anything where we heard consensus, we went back and tried to incorporate that language, whether or not it was, like this one for example, was thinking about I think how we reach all of our community members where they are, so trying to find that language that would fit into the existing executive expectation.

[00:54:06] Again, I think we work to include everything that we heard from the board that was consensus. - Thanks.

[00:54:22] - Okay, executive expectation number four is around human resources. You'll see changes in green. Number 1D talks about an impartial process, so that addition. 2A has the addition around accommodation protocols and adhering to state code and other legal requirements in 2D.

[00:54:41] And then there were some wording changes in 3A around our competitive compensation packages. And then finally, some updates to 4 and 5 around the way that we implement our evaluation processes making sure that it's regular and in align with the regulations, and then effective and efficient professional learning in number five. Ms. Culver-Sanders? Another little just tweak, but when we talked

[00:55:14] about this, it was state and federal code, not just state code and other legal, because the federal code is actually the one that has substantially more on EEOC and stuff. I think that requires a consensus of the board. Okay, is there a consensus if we add to 2D, adhere to all state and federal code? Can I see a show of hands for consensus on that one? Okay, great. Ms. Keys-Gamard, did you

[00:55:52] have a different one? I think it may be addressed in 1D with respect to how we treat our staff members in a fair, impartial, and balanced manner and provides for effective handling of complaints an appropriate due process i am concerned about the level of notice that we give to our employees in the event that they enter uh any kind of discipline um and i'm wondering if there's

[00:56:21] any change here that needs to take place due to collective bargaining 1d yes timely would be good so thinking about treats all staff members in a fair impartial timely and balanced manner yeah i think timely is good i'm trying to get i'm i i hope people know due process means notice an

[00:56:54] opportunity to be to respond um but timely is helpful um so that people don't feel blindsided okay is there a general consensus to add the word timely please you're adding timely to which part because i thought you were going to add it under provides for the timely and effective handling is

[00:57:28] that where you're proposing to add that word that that's fine that that's fine okay because that seems to be more in alignment with making sure we're responding to people responding to people and i just i agree with that i'm going i i guess the question that was kind of suggested to me is whether that due process is um going to be clearly understood this is only for the superintendent though right okay all right um then i won't i won't fiddle with that also

[00:58:08] that that's understood thank you okay so general consensus at this point to say 1d treats all staff members in a fair impartial and balanced manner and provides for the timely and effective handling of complaints and appropriate due process two of hands okay fantastic number five miss amaze did

[00:58:44] you have a question yeah uh a separate point oh on four i'm sorry okay yeah um and i did find my notes for three i think there are a few things that weren't there i don't know maybe in the end if we can go back and just look at overall pieces that aren't covered by anything else but um for four uh i think the so the accommodations piece i think part of the intent was to be more explicit under one and saying something like um provide reasonable accommodation for the specific needs of our diverse staff population something like that uh so because right now under two it's just

[00:59:23] communication of what exists as opposed to being intentional about you know meeting staff where there are their needs are do you want to recommend a specific change yeah i mean what i had shared in the retreat was under one to add a component that would say provide reasonable accommodations

[00:59:50] for the specific needs of our diverse staff population uh number four one create a working environment that can you say your sentence again please provides reasonable accommodations for the

[01:00:12] specific needs of our diverse staff population so you would see that as e yeah mrs heiser heiser thank you and i appreciate that i'm if i could find just clarification what do you mean by reasonable accommodations for like what's what are you thinking about like i i guess my head or it goes to ADA and regional accommodations, which is still required by law, right?

[01:00:47] So what are you thinking about when you say that phrase? Give me an example. I mean, it would be whatever HR would deem reasonable under their standard, but ADA could be part of it. You know, not so much language because most of our staff speak English, obviously, but religious accommodation, scheduling, that kind of thing.

[01:01:10] I think in my experience working with some of our staff, I think principals will turn down requests for accommodation without necessarily putting in much intentionality or effort to see if it'll work, whereas others will actually go above and beyond to try to be accommodating.

[01:01:29] So I think to have it be a system expectation helps us, you know, expect of our superintendent that she'll set the tone and put in place the appropriate protocols and understandings of how that would be. That's really the intent there.

[01:01:46] Yes, hi, sir. Hi, sir. Are you finished? I didn't want to take your time. Yeah, I think I completely understand where you're going, and I appreciate that. I worry a little bit about overlapping this into what's required by law in terms of reasonable accommodations. And I wonder, I just wonder, when we have in 1A where it says ensure all are treated with dignity and respect, whether that kind of encompasses that notion of we're going to make sure we create a working environment that, you know, meets people's needs, reasonably accommodates things that they're looking for.

[01:02:15] I just, I worry about the way of the language. I'm wondering if that's in there. That's kind of assumed as part of that dignity and respectful environment. Just a thought. Yeah, I don't know that that is, mostly because that's more of like a colorblind, like we're going to treat everyone with a certain kind of respect.

[01:02:31] But I think the equity versus equality is what I'm trying to get at, where sometimes staff do need accommodations. I guess I read it as it's not respectful and dignity. If you need an accommodation, we're not able to give you. That's reasonable, right? To me, that's not treating. That's how I read it, right?

[01:02:47] Like to me, dignity and respect is individualized, right? And what someone needs for their dignity may be different. But we make sure we protect it. So that's how I look at it. So I don't want to set an expectation that we're not providing reasonable accommodations where needed or outside of the ADA processes where my concern is.

[01:03:03] We still want to make sure people go through that process legally. So just my two cents. I appreciate your thought. But to me, it seems like I think it's probably in that piece of it. Barbara Sanders, do you want to add something? I'm glad to follow Ms. Sizemore-Heiser on this one because, and I'm not a lawyer, nor have I ever studied to be one.

[01:03:22] But it's my understanding that under federal employment law and the ADA, the reasonable accommodations language actually exists at the federal code, which is why I wanted to make sure that we had the federal code listed here. I think that going to specific reasonable accommodations language beyond what the federal code is, is one where prior to incorporating that I'd like to have an interpretation or a read

[01:03:57] as to what that actually would mean, because I'm not sure, and that's why I was very explicit that I wanted the federal code in there, because of the reasonable accommodations language, which does address things like maternity leave, it does family medical leave, ADA, the EEOC, a number of other areas where it is reasonable accommodations embedded in it.

[01:04:23] That's kind of where I was reading it from. - Dr. Anderson? - Thank you. I'm wondering, Ms. Omeish, if 2A does not already encompass some of the things that you wanted to share, because it reads establish and communicate clear personnel rules, procedures, and accommodations, accommodation protocols.

[01:04:44] I wonder if that will capture all of that. - Yeah, I mean, again, part of my concern wasn't that a protocol exists, which I think is this legal piece that people are talking about, but that it be implemented, respected across the board, that the superintendent have some role in ensuring that that's part of the work culture that's put in place.

[01:05:07] So that's where I saw an appropriate place for that in one. and i didn't think too was sufficient in doing that for that reason madam chair yes perhaps miss omesh it sounds like you may be talking about fidelity of implementation does that phrase help you at all because you're you're looking for some equity in the way that these policies are implemented and some oversight and accountability it sounds that's what i'm gathering from your conversation so i was just i just wanted to throw that out as possibly a phrase

[01:05:47] that may address your concerns because you may not be talking specifically you're talking about accommodations but in the way that they are implemented and varied from one school to the other depending upon the leadership in that school yeah i mean if it makes people more comfortable maybe we can say like consistently provides reasonable accommodations for the specific needs of our diverse student i mean staff population under one maybe that will hit at that but right so this would be you're you're making sure that this is a scene as one of the duties

[01:06:23] of the superintendent right and in the work environment she's setting up okay okay say your language one more time so consistently provides reasonable accommodations for the specific needs of our diverse staff population i don't know where i'd fit in culture that was a good suggestion but anyway that's what that sentence would be sure if people don't object to that so please repeat

[01:06:58] Yeah, so the piece, so E, I guess, would be consistently provides reasonable accommodations for the specific needs of our diverse staff population. And then I think what Ms. Corbett-Sanders is adding is create a work environment and culture that. It's already there. It's under one.

[01:07:15] So I think what Ms. Corbett-Sanders was saying, number one, the first line would read create a working environment that consistently in number one.

[01:07:35] I mean, I guess I'm a little confused as to why people are averse to just being explicit about that piece that we're already committed to. But because what I'm saying is on the ground, I've seen it not be respected. So if we can be explicit, I think that's what I'm trying to get at.

[01:07:55] So Ms. Amesha, your wording is consistently provides accommodations for a diverse population of employees. Consistently provides reasonable accommodations for the specific needs of our diverse staff population. Ms. Bukurski.

[01:08:17] understand respecting staff and but i guess when we talk about accommodations i mean there is a job and a job description and expectations so when you start talking about accommodations i'm really confused as to what that means and what that looks like and i think others will be confused as well i that gives me heartburn okay let me try this okay let let me try we've got two

[01:08:52] things on the table I think let's try if we added to the first line in number one create a working environment and culture that consistently and then we've got values employee talent and expertise all are treated with dignity and respect etc etc can we have a consensus on that addition she's taking it piece by piece so yeah so can we have consensus on that one so that gives you consistent

[01:09:27] application of a through d at this point yes there was consensus okay and then secondly we have our proposal on the table for adding no in e adding it would be one e adding and miss i'm going to have you read it again because i don't think i have the exact wording yeah i mean now that we put consistently i guess it would just be provides reasonable accommodations for the specific needs

[01:10:02] of our diverse staff population and i think i just wanted to clarify recognizing that reasonable accommodation is a legal term and that has its limits it's not like people are going to free for all you know get whatever they want it's it's within a certain threshold of what's already acceptable so point of clarification yes dr anderson right i'm trying to get my mind around what is because i i get it i get it miss omesh you want to make sure that we're being explicit here because it's been said over and over again it needs to live here if we need to hold the superintendent accountable to it but i'm struggling with trying to figure out how is that different

[01:10:41] from the accommodations and 2a if you could give me an example what would be something that would fall under that one perhaps 1e that would not be covered in 1 in 2a my issue is not that protocols would exist right because we have protocols in place for all kinds of stuff my issue is that on the ground it's not respected it's not implemented staff aren't even aware it exists and that's where for me it's part it's the work environment and culture where to me the superintendent's part of her role is to ensure that across the board when a staff member needs an accommodation it's not stigmatized it's not made more difficult than it needs to be that's

[01:11:18] why i'm trying to put it under work environment and culture okay thank you for that my second piece is accommodations are covered under federal law it's illegal to not provide those accommodations what accommodations are you speaking to that would not fall under that umbrella um i mean I can give specific examples.

[01:11:39] I'm just trying to build understanding, so I would love at least one. Yeah, I mean, for example, a staff member who has, you know, a schedule that's set up. On Friday, their free period is the last day, is the last period, right? They would like to make up that time in that free period for their own planning so that they can go to, like, a Friday service, right?

[01:12:01] That becomes an issue because the principal's like, no. Why? Because. And that's not made... That's not an accommodation that's made, even though we have a religious accommodations process and they, you know, can request it and whatnot, but it can be denied even if it practically makes sense and will not be disruptive to instruction.

[01:12:19] Sure. Dr. Reed, can you kind of speak to that a little bit? Because I don't have it at the ready. What does our religious accommodation regulation allow at this time? Because for me, where I go at first blush is this will change work hours.

[01:12:36] You know, somebody's working six and somebody's working seven. I just want to be sure that I don't have to. No, but there's a protocol to make up time. And that's what I'm trying to get an understanding of. But the principal has to approve that. Yeah. Go ahead. So, Dr. Anderson, what is the question you're asking to be answered?

[01:12:53] What is our current regulation around that? What is the expectation that you've given staff when it comes to the religious accommodation that Ms. Omesh is referring to? So, we can look up the regulation around that. But my guess would be it's in accordance with state and federal statute, much as we've discussed.

[01:13:12] I think what Ms. Amish is actually speaking to is more the spirit of the regulation in terms of what happens on the ground rather than what's written in the regulation. Yeah, no, exactly. So what would be your expectation? How would you direct the principal to respond in this case?

[01:13:30] Would it be, yes, you're allowed to go early on this Friday? I hate to put you on the spot on this, but again, I'm just trying to build some understanding here. So I think fundamentally we always want to keep students at the center of our decision making. So as long as we're meeting the needs of our students, their educational needs, and there's an ability to be flexible to meet staff needs in an equitable manner, my expectation would be that we meet student needs and meet staff needs in an equitable manner.

[01:13:59] So if needing to leave early for a particular event of any nature, if that time can be made up in a reasonable manner that doesn't impact student experience, I think I would expect a principal to work with their staff.

[01:14:16] One of the key areas that we're talking about is not just recruitment, but retention of staff. So where we can provide flexibility within the confines of the law and with the expectations of doing what's best for students, I would expect we would do that and be flexible.

[01:14:33] I would, Marty, did you pull up the regulation? Do you have the exact language there? I do. Regulation 4817. And when we're looking at providing these accommodations for religious needs, there's a section that focuses on undue hardship, which Dr. Reed spoke to very clearly, that focuses on students first.

[01:14:55] And then if there are requests that, and the language are costly, adversely impact student wellness, compromise workplace safety, decrease workplace efficiency, infringe on the rights of other employees or require other employees to do more than their fair share of a potentially hazardous or burdensome work, then the request could be denied.

[01:15:17] Okay. So, thank you. And thank you. So, I think where I'm falling is that Ms. O'Mesh is asking for an inclusion of language that already exists, which I think a lot of us have done with this document. So, I wouldn't have any objection to it because we already have the accommodation outlined elsewhere.

[01:15:34] I do just want to remind people that the expectations, the executive expectations, this document is not necessarily meant to encompass every possible situation.

[01:15:54] We have thousands of regulations that go into those details. And what this really is for is when we're looking at reviewing how this is being done, there will be a whole set of reports that will come forward.

