Springfield School Board — August 5, 2026

3:03 As with, I think there's other folks I want to thank as well. It takes a lot of work to do to set everything up. And so obviously I want to thank Randy, her team, and especially the custodial team, Karen, Sartell, Pete, and Carlos. A lot of work to get this all set up and together and of course, anybody who's been a principal knows that, gosh, I got a board and all that, they're going to try to make the front all... They're going to do a lot of probably extra work that they didn't plan because last week they had summer school here too. So I really appreciate that extra effort. And then, we got a lot of people who've worked behind the scenes. Brian and his team,

3:48 Allison, and Corinne, thank you guys for all that you've done. And, want to thank Jeff Michna for helping get all the technology set up. Also, well, Jeremy, but she left. And Marty, doing a lot. And especially I want to thank our facilitator, Neil. So I'm excited. I've had a great time getting to know her and planning this, and so I'm excited for our district, but I'm also excited for Lane County, ESD under her leadership, and I think we're going to do great things. So thank you so much. All right. I was thinking about what to say.

4:36 And when I do this, I like to be a little bit creative. I like to, and I always change my mind. And so this morning, I was eating a very healthy breakfast at Chick-fil-A. I got the grilled chicken. Grilled chicken. Yeah. Which was canceled out by the peach shake and the hash browns. But I did get the grilled chicken sandwich with egg whites. Oh. Yeah. So they cancel each other out. And I had a thought, and then for some reason, I started thinking about conjunctions. And does anybody remember this? Conjunction junction, what's your function? Conjunction junction, look it up! Conjunctions, conjunctions, words and phrases and clauses.

5:22 Conjunction junction, how funky is your function? I got three favorite kinds that get most of my job done. Conjunction junction, what's their function? I got "and," putting all the actions pretty close. "And," that's an attitude, like this and that. "But," that's sort of the opposite, like this, but that. Then there's "or," o-r, when you have a choice like this or that. First off, did you remember? Conjunction junction. Okay, we're going to do this with you folks before. And so- Last year, let's look at and a little bit, right? Last year for the district was hard.

6:10 There was a lot of... And I've heard that. And great things were happening in our school. Attendance, chronic absentee is not where we want, but attendance is moving up. Graduation rates moving up. Academic outcomes moving up. So despite, that's not a conjunction. The- And ... the things that were happening, what was happening in the schools was great stuff. And so one of the things I've done, I could see the

6:55 meetings, I could read the papers and find out when I was doing my research to decide on what I wanted to do. So I came in with one set of expectations, and I've been starting to talk to many of you. And here's the thing that I'm seeing and hearing. So many of us have the same values, want the same things. Nobody thinks that some of the things that happened helped move our district forward, but there's still a sense of hope. There's a sense of pride. There's a sense that our people,

7:40 and as the leaders, that's what we're here to do, support our people. Our people are our strength, and they've pushed on. And so as we're thinking about this year, and as I was thinking about what we wanted to do, with the help of the instruction team, we came up with the idea of being better together. We always wanna be better. That's something we're always striving for. But really concentrating on that together because I think everybody here would agree that last year we weren't all together all the time. And yet, but we still had outcomes we should be proud of.

8:27 Imagine what's gonna happen if we are all working together, all pulling in the same direction. We still have the same staff here, still the same dedication, still the same pride in Springfield. Imagine what's gonna happen. And I want us to think about these similarities and start with what we are all have in common. Because in hearing, in talking to folks, there's much more in common than there is divisive. That doesn't mean we don't tackle the problems, the areas of disagreement. There's gonna be conflict. And actually conflict, good conflict,

9:13 will continue to move us forward. What we wanna avoid is what Amanda Ripley calls high conflict, where you stop talking to one another, or you make characteristics on people that might not be there. Just because someone is someone, you stop talking. We don't want that. We want good conflict. And so for the retreat, we actually tried to think about how we could start getting this idea better together. And one of the first activities we're going to do is talk about why we're here. And I'm hoping that you will see our why's, our what's are incredibly similar.

9:59 And let's start from that point instead of starting from the areas of disagreement, and let's see where that takes us. Again, we're not gonna forget about those areas. We're not gonna forget about what happened in the past. But we need to move forward if we're gonna be better together. And that's my challenge. And so my other challenge is, let's pick the right conjunctions. Okay? Let's pick the ands where we can. Let's not do the howevers as much. Okay? And then after we do the what's happening, I'm gonna work with the board to revisit our board agreements. And folks, we all are busy, so we're getting ready for... We have our administrator retreat starting tomorrow. So you'll have some time.

10:46 We'll come back for lunch, and then we're gonna, hopefully, we'll have some proposed updated agreements. And then, again, working together, the team is gonna look at how can we actualize these agreements that we've come up with. What are things that we can do? What are some commonalities? What are some ways of operating? And of course, that's something I can do with the board, but I don't think if I do it, I'm not gonna do it strictly well by myself. So I need the team to help out and figure out how we're gonna do that. Not a whole lot that we're trying to accomplish today. But gosh, if we can accomplish those three things, I think we can all say it's going to be a really great day.

11:31 And so we're very lucky. Brian is going to do a little bit of a warm-up for us. And then Tenneal, our wonderful facilitator, is going to take over from there, and I'm gonna get to be in the learner mode. But welcome for being here. Welcome for being here. I don't know what that means. Just welcome. I'm glad you're here. Thank you for being here. I left off the... I could have used a conjunction, right? Yeah. Welcome, and thank you for being here. I'm excited to get started. And Brian, I'm gonna let you take over. Thank you, Sean. So I was kind of going back and... Sorry. There we are. Got a little...

12:17 I was kind of wavering on an energizing activity or more of a grounding activity, and after looking at the agenda, I kind of decided with the latter. And we got started a little bit late, so we're going to snap through this. But I just want to make sure that we spend just a few minutes reflecting, and then I'm going to send out a half sheet. We're going to reflect for just a couple of seconds, minutes probably, and then we'll whip around and share out, and hopefully we'll get to know each other a little bit, and then we'll make sure we're grounding ourselves, orienting ourselves to the work that we have to do today. But first, this does require writing, and obviously, I'm

13:03 a big fan of a big pen. It's the same as it was and it's always been, so that's nice. But also, I'm a real fool for a nice, colorful pen or pencil. And so as part of a universal support, I'm going to pass this around. If you didn't come prepared, which I often don't, so I can relate. And please feel free to pick something out. And there are highlighters, too, if you want one, and they're yours to keep. So please, if you'd like a more fun writing utensil. Basket from my office. This is the basket from your office that I stole. That is correct. I just moved Brenna. And I'm happy to share. Thank you, Wendy. For all your help and your graciousness. It's the least I can do. So as that's going around-

13:48 Chocolate in the bottom ... there's just a half sheet that I want you to write down and then be prepared to share out one word that describes how you are arriving in this meeting today, one non-work thing or activity that helps you recharge, one word that describes what success looks like for a teacher in our school district, and one word that describes what a successful student looks like in our district. So ladies, yeah. And then we'll just spend a couple of minutes. I'll wait to see. I don't know if you want to wait, Tenneal. Is that what we can? I'll watch as people are kind of finishing up, and then we'll whip around and share out.

14:35 Oh, Wendy, here. I got you. Thank you. You actually need the pen. Yeah. I took your

15:23 pen. No cheating. Which one of these things are not the same? We're on the Saturday morning shows.

16:10 Brian started with, "I'm just a bill." Trying to connect. Because I'm more of an Interplanet Janet kind of- Interplanet Janet. It's a galaxy where... We are almost done. I'll stop. So apparently those things were effective, huh? They stuck with us. Well, 30 times of repeating something- Yeah ... is a lot of Is that it, 39? I believe that's the magic number. Finding out Mr. Brown was the person behind all the ghost things in Scooby-Doo. Mr. Brown. Are people finishing up? Do you need a couple more minutes, seconds?

16:59 One more minute. She said one word. You can cheat. No, you're supposed to try to- No. It's fine. One word. This is my effective facilitation. Controversial. No one's going to be upset. Well, hold on. When you hear one of my one words, maybe you'll understand. Who said that? There. They're behind. Okay. I'm going to get us moving, and this might be sketchy facilitation, but I'm going to start just to break the ice, and then I'm going to put Tenneal on the spot, and then we'll go

17:45 this way around and whip. So I put my name at the top. I am Brian, and one word that describes how I'm arriving at the meeting today, I'm a little bit nervous. One word. That was just one, nervous. And then one non-work thing that I like to do is mountain biking, but the smoke, for crying out loud. One word? One- Tighten it up. One word for the teachers. ... is valued. And my one word for successful students is skill. Neil? Great word. One word describes how I'm arriving, excited. Non-work thing, yard work. Mm. Mm. I know it's- Mm ... a little strange, but I love it.

18:33 One word that describes what success looks like for a teacher, acknowledged. And one word that describes what success looks like for students, included. Mm. So the one word for me, describing our meeting today is hopeful. One non-work thing, gardening. Oh, I like it. One word that describes success for a teacher, excited. One word that describes what success looks like for a student is prepared. Beautiful. So I'm coming in optimistic. And this is going to sound crazy, the one non-work thing is competition. I'm not good at going on a treadmill.

19:18 I have to have some... basketball, tennis, pickleball, anything, I'll play hours of that. Treadmill, I'll be on there for five minutes. Impact teacher. They've had an impact on me. And love the other words for students, but I'll add into there engagement. For me, I'm arriving a bit anxious. This is very new. A non-working thing or activity that helps me recharge is movement. Success for a teacher, can't decide on whether a support or stability for them. Mm-hmm. And for students to have success is give them confidence.

20:05 Arriving curious. My recharge activity is walking my pugs. They go slow, so it gives you time to really, you know- Take it all in. Live. Success for a teacher, collaborative. And success for students, success and feeling proud. All right. My one word arriving today is dedicated. My non-work thing is golfing. That's kind of good, so it's challenging. One word for success in a teacher, influential. And one word that describes success for a student is excited. Mm-hmm.

20:51 I am arriving today, ready. I recharge by grounding in the outdoors. Mm. Like actual grounding. I didn't know that was a thing until I bought a grounding mat and I looked into it. My wife bought a grounding sheet. Yeah. There's such a thing as that too. Yeah. Sorry. That's two. Yeah. What is it? I don't know. It's a sheet that you put into the direct current that's apparently supposed to- Oh ... simulate you being, walking barefoot on the Earth. Was that fair? Good. A successful teacher is empathetic, and a successful student is joyful. My name is Bob Brew. And one word to describe how I'm feeling at our meeting today is confused.

21:40 Non-work thing is building, construction. I like to build things. Success for a teacher, is connection. Success for a student is engagement. My name's Jeff Fuller. I am coming also like Mindy, ready is the word that I chose there. And one non-work thing, I love to go running listening to podcasts. I chose the same word for teachers and students, and that's joy. Mm. Jeff McNatt. Chose to use open as my arrival today, just to be prepared for whatever comes today. Non-work activity, hiking.

22:25 Smoke has not been great for that. Hmm. So, but like being out in nature and reconnecting. And I too chose the same word for teachers and students, and that was engaged. A distraction-free environment for both. Mm-hmm. I arrived at the meeting today in a truck. One word that helps me recharge is family. My kids are starting to leave and so I value the time with my family. One word for a teacher, motivating. One word for a student, motivated. Hmm. The word that I use to describe how I'm arriving today is just unsure. One non-work thing or activity that helps me recharge is running. I think we've been attacked by the same bird on that.

23:10 Mm-hmm. One word that describes what success looks like for a teacher is focused, and the other word that describes student success is also included. I'm Whitney McKinley. In general, I'm feeling hopeful, not just about this meeting, but about our year ahead. A non-work... Let me put my glasses on. All right. That helps me recharge is a new thing for me is crocheting. I actually call it rage crocheting right now because I also competitive and I have to see how quickly- ... I can finish something. So anyway, crocheting. The success for our teachers, inspired, and our students, engaged.

23:57 Ken Cole. So how I'm arriving is optimistic. The recharge thing, hiking and walking and listening to podcasts is great. The one word connection for the teacher... Excuse me, the one word that describes success for a teacher would be connection, like Bob said, and also I think connection for what success looks like for a student. Mm-hmm. Hi, I'm Matt. Welcome. One word that describes me today was excited. I thought it was new on the job, so very excited about it. A non-work thing that I do, and it's new to me as a hobby as opposed to a punishment, is running. This year, I strove to increase my running from a

24:45 single goal every year of running the Prefontaine 10K in Coos Bay. My family's run it every year since high school. So at least one of us. And, I normally don't train for it, and this year I actually took on and I ran the marathon in Eugene Marathon this year as well. Something I went from basically struggling to run a 10K to being able to finish the marathon, so that's- Striving to run to the cup. I would say for me that teacher success looks like fulfillment. I think if a teacher's fulfilled, then they're doing a great job, right? Students' engagement, same thing. Whether they're doing academically well or not, being engaged is a form of success for me. Beautiful. Thank you everyone for

25:30 jumping out there on this and just before I hand it off to Tenneal, I just want to say out loud, I think you probably noticed some stark differences in how we're recharged, how we're coming into this meeting. I think we had a range from confused, nervous, to excited and hopeful about this meeting, and hopefully that's helpful for you as we roll into this. And then the striking commonalities, and I heard "engaged" multiple times, "joy," "proud," "included," "excited," "connected" for what we expect from our students to experience in our schools. So hopefully that grounds us in our work and gets us ready for

26:16 what we have in store. So, thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. We've met around the room. My name is Tenneal Wetherell, and I am the superintendent at Lane Education Service District. I just started at the beginning of the month, like Shawn, coming to you as the deputy director of the Oregon Department of Education. Spent about five years at the state, and before that, I was down on the South Coast. I have ran the Prefontaine. There's this moment on a hill every time- ... that I say, "Why am I running this Prefontaine?" And then there's this moment where you come into the stadium that is really brilliant. Yes. So, excited to have that commonality. But spent about 18 years on the South Coast as the

27:05 South Coast ESD superintendent and school administrator and teacher and all the things. So, really excited to be in Lane County. Lived here for about four years, and was just commuting to Salem, so I've been in your community, and now I'm learning about all of the school districts. I've been to around seven of them so far. We have 16 in our region, so learning about everyone and just really excited that you asked me to be here and hoping that, together, we can really set the direction for the year. Boards do retreats generally every single year, and I know you'll experience them moving forward. And maybe they shift and change based on what's happening, how we're experiencing the district, the community,

27:51 the world, the state. And today, we're really going to focus in on our why, how we operate together, what our goals are, and what it looks like, feels like to be in this space. So hopefully, we can get some clarity on what does this business mean, but what does it mean in action, and how does it look and feel at the same time that we really come to an agreement on how you folks work together. And that's pretty typical for school districts and boards, especially when we see change. I'll be doing a retreat with my board, and we'll be talking about operating agreements and how we work together and a lot of the same things. So it's a real traditional kind of a setting-the-stage process. And as Shawn and others have named, we've had a little tension

28:38 in our community and in our school district, and we need to contemplate some of that as we look towards the future. So this better together concept of how do we move and work together is a brilliant one. So excited to be on this journey with you today, and hopefully I can be a support to you folks and your district and your students and your teachers for many years to come. To start, you get a lot of leaders in the room, and you're all leaders. Come up with some operating norms. How are we going to work together throughout the day? I drafted some because we don't have a lot of time, and our agenda is probably four days worth of work. So I drafted some operating norms. I'm going to have you look at them, and let's just poke at them, add, do the things that you think you

29:24 need to do for what you need for the day. Big one. So just as you get your document, review it. Should we go back already?

30:09 We could. Hmm. See most folks looking up, so you've had a chance to read. How do these feel? Does this feel like something that works for us? What would we add? What would we delete?

30:54 Does be present give your full attention to the discussion and stay engaged in the work feel reasonable? Anything you'd change, a word choice? Feels good? Got it. Next one is listen to understand, and this is often a hard one, right? We feel like we're listening or I heard you, but are we listening? Seek first to understand another person's perspective before responding or advocating for your own perspective. So listen to understand. How's that feel? Any probing, pushing? Hate it? Happy to delete anything, I promise. Okay.

31:44 All right. Speak candidly and respectfully. It doesn't do us any good if we don't say the things that we need to say, but do so in a respectful way. So share your perspective honestly while maintaining respect for others, even when you disagree. I love a good disagreement. I think it's the best right space to be in order to do the work well for ourselves, for our community, for your family, right? Mm-hmm. You got to press and pull on each other if you're going to do good work. But if we can speak candidly and respectfully, we can get to the end game of-- with the best outcomes, but also developing relationship and trust. Any concerns, worries, changes? I don't have any concerns-

32:29 Yeah ... worries or changes, but I was thinking about the listen to understand, speak candidly and assume positive intent. Yeah. And I think it's going to be really important in those three, I always like the norm of go hard on the issues and soft on people. Mm-hmm. Because we have to speak our truths, right? But it's our truths and the people, we're all people. We share-- I saw, heard so many commonalities too, amongst what we all think, and so that's where we're going to get the conflict is when you go hard on what you firmly believe. We don't want to back down from it to be nice. It's your truth, right? But acknowledging that other people have other truths. They have other ways of looking at things, and that's fine too, and it's

33:16 different, and that's great. It's the issue that you really want to go hard on, not the person. Yeah. I love that. Good definition. Assume positive intent. It's a tough one, right? Because we come with history and our own value system and our culture and how we've lived and learned in the world, and how we engage on an issue. Maybe it has a different why or a different purpose for us. And so as you're challenging each other, assuming as you're listening positive intent, it's tough. It feels like an easy statement, but at the end of the day, it's kind of hard. So approach the conversation with curiosity. That's how I try to do it, and assume others are working towards the same goal, even when your viewpoints differ. Anything?

34:01 Okay. Nope. Yeah. Thanks. Focus on the future. A tough one, especially when you've been rumbling on some core issues, potentially in the community or your district in the past. But acknowledging the past where necessary. We do not want to forget that we've been through challenges. It's important to acknowledge that. And we have to spend our energy building for the future that we want to create for ourselves, our community, our students, and the like. And so it's a tough one to take the leap forward, but it doesn't do us any good to say the past didn't exist either. So focusing on the future without

34:46 making sure that we're just acknowledging where we're at. Okay? Thanks. Share the air. Super hard for me, just naming it. I always need to get my opinions out, and then I'm excited about it, and so I cross co-create. So I got to work hard on this one. Share the air. Everyone has valuable perspectives. And people interact with the way they want to communicate verbally very differently. Some people are listen, learn, and they want to think about things for a while. Totally okay. And some people are first to raise their hand, right? And so if you're a first to raise your hand, recognize it, and maybe give that person that takes a little bit more time, the

35:33 space to share. Can I? Yeah. Just shake it. Can we rely on you to be helpful with that or do we need to take some responsibility in noticing that people aren't necessarily verbalizing? I love that question. I think it should be both. Okay. Internally, we're all going to monitor ourselves, and then I'll attempt to shift and work through and call people into the space. And then if I do call you into the space and you have nothing to add, no pressure, just be like, "Nothing to add." Feels good if you're a thinker. But yeah, I'll do my best work, and we should also support each other. Any worries, concerns? Share the air. All right? Stay at the governance level. So hard, right? Because I'm a person who wants to think about the end with all my

36:20 actions. So I'm like, "I'm doing this because I want this to occur," and we are at the governance level. We're at that 30,000-foot level today as we design and think about how we engage together so that, uh, the administrators can do their work, so that the teachers can do their work, so that students learn, the community engages, and you know, that downstream impact. And at the end of the day, we're looking for a student to learn, live, love, be happy, and have all the rich experiences that make them engaged, and all those words that you guys utilized earlier. And we are all the way back here taking the actions and building the space that helps that to occur. So help yourself. You'll probably have to press on me. Next thing I know, I'm down at the so that the student but- ...

37:07 staying at the governance level. So we're keeping our discussions on governance, leadership, and the board superintendent partnership rather than the individual operation decisions, because that happens someplace else. Now, there could be a root cause why, something that you're curious about that is an operations item that is linked to a policy or a governance item. Fine. Let's understand the why behind the thing we're trying to achieve, but then pull it all the way up and get us to the policy level, governance level. And that's the challenge that we're all in, is how do we navigate the need for that student level issue, but the action that's a governance action? Which is why you lovely people are here to help us as a community guide our work for our kiddos. How does that feel? So that one seems to me to be where, uh, the area in between that

37:55 government leadership and the operational decisions where that's fuzzy- It is ... and maybe the source of what I see as some conflict we've had in the past. Yeah. And yeah. So that one's harder to know where those things, where that line is. Completely hard. And something that we're going to try to navigate and name and describe and experience and press on today so that it becomes more clear. Um, and also that the board has all the right avenues to get the things that they need, and the superintendent has their avenues to get what they need so that we can do this together super well. But I do think that... And there's an activity later today around

38:43 is this stuff, is this board, is this superintendent, is it shared? Is it both? Let's wrestle, wrestle, wrestle. Because a lot of times there is a linking factor to it that exists in operation at the principal level, but it starts with the policy decisions that you all make, and so it's kind of a both/and. But how we navigate through it is somewhat difficult, so really important. Um, honor the work we do together. Support the agreements we establish today and commit to carrying them into our work beyond this retreat. Every single thing we do together today, write on a piece of paper, it will be a beautiful piece of paper. Unless we decide to be future forward, lean into it, work through it, um, adjust it as we move, um, and learn together. But the work only

39:31 exists well if we are ready to do the work and to be in this space. And because we're sitting in this middle ground of, gosh, last year was tough, and we're looking future forward, um, it may feel difficult to lean into, uh, the agreements, and, uh, it's the only way forward at the same time. Concerns, worries, thoughts? Pressure points? Yeah? I do think it's connected also to that assumed possible intent, right? We've got to honor someone, you have to assume that they're walking a walk that you find honorable, right? And I think this will be really helpful that we appreciate what everybody here brings because schools don't work unless everybody brings

40:19 their best. It's incredibly complex organizations. Oh my gosh. And it's complex work, and it's so important work because at the end of the day, the student population is at the end, and your head and your heart are in it, and the technical aspects all converge. Uh, so it's just critical. The work you do is critical. What did we miss? What would you say, "Hey, this needs to be added so that we have an excellent day"? Yeah. On the focus on the future one, I have the advantage of not being a part of this history that seems to be an elephant in the room. But ultimately, the job that I come from, the thing that we do a lot is retrospectives, where we, as a group, do exactly what we're describing here. We come together as a team. Uh, everybody is equal leveling,

41:06 and we discuss the four things. What went well? What didn't go well? What are we excited about? What are we afraid of? Um, and everybody gets to come to the table and be openly candid. Those meetings are particularly not recorded, so nobody has fear of retribution or anything like that, so everybody's free to share their thoughts. But the most important activity we do from that when we focus on the past in that situation is that we take lessons learned, and we develop action items of how we would improve that going forwards. Um, and so one other thing I see here, we acknowledge the past where necessary but spend our energy building future, is really as long as we're shaping a productive use of reflecting on the past, what didn't go well? What were we trying to accomplish? How are we going to ensure that in the future, right?

41:52 What is the lesson learned in this case, and what are the guardrails to keep us on that going forward, right? Did we miss a policy? Do we need to shape the policy? Was there just a confusion on a boundary that needs to be crossed? What's the core of that? So that's what I wanted to amend there, is just really making sure that there's an action intent behind past reflection. Right? I love it. And we have a little activity on that, just to think about what has happened in the past, what that impact looked like, felt like from your perspective for all of the partner groups, and then how should we move forward in terms of recovery, get your ideas, and then press it back to the administrative team to really dig into, how do we do this

42:38 repair? How do we build the trust and relationship with our community in these ways? And then, the superintendent is committed to coming back to saying, "Hey board, here's our ideas. Let's talk about how you're involved in that recovery." So I think in some of that work will be definitely what you're thinking about, but I do encourage everyone to continue. We're not going to be able to do everything in one day, but we are going to have to continue to bring up this hard thing, to your point. Or here's what it felt like last time, or here's the activity last time. How do we build from there? Just needs to be a pattern of our behavior moving forward. So, we just wrestled and met with the agenda-setting team earlier to say, "How do we have

43:23 that forward-facing meeting, but also acknowledging the past?" And maybe there's, again, three, four meetings in the making here, because we do need to spend some time thinking about those. But I love the activity, too. That's important. I'm going to put that in my back pocket for myself in the future. And I put action focus and really thinking about learning from the past, not just acknowledgement, right? Does that capture it? Yeah, absolutely. Like I say, it's a bit more granular in the software world because you have a very definite, okay, there was a bug. Yeah. This thing happened. Fix it, great. But with people, it's very similar. I think if I need information more timely, then let's make sure that the

44:10 policy supports how do we ensure we're getting a flow of communication, right? Is that something that's been missing before? Maybe that's what we focus on now, right? Yeah. I love it. Anything else that we'd want to add or clarify, make sure that we get in the room as we lead together today? And we can change these throughout the day. We're like, "You know, we got to fix it," edit it, add to it. All right. We chatted a couple different times about the work we have to do. There's that future forward work, and there's the nitty-gritty pieces of the governance and what's happened in the past. And Jonathan, and Ken, in sharing their thoughts around what we need to do moving

44:55 forward, too, is we also need to know about, to your point, what systems maybe didn't work, or what broken routine or process wasn't quite right and didn't get the board what they needed. And unfortunately, we could spend the entire day going, "Okay, what do we do about this routine? What do we do about that thing? I would love to see this." And our team would need, our administrative team and our superintendent would need time to investigate and figure those things out and produce back that information. So we started rumbling on, gosh, how do we approach this? And really, Shawn came up with this concept of the 30-day parking lot, our parking lot ideas of what do we need to do in that short order, that 30-day parking lot, and what's a

45:42 longer-term parking lot issue that we need to deal with? And so really, we're thinking about things like a specific policy that we maybe need to address. I know that the board's interested in a student exit survey, kind of wondering, hey, what's going on when our students exit? Where are they going and why, and what can we do about it? What about our strategic plan or our budget? What about communications? How about a board attorney? Those types of wonderings that are systems-embedded concepts that you folks need to get out there so that Shawn, brand new to the district, just 30 days in, is going to have enough to work off of with his administrative team in order to

46:28 build those spaces for you and then come back to you with, "Here's my ideas." Because it's too difficult to create all day long the routine-based items. But we do want to make sure that we're hearing from you, because I think those are the leftover wonderings that sat with like, "Hey, this didn't work well, and we'd love to see it different." How do we share with our new superintendent we want to see it different, and how do we give him time to design forward so that you start to see the changes that you, as a board, are desirous of? So the first activity is one with sticky notes. We're going old school today. Mm. No digital here. Sticky notes. You get to just write all your ideas down.