[01:16:14] You know, board members will be able at that point in time, too, to ask for more specific information about how this is being met. And those looking at some of those very specific situations may be pertinent. Thank you, Elaine, Ms. Tolan for sharing that, but I'm going to push back a little bit because it's been stated over and over and over again in these conversations that it has to be here in order to kind of generate that attention, which is why I think a lot of us have been very explicit about putting things in here so that it could have that attention.

[01:16:48] And I do hear you because we have thousands of policies and regulations. We couldn't possibly do it here, but it's a little bit of a misalignment there with messaging and what is actually able, what's actually possible. Thank you. Ms. Keese-Gamara?

[01:17:09] Okay. So I'm getting a little stuck between the two of these because I think these are two different ideological approaches. And I'm seeing your concern, Abrar, as more of an enforcement issue as opposed to, because I think the language actually is saying the accommodation should be that this is part of what her oversight is.

[01:17:36] But if there's a disparity, it seems like that could possibly fall somewhere else, in the sense that, one, do our employees have a way to report such concerns, right, in order to make sure that the superintendent can provide a level of oversight, which requires, one, information or data being available.

[01:17:58] So, you know, I'm a little stuck between the two opinions because I'm thinking that you're looking for what language already exists for, but do we have a mechanism by which we make sure employees who may feel that their rights aren't being protected, then how do we get to that?

[01:18:22] And I need to give that some thought as to where that would live. But I just feel like it may be two different things. I mean, the way I'm seeing it is at the end of the day, the superintendent is held accountable to the things we put in writing the board will hold her accountable to.

[01:18:38] Whether or not it's happening is up to the quality of the superintendent and their ability to be on top of every little thing that's going on, right? So if we don't have it in writing that amongst the things that we care about, to me, it's a staff rights issue. The grievance piece was a big deal, and I'm glad we bolstered that language.

[01:18:54] And the accommodations piece is another one where I've seen our system fall short time and time again. So I'm like, you know what, I want it written down in the things that we're going to ask her about so that she's forced to create space in her mind to think about it and ensure it's happening.

[01:19:10] Otherwise, you know, we end up in the status quo of things that are inconsistent, things are falling short here and there. And without that language, I think we could hold her accountable and give her all A pluses while that's still an inconsistency and a problem on the ground. So that's really where this, you know, I'm trying to include it as language to ensure that it's part of her report card, right?

[01:19:30] 'cause that's the only way to make sure it's happening. - All right, that's very helpful. So. - Okay, so the language would be provide reasonable accommodations for the specific needs of our diverse staff population. That would be under create a work environment and culture that consistently.

[01:19:51] - Okay, so let's at this point, could I see a show of hands for those? - I'm so sorry, can you just say once more abroad? - Yes, one more time. We have number one, create, which has been changed by now, right? So it is create a work environment and culture that consistently provides reasonable accommodations for the specific needs of our diverse staff population.

[01:20:14] - Thank you. And Ms. Marin, you have a comment? - Yes, I do have a comment. You know, I appreciate what Ms. Omesh is saying about work culture and I think that change in one is pertinent, but number two literally says, implement policies and develop regulations that so and so accommodate protocols.

[01:20:35] So again, I do think it speaks to this is an implementation issue. I'm uncomfortable doing wordsmithing to this extent, given that this is now the third draft that we've done, and to Ms. Toland's point, this is supposed to be as global. I do think, to Dr. Anderson's point, I think it's in here.

[01:20:52] It also says under 2C, protect against discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or other mistreatment. So I do think this reflects what Ms. Omeish is advocating for, and I do not feel the need to make any additional changes in that. - Thank you, okay, we've got the wording.

[01:21:10] Let's see a show of hands for those that would like to incorporate, all right, for those that would like to incorporate E as Ms. Amache has described.

[01:21:30] Okay, so we do not have a consensus on that one. Thank you. Ms. Corbett-Sanders, do you want to add something else at this point? No, I think we've already had extensive conversation.

[01:21:47] Don't worry. Thank you. Okay, we can move on to number five. Okay, our executive expectation number five is financial planning and the one change that was made from the previous board discussion on This is in 1 B to add in a current assessment of so there was some conversation about making sure we have an understanding of sort of the evolving financial

[01:22:12] Situation. That's you. Oh, miss miss Seismerheiser. Miss Seismerheiser. Did you have a comment on number five?

[01:22:39] Just a just a quick global comment in general like I just want to be careful that the purpose of this document isn't sort of new regulations right or new policies it's a global more broad you know document this is do you know and then we can ask quite i mean our superintendent of course is accountable to all of our regulations and policies and and in these topics the broader topics we can ask about any of those in the reporting but i just want to be careful that we're not turning this into regulation so i just want to put that out there and that's i know we're down the path of expectations but that's what limitations would have done is it doesn't box it into these are the things we expect

[01:23:15] which then gives us an urge to want to put more things that we expect in here so you know we do expect everything in our regulations that our superintendent will abide by so just wanted to put that out there thank you miss kirk sanders uh global expectation global executive expectation does just that it says okay all of the regulations and policies apply um i do have and this is i

[01:23:53] never thought i would say this about financial planning but we live in a different world today and that is whether there is an expectation that when extraordinary budgetary events occur, and we've had two in the past four years.

[01:24:09] One was when at the 11th hour we were being told that we might not get fully funded from the Board of Supervisors and had to work on that at the 11th hour. and the second was this year where we had an accounting glitch at the state and then a delay in getting a budget from the state.

[01:24:34] I very much appreciate that the superintendent and her team have been responsive to keeping us informed of both those. But that language and a current assessment of local, state, and federal funding sources, Do we need to say is based on realistic assumptions a current assessment and any changes to just because we're living in a world where we do not control what is happening.

[01:25:05] And if we have actually it's three times because we also had a shutdown in my tenure and all of a sudden we had people without any money in Fairfax County for a period of time. So I don't know where we capture that financial planning piece and whether or not we have to.

[01:25:22] But because we're so codependent on federal and state funding, I don't know. I'm just throwing it out. Under five. You think it captures? It says it's based on realistic assumptions.

[01:25:38] It's the planning piece and a current assessment. So do we need to say current or change, current assessment and any change? I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there. What if we secure an ongoing assessment? I mean, that is what we do, right?

[01:25:55] We're constantly watching. Because, unfortunately, we're not printing our own, you know, we're not able to handle ensuring our financial inflow. So could I see if we...

[01:26:11] Where are we putting that? So it's 1B, number five, financial planning 1B. We're proposing 1B to now say is based on realistic assumptions and a current and ongoing assessment of local, state, and federal funding sources.

[01:26:34] So can I see a consensus for that addition of that word? 1B is based on realistic assumptions and a current and ongoing assessment of local, state, and federal funding sources.

[01:26:54] If they hiccup and make it. Can I see a show of hands for adding that and ongoing? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

[01:27:12] - Okay. - Seven. - Okay, thank you. Okay, number six. - Now it's your turn. - All right, thank you, Madam Chair. Number six is the executive expectation on financial administration, and based on the discussion at the last retreat, there were no changes to this one.

[01:27:44] - We move to number seven, asset protection. So the change from the last discussion on asset protection was in number one, and it was to address some concerns around delayed maintenance.

[01:28:10] - Nickel term is deferred. And I apologize, Ms. Corbett-Sanders, deferred maintenance. Thank you. Okay, so we are okay with number seven. We'll just take out that one word.

[01:28:30] Number eight. Number eight is the superintendent's relationship with the board. In the opening preamble, there was the addition of academic success. As we move through the expectation, 3B adds the board in addition to individual members.

[01:28:52] Number four adds disaggregating data as a part of strategic plan goals. And then when we look towards the bottom at 6H, there was an additional letter added for significant events impacting academic success.

[01:29:17] - Ms. Carver-Sanders. - Dr. Reed, this is just a question of a clarification or an understanding. So in looking at the new H, which I fully support, is that someplace where you would come to us if there were significant changes at the state level to our accreditation system that you would come back and say this is what we expect the impact of that would be?

[01:29:44] - Maybe. Well, I mean, I don't know that that, the state isn't gonna impact the academic success of our students, right? We, what happens in our classrooms and in our communities, homes, et cetera, are most significant about, in terms of what impacts academic success.

[01:30:03] I think the state changing their criteria impact the reporting of our academic success but in a technical term you know a significant event might be a school burning down and we'd have to relocate students and that would be a significant event that might affect class size and it might disrupt learning so I'm thinking those would be the types of things that significant events might be but if we're talking about the reporting

[01:30:34] of then i think the state's shifts you know would be um connected to that so i i mean that's how i would read that that would five be that report in a timely manner that piece um i'm just a little nervous that um we're hearing that there's going to be significant changes at the state level that could all of a sudden not necessarily impact how well our kids are doing but how they're perceived

[01:31:08] i think we are concerned about that correct can we look at um 6f you know to make sure we know about any significant initiative program that would change you know our operations or

[01:31:35] reporting does that make sense so as i look at this list i'm looking at it with the eye toward what things i expect uh the board to be apprised of um and i may have missed it but i don't see anything sometimes our constituents bring something forward that are that's pretty significant that

[01:32:14] looks like a little thing when it starts but it has the potential to be pretty significant and the board needs to be apprised of that so i'm wondering how we can capture that and i'm also hoping that when in g i'm looking at f and g and and i'm having a wondering because i i do think that the board has to be apprised of um major developments or those things that can impact reputational risk um and and two of the big ones i believe are things that can come out of personnel

[01:32:53] issues and constituent concerns so i'm wondering if and it is a wonder guys i'm wondering if there's some way that we should include that here you think it's here no i think you're right okay it's that constituent um well and also and and i guess the reason ms corpus andrews is pointing out to me that there's language here that uh regarding taking direction from the body but

[01:33:28] oftentimes those constituent concerns come in from a board member or a couple of board members and the whole board needs to be apprised because it's something that can kind of blow up in our face so dr reed i'm happy to listen to how you think that can be done but i i do think that in the past we've had things arise at a very local magisterial or perhaps even i have heard of things that eventually become something um pretty significant so thank you ms keys gomara i

[01:34:02] certainly can apprise the board of all constituent concerns um that would be a lengthy list to review on a weekly basis um i don't know if all i don't always hear of all the individual board concerns that are brought like a constituent to a board member yeah like i'm not always aware of that i'm i'm not saying every single constituents concern that comes to your attention should be reported to the board i'm not saying that i'm saying that there are things that eventually can grow and i

[01:34:34] I could throw I don't really want to throw out an example I have some in my head but um they become you know we've had conversations regarding things going on in particular schools or we may see a pattern for example with respect to principals or staff members those are the kind of things that I think the board needs to get some report on and I'm trying to figure out a way to capture that Yeah, and I just would like to respond that it's at times difficult to predict which thing is going to become a big thing.

[01:35:08] And if it's written that anything that becomes a big thing, it's going to be, I'm just trying to be practical as well, that there are times it's hard to ascertain which things are going to become big things.

[01:35:23] It becomes, again, a judgment. I do think it is your judgment. I'm not ignoring that at all. I very much want to respect that. but i do want the body of this the body of constituent concerns to be on a radar right because i i don't think anybody's going to say you messed up by not telling us this you know this specific thing if there is a pattern of providing notice to the board and that has been established so i'm trying to figure out how do we establish that pattern so i think we have an idea on the table yeah i totally hear what you're saying and i agree there are oftentimes when

[01:36:00] hearing things that are starting to bubble up right we want to be informed of those things i'm wondering if just the title of six kind of gets that because it says on six provide for the board in a timely manner six on page 13 on this this draft here number eight ee8 ee8 number six of course um provide for the board in a timely manner information about trends and i'm thinking trends might be what you're kind of getting at things that we're seeing that are bubbling up facts and other information relevant to the board's work and implementation of policies so to me you know i'm wondering if maybe we can add something trends facts and other information

[01:36:39] relevant to the success of the system or the operate something along those lines but to me the words trends gets to it's not a one or here but we're seeing that this is a trend that's bubbling up so you've seen enough to see a trend i think i think the specific concern i have is with respect to constituent um constituent concerns because there's nowhere that i'm seeing that what what we're hearing from the community like she may hear something from a board member not the whole board but it's a big deal to me a trend would include if we're hearing a trend of constituent concerns i think what i heard earlier was it's not as dr reed said it's hard to know

[01:37:18] what's going to become a trend right so we don't want a whole list of all con i know but it's my turn so i hear what you're saying i'm just trying to respond back to say i think you know you can put a word in i think the trend can encompass any trend including constituent concerns i'm not sure we could also put in here if you wanted to um significant trend significant trends around constituent concerns initiative programs and operational changes on f if you want to raise the word constituent in there but again i think that's where i started actually and i kind of wanted to open it up so people could understand but i'm satisfied with the second one you said

[01:37:56] which was specifically mentioned constituent concerns but i wanted to explain to dr reed that that this isn't yeah no i get that i mean maybe significant trends of constituent concerns or something that's fine yeah something like that i just think it's we just need to be careful because you want we don't know something may become a trend but significant trends of community well yeah right and that's my my questioning in this was that i wanted that flexibility to be there but at the same time the importance of this particular issue maybe

[01:38:34] significant trends around community concerns even i mean well yeah ms jolin please um i'm wondering if in ee3 there's some language on number five i'm not sure if that addresses some of the concerns ms keeskamara that you're raising that that doesn't have to do that has to do with the relationship with the community it doesn't have anything to do with providing notice to the board

[01:39:09] where what are you looking at number three i think it's a different category because the category

[01:39:44] there has to do with how we relate to the community this is the section having to do with the board the superintendent's relationship with the board so so i understand that difference i'm sorry i didn't mean to cut you off one of the things that um besides for hyzer said which i think might actually fit is if i think if we did f super significant initiatives constituent

[01:40:12] concerns programs yes okay now we're saying in f significant initiatives trends around constituent constituent concerns programs and operational changes we also have d that talks about administrative disposition of manners referred to the superintendent by the board.