47:13 And I want one idea per sticky note, and you're going to put them in a couple different categories for me, right? The 30-day parking lot. I'd love to say this happened now, within the next 30 days, the next couple of months, right? Shawn team, get on this. All right, this can wait a little bit longer, maybe the year, maybe December, but I want to see you attach yourself to this concept and get this to the board. So what we'll be doing is collecting these. I'll throw them up on the parking lot. We'll organize them a little bit, and then when we're on breaks or the like, you're going to prioritize those for this administrative team. We want to know from the board's perspective, what do you want us to attack first and how do we do it? So quick activity, one sticky note per item. It should be all in the front of your name tag

48:01 is your sticky notes, and I will collect them and we'll throw them up. Questions, wonderings? Board members, everyone? I'm happy to have everyone and board members I'm really targeting. Board members. So up to you. If you got an item where you're like, "This is something I got to know and got to get on there," it's really a board activity, but comfortable with other people Bob, questions, wondering? They're like... Getting your sticky notes when you're popping them in. Got one. Quick. You got more than one idea on there. That's-

48:46 That's an idea for a sticky. It is one idea. Yes. All right. Tell me if it's 30 or- Let's make sure we're assuming positive intent here. Good job getting one thing on there. Yeah. One idea on your- So something you want us to do quickly is a 30-day. Something that you think, gosh, can wait a little bit longer, little bit longer. All right. At the top, put like 30, 60 or something for me. Is that a 30, 60? 30. Love it. Anybody? Nothing you want worked on in the next 30 days? Again, not sure?

49:31 Can't work on it if we don't know about it. Thank you. Got a 60, got another 30. Yeah, love it. I like that one, too. Those are on my list. Everything you guys are talking about are on my list to do, too. Certainly, if you find yourself, you're a thinker, and there's a moment where you're like, tonight, this weekend, two weeks from now,

50:16 ping Sean and say, "Hey, I got a 30-day parking lot item. I got a long-term item." And this should be growing and moving as you folks learn and engage with the board, work and with the superintendent. Did I understand the prompt correctly? You're asking for the board to share some of their hopes from Sean and his team on what they would like in the next 30, 60? Yeah. Okay. Yes. 30, 60, or beyond. Beyond, yeah. Okay. Got it. Sometimes long-term parking is very nice and you love it. Oh, no. Just when I was as, as... They're not being clear. No, that's okay. That's why I was like, don't think we're not contributing. Yeah. Yeah. Because this feels like something the board- So if it's a policy you want addressed, right, you're going to say, "Hey, I want this policy addressed" or, "What the heck does policy committee look like?

51:04 I'd like to see that evolve." Policy committees, when? 30 days, 90 days. What about I want to hear about, I want to set the calendar for the year. As a board member, I want to know what it looks like, feels like, and it's opaque to me. That's something I need in the next week or two. Let's get that out. But what do you need to do well your work? Or what do you think needs to be addressed structurally within relationship? And just try to help folks get that in the space so that we can learn from it and move on it. So some of the ideas we have, capital improvement plan, enrollment

51:50 growth plan, a levy or explore a levy. Thinking about those items. How do we look at the arc of the financial situation and address it? She's got stickies. Keeps me moving. My guys have helped me. Are these the 30, 6-- If it's... Yeah, yeah. Is this the right kind? One. Sorry. We'll do parking and 60. Yeah, yeah. Takes a little time. So we want to see a staff survey. What about a parent and family committee? How do we engage with our parents effectively and know what's

52:37 happening? Report card review. I love a good report card. I don't remember that. 30-day parking. We don't need a- No, I know. Communicating effectively with families about learning. We don't need to talk about parking on 30 days. It's always important. You got stickies? It's just because it's a lot. I've been to a lot of them, and you've got similar ideas. Yeah. Four or five. Shamed him into it. No trouble. And so I'll encourage you as you're thinking through the day, because this happens to me, is I'm like, "Oh, I want that to happen. Oh, I want this to happen." Start throwing up these ideas. Leave them up so that we can make sure that

53:22 all of your work efforts... Thank you, Bob. You're welcome. Yeah. All your work efforts can kind of get into that space. You got some here, too. Perfect. Thank you. Couple more coming in. Love it. Thank you. I love the united sauce with me, too. To call your wife. Okay. All right. One minute. You guys are still working, so happy to continue.

54:23 I know as I'm starting my tenure, I've got so many things that I want to do and I'm excited about, and then I'm learning, learning, learning, and I'm charting everything and organizing everything into what's reasonable and how could I achieve it? And then 10 minutes from now, the end of the school year is going to be here. So a good map is helpful, and I definitely want to make sure that Sean and the administrative team has a map of what you're hoping for so that they can kind of deliver ongoingly, meeting over a meeting or committee over committee, and you can see that progress that you're really searching for in this space. I think Jonathan and Ken and Sean and I were talking too is

55:10 sometimes ideas need to be dug into to say, "What's a root need here? Is it an idea about how to deliver it, or are we trying to solve a specific problem?" You got to press into it in order to figure out the path forward, and I think that's an awesome opportunity for the superintendent to work with the administrator team with all their deep history and their expertise and say, "Ooh, here's our idea." And then pitch you back, "We heard you wanted this. We can do that, and we also think we could do this, this, this, this, and this." Press and pull on the idea from your perspectives to help lead the district and get to that end game and perspective. I always love to work from something, but also to make sure that we're hitting the mark with everybody's expertise in the space.

55:55 Perfect. Got one. Thank you, Fran. Anybody else? Yeah. It's kind of in the middle. That's the sticky note I have that's empty. That's not going to help us. Okay. So kind of looking at the sticky notes so far, and especially heads up to the sup and the administrator team. This is work you're going to be doing. So what about some thoughts are, what are school visit protocols? How does it look like, feel like for you to engage in your schools and in your community? And how do we know how to do it right and well?

56:41 That's a great one. Monthly report. Board on student outcomes, attendance, ninth grade on track. As I think I understand it too is if the board's responsible for setting the stage, then they have to know what's going on, and that report has to be effective enough and communicative enough, short enough. But you really have the data set in order to make operational decisions or, sorry, policy-based decisions in the space. So tasks for you folks, administrators. There's quite a bit on, we've got an interim superintendent, and what's our next steps? We want to see the path forward. It's really interesting in the last five, seven years, superintendent searches happened a lot sooner than they ever did back in

57:29 my early days as sup, right? Kind of happened in the spring. They certainly happen a lot earlier, and you folks want to see how that will play out and what that will look like into the space. I see a lot around student and staff surveys, family surveys. Making sure that we're knowing what our community is thinking, what our students are thinking, what our staff are thinking, what our families are thinking. How are we going to collect that information? Because right now we have only what we hear, but we really need a broader swath of information in order to decision-make because you want to do what you need to do for your community, but you got to know what's happening.

58:15 So that is a common theme around here. Got some wonderings too around student behavior and how that is being addressed. Some policy reviews, specifically VG. I think these ones are really important, and I think there's like the big policy. I call it big policy, big P, little P, right? Big P is like when you set a board policy, and little P is more like a routine or an action that regularly occurs. And so I see some things around like, "Hey, help me understand how we do an agenda topic. Let's make sure that when we meet that it's super meaningful and that we get what we need done at that meeting." So we both

59:01 have to know what it is we're trying to achieve, and then that it's done super well at the same time. So there feels like there's some, "Hey, I'm not sure how these protocols or these systems actually work. Let's organize them and make it really clear to everybody so we know what the heck we're doing when we come to the space or we can actually do the work together." With that is a board meeting calendar more than once. So can someone say what a board calendar, like what the goal and hope is? Is it really an information around when we meet for the actions, or is it like what's happening in the district? Help us understand so the administrators can do their work. So for me, it's a plan knowing there's a lot of regular things that come

59:47 to the board on a once a year, whatever- Right ... and having those lined out so we know those are coming, and so we can also then look at gaps or where there's time to have discussions about broader topics that aren't necessarily- Yeah ... directly a board action oriented. Yeah. So mapping. Mapping that out so that we can-- There's things I think that- You know when budget- ... topics ... committee happens, you know when- Those are going to- Yeah So you see that and you see where maybe there's room for having topics more of interest to the board or background, those kind of discussions. Meetings get full, and you need to both engage in the concept of the work at the same time that you're getting board business done, right? That balance. That's my view. Perfect. Others? Board calendar? Know what your thoughts are?

1:00:34 We have some new board members, and so I think to that goal, having it laid out on an annual basis, so I don't understand the nutrition services RFP. You can look ahead. We have what I would consider to be a pretty curious board. Love it. So, that will help, I think- Yeah ... give people a runway into the meeting instead of seeing it the Friday before the meeting. Yeah. It's nothing worse to be like, have to feel like you're making a decision, and then you've got your board packet and you're like, "Er, I don't have the information I need." Certainly, you can call your superintendent and start to engage, but of those harder, longer term decisions that you need to learn and understand, how do we cast the

1:01:20 instructional informational net, the time to have questions and answers, and then to become prepared at a board meeting to do the work you need to do? That is always, that timeline is a tough thing. And whenever anything feels like an emergency, it feels a little like, "Oh my goodness, I didn't have the opportunity to engage well enough to do my job well." And that requires a calendar, to your point, and I appreciate it. Well, and then it's also a benefit to staff in that if the board has some agenda topics that they would like to discuss, then it gives them plenty of runway to do the preparation and then hopefully get that information to board members sooner. So again, it's sort of just making sure everybody knows. And then there's also just from a nuts and bolts end of it-

1:02:07 Yep ... there's room in our calendar for more meetings. And when we approved the calendar, the decision was, for now this will be fine, but we may want to revisit, and as a board may want to add some meetings. Yeah. Or not. But at least so we all know, staff and board, here are the meetings that we've decided on and what's going to happen within them. Yeah. I'm going to add enough meetings to do the work. And then casting that net. And I see Sean taking notes, too, as he's thinking about how to navigate the operational, technical details- Mm-hmm ... to kind of get you to the spaces that you need to do your work well. So that's really helpful. Anything else on the 30-day, something that I named that you're like, "I really want to dig into that because I

1:02:54 need the superintendent and the staff to know what I'm really looking for?" Just- Can I? Go. I just want to bring in one thing. I've heard the term need frequently mentioned, and so I think maybe there's... That could be subjective. Ooh, love it. So maybe some discussion around, I guess, what that means. Yeah. When... Yeah. And it's a wonderful concept, too, of need to do your work, have to have in order to make successful decisions versus desirous of. I think those two things are very different. Yeah, that's interesting. How do you all see the word need?

1:03:41 I mean, I think there's a frustration point here, right? Where maybe in the past you've named you haven't had what you've needed, and we actually have a project in a little bit. This is what does the board need. Yeah. That where I'm hoping that you say, "I got to have information. I have to have access to the superintendent. I need to understand these things before I take action," so that we can begin to form our operating agreements based on, "I can't do my job unless..." And we could change the terminology. Yeah. "I can't do my job unless-" Yeah. "I'm here because I want to achieve something." I'm so sorry we're so close together. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're going to be best friends, Matthew and I, by the end of the day. But, yeah. I think there may be a distinction here, need in terms of

1:04:28 information, I guess need when we're required to make a decision- Yeah ... take action is maybe a different level of need than more background information that could lead to a decision in the future. Yeah. But, yeah. Those details matter. Yeah. And I think some of the pressure point, too, has been staying in that curiosity space and not assuming bad intent. Sometimes people ask questions and the wondering is, "Why do you need that? Why do you want it?" And instead it's like, "In order to do my job well, or in order to make a policy-based decision, I have to know some things so that I feel like I'm representing my community and doing my job well." It's not nefarious. I'm not attempting to get into somebody's space.

1:05:13 I have wonderings about information, or curiosities that need engaged. And that relationship between you and the board achieving that is what you're trying to obtain, is how do you have that routine? How do you have that knowledge base of how to get information, and how available and supportive is Sean in his role, or any superintendent in the future, to get you that information to do the work you need to do? I think it's interesting, this idea of need, because I'm the type of person, I want to give folks whatever they feel they need, right? Yeah. But then I also have to be able to set boundaries, because when I give you things, I want to make sure it's great. And if we have so many needs,

1:05:59 then I can't give you great things, right? And so working together, and I think this is just communication, right? Yeah. I was whispering to Jonathan, for instance, this might be a good thing to add on to our check-in guide that we've established, right? Yeah. Have a continual 30 long-term parking lot that board members can say, "Hey, this is something." And then we send that out to board members, and everybody kind of sees where we are on things. But I think that's the one thing as we're thinking about needs, to couch it in what- What is the time commitment involved in that? And I think that's where I need to work with the staff and then communicate, "Yes, we can do it. It's going to take this long." Right. And then with the understanding that we still have to run schools and we

1:06:47 do our primary thing. But a core value of mine is I want people to have all the information they need. And to someone who said it, a subjective, but if you feel like you need it to make a decision, then you need it, right? Yes. Balancing out the reality that we are trying to focus all of our resources on the school level, meaning we're trying to be as lean as we can in other places, and so there's going to be that tension. Yeah. But hear me, I want to ensure that everybody has what they need. I truly do. And often it comes with transparency, right? Yeah, exactly. That's why I say communication. Yeah. Communication, transparency. I know communication's going to be on our board operating agreements. What does it mean to have proper communication, Ian?

1:07:33 And what does it look like from your perspective and also from the superintendents? Yeah, Buff? I think I put on there work sessions. This board is supposed to work as a team, but, I think there are 8.3 billion people in the world. There are only four of them I can't talk to that's not on camera. I can't have any meaningful conversation with more than one of these people at a time- Yeah ... without it being a public meeting. And so when we have board meetings where it's 98% us listening to people talk to

1:08:19 us, and we have 2% where we can actually engage with each other- Yeah ... it's really difficult. I'd really hoped today was going to be more of a team-building activity. And so again, it's really difficult to feel like we're able to engage and coalesce as a team, have meaningful discussions in that way. Because we don't schedule time for it. We fill it up with other stuff. Yeah. I love that you said it like that and that you have described it because I think that that's exactly what happens in board meetings.

1:09:05 We rush in a couple hours to get you all the information that you need and don't create enough space for you to discuss it. And so that either happens in a committee meeting of sorts, or it happens in provided space in a board meeting. So what a challenge for Shawn and team to figure out how to design those spaces when the work that they're doing to make sure that they're not talking too much, they're sharing the air. And with Jonathan and Ken and others, too, to really think about how they engage. Am I correct, Ken, you're the vice chair, are we- No, Amber is. Oh, Amber. You were on the agenda-setting committee. Yep. Well, for this. Yeah. Just for this. So Jonathan and Amber to design with the superintendent all the

1:09:50 spaces and alongside all of you with what you're hoping for to occur. Yeah. So I've shared a really long time ago, I have dyslexia, and I was told it was debatable on whether board members can have accommodations such as presentation material delivered with board packets. That has been very frustrating for me. And it's been very hard to work with surprises and it's been hard for me to listen to my community and to make decisions with information that I have

1:10:38 to work hard to get. Yeah. Thank you so much for voicing it. And I made sure that it was particularly written down and contemplate with Shawn how we can do that. Yeah. It's something that I'm aware of and thinking of, and I'll be real transparent. What I'm used to is that boards get their packets Tuesday before the Monday meeting. That would be great. That's what I'm used to. And so that's not exactly how things have worked here, so it's not going to happen immediately, but that is going to be my goal. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. We need enough time in order- Yeah ... to call and ask you. We need enough time to read your- That's right ... next questions. We need enough time for the information in order to make decisions. So the theme that the superintendent and the administrators are

1:11:26 hearing is our prep work and- Yeah ... our timing and our delivery to you really matters. It matters to you. And in order for you to get your work done the way you want to get it done, you need that lead time. So I think that's a wonderful conversation to help them help all of you and together to design the right routines to get you what you are hoping for. I might go a little bit off script here, but like- Please ... the way I look at things is to help with the governance of a school system, kind of break things up into four quadrants, right? We have policy, we've got strategic plan, we've got personnel, and we've got operations, right? And policy, I kind of have a little parabola here, and I tried to explain it, but the policy area is really pretty much the boards.

1:12:13 There's a little delta there where we give advice and help. And great school districts, just because you have a really strong policy doesn't mean you're a great school district, but all great school districts have strong policies, right? And so it really has to be our job to give the information to people So we can make great policies. And I think we have to understand this idea of the curse of knowledge. We live school, breathe school all the time. We've been in it. I've been in 37 years. I forget things that I've done. Our board members, many of them, not everyone, haven't walked that same

1:12:59 journey we've walked. And so I think that is, when we're talking about our norms, it's assuming positive intent. That we have to assume that intent that, yes, it's easy for us and why don't people understand it? Well, because they haven't taken the same journey we have taken. And so that's why I think we need that lead time and that communication because someone will say, "I don't get it." Then I need time, we need time, to help give or adjust. Because what we don't want to have is the, "I don't get it," in the public meeting. Well, we do, to extent. I want to be careful what I'm saying. But we want our time with public meetings

1:13:44 to project, I think, a level of confidence and a level of competency. Yeah. And that's why it's important to me. Because this is the governance system we signed up for. This is what we're working in the system, and this is not across the whole United States. And then the strategic plan, that really is, that's the direction. That's like 70% board, 30% staff. And then when we get to personnel, it shrinks down, right? It's more like 30% board, 70% staff. Operations, that little corner that we have for policy, that's where we have is the staff. And so I think it's important for you to know what's in my head when it comes to this.

1:14:30 Because it's just a core fundamental belief, and I want everybody to have the right information and be able to ask the right questions and not feel like they're dumb asking them. Because believe me, I ask plenty of dumb questions myself. So I know that feeling. Anything else on that 30 day? And again, you come up with an idea, "I need the routine for that," or, "We need to address that," let's throw it up throughout the day. Because again, at the end of the day, superintendent needs to start to plan and work through with the administrative team on some, and with board leadership on some, and with all of you on the others. But casting that knowledge of you, some of you have been here for a while. All of you are from this community, and you've

1:15:15 engaged with maybe some tough times over the last year or so. And now it's the opportunity for us to design those routines, kind of fix the system. I always think about student behavior. Rarely is the cause or the reason for the behavior deemed inappropriate. Once we really know what's going on with that kiddo, we're like, "Yeah, they're upset, and yeah, their action looks like this, that, or the other." But we just kind of look surface-y, and we say, "Oh, that doesn't feel right or look right," or, "I'm not comfortable with that," or, "They need to change their behavior." But when we dig in and really figure it out, we're able to help the child get the surroundings, the information, the training, et cetera, what they need in order to make the kind of progress they need. And it's true for all humans, right?

1:16:00 We show up in the space and we're like, "Hey, well, what's going on?" And how do we get them what they need in order to communicate and participate well? So understanding the deep needs of the routines and the information for this board so that we can head out into the governance work really effectively is important. And we're going to find things that are clunky all of the time because this is massive work. And even when good, functioning, beautiful, wonderful boards that have just been doing this for a long time, we're like, "Oh, well that didn't work well. Let's dig into that and figure out how to do it differently." So don't stop the curiosity and the warm, demanding of your roles to our superintendent and administrative team because that is

1:16:45 your job. It's your job to say, "Hey, here's what my community needs. Here's what I want to see happening." And it's the superintendent's job to make that thing happen. So, we want to make sure that we give him the information he needs in order to work through it. All right. So longer-term parking lot, I'm not sure that I said an ID, but they're going to work on a plan for this. We've got superintendent search, too. So that's clearly, we know that it's going to happen over time. Attorney at all the board meetings may take a little bit more time than a hot minute to get that established and figuring those things out. What's that look like? Student exit survey, we've got it both as potentially start it now, and we understand that it's going to take some time to design and develop an effective survey. Greater community engagement opportunities.

1:17:32 So what does it look like, feel like to make sure that we're hearing from our community? What are our ideas? Allow teachers to get approval to use their own curriculum. So that's a policy decision and also a superintendent administrative decision. You've got to kind of wrestle through that. I always struggle a little bit on curriculum because there's both that policy space where it exists, and then there's also the leadership administrator space. I think it's sometimes more shared than we'd like to think, and I always wrestle with it as a superintendent. So that's an important one. Public meetings law. We can go to a million conferences on OSBA and read the rules and do those things, but we, especially new board members, they have to learn and practice into the space around what a public

1:18:19 meetings law's rules are and look like. And even if you're really practiced, sometimes you got to knock on a door and say, "Hey, describe how this works. We want to make sure that we do this really well." So let's make sure that we- Are investigating and learning over time. Chatted a little bit about the capital improvement plans, kind of those longer-term spaces. As we look out towards the future in the state, right now, we have some compression from a financial lens. How one of your roles is finances, and as a result, you want to know what it looks like to make sure that the district is safe, happy, and healthy monetarily in order to get its work done in the short and the long term. And what are all those inputs? There's technology infrastructure that needs to be acknowledged and dealt with.

1:19:06 Then there's our buildings, and your buildings are beautiful. This is a beautiful space, but the community has invested in it, and how do we steward those resources? So how do we get the information from a financial lens on a monthly basis, but also in that longer-term range, is what I'm hearing. Enrollment growth plan. We've lost 40,000 students in the state of Oregon in the last six years. Some of those are Springfield kiddos. Where did they go? We want to know it. And how do we get some of them back or get everyone to move to this beautiful city and be in your wonderful schools? So thinking about those pieces, we know that enrollment also equals finances, and so that kind of tied component is something I'm hearing. A staff survey. What are our staff feeling like? School closures, that finance

1:19:51 component again. I know OSA just put out an article around school closures as well as some of our really big districts are starting to see some school closures. So, what do we need, and what does it look like in our space? Because that's a really emotional and difficult decision, both for a school district, but also for a community, and our students who live and breathe in that community and to their schools. Schools are just a critical component at all facets of our world. Everybody has gone to school or as somebody who goes to school are all nicely tied to it. So questions like that really are concerning, and boards need to be engaged with that. So looking at the finances, looking at those schools.

1:20:38 All right. That's on our 60-day list. Anything, again, you can keep putting things up, anything you want to dive into in that space and have a good kind of meaningful conversation, make sure that our superintendent understands what you're meaning. Or maybe there's something to add, Troy. Well, I guess, is there a question Shawn has on any of those that he wants- Wonderful facilitation, Ken. Yeah. I was going to go and look and see, and then... Yeah. One thing that's striking me when we talk about our long-term parking lot, and I'm going to try and model this- Got it ... is the core work of teaching and learning. We're talking about a lot of things, and so I put up there what is...

1:21:25 Because it's something I'm interested in. You're speaking up. Yeah. No, I've memorized it, believe me. What is the student experience, particularly for our secondary students, look like so that they can graduate prepared for a really ever-changing world? To me, that is the core of our work, and I wanted to put that up there because that has to be a long-term thing. Agree. And I think so often we can get into the technical details- Yeah ... and back to what Bob was saying earlier, not enough space to engage with those broader picture items that brought you likely to this work. And it's probably less about finances and more about, I want to make sure that my community has everything it needs for its children to thrive and that we replenish our society with happy, healthy humans that

1:22:12 enjoy their world, work in their world. I just- Go ahead ... to dovetail off of his thought there. One thing that I didn't put up there initially but I'm thinking about now at the policy level, as well as administrative level, is bringing our kids into the future also means acknowledging a really painful reality that AI is probably going to reshape the education- Yeah ... landscape pretty definitely. And I don't know that we have any proactive policies regarding the use of AI for students, for our staff, and how we want to handle the fallout of basically the fact that they can have essays written in a matter of seconds instead of doing it on their own. How do we handle identifying it? What are we going to do about it? Do we want to be proactive and engage with it,

1:22:58 accept it, fold it in? That kind of thing. That's probably something that really definitely needs to be looked at in the near future. Do we just issue hammers and chisels instead of- I know, right? ... instead of for all books? When you see the nation at certain points, kind of going in certain spaces of device-free- Yeah ... and good thing, bad thing. That's a thing to wrestle with. But AI does exist. We probably all use it to a degree. I know we all experience it in the world that we live in, and how do we wrestle with it and solve for it? And that's wonderful. I love that you said that, because that's also the space where you folks have to raise your hand and say, "Hey, team, I'm hearing about this thing. What are we doing?" And then Shawn and team go, "All right, here's the plan. Here's where we need your help. Here's what we're thinking about.

1:23:44 Let's talk, talk, wrestle, wrestle. What does our community need? What do students need? Here's the information we need." That's the work, and it's so much fun, and it's so worthy, and I'm so thankful that you're all here to do it with us. And how do you squeeze that in when ODE doesn't have anything? Yeah, we have AI guidance. Sorry, we. I'm one foot out that door. Yeah, there's AI guidance, yeah. But that's about it, right? That's a decision that you folks get to make. Good man. Have to make. Have to make. Absolutely. But so many of these starts with a conversation. Yeah. So the 30-day for me doesn't mean we're done in 30 days. Agreed. So- It's like get it off your plate

1:24:29 ... but you start the wheel. Yeah. And there's just so many positive things in education- Yeah ... and if we can really be intentional about these conversations and how to address them, that's where the student preparation Will result. Okay. And that's what I love about the conversation and how it's kind of transpired, is that it's the technical pieces of how do we work together and get everything you need, because that stuff wrangles and it causes issue, so that we can get to a really awesome conversation around how do we help our children with AI. That's what's been cool about the last, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes is thinking about that and making space for you to have those conversations. So I'm new. Let me ask a little question about how something like that has happened

1:25:16 in the past. Because it feels to me like, is there an existing process you guys have gone through in the past where an issue like this crops up, like the cell phone ban, for example, right? I'm sure that was a discussion that happened before the governor signed it into law. But the putting it into practice, is there a process where the internal administration digs through, brings it up to the board, says, "Here's the recommended policy or resolution?" And how did that workflow go on? So, this is an interesting question, and I'll let the staff answer. I think a lot is driven by strategic plan and a vision for the district, and that's probably why we don't have a lot of long-term parking lot things in the, that are really student-focused right now.

1:26:02 That, when it's done well, it helps clarify a lot of these long-term issues, right? And then you can focus on the tyranny of the urgent technical things. I'm going to present to the board my ideas for that, to develop that with a person I think I gave you a little bit of a preview last night, where I think where you hire a superintendent or anybody gives you a chance to look at a district through fresh eyes, right? And I've got a real plan to do that my first 100 days with like, "Hey, I'm going to just look at stuff. I don't want to come in with preconceived notions." And then I'll present a report to the board to see, like this is what I've heard, this is why. And then that'll focus my next level.

1:26:49 So my ideas come down to three or four big ideas that I'm hearing from the community, and then learn more about that, which will then prepare us for here's what it seems the community, the board, the staff think we should have on a long-term plan. At that point, the board's going to have to make some decisions on what they want to do, if they want to pivot, because it doesn't make sense for me if I'm not here next fall to really work on a strategic plan. It just doesn't. And so that's kind of the idea. And if we do have some continuity, then my goal would be by late May, early June, that there's a

1:27:34 strategic plan that we roll out publicly and that will guide the work, and that will allow some of these things, a data dashboard. That's what I'm used to. Like real clear, this is what we're going to do, this is how we know we're going to win. So I think what we have to do is in this time of transition, we're going to have to expect some non-closure, right? We're going to have to expect some little fuzziness, right? But understand, my top priority is getting to the place that the district has a strategic plan, has a vision. And a vision is not given anybody. It's shared. We have to see the same thing. It's not like, "Here's our vision," and you guys say, "Yes, that's great." That doesn't work for anybody here. Right? And so that's my long-term plan.

1:28:20 I would speak, I guess, Matt, from my experience in practice. The policies we do have generally come down from the state or some sort of legislation or- Yeah ... whatever. I'm not aware of very many, if any, policies we have where we came up with a blanket blank slate for an SP Springfield only policy. Most of them are driven by- Law ... legislation, law, or yeah. But Ken, I can tell you, when you have a good vision and strategic plan, you find some, because believe me, we came up with policies that we had to look across everywhere to find them. I'm just- Yeah. No, you're right. You're exactly right, but- Yeah ... I think there's a sense of hope. And is it, I,

1:29:05 but- When I think about it, I guess the roles, think about like a kind of like as a road trip, right? I think of as the board and the administration kind of built the car and to a certain extent we set the destination. How we get there- Mm-hmm ... is really up to the superintendent, the route we take and so on. We may give some suggestions, but that's kind of I think really up to him or her and their staff to do that, so. I like that. And if I pull a Michael Scott and end up in the lake, then

1:29:53 that's when you know you need to get a new driver, right? Yeah. A new chief. Yes. Yeah. So I don't know at what point that a policy like that is a board-driven policy, or is recommended by the superintendent. Yeah. Because again, you have subject matter knowledge that those of us who aren't educators might not have. It was the team, and that's why the strategic plan is so important. Mm-hmm. It really is just crucial. And it's not even the plan, it's the planning is the real powerful thing to get there, that journey we take. Hey, Ken, to answer Matthew's question, do we have a policy committee?

1:30:41 No. So maybe how you experience them is- Yeah ... "Hey, here's this draft OSBA board policy. What do you think?" And you wrestle with it opposed to maybe a structured superintendent seated committee that has board members on it and staff on it, and you're reviewing the policy and kind of engaging in it, and then presenting that as an item that has already been kind of tested by a subset of board members. And then as board members read their packet, they can ask questions, and then in the meeting you rumble on it. You even have a policy committee report- Yeah ... given out. And that gets back to Bob's scenario- Yeah ... which is it can't be just us leaders talking

1:31:27 at you. Instead it needs to be how are you engaged in the work, and what's the right level, and type, and tone to engage in the work? But make sure your voices are heard consistently throughout in order to help govern. And it can't just happen in the once-a-month meeting. And you mentioned that as like we can add more meetings. There's also committees that can be designed and developed. There's other spaces that can be developed to engage you earlier in the process so that as team members, you're all on these different committees in order to do the work. Not to overwhelm anyone, but at the same time, there's methods that can be put in place. There's three of us, then they've got to be noticed, they've got to be- Yes ... broadcast. They'll take staff time to staff. Yeah. Generally, the board superintendent seated committee just has a couple

1:32:14 board members on it, and there's enough. Not that it can't be broadcast. It certainly can. And at the same time, you guys would be consistently broadcasting. You might as well open your own TV show. Yeah. And so if the board set up a policy committee, even if we only had two, that would have to be noticed, and we'd have to have streaming and all that of it. So- Versus a superintendent committee, and a small subset, a member, maybe two where you're contributing. And in those cases, teachers and administrators are also generally in that space so the board can listen and hear the perspectives of the school community. Sometimes there's parents, sometimes there's other humans, in order to have a robust discussion with all the right experts at the table.

1:33:02 So then you can come back to the full board and say, "Here's what everybody was hearing, and here's how we're thinking about it as a group of wonderful humans," and then board now, what do you think as a group? So there's definitely spaces that probably need to be pressed on. And Sean can work with you folks to design in order to get you access to information and involved earlier than what it feels like of get it done in a two-hour meeting. That's great. Other things, I love that, and I can't remember who said it, but I think it was you, that was like, "We don't expect these to get done on a 30-day or a 60 or a 90. And at the same time, we have a charge, and

1:33:47 that charge needs to be tracked out." We can't languish in this space of not knowing how to operate with each other and how to operate within the system effectively. And so these things need to be worked out quicker. That's on that 30-day kind of parking lot. I wrote 30 day. I think Sean said short-term. Yeah. You're going to the airport, you're coming right back, right? I need you to get back to us. Versus I'm in long-term because I'm taking a little bit of vacation. I'm going to spend some time wrestling out there in the community to learn and enjoy myself. So we were kind of doing that fun analogy there. But the goal here is to give enough information for Sean to track these out and push back to you some ideas with the experts in the room. And then you would still have an opportunity to continue to engage in it.

1:34:33 It's not a done deal because Sean presented. You should continue to press and pull on it. But you also don't have to sit here today and wordsmith a step one, two, three, four, five plan either because that's not, and that's what you pay your superintendent to do. Okay? I don't want to continue to steal the air, but- No ... I mean, I have lots of questions, you guys. You should, yeah. So to kind of carry on the same thing, what I'm talking about and also what you're talking about, like this long-term versus short-term all, do we have a place that is like an issue tracker of all the things that are already in motion and things that we want to add to the tracker? So separate from an agenda, which is more like what's on the next meeting, where do you guys store all the long-term status of things that are in motion? Like we're talking about, okay, let's open up a

1:35:21 policy committee on this thing. Is there a place that you guys have information that says, "Okay, that's where this thing is at currently, and these are all the other nine issues that are on the boiler plate at the moment- Mm-hmm ... and in this house." So we don't lose track of them, right? As a board member, I don't think I'm going to want to go one meeting to the next, having to literally track everything that was talked about before. I assume there's some sort of a central place that the admin keeps all these items open and are tracking their success and completion, or they're stalling out, right? I mean, do we have that already in place? That's a good question, because it's easy for me to say I don't know or I don't think we have that, but I think that would probably be a wrong answer.

1:36:06 So I'm going to let staff kind of discuss that a little bit. I guess the question is how do we know what's in progress in the district and where we're at with it? How do we report that to the board? Do we have a tool or practice already that helps? Is that part of the- And to dovetail, and if we don't, is there a preferred method- Yeah ... that information can be persisted, right, between- Yeah ... emails essentially? Maybe goal setting with progress markers or how have we done that in the past? And if we get to design one, that's a fine answer. And to give you some context, like I say, and I'm going to draw heavily on my own experience, so sorry to sound like a broken record, but with our

1:36:51 Internal structure in my job, we use ticketing systems so very similar to maybe like an IT ticket, but we have a tracker where things are listed at what we call an epic level, which is like a high vision of a project that we're trying to accomplish. And then within this epic, you have parent or/and child relationship tickets, right? So this epic says, "We're going to adopt an AI policy," right? And within that, you have all these individual story tickets, as we call it, which are like the breakdown of the tasks. And that way, somebody can keep track of where everything's at. Each one of those tickets have an individual status that says, "Okay, this is in review. This needs to be discussed and agreed upon. This is in motion. This is already done," right? And so what everybody can see at any given time, they can look at the board and go,

1:37:38 "We've got 12 major projects going," right? And this is the priority of all these projects right now. And you move them into, this is what's happening in the next two weeks, this is what's happening in the next three months, so that there's long-term planning that can happen against everything that's in motion, right? So I don't think, and I've worked a lot of different places, I don't know that there's many, education systems that have that type of exact system- Sure. Right ... because the inputs, we deal with so much uncertainty. However, where I like to do strategic planning is a little bit like that. So my strategic plan, I'm not a big fan of a five-year strategic plan because I think you have principles and then you have a one year, "This is what we're going to do this

1:38:24 year," and sometimes it's learn about this so then we can do something else next year, right? But we also, I have what we also call business as usual. And that's the listing of things we do, we already do, and we do well. It's not a priority, but it has to keep going. And what I like to do is have what I call a step back every semester or so where we're looking at how are we doing as a business as usual. Is there something track-- we're tracking it. Are we getting the outcomes we thought we'd get? And if not, then maybe it has to go in back into the prioritization status. You need-- It's hard because there's so much that requires business as usual, right? Mm-hmm. Getting kids to school safely is business as usual.

1:39:11 And that could take just take up a lot of time. So I don't know that we have everything that we do, but that's the model I like. It gets enough. There's still going to be stuff that is really, really important that we don't have necessarily a tracker on. And that's where we count on our people to do that. And within the departments, they have that type of stuff, right? Yeah. But having a universal one, it really is the strategic plan and the laying out of these are the core things that we do. I think just to add to that, I think this is some of the work that I'm assuming you all are going to dig into a little bit today. Because at every level of the organization, there's a 30, 60, 90. There's a as usual-

1:39:58 Yeah ... and then a 30, 60, 90-day plan that's in place in a kind of a quarterly review meeting at every level of the- Yeah ... organization. And that vast amount of information, if we provided that to the board, it would be overwhelming and meaningless. So there's this prioritization of which portions of that information is relevant to your work as a board. And I think that's where we haven't-- we've been ships passing in the night at times where we provide information that's not helpful to you, and then we miss providing you information that would be helpful to you. And I think that's where we need to come to some better common- Yeah

1:40:43 ... understanding of that. Yeah. Because every school has that. That'll be a focus of the retreats for the next two days, right? Refining that. And that's going to be too much at the school level. But something like that, what I think I'm hearing is something like that, of that ilk, however it looks at the district level, would be incredibly helpful, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that makes sense that it would be that way. Well, just drawing on some examples, like so some things that are longer term, right, that usually aren't like issue crisis of the day, like what's going on with the facilities committee, right? I hear Ken ask repeatedly in the meetings over a span of several meetings, like, "Hey, can we set up a facilities committee? Can we talk about walkthroughs of the buildings for improvements?" Things like that. And it's usually not a hot and burning issue, right?

1:41:28 But it's something that I would consider to be logged somewhere on a backlog of things that need to be gotten to, and maybe there's work happening in the background like, "Oh, yeah, we've already collected feedback about this building. We talked to the maintenance guy here. He submitted these things as proposals that he'd like to have reviewed or approved," right? And in that way, we don't have to bring it up at the meeting necessarily. If it's just happening in the background and it's low urgency, we can say, "Okay, yeah, in about three months time, we expect to have a report," right? So understanding kind of the cadence of how- Right ... things are. Where the information is stored. Yeah. How do I have access to that information? If it exists, great. If it doesn't, let's ask for it. And you want to be efficient with your space and time, but you also want to understand those kind of key activities, benchmarks, goals, and where we're

1:42:13 at. Well, that's it. And I come from a world where- Are we just jumping in or are we raising it? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Apologize. I figured he-- I had you, yeah, and I figured he was just kind of finishing on his topic, but I think I hear you. Bob, what do you want to sh- Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say I tend to side with more information than less information, and so it doesn't necessarily have to be directly shared as much as like quarterly review information. Could just be posted in an accessible SharePoint location, right? And that way, that's something that obviously not everybody's going to spend every minute reading through all of it, but it's available, right? So that we don't have to make- Yet another daily ask about something's interrupting somebody's- Yeah. Thank you. And I think all of that convergence happened. I think we understand what

1:43:00 you're naming. Bob, what would you add or change direction? Well, this is more granular to the original point, which was, I think that we've had a problem just in the short time I've been here where we'll ask for follow-up at a board meeting, and then it will be up to the board member or the appropriate staff member to track. Does that actually come back to the board meeting, or does that request get lost? And so even something as rudimentary as that would be helpful. Yeah. And timely follow-up procedures. And I've seen that actually in some of your data already, so that's a great sticky note. Thank you. And I- Yeah ... noticed time-wise, do we want to take a quick

1:43:47 break and then come back to this conversation, or? Yeah. And I think I just have a little activity for you to do at lunch, and wrapping this one up. And also, it's been a brilliant conversation. I'm so excited that you had a chance to engage with these things, continuing to put 30 and long-term items on there. That sounds wonderful. Amber? I did attempt a request tracker for the board just because there were so many questions that weren't getting responses to, so I started tracking. And then the year kind of... Well. So I had stopped, but that was something I

1:44:32 had put together, and it was delegated to me. I asked Heather, the former chair, if she would-- I presented that to her. I asked her to delegate it to me. She did, and so... But it's been hard to get to this year. Good. Thank you so much for that. All right. A break. I think we had a 15- It was scheduled at 10:30 for 15, and of course, now we're at 10:50. Yeah. So we'll come back at 11:10? Yeah. 11:10. And we're going to try to get back on track. Not us. It's massive Yeah. Well, you're right. And if we need

1:45:18 it, right? Yeah. Break for food and-

2:03:11 All right. I think we're back on, friends. Thanks for the great break. Getting ready to work. Superintendent Silver has just a wondering. He went to the short-term parking and the long-term parking to make sure, as a superintendent, he understood everything, and he had a question before we get- Yeah ... moving to the next item. Or it's a- A wondering? Wondering, and I think there's some things here that maybe we can even start tackling today. Two that I saw that were on 30-day, just from my experience, that can't be a 30-day thing. Report card review. If it's just to review report cards, that's one thing, but if you really want to get people fired up, teachers and parents, you do the report card review.

2:03:56 And so that would be something if the board wants us to tackle, that's going to be more of a long-term thing. I'm just telling you. Amber, did you want a presentation on how the report card works, or what were you- You know what I mean? Yeah. That was the other thing I wanted- Yeah ... is if you put that- Say more. What, what, what, say more about that? I almost brought in my daughter's report card. So on my daughter's report cards, she's not graded on any... She is graded on math and reading, and then when it comes to science, social studies, history, art, those other subjects, she's graded on her effort. So- What grade?

2:04:41 First through fourth. That is pretty... In fact, in a lot of districts, there is no grade on math or reading either. It's kind of like where they are on the continuum. Mm-hmm. And so that's why it's such a hot topic. Yeah. So if you're going to make changes, if that's something you want us to explore, we're going to have to give you lots of options and talk about pros and cons. That'd be a little bit more than- Yeah. Is it changes or to start the process? Is it help me understand how to do it here? Well, it would be nice to know what my kiddo's being taught, and I'm sorry if I wasn't being ready today to actually talk about that. No, no. It's all right. But just as a parent, and-

2:05:27 We've just- We've talked with the board- ... discussed just as a parent ... just as a parent. I pay attention to what my daughter does, and I volunteer in the classroom. And there's some materials that's just lacking in my daughter's education. I would like to ask- So that's a little bit of a different, to me, that's why I'm asking, than a report card review. Again, I wasn't really prepared to talk about it. Yeah. So I got the materials, so absolutely. Yeah. So I just would like to know how much time they're spending on science or art. I would like to know what kiddos are expected to learn and to know by the time they leave

2:06:15 elementary school. Yeah. Yeah. And that should be, I think that's a... Okay. Yep. Got it. I'm going to add something onto this. Yeah. Because that helps me a lot more. Okay. And a lot of that is in the curriculum standards that the state sets too. Which I have- Yeah ... definitely have gone through there and- Yeah. But then within that, there's some curriculum standards that are not so much important, and then there's some that are really important. In fact, Jonathan and I had a conversation about this not too long ago where with music, what'd you say, there was like 141 standards or something like that? That's- Not so much in music, but they- Or- There tend to be well outcomes in all of the subject areas- Yeah ... the eight subject areas, or

2:07:00 one, there's too many to actually do. Yeah. I don't see how you can even get to them. And the other is many of them seem to be written by college professors who maybe have never been in K-12. Yeah. They're third-tier self-actualization kinds of stuff, and is that something that we, as a parent, feel our kids need or- Yeah ... So it's a conversation. Yeah. But I had a question. When you say that's a hot topic, from whom? When I'm in a hot topic, it's been my experience when you talk about report card review and grading, you can get people... People tend to have really strong feelings about it. Mm-hmm. Teachers have strong feelings, and even within teachers, you

2:07:46 have teachers who feel like, "Grades, what does it matter?" Right? And then others like, "This is the most important thing." Others who say, "If there's a zero, I'm going to give them a zero," and others who don't. Right? And so there's so much, when it comes to grades, passion around that. And then on the elementary level, you have people who think it's a standards-based, right? And then you have parents and some teachers who feel like, no, they need to have a grade, right? This is preparing them. And so there's not a real big consensus on grades, and this is really a community type of thing. So you can have report cards all over the place across the state. There's not really a standardization of that.

2:08:34 And so grading policies and report cards are real hot topic. It had been my experience. Maybe they'll just go- Sounds like that's why we need to start soon. Yeah. Have a conversation. Well, no, but what I'm saying to me, that's not a 30-day- Yeah ... thing that I can- No, but- Yeah ... so I think it might be to what I said earlier, starting within the 30-day. Yeah. Knowing that it could be even a year conversation or more. Yeah. It should probably be a lengthy conversation because that's where you really want to get community input. Okay. Yeah. And you miss a like, if you go back from the governance space, like district performance all the way down to a student and how they experience it- Mm-hmm ... that link is what I think that we're trying to set,

2:09:19 right? Is you're saying, "Hey, where are our children? Here's what I'm noticing, like in my own life or with my neighbors or friends or from the community." And Sean team, teach us, tell us, as a board, how are our students performing? What are they experiencing? What does it look like, feel like? What are teachers teaching? Kind of all the way down to how does the performance get monitored and produced to a family at the end of the day? Mm-hmm. And kind of that thread, just so you have- Yeah ... a perspective of what it looks like for the school to operate. Mm-hmm. And so I think what sometimes folks get fearful of is that, and I don't believe that this is what happened, but sometimes people are

2:10:07 like, "I want to see this report card change." But really what you're saying is, "I need to know and understand the whole scope so that I can govern and understand." And how I experience it makes me question the link all the way from the standards and the flow of the work itself. Is that... I'm not trying to put words in your mouth- No, I know ... but I'm trying to elongate to Sean's point, here's the end product, which is a report card and how people experience it. And the governance space is- Mm-hmm ... what are we teaching? What does it look like? What are our children achieving? And how does that all trip, trip, trip, trip down to what you experience as a parent and what your student experiences as a learner. Yeah. And part of my being an elected official is I believe that

2:10:53 I need to represent my community by listening to their concerns. Yeah. Just anything they have to say, but their vision, what their desires are, and I really try to strive for that in on a campaign. I went to so many houses, and I've heard so many from teachers, substitutes, retired, to students, I mean, good, bad things that need to be improved upon. And I'm not exactly looking like, "Let's change a report card," because I'm not an educator. Yeah. This is why I want to know what kids are being taught because if the scaffolding doesn't

2:11:40 reach to the middle school, and then if they're not getting everything they need in elementary, then how are they going to be successful in the middle and the high and- Yeah ... and so on and so forth. So just what can we expect for my kids month to month with the social studies and just these things. What can I expect or community members to expect to see in these children's education? Yes. I love it. And I think because Bob brought up the exit surveys, right? I think there's a correlation between at least perception of the academic end of it and some of that 40,000- Yeah ... kids who have left our public education. It's a market now, and it used to you send your kid to

2:12:25 K-12, and that's what you did. Not anymore. Yeah. So people know they have choices, and I think it's important to address sooner. Yeah. And then even within that, you have to be careful because teachers have real... If you're telling some teachers want that, you must teach it this thin, and other teachers are going to bristle at that a whole lot and think that then administration is trying to tell them what to do, not giving them freedom to teach. So there's a lot in there. What I love about it is that you had a wondering. Yeah. You placed it on there. You said, "Tell me more about that." Yeah. And now you're listening and hearing. Yeah. And the expectation that the board has provided is help us understand what that arc is here in this organization, whether

2:13:12 that be a series of presentations and end game change, but you're going to produce back, "Hey, here's what I heard from you. Here, administrative team, here's our plan and approach." And you're going to have to prioritize where you spend your time and energy, and that's actually the last bit of closeout to that other document. I've got one more question. Sorry, friends. Let me- Along the same lines. Can you say more about behavior amongst students? Whoever wrote this No matter. Maybe a human- I didn't, but I could've. Okay. Yeah. And I've brought up basically bullying before. And there's a lot of questions that if... All of our experience is just based on anecdotes, right?

2:13:59 Right. Yeah. But it's kind of like my kid is bullied and the school is not doing anything or whatnot, and as a representative of the public, people ask me or they'll make this statement and I want to be able to say, "Actually, no, this is the way the process works. This is how it happens," and so on. So for me, anyway, it's more about information. It's like how is bullying defined in the district? How is it addressed at the elementary school, middle school, high school level? Is it addressed the same across all the elementary schools or is it left up to the individual principal,

2:14:44 and so on? Just kind of an overview of- Okay ... what does that mean? And so that- That's mine. Yeah. And I didn't write that one. Yeah. So. That helpful. I think with these two that we're seeing, knowing that I'm going to do a listening and learning tour, I think what I can do is I can generate some questions about that and about behavior when I'm talking to groups of parents. So it'll get us a step closer. That seems like a really reasonable thing. And so it kind of is a little bit in the 30 days, but it's with the eye towards the longer term. Yeah. Okay. All right. And I think just in general, it's like

2:15:29 I would think that any principal or superintendent who will should be able to, if a parent came in and said, "I don't understand how this grading system works"- Yeah ... they should be able to explain that. Yeah. "I don't understand how this"- Yeah ... "bullying system works," they should be able to explain that. Yeah. So preparing it for us is a- Well, and then if- It's probably already prepared, but you need to know about it. Yeah. Because when folks are talking to you, you'd be like, "Hey, go talk to so and so, and here's what I'm hearing." Or if it's not designed, it should be- Yeah ... is the call to action. Mm-hmm. So, you got little tiny sticky notes here, or little dots. In order to help Sean know what's next in the administrative team, at lunchtime,

2:16:14 just going over to that 30-day parking lot and the long-term parking lot, putting your dot where you're most curious about. We need to help the leadership understand what to focus on first. He's going to focus on all or come back to you with all conversations associated with this. But where do they focus their energy? So just a little quick activity at your lunchtime to kind of close that out. I love the conversation we had, and the reason why is because you folks were saying what routines and information you need, and you were also doing your roles and your jobs- Yeah ... which is the governance of this organization. That was such an important conversation. We went longer than I anticipated. Totally fine.

2:16:59 That's always a beautiful part of a day is how do we pivot. So I'm going to pivot quickly to that board governance conversation. And my first question is, from your perspective, when governance is working really well, what's the board doing? When the board and the superintendent are doing their work well, what do you think you're doing? How are you governing? What's the actions you're taking? I guess to me, if things are going well, the board meetings are a venue to be transparent about what's going on in the district. When a school district is doing well, it's an opportunity to

2:17:45 cover all those and make sure that, and show that the board is involved and paying attention. Yeah. If the district's doing well. Love it. If the board's doing well, we have time to focus on the students. So I guess, if the board's doing well or the district's doing well? Because that's- Oh, wait ... that's what I heard was initially was if the district's doing well. Right, because I think that's what Bob was saying, is like that there's not enough time in the meeting to focus on the work itself because we're just listening and hearing and being bombarded with the technical pieces, then are we really doing our job? Mm-hmm. So, there's time to focus on the health and wellness of the space, as well as the technical details of

2:18:33 hitting your marks around policy development and some of those other things. And that goes back to that meeting space is effective and that it's facilitated well, and that we've got the systems down to do it. What else? What else? What are we doing? I think the planning that is done ahead of time, and it's kind of building off of that board meetings are, if they need to be transparent. The systems are put in place to ensure communication

2:19:19 and access to information. Yeah. All right. Love it. I think to go to our operating norms, I think that the words I assume I'm looking at is both- Staff and the board are assuming positive intent- Yeah ... and they're speaking candidly and respectfully to each other. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I have mixed feelings on that. My mixed feelings are, yes, that's right, and gosh, that seems like such a low bar of things to

2:20:07 fix. And that may be where we're at- Yeah ... and I see you saying, "Let's get- Yeah ... into this other space." But I love this, and that way I wrote it with staff-board relationship is good, and to create and co-lead is to have this space where we're engaging together. I would say that the board is my most important partner because they're teaching me about what the community needs, and they're helping me to lead the district because there's so much I don't know, and I need a sounding board, and I need help, and I need all of you to help me get to that space, and that means having access to information and to all of you to learn and lead. So, you were naming earlier time to focus on students, but you were also saying, "I hear constituents. I'm an elected person.