[01:40:48] That's a little different. Okay, so Ms. Keyes-Gumara. I agree with the first thing you said. Okay. But she said it. Okay. Thank you.

[01:41:05] The issue here is the capstone says the superintendent shall take direction from the board as a body. There's a bit of a cognitive inconsistency between taking the direction from the board as a body and how you address constituent concerns that come to board members and the board member then brings it to the superintendent because I try very hard that when something comes up from our community I immediately go to the superintendent either through an email or a conversation saying

[01:41:40] this is what's happening and so our board work is bifurcated between the policy and the oversight of being a board member and the constituent services that constituent service role is not ceded to the superintendent because the electorate of fairfax county doesn't expect us to cede the relationship with our constituents however what the what the board and this is superintendent's

[01:42:13] relationship with the board that relationship with the board requires that um that handoff for resolution because individual board members cannot, you know, address the unique needs of a family in a school setting or, you know, a transportation setting or anything else. So it requires that handoff and then that the superintendent will then go back to the board member with a resolution or will appoint somebody on their staff for that resolution. That's what's

[01:42:50] missing here because as written it's only taking direction from the board as a body is that what I'm I think that's what I'm hearing is the concern and that is a concern that I have as a magisterial member just is really quick I think the difference is this is taking direction from the board to me take to me the way I interpret taking direction is different than addressing a concern right taking a direction is we as a body are going to tell you dr. we want you to go do x y and z bringing a

[01:43:24] concern, I don't think taking direction precludes Dr. Reed listening to a concern from you or any member about what they're hearing and saying, I will take care of this. And so the difference in my mind would be you saying, I'm hearing this concern and I want you to fix it this way. The and I want you to fix it this way is taking direction, lifting up the concern and Dr. Reed saying, I will take this back to my staff to address it and report back to you on how we've addressed it is just her addressing your concern in her operational expertise as opposed to her addressing your concern by how your direction is, right? And I think that to me, we give direction

[01:44:04] as a body. So when we tell Dr. Reed what to do, that is giving direction as a body. But Dr. Reed addressing a concern of board members bringing in her best judgment or her team's best judgment isn't precluded by taking direction as a body. Where is it explicitly stated that that's allowed though, because I think what you want is you want to have both sides of the equation addressed.

[01:44:28] There was something, one of these it said, can I just finish, I'm sorry, because we do address individual, you know, how to interact with individual board members regarding disparaging board members, but I don't, I'm less worried about the disparaging of board members than of how, you know and and it's very explicit and i i applaud dr reid for wanting to hear uh bring her the problems and saying okay this is the problem can you please address the problem and i don't think i have typically maybe i'm wrong but i don't say and here's your answer i don't say i'm not

[01:45:06] saying you are i'm just saying i think that's how i'd read the difference yeah and so i think somewhere we have to as that board relationship is that the soup you know individual board members will uh be encouraged or will have the ability to bring um i have a suggestion maybe so on page three five this i noticed family and community says provide meaningful and timely responses to concerns raised by students maybe we have a similar section saying provide meaningful and timely responses to concerns raised by board members and inform the board of any serious

[01:45:41] concerns but it needs to be in operational expectation eight that's what i'm saying maybe we have something similar to that in eight is what i'm saying okay that's what i'm as a solution so i think that's that that's a reasonable way of addressing it i just i'm trying to get to the you know the two sides of the coin that we are always i just think i just want to be careful that the responses are still whatever doctor in the response maybe we're not seeing this but i think providing timely and reasonable meaningful and timely responses to concerns raised by board members and informing the board of any serious repeated concerns might in eight might get to that

[01:46:15] so that was my potential solution to that issue that's number three three five okay if you take similar language and put it on eight instead of having students parents community members just say board members and inform the board of any serious that might you could even say inform the board of the solution and any serious or something maybe not the solution because it might just be one magisterial members yeah but serious or in repeated concerns i think

[01:46:45] that might get to that yeah dr anderson is that what you were after on this um i appreciate where we have headed because i i don't think i understood very clearly what miss um keys gamara was sharing um probably very similar to all of you my check-ins with dr reed is full of the community concerns that have been raised with me and while i'm not saying it has to be addressed this way

[01:47:22] it has to be addressed and since this document is about accountability i think we also need that space to ensure that i'm not just talking in the wind when we're talking you know for 30 minutes at whatever intervals we're speaking about the community concerns so ensuring that there's language here speaks to that concern that i was going to raise in that second part of this conversation here so thank you for finding that space so i want to be very strongly in support of putting it here and so sorry that i didn't quite get where you were going initially

[01:47:58] i am clear as a bell now okay so let me let me do this let me do we are we good for we have seven people at the table um so what we would like to do is ee number eight add a number eight that says provide meaningful and timely responses to concerns raised by board members and inform the board of any serious or repeated concerns can i see a consensus for that okay great

[01:48:35] okay and then dr anderson you have another one yes um the other one and maybe i'm wrong and not seeing where this goes but i know we've had some conversations as of late regarding appointments whether it be leadership appointments principal appointments i don't know if i see that language here and so i wanted to raise it and i do not have um ready language i just wanted to first make sure i didn't miss where it would have been captured so now we have eight sets of eyes

[01:49:08] can you elaborate what you're looking what are you looking for well i think we've had a lot of conversations about um what needs to come to the board i mean i think there's some regulatory um recommendations that certain things will certain appointments will must come to the board and i think that has to be articulated in the accountability for example superintendent just can't go out and create a chief of painting the walls green that has to be approved by the board

[01:49:47] principal appointments as we stand right now also comes through board members to give feedback because again we are the representative of the community i i would love to see that be clearly articulated here somewhere no matter how high level it is but it's part of the account accountability i really i'm resting very heavily on if it's not here my expectations are going to be really managed managed so i want to be sure that it is here since it's one of the things that i think this

[01:50:18] board is expecting so my understanding and i'm just throwing this out as a comment um i think that some of the accountability around that is virginia code so we do have right in the very beginning that we're fulfilling Virginia code I think going into like very specific positions for example is a regulation a policy and a regulation and we've had conversations about some of the work that we want to do around those

[01:50:55] policies and regulations I mean if we're satisfied that it's covered I just want to be sure it's not missed as the broad shared I'm sorry missile may shared so eloquently earlier absent it being very clearly stated it doesn't rise to the consciousness of the superintendent and I think we had a similar conversation not too long ago regarding jet goals we know it's part of the regulations we know it's part of the expectations but we still embedded it here because we want

[01:51:21] to raise it to a level that their eyes on it and therefore I'm sorry please read 6c administrative actions and decisions that are delegated to the superintendent but required by law to be approved by the board and that there

[01:51:56] would be a host of those no I think that would probably capture it because we could list a number of them right thank you great okay are we finished with eight yes we have consensus on adding number eight to number eight okay number nine all right executive expectation

[01:52:32] number nine is the instructional program and there were no changes from the last conversation on the 29th all right that's we run number 10 all right executive expectation number 10 is the learning environment and relationship with students and there were also no changes from the prior conversation number seven I apologize number seven we added the

[01:53:02] word fairly number 10 executive expectation number 10 number 7 age 16 it's in green enforce fairly it's yes it's fairly late

[01:53:34] miss summation yeah I had raised I mean I think there were quite a few things things honestly over the course of this discussion that weren't included I don't I'm trying to trace them in my notes from the retreat but I mean one of them was related to kind of data collection and understanding of who the student population is I'm trying to remember which one of these that lived under but I think it might be this one number 10 I don't know Marcy if you guys had the

[01:54:12] chance to discuss that one so that was in a previous one where it was talking about making sure we were just aggregating data to support the board conversations for whatever the specific topic was and it was in a previous ee and dr wright eight thank you but that wasn't reflected there either it's the relationship with the board yeah yeah i don't think it's there i mean that's super superintendent's relationship with the board so in the i think the conversation was talking about making sure the board had information

[01:54:51] disaggregated in a way to understand the variety of topics that were coming forward for conversation and so in number four and executive expectation eight on page 12 the language was added to get at that so have data reports come forward to the board okay i guess the goal with that was really to ensure that that data is um reflective of the you know demographics of our community and i don't know that is that disaggregated that understanding with you dr reed i don't know i mean that seems vague enough that it can be evaded not that that would ever be your intention but

[01:55:30] I think Ms. Amish you're raising really probably the how do I want to put this the the salient issue here you're creating these expectations and I have to provide you a monitoring report and then you have to gauge whether that report sufficiently addresses the data that you expect to see right so the the conversations really after I present my interpretation of what I believe this should be so um i think it would be i think obviously the effort would be made to

[01:56:05] disaggregate in a way that was meaningful okay yeah because i guess where what i'm worried about is this we we do disaggregate data it's just that you know the implication was that it's not disaggregated effectively it's it's not revealing a lot more than what we see now so i don't know that this changes anything as it currently stands in a way that could be more explicit yeah i think remember the expectations which have evolved are really those are the lanes in which we achieve the goals so however the data is disaggregated if it results in the five goals being achieved

[01:56:44] then we're going to have effectively disaggregated it if that makes sense because the goal measurements require that so these are all these expectations are all um sort of your expectation for how we're going to do the work that leads to the realization of these goals because the most important work is the realization of the goals right but they're related right because the way we measure it will be disaggregated in the same way that would show us the reality that's correct which now it it might not well currently a lot of our data masks data that yeah yeah it's what we've been

[01:57:23] discussing really for the last year since I've been here right so I think even at the leadership team level we're looking at how do we look at student data differently so it doesn't mask concerns and or lead us to conclusions that aren't going to be helpful yeah yeah and I think that's i'm trying to get to is where we are today it's going to require a step correct to get to a clearer place and maybe where what it's captured right now to me doesn't support like doesn't support enforcement accountability around a step like that um so i got yeah i guess that's why i was looking

[01:58:00] for more so what language are you thinking about that would be more explicit i mean what i had originally that i suggested in the retreat um was you know devise strategic and intentional data collection efforts that ensure thorough demographic information is collected to comprehensively capture student needs and gaps in our responsiveness that's how I had phrased it before I mean let's see I mean I don't think it's captured and I don't know how we understand

[01:58:40] you know yeah it's its own I didn't I mean I definitely don't think eight does it I was thinking right what I mean it could be because we're speaking to the critical to the mission critical events so maybe it's not a board relationship issue it's really how we reflect on the achievements under the instructional which is what nine nine

[01:59:17] I'm can't remember these nine yeah yeah miss McLaughlin do you have a suggestion yeah first macro because I haven't really been speaking much I do hope dr. Reed that we are able to convey to you and to the community and the staff watching that um we really do value your leadership your partnership and that this is to set you up for success and your reporting to the board successfully so i know you've been very

[01:59:53] respectful and just listening to us but i i also want to invite you that as we're talking about things to add to these executive expectations as a seasoned leader please do make sure and share with us like that sounds good here would be my concerns as the executive who needs to um you know be held accountable to it um i for one i think that's going to be important to set this up for success to this one abra you know how i am about data and i think to set dr reed or any superintendent

[02:00:30] for success, unless Dr. Reed were to have apprehension that the way that you're wording this is going to be cumbersome to a superintendent, then I, for one, support what you've outlined. Because, again, if we're not clear to Dr. Reed or to any superintendent what our expectations are for data gathering and reporting for accountability, then we can't later on go, well where was that because we didn't ask for it so to me during my long tenure on this board one

[02:01:04] of the most important things i would love to leave behind um is that fcps has more fidelity to meaningful data collection and the analytics i believe dr reed you are the leader to help us do that work um so do you have any reservations in the language that mizomish has suggested i know it's hard because she's just verbally reading it out we don't have the words in front of us but um the in terms of the overall you know i guess she's she's got it there for you a little chicken

[02:01:41] scratch over there but you know because i i just think that this i do see this still as a partnership as we form this um we're not going to form it in a vacuum um and i will say to my colleagues who've been doing a whole lot more work on this this afternoon i do also appreciate the voices you're bringing to this because we really can't keep coming back to this so we need to do it well we need to do it right and um i have served under now three different superintendents um actually

[02:02:16] four uh i the first very first one for a year and a half um and our i want to see our system going forward and i i know you're the the leader that's helping us do that um but some of us who've experienced prior leadership um have i think some battle scars that maybe is making this process a little harder and it's not a reflection on you at all dr reed it's just you know when people get scarred they're going to be a little more cautious so to ms amish is proposal any reservations

[02:02:56] at all no ma'am okay then my colleagues i support what ms amish is putting forward where are we anticipating it landing again so i like 10 let me let me suggest a landing spot and then have you read it if you look at oh i was looking at number nine actually which is instructional program number five says effectively measure student progress toward achieving or exceeding the division's strategic plan goals. Yeah and then I guess adding a six or a second part to five.

[02:03:31] No no it so this is saying to measure right so now we're going to say how like what right so the what is devise strategic and intentional data collection efforts that ensure thorough demographic information is collected to comprehensively capture student needs and gaps in our responsiveness it doesn't I mean can change responsiveness maybe but or cut that out or just say student needs yeah we could stop at student needs is there a place where it better lives because I don't know if it's going to do that nine is under measuring yeah you would be

[02:04:09] measuring instruction versus relationships I think you're actually looking for closing the achievement gap right and data around student academic success so I think that perhaps it's in nine i mean go go miss seizmerheiser good the rest of the goal is about um achieving or exceeding right and you're mentioning about meeting about needs and gaps right you're mentioning i think

[02:04:44] the please correct your phone the main purpose here seems to be the robust data and the demographic right to make sure it's really a robust data set with demographics but then the rest of your phrase is around needs and gaps but the start of this is around achieving or exceeding right so can we say something instead of just needs and gaps can we say the first part that you had around um student progress and needs because we don't want to just figure out where their needs are we want how they're progressing or achieve you know or achieving or exceeding that i just feel like

[02:05:20] we focus so much on needs and gaps and we need to focus on progress as well as needs so that's just my on that this covers handers so can you repeat the language as it's been currently amended oh that would work so okay i absolutely understand where miss omesh is coming from i also think that there is a philosophical statement that needs to be embedded in the learning environment and relationship with students that captures part of that which is under item one where it says maintain a climate that is character characterized by support and

[02:05:59] encouragement for high student achievement across all demographic subgroups so that it it right up at the top says no matter where you live in this county where you come from what your abilities are we are going to support and encourage student achievement and it doesn't say I wanted to add to what you have which I know is related but it's a little bit separate

[02:06:37] from what Ms. Omeish had. I love what you've just shared, wherever students are, but I'd like to take it a step further by saying to ensure that we are identifying barriers that prevent that full participation, whether it be in academic endeavors or in athletic endeavors. That's language that I've been kind of toying around to see where that fits, and I was reserving it for 11, but which we're coming too soon but i would love to see that be incorporated and tangent with what um miss corporate standards just shared where we're really being intentional about identifying those barriers

[02:07:14] because i don't think we are as strategic there as we could perhaps be um sorry you want to add a word or two i wanted to what she said um would you like to repeat it so i can just follow up item one says the superintendent shall and then one maintain a climate that is characterized by support and cur and encouragement for high student achievement across all demographic groups and

[02:07:48] identifying barriers to inclusion slash participation because i want to cover academic and extracurricular i think that's a different thing i think i support that is a different thing from yours but different than yours but i'm saying since you opened the door okay it's been slightly we haven't completed misalmation but if that's something we could knock out while she is writing

[02:08:17] on the white board okay so we have number 10 number one miss or dr anderson can you read your full thing again i don't have the full thing i have half of the whole thing that is characterized by support and encouragement for high student achievement across all demographic subgroups

[02:08:45] And my piece that I want to add is to identify barriers to inclusion slash participation, because I want to be sure that we're covering both academics and extracurricular activities, athletics, band, et cetera.

[02:09:04] There are a lot of reasons why some of our kids don't engage. And I don't think we've been as intentional as possible with figure out why so that we can have a reasonable solution. Okay, and you don't feel like that is covered in number two?

[02:09:19] Have an equitable learning environment for all students that promotes, or that's welcoming, inclusive, and accessible? It doesn't have that second piece, because that speaks to intentionality. Because when we are getting this report, I want to hear, like, what are the barriers that creates the data that we see?

[02:09:38] Okay, so let's see if we have a consensus on that one. I think I have it. maintain a climate that is characterized by support and encouragement for high student achievement across all demographic subgroups and identifies barriers to inclusion and participation ladies do we have to take a poll ladies we're taking a pulse of the board on the first item let me read it let me read it one more time no that's the second item

[02:10:23] ask ricardi i'm fine with that so dr anderson we have a um suggestion that this would say across all demographic demographic subgroups and identify barriers and solutions to inclusion and participation i'm fine with that i was just teasing marcy because we've been talking about this since last week okay all right let's if we can reconvene we want to do let's finish up with

[02:11:01] this one and then we'll do this one okay for consensus okay so can I see if we have a consensus for expect executive expectation number 10 number 1 to read maintain a climate that is characterized by support and encouragement for high student achievement across all demographic subgroups and identify barriers and solutions to inclusion and participation do it I see a consensus

[02:11:30] for that. Okay. So we have consensus for that. Okay. Now this is to live in executive expectation number nine, correct? As part of number five. Okay. So we would insert this bullet after

[02:11:59] number five. No, we can't defer any questions. No deferred maintenance today. Dr. Reed or Perhaps Marcy and Dustin do you have a feeling for this one living in number nine or number ten device?

[02:12:37] strategic and intentional data collection efforts that ensure thorough demographic information is collected to comprehensively focus on student needs in achievements and cultural responsiveness

[02:12:51] So we could put it in number nine as it would be a new number six basically it would follow asking for measurement toward achieving the strategic plan goals and then asking for the

[02:13:29] the disaggregation okay could i see hands consensus around this idea thanks then yes please i just have a quick clarifying question miss omesh i'm i completely understand through the word needs and

[02:14:06] achievement or that term what is the end cultural responsiveness what is the measure that the board would be looking for in addition for that. I just want to get a sense of what your thoughts were on that. I mean, the intention, yeah, in my mind, when we start collecting data that's more expansive, we're going to find need that is not just grades and SOL scores or graduation rates, but also, hey, there are certain groups maybe that are impacted mental health-wise more than others.

[02:14:38] There are certain groups that, you know, have certain blockers to learning that are not being addressed. That's what culturally responsive looks like to me Because the more detailed data we're collecting, the more the data is going to speak to us about what problems exist that are beyond just grades. So we're looking at that as, can you give me a sample data point you'd have in mind?

[02:15:00] Yeah. Just as I'm, for the cultural responsiveness, like if we do that really well, what does that look like? Okay, so one of the most obvious that comes to my mind is we all, we know that like trans kids and mental health, right?

[02:15:17] If we had data on something like that and we saw that they had, you know, significant achievement issues, we'd be like, oh, that's not just about grades. That's a cultural responsiveness issue. What is a unique barrier that they're dealing with that others don't? Or, you know, if certain types of students need, certain students with special needs have a certain accommodation that's not being afforded on a system level and we notice that there's some kind of gap to achievement, we can identify that.

[02:15:44] that's not just a grade related issue it's not just an academic issue but that could be the way we've set up our classroom a lack of a certain accommodation or language barrier right you saw this is clear with our ESOL kids when we see that achievement problem it's not just an issue with their performance in class it's not an instructional question it's hey what are the barriers we're like we're not providing translation and all these other ways that would lead to parent engagement and things that you know remove barriers to their ability to learn so I think I'm trying to capture more than just you know like academic uh stuff in in the sense of academic no i brought in 100

[02:16:21] agree with capturing more than i just was curious what it would look like in that um statement in that particular um expectation so thank you thank you and i'm just gonna say i i completely agree with the sentiment here and i completely agree with the idea of putting in here about robust data collection i feel like we're crossing the line a little bit into so specific in operations that it's in the document that's more global, I feel like we're crossing the line a little bit into too much of prescriptive. So, for example, that's not how I would interpret

[02:17:00] cultural responsiveness, right? And so I think when we have terms that maybe we don't have necessarily a common understanding, I think we're ending up unintentionally limiting potential because if I was a superintendent, I'd look at this and say, well, I'm supposed to do needs on achievement and cultural responsiveness, not on inclusion. I don't consider inclusion cultural responsiveness, right? I think this is where I work, like this isn't saying data on achievement and inclusion, but there's studies about inclusion. I'm just throwing out an example, right? And I think when we have things in here about data collection, we have things in here about measuring progress, measuring student achievement, I think when

[02:17:35] we get this prescriptive, then we start being limiting in terms of the breadth of different areas that we may want to get data on. And I think that's the danger of expectations versus limitations, and I understand the clunkiness of the language of limitations, but limitations are these are things you can't do. We're giving you operational expertise as the expert we're bringing in within that. When we get this detailed, I think we're leaving out more than we're including in, and so, especially when not having a necessary common definition, so I think my suggestion is we, maybe we tweak the language about measuring student progress

[02:18:10] to, you know, thorough data collection with, you know, demographic information around measuring student progress but when we get down to in achievement and needs and cultural responsiveness I think that's crossing the line to operations so maybe if we could tweak it a little bit to not get that far I think I'd be more comfortable if taking out the word cultural it actually originally was responsiveness I think I was trying to respond to some of the thoughts around the table we can get rid of cultural because the idea is to be broader than just academics well and I do think there's I have strong agreement to be broader than just academics and support removing barriers when we've talked about that period i and i think being

[02:18:49] culturally responsive is important i'm just trying to connect it in this specific expectation to what it was what you were thinking of so yeah and i'm just not sure where it best sits may i make a suggestion number maybe if we just say everything collected to competency folks on student needs and progress and leave out achievement and call that we're not putting bare you know like limitations on what those needs and products, so the focus is on demographic information data collection as opposed to on these topics, right, if it's broader on data, you know, if we have everything device, strategic and intentional data collection efforts that ensure thorough demographics

[02:19:27] and collected to completely focus on student needs, barriers, and progress, period, and then we don't focus on achievement, cultural, without all these other pieces that we aren't necessarily making the whole laundry list of things that I think would end up being important. All right, we've got a couple other suggestions, I think. Ms. McLaughlin.

[02:19:46] Yeah, I do think we are not crossing into operations. The whole point of the exercise is she doesn't want to find out at the end of her annual review. We had expectations that we never laid out, so I'm still coming from that frame of mind.

[02:20:02] However, I do agree that any time you start to cite, you then start to indicate a limitation for her perception, which is okay i gave you achievement cultural responsiveness and then we're like but there's other things about student success and it's not there so to me that's where i think you could go to that to comprehensively focus on student success then you get rid of needs and achievement cultural awareness because the bottom line is everything we're doing is about student success and comprehensive demographic data collection is going to be a component of it so excuse

[02:20:41] okay i think she addressed the concern what what i was going to add is that we some of these definitions and what we're trying to get to with respect to equity is covered in that definition in that process um and so i think we have in here somewhere adhere to the equity policy and those procedures and so that may address some of your concerns okay so let me take um

[02:21:09] consensus one more time with the re-wording that we've done um to add this into no i agree i agree um i just i lost the thread on where we're putting this is it after um number five yeah okay so it's after it's an executive expectation number nine would be a new bullet after number

[02:21:36] five as written here can i see a consensus on that okay fantastic all right so i believe we've covered down number nine and number ten and we can move on to facilities and transportation number eleven uh i wasn't done with ten don't hate me okay that was a separate point where are you

[02:22:11] okay okay so on ten um i remember sharing at the retreat a point related to having a deliberate mechanism to reconcile and i didn't have the exact term and i was hoping you guys would give it some thought but i said maybe cultural difference or whatever that arise to clear uh to center the needs of families and students and fairly adjudicate conflict um i say this in anticipation honestly in in uh being traumatized and learning from our experience as a board and on also in anticipation of a political year and and more to come um i think it's important that

[02:22:47] the superintendent have a protocol for how she handles i had dropped the term culture wars and And I hate, like, you know, reinforcing this idea, which is why I just tried to say cultural disagreement. I don't know. But however we capture that, the point is maintain a deliberate mechanism to reconcile blank that arise to center the needs of families and students and fairly adjudicate conflict.

[02:23:12] Again, trying to kind of think forward here because that's really what bogged us down tremendously in a lot of issues we tried to tackle. So I'd like to see something that the superintendent has in mind that makes her handle that fairly, clearly, in a way the community can predict and expect.

[02:23:30] That's my two cents on that. I don't know if we can add something like that. I don't know if, Dr. Reed, do you have a reaction? I want to ask you if this addresses what you're talking about. on page three draft executive expectation one g it says provides for effective handling of grievances and complaints um this is in the context of families and communities so if that's insufficient perhaps that's a place to start i'm not sure that we have

[02:24:09] um 3 3 1 3 it's on page 3 okay number 1 g okay that says provides for effective handling of grievances and complaints i'm not sure we want to identify what kind of grievance and complaint but perhaps um we'll take a look at that and see if it addresses what you're talking about i think you're trying to make sure that the community has a mechanism by which they can seek resolution

[02:24:46] which is certainly oftentimes through the board but the superintendent is ultimately responsible and so just take a look does that address it and if not if it doesn't fully address it maybe maybe it maybe it's a starting point I think maybe Dr. Reed I'm thinking of it more from the policy side right so this is for the community I'm thinking for our judgment as good policy makers when we come to the table and we want to make a fair decision I think the the environment is not conducive to that most of the time and we and it makes it easy not to center

[02:25:23] students and the issues that matter in those times so I'd like the superintendent to have some kind of protocol in those times working with the board obviously but that allows us to distill what is most important and that creates a space for fair discussion and outcome rather than kind of whoever's loudest whoever's you know pulling the strings gets whatever they want to happen Dr. Reed, I don't know where in your mind that lives policy-wise. I want this to support and enhance what you're doing. And I think you have the intentionality for it, but I don't know if you have an idea maybe where that can live. I'm open to fitting that. That's why I brought this

[02:25:59] up at the retreat. But, you know, I, I think that really what you're getting at is, are we able to be reasoned in times that are tumultuous? And I think if we can keep the welfare of our students at the center of our work um we're going to be able to do that where that particular line sits in this work uh i i don't know i think it's a given um did you have a particular slot on this

[02:26:36] expectation on three or were you looking at ten for it um it makes sense in three i don't feel strongly if it's three or ten um if three might make more sense so and what was the language again you were considering i mean this is what i'd offered at the retreat it's obviously not perfect but maintain a deliberate mechanism to reconcile blank that arise to center the needs of families and students and fairly adjudicate conflict so maybe the blank is conflict right um yeah i mean

[02:27:11] yeah tension a conflict yeah disagreement this really comes out of for me as a board member feeling like time and time again there were gaps in our decision making things were rushed i couldn't fully advocate for communities that ultimately in my humble assessment were not heard because of the push and pull and and the the toxicity of the environment in those moments and i want us to be reasoned and be able to really think fully and and fairly uh about a way that thinks of our entire

[02:27:46] system in these times rather than kind of you know falling into a decision because that's what you know the tides decided that time so i think it's important it's helpful for me to know what issue we're solving with the statement, right? So it's about decision-making, reason, decision-making in a moment of, dare I say, crisis. Yeah, and I think it's fair to say when folks around the table don't feel they can articulate themselves openly to be thoughtful. So maybe it's maintaining a safe space and process to reason through challenging circumstances? Yeah, maybe between

[02:28:25] the board and the superintendent, something like that. All right, let's get some additional comments here Ms. Corbett Sanders. I think what we're really talking about is how do you resolve controversial issues and how do you do it in a manner that addresses the concerns of multiple stakeholders. The concept of effective handling makes it difficult because my idea of effective versus your idea of effective may be very different. And so I think what Dr. Reed used is the term of effectively engaging multiple stakeholders

[02:29:04] while handling difficult or controversial issues. So that doesn't mean that everybody will necessarily agree with the outcome, but they feel valued and heard and respected in the process.