2:20:53 I'm representing my community, and I need to be able to communicate what it is that they are needing to do, and I don't want to be relegated to this ongoing just basic duties. Instead, I need to say and share-" Yeah. "What it is that our community needs and what I think, as a community member and an elected official, needs to get done, Superintendent, help us achieve." Yeah. Yeah. And I would like to have the opportunity to have all the information at hand enough to know that I am doing my due diligence and with my research, with my conversations, that when it comes time to make these hard decisions, and they have been hard,

2:21:41 that I'm doing so with transparency, doing so with the community understanding the whys behind it. But if I don't understand the whys, then I can't communicate that to the community. Agree. Partner, I think is the key word that you said in your statement, right? Yeah. The partner. That's something that has to be- Mm-hmm ... keyed as a partnership. Yeah. And I don't quite know how to state this, but it's like there can be trust. I can trust staff without being a rubber stamp. Mm-hmm. And-

2:22:26 Mm-hmm. Well said. And I think we talked about this earlier, the pressing and pulling on us between each other, between you and the superintendent, between you and the admin. That's the cool part of governance. It's how we put all of our brains together to do great things, and the- That's not universally accepted. That's right. It has to be a venue- ... to make that happen, and that starts with relationship, and that's kind of why we're headed to the governing document. The board governance framework is often used, or it could be used poorly, right? It could be to like, "Stay in your lane. That's your lane. You don't do anything outside your lane.

2:23:12 Your job is..." And I just quickly took the OSBA's governance document, which you've been trained in, or if you're new to the group, you will be trained in because it's our premier agency that helps us, and I just put them into bullets. And so what does a board do? It establishes vision, goals, and priorities. It adopts policy. It approves the budget and allocates resources. It hires, supports, and evaluates the superintendent, and monitors district performance. It represents the interests of the community, and it holds the superintendent accountable for results. We don't want to weaponize this, right? To say, "It's a rubber stamp. You only do X, Y, and Z." Because in live action, it's a whole host of tension and details and information.

2:23:57 Now, there's this moment when boards potentially get to a space that they are doing the superintendent's work or getting too far into the operations aspect, and that can be problematic. But that partnership, that relationship of how you engage with each other, and how you get what it is that you need, desire, want, in order to do your work is the critical aspect. And that's what the board operating agreement is to do, is to set aside knowns and understood pathways and expectations between how you're going to work together in order for you both to lead together, instead of weaponizing it in one way or the other. And we see this happen in lots of boards across the world, I'm assuming. When things aren't working well, when the relationship hasn't been

2:24:43 developed well, you can trust but not rubber stamp. 1000% agree with you. When you don't have access to information because that's not your job, those things are not helpful to the relationship. And just because this person's job is this, and this person's job is this, doesn't mean that there's not a passing of information routine, understanding, pressing and pulling information requests for stuff that doesn't exist. And so what I'm hopeful for is that you have a really large operating agreement, one that I've actually never seen that large before. It's really, really big, and I think it potentially can get that way when we're wrestling with-

2:25:30 The lack of something, right? Because you're like, "I'll put that down because I need that, too. Put that down because I need that, too." Because we do lack trust. We do lack good communication cycles. We have had instances where we haven't seen eye to eye, and so we kind of self-medicate by just writing it all down and say, "Do that thing." And that's when things aren't going well. Yeah. They're not going well. And what's hard here is that we have lots of experiences that the board has shared of not going well. And so at this moment where we have to future focus, you both have to acknowledge the past of, "Man, this not gone well, and I need to trust the new superintendent and this team to do the thing." But also, that's hard. There's a tension here of not getting what we need, and the proof's in the pudding.

2:26:18 This could be double in length and not accomplish what it-- It's written from a position of distrust- Yes ... and lack of respect. And I think if governance is working well, our constituents, meaning in the broader sense, is confident that the- Yeah ... board is providing oversight. Yeah. Love it. And you can provide less oversight when things are going well, and in fact should provide. But nevertheless, I think kids leaving our system and over whatever reason comes about because our constituents do not have confidence- Yeah ... that we're providing that as a board. And I think we've been prevented in certain ways of not

2:27:06 being able to accomplish that. And what you were naming earlier on the 30-day parking lot and the long-term parking lot was, these are the things that we need in order to make that happen. And those were real specific details, and they needed to get out so that Shawn could do his work. And simultaneously, this is all threaded together because the next activity is what does it look like/feel like in words to have the big-ticket items? All right. You can have the term communication. What does it mean? It doesn't have to be 15 bullets. It can be access to timely information that is transparent, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? And we can wordsmith the heck out of it, and we're going to try not to do too much wordsmithing today, but get the concept

2:27:53 down, because we'll need some time to get those spaces in. But that's really where we want to head. We know that the superintendent's job is to implement the board's vision and the priorities. He works for you and this community, and the teachers, and all the humans in this space. Develops administrative procedures. You say, "Hey, I need this, want this." It's within the scope of my work. Use your expertise and your administrative team to show me something and help me make that happen. Not rubber-stamp the thing I did, but to design something for us to investigate because you're the experts. So you're tasking me with something. He's been tasked today with things. Manage district operations and resources. The day-to-day business, his to do.

2:28:40 And the question could still be the thread of, "Hey, here's what I received. Here's what they're talking to me about in the community. Help me understand." Absolutely. And then go do that thing and make it better, his job and your assistant superintendent and your leadership team. Hires supervisors and evaluates district staff. People will come around and say, "Hey, I don't like so and so. They shouldn't be here," all those things. You're going to call your superintendent and say, "Hey, heads up, heard this thing. Just wanted you to know." And they say, "Got it." And you see actions and work associated with them managing the system, right? And at your monthly report, you're getting the health of the district by- We don't get to say, "Get rid of this person."

2:29:26 Yeah, you don't get to say, "Out. Don't like them," right? "Don't love X teacher. I didn't like it. I saw them there, and I don't..." But you do get to say, "Here's what I'm hearing, Superintendent," because superintendent needs to know, as representatives of the community, what you're thinking, worrying about, hearing, et cetera, so that they can take that information and help to lead the district. So that's really clear. Bob, do you have a wondering, question, comment? I do. Yeah. We've talked about complaints of the board not staying in their lane. Yeah. And which I would assume that it means that the board was trying to do some of this stuff. In my experience, I haven't seen them trying to do any of that stuff, so

2:30:12 I'm not quite sure where that rub is coming. Yeah. So... I appreciate that. And I think that back to the tough times when there's tension about the information or the production and the relationship, then these can be weaponized in a variety of ways. And we all struggle a little bit here, there, and everywhere. I'm sure there's an instance on both sides where somebody didn't stay in their lane. Yeah. And this is where we have to get really clear with each other so that we can figure out how to have these conversations. Shawn had a great example. He said, "Hey, I'm hearing you, and that thing takes a long time. My experience shows me this. Dig, ask questions. I got it is what it

2:30:59 is that you wanted or what you're looking for." That's a beautiful conversation. If Amber was like, "I want to approve the actual report card," we'd be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's daily operations." But instead, the framing is, "Hey, I want to know what our students are learning and how my parents are being communicated with, and how the students are achieving in this space. Teach me about this so that I can be in my lane when I need to make proper decisions for the organization that are in front of me. But I don't understand. Help me understand." I think it's the framing of the conversation a lot of the time. More? No. No I was just going to say, we've had tort notices about... And one of the complaints from staff is the board not staying in their lane. And so I'm a little bit gun-shy on this, right?

2:31:48 And we shouldn't be, in my opinion. And it'll be interesting. The executive session, the lawyer had put together some things, had some interesting points when I read it. People can say things, but there didn't seem to be clear, specific examples of that, right? That's an idea, not a behavior. Mm-hmm. And I think we need to focus more on behaviors, right, that you can see, feel, hear, right? You told me that I must have this report card or else you're going to fire me. Like, that's all we got. I go, "You know?" Right. That's a behavior that a board member's not staying in their lane. I really think we need to look at our report card process, not a behavior

2:32:36 outside the lane. Yeah. Can I just- Please. Sorry. No. The question I have is, I guess we have the purpose of the board superintendent operating agreement. We have a contract that the board did and established with- Yeah ... the superintendent, and we have policies that the board has established. So, it seems to me there's a lot in what's in our operating agreement that is referenced in policy or in conflict. What do we want to include in the board operating agreement that's not in policy or your contract? So that's-

2:33:21 That's the question, right? Yeah, to me. Especially since our oath of office requires us to obey the policies. It doesn't say anything about obeying the operating agreement. And Bethel school district doesn't have an operating agreement. Mm-hmm. And I was very surprised when I heard that. Oh. Except their thing is, it's already stated in policy. Oh, okay. Interesting. So they make sure that policy spells out the expectations, and then we swear to it, right? Mm-hmm. So I don't- Yeah ... know how they got there, but I was really surprised when I reached out and they said, "Oh, we don't have a operating agreement." It speaks a lot to the relationship.

2:34:06 And what I've noticed in my tenure as a superintendent is, it's to get really clear on the things that we've talked about today. Right? Communication is often a theme. Yeah. And what does communication mean is generally in the operating agreement, right? And it's that access to information, it's timely access. If you start to put all those words in play where it's not, "I hold my superintendent accountable to the you didn't have this, this, and this," that's the superintendent's evaluation. But instead, it's an acknowledgement that this is, "I've told you, 'Okay, here's how we're going to behave.'" And the board's also said, "Yeah, we're going to do this thing with

2:34:53 you in order to govern well." And so could we get away with not having one? Yeah. Could we also have group agreements today, like we have, around trust, relationship, access to information? Yeah. That's the point. And so whatever product at the end of the day that y'all want, you get to create. I'm trying to monitor my air time. It's always- You had a wandering conversation, so- Yeah. So when I think about that, you're right, most of that should be in policy, but let's just even take something about communication, right? It's helpful, and I look back at my opera- I pretty much operated without an operating agreement for four years, even though we had one. To me, communication is like, it's

2:35:39 accomplishing two things. It's helping me take this big idea of communication and meeting the needs of the board and understanding, right? But it's also telling the public a little bit. To me, those are the only two real purposes. So take communication, I just look back at mine. I'll send a weekly newsletter. If there's an emergency, we'll send a text. It was more of like, "Here's the standard of operations that we all agree are fine." Really, that's all I thought it was. Because you're right, the policy, and I keep on saying, I'm going to follow whatever's policy. And I said, "If you don't like the policy, you guys have to change the policy." Yeah. You can tell that it's certainly getting warm outside because those air

2:36:24 conditioners turned on in here. Is anybody else freezing- Yeah ... that we can ask? It's always good to bring it. You're like- Come on. ... "Great." But I was nice when I came out. Yeah. It's all us with that adipose tissue are like, "This is fine." And Superintendent. This is Superintendent Eickmeier, but he's not- I was just a bunch of things. Yeah. And you look at myself. I don't know if there's a way to navi- It's not fire. No. Good. We're going to check to see if we can raise the temperature slightly. It's centralized differently. Not on emotions, but- This is our newest building. It's our newest HVAC system- It's wonderful ... so it should be possible, right? That's right. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. In this day and age, you have to kind of dress in layers, right?

2:37:09 You're outside and you're like, "This is beautiful." You go inside and you're like, "It's freezing." Yeah. Okay, so communication is often a theme. Some other themes that are generally in this space, and maybe that's the next, as we look at the timeline. Of the current themes that are in here, what do you think should be included? Again, this one feels really- ... odd because it's like a laundry list- It's long ... of activities. Uh-huh. And what I'm used to is something like communication. The agreement is we are going to communicate openly, honestly, and in a timely manner. What it means, raise concerns

2:37:55 early, no surprises wherever possible, ask questions directly, and share information appropriately. It's just something that simple because it's an agreement about the relationship, not BCBA says blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you're going to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's going to be that. And so that's, I think, the gap between what you have, which looks like a mechanism to try to figure out how to operate, rather than the relational agreement between each other. So here's-- So, just drifting into policy- Yeah. Please ... for a minute. We've gotten into some rubs in the meetings where we'll be presented something, and

2:38:42 we'll say, "Yes, but our policy says we need to do this," or, "It needs to be cited from this," and such other. And we get pushback, and my opinion is if they're not going to follow the policy as a district, let's change the policy to align with our practice. Right. Right? Because we've sworn allegiance to the policy, right? So don't make us liars by saying, "Yeah, I know the policy says X, but we do Y." Exactly. Change the policy. Exactly. So, and how that relates to this is when it says, "These are our operating agreements. The superintendent will meet with the chair and the vice chair the week before and send out a draft agenda to all the board

2:39:29 members so they can get their input and so on." Mm-hmm. That hasn't been happening, right? So it's like why do we have these operating agreements if we're not going to do them? And if we say we're going to do them, then we should do them or get rid of them. Okay. Right? But why build a box and then say, "Yeah, but we're not going to live in the box"? Yeah. But seeing this conversation, you've heard me say, and if anybody will listen, and when we ask about it, I think Jonathan's heard me say it more than anybody else, I'm going to follow what's in your policy. Yeah. And nothing else. Yeah. That's a little bit of an overstatement, but I'm not going to do something that's outside your policy.

2:40:15 Yeah. And if I'm going to say that, I then can't tell you, "It's not really a policy." Yeah. But that could be the basis of an operating agreement. We all agree on that and state it. That's a good thing for the public to know we're only going to follow what's in policy. If board members desire or whatever to change policy, then we will go through our policy amendment process. We have a policy on that that talks about amending policies. Yes. Exactly. It's already covered. Yeah. But if you state it, that if you think we're going to be fudgy on policy, you're wrong. That's really what an operating agreement would be. Yeah. And I don't know how you say this because these seem to be one way, right?

2:41:01 Yeah. The board will treat staff like this. There's not really a reciprocal- Right ... thing that says if for whatever reason the policy is unworkable, it's staff's job to inform the board so that the policy will change. Because we've been hung up more than once on policy that we don't control. But anyway. And where the flexibility is within a policy because a lot of times you'll find some-- I'll be like, somebody presented me with a policy yesterday, and I was like, "Oh, I don't really like this one." And then I was digging into it, and I was like, "Oh, I have to do it. Okay. Yeah. It's OAR, and it says to do blah, blah, blah." And then I thought, "Okay." Yeah. "I know I have to do it. What am I really trying to get to?

2:41:49 What am I trying to experience?" It's the experience of the community, of the educator that I was worrying about. Well, I could still follow policy and improve practice. And so that's that conversation of more what you were getting to, which is like, "Here's what I'm hearing. Here's what the community is experiencing. Our policy says we're going to use the state standards, and the practice in the middle is what you're naming needs to potentially be improved or looked at or whatever." And I think those are the kind of the governance steps that you're within is, here's my role, is to raise my hand, tell you what the community is saying, say what I'm experiencing, say what I'd like based on the information I have. Superintendent, staff go do the work and

2:42:35 report to us the improvement. It's those kind of back-and-forth steps that should be ongoing for you folks. Well, and I think there needs to be a shared understanding that the policy is not exclusively applicable to just the board. No. That if you're going to have policies, it's a district policy, and therefore it needs to be honored by everyone, and that hasn't happened in the past. Yeah. Or maybe even to, let me put a little bit finer point on it. I'm not 100% sure, but if there's a policy that says board members must treat staff with respect or something like that, to me, that's a two-way street, right?

2:43:20 Then that also means that staff must treat board members with respect type of thing. Or do you even go deeper and say, well, is that something that you can inscribe in policy? If trust is earned and respect is earned. Yeah. Then that's tough. Is there a metric there that you can- No. Yeah. There's definitely a leap of faith there in any given day. Fair enough. So I have effectively your policy. I know we need an area of communication, and I've heard a lot about communication today. One that I'm hearing from you folks that you may want to contemplate is information requests, because it's a clear need for you.

2:44:05 Mm-hmm. That is a clear need for you. You have to have it in order to do the work well. And so the naming of it, an agreement of it, may be helpful. But that is in policy. True. But it uses words like complete and timely. Yes. So what does that mean? What's your metric for- Yes. So- And what's timely? And timely varies by the request. It really does. And I think what I had from my agreement is information requests will follow agreed-upon processes that respect staff time and organizational roles. You named that like, "Hey, we got a lot of work to do." You ask me for something that's going to take us a little bit of time. It looks like a month in order for staff to prepare

2:44:51 for your next board meeting. Okay, that conversation happened. Request generally goes through the superintendent, right? You're not asking every party. Avoid directing staff individually. You have positional power. So to go to somebody and be like, "Hey, I need this information," is a little bit like, "Oh." But instead, you go to the superintendent, you say, "Hey, I'm really interested, and I want to know about X. Can you get me that information?" Now they can go to the staff and say, "Hey, grab me that information." I think it's important that when there's a request, I may not necessarily think, "Okay, I don't need a response right away," but it's nice to know that you hear from, "Okay, I can get you a response in a month or two months" and have something

2:45:37 that there's proactive about. Not, "Yeah, we'll get you that," but some sort of timeframe to know- Well, the operating agreement... Sorry, Bob, go ahead. I was just clarifying, Ken, do you mean when you're talking to Shawn requesting something or someone presents something in the board meeting and you're like, "I would like to know more about this." Yeah. Or "I'll get you that information." There's been those set. Anything like that, whether it's a request to Shawn or we're in a board meeting and there's going to be follow-up information based on the discussion there, that there's some sort of timeframe associated with that so we know, right? Right. On the latter one, I would love to see that noted in the minutes. Well, and it also gets back to... Yeah.

2:46:23 Yeah. But then the minutes are hard to track because there needs to, I think, be a separate system because we don't get the minutes. It could be a month or two before the minutes are finalized, and then you have to go remember and go back and look in the minutes. Yeah. It's very clunky, and on our website, you have to open up every individual minutes and read through them to find the information. You can't just search on our website for the relevant information. So I think there needs to be- Since we're talking about operating agreements, you can name in that type of thing a request to the superintendent. The superintendent will give an estimated time of being able to do, and the

2:47:11 all requests will be tracked in a document available to board and superintendent. Oh. That's an example of something you put in an operating agreement. Okay. Do it. Yeah. So if information isn't given to us, because there's been a time where there was information I didn't realize until after the board document came out, that there was information that would've been really helpful from a month earlier. But we didn't get it because somebody else deemed it in their own timely manner, and it was a big decision

2:47:56 moment for us. And I just felt like it was really unfair to make these big decisions without all the information and just three days to wrap my head around it and- Yeah ... decide something huge for our community. Right. But again, a situation like that, you guys hold the power. And you, I would say in a, "I don't have enough decision. I would like to table this, and superintendent, can you tell us when you can bring this back to us?" Or whatever. You guys control the meetings for things like that. You and I experience that as a regular conversation, a culturally appropriate- Yeah ... way to do it. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that that has felt really

2:48:43 hard and divisive to table something. Is that feel fair? I would bring up an example of when we did the midyear reduction in force. That decision, I think we got that in January, and there were implications about if we didn't make that decision, then it was going to be splitting a term or semester, right? And so then you were going to be deferring the decision, and it was going to impact kids when they're already back in classroom as opposed to during a break. And so that made it very tough, right? That would be tough to say, "Defer this till we start in the next semester." And then there's kids show up one day, there's a teacher, and the next day there isn't.

2:49:28 And that's back to the calendaring conversation, and that's what's super cool about all the things you shared is you explained the why behind the need associated with some of these agreements, right? You need information in a timely enough way. You don't want to be forced to make a decision in a specific moment without the right information because of the lack of information. Yes, and then the surprises, too. There is a surprise presentation. It's not even on the agenda. So I mean, I don't like surprises. Like I said before, I am a processor. I do take my time. Um- I don't like surprises either. I mean, to me that would be- Just standard ... yeah. Like that would be- What's on the board side?

2:50:13 Both. No, it's under the- That's why the reciprocal- When you look for an operating agreement, it's board responsibility, but where is the reciprocal end of it? This is a reciprocal. Yeah. It should be. I think it's cathartic to hear about what has happened, but maybe it's good for me to say everything we do is a two-way street for me. And so it's helpful for me to hear, and I hope I have shown that I do not operate in the way that you guys have experienced in the past. Yeah. And so I'd like to spend more time on this is what I would like to do, and I'm listening, and if I say there's no way I can do it, I'll say that. I can't imagine what you would say that would make me say that, but-

2:51:01 Or you could say, "I can't do it tomorrow- Yeah. Yeah ... but I can do it in six months." Right. Or, "I can't do it the way you're naming, but let's- Yeah ... come back and huddle up and get you- Yeah ... how to get you from A to Z in a thoughtful way in a period of time that's reasonable for our community and yourself," et cetera. I think that's the two-way. It's not a no, it's- Yeah. It's kindness and clarity. Yeah. And this is not disagreeing with you, Shawn. This is an and. Yeah. Because I, too, am a processor, right? And if I've handed something on Friday, I can read it, right? Yeah. Maybe I have some questions, maybe I don't. When I get a presentation in the meeting, that may raise a whole another level- Exactly ... of questions, right? Oh, for sure.

2:51:46 And if we're expected to make a decision, then when we're just getting at least part of the information that night, it can be very troublesome, and I can feel like I'm being asked to be a rubber stamp. So to the extent we can when there are decisions to be made, it would be nice to get the information and the presentation, the meeting before, right? So that we can ask those questions and so on, process it, and come back the next time. Yeah. You guys have such a low standard here. It really is. That's what my wife always says. Because another example of an operating agreement could be that

2:52:32 all materials necessary for the board are delivered to the board, either electronically or in person, by 12:00 PM of the Tuesday preceding the meeting. Yeah. Any deviations from that will need to be approved by the chair or vice chair. That's the operating agreement. It's getting a little too technical for me, but I appreciate- But what I'm saying- ... the routine you're asking for. Yeah. It's a little too close to what you have. But what I think I hear you saying is like we can make this happen. Yeah, we can put that, that can go into an agreement is what I'm trying to suggest. Agreed. I'm not saying that that is the exact wording of it. It's what it looks like, feels like, sounds like in the agreement. And I think that's the motion that I see at the table is that you have all of the things opposed to here are the concepts, this is what it looks like,

2:53:17 feels like, sounds like. Because this is the rumbling. This is exactly what boards and superintendents do at retreats. They say, "Hey, what are you experiencing? What do you need? Let's talk about this. Here's what I think. Here's what I think." All right, we're all on the same page. We're going to memorialize it a little bit in theme, in theory, but we're going to practice the actual application, and we're going to come back and forth and be like, "That didn't work." Yeah. "Let's fix it." And that commitment to working together is the core of the relationship that gets you to- Yeah ... successful governing. And so I think the operating agreement is almost like it's less about we follow all policies, and it's more about how do we be in relationship, in partnership with each other. Let's just memorialize this beautiful conversation. Yeah. It's not necessary. It's not required. It's a tool.

2:54:04 Yeah. And we could walk away from here and not actually write these down and come to agreement on wordsmith an actual word, but at the end of the day, the superintendent and the board knows what it means to be in relationship with each other. And that's my hope for you both is just- Yeah ... these things have bubbled up. Here's what I've experienced. Here's your new superintendent. All right, I'm hearing you. Let's put legs to this thing and change the way we do our work together so that we can achieve success for students, families, and communities. Amen. Mm-hmm. And do you mind if I say- Yeah, go ahead ... that's where we have to really have honest conversations because if you want them, we can

2:54:50 advance. Then I'm going to ask of you something, right? Because I can't ask my staff to put a huge presentation in a week, right? And so we need to establish a cadence that if you want a presentation, you're letting us know X amount of time in advance so that we can actually put together the presentation for you, as an example, right? So it's a two-way street. You want the information, which is a very reasonable, sane ask. Then it's my responsibility to say, "To get that to you, I'm going to need to know about it however long," right? That's where the two-way street comes in. And I think that's our board calendar, right? Yeah. Establishing those- Exactly. ... those presentations and- Yeah. Because in my experience, these haven't been

2:55:35 presentations that we've requested necessarily. They've been staff-driven. Oh, yeah. But again, I think I'm hearing that we all agree you need to get presentations earlier. I agree with that. I'm hearing- Presentations for decision-making- Yeah ... for the work that they do. Because there will be that annual cadence of like, "Hey, audit, the budget. This is the time of year that this occurs" presentation versus, "You have a decision to make coming soon, and you need to be brought into the conversation-" ... rumble with it a little bit, and then have time to think, discern,

2:56:20 question, ask your constituents, and the like, and then decision-making. Yeah. And I think the big idea of board policy taking two board reads is with that attempt in mind. Yeah. And yet I think the pressure is to provide information at that first read, and then the second read is obligatory when it's really intended to elongate the conversation. But in my experience, it's always like- Yeah ... okay, here's the first time, and then it's not. It's rumble, rumble, rumble. But calendaring is backing up presentation, time to think, maybe a draft policy or an action, request second read, rumbling, rumbling. Yeah.