[02:29:25] Does that make sense to you? Is that what you're looking for? because we do have a controversial issues policy and what this is is really about approved but keep going sorry and so i think that's what we're really addressing is that that um prior to a final resolution being enacted it's that um engagement in a respectful inclusive manner but i i worry

[02:30:05] when we say that everybody's going to get the solution they want because in these difficult policies, not everybody will. I mean, I certainly haven't always felt like my outcome was what happened.

[02:30:23] And so, you know, I think it's the process piece and not the outcome piece. Exactly. I'm looking for a fair process because right now there's no process. It's just whatever happens and whoever is loudest, then they win. Done. so i i want something that's less arbitrary than do board members our board members willing to slow down to hear it our board members do they care enough do that right like i want there to be a fair process and at the end whatever decision is made everyone can feel that they were heard and they were part of it and that it was seriously considered it wasn't just you know ignored miss

[02:30:58] keese cabara did you have a comment or question i was trying to figure out how to i think i think you're talking a little bit about board process you're talking a little bit about constituent handle issues concern you're talking a little bit about that whole thing and i'm i'm really not i'm struggling a little bit on because we're still talking about dealing with grievances and concerns in a fair and equitable way that adequately notifies the board and allows board super allows

[02:31:34] resolution um that's the closest i can come to and dang it i didn't write that down but i i just i i'm struggling a little bit i see what you're saying um it goes a little bit to decisions are made by the board as opposed to an individual and i know sometimes it doesn't always feel that way it feels like you know it depends on who comes forward etc so i think i think you're looking for

[02:32:04] a conflict resolution centered statement that is equitable and fair and enhances includes an equitable creates of equitable and fair process of resolution is as close as i can come i can't see i should put my glasses on she's squinting i knew that much yeah i i think i think you're looking for a conflict resolution type statement is what i can offer concretely so

[02:32:41] having listened to everything I'm looking at number three we do have we haven't talked about 1d is the superintendent with value and consider individual differences of opinion and diverse perspectives so that I know is very broad but then in addition we have provides effective handling of grievances and complaints what I'm sorry which EE number three number three so I'm under number I'm on page three number three under number one looking at

[02:33:12] d and g as ways to get at from the like school division perspective i think that there's also some of what i'm hearing you say is just from the board operations perspective and that the board operations doesn't fall in this document i think it would come in the next set of documents that we're looking at and our own governance manual which we're hoping our governance committee will

[02:33:45] will be taking a close look at as far as things dealing with like board to board member discussions or board meeting. But I think this is the superintendent's management of that right like the board will be all over the place all the time depending on what she gets. So this is the superintendent's management of the school district and holding her accountable for that. Right it's responsiveness to the issues that are going on in the community which the board may or not may not push in different directions and pull and whatever but ultimately the superintendent needs a fair way

[02:34:21] to reconcile amongst conflicting ideas and conflicting needs that's what I'm trying to get at in a way that's not going to leave people silenced or people you know I would also think about the goals in the strategic plan I think that it's embedded throughout the strategic plan so let me just throw that out there Dr. Anderson yes you kind of started to talk about what I wanted to share, I think some of the conflict resolution that Ms. Kees-Gamara shared, or rather tried to articulate as per Ms. Omesh's point, do not fall under the purview of the superintendent.

[02:34:58] What I'm hearing Ms. Omesh speaking about is when there's an issue under discussion, what she's looking for is a facilitation process that does not silence one board member versus the other at during the meeting like here if somebody were to tell me stop talking about this that would go that would prove your point so i i think what you're talking about is how to do that here and i also i'm not 100 clear that that falls under the superintendent's purview that is how

[02:35:33] we decide to facilitate with our chair and vice chair leading that conversation i think there's space for us to be articulate to articulate and to be intentional about that in the governance manual i am not sure it is here because the superintendent is sitting there and is going to listen to all of us if some of us are shutting down others she really doesn't have a role and to to to insert herself and to say well let me well you could do it kindly but i think what you're looking for is really not under her umbrella okay miss mclaughlin yeah um i i'm i'm landing where

[02:36:12] a lot of board members are that without question certainly during my time i we are at a local and national level of discourse that is a challenge but i will say under all the very diverse superintendents that i've served with not a single one of them has wanted to wade into cultural battles or otherwise like they love the fact that really their role is to stay as neutral and partial as possible. Do they sometimes have a desire to see an operational decision go a

[02:36:49] different way than some board members? Yes. But when it comes to something that you're concerned about, I think that there are other things that in this executive expectations, we have absolutely talked about how to be inclusive in their leadership and what our expectations are of them with every single member of our community and our employees. So I don't think we need to drill down to creating another bullet one on this one and I absolutely humbly recognize that not a single superintendent on the planet is ever going to wade in between a board engaging in what you're

[02:37:26] trying to prevent that is going to absolutely be in our governance component and and then boards holding each other accountable for it well and if I could and I'll drop it I just look what I'm trying to think of here is the board is one thing our disagreements and whatever yeah that's up to us to handle but I think I'm trying to think of how are we how are we setting the superintendent for success up for success and then holding her accountable on ensuring that inclusive you know intentionality is equitable right that's what I'm trying to get at and that one year could happen to be in alignment with board perspective and one year could not be

[02:38:05] and it could be that all 12 of us have perspectives and there are perspectives that are off the table that were never elected that will not be at the table right so that's where I'm I'm like, because the so-called culture wars are actually playing out in our schools, right? Like, you have a conflict where X accommodation is provided or not provided, and maybe that serves one community but infringes on another.

[02:38:24] That plays out. That is now, today, like, has been, right? And will continue, and I'm worried it will get worse, which is where I'm trying to be like, okay, we need to be able to expect from our superintendent that when X fire is happening at blank school that she's going to be fair and deliberate about considering the various perspectives, whether or not they represented on this board, because they are in the community, regardless of the board, right? Like, that's just her judgment in having a fair process to ensure she's having good judgment that is equitably inclusive,

[02:38:57] which is different, I think, than what you all are kind of articulating. I guess I'll, I don't know, I think Dr. Reed understands my intent. I don't, I don't know if I'll get support to include language for it, but I really think it's like one of those critical decisions that we could make to set up future boards for success. So let me try this. So I think a lot of us are sympathetic with the intent, but let me see if we have consensus to add language like this to executive expectations. Could you please raise your hand if you would agree? May I need to hear

[02:39:36] the language again? We don't have a specific language. I'm just being more general at this point before we continue along the conversation. And do we even know where we would want this to be in the EEs? Which one? Number three, Abraar? Probably three, yeah. So let me just see if we have consensus to continue the conversation for this type of language included in the executive expectations. Can you summarize, Abraar, the language that you're, the theme, context that you're hoping for? Okay. I want the superintendent to have some kind of clear process to ensure that

[02:40:12] her inclusive efforts are equitable and should conflict arise in those areas for her to have a system to go back to that ensures she's fair in hearing the community regardless of what the political tides and the board pressures are quickly suggestion since we don't have language i'm happy to work with you to try to come up with something within 24 hours and the board can we can decide whether you want to present an amendment okay but right now i don't think we're to resolve it we've we've struggled with it for some time and i get what you're trying to say and

[02:40:51] i myself i'm struggling but i want to give the board an out but i don't want to necessarily close the door and this is a we have a mechanism to amend something and we can decide if we want to do that so maybe that helps a bar rather than just i'm sorry miss omesh rather than just closing the door here so i'm happy to work with you with you on that language and try to bring something to the board that can be considered wednesday before the thursday meeting all right is there consensus

[02:41:24] to do that okay what i will ask i know you ladies are very very busy could you please have something in front of us maybe by 10 a.m so we could take a look at it because we want to we will be posting information tomorrow morning for the public thank you okay just a time check okay just a time check

[02:41:54] it is 10 to 3. We have a request for a biological break, but it cannot be longer than five minutes.

[02:42:13] All right, board members are going to be back in their seats ready to go in five minutes.

[02:42:28] All right, number 11, Dr. Anderson.

[02:42:46] Do we have enough people? We do. Okay. All right, I'm just going to jump in. This is an area that I've been talking to staff quite a bit, particularly Ms. Neal, who's talked to several other folks, because my concern, just to kind of lay the groundwork a little bit, has been mostly around our athletics.

[02:43:07] We know that we have inequitable fields. We know we have inequitable access to some of the organizations and to some of the activities, which I talked about a little bit before. But here, I really wanted to hone in on fields, and the language that was shared with me that I'd like to propose here is under 1F, routinely review the divisions, education specifications, and master specifications, because that would include athletic fields and other spaces that are extracurricular.

[02:43:41] Ms. Neal, is that accurate? Did everyone hear that? Okay, Ms. Kees-Gamara. Do we need the word athletic and perhaps equitable manner added to what you just said, Dr. Anderson?

[02:44:08] And I'm fine with that. And just the reason why I didn't add equitable manner, it's because we had equity in the preamble, but I'm glad to do that. Oh, but I do have to add it under instructional program and athletic needs because that's missing from that. My apologies. Okay, so let's go with that one.

[02:44:32] 1F, routinely review the division's education specifications and master specifications to align with current and future instructional and athletic program needs. Is there consensus around that change?

[02:44:50] Comment. Can we just say student needs? No, I really want to be more specific that we're calling out some of the facilities that are not classroom. Because very often when we're talking about facilities, everybody thinks we're talking about just the classrooms.

[02:45:08] but I want to include the fields. I want to include the stadiums. I think the gyms are included when we're talking about inside of the building. Getting this from staff, you go into one school, the baseball diamond looks very homegrown, and another, it looks like the major leagues can play there.

[02:45:31] I think we need to be more intentional about that. - And then, and based on your research, I'm not as familiar with the word master specification, but that includes the entire campus basically. - Yes, is that correct?

[02:45:48] - Okay, so here's the wording. F, routinely review the division's education specifications and master specifications to align with current and future instructional and athletic program needs.

[02:46:08] - Yes, and I think Ms. Keys-Gamara was asking for equitable in there. - Where do you want the word equitable? - It is in the preamble. I'd support that.

[02:46:28] That this would support the accomplishment of the division's strategic plan goals and adhere to STPS policies and equity, sustainability, and environmental stewardship commitments. Ms. Teismerheiser? I just wonder if we, instead of saying athletic, we could just say instructional and extracurricular because there's things like robotics clubs and journalism and things like that that aren't athletic that might have facilities needs.

[02:46:56] Extracurricular would take into account athletic as well. So we're not limited to instructional. I mean, I also wonder, does instructional, and maybe this is a question for Dr. Reed, does instructional include, like, social-emotional spaces, if we were talking about sensory spaces, does it include, when we hear the word instructional, would you think included spaces to make students, to help students be ready to learn, or is it specifically instructional in terms of classroom sizes, for example?

[02:47:25] What would you, because I want to be careful, if we're seeing instructional athletic and not naming anything else, then is it similar to what happened earlier? Once we start listing all these things, are we leaving things out unintentionally? I think educational spaces maybe would be more inclusive of all types of spaces that support that educational experience.

[02:47:47] Maybe educational spaces that support the educational experience that would make it a little, you know, I just worry about listing one and not listing others. Could we talk about outdoor classrooms, for example, is that part of the instructional space? Is that not an instructional space we talk about?

[02:48:03] So that's my concern. So those are all in the educational specifications. Right. But the athletic fields are not part of the educational spaces. It's really going to speak more to the master specifications, which is why I really want to push to make sure we're being intentional about including that.

[02:48:20] Because I'm talking about fields. I'm talking about dugouts. I'm talking about tracks. No, no, no, I get that. I agree. I was just responding to Ms. Heiswerheiser. I just, I guess my question for Dr. Reed or for our facilities folks is that if we put in instructional and athletic spaces, does that cover all the spaces in our school and kind of the different variety needs?

[02:48:38] I think if you I think not necessarily because instruction isn't provided in all spaces that's my concern so you might say a health room in one school versus another and I wouldn't necessarily consider that instructional so I think there is a more generic term that would be helpful like educational spaces I'm sorry but it's but the master is a type of specs it's not the type of space right so we're doing educational specs and master specs to align with current and future educational, because educational and athletic.

[02:49:16] I think Ms. Corbett-Sanders has a good suggestion. There's educational specifications in there, too. All right, let's listen to Karen Corbett. I think it's one of those days, folks.

[02:49:46] So I think if you add in education and master specifications to align with current and future program needs, take out the word instructional, then it's inclusive to include instructional, social emotional athletic and everything else it is allows the definition to be evolving over time as well because I'm cognizant that our high schools have part of their master spec to have your dugouts and others but not all of our middle and elementary schools do and I have but the

[02:50:26] Community use is another piece of it. Community use will drive program needs. Okay, so I'm looking for consensus on F to read.

[02:50:43] Routinely review the division's education specifications and master specifications to align with current and future program needs. Do we have consensus on that? I can concur to that because instructional does. Okay, great.

[02:51:04] I have one more, please. This is going back up to 1C. It says ensure facility and transportation practices are accessible, inclusive, and consistent with the FCPS educational equity policy. Again, I want to bring attention to when we talk about facility, we typically are talking about what is happening inside of the building and not paying attention to the rest of the structures in our schools.

[02:51:32] So I would like to add, in however way that seems to make sense, that we're going to be paying attention to both the structural buildings and the fields as well. Ms. Szyminski, I know you were very helpful in offering the previous language and you're very, I think you're pretty clear on what is it that I'm trying to convey here. Would campus provide that

[02:52:06] breadth of focus to include the fields, dugouts, etc.? Yeah, I think that's appropriate. Okay. okay do i have a consensus please dr anderson if i could offer i i don't want to be limiting i know that some schools may use adjacent maybe park facilities or shared county facilities and which would be beyond campus so i just i don't want us to inadvertently limit language on these

[02:52:40] expectations that might not allow us um to fully explore those options as well so just want to clarify that i appreciate that do you thank you i appreciate that do you have any suggestion of language to help capture that piece because i'm not sure to the extent of our responsibilities in those spaces what i keep thinking about is like what is the why we're trying to solve and what the why we're trying to solve is to make sure that each and every student at each and every school regardless of which school they are in the county has access to the whatever is necessary to

[02:53:18] fully participate in the activity they've chosen to participate in. So whether that's on campus or off campus or retooling the campus I think what what I look at in the why there is if regardless if I'm a sophomore at any one of our high schools can I fully participate in XYZ offered activity or team sport or whatever club based on the facility that's available to me.

[02:53:50] That's what I would try to resolve. So I don't know what wording that is, but it's more around, you know, we've centered, right, it's the experience. I think we've centered our strategic plan on excellence, equity, and opportunity and the degree to which I can stay centered there with options. And I think that's where we're going with this is making sure that those are available because we have different sizes of schools, different, you know, all of the above.

[02:54:14] You definitely understand the spirit of this, we just need to codify it so that we have that accountability. So would we be able to write facility on and off facilities, something, what if we said indoor and outdoor, indoor and outdoor, but does that capture the shared spaces and park accommodations, so I, I think I'd like to land a little bit more ensure facility.

[02:54:52] And fields both on and off campus, or maybe that's too broad, because off campus could just be anywhere, but shared off campus spaces, as Dr. Reed mentioned. Could we say facilities and associated spaces, and then therefore that could assume outdoor spaces, spaces used by students, thought?

[02:55:21] Both on and off campus, as Dr. Reed mentioned? I think capturing the shared spaces is one that I did not realize, so thank you for raising that. Well, like our swimming pools, for example, none of them are on campus, right?

[02:55:38] But if we're going to have accessible to students at different schools. I completely agree with Dr. Anderson that we want, you know, our facilities all to be a good quality for our students.

[02:55:53] But I'm a little concerned about requiring our superintendent to be responsible for the quality of facilities that aren't FCPS spaces. I think that's I mean if it's an if it's a park authority or you know I just don't know how we do that I I hear you that I think it's important to have the I don't know that would be working with our partners to make sure whatever those other space community spaces are are up to par but I don't feel comfortable in our executive expectations to expect our executive to be responsible for non-fcps property I just think that's that's a step too far and I think that's what I raised just

[02:56:28] now in terms of what the extent of our oversight on those but i think dr reed's point is well taken and i thank her for raising it access if we're saying that in order to be a swimmer on team x you have to drive to rec center that is many miles away from your home and you have no transportation how is it that we are ensuring that you can have access to get there sim and there are a lot of other things and I know that we we could say that's the solve with the bus I'm giving a very sample simple example but there are others that are a little bit more complex and that's the space that I think we want to hone in on what that

[02:57:05] language looks like clearly we haven't hit that mark but I appreciate that Dr. Reed has raised that this can be a barrier to our kids and how do we just find a solution to address that in this language Miss Keith Gamara and then Miss

[02:57:23] Yes, I believe I said facilities and associated spaces because I could refer to inside, outside, on-campus, off-campus.

[02:58:25] I was fine with the recommendation.

[02:58:43] With the recommendation from Ms. Szymanski? Yes. Okay. Yes, please. To address Ms. Seismarheiser's concern, which is very real and one that I think we have to take into account, i think what we have to do is actually say ensure fcps facilities and transportation practice

[02:59:13] facilities and transportation practices ensure students have access or something along those lines but you've got to caveat it as it's only fcps facilities it's because we cannot be responsible for whether or not the dash bus or the connector bus actually gets kids someplace.

[02:59:41] We cannot be responsible for whether or not, I mean, we can provide them a free bus pass, but if the bus doesn't show up, it's not FCPS's problem. If we are using the swimming pool, and I give the example of the Mount Vernon Rec Center, which is now closed for two and a half years, that swimming pool is no longer accessible, but it's not our swimming pool.

[03:00:06] And so it's what are our practices that we can hold the superintendent accountable to. We cannot extend that reach beyond those.

[03:00:24] Okay. All right. So the reason I was focusing on the practices is because it doesn't really identify whether it's our facility. And we're not holding her accountable for the quality of what's accessible.

[03:00:40] We're looking at the practice of making things available. That was, and if there's some confusion in how that can be interpreted, then that's a language issue. But that's what I was looking at. It wasn't, we're holding Dr. Reed responsible for county and buses and all these other things.

[03:00:59] But those things have to be taken into account in terms of providing options in an equitable manner irrespective of what is available at a particular school which is why I was pulling out a little bit more because I didn't think it was only referring to FCPS or only referring to county or only referring to the buses but we have to look at it in a holistic way to make sure students have access. Right and I just want to kind of share this because I don't want it to be lost that the off-campus facilities that kind of got this second part of this conversation came from dr reed so and

[03:01:38] i appreciate that it did but she doesn't want to be held accountable for something that she can't control either so i think there's clarity in terms of what is possible under her umbrella we just need to find the language to match that because my main thing is to ensure that when we're talking about facility everybody thinks about the classrooms the cafeterias the libraries we tend to not have the the same focus on the, again, the dugouts, the fields, the tracks. I want to bring some attention onto that because they are not equitable right now. And access to them is not equitable. And

[03:02:14] access to other venues in which our students use for activities is not equitable. Those are things that we can impact. So let me just make a comment. I'm hearing what everyone is saying here. I don't think that even adding FCPS and to see, it's not limiting us to only FCPS facilities or solving any accessibility or, you know, equitable access through using county-owned facilities or facilities

[03:02:47] that are owned by someone else. So I'm comfortable, I'm saying, with ensure FCPS facilities and associated spaces and transportation practices are accessible, inclusive, and consistent with FCPS educational equity policy. So do we have consensus with that? That is one C. Okay, great.

[03:03:20] Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Okay, number 12. All right, I would really love to finish these up by 3.30. We have two to go, and we have two additional topics on our agenda for today. So even beyond our what we didn't get to around our strategic board work so let's

[03:03:58] finish this up by 3:30 so we want to finish these two and then you know make sure everybody is clear and what's happening on Thursday so number 12 technology tellin would you like us to go through the changes okay so technology in the preamble there was language included about using technology for communication and accessibility as well as language added about using these resources in a balanced manner around student learning and number one there was language added around accessibility and number six there was language added around inclusion in number seven there was language added around safe safely

[03:04:36] using the technology and those are the changes on the first page on the only page excuse me Miss Cora Sanders it's a bit of a nit but technology is broader than information technology this executive expectation is really focused on information technology the reason I write raises is that if we were to be fully expand you know if we looked at technology for example we don't have

[03:05:14] equitable deployment of technology in all of our laboratories across the county so I would suggest that rather than belaboring the point we just solve the problem with just saying in information technology as the title and then introduce the term introduce the word information in advance of the term

[03:05:48] technology in the first sentence and at the beginning of the second sentence and then throughout just so that we make it clear its information technology and not all technology. Ms. Seizmerheiser. I have a question. Are you talking about the top title of information technology? It's like the whole thing has changed to information technology? Yes,

[03:06:26] because if we look, we're using information technology to support teaching learning stakeholder engagement. So a lot of what I was looking at with this, and I've talked to a lot of stakeholders, also on the use of technology to augment communication and inclusion, which is not information technology but it's AAC devices I consider that information technology but if you want to I just don't think with that to me it's not a common definition of information technology because technology to augment communication it's not information technology it's literally technological devices to augment communication so I think it would rapidly change the definition

[03:07:05] of what this is if we just made it about information because information technology is you know, it's the resources to augment. So maybe we need to do both. But the problem is what it doesn't get to is using the equitable deployment of technology in all of our laboratories across Fairfax County public schools. Now, if that's what we want to do, I would love to see that happen.

[03:07:34] I don't know if this addresses your concerns. It does say on number one, implement innovative future focus blah blah blah to provide accessible and equitable technology resources in support of instruction so maybe to me that's the place where we say when talk about equitable tech you know provide equitable technology resources that would go to what you're talking about right that some of the technology in our labs is different or the technology that to me hits that part but if we just focus on information technology we're missing the entire part about augmented communications devices and accessibility because it's not just information technology that supports accessibility it is literally devices

[03:08:13] and communicate and other forms of technology so I just I think maybe if we can look at number one and try to get to what I think a very good point you're lifting up about equal technology resources but so if we do implement an innovative innovative future focused comprehensive and efficient approach to provide accessible and equitable technology resources to include devices hardware and software I think that would be fine then that might get it to it a bit but my concern is as written and we're really not talking about the

[03:08:52] facilities piece of the technology for the for that innovation the robotics labs things like that in this piece and that's what concerns me is that there is we added the words you said you know communication and other you know devices software and hardware i think that would get to it but i just again trying to i think resources probably broadly encompasses that try not to get too specific then i don't want accidentally leave something out right that wouldn't be in that category so i think resources kind of gets to that right because resources are all different types of resources maybe so maybe

[03:09:29] including but not limited to then we're not uh including but not limited to devices software and hard for. I just I wouldn't call the whole thing information technology because I think that changes it pretty significantly. My concern is we have more. You're the one who's going to be doing this

[03:10:04] work. I think when we look at technology we certainly look at it holistically across the entire division but if these are the expectations for the superintendent I think in our purview whether that is an information or instruction or anywhere else would still all roll up into that one EE. So if you want to expand the language on what kind of technology because it keeps evolving like this new AI I think is coming. Yeah I just don't want you want the superintendent to have this well you didn't deploy this technology or that technology at school A, B, and C but you did

[03:10:44] it at D, E, and F and you know that's and oftentimes I mean I hate to put it this way but oftentimes the technology innovation is paid for by the community not by the school system. What if we said accessible innovative and equitable technology resources so you because we're talking about I guess I'm confused as to what would be different if we're already saying that we're requiring the superintendent to provide accessible and equitable technology resources what more I guess what does that not cover I'm just trying to understand that because it seems to be covers in there it's covered

[03:11:21] in there. My concern is that it's too broad and that it makes it a very difficult expectation to achieve if, you know, my interpretation, just like we sat here today, your interpretation of what this means is different than my interpretation of what this means. And in four months, you'll be here and there will be eight other people sitting at the table who may have a different expectation. So I don't want to have a situation where a lack of clarity in the language results in it being very

[03:11:59] difficult to assess and i guess that would be the conversation when she presents her report and we say yes this meets it or no it doesn't but i do understand what you're saying too i just there's always that tension between we're so specific something will get left out or we're especially in technology with things changing we're leaving out something that might come come along in the space to have that conversations when the superintendent presents us her report and we say this doesn't include this it doesn't include that and that's part of that iterative process and then perhaps this looks gets looked at each year as that iterative process but i think if you get too narrow then it leaves a lot of stuff out by definition so i don't know the right balance but to me technology resources is broad enough to cover all of these spaces and then that's that

[03:12:39] iterative conversation thank you miss mclaughlin so uh two thoughts one uh you know i always try to relate this back to what's the problem we're trying to address so I know that we've had some members of the community and even educators expressing concern about our movement to Chromebooks and how's that translate for AP classes and I don't even know because we really haven't had a work session to talk about any of this so I wouldn't even know how to put this into

[03:13:15] an executive expectation, and that's the granular component of it. I will say, everybody, that the longer we have been doing this, and this is now our third meeting on it, while I believe in the value of the operational expectations, which we've converted to executive expectations, and I value all the work we've been putting in this, it came to my mind just a moment ago, for any of us who've

[03:13:48] done an annual superintendent evaluation that we take these types of documents to sit down and then evaluate the superintendent. This executive expectation collection is becoming so dense I don't even know how I could possibly do the annual evaluation on just this document alone.

[03:14:14] So on the one hand I'm wrestling with Dr. Reed the fact that we've talked about giving you global guidance for you then to know what the intent is and we have the triad of the strategic plan plus this plus our portrait of graduate and you know and and add in there the state evaluation system so uh I guess what I'd say to my colleagues is like this one alone I mean

[03:14:47] wow it's massive um you know at this point I almost think Dr. Reed we've developed an instruction manual for you and you go read the fine print but i i i think we at this point need to i'm not asking to undo everything at this point i just think we have to move forward and unless there is something that is absolutely burning missing whatever try to think about how it's more globally captured in what's already up there. So I would just say since we have Mr. Sethi at the table,

[03:15:27] do you feel in support of your leadership as the CIO and part of Dr. Reed's leadership that we have laid out something that says look in the end we just want to make sure we have effective and efficient technology in support of education? Yeah I mean when we started doing this exercise we certainly felt this will give us a good comprehensive sort of boundary roadmap to operate in okay so in this point really we don't need to be

[03:16:02] adding anything more in than what has been done in the last few meetings okay mr. Sethi do you want to add anything no I'm also happy to kind of pick the conversation and figure out what may be something we can think about adding or working on yeah no definitely okay to not add anything okay so let's do this

[03:16:34] let's see who has do we have consensus around at this point after extent of discussion leaving the technology executive expectation as was brought to the table today we didn't make any we discussed it but ultimately we did not make any changes do we have consensus around not making any changes I am so sorry I apologize what were what were you proposing I was actually trying to

[03:17:11] limit the scope of this executive expectation because of my concerns over exactly what you were saying and as far as I'm concerned it if you're comfortable with it being as broad as it is Dr. Reed then I'm fine I I'm was just trying to narrow it I I think I'll defer to the chair thank you okay so do

[03:17:47] We have a consensus on leaving the technology executive expectation as was brought to the table today. All right, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Okay, great. Okay, no changes to number 12, but a very worthwhile discussion.