2:57:08 Yeah. For big decisions- I think Matt had something. Oh, you're all fine. Thank you. Just absorbing the conversation. But yeah, I think one thing that I'm hearing here, and Shawn and I maybe are fresh perspective coming in from- Yeah ... the outside, right? But it feels like maybe we want to make an agreement that the culture of asking for more meetings and delaying a critical decision should just be more openly acceptable, right? Like, okay, and to take the example at table here, right? There are presentations that pop up that have this air of weaned emergency decision basically now, right? You're going to delay construction for a whole year if you don't make a decision right now because X, Y, and Z deadline's going to happen. And so the pressure on the board to act imminently is very immense, and you sit there and you look at the calendar like, oh, well, there's not another

2:57:53 meeting till a month from now, right, to make a decision. So if we deferred that, it would create continuity issues. And so it should be more acceptable if something does legitimately pop up, which it can happen, right? Production and force became an emergent issue. But it should be more culturally acceptable for us to say, "Look, we're going to pause on this decision tonight, and we're going to schedule a notice for five days from now," right? Gives everybody enough time. It doesn't push us all the way out to next month, but it gives us time to have a special meeting. We're all comfortable taking time to digest this information, maybe collect some more feedback from stakeholders, and then come back to the table more prepared. And I think that's something that historically, based on my observations from the outside, has not been

2:58:39 encouraged, that it would be more appropriate to make the decision right then and there or make a non-decision, as it were. Right. And so the pressure, I think for sticking within the confines- Mm-hmm What we've done is not appropriate as much as it is fine, let's just have another meeting. It's not a big deal. We just put a notice out to the public 24 hours in advance, right? There you go. So I love the fresh perspective because from just an operating, like this is, that's legal and you can do it, and it totally makes logical sense. And as I'm listening to the conversation, and I've had the opportunity to meet with all of you one-on-one over the last couple of weeks and

2:59:25 I love having that in my head, and I think that's the part of this that, that very operational thing makes so much logical sense, and what's underneath it is that trust and mutual respect, mutual understanding of where everyone is coming from. And then this minor adjustment of like, oh my gosh, this is way too much for tonight. We got to push this out. It makes total sense to everyone. And absent that mutual respect, mutual understanding, there's this perception and thought of like, where is this coming from? Why wasn't the information absorbed properly? What did I do? What are you doing? What is the nefarious

3:00:11 underneath part of this? And from my perspective, I think that's what people are experiencing from this really innocent concept of like, holy cow, we need to delay this. It's all this yucky stuff that exists underneath the surface. And as we get rid of all of that, then that operational piece, super easy, simple, makes total sense to everyone, including the public. Yeah. Absolutely. So I guess one other quick thought. It just feels like when these things come up, it's all on the board, right? It wasn't about what were the steps that got us to this point where we need a decision tonight, and then, and so-

3:00:57 Yeah. And actually, I'm sorry that it got to that point. Brian heard me say this in our last leadership team meeting. I said everybody has a part in a mess. Maybe your part's 1%, maybe your part's 48%, but we all have to look at things, I call it the after action review, and say, what was my mess, and how can I fix it when things happen? But from my perspective as superintendent, if I feel something's urgent and needs to be passed, but you guys aren't comfortable, my only job is to say, "Here are going to be the implications of it." And then you, as the decision-makers, decide if the implications are... And I don't do that in a finger-wax thing. That's why I like my little decision point memo because it clearly lays out the

3:01:42 pros and cons of every option you can do. Yeah. And then you guys make the decision on is it worth it or not? Because I'm not... Well, I do, but I don't hear the feedback from the public and the teachers to the extent that you do, right? We have to appreciate that. And Bob, how's it going? Yeah. I think in terms of scheduling the meetings, and I don't want to dwell on the past, but we've gotten the, "Oh, you have no idea how much work," because we have to arrange for Marty to be there, and we have to arrange for someone from the translator, and we've got to have IT there, and you've got to reserve the room. Right. And it's a whole lot of work to... And I'm not

3:02:27 minimizing The work involved, but we have been kind of guilted into not scheduling additional meetings. And I hope that can- Yeah, I agree. I think what I talked about also with Marty is getting a sheet of this is all the steps we have to take, and just this information. And so the goal would be however many days out. But things are always going to pop up on both ends. So if we have something that the state all of a sudden we have to do really fast, that's when I talk to the board chair, vice chair and say, "We have to do that. You guys can make the decision," and vice versa. Saying, like, "I realize what the timeline is, but

3:03:13 this is critical and do all that you can to get it for this next meeting." Yeah. So a couple other thoughts on that too. And this all boils down to the high level. Lack of information leads to surprises, surprises lead to bad decisions, and so on. Lead to more meetings, potentially. But if it becomes apparent, and maybe this is the case before. If there's not enough resources at your disposal to be able to get things done consistent, like your team is overworked. We can't fit this extra thing in constantly. We need to have you surface this to the board- Yes ... and say, "Hey, look, we need to approve budget for additional help." Like, obviously we're not getting to these things. We could use an extra man or two in the system.

3:03:59 I could use another officer that could be in charge of these things. Surface it. You know what I mean? We can't help what we can't see where the problems are, right? Yes. And I think that's one of those things, that we want to make sure that we're funding things for the system we want and not the system we have. Obviously, budget is fairly a problem. It's not like we can just willy-nilly spend things, but if it means being able to do things more effectively, then we'll find a way to spend it, if we have to do things like that. I think that's the more appropriate way is like, well, let's just accept the reality that we're overburdened. Well, okay, how do we become less burdened? Do we need to change process around? Do we need to hire people? And so on. So I think that's one of those things we've got to be comfortable asking each

3:04:44 other, "What can we do to help if this is a problem?" Mm-hmm. And so that's- And telling the truth ... effective change. Well, yeah, exactly. We just can't do, we don't have enough. Okay, well, how do we get to that stage so the next time we meet, what are we doing to improve this so that you're not having your team overwhelmed? And then the other part, to Bob's point, like the scheduling thing, and I don't want to sound heavy-handed or dismissive, but at the end of the day, ultimately, if we're talking about community-wide ripple effect, we're all I assume exempt employees that are salaried that we're talking about involved here. It's just part of the job. Like scheduling's going to have to happen sometimes. If we're talking about laying off 30 teachers and we're asking for a second meeting three days later, I think it's pretty

3:05:29 reasonable that everybody make time in their day to show up. My job where I'm at, you're on the clock- Yeah ... pretty much all the time with certain expectations for emergencies. So if we're talking about delaying something because of an emergent decision, I think it's a comfortable thing that we should all agree that, yep, that's something that we got to just move stuff around and make happen. Yeah. And not be afraid to ask for those. Yeah. So a couple of points in response. I think we're operating from sort of a deficit model- Yeah ... currently. Yeah. Our experiences, and I think a lot of the things that we've even talked about today will help address that. Yeah. The surprises, the moving the meetings back, and being explicit, not just sort of a hope and a prayer kind of a thing.

3:06:17 The other thing is from a financial standpoint, what we're talking about now I think more clearly articulates the conversation that we need to be having with our legislators around the overall budget. But right now, there seems to be a lack of knowledge at the legislative level. They think it's a big number, and it is a big number, so they're justified in saying, and the public goes, "Oh, I think it's a big number, so it should cover." But we have to really be able to articulate the specifics around if we have this money, or here's what we can't do because we don't have the money. Mm-hmm. Because I think the message is the same from similar districts. That's the bigger picture stuff that is also, I think, a board's responsibility,

3:07:02 the upward advocacy. And as we enter this next legislative session, it's a two-year biennium, so this is where they determine the dollars, and this is where we have to get our message together. I think it's been sort of a, "Oh, we don't have enough money, and we just need more money." And when you have so many competing demands at the state level, I think that's a- One last candid, and hopefully on the air of positive intent here, but the amount of money this district has spent on legal counsel discussing issues amongst themselves easily could've justified the salary of additional help to facilitate the transfer information. So when we talk about the operating agreements, the importance of it, I

3:07:50 think there's always a budget for what you want if you are willing to look for it. And we all work towards the same goal, so it's just a matter of where our priorities are. And I think our priorities from this meeting are pretty clear. We all want to move forward into the future with, like, "Hey, these are what's going to make us all effective." And just keep that- So better communication and then doing things like job ticketing everything and tracking and all that, so you're not wasting effort on things that you talked about two months ago. And I think a lot of these ideas that we've put up here, I think are going to really help. One thing that also to talk about advocacy is one of the reasons why it takes such a long time

3:08:36 To get a meeting together is because of state law that says you have to do all these things if you're going to have a legal meeting. Yeah. And I think that's the push you're hearing is, and so that could be an advocacy point from the board. Like if we have to have an emergency meeting, give us a little bit more flexibility, or something like that. I don't know what that exactly looks like, but that's really when you hear the pushback, it's like the laws that the Oregon currently has makes it really hard to get there. I think it's back to the conjunction. Yeah. It's a yes, and. And. Right? Right. It's okay to use the... And it should, we should inform the board directly like, "Hey, here are the conditions under what you're asking to do,"

3:09:23 but it's an and, "and here's how we get it to you." Yeah. Or and, "Here's how we do it." Yes, there is- Right ... there's policies and laws associated with meeting governance and, but yes, we can get a meeting together. Oh, sure. Yeah. In this case, we need three days. In this case, we need five days. Transparency, transparency. Sure. Not weaponizing- No ... this is how we do it, right? But I think what I hear folks saying is that the pressure, the culture, has been pressure to act, pressure to not do or not act- Yes ... based on the conversation and with the lack of the conjunction. Yeah. But- Like that. To your point, it's very difficult to-- It takes some planning to schedule a meeting. It takes no planning to cancel a meeting.

3:10:09 If you calendar a meeting every two weeks- Yeah. Yes. It's quite full ... and cancel the ones you don't need, that's a lot easier than trying to add one kind of ad hoc. Mm-hmm. Okay. And people love it because it's like, "Oh, we got the night off." I would say staff and we love it, but I think it also then can result in some confusion- Yeah ... with the community if you're- Certain ... scheduling and then continue. We've had some situations in the past where they were canceling, and people showed up and yeah. Yeah. And so- How do you get the word out? I think there is a cost to- There, yeah. Can be. Generally, again, if the communication is in place- Mm-hmm ... then you give everybody plenty of notice. And that can even be a board agreement around we won't cancel a

3:10:56 meeting without X number of days or- Yeah. Yeah. Or the off-cycle meetings, you just board meeting, 10 to 10. Yeah. Right? So they know that. You know how some cities do like work session, board meeting, work session, board meeting. It's still public. You don't take action, but you're working. Yeah. So wondering like how do you- That's kind of what we did for this year. Yeah. That's the year upcoming because we've kind of done that. I think the hard thing that we're looking at now is because of vacations and time off, like in November, December, those were the toughest- That may be a hiatus of- Yeah. Yeah ... of the system. Yeah, but that's generally what I'm used to is basically a executive, I mean a work

3:11:41 session and a decision session. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can I just get a quick time check so I can tell- Yeah. Yeah ... people when they need to be back? That'd be probably good. Yeah. Yes. No, that's helpful. They were thinking 12:15. Um- I think we're scheduled for lunch at 12:30, right? 12:15. Is it 12:15? It's 12:19, and maybe your stomachs are rumbling. We've had a wonderful conversation. I do- Must be an old schedule ... think we need some more time to look at those themes and the conversations I'm kind of merging together. My original plan was to work while you were eating to try to get to a document. But we're not there yet, but that's okay. So just kind of looping back around, key theme, communication, lots of details under there. Effective use of policy,

3:12:27 doesn't need to be detailed up to the Nth degree, but we're going to effectively use it. Information agreements, and I think what I heard inside the information agreements section probably can be hit in multiple arenas. But definitely timely, transparent, following an established system that we need to create. It generally goes to the superintendent, avoid forced points is how I wrote it, was like, "Don't force me into a decision. Be planful." Like that's not cool. Help me do this work well. No surprises, that kind of thing. Trust, respect, relationship, trying to figure out around like do we have a section on that or do we weave it in somewhere? Because there has to be a good trust, respect,

3:13:14 relationship for the culture to build so that you can even do all of these things. But maybe it's separate, maybe it's together. Governance roles, real simple. You're all going to honor and respect each other and do the things that you're tasked with doing as elected members and hired leaders. Meeting conduct, the culture aspects including making it okay to ask questions, delay, have information that's needed. Maybe that's merged. Maybe that's together. Accountability, I heard a lot about like co-ownership of the agreements. Fiduciary responsibility, really holding ourselves accountable, you to helping lead the community and the work, and the superintendent to get the work done.

3:14:00 You said student-centered. We haven't dug into this, and I know your why is for the child at the end of the day. There's probably a focus point, whether it belongs here or not. I think your goal at the end of the day is to make sure, based in Brian's presentation and everything you said, is you want children to have the best possible scenario to live, learn, love, be happy, and be productive members of society. So is there a student-centered section? Maybe, maybe not. Continuous improvement. This can't be a one and done, and I know your superintendent believes that, but we are all committing to some kind of mechanism where we're, something didn't go well Talk about it. Yeah. Let's talk about it, and let's fix the system, whether it be a policy, a

3:14:46 routine that didn't work, a situation happened in the district that you're like... It could be an ice storm. It doesn't have to-- It's like, "Oh, wow, our policy didn't work. We got to adjust this." Or, "Hey, this thing occurred. Let's talk about it." That we're not scared to have a good, courageous conversation that is transparent and honest to our community. We're not brushing it under the rug. We're having a conversation, and we're moving to fix it for the future. That kind of thing I'm hearing themes around. So, we can continue when we come back to kind of rumble in these spaces, and then decide. I'll do some thinking around how we get from here to the end of the day to make sure that you felt like you've

3:15:34 had a lot of progress and you know what to do next. And we told the folks to come back at 12:40, so we have a little time. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, we have a few more- Or we text it ... more time. I didn't know how hungry you folks were. Well, they might be. The only thing I'm seeing, this is a really good outline. The only thing, and it might be under communication that I'm not seeing, that I'm looking at the ones we gave as examples, is complaint processes. Like when we get a complaint from a parent, when you get a complaint, an anonymous complaint. I don't do well with anonymous because I can't. I want to know about it, but if I can't respond to you, then there's really no complaint. Well, we have complaint processes, but for me, part of the communication is public comment or in whatever

3:16:19 fashion. So people, number one, feel acknowledged. Mm-hmm. Number two, if some kind of action was even semi-requested that we get back to them and we bring it to closure. Not necessarily agreement, but at least closure and that's, for me, that's sort of lacking. Yeah. Then to me that's a little bit different. So let's say I'm going to, "Hey, my child's being bullied at this school." That's complaint they tell to you. Then what's your process? You're like, "Well, I'll certainly let the superintendent know. Please let me know if you don't get a follow-up from the office." Something like that, just having that spelled out in the board agreements, or if we're going to the operating agreements. That's the only thing I'm seeing is missing. Yeah. Or, yeah.

3:17:04 I don't even know if this is legally possible, so I'm throwing it out there. But I'd like to see something where if a district employee has a complaint against the board, that it's a coaching opportunity for you, that it doesn't automatically go to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission- Yeah ... or the governor's office or whomever, right? Have to. Because it's a communication problem, I think, that ends up becoming a judicial problem. I don't know how that works, because I'm not wanting to restrict anybody's free

3:17:49 speech, and everybody has a right to complain about their elected representatives. But at the same time that some of those processes are being weaponized, and it's taking a lot of the board's time. Mm-hmm. So I'm just going to leave that. You don't even have to comment. It's like co-ownership of agreements, actions, and learnings. They could probably fit there. It could also fit maybe in continuous improvement to a degree- Yeah ... around what's happened and how are we learning from it?

3:18:34 What actions are being taken as a result of that learning? And can our superintendent and the board commit to analyzing a situation and saying, "Here's how we're going to improve." And a lot of times in the sector where we analyze an individual incident, like a safety issue, they call it a hot wash, right? Where you kind of go back through and you look at all the pieces and you say, "Hey, here's the improvement space." But it does take co-ownership, right? It's not one person's responsibility or another. You're also, I think, wondering around like a lot of these things hopefully fix some of those end results you've experienced, and they likely and still exist because we're all humans in this space. But it's that proactive processing and communication and things that really decrease the likelihood that

3:19:23 those types of behaviors exist, whether that be staff, student, teacher, colleague, et cetera, is because we've been honest, transparent, we've had good conversation, and we've stayed in communication- And that conversation- ... relationship ... is the key- Yeah ... to having that. Because sometimes there's things in legislation- Mm-hmm ... that we might not know is a constraint. But once we know, we also, again, as a board, we have the ability to go to the legislators and say, "Unintended consequence, but here's the ramification. It's public meeting law, serial communication." There's so many things that we

3:20:08 have problems with or disagree with internally, but then we don't go to the next step, which admittedly can be hard. But letting our legislators know. They tried to fix the public meetings laws in this last session. Okay, it got shot down. Does that mean we go away, or do we come back and refine? House Bill, is it House Bill 141? The accountability- Yeah ... thing? Unintended consequences. I don't think they really understand that in a time of tight resources, what does that cost? It just sounds good on paper because it's only on paper, right? So- I think these kinds of things are the things that it's really important to have full information so that we can be a

3:20:53 board that makes things happen. Yeah. And I put it on the long-term parking lot. It's probably more of in the middle. There's intermediary parking, maybe, is the legislative plan. I don't know what your history has been in the agency around the legislative plan. I know that Shawn's already attended meetings in his 30 days on the job around legislative advocacy. And so how he engages with you on legislative advocacy and that plan that you want for him, and he's suggesting for all of you, is, I think, important. And it's no different than this space, right? We make decisions based on the information we have. It has to go up, right? It does. Yeah, we have to be able to communicate to the next level up what we're

3:21:38 experiencing, what it looks like, feels like, and what changes we need. And you've got to be a part of that process is what I think I hear you both saying, too. And you have to start early because just getting the information is one thing, but also if we're going to join with other- Uh-huh ... districts to carry the same message of. The history has been ad hoc. If a board member wants to go up, then they do that. Yeah. Or you happen to know your legislator, you meet and have breakfast with them. But I think it needs to be more strategic and purposeful. I think that was one of my big, huge ahas when I went to the Oregon Department of Ed as a school superintendent, that somebody brought something forward, and I was like, "Okay, let's do that thing." And they're like, "Okay, we can do that in 27, 29." It was four years ago. And I was like,

3:22:25 "27, 29? What?" And they're like, "Oh, here's how the system works." We were talking about the state's budget and the Department of Ed's budget a year and a half ago. The legislative policies and processes for agency started six months ago. And then you look at the timelines of where agency has an ability to take action, governor has ability to take action, and then the actual legislators. You got to know those points because it's a lot. It's not when the session is happening necessarily. Changes can be made during that time, but this stuff happens way early, and understanding that was just super eye-opening for me as a school superintendent. And now in this seat, I'm like, "Okay, I've already presented to my

3:23:12 board the draft legislative plan to say here's how I think we should, as a agency and potentially as a community, to respond to this." I'll be going to the superintendents' council, which is us, all 16 suits, to say, "Hey, team, how should we do this?" And then you folks are doing the same thing, is saying, "Hey, team, how does this work? Superintendent, here's what we need from you." And so I think it's awesome conversation and a beautiful place for you folks to be in, in terms of the conversation about how you move the dial for your community. I love it. It's awesome. I think something that's not, and maybe it's going to be on there, but school visits. Is that something that goes on here? Yeah. So maybe that goes in student-centered, or it goes in some kind of process, because that's a system that you utilize.

3:23:59 But an agreement is the board needs to visually observe, see, not to evaluate, not to do those things, but to experience their school so they know what it looks like. How do we do that effectively? Mm-hmm. That's the wondering, right? Yeah. You're not trying to do anything naughty. You're trying to get to be in community in these spaces so you understand it. With equal access- Yeah ... along with equal information. And when you say equal access- Yeah ... can you share more about what that means? Yeah. There was a board member not too long ago that had access to going to schools, do school visits, and I have been asking since last September to visit schools.

3:24:47 In fact, I got accepted at the university last year, and I chose to do school board instead, and I'm so glad I did. However, I was really hoping to just pour myself into it by showing up to schools, three schools a week. That would be great. I was told no due to bargaining, and then, yeah, there's a big mess behind that. Anyway, I've been trying to get into schools, and it's only been accessible to one person. Information has only been accessible to one person, which we would find out at board meetings that they have this information that would be like, "Wow. That's amazing." Awesome. Yes.

3:25:33 And part of the challenge is we have conflicting policies. One policy says we have to coordinate all visits through the superintendent's office. Another policy says we simply have to inform the superintendent's office. I know. And beyond that, that's a restriction placed on us as a board member. I could, as a district resident, go to any school and say, "I'd like to have an appointment with the principal. I'd like to meet with the principal," and I'm allowed to do that. But because I'm a board member, I'm not allowed to even have my rights as a citizen.

3:26:19 Mm-hmm. Right? Where does it say in policy that you can't go to the principal and ask for a meeting with the principal? I think that's all school visits have to be coordinated through the superintendent's office. Mm-hmm. Which the board operating agreement, typically, I'll say that that's what I'm used to, is that if a board member wants to visit someone or see something, they ask their superintendent, "Hey, I really want to go visit elementary schools. I want to go on a tour. I want to know about this. I want to see this facility," and the superintendent makes it happen. And that is what I'm used to, opposed to a board member just knocking on somebody's door saying, "Hey, I want to come tomorrow." That's just a transparent easy process to

3:27:04 utilize and keep everybody on the same page. That's my experience, and it's pretty universal that they go through the superintendent. But what feels confusing, and I added it to our 30-day parking lot because it's a routine that needs to be fixed or a procedure, is are there conflicting policies, and what does the process look like to the board to have the access to the information they need in order to get to student-centered success is to access the school's information? How does that occur in a really reasonable and effective way? And I'm hearing you too, Bob, in terms of like, "Hey, I'd love to knock on a principal's door as a community member."

3:27:49 And there's something about putting that governance leadership hat on as a board member that changes the game. And I guess I don't know necessarily why. I don't think it's a law per se, but I think it's a relationship thing. It's a trust thing. It allows the superintendent who's in charge of the implementation of the work and is directed by you to have clear understanding and access about what your goals are and what you're trying to achieve. It also feels really strange just as a building. I've been in an administrator role before. You're not their boss, and yet you have some authority in this really funky, in this way with the, in this case, principal, but I was a special ed director, that it feels

3:28:35 kind of scary. And so it helps until the relationship is built. It is helpful to have that triangulation of, "Hey, heads up. Bob let me know if he would love to see your school. He's going to give you a call." "Awesome. Hey, I heard you want to see my school," blah, blah, blah. "What do you want to know?" It can be that simple. And it's- But there can be other ways to do that, because my experience has been that if a board member wanted to visit a school, they'd give them a heads up- Yeah ... an email, a phone call with a courtesy to the superintendent saying, "Hey, I'm going to stop in." And the reason that's been given for not being more spontaneous is that it does send shockwaves through the school.

3:29:22 It does, yeah. But it doesn't- Oh ... if you're there enough. Oh, okay. And that's a lot of this has been- It's a culture thing, like the atmosphere and culture around those visits. Yeah. If you're just sort of wandering the halls, looking at the artwork, and maybe popping in, saying hi, saying thanks to the cooks because everybody else is in class, then it's a different thing. And many teachers, they just did a, it was somewhat of a brief survey, but 97% said they had no problem having a board member come to their school. 61% said they'd like to know. 61% of that 97% said, "Yeah, a heads up

3:30:08 would be nice." Yes. But I think they're not understanding that we're not there to evaluate. We're there to see kids, to take interest in their school. It's building community. Mm-hmm. And so- So, did I have something to say? Oh, sorry. Oh, go ahead. Go, Bob. Well, and just- Go ahead ... briefly to Amber's point is where it becomes a problem is, yeah, you're a big cheerleader. I'm going to schedule. You can go to any school you want. Mm-hmm. You're kind of a troublemaker. Back to culture. I'm going to stonewall you. Well, yeah. And I don't necessarily know that up till this point that it has been- Yeah ... a roadblock more than a-

3:30:54 Right ... facilitation. Agree. And that's always, you'll see even Shawn and I kind of going back and I'm like, "Oh, this is foreign to us," because that's not how we've experienced our superintendent leadership. And the truth of the impact of what's happened in the past is it's felt like a barrier, or it has been a barrier, and so then it feels scary, and then it goes back to assuming good intent. And I think that this conversation is that emotional conundrum around relationship, past practice, and the need to understand the system so that you can do it well, and the trust that leadership takes to allow you in the space in a way that feels comfortable and relationship driven and all those things.

3:31:39 And unfortunately, the culture and relationship have been broken down enough that that's not the case, and it's about barriers. What are your superintendent thoughts? Yeah, my superintendent thoughts are this. I think if there's a school function or something like that, we'll have it, like they're doing the Pancakes for Papa or something like that. We'll have that on a spreadsheet calendar, and you can feel free to go. If you are just popping into a school to see the artwork and not going into any classes during instruction time, letting the superintendent know and all that, what I don't want to have

3:32:24 is board members popping into a classroom disrupting classroom instruction. Because that can happen, me popping in a classroom can disrupt classroom instruction. If a teacher invites you, a staff member invites you, then you should go because they're inviting you. What we don't want, and we wouldn't let anybody in the public do this either, just walk through a classroom and say, "See what's going on." If you want to do that, like I'm concerned about the reading instruction, that's where Brian, I, or someone on the team will go with you. I am, too. Let's go visit these classrooms. And so- If we can come up with something around the idea of, if a staff member invites you, let me know. Make sure that it's not going to be disruptive to the principal.

3:33:10 If the principal says it's disruptive, then you can let me know, and it might be a reason, right? We're going to trust them, and if it happens too many times, that's for me to figure out, right? And if you want to just go and walk around, say, "Hey, listen, I want to go. I heard there's the art installation," or whatever, I think that's fine, too. We don't want to do anything that could disrupt instruction is my biggest thing. Well, and recognizing that the principal has so much work to do- That's right ... on a given day to... It is true, right? Yeah. It's true. Partnership's kind of a weird word. But yeah- Yeah ... the balance, the give and take of monitoring of the student population and doing their evaluations and do these things, and they're going to pause to help you move through the system because of course they're going to.

3:33:56 And then how do we have people proactively in the space and doing all those things? And this can be worked out. Yeah. In my opinion, this can be worked out. We just have to organize it around in a really clear and concise way, and it not to feel like it's always a no, that's a problem for you. Not today, because today is, I think you guys mentioned this earlier, today is state evaluation day. Yeah. We've got kids running all over doing testing. Probably not the best day, but guess what? Next week is beautiful. On Thursday, blah, blah, blah. What do you want to see and how do you want to see it? Yeah. I think that- Yeah, I was invited by... We all were at a public comment where a teacher came in, and she had 16 other teachers sign a

3:34:42 paper stating that they wanted us to come and visit their classroom, and that was last year. Yeah. Yeah. And so I don't have- And they did ... an issue with that because the teacher knows you're not disrupting. I want to protect instructional time. Well, as much. That is key, right? And- And so do I ... people are going to really... Because it's not done. If you would start just popping in classrooms, seeing what's going on, that would really freak people out. They might not say it to you, but it would, because they're not used to it. What I'm wondering is the need, the level- Yeah. Why are you doing that? For me, my wondering would be what's that level of need? Yeah. Because is the goal to learn what, right? Right. And to listen. Is it to listen? Is it to learn? What's the right opportunity? What are you trying to achieve? Let's make sure that the

3:35:31 experience is appropriate and the frequency is appropriate enough to get you what you need, but not get into the operational work, which I know that's not what you're saying- Yeah ... at this moment. And I think it sounds like the difficulties of the past have become the thing that we're talking about, rather than, "I need information, and I want to be communicating with the teachers and see kids, and I want to take my role seriously and learn and be in the space so that I can see it in my own brain"- Mm-hmm ... when you guys are talking. That's so different than you can never come, or some people are treated differently. Yeah. And I think it's- Well, if you want to eat lunch with students during the lunchtime- Yeah ... I think that's fine, too. Fine. All right. Do we need to do a schedule check? I'm aware of- Okay, let's do it. Yeah. But I'm just-

3:36:17 Bring yourself- Yeah ... go to lunch. I just want to make sure. Yeah. Yep. I love it. I love all of us teaming on this. So I think at this moment we're pausing, and how long is lunch? Because I don't have my agenda. How long do you want lunch to be today? Are we eating lunch and then coming back? No. Okay. I think it's a- Yeah ... different break. Yeah. So do we want to move towards... Can we do it in 40 minutes, friends? Oh, yeah. 40 minutes? We had an hour planned. Yeah, I think we did. It is... What's our last thing? Anybody have a problem with 40 minutes? My son will be trying to- I don't ... do the end time. Okay. There we go. Activity? Great. Thank you, everyone. I don't know if we're going to do that or not. Lunchtime. It's not calisthenics. Yeah. Okay.

4:21:58 Three, two, one. So, there's a saying that I saw a long time ago that the Greeks wrote, which is, "Man plans and the gods laugh." Where the plan that I thought we were going, we're not there yet. And that's okay. I think we've had real productive conversations. So we're still in the point where we're looking and talking about agreements. And so I want to be respectful of people's time. If you have other things to do, please go and do. That's fine. If you would like to, at some point,

4:22:43 we may be talking about getting the agreements into action, and it'd be helpful to have some other voices if you stay, but I don't know when that's going to happen exactly or even if it's going to happen. I hope so. So I'm going to leave it up to you. If you want to go, that is completely fine. But nobody should feel like they have to go either. There's nothing- That is so foreign. So I don't know if I'll do another analogy like The Clash, "Should I stay or should I go?" If you go, there will be trouble, but if you stay, it might be double. We're staying. Yeah.

4:23:29 But if you stay, there'll be trouble. No, if you go, there'll be trouble, but if you stay, it might be double. Well, that sounds like- Double trouble Yeah. Double trouble. All right. So we'll get started. That's it? Yeah. Thank you. Shawn is doing analogies and in my family, we call it punting because we're a big football family. So you made a good plan, and you may, in fact, get to a space where you've just got to punt the ball. Yeah. And so we punted a few times today. Yeah. And- Get started ... I think at the end of the day, the goal is to make sure that we had the conversations that we've had, and that's been critical and important. Whether we get to the actual pretty document is really the point. The point is how do we wrestle with the relationship,

4:24:15 the board superintendent relationship, and how we interact and board members have access to and interact in the space that we're in. And all of those things have happened. It's been positive. So that feels really good. The punting part is- Mm-hmm ... two or three of the activities you all got out of- ... because these have been rich discussions. What the goal was at lunchtime was for me to take all this information and type something up and for you to review it. That didn't happen because we're still having awesome conversations. So my current thinking, and I want to know what your input is, is that let's continue to rumble on what it looks like, feels like in terms of the themes of the operating agreement. We'll collect all that information and then actually produce the pretty

4:25:00 document for you guys to modify, edit, adjust, wordsmith at a later date. It's really about the understanding of each other that really gets us to the end game here. So that's really what we were thinking. How'd that feel? Are you going to need to have it all typed up today, or do you think that as long as we get the themes down and the intent behind the themes, that we can take a hot minute after this meeting to type them up and then make sure that we're coming back to the table? I don't want to force... We've had that conversation today. I don't want to force the agreement. Instead, I'd like the development, and that it may be just another day that the agreement gets typed up. How's that feel?

4:25:45 Worries, concerns, nervousness? That works for me. Yeah. Yes, Evan? I didn't have an expectation that we were having some sort of formal agreement- Love it ... out of it, so I'm great. You're feeling good. I'm feeling great. Bob, how are you thinking? Fine? Yeah. All right. Anybody else? Amber? Good? Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, let's keep at the work. We all have a cookie, hopefully, get energized and that- Mm-hmm ... the food was wonderful. Pausing to publicly thank Marty and team for feeding us and taking care of us. You made it happen. We know that this doesn't happen overnight, and that the effort matters. It matters to keep us moving and to do the good work for this community. So, thanks again.

4:26:31 Where we left off, so now I'll bring the folks into this space who maybe weren't watching on a live stream with Billy Bruh. We talked about what governance roles are and then where they intersect. But we also moved into a conversation on what are the themes that we want to cover for the board operating agreement, and that the board operating agreement isn't a whole list of to-dos, you will do, thou shalt, the policy says, et cetera. It is a set of norms, information that help guide the relationship and the partnership between the board and the

4:27:17 superintendent. Underneath that are systems, routines, access points, and the like. But there's no need in the board operating agreement to label all of this. Your policy document does an awesome job at doing those things. And instead, it really rests in this overall concept of trust, respect, and relationship, and having procedures and access to information in a way that allows the board to do their job. And how does that work together is really where we spent the majority of our time. So we spent our core theme so far that we're still rumbling in, and I'm taking notes and doing all the things. Communication. Clear is kind, explicit in need. Effectively use policy. We don't need 52 million policy statements.

4:28:04 We're going to effectively use it. But it applies to everyone. This is a partnership. This applies to the board. It applies to the community. It applies to the leadership. It applies to teachers. Policy belongs to all of us. And it's honored by all. Information agreements, we spent a lot of time on that. How do we make sure that we get the right information to the right people? It has to be timely, transparent. It needs to be the items that are required to do the work. It should follow an established system. We don't maybe have a great system right now. We need to design one. All that information request generally goes to the superintendent, although there's little spaces where it may go another way, but let's talk about what that

4:28:52 looks like. Avoid forced points, and that's my language. But really, without appropriate planning and information, what could happen is that the board, the superintendent, the administrator team are forced into making a decision now based on the timing of the communication itself. So we want to think about how to kind of calendar, for lack of a better word, or really map how we give information so that the folks that need to learn, infuse, put it in their brains, pressure test it, have enough time to decision-make, and that requires just a lot of planning and a lot of information, providing a lot of information. No surprises.

4:29:37 This is on every operating agreement that I've ever heard everywhere, and that includes no surprises from the board and no surprises from the superintendent, administrative team. Access to enough time, I will say. Ask questions to contemplate. That's with me. Sorry, that's me writing around what does timely mean? A lot of it is like what it looks like, feels like, sounds like. So we're testing those things. Trust, respect, relationship. And our conversation right now is, is it separate or is it infused? Because trust, respect, and relationship is the core of what we're doing. If we don't trust each other, we're going to be right here rumbling, struggling. If we don't have respect for each other, right here rumbling, struggling. And that the relationship overarchingly matters. It just matters.

4:30:22 And when we build it, we are more successful. And when we utilize our systems effectively, all these things are reciprocating. Right? You build trust when you have a system that works. You respect each other and all of these things kind of happen as they're designed. Governance role. There's a wondering, where does the complaint process sit? It's kind of policy. It's kind of got to adhere to it. Does it sit in your governance role called out because it's a core item for boards and superintendents operating teams? So wondering. Meeting conduct. We're kind of wrestling with what the kind of theme that is. There's definitely a culture aspect that we kind of talked about in info

4:31:07 agreements. We talked about the relationship side of making sure it's okay to ask questions. It's okay in a meeting to delay a decision because we're not ready yet. That's okay. It should be okay. That's how we need to have an item on the table, wrestle with it, ask it questions, pressure it, and then if we're not ready, then we should all be okay with saying, "Hey, here's the positive and the negatives to decision-making right now." But if we've been forward-thinking enough, there's plenty of time. We're not going to force them into a decision, and that we're going to honor when someone says, "I'm just not ready." Not that they're naughty, not that they're doing something to harm anyone, but they just need more time. And then we listen and learn from an accountability standpoint

4:31:53 about what now we need to do differently to make sure that we lessen the likelihood that these points exist, because they're going to happen, friends. Right? It's just a lot of work, and it's complex. So we kind of talked about that. Accountability, co-ownership of agreements, actions, and learnings. Board responsible, superintendents responsible, administrators are responsible, teachers are, everybody in the system is responsible. Right? This agreement is really between board and superintendent. And as administrators, we all have our work to support the superintendent and do the management of the work. So it's helpful to know and understand. So we're accountable to it, too, as administrators. Some fiduciary responsibility, just really thinking about the actions that we

4:32:39 take as board members and as leaders, to make sure that we're paying good attention to finances. We started rumbling a little bit around we're all here for students. There's no doubt in my mind that everyone wants to see great things happen for kids, families, and community. We're not sure if this belongs here yet, but we've got it up here. In terms of student-centered, we kind of need to say in your agreement that students are first. Maybe it goes as a preamble. I don't know. But we do want to talk a little bit about how that there's a relationship or a culture access to schools, teachers, and information. The strategy of how to get to that information is a routine we need to accomplish. Frequency impact to the operations. What does it look like, feel like to actually do the task?

4:33:28 But that overarching relationship culture theme is that the board should be able to see what it looks like, feels like to represent their community within the space. It's not their job to do the operations, but how do they govern if they don't know what it looks like, feels like at the same time? There's a tension moment there that we're trying to figure out. And then continuous improvement. That's a commitment to continuing to learn and to adjust and to acknowledge from an accountability standpoint, "That didn't go how we thought it was going to go. What are we going to do now? How are we going to adjust it? Does our policy work? Does our procedure work? Did we just flub up?" All of those things are okay, but a commitment to being clear, kind,

4:34:14 explicit in what happened, honoring that communication, and the like. So that's kind of where we're at in this moment when we went to lunch. We really tried to fold in kind of- What folks need, want, desire with policy rule law and try to get to this overarching theme, themed document here. So hopefully no one looks at my spelling. Just put A to Z up there and they'll be- Yeah, that's right. It's all in here. All right. Team- Can I add one more thing? Yeah. What did we miss? I think the way we kind of communicate it, instead of maybe even having these broad, these statements that can be interpreted different ways,

4:35:02 just kind of keeping it at these high-level points too. Like ensure that there's a culture of accountability from both the board and staff or something like that. Just making these statements as maybe a different way. I've never seen anything like that, but maybe a different way to try to get that tension between having it as a guide and not making it a straitjacket, because we need both, right? Yeah. So not the flow of the document. Yeah. There's what we're used to, and then there's what we have, and there's what we can create- Yeah ... and why can't that be new? So kind of- Sean, can you say it again? Because I'm not sure I followed that. So as we're doing this, instead of doing... Because the examples that we set, we had, and even the ones that,

4:35:50 the one I shared, were more statements like, "This will happen." Mm-hmm. And I'm thinking kind of like some kind of version of what you're actually seeing right now, where it's like we have the big themes and then here are some bullet points that help guide us in those themes. Okay. That's what I was saying. Yeah. I probably made it much more complicated in my explanation than it needed to be. But I think I heard you say it. It's not a narrative entirely. That's right. Right? It's not exhaustive- That's right ... because I think that's what the ginormous document you have right now is an attempt to solve every problem, and it's really a memorialization of a relationship goal theme, not an exhaustive list of things. Right. And yet, it's got to have enough meat on it to understand what-

4:36:36 Yeah ... to get you focused and clear. At the end of the day, this conversation is the richest part of the whole thing. It's because it's what we understand it in action to be. Yeah. Not necessarily what every single word on the page is. So I think what I hear you saying is, can we contemplate? And I think we agreed earlier, but this format probably isn't quite right for us, and instead we're moving towards a different kind of format. Maybe that format looks a little bit like you're describing. Right. A statement with some bullet points that maybe have a descriptor of some kind. Yeah. And I think one of the things we brought up, which would be helpful for staff to hear too, is that a lot of the things that are in the original agreement are already in policy. And I think one of the things is we agree we're going to follow the policy.

4:37:22 If people don't like the policy, then we change the policy. Yeah. That effective use- Yeah ... of policy. We don't got to list them all. But we are saying we're honoring them. Bob. That's Bob's- No. No? No. I'm getting used to your, "I got an idea," face. But that wasn't it? This is my shivering face. I'm talking about- About halfway through the day, it got hot outside, and we got cold in here. So we all- Lovely ... and they're like... Questions. What did I say that we're like, "Hey, team, that's not what we actually meant. Are we on the right track?" Bring everybody up to speed. Okay. All right. Were we going to mention a board meeting agenda, Beth? Is that something that we could put on here, or is that-

4:38:09 Yeah. I think I wonder, too, maybe we put it in meeting, and maybe conduct is really the wrong word, but it's like a meeting routines or expectations. I don't want it to seem like how we are going to behave- Yeah ... but it's like we're all agreeing that we're going to do things proactively and within the scope of kind of how we've talked about. Mm-hmm. So this word probably needs adjusted. Okay. And really, that's where the calendaring and the proactive nature needs to live. Yeah. Does that feel right? Yeah. No. Is that what you're getting at? Well, yeah, I was going after the who drafts the agenda, if we were headed that way. Yeah. Oh, I see what you think. You're actually thinking more about what is the operation associated

4:38:56 with setting the agenda. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and how that all works. Mm-hmm. Right. And I'm not sure, and this is a great conversation around what does it look like, feel like now, and what are we trying to get to that you're hoping for that we can help Sean and team understand? Is there something that's not working or is it more along that line of the proactive nature, the transparent nature? Is there a fine-tuning that needs to be done from past behavior to this- Yeah ... yeah. Sorry. I just think that the superintendent and board chair and vice chair will be developing, if that sounds right to you all, board members and superintendent to develop and finalize the agenda.

4:39:42 Yeah. And I actually think there is a board policy on that. Oh, okay. There's both a policy and an operating agreement around there, and the language doesn't necessarily align. Okay. Compounded by the interpretation of public meetings laws, which seem to all of a sudden take on, well, you can't have a chair and vice chair in the same meeting. Oh. And so there was some confusion- Okay. Got it ... around that. And so I think definitively answering that question- Mm-hmm. Uh-huh ... and explaining that, I think would be helpful. Yeah. But over here, I've got some concerns. And I think I've heard this several times. It has to do with, and it's up here, too, on public meetings law, getting

4:40:28 really clear around forum How to deal with all of that and still have good, productive relationships. Ones that required, ones that not required, and how do we get really clear on that? Yes- And ... with sort of the caveat and that the legislature tried to make some fixes- Right ... and then it got vetoed. But there's OGEC, I don't think, they might be well-meaning, but they've not helped with the clarity. Okay. And so, yes. I think we need to decide as a board how to address these and say what we think is right with some legal interpretation. Yeah. At the same time, it'll inform us of what we need to be asking our legislators.

4:41:16 Love it. And I also developed an agenda-setting, meeting guide. Yeah. Where I could keep without getting into serial communication or deliberation. So it's something to just keep us on track, but just what needs to go on the agenda, and that's just kind of it. Yeah. But I think clarity around this would be great. I love it. Which I think will be helped by the earlier conversation we've had about communication and when will we get information and how will we get information. So it sort of drives the whole schedule thing as well.

4:42:03 Mm-hmm. I think so. So, you handed out the current operating agreements, and at the top of the third page, it says, "A draft agenda will be developed by the superintendent or chair and vice chair, and the draft agenda will be provided to all board members three business days prior to the leadership meeting to finalize the agenda." So it's like, well, the superintendent, board chair, and vice chair, isn't that the leadership team meeting? So they're going to draft an agenda and then hand it out three days before they, I guess, meet again. And

4:42:48 then it asks for if there's any changes or whatnot to the agenda to let them know. But then that becomes a serial meeting because you are discussing topics that will be discussed at the meeting, right? Outside of the meeting. We have a call for a routine where you call for agenda items from board members so that you know what to contemplate as chair, vice chair, and superintendent. Is that like- I think there has been one, but I'm used to having that as well. Yeah. It's like there's the executive assistant says, "Hey, we have this meeting," and sends it out to staff and board members saying, "Are there any topics?" Which

4:43:34 is actually before the planning meeting- Mm-hmm ... that we have with the vice chair. Are there any topics that need to be on the agenda? A lot of that will be helpful. The better we can take this document and make that clear, right? And so really those special things should be like there's something that has come up, right? So that's kind of what I'm used to. Is that different? What has been the practice here? I don't recall ever getting a request for what we wanted to see on the agenda. We did some planning- Mm-hmm ... a year ago to say what we wanted, but I don't recall that coming out that- So what I'm used to is me

4:44:20 talking to the staff, saying what needs to be on the agenda, and the board chair or vice chair talking to the board member, saying what needs to be on the agenda, and that's when we come. And again, going back to policy, there are some policy statements that we have to make sure we're not, because the policy trumps the operating agreement. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think- And the operating agreement isn't in agreement with the policy. Yeah. They're very prescriptive in there, which I don't know that we've ever followed or haven't for quite a while. So, and again, the policy needs to match if you have an operating agreement. Yeah. But these are procedures like we talked about earlier today. What I'm surprised about in this operating agreement, it's less about relationship theme and understanding how we engage together, and instead it's like,

4:45:06 "Here's how you do a thing." I've not experienced this type of board operating agreement. I do think the routine should exist. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And/or whatever we want to call it. And that is something we have to task and we put on our 30-day parking lot, the superintendent and team to set up and bring back to you is to say, "Hey, here's how we think. Based on everything you gave us or information you shared, here's how we think this should go to press and pull on it to make it right." So the operating agreement is around making sure that it's a co-developed tool, right? A meeting. And that, to Bob's earlier point, that there is space and time for the board to have good

4:45:52 conversation about the work that they're doing. And that process is what we're committing to. The actual steps of doing, on Tuesday we're going to call the attention to this, and you're going to tell me what you think, and then we're going to co-develop. All those kind of procedures certainly can be written down, and under this new information and the new superintendent should be written down. And to get at the core of what we're trying to do is that the meeting itself should feel like a space where you do business of the board with effective information, you get to have conversation, and you make decisions for your school district of which you have the authority to do

4:46:39 in that space. That's how I think it, how I'm observing it. But I think what you name is all the stuff behind what the purpose is for this agreement. So it's important to continue to raise, like this has been hard. This is what we want to see. Sure. So superintendent can make some adjustments. Yeah. Yeah. And the policy isn't real clear on how you set the agenda. Policy does say that if the board chair can call a special meeting, three members can say they want a special meeting or by consent in another meeting. So- But that it's not driven by the sup and it's not- That's right ... driven by the board. It's driven by, this is a meeting of the board.

4:47:24 It's more your meeting than it is our meeting as the tutors, right? Yeah. So- And you're using the expertise associated with the work. Sorry. So just procedurally, how would three board members request a board meeting without doing that as public meeting? Generally, they actually contact the um- But you have to have three, so there would- Board secretary ... imply some sort of coordination because of the topic you would presume they're- And it's a serial meeting. That is curious, the way that, that you're naming it, and I can see where that is. And I wonder if that policy was made before the- It was ... clarity of that. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, the way I'm used to it is like the board- It was updated on- The board administrator ... February 10th, '25. The board administrator says, "Hey, board," you know,

4:48:10 board at large, "Do you have anything you want on the agenda?" During the agenda-setting meeting says, "Hey, here's what board members have said." So you're not going ping, ping, ping. It's coming to one location that's outside of you. And then superintendent has said to the leadership team, "Hey, team, time of year, what needs to go on the agenda?" You bring all those things together, you look at the list and you say- Yeah ... "Hey, what's the agenda look like, feel like, sound like? How do we design it together?" The calendaring system of how we design forward should help because we should have a nice beautiful cadence of this happens this time of year as a natural progression of things. The list of things that you want to achieve should be kind of slotted in there. And then there's the, "Hey, this thing came up.

4:48:55 Let's talk about it," type of item. I think that's what I'm hearing. Jonathan, is that accurate? Well, it's confused because of OGA and the last lack of clarity there. Yeah. So is three board members saying we'd like a special meeting, is that deliberation or is it scheduling? And it- Supposedly scheduling is okay, but OGA doesn't seem to be willing to take a stance, or it's a very conservative stance and say, oh, yeah, anytime three board members get together for anything, it's, you know. Well, they have to be in the same room, as I understand it, not asking a thing, but that's what I've been out of the game for five years. I've been at the state. Um, so that's a good question. Has this policy been looked at by,

4:49:42 um, council? So we did a policy review couple of years ago. We went through a bunch of our policies, and so, yeah, we did it. I'm not sure we considered it through the lens of the public meetings law. But yeah, I believe council-- I think we primarily used OSBA's- Well, that's what I'm saying ... so Spencer Lewis- That's what I think is interesting. So what I'm wondering now is, okay, if it's already been approved at the OSBA level, then what does it look like in operation that maintains the law effectively? So there may be just a learning that you send your superintendent out to figure this out or your board of management. Right. I mean, that could be something that, like we just sent, um, our attorney a question about giving greetings, and she just answered, by the way. Um, and so we could send a question

4:50:30 about that as well, right? Yeah. Saying, "Hey, um, in our policy it says this. How would that be actualized?" Yeah. Like describe how it looks like for the new- Yeah ... right. At least for me, though, what would be helpful is to actually, once we decide this is okay, to write it down, this is okay, this is how we communicate, because, uh, there's so much gray in it at this point that it's a challenge. And we're constantly asking ourselves, is this serial communication or whatever it is. So that's what I mean by sort of as a board defining what's okay for us- Yeah ... the board in conjunction with leadership and team, um, until it either gets fixed at the legislative

4:51:17 level or- Becomes more clear. Yeah ... is interpreted in the courts, because that's what OGA doesn't have. I agree. They don't have case law to define. But procedures are written and reviewed as part of a continuous improvement process because you want to know that you, collectively, we all want to know the rules we're playing by. Right? This is the procedure. We'll adhere to it. We just need to understand the procedure. That's why that got so big. We could potentially put that either in accountability or continuous improvement of we're committing to writing down what our procedures are and then improving them on them when they make mistake, when they don't work, or when we get new information. Can I ask? Bob has his hand up. Yeah, sorry. If we saved a little time at the end of the meeting

4:52:02 where we ask for potential future agenda items, um, because let's say that I want to talk about, I don't know, some random thing. And so I say, follow policy, and I send an email to the superintendent, the chair, and the vice chair. I'd like, um, this future thing on the agenda, right? So that's information sharing. So that's allowed. Right. That's allowed. And Jonathan looks at Amber and goes, "What the heck does he mean by that?" "Hey, Bob, what do you mean when you say that?" Discussion. Now it's a discussion. I love it. And so we violated the open meetings law. So, but if we had-

4:52:48 Um, some time at the end of the meeting- Yeah ... where there's future agenda items and I could say, "Hey, what about this?" And Jonathan could say, "What the heck do you mean about that?" In fact, this is what happens in the board meeting. It's in a board meeting. It wouldn't cover every situation, but it would allow us to be able to not just share information, but also clarify what we mean. Because I think that's what so often lack of time, the current public meeting slot doesn't allow that kind of- Right ... clarification that you can do when you're talking to someone. I love the idea. Well, and that's what 4J does. Okay. They have the space, and that was their work around to make sure that it

4:53:35 happened in public. But there's also other instances. For example, as a chair, what can I communicate out? It's different than it was previously and before this law came out. And even though we did a policy review, I don't think the full ramifications of the change in law in 2023 were really implemented at that point. Yeah. That's what I agree. And so I don't recall looking at that lens. But again, we're in this state of flux, and it very well could flux again this next session. So. Yeah. Well, and it continues to be refined over time based on litigation or engagement or policy decisions by OGA. So if we actually sort of list things, it at least gives us a baseline.

4:54:21 Yeah. So can I-- I just want to add one thing along what Bob was saying. We have at the end of our agenda, we talk about the future meetings. To me, it would be helpful if when we have that, we also listed the potential agenda topics that were going to be covered at those meetings. So I don't know whether it's attaching that to our agenda so we have that for reference too, and we can talk about- Well, that's- ... what we want to add. That's what I was suggesting, to take that idea and have this out here and say, because you might want... I want to know this big thing, right? And then it would allow me as superintendent, "Well, we can do that in September, but then we're going to have to take off two things." Yeah. And so,

4:55:07 I think if we do that and add this on here, and then this is the living document, it becomes a working document and just not a one-time thing. Or to our earlier point- Yeah ... we need to add a thing or add a work session or- Yeah ... for a sub, ask for a- But it's discussed in open, so it doesn't- Committee meeting. Yeah. Yeah, because that's the discussion point where you're having a what's the best place to have this conversation and what are you attempting to do? Are you attempting to learn? Are you attempting to engage? Are you attempting to policy make? Are you going to make a rule? You want to adjust something? And then picking the right venue for the work you're trying to achieve might be- Mm-hmm ... really interesting in terms of how to respond. Sean, real quick. What's that document you're holding up there? I didn't look. It is a document put in by the acting superintendent

4:55:53 with the board, I believe, that kind of plots out the year- Oh ... in meetings. Is that the first attempt at agenda- You can share that ... building? It was done, Todd kind of developed that a- Okay ... little over a year ago. That was kind of in response to some of this. Yeah. Took a stab at that. So. Yeah. And I'm used to things in quarters, but this is just as good to me, so. And since this is already- Yeah And this currently is done by month, but we have two meetings a month, so I'd like to even dig deeper into- Yeah. It has both for the business meeting and for the work session are on there. We just-- Like, all I'm seeing is stuff in August and- Right. And down at the bottom it says- It says regular business meeting, and it says executive session,

4:56:38 work session, special meeting work session. And then- Yeah ... So it is kind of broken up that way. It's just you don't have as many boxes in one section as the other. I like the vertical. Yeah. Yeah. I do too. It's a little confusing that way. So this is essentially your baseline, what you expect, that you anticipated already, right? For each meeting, more or less. But what we'd like to add too is- Yeah. Right. And then you just edit it as you go, right? And even OSBA says we should be three meetings out- Yeah ... in our planning, but I see this as some things being maybe eight, nine months out. Right. And then everybody knows, and I think it'd take a lot of stress off these things. And also, there's certain things that we know by law

4:57:23 or statute, like reports that are due- Mm-hmm ... every year, so we just put them- Yeah ... that way, nobody's guessing. No. Love it. Make enough about personal note for myself about what I need to do when I go back to my office. So thanks for going through all that. I'm going to have the best board retreat ever in a month. Wonderful. I'm learning a lot. Okay. More items. More items for this amazing work. Anything that's still sitting in the wondering space about, or that we haven't talked about yet. One thing that's sometimes on an

4:58:11 operating agreement is around evaluation. I don't know if there's something in that space you feel like needs to be on there. I've had it on. I have not had it on. It's clear that I'm being evaluated, so I always call my board meeting my monthly job interview. It's in the contract and in policy already, I think. So not necessary. Yeah. Super-- Oh, go ahead. Well, it's a- I'm sorry. He was grabbing a soda. I committed at lunchtime to be better at making sure that everybody got a voice. So go ahead. Well, I think it's more of a scheduling thing. Yeah, it's in contract, but we're going to do it, but we're running into problems before because we didn't schedule. Ah. And so again- Tacky ... everything takes time. So what does that look like? And then the better we can communicate,

4:58:59 you know- Superintendent evaluation methodology. There's several out there, but it does take time to discuss that kind of thing. And then when are we going to do check-ins, if we're going to do check-ins, all that. And then the search process with Ellen and all that. Just... So one other item, as you were alluding, that we could toss up there under the student-focused one- Yeah ... that is something that's been top of mind for me, too, is the student success shared responsibility, and how are we defining student success, how are we tracking it? And are we tracking it too closely? One of the things that I've heard, and I've observed direct feedback from frontline teachers, is that there is so much paperwork that they have to

4:59:44 fill out to track student success or how they're doing or measuring them on a weekly basis. Like, just as an example, one teacher who had 29 kids in her class has to evaluate every student in a one-on-one each week and input their scores as their progress. Like, is this too granular? Are we demanding too much to find this information out? I mean, at what point do we define what is practical versus inefficient use of instruction time just to track success? And what do we even define success as, as a policy? Like, are we saying reading scores are up or attendance is up or whatever, right? Like, is it time to reevaluate how we're doing things to make sure that the success measurement itself is not disruptive to the actual process of learning?