[03:18:11] Okay, 13, safety and security. Okay, I'm going to highlight some of the changes that happened, and then just as a review, this executive expectation was added during this process from the original 12 OEs. You'll see changes in three places. In line number one, it has the specific inclusion of students and staff.

[03:18:31] In 1C, around arrival and dismissal procedures, and again, specifically calling out students and staff in addition to visitors. And then in 1G, ensuring that the process is data-informed. So those are the revisions since the last conversation.

[03:18:51] I had a question. I know we had discussed the piece on, like, emotional safety. Did we decide not to go that route? I just want to clarify. - Ms. Omesh, can you elaborate a little bit on that?

[03:19:08] - Yeah, I think two of the groups last time, like the idea of bullying, things like that. - Ms. Omesh, I believe some of those concerns are addressed in that learning environment and relationship with students.

[03:19:25] There's some language around there about how we address harassment and bullying and other unsafe conditions. On EE number 10-- - Right, so we decided not to include that in here. - Right. - I think some of the language that we added in 1G is getting at our understanding of when we're having incidents that need to be addressed that piece of data informed so that we can be responsive to be inclusive of lots of different things of how we're seeing those things play out at schools okay it's not a gotcha I just want us to be clear on like where we are

[03:20:01] conceptualizing things to live or not so you know obviously the emotional safety of students matters so we're saying it's covered in different section as opposed to you know it's not one of the components of this topic okay thank you okay we will stick with 13 as it is um so ms keese camaro i i don't have a change but i just want to

[03:20:36] i want to comment because we were talking about the the massiveness of what we're dealing with but the beauty of i mean dr reed is the conduit of a a staff of really qualified people so i don't feel uncomfortable about this because i know this is about her managing all of those people who have been identified to do these various jobs and so what has happened in the past when we're doing an evaluation is while we have all of these things accessible to us we generally talk about

[03:21:13] those things that have arisen and have shown some level of importance and so while we have a menu that's not as though we're going over each and every one um so i i i just wanted to given miss mclaughlin's statements i wanted to say we're looking at a system but we have to we can only look to dr reed with respect to this three now 3.4 plus billion dollar organization but i feel comfortable because i know i'm not asking her to go and do it she is overseeing an

[03:21:50] appropriate works workforce to complete these duties. Thank you. Dr. Anderson. I do not have any additions to number 13. I just wanted to be sure that I asked a question about what was posted, which is what I had on page 15 of the document, not what was passed out, but the red line version that is posted. So I'd like to ask that question. And until everybody gets there, I do want to say I very appreciative of the time we've been able to spend to dig through this. I think it was very

[03:22:29] transparent. It's very clear to our community where our questions are, where we're going with this. So I think this time was well spent. So Elaine, I will withdraw my email from this morning because I did not expect this to be what we engaged in today, which is why I wanted more time.

[03:22:47] So you could consider that withdrawn. Having said that on page 15, I wanted to be sure that we spend little bit of time here because i know that um miss mclaughlin very eloquently and i've been very very grateful to her very thoughtful and insightful summarization of where this board is and literally almost everything that i have in my document i mean on my sheets here and what i've heard around this table she was able to capture so beautifully in a very generous way so i do want to highlight that but one of the things that she put on the table is this board's readiness for the next few

[03:23:24] steps and really asking for us to consider whether or not we pause on some things we move on with some things while i'm not as concerned with the fact that this board only has you know three four three four more months but i am concerned about the time that we have a lot of other pressing issues and again our readiness to marry application and commitment to the theory that i don't think we've had an opportunity to really build to really understand and i wanted to raise this in conjunction with page 15 because i think there's some commitments that are embedded here um you do not

[03:23:59] have page it's page 15 of the governance manual that is on the um on the docket on the board docs for the 14th for um thursday for the 14th that's right because some of these while we talked about really honing in on the executive limitations I'm sorry the executive expectations there are some other there's some other language here in this document that we're going to vote on on Thursday that speak to some other components which we have not made commitments to or have talked about

[03:24:35] fully I just want to be sure that there's clarity on what this can imply so I would just love for people to give their thoughts on this while I give mine

[03:24:46] as well. Does everybody have this? You look confused. Yeah. Yes, the preamble, the one that says the school board starting with the sentence I said that success requires operational excellence and the superintendent operating this division within the expectations expressed by the board through executive expectation. The superintendent will provide the annual report to the board at each of the executive expectations at regular board meetings. I don't think I have any issues there. I just want to make sure that we have full consensus

[03:25:18] on the second part because that is a commitment to a new process so take a look through there that was the process that Justin walked us through for its thing this morning and it's simply the process that we would use to ensure that we are holding dr. Reed accountable for each of these sets of expectations right and I let me just kind of share my opinion at the on at the onset the idea

[03:25:56] having the reports I think is great it's this one if you want to just look at that page but I think the process that speaks to how that is provided I have a lot of questions I'm not saying I disagree or agree at this time but I have a lot of questions that lead me to not be comfortable on voting on this part on Thursday because some just to give an example one of the compliance forms I forget what it's called says board members ask clarifying questions well is that all that I'm allowed to do. I think that part hasn't been fully fleshed out, but it's connected to this.

[03:26:33] And I would not want to get ahead of myself by approving these changes of this, and this is included in it, without having that discussion. So do you want us to walk through that process again?

[03:26:53] I don't believe we have time for that. Personally, I just want to be cognizant that some of this language is premature. So what I would prefer in the essence of it is being 340, and I know we're trying we're dying to get to those proclamations is maybe take a stop at this language at the board will provide I'm sorry the superintendent will provide an annual report to the board on each of the executive expectations at a regular board meeting period let that be where we end until we come to consensus in

[03:27:28] terms of what the second part will look like whenever that is that would be my recommend so all I would like to put on the table is we were hoping that once we had okayed our executive expectations that as a board we would start holding dr. Reed accountable for these and that we would hopefully start at our September 28th meeting with moving forward with one of these executive expectations getting the reports as was explained ten days in advance so that

[03:28:01] board members would have time to ask any questions about, you know, the report, discuss it with Dr. Reed, and then we would have time in a very public setting at one of our meetings to go over the report, go over questions, and actually vote on whether or not we as a board felt that she had accomplished those expectations. Two things if I could share, Ms. Toland, I think the first report

[03:28:34] is on secession, which is a very brief section. So I am not sure if we need to have this language in order to accomplish that. And I think no matter what, I mean, the long and short of it is we hold the superintendent accountable for everything. No, no, I understand. So this just says that we would fill out a report and that monitoring report is basically collected and then used subsequently

[03:29:10] For the superintendent's evaluation and I understand that my only the only thing I want to put on the table is It is in this document that we're voting upon without having the discussion I don't want us to be so I think we're having a discussion right now, so I'm sorry didn't take the ms. Eismerheiser would you like to make a comment? I?

[03:29:33] Appreciate that. I think to your point we are having the discussion now I guess I'm confused and this we spent all this time on this document to come up with I think what our board really considers, you know, I think you call it the instruction manual, but, you know, what our expectations are. But we're not going to be able to do anything with the expectations if the only next step is that Dr. Rhee presents us a report, right?

[03:29:53] The rest of this process talks about we're going to get this report, we're going to vote on the report. If she's not in compliance, here's what she needs to do to become in compliance and present us a corrective action plan and review it annually and make any revisions as we need to. So I guess if we just stop at her presenting a report, she can present us whatever report she wants, we can make our comments, but there's no accountability.

[03:30:16] The second part of this, which is we're going to vote, if you don't meet our expectations, we're now going to expect you to come back to us with a corrective action plan. To me, that's the meat of the accountability for what we just, together as a collective, decided we're going to hold her accountable for.

[03:30:32] So I guess I'm, and this is what we started talking about about a year ago and what the policy governance process was. I remember you presented the sample reports from other divisions, I think in June even. And so we sort of talked about it then of this is how we hold her accountable.

[03:30:47] It's a real clear process. She presents it. We vote on it. She fixes it if she needs to. And then if it's not in compliance, she brings us back more information. That's how you hold her accountable. So I'm not sure what else we would do or need to discuss on that.

[03:31:03] But to me, that's the most important part is how are we holding her accountable and how is she fixing and not just taking comments, but how is she actually addressing our comments? So I think, to me, this looks good. I'm happy to have a conversation about it if there's tweaks to be made to it, but I don't know about postponing.

[03:31:19] It then just postpones the accountability part, which is the whole purpose of this. So, Dr. Anderson, I was trying to look at that language and identify where specifically your concerns were in listening to Ms. Seismar-Heiser's remarks.

[03:31:42] And when I read through it, and if I'm looking at the right page, which for me it's 15, and reading that paragraph, to me, I know Dr. Reed is eager for us as a board and for she as the leader to have a framework that says, okay, what are you going to do with this?

[03:32:06] This is my understanding. This is our collective understanding. This is the public to understand. And so I'm not reading in here anything to give me pause. So if I'm missing something, I welcome hearing that from Dr. Anderson or other colleagues.

[03:32:23] But otherwise, to me, it's pretty straightforward. And I will give a shout out to whoever drafted this language because I did miss the prior retreat. The fact that it's saying that she will present us with a corrective action plan at a subsequent meeting if we find the divisions not compliance in a monitoring report i mean that's as powerful as it gets and it's very clear very explicit so um i'm glad dr anderson that we are having this conversation and that you pointed this out before we go to vote um at the meeting but just so we're

[03:33:02] clear this language looks good to me and as i understand this would be just visualizing this This is at the very front before we then launch into each of the global and then the numbered ones, correct? Okay. Well, I had considered this part and parcel of the second part that we did not get a chance to get to because there were those documents that were all involved with the initial presentation.

[03:33:36] What I didn't want us to do is to have this be part of what we voted on without being informed of what that second part is, which we have not yet gotten to. If we want to have a smaller discussion, which I think we're having right now on just that piece, happy to have it.

[03:33:53] I just want to go into this eyes wide open and informed. So let me just tell you where I'm coming from since I was wrapping that up on my support and she clarified where her worry is. As I see it, Dr. Reed and our colleagues, that little preamble language we just read, that's what we are committing to as a board.

[03:34:12] I'm not committing to Carver's book. I'm not committing to anything else that anyone else wants to define as what's outside of that for policy governance practices. I'm just committing to this document with that preamble that I believe provides a quote-unquote policy governance framework for Dr. Reed.

[03:34:36] And anything beyond that, I fully agree that needs to be a much broader discussion. And I'm not sure that that's mission critical for this sitting board in the final three months. I'm talking about our executive expectations and that paragraph that we just talked about that gives the framework of what do I do with how does this document help Dr. Reed in meeting our executive expectations.

[03:35:05] Dr. Reed, I will say, do you have any, do you have a difference of opinion of how I interpret what I think we're telling you in that preamble? No, ma'am. Okay. Thank you.

[03:35:23] I would like for us to reframe and stop using the term policy governance and use the term strategic governance, because this really is what we are doing, is strategic governance. and policy governance is tied to a book that many people have a challenge with, as we've seen today with lots of registered trademark signs.

[03:35:46] Secondly, and so I think we came to that agreement two weeks ago. We talked about it this morning, agreed to it again, and so I just want to make sure we do that. Second piece, definitions is an area where we have changed language, and I actually think it clarifies that the executive expectations express the expectations of the board, the expectations the board has for how the superintendent shall operate the division to achieve these goals. Executive expectations are reviewed annually through monitoring reports

[03:36:23] submitted by the superintendent to ensure compliance with these expectations. I actually think that belongs in the preamble because that's really what we're talking about. The second piece it is um that it's a structure here as to how the um the monitoring reports will be submitted to the board and the ability of the board to provide feedback but what's not here which is why i

[03:36:55] understand your angst dr anderson is all of those charts that we had that fourth quadrant that was discussed earlier today briefly albeit that has things like um you know a form that is going to be filled out this board has not agreed to a form yet i think that form needs to be discussed and identified as to what whether that's the appropriate similarly this board has not talked about whether or not the forms are going to be made public you know because is it a

[03:37:29] transparency issue um and so and whether or not individual responses will be provided to those forms and so that whole piece that next piece is important so i can understand um your concerns and i think the way that you address the concerns for thursday night is to actually have the motion that says that this is an iterative process this is focused on the executive expectations

[03:38:03] and that the board at a later date will be providing refinements to the forms and everything else because as we discussed this morning and it was agreed to thursday night talking about the succession we already this board already talked about the succession and approved the succession in the july organizational arrangements and so the purpose of thursday night is for dr reed to be

[03:38:36] able to provide her explanation to the board and to the community as to how she sees the implementation of these executive expectations sense uh yeah and and thank you because this is kind of where i was stuck in the very beginning because there seems to be a presumption that what we were given earlier is something we've approved and i don't think it is but i want to say i'm

[03:39:16] comfortable with the executive expectations and thank you for the opportunity to talk about that today it was a little backwards in my opinion and then we we righted the ship and we had really good discussion so thank you where i think we are is very similar to what Ms. Corbett Sanders said, in that we expect an annual report, we expect a report from Dr.