5:00:33 Yeah. Again, that's one of those things that really takes time. A lot of it is also driven by state policy. Yeah. Much of it is, right? And I bet you heard that from probably an elementary early grades teacher. Yeah. But that type of tracking is key to understand if the student is breaking the code, so to speak, for literacy. So, I mean, does anybody else want to chime in on that? That assessment isn't an accountability assessment. Yeah. That's a curriculum-based measure that they're doing. It's a formative assessment. So they've done a particular lesson, then they do a class assessment that's very quick, and the students who got it get a different activity, those who

5:01:18 didn't get a reteach. So it's an in-time adjustment to instruction. That one isn't an accountability measure, nor is that reported to us or the board. That's a teaching tool. There's lots more to talk about though. Yeah. And what I- That'd be a good topic for- Yeah ... another conversation. What I love about what you said is, and I pass this off to the other team members who weren't here earlier, is what's a shared responsibility student success? The actions the board takes and the administration takes, superintendent takes, improve the likelihood of success. Where does board insert their policy governing model, and where do leaders do the management leadership model? But something, this struck me because something earlier on our parking lot list was that regular report of progress. Like, does the board, in this right now, believe

5:02:06 they have a good handle on the progress and how students, the health and other academic wellness, et cetera, of the students of Springfield? Do we have a space for that, and do you know enough to be questioning, wondering, curious? And that's a da, da, da. Like, I don't know. Do we get to student-centered by you getting the proper levels of information so you can decision-make about what's going on with kids' attendance data, third-grade reading progress in that way? Has that happened now? I think it's been a year since we got that information. I remember getting it the end of last, well, a year ago, getting it at some of our meetings,

5:02:51 but I don't recall during this last school year getting that. And the frequency of it. Mm-hmm. Because it may be curious to see, like, where do we have information? What's appropriate information and what's the frequency so that we can keep on top of it as that shared leadership responsibility buff? Yeah. This is always a strange one to me because I feel like a kind of like... I don't know. I can't think of a good analogy. But it's like there's a very large cargo ship. Yeah. Sean is the captain, and we're the shipping clerk back in Hong Kong or wherever, right? And all we can do is kind of...

5:03:37 He's steering the ship, and it takes a long time to turn the ship. I don't know how much impact we really have, in terms of guaranteeing student success. It's really, we're really far removed from- Yeah. It's like a million foot up, but it's like mm. And we're also, we're not experts. I mean, we can look at... Number one, I don't want to ask teachers to duplicate some information that they're already gathering for some other purpose. The other thing is, I think, many people would acknowledge that we collect a lot of data, and they'll tell you, "But it's of really no use." Not any practical

5:04:22 use. It really doesn't tell you what you're trying to get. So, in terms of I'm trying to figure out what information is important for us to have, how frequently do we really need to get it? Because we're not going to want to change course in the middle of the transatlantic voyage, right? Mm-hmm. So maybe it's more about setting goals. Your student-centered approach is setting goals and expectations to improve student learning, that you set that target for the superintendent leadership- Mm-hmm ... and they report on that target to you so you can hold them accountable, quote, unquote. Yeah. Is that the right altitude? Right. And using meaningful data that's not adding additional burden to the- Yeah ... teachers. Yeah, exactly. So- Like if part of the strategic plan, if there was

5:05:10 a data dashboard that had the metrics of the strategic plan in a public place, not only for board members but for all people to see, would that get to where we were at? Because I'm used to that. But I just want to add to this because there are a couple of things about proximal and distal data. So there's this more distant data, the what is the health of the system, oftentimes the statewide assessment scores. Mm-hmm. Extraordinarily delayed. So then you're radioing over to the people who already got to Hawaii and saying, "You need to go to the Philippines." And they're like, "Well, we're in Hawaii.

5:05:57 I don't know why you're telling me to turn a ship when we're already docked." Sure. So that's where it gets a little bit weird. But then here's the other thing that gets a little odd is that the more proximal data, the data that is being used for decision-making at the classroom or the school level, is not meant to be a high-stakes reporting accountability measure. It's for instructional decision-making at the building level. So then when you start to cross-use data where you're telling the school and the classroom, "This data is not used for accountability, this is for you to make instructional decisions. Oh, and by the way, it's on a dashboard at the district level, and the board sees it- Yeah ... and the superintendent sees it-

5:06:43 Yeah ... and the community sees it, but we're not evaluating you on it. I swear, classroom teacher." So it ends up being contradictory to what we're trying to communicate and making sure that they have authentic data that they're gathering from the students so that they can make those adjustments to instruction. Right. So there's tension there, and that tension will not go away. And we have a responsibility to communicate to you effectively about how our students are performing, and we just have to be cognizant of that dissonance. Mm-hmm. So what- Yeah, go. When you're talking about the data that goes through the state of Oregon- Mm-hmm ... I know there's probably procedures about this, right?

5:07:29 But if it's like teachers are submitting the data, it gets submitted to the state, the state reviews it, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then they publish it a year later, and then it's given to the board, that's one way to do it. Another way to do it is this is the data, it's going to the superintendent, or it's going to the board the same time we're submitting it to the state. Oh, if we had an option, Oregon Department of Education, we would absolutely do that. Don't look at me like that. No, no. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I wish that we could do that. Worse-

5:08:14 Should we fix that? No, but there are limitations. Reporting changes, yes. In all seriousness, there are limitations on what we're allowed to share- Yes ... even within superintendents. Yeah. So, like, I got a set of data the other day that's embargoed until a certain date. Correct. That you, yeah. That I can't share with anybody until that date. But there's certain things that this can be where we go back to the planning, right? And especially when we have a strategic plan. Maybe we get i-Ready reports. We do a, you know, beginning- It's like an internal ... middle, and then end. Assessment. Right, the interim assessments. Yeah. After we get the data, we could do a report to the board. Yeah. And we could do it at a high level.

5:09:01 Because it's a great point Brian made. If you guys start looking at the teacher level, then it becomes no longer a formative assessment. And I had never heard Bob say that. No, no, I know. I'm just giving you- He may have taken you down a path, and I was trying to figure out what it was, because I think what he was naming is like I said one thing, and he was like, "I think we're back here, not here." Okay. And what I'm trying to do for the board operating agreement is we want your role is to set-- Maybe your shared expectation is to set goals and expectations. We want third-grade reading to be better, friends. Make it happen. And then, what is that meaningful progress benchmark from the dataset to say, "Hey, we're chugging along. We've made it halfway.

5:09:49 A quarter point there. Here's what we're seeing that's really working. Here's what we're noticing," and that a report around how we're navigating those waters, to use the analogy- Right. ... may be really helpful. And that way then, when you get to that end-of-year report and you say, "Hey, we went for 62% and we made it to 67," or, "We're at 40 and we made it to 40 and a half." Those were one of the things that I thought was really hard with the benchmarking at the state level was do you say as a state, "It's absolutely okay. We're already at 23%, but our goal is 25, community"? Like, that feels really hard to say that it's acceptable to any of us that

5:10:36 any achievement point is 37%, right? Because to us, it's 100. Every child does, every child will, and there's a reality to our current set of data, so we have to set some goals and expectations. And then in reality land, but also have high expectations. It's a really funny place to be, and that's a great place for the board, too, to wrestle with us around our community deserves a high level percentage. We're currently here. You're holding us accountable. That's your job by saying, "Hey, get there. Do some high-leverage activities. Show us what you've been doing," and we get to report to you on that. I put myself involved deep. That's part of the... The problem I have is that we've really been on this data kick,

5:11:21 significantly so since 2000. Yeah. And so every time we don't hit the mark, then we add more accountability- Yeah ... more data. And at what point do we ask to what end? Yeah. Are we actually-- Is this data getting us anywhere? If you look at the NAEP data- Yeah ... 25 years later, no. And so I think given the board is responsible ultimately for the outcomes of the district, that's a question that I don't know the boards really wrestle with enough. Yeah. And if you're only going to load up more data, House Bill 141, at what

5:12:06 point is the output not matching up? When do people recognize the misalignment? Yeah. And it works great if you control the quality of your inputs. Yeah. But we don't, and that I don't even know that we should, right? Yeah. But this engineering approach, this data approach, I just think it begs the question of a conversation, is it working? Yeah. So we go from 67 to 68. What about the other percent? Where do they end up? That's totally over my head. I have no idea what NAEPs is. Oh, sorry. I think you have the- The National Assessment- For Educational Progress

5:12:52 ... Educational Progress. But it's sort of the nation's, it's called the Nation's Report Card sometime, and it's done on a sampling basis. But it's been, and correct me, educators in the room, it's been sort of the gold standard in the United States. And it's showing, again, sort of the same thing, that we're not really accomplishing. We're mid-tier in the list of developed countries in education, those kind of things. Mm-hmm. So it's the greater conversation for me, is the data getting us the outcomes we want? How are we using it? Is there too much? Sort of to your point- Yeah ... if the teacher is spending all their time filling out

5:13:37 reports and assessments and requirements and, is that time better spent working on lesson plans and/or connecting with students? I don't know. But I do feel, and I've been at this a while, that I don't know that we're hitting the mark. And at some point, we have to reflect on the system and why that may be. It's not pointing a finger at anybody because it's all well-meaning. But- Okay. So, that's kind of was the original intent of my-- I used a specific example, and maybe that particular form of assessment that I'm discussing is out of our control because maybe that's a state-mandated thing. But I'm sure that there are probably things that are within our control of how we implement to comply with state

5:14:23 mandates, that we have some lever on, foot on the gas of how we can shape it. And that's more what I'm trying to get to is, are there things that we do within the policy scope that we've instituted in Springfield that can change how we comply with things that maybe are less disruptive, maybe are more meaningful? Yeah. I do think we do actually, as a board, have a lot of impact on student success. Because when it comes to reporting like we're hearing an acceleration of bullying or non-compliance with IEPs or things like that, maybe that's a call for we're underfunding our additional staff who are trained and specialized, and maybe our special ed program could use some more funding. And maybe that's a topic that we need to make sure maybe we need more resources,

5:15:08 right? Maybe there's more outreach that we need to be doing, and that's something that falls under the board's purview of evaluating how much we're allocating resources. When we have to make tough decisions, then we need to know, okay, are we going to pull from this budget or this budget or this budget, right? And that absolutely translates to student success because if we're not funding things that are obviously important to student success, that's a policy thing, that's a fiduciary thing. I think we do definitely need to make sure we're evaluating, how do we know that we're actually meeting these marks, right? Like, an increase here or a decrease there. But make sure we're doing it in a mindful way, because like I say, loading teachers up with even more stuff, that's TPS report style, right? How many managers do they have to

5:15:55 report to kind of thing- Mm-hmm ... is waste of everybody's time. Like Jonathan's saying, are we just meaningfully using their time? Do they need more assistance to be able to help them vlog some of these things? What's the right answer to get us to where we want to be? And hearing that feedback from the front line has got to go somewhere, right? I'm sure we can get an earful by simply going, "How would you do things differently from the teacher front line?" And then being open to, okay, we're hearing all these problems. How do we enact a policy that moves that away from where the frustrations are just absorbed into their daily life, right? It can't be normal for a teacher to be frustrated with their daily life, right? You're talking about a really good and positive cadence, right?

5:16:42 Yeah. The first thing to do is understand the problem, right? Or define it and then really understand it. And I think sometimes we are too quick to think we understand the problem. We might hear from three or four teachers, and it could be that it's a management thing at one school, and then the other 20 schools love it, right? And so when we are seeing a problem, then we start investigating it before we try to solve it. Sure. Because we could solve a wrong problem. And that's where I think going back to the school visits, so if in a session I'm hearing about this- Whatever it is, right? Then I think if we can come up with maybe even in the operating agreements, if the superintendent will

5:17:29 organize outreach or visits, things like that, that board members can attend if they choose, to really help define the problem, then we come back in a work session with here's what we found, here's who we talked to, and here's some recommendations. If we could establish that type of cadence, I think we can start making dents, right? Yeah. And then even further down, once we define it, then we have the conversation of what budget resources do we have? Because there are laws that we have to follow. A lot of this is driven, and this is what we call the unfunded mandates. Mm-hmm. That someone, some legislature in their area, they had a problem with one person doing something that

5:18:15 99% of people will never do. They're going to make a law for that 1%, and I call it managing to the least common denominator. And it's this real tension that we have in public education that makes it a little bit different than private because we have things like we probably know a much better way to do it, but we're not allowed to. And then the budget takes time as well, and we're given budget that you can spend in this area, but not in this area. And so there's lots of interplay here. And that's where I think it's good to define the problem and then start taking the long process of understanding it because if we define it, get more information, come up with a solution,

5:19:01 it might not be able to be because we just don't have the money, right? And then we're going to have to move things out of one thing to another thing, and then that might cause a problem here. So I think what you're pointing to is having a thoughtful runway where everybody sees the same problem, and then we all reason together with people. I think we all wish it would take a lot less time. But it just doesn't. No. I think you said like four things that I think fit around here, too, in terms of how program and budget are aligned and investments are made. Yeah. Clearly understanding that as a board is important so that when you're voting, you're doing so with the end goal in mind in terms of

5:19:47 student achievement. A lot of it is what staff costs, 90% of your budget- Yeah ... now done. Here's what this does. Here's what we have to play with based on some core responsibilities, and sometimes we've got to dip into those other spaces. But how do you have that effective budget conversation, and what's the lead up to that in order to meet your established goals? And we didn't talk about, and I know you had chatted when we did our agenda-setting conversation, is around the mission and vision in and of itself from a board perspective, or the goals and outcomes and how the strategic plan and/or continuous improvement plan, whatever you guys are going to call it or have, lead into all these things. Because you should be focusing on those broad goals and the levers that

5:20:35 you're all pulling and the outcomes based in those levers that you pull. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so how is that designed? And I think I'm not quite sure I understand exactly how it's designed here as I'm just jumping into your world in terms of where you're at with your strat plan, where you're at with your goals, where you're at with your benchmarks. And maybe that's where you're headed is, "Hey, team, we need- Yes ... to reboot this- Yes ... in the new context of the new world- Yes ... so that we can properly engage, set direction, monitor, and hold- Yeah ... you and others accountable. And so, that's a long-term plan parking lot item. Yeah. But one of the things I'm struggling with, even in my own shop is because we're lacking in that as well at Lane ESD, is what do I do in the interim?

5:21:21 Because I'm not comfortable with no conversation in the interim, and it's going to take me a hot minute to design this. So we're wrestling with what is the meaningful progress benchmark that I report based on the goals and outcomes that they're directing me to achieve, and how do we come to that? And so that may be a future meeting of here are reasonable goals that you can come to in the interim of having your longer-term space, so you have something to attach to because it feels a little aimless. Maybe. That's just what I'm hearing. Well, there's just so much. Or there's just too much. And so we do need to be specific on sort of the prioritization of- Yeah ... what we'll start with some kind of recognition of the timeline that it will take. Some are pretty short, but some are pretty

5:22:08 extensive. That's right. So I think upfront acknowledgement of that- Yeah ... and that we can't do everything, which we've talked about. But there are some things that we can do and some things that probably don't even cost a lot of money. So what would those be? And that'll start the conversation and, like Sean says, the definition of the problem. Right. And enough information that you're representing as many voices as you can. Right. I guess where I am struggling is it's a new position for me to have,

5:22:55 with all due respect, the employee tell you what you should be measuring them on and where she should be paying attention and where you shouldn't be paying attention. I would be feeling more comfortable if I'm evaluating an employee on performance, that I have some objective criteria- Mm-hmm ... in which I'm measuring them, and that we can all be in agreement on that are valid and- Empirical and useful. And so that's a challenge for me. 1,000%. It's a weird structure in schools, right?

5:23:42 Because your expert... Well, I'm sure assuming it's the same with a nonprofit, right? Having an executive director and a board who each brings their own characteristics, and there's a certain amount of trust and all those things built in. But is your evaluation tool effective, accurate, et cetera? And who's on your team to design and implement said device? And do you have a board evaluation tool, and are you effectively using that? And how do those things all work into good continuous improvement? So I don't know what the cycle is or if there's a designation at your July board meeting who's on the board evaluating team or leading that team. Sorry, superintendent evaluation team. Have we designed that yet in board- It's always all board members, if that's what you're referring.

5:24:29 It's all board members do the evaluation, but is there someone that kind of leads the charge in figuring out the timelines and the tool and all of that? Or do you just use the established process, everybody just engages in it? And no judgments, just wondering. It's been collaborative with the superintendent. Perfect. Yeah. It's in the contract. It's that way. Superintendent sort of leads the process. The board, and again, collectively, the superintendent decide on the methodology, and timeframe. But we haven't always followed that. That's in the ideal world. The ideal world. And so but that's one of the things that I think is real important, setting out metrics. Not aspirational goals, but actual metrics that can help,

5:25:14 be less capricious. And maybe that checklist items because Bob's been on the board for a hot minute, more than a few meetings, but not a lot of meetings. And then we've got some new board members. So it's almost like how do we help new board members onboard and understand processes and procedures could be another longer term. I know that's on my agenda. At my D2 is like- That's on our agenda too ... we're going to onboard some new folks. What does it mean to onboard, and what do they need to know and when, so that we can bring people in to effectively feel like they've gotten- Can I make a proposal to square- I love you ... maybe square the circle? So I think once the district has a strategic plan that's inclusive, some of these things- Mm. True ... will be helped, right? So but the problem is, and

5:26:00 I'm going to propose again at the 10th meeting, have a year-long process to get to the strategic plan. And I would hope one of my goals was the delivery of a strategic plan, since I'm going to spend a lot of time doing it, right? I think then, because on my contract it said we meet in executive session, we could have some like, "Here's some things we want to also take care of this year." Right? And that letting the board discuss, have that conversation, and we can set the goals for this just year that are not driven by strategic plans because we don't have a strategic. Right? I think maybe that does both because I'm going to suggest some things because I know what works and all that, but you're right. I am your employee. And so

5:26:46 it's... And I want to... I'm so competitive. I'm going to hit my goals. So I just need to know- I've seen it. I just need to know what they are. Mm-hmm. And I'm open to it. Yeah. And so and the way we have it designed on the contract, because I've checked it, is that in a closed session, we meet and discuss it. And I think giving people enough time to say, "Hey, what are the..." Maybe asking every board member come in with two or three ideas that they have, then we have that conversation. The State of Oregon also has some ways that you can, some forms and all that already to evaluate the superintendent. So we could look at that. All that is just an agreed conversation.

5:27:32 And we're personalizing it right now to you- Yes ... because you're in their seat, and you folks because you're in that seat. And this should exist in our agency in spite of who's present. That's right. Whether we're retired or decided to move on or whether... I always try to operate my agency like, how do I make sure it's safe, happy, and healthy, whether I'm in it or not? Yeah. How do I make sure that the system exists for the benefit of school, students, families, community, in spite of me, because of me, in spite of me, you know? Going. Beyond me. That's part of the process. And at the moment, I always try to say, like, "Okay, has this become about me? If it is, I need to refocus." It's about, you know. And I know you're not saying all that, but the question at the table is:

5:28:17 How do we use this system- Yeah ... to effectively move the dial given that the board's relationship is the only employee they really have is the superintendent. And so, how do you reasonably hold them accountable- Yeah ... and develop a system to do so is the moment you're in. So- And to be clear, I was only suggesting- Mm-hmm ... a temporary, because we're in this moment. If you guys had already done the work to have a strategic plan with metrics and all that, then that would've been probably what you would've wanted to evaluate me in. Yeah. No, I got it. No. Yeah. You make so much sense. Yeah. Okay. It makes sense to me. I need a continuous improvement plan or goals or outcomes to figure out- Yeah ... and the board needs to kind of help me shape that, and the leadership shape that so that we can do the best right work for our community. And then I love being held accountable. It's awesome.

5:29:05 Yeah. Because that's the only way I can get better and- Yeah ... and it doesn't mean that I always hit the mark and get an A++, which is really challenging. Mm-hmm. I like an A++, but I always like being evaluated on the progress of it rather than the- 4.08 I really like Sean and I are of the same mind. All right. That was a beautiful conversation because I think it fits in this expectations of how we operate, but also in the overarching 30,000-foot mapping. So just one last add on, and again, this is probably part of the onboarding discussion too. Yeah. Right. No problem. But again, um Tying it back to the student success and the overall, okay, there's things that are above our pay grade that we have to follow because they're up at the Oregon State level, or even at the national level-

5:29:52 Sure ... in certain cases, right? How is the district historically taking that feedback? Do we have an advocate or a program where we're advancing those feedback and wishes to the state level right now? Are we coordinating with Lane ESD? Are we coordinating with other districts? Other districts. How are we unifying our message? Because it can't just be that we grumble and say, "Well, the state said..." and that's it, right? What are we doing with that feedback and saying, "Okay, we've organized it. This is the budget we want from what we're supposed to do. Now, the budget from the state level says you're only making X number per head, and that methodology is no longer working. We know it's not working. Declining enrollment's killing our budget." How are we communicating that back up to Salem so that it's effective, that our

5:30:39 voices at the district is both unified and calculated and consistent with other districts, right? Are we coordinating? What's the other- Speaking to my legislative heart at this moment, and I think there's multiple avenues for us. COSA, Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, has a platform. OSBA has a platform. Oregon Association of ESDs has a platform, that we always call them the ABCs. The ABCs have a platform. And then as a region, what's our platform and how do we navigate it? And then as a board, what's your platform and how do you navigate it is the question on the table. So as I mentioned in my last board meeting with Lane ESD, I presented a plan to my board that said, "Here's what I want to do to try to launch to the

5:31:25 superintendents on the 16th when I meet with them all, to help get us a regional framework. And here's how do I engage with you to have your framework?" And Superintendent Silver would also have that same conversation. He's participating in groups that I'm not at to have those same conversations, and will come down. So it's a multi-fronted effort, if you will. Is that how you see it or you're experiencing? Yeah, no, I do. And so everything you said is true. Plus, we are in a cohort of the larger districts. Yeah. With 4Js in there. A lot of the Portland schools, Hillsboro. And we met and I've been sent a legislative document. I had to leave a little early, and we'll talk about it, but

5:32:10 I will present that to the board because what we ideally want, my job is going to be to pull from here, here, here. Mm-hmm. And then we as a board have to decide what we're going to pursue. You also need to have that too, so that you can advocate. And I think that's one thing I did in my previous district. We had people who were really connected, and actually, that's one way we really worked together is we had our board members really talk to our politicians. We got a lot of things done because of that. So I think my job will be to show, here are all the platforms that we have. Here's the prioritization of Lane County. Here's the prioritization of the larger districts. Here's the OSBA. And then we,

5:32:59 as a Springfield district board, would say, "We like this, this, this. This is what is going to be our main focus." And what do you want the pathway to be for advocacy? Do you want- Yeah ... to send your superintendent up to do it or one of your executives? Do you want to be in the space with them? How do we help get you in the right space with the right people? One of my goals is to host a meeting with our local legislators for boards in the region so that you can meet and chat with them before they head off into their business, which is sooner rather than later. And then, as you want to make your way back into the capital building to knock on doors or virtually connect within your platform, that's how Sean will help navigate.

5:33:44 And you each have your own advocacy skills as well, so how do you decide as a unit what to do, both as individuals, because you get to do that as humans, and as a board? So that's going to be cool. Yeah, and that's kind of my ask is, are we organized internally within our district to collect the feedback so that advocates have equal access, so we're all shouting the same message? Like, teachers don't want to do 29 individual assessments every week. State says we have to do it. Okay, well, is somebody organizing that feedback? Who do you talk to? Yeah. So, I mean- Pretty ... that's why let's put a system in place so that we don't just feel defeated at every level of organization all the way down, right? Yeah. And so that the board members can shout the same message.