[03:39:41] Reed regarding these expectations, but I don't think in any way have we approved the documents and the process that is outlined in here. And I had a number of objections that I was going to address when we got to it. We don't have time for that today. And so what I'm willing to vote yes for today is that we're approving the executive expectations and we expect to get that report I don't I think we're kind of saying the same thing but I wanted to clarify specifically because we didn't have that discussion it seems

[03:40:19] like maybe more some people have been more exposed to these discussions with respect to what is expected with this process than some of us because to me this was the first time I got a real explanation of how we were going to go through that and and and I have some significant concerns so I do think on Thursday we can have on our agenda the executive expectations and the expectation of a report from Dr. Reed which will require board approval but that we are going to work off the details of that at a later date that's what I think I'm comfortable with Mr. Kersky thank you so I think this whole

[03:40:59] day has been very painful, but this part in particular is extremely so. I'm comfortable with this, what Megan said. This is so straightforward to me. She is going to prepare a report, give it to us in advance, we'll get to have feedback, we'll accept it or not accept it, and then there's going to be follow-up, something we've never had really, and no way and no teeth to actually follow up on any of our concerns. I'm unclear. I don't share the concerns. I'm unclear

[03:41:35] as to why this is creating such an issue here. I think we are way overthinking it. I don't know what we would do differently. I'm trying to understand and be patient with understanding, But I'm having a very difficult time. I don't I would like to go forward. I would like to vote on it If people don't feel the same way, you know, I think that is Opportunity at the table to say so on Thursday. Thank you. Miss Marin. Yeah I really echo Miss Prakarski sentiment

[03:42:13] And I I do want to be clear that we are taking the consensus and the votes because I feel like some statements have been made about You know the board feels this and the board feels that and that's clearly not the case Look, it says, and I hope that my colleagues are listening who were talking about the trademark of the policy governance.

[03:42:30] I mean, that's what gives this thing the teeth, is that it is tried and true, and it is the best model. I want the best model for governance, because I want the best for our kids. Also, what really worries me is that without any kind of action, this was completely abandoned.

[03:42:47] At some point on this timeline between 2007 and today, somewhere it stopped, and there's no vote that it happened. So we must vote on something into practice. I also, I'm not gonna, you know, copy edit a report.

[03:43:03] I'm glad to have something in any format because indeed we don't have that. So I'm just perplexed at the concerns about the format, the timing. This has been as transparent as I've seen anything done in my almost four years on the board.

[03:43:20] So I think we should just go forth with it, hear the reports and make improvements. I don't want to say this is an iterative process. We're voting on language and we voted in. And just like anything else on the board, when we want to make a change, we make a vote on it. All of our work is iterative.

[03:43:36] We don't need to define that as extra. I really do wish that I had had the full attention to respond because I actually haven't been as vocal during this meeting, although I've been listening. So I do hope that my input is taken. Thank you. And I'm happy to vote on the entirety of the package that the superintendent wants to put forth in this coming meeting and in further meetings.

[03:43:56] Thank you. - Ms. Amesh. - Yeah, I guess, you know, I actually have been pretty, I was proud of how some of our conversation was able to get to a place of exchange and genuine, you know, constructive work.

[03:44:12] So I guess in being here right now, I have one question of what happens when a board member doesn't necessarily fit with the majority in their concerns and whether that means we move forward regardless on each executive expectation or not? So that's a question, and then I'll continue.

[03:44:29] But I don't know if anyone has an answer. What happens in that case? So it generally goes on as a performance review action item, so it's a vote. It's either 6-6, 7-5, the majority rules. But each board member, in my experience and in the experience of my colleagues around the country who use this type of governance model, each board member writes their own personal monitoring sheet and those are public.

[03:44:59] So your opinion, it's not unlike a dissenting opinion, right? It's right out there with the majority rules. Okay. I guess the superintendent presumably would be responsive to that to some degree down the line when the evaluation comes around at the end of the year, right?

[03:45:19] Yeah. Okay. I guess, Dr. Anderson, I don't know if you have ideas maybe about how to modify this or what you would change in it. I think it makes sense for us to approve them together. Not necessarily that other piece, which we didn't even discuss, right?

[03:45:35] I get that people aren't ready for that. But maybe we can spend the next whatever amount of time we have arriving at a place where we can approve this, mostly because I know it's on a timeline to set it up for success so that even when the next board comes on, there's a process with every meeting in place to get us to have the superintendent evaluation by the end of the year.

[03:45:57] So I'm inclined to want to support this, but I want to get to a place where everyone feels like it's representative of the board. So I don't know, maybe that's a question, if there's something you would change or-- - I think there's a misunderstanding to what I was trying to raise. What I was trying to raise, because I was under the impression we're about to close out this part.

[03:46:17] What I wanted to share is that there's another component to the document that we're voting upon on Thursday that has an implication to some other documents that we did not discuss today. And I wanted to be sure that that was in the room because as Ms. Corbett Sanders said, it does speak to the form.

[03:46:35] It does speak to some other things. Having the report, as I said earlier, is great. We should have the report. We should have that accountability. We should have that feedback. But it also speaks into, sneaks into some of those other components that we did not discuss. so i wanted to make sure that we were going into that vote eyes wide open because we did not discuss page 15 which we're doing right now so everything is being on the table yeah yeah so i just don't want to say that in that vote to support the ees and the um in the governance manual as presented

[03:47:11] that means we are going to approve some of these other components which we did not discuss today Right, right. I mean, I guess the board roles and responsibilities piece will not be voted on on Thursday, right? Correct. We're being very clear here. So the stuff that we wanted to also discuss today won't be voted on, but perhaps we can just discuss this paragraph right here.

[03:47:33] Unless what I'm hearing is it is necessarily tied to it and has implications to it, that's a different objection. That's your objection. Okay, so let's get an answer. Let me clarify some things, okay? So from the very beginning, there's a four-part wheel to strategic governance, the strategic plan, executive expectations.

[03:48:02] That's what we've been discussing today. This paragraph looks at how we will hold the superintendent accountable for executive expectations. It is not related to what we were hoping to also discuss today, which is the third, a third piece, which is the board relations and how the board works among itself.

[03:48:30] This paragraph, not about that, okay? What this paragraph does, and I am completely in agreement with Ms. McLaughlin, this outlines very clearly how we will hold Dr. Reed accountable for actually accomplishing these expectations.

[03:48:50] so yes there's a very simple form we've had it in our package we've mentioned it earlier today under tab six there is a form one that dr. Reed would fill out to say we're doing um we need to do some wordsmithing on this form um executive expectation number pick one five okay and this is whatever five is and then she interprets here's what I need to do for number five And these are all of the things, all of the evidence I am attaching, right?

[03:49:26] So then that is given to us, right? And the whole part of planning this out and planning out the entire year is also we're trying to make sure that the board gets these documents in time to look at them.

[03:49:43] So I think it says even like with 10 days ahead of the meeting. So the board members can look at it, ask questions, call Dr. Reed. why do you have this document, whatever. And then actually at the meeting, we will have an opportunity, Dr. E will give a presentation, stop me if I get any of this wrong, we'll give a presentation about this executive expectation and what her documentation is, what she's doing, and we have an opportunity to speak very publicly about do we think that's enough,

[03:50:19] Is she meeting it? What's missing? What other questions do we have? And we also each individually fill out a form. Is it, did she do it? Is she in compliance? I mean, these, these forms are super simple. What's the title? What's the date? Is she in compliance? Did she make progress? Did she not make progress? And you have the, every board member has the opportunity to just jot down what they think. And then those forms are public. And we will house these forms in the school board

[03:50:55] office so that when we get to the end of the year and all 13 of the executive limitations have been presented and all five of the GOAT reports have been presented, there's a compendium of information for board members to look at when they are doing the state-mandated review for Dr. Reed.

[03:51:19] Yeah, no, I appreciate it. So that's just running through it one more time. So what I would say perhaps at this point, if we want to have any further discussion on this process, we can do, I can send out in chair's notes the forms and run through what I just said, you know, summarize what we just said.

[03:51:43] people are prepared for that piece of it that is not something we would vote on on thursday what we would what i hope we will vote on is this process and all of the language that we just discussed today discussed today yeah no i appreciate the the clarification i mean that that was my understanding and that this is a separate component which is why i think dr anderson i don't see direct implication so i don't want to be dismissive of any concern raised Because I'm inclining towards being comfortable with where we've landed on the vote.

[03:52:17] But if anyone continues to have concerns, I would like to hear them. So what I would like to, because this is such important work, okay, I would say we had our other topics. We only have 25 minutes left at this point.

[03:52:35] We can take a look at those other topics with our clerk and our governance committee and figure out the best way to proceed on those topics. so let's use the remaining minutes that we have to make sure people understand what we have here. Ms. Culver Sanders please. So if we look at the board docs the recommendation is very clear it says the school board approved the proposed revisions to the strategic governance manual to replace the operational expectations with executive expectations and update the strategic governance

[03:53:14] manual accordingly as detailed in the attachment if you look at the attachment the attachment is what you have here big document 118 pages given what we i what i would suggest to resolve the whole problem the any making sure everybody knows all we're talking about is the executive

[03:53:47] expectations. And so just add a sentence to the to the script which clearly states that future discussion of the and let me what's the actual title that we were supposed to discuss earlier today will be subject to further revisions at a later date. Do something like that so it's very clear that what we're talking about is exactly what we've focused on today and only that so it's

[03:54:24] very limited to that piece um i think that that would solve the whole problem and i think then we all go home and go to our subsequent meetings that each of us have in the evening this evening so the the um well let me karen do you have additional things no i can agree with that i think the crux without digging into the mud unnecessarily was that there was stuff in here that actually changed our governance manual right and that's not what we're talking about so i think

[03:55:00] what some of us are asking for is that clarification right and i think you said it so i i think we're i think we're in the clear i think we're moving out of the woods and i'm just going to be quiet thank you we are changing the governance annual this was already in here or or to but with respect for the expectations for the expectations only yes miss pokarski did you have

[03:55:27] another comment miss amace are you good okay so let's um i guess let me do this let me see if we have a consensus to move forward with the red lines for thursday evening through the the the governance manual as we have here let me see a show of hands if we have can we specify in in our

[03:56:04] i think we did it i'm sorry because there's other changes to the governance manual that i'm not agreeing to but i'm agreeing to what you said okay so okay so i think we've got consensus to move ahead with including all of this red line material all of the red line material is pertinent

[03:56:28] to the expectations five and fifteen so five i think so forty six forty six

[03:57:02] - Through page 46. - All right, and we will send out a review of all of this prior to Thursday.

[03:57:23] It's only hours away at this point. So the one item that we had hanging out there is Ms. Omash and Ms. Karen Kieskamar, you are working on some language that you will get to Ms. Neal by 10:00 a.m. for sure so that will immediately be sent out to board members.

[03:57:44] I would really like to post this for the public by noon. So if you as a board member have any heartburn or whatever, please, does that work for people? Okay, so we will post everything we just did today.

[03:58:05] The only thing we still have left is that one item. Yeah, so I would like to thank people for their very thorough and thoughtful review once again. Dr. Anderson, do you have a question?

[03:58:44] - Yes, okay, so we have that one item outstanding, so please look at that, board members, please pay attention and look at that first thing in, well, 10 a.m. tomorrow, okay? I think we did good work, was not what we expected, but what did we learn at the leadership thing?

[03:59:04] Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast. So, you know, I think we're in a very good place with our expectations, and I look forward to, the other thing we will put out in Chair's Notes the forms so people can look at it and the procedure that we would follow not this meeting okay it's no they will not be voted on we're talking about a procedure for two weeks from now two weeks from this week if when we would look at our first expectation and start holding dr. Reed accountable for all the

[03:59:41] work that she's doing so what so we would like to actually use the forms on the 28th so let me send them out to everyone tomorrow they're already in this booklet there's one in in your hand and then we do need to do some wordsmithing it still says limitation we realized that there's one if we were doing a goal report and then there's a slightly different one if we are doing an

[04:00:21] executive expectation and one dr. Reed fills out and the other one we fill out so when you're sending these out what is the expectation that you will have for us to and engaging with these forms what are you so let me propose this let me send it out explain again the procedure that we just talked through so everyone understands what would be on these forms and if you have issues with using these forms or any wording on these forms we'll have a method for

[04:00:55] you to get that those comments in please that was the reason i had an objection in the first place is because i already know i have objections right okay and so i'm kind of wondering i there was stuff on the agenda today we didn't discuss this was part of it there's also these bsr ones and all these different numbers that are actually changes to our governance manual that's

[04:01:26] where i will not be addressing that on thursday i understand but are we assuming making any assumptions towards these things in in in two weeks because that's a discussion that that's where I was that's why I spoke up it's because I had about this spoiler alert okay some of the things we did not get to today and our survey on September 26th as to whether or not we have a work session on September 26th okay seven which would be two days before our next meeting on the 28th

[04:02:06] which one is when we were hoping to begin on this accountability work on September 26 75% of board members want to hear from HRAC and CTAC so we have scheduled the time that works for them is from 2:00 to 4:00 so we will be hearing those reports on September 26 from 2:00 to 4:00 so that work session day is not completely canceled, if you will, or taken off hold. So we could propose looking at

[04:02:41] these forms and any questions, conversation around these forms and exactly what will happen on September 28th on the 26th. My primary concern in looking at all these documents was the redefinition of our roles as board members for our okay so right and so that's and when i see something that will be we will be in chairs this week looking at re-looking at the schedule to determine when that conversation will take place is that answering your question i just want to make sure that we're not doing something on whatever date you just said september 29th

[04:03:20] i forget which one 26th okay that we're not doing something on that day that relies on this being in existence? Because I'm objecting to this. No. Okay. Absolutely not. We're still in the expectations quadrant. Okay. Any other last comments? Okay. If you have questions or concerns

[04:03:59] before Thursday, you know where to find me. Ms. Sizer Heiser. I just wanted to make one last comment to thank Marcy and Dustin for all your hard work and responsibility and responsiveness, I should say, in turning these things around. So I just want to say thank you and thank you Ms. Tolan for shepherding this work. I know it's been a lot to get us here, so I just want to say thanks.

[04:04:19] Thank you. Ms. Tolan, if any board member wants to leave their binder, we'd be happy to collect them as well and hold on to those. Thank you. Yes, and thank you to staff who sat here through the entire day, listening again in detail to the expectations.

[04:04:38] We made some progress, and we will, after chairs tomorrow, get back to you more information on how we will be dealing with the topics we didn't get to today. And Wendy and Laura, thank you for helping us out at the school board office level. Have a nice evening. I'm sure, like, most of us are off to back to school.

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