5:34:29 Okay. And community members can shout the same message. And we go up to Salem and say, "Hey, look, this is not unique to us. We've talked to Lane ESD, we've talked to all these folks. But individually, this is the budget used to be back when enrollment was stable, right? And it funded all these wonderful outcomes, and now we're doing all these measurements, all these unfunded mandates. Now we're making even less revenue because X, Y, and Z." And... Yeah. And I think that's what I'm trying to suggest is there's lots of... And I'm going to have to really count on staff to see how this has usually happened- Yeah ... because this is where I'm at a deficit, because I don't know what typically happens. But what I can gather so far is there are a number of different places, and I'll have lots of tools that we can think about, but then you guys are going to have lots of things to think

5:35:16 about. And as an organization, we need to say, "We support this, but what we're really going to advocate for is blah, blah, blah," whatever that is. And then throughout the year- Yeah ... what engagement scenario do you want with the board at the board meeting or work session or whatever- Yeah ... to say, "Here's the bills we're tracking. Here's where this is at." Mm-hmm. "Here's the title we're working on." Here's some talking points if you happen to see somebody- Yeah. "Here's what you should say." You'll find that OSBA tracks that. They solicit input- Yeah From any board member, right? And they'll gauge priorities and then during the legislative session, they're sending out emails saying, "These are what they're considering right now and

5:36:01 their impact." So there's that. In the past, we've had a couple of our local legislators come to, they've facilitated typically during budget meeting for them to come and talk to us more. It's been them letting us know what they're going on- Where they are ... less back and forth. So that's, there is some avenue of having that interaction, but there hasn't been the- Normalized ... my experience, what are the Springfield School District's legislative priorities? We have to- Oh, absolutely, because I'm used to that where the district says, "Focus on their legislative priorities." Yeah. We haven't. Okay. Yeah. And I think that it's hit or miss in Oregon, in my

5:36:46 opinion. Sometimes they operate at that OSBA COSA level, and sometimes they like to just do their own alongside the COSA, like acknowledging these and then getting very specific. And you got to love it when your community says, like, "I hear that, and we need this, this, and this for us. So we're headed out on this pathway because here's what our landscape tells us our community wants. Here's what we think and know." And I think that tends to happen in larger districts, which you are one of the big 15 in terms of kind of calling them big 15s. We used to do a big 10, and now I think there's a big 15. And- Expanding

5:37:31 You're going to have more people at the table. Sure. And then there's a small district coalition in the state. The middles don't always have their fun, but there's- Sure ... it's interesting because at the state level, there's 197 school districts, but 60% of them are remote and rural. Mm-hmm. And so the majority of the school districts are remote and rural, and you find yourselves in this category. Where do you want to live in legislative process? And that's the conversation, and a beautiful one for the board to have and to designate their superintendent or do together. So I did add that to the long-term parking lot, long-term being you- It needs to be in the 30 day. Because it's yesterday before this starts.

5:38:18 Like I did a timeline for my board, and I'll shoot that to Sean, too, to say like, "If we haven't started, we're kind of already behind, and we still have time to get there." We're going to put our foot on the gas, Bob, or the throttle or something- ... to make sure that we have a timely space. Back to your calendaring. In the future, where does this exist in terms of short and long session? Where does your calendaring conversations begin, and where do we hold space for you folks to rumble on your ideas in the different venues? Because Bob mentioned earlier, everyone, and I'm doubling down on it, is it can't be a voting-only space. It has to be a conversational space. Information, we're not talking just at the

5:39:06 board. We are giving them information, and they're talking to each other to guide the district. So we've got to create that space, and I think we've heard that loud and clear. But that was awesome conversation. Good. I'm so glad you brought it up. And I did put it in here somewhere, didn't I? Or maybe I need to. Yeah, I put it over there. I'm going to find a place to put it in here. And to summarize my overall attitude on most of these things, it just comes down to I want to make sure that we're fostering a culture of asking for what we want- Agreed ... and advocating for everybody at every level, right? Teachers want this, students want this, families want this, board members want this, right? We should always form our idealized

5:39:51 version of what we want. Not just what we can afford- Yeah ... not what we can move around the pieces on the board. We have to know what we want in order to get there. If we don't even have the courage to say, "Well, I do want five more teachers in this building, and I want to bring our children-to-staff ratio from 23 down to 20," or whatever it happens to be. We verbalize it, and we take a tally, and we have a running total of like, "Okay, well, that's like 40% out of our budget right here." Okay, well, then now we know what it is. How do we get up to 40% of our budget? Do we advocate? Do we pass levies? Do we do budget reductions? What do we got to shift around? And then we can problem solve. Everybody here is a problem solver, but I think we're not comfortable, it sounds like to me, saying, "This is what we want," rather than, "This is what we

5:40:39 have to deal with." Right? And it's like, okay, fine. Everybody just constantly have a list of like, this is what we're trying to get, this is what we want, and here's how we get there. And then if we're there, boom, now we're all happy. Everything's in coast mode. There's nothing on the board for negative commentary. We don't have to have anymore meetings. Put our board- Cancel it. All meetings are just about our successes. But I mean, for the most part, though, there are always levers that we can push and pull. People are fantastic people individually. But if we don't all align on the vision of like, "Yeah, we do actually want this level of enrollment. How do we get there?" But if there's no data around what we want, how do we know how to ask for it, right?

5:41:24 Yeah. Yeah, the importance of articulating the want is critically important because it defines then what you need to do. Yeah. I think we are not very good at contacting our legislators. The prevailing wisdom, yeah, we can let OSBA and COSA do that, but actually, board members are more effective. I mean, shouldn't we be having- When's the best time to do that? ... like quarterly meetings with our legislators, sharing these things? Shouldn't there be some sort of formal process where we're pushing this on them and holding their feet to the fire, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to make sure Bob gets- Tenneal, I'm asking you because you're a little more experienced, at least in Oregon, but- There's a difference between, "Yes, we support these bills, we oppose these bills, we're neutral on these bills."

5:42:10 There's a difference between that than saying, "Legislator, we would like you to write a bill that says this." 1,000%. And how much and who is doing that to actually asking for legislation? I think every levels of those groups have those moments where they do ask a legislator to sponsor a bill or place an item inside on the bus, like a larger bill. And that is the other component of the legislative plan is, here's where we're in support of, and here's where we want to see something new happen. So as I've been out and about meeting with superintendents, I've had a couple come and say, "I want this thing

5:42:57 changed." Awesome. Who do we talk to? How do we make a plan? So as you folks look at it, and you've mentioned accountability, you've talked about interim assessments or other spaces, what do we want changed as an agency? And then what's our plan to make that a reality? Who do we knock on doors, and what's the plan and process? So it should be both. And the timeline for dropping bills for legislators is way different than agency. So finding out when those deadlines are and attaching yourself and meeting, making those relationships with the right parties, and getting those connections is a now conversation, in order to make it work. Now has to happen now because a short

5:43:45 session, how many bills did they entertain? 3,500? Yeah. There wasn't any shortage of bills. It's the competition- Just competition ... between bills, and then a lot of the problems are being created by bills that are written and either the interpretation of or the unintended consequence. So it's a changing of the bill. And, if you can imagine being a legislator and having all these think committee meetings, they get blown away. So prevailing wisdom is to try to do it locally as much as you can in conversations. Or if you're interested in something, find out who that champion is- Mm-hmm ... and then get to that. If you're a summer learning group, then you're going to know who the champions are of the summer learning bill, and you're going to go knock on their door.

5:44:31 And that kind of conversation. When does the session start? January? Yes. So right, and we're in August now, so that's why it- And we have- ... kind of dates itself whether we like it or not- It's like- ... if we're going to affect this legislation, this session. And there's legislative days. That's also a really, a interesting thing is this, are we monitoring or managing what house education- Mm-hmm ... and Senate ed are doing and talking about during the legislative days that happen periodically because that often teaches you what people are interested in. And then monitoring and making sure that... And maybe Sean gives a quarterly legislative update or something to that effect.

5:45:16 You can ask him to provide you the kind of data you want, and then you are naming, where are we currently at? Asking staff to say, "Hey, what does our student population currently look like? What's our ratio look like? How does this apply?" That information, asking our comms team to help us develop a quick, nice one-pager that makes a point when you attend the meeting, and that's how you'll use your entire unit to really make the kind of changes that you want. But it's all established by you folks developing that platform. Expanding our partnership- Yeah ... parents, students, powerful speakers, when they're actually in session. And so I think it's how can we leverage us with the community and our families,

5:46:01 so that squeaky wheel is prominent in everything. So right, if you get a bunch of people up there, and they're all saying the same story, I think we have a better chance of making some changes on these things that have handcuffed us at the district level. Agreed. And that's a lovely board goal, expectation, governance space to be. I think, I guess Sean could probably expect to be with the legislature during session because I think it happened previously with- Yes ... right? Yeah. Superintendent, they would meet regularly with- And that'll be part of my entry point, too, just meeting with the legislatures, getting to know them. Yeah. Yeah. And then during the session, you can reach out to chief of staff and say, "Hey, I need 20 minutes. I need 30 minutes. I need 15." You either go up there in person, or you

5:46:49 make a quick meeting, and you get on people's calendars. That's what I've been doing for the last few years is- Yeah ... popping over to the capital and spending time in that space, and it's powerful, to your point. It's less about me as an agency person. I provide technical assistance, but it was more about, I heard from this community member, I heard from this parent, I heard from this teacher, I heard from this school board member, and then they say, "Hey, Danielle, what the heck is this, and what's going on?" And then I'm hustling up, giving information. So your efforts really truly matter, and they result in the technical aspect, getting them information and ultimately bills. But that's where it occurs. And I think you, Sean mentioned beginning, like squeaky, the person who wants to solve the thing. We can be the people that wants to solve the thing.

5:47:34 We can start that- Yeah ... that train rolling. But to again circle back to sort of your original point, Matt, we could be more organized and more intentional and more articulate. And the better we do that, I think the more successful. Well, that's what I think. You know what I mean? When it comes to this framework here- Yeah ... and the operating agreement, do we want to make sure that we've got either a committee formed that's specifically dedicated to our advocacy at the state level, right? Or collecting data at the least- Yeah, want to bring radar to the community and- Right. Agree. You know what I mean? Something to that effect where we are intentional about- Our changes that we're trying to make, right? We can all be hopeful, obviously, but- And when we're not spending our time trying to figure out these routines, our board

5:48:19 retreats look like this. They look like a discussion around your platform. They look like a discussion around your strategic plan. It looks like a discussion around what your benchmarks currently are and where we're headed. And I think in the future, as you guys are creating this new system, and adherence to that system, your future meetings are going to be just brilliant. They're going to be full of rich conversation that helps guide the district and the community, and that's exciting. And I love, Matthew, everything you're bringing today as a new board member, but also fresh eyes. I think Brian shared that, too. It helps us navigate. Just being organized, I think, is the biggest thing.

5:49:05 Just having a consistent set so we're not starting from zero every single meeting or- Yeah ... coming into it. Obviously, this is the first board retreat in what? Several years, it sounds like. So to your point, maybe having a return to regular cadence and having that structure set up clearly means the next ones are going to be a little bit more vision-focused, right? As opposed to- Okay ... like you say, we're getting back to understanding policy and basic routine and a good, solid cadence for everything. But this is an opportunity for us to forge those new cadences and make sure that we're just going in the direction that we all want to push forward on, right? I'm loving hearing from our new folks and these ideas. Not that I love hearing from Ken and Amber, too, but it is you come in

5:49:51 with eyes that, for one, are not constrained because you don't know the system, and so it's a lot of what-ifs. And I think- Better together, right, Sean? That's right. Yeah. Well, and that's also the opportunity of a new superintendent in other spaces, too, because you begin to go, "How does this work?" Sure. "Can it work another way?" Any of these people. Yeah. It's 3:00. We are working till 4:30? Yes. So we have plenty of time. We can keep going in this space, kind of going down this board governance framework and solving for some of these scenarios. I had an activity planned that I think we've kind of

5:50:36 done a little bit through this process, which was kind of making these sing by looking at what do they look like, feel like, sound like. A little checklist. Hey, who adopts district policy? I think you know that by now, friends. Who hires the principal? Yes. I gave you that one, so you're not starting here. And then on this back page, I had a scenario around, hey, a parent stops you at a grocery store and says, "I'm worried about my child's educational progress. What do I do?" Kind of making those operational pieces a reality. I think we've done that through these conversations, and this is probably more rich in terms of conversation, is to continue to kind of rumble through these concepts. Team, what are you thinking? Where should we

5:51:21 navigate? Continue along this path, kind of eating at these concerns, worries? Well, I'd ask- Or something else ... board members going in, what would be a pressing need- Yeah ... in the next hour and a half? Yeah. Hour and 15 minutes after the break, right? Huh? Hour and 15 minutes after the break. Oh, what time is my break? Well, that's right. Yeah. We're going to take a break. I guess I'd like... If we have a good conversation, I would like to see maybe develop these into next steps or what are the action items now that we do, and then if we have to have another board retreat in the near future to talk some more, so be it. But take what we've got so far and kind of- And we don't have to exhaust an hour and a half to discuss something that we're finished with

5:52:06 and just make up stuff either, to your point. And I know that, Sean, I know you've had one board meeting, correct? What? You guys have already had one board meeting? Well, we've had a number of special board meetings. Oh. But, yeah. I'm just wondering, you have a plan for the future in terms of, to your point, around next steps is we can certainly take all of these and generate a document that helps to memorialize them that we can edit and adjust in future meetings. And we know that the 30-day parking lot and the long-term parking lot you're going to take back, rumble with your administrative team, kind of come up with those procedures, and then loop back with everyone to kind of finalize those details.

5:52:51 What other things is helpful in terms of casting that vision for your year would be helpful to talk about? Not to put you on the spot, but I'm putting you on the spot. In terms of really helping them see where the next steps are. I think maybe kind of taking some of these things and doing a little bit of prioritization because of what's the first thing you want us to tackle? What's the second thing? Maybe even the green dots, doing a little bit of that- Yeah ... to see. Because one of the things I've been doing is- We just gave him 10 years of work. Yeah. One of the things I like

5:53:36 the idea of the board tracker, right? Request tracker that we talked about. Which of those things do you want us to tackle first, type of? That would be really helpful. So what's best? Is it a facilitated conversation of what prioritization, or do you think, "Hey, do the dots activity. Spend a little think time and say, 'Here's my highest leverage activities,' and I pick them up and kind of help articulate what's first, second, third, fourth, and..." Yeah, I think it's probably that combination of, well, let's have people get some time, and- Yeah ... and then maybe it's facilitated- At the end ... after. Yeah. Yeah. So should we be focusing on the 30-day- For the 60-day, or does it matter? And- I feel like your 30-day and your-

5:54:21 I think it is ... long-term parking lot have merged. Yeah. Okay. Well, and then- But that's a great question. What do you think? I don't know. Should I just- I would- You're like, "It's my dots, but I don't know what-" Well, no, do I get to put them all on one- You can't ... on my thing? Yes, you can. You personally can. Should I just put it all on somebody else's or? Yeah. No, you can. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, go ahead. Explain the dots, yeah. So it's just a normative voting so that you get to see which one's more important for you. And people do that. They put all their dots on one or they... And then you look at the top three and says it- you come to consensus. It looks like these are the three, and do we all agree? And we see if there's ways. So you can facilitate that. Yeah. Do we have more dots? And then we could do one for 30-day and one for-

5:55:06 We have more ... one for- We all have dots ... the longer term. I was all excited about the little dots, but I'm not sure if they're the right thing. Can I bribe you to get extra dots? Well, I bet you gave Bob some money he'd give you his dots. I don't really put mine up there- No ... because I didn't know these- You are such a good rule follower because I said to do it a certain way and you did it. Yeah. Good job, Bob. So I didn't have a dot. You were... We need to restart. Do we need to start over? Get the dots. Well, no, what we could do is- We could start over. No little dots. I could pass out the big dots. Yeah. And we can conta- plate. But we all know what we're talking about. But those are little victims, so big dots. I know, that's why I was contemplating. Yeah. And Marty gave me little dots. I've never seen the little dots. I got all excited.

5:55:52 Nice job, Marty. Yeah. Whoa, that's right. ♪ My basket, my dots ♪ Took them from the instruction cabinet. Well, so we still have to figure out doing Bob. So I would like it if we could have two separate dot things, and maybe give Bob, we have little or we just ignore your dots. Oh. And then that would give you more dots- ... and that you can redo the dots again. Attention to your little dots. Let's see here. Cover up- So we're not using the little dots. I don't think we're using little dots anymore. Double down on your dots. Okay. So I think what I'm hearing is I passed out new dots. Eight dots. We each get eight dots? Yep. Four for each-

5:56:38 Yeah ... four for 30-day parking lot and four for your long-term parking lot. And they're going to mill about, go and place the dots where they're interested in. You asked a great question. You could put all your dots in one. You can separate them. The idea is that the more dots in a space is a higher priority. And then as a result, we know what to focus on. We'll put the dots up, and then I'll facilitate a conversation with all of you around that prioritizing. And no half or quarter dots allowed. Quick question. So I noticed that some of them are linked together. Oh, yeah. So- I themed them ... are those essentially one thing? Should be. I noticed in some places you wrote on the board. Are those- Yes.

5:57:26 Those are the ones that are written are different. Yeah. Oh, my God. I changed the game during the game, and Bob's looking at me- Even that add more stickiness ... just, "Uh-uh." To us. Okay, I'm going to put a... I wrote on it, but it's really a sticky note, because it was what I heard from you folks in terms of an action that you needed to take. Like the legislative plan became a sticky note. I themed them just for my own thought process around what you folks were dreaming and thinking about. But you can certainly put a dot on an individual. Yeah. And I also noticed, like, the parent family survey was on both lists.

5:58:12 I know, because you folks put it on both lists. We put 30 or 60, so there's different perceptions on whether or not somebody thought it was a 30. This is the 30-day, and this is 60-day stuff. So I moved mine because I have the superintendent merge, and somebody else does this bigger. So- Yeah ... I think it's why people say or think such. That's perfect, Bob, and I love how you've tested the system. So I think we just... How about we take a 15-minute break, and within the 15-minute break, the board members need to put their dots on? Love it. How's that? There's cookies left. So 3:20? Yeah. Perfect. 3:20. I'm in charge of mute here.

6:23:48 Friends apparently. But I love it when a plan comes together. There you go. Look, thank you everyone for coming back. Hopefully, you had a chance to-- I saw the dots would go up and saw some good culture making, and a little bit of a break time. So a couple different things. Doing some more punting around here. We don't like to punt at the University of Oregon, so I'm a little clink, but no I'm joking. Uh-huh. We should play for Carolina. We punt it all the damn time, so yeah. I'm on Sean's team because we don't punt at Athosdaia. I want to take the next couple of

6:24:33 minutes to look at the prioritizations, and then at just administrative team, just a little bit of foreshadowing. One of the things, like you in the space, it wasn't the original plan, but we're creating new ones today. So putting you on the spot a little bit, but giving you some notice. The board really wants to ask you all a question. And that is Kind of back to our original question, which is: When the board is doing well, what does governance look like? When the superintendent's doing well, what does it look like? And what they want to know from you is when the board is operating at its best, what does it do that helps you be successful? Because they want to really hear and understand how their procedures and their practices can help all of you. With kind of some

6:25:20 subcategories of what behaviors that they have build trust with you, and what helps you focus on students in schools. So how do we build your voice into this space? So certainly going to throw it out there, and for those of you who are fast on your feet can give us some ideas. And for those of you who want to write some ideas down and give them to Sean for a future date is also okay. Yeah. And we will follow up actually on Monday some of this as well, since we're meeting on Monday anyway. And you've been kind of privy to some of the conversation around what they're dreaming about in terms of operating and really as a high-leverage team. And so that maybe will help spur some ideas.

6:26:05 So I'm going to head over here. On our 30-day parking lot with our yellow dots. We've got the top priority, and I think that this feels accurate to the day, is a board calendar. And that is really the space around how do we cast out a vision about what the year looks like, what the upcoming meetings look like, and making sure that we have enough information to decision-make. So all of that stuff kind of goes into that board calendar concept. When I first heard board calendar, I was like, "Okay, what's that mean?" We've had awesome conversation today to say what board calendar means, which is really a plan that's really proactive and provides the information that's

6:26:52 necessary to decision-make. We've got some- Can I ask the board a clarifying question on that, too? So you've seen an example of the, we've given you a couple of the chair, vice chair checking guide that we send out after we meet. What do you guys think about if we add in two little sections that say short-term parking, long-term parking, that we can kind of add in the same idea. So we'll talk to the board, the vice chair and chair of like, are there some short-term parking things that are coming up for you guys? Are there some long-term parking? And you as board members would communicate to the

6:27:38 chair and vice chair those things. Does that make sense, I mean? It does. There be more we can do to kind of track those things and- Yeah Yeah. Yeah. Since we're meeting, and we can also build this into the, if we do it on the agenda item. But I think having that, and then everybody sees it as well, because we send it all out. Just adding those two little columns to our five columns that we already have. Any problem with that? No. I know you have no idea what I'm talking about. You'll see. Sure. It's all good. Careful what you commit to. So that was a clear winner. To the- Sorry. And also on that, the board calendar.

6:28:23 Even though they may be routine, if we have reports for RFPs that are annually renewed or whatever, even they're going to be on a consent calendar. Yeah, they should be on this calendar. They should be. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, I think the only change we're really going to make is because unlike Jonathan, I'm a vertical thinker. Like if we change this to August work session, August executive. You know? Yeah. Work session and business meeting. Yeah. I don't know why business is hard for me to remember, but yeah. Well, we've got a three-way tie for number two. And that is a timely follow-up. So how we get information back to the board upon request of information.

6:29:08 School visits, what's that protocol procedure look like? And the superintendent search timeline evaluation, kind of trying to figure out that long-term plan with our superintendent position is number two, three, and four. But two. So, and I think what feels really clear is we have to get on documenting the procedures so that people understand how to engage with us at the school district level effectively. And so when those things come up, they feel like a higher level priority. Because that's when the messiness will occur, is when we don't exactly know how to engage, because then it'll feel like pressure,

6:29:53 and maybe that assumed good intent piece will deteriorate. So, and especially in this space where we've lacked some trust and some relationship, these systems will help us build trust and relationship. So getting on those sooner rather than later is key. And then a smattering of ones, all important, all tasks that we need to do. But that is the big ticket item. Okay. Questions? No, I don't have a question. I'm not real comfortable with the last one. I mean, the evaluation part I'm comfortable with, me being a part of that. I don't- Got it. Yeah.

6:30:39 So how do you work with the board administrator or support us? I'm not sure what your title is, Marty. Just Marty. How does Marty work with the board in order- Well, it's really just to get it on the agenda so that we can- Get it on the book ... get the process going. Yeah. So we may need to, to your point, the email portion, absolutely. How do you, with your team, task out the steps to the person who is going to appropriately? Yeah. I I think I'm positive I could get the... We could hit the first three for sure, and have we could do a report on the

6:31:27 work session on August for number two, timely follow-up and school visits. I think we can have- Those are procedures, yeah. Yeah. I think I've already have it written out in my head anyway. And it's good because I can talk with the administrators maybe next couple days for the school visits just to make sure we're all on the same page. And the evaluation, I would say we schedule maybe the executive session in September and have that discussion about the evaluation as per my contract. Is that a public meeting- No, it's a private ... as far as the processing? Because I know the actual evaluation- No, it's in contract. It says it will be in a closed session. But we do have to notice the executive session. Yeah.

6:32:13 Yep. So then, that takes care of the kind of 30-day timeline for the facility. Rest of items, but focus on procedure. Yeah. Because when and where we can knock out a procedure, we're going to- Yeah ... solve problems proactively before they start or continue, or fester, or rot or what other things. All right. Longer term, which is still short term. We're taking a quick vacation, longer term parking lot. This kind of trend that I wrote really here was around finances. And so we've got a couple of lots of dots on the levy, and maybe so finding the right resources to do the work. Enrollment growth plan associated not only with the student success and happiness, but also with thinking about

6:33:00 that financial impact, school closures. This kind of line item is around kind of that health financial sector, and the levers and activities that we're doing around that sector. Does that feel fair from a priority standpoint as we look at? I mean, we could say enrollment growth plan is number one, or is it really more about how those finances come together and do we have enough money, and what are the levers? Pushback. I think they're all sort of related, so I think it would be fine to talk about them in a broader context as long as we end up with- Dealing with all of them. Yeah. I'm going to write finances, da, da, da, enrollment,

6:33:48 student enrollment. I don't know why it's raising growth, but. Oh, because it says enrollment growth plan, school growth plan. Yeah. I mean, it's two of the four sticky pads. I'll expand on my original thought process on those things, that obviously it seems to me that the district is in a state of fighting off deficits at the moment. And a lot of that is because of the external decline in enrollment, right? And there's a lot of factors we just don't control. But we're going to be facing the same hurdle next year and the year after, right, where we're in a- Probably two biannual, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a very foreseeable future anyways. And so I guess the conversation that I'm hoping to spark from that is what are we going to be doing as a district to that end, knowing full well that next year's budget planning is not going to be materially different than

6:34:35 this year's budget planning. We're facing down a deficit, and we're facing short cash supplies, and tough decisions will have to be made. So do we have a plan that we're moving towards? What are we going to do to mitigate it? How are we going to absorb it? That's the point, is that that's obviously a long-term problem and we need to have a long-term conversation about solving it. Something I love about your contributions from the outside in is that you pull us out of the little thing and push us into the concept of financial stability. Let's talk about it. Here are all the things that we've thrown out there as ideas. Where are we headed? What does it look like? I love it. And so I see that theme here, and thank you for capturing the

6:35:20 intent. Is everybody feeling like they're on Matt's line item or is there something else? Well, I totally agree. I think that education in general needs to look at a different model of funding- Yeah ... or an enhanced model of funding. The thing that'll be a challenge next year is we have to finalize our budget before we'll know the budget number from the state. Right. And that's just like insane. But as long as I've served, I've seen more deficit years than positive years. So I think we have to plan around that reality. So when we say enrollment, there's so many ways we could go. So I need a little bit more context.

6:36:05 Sure. Let me tell you what I think. I think, first of all, we need to understand the enrollment that is not due to population decline and choice via charter, online, homeschool. I think the first step is to understand what's driving that. Yeah. And that would almost be a report, and that's going to actually be a lot of work, because you have to try to get people who you don't really have easy access to. Because the best way to do is just ask them, "Why'd you leave?" and "What would have you come back?" Yeah. Okay. And then kind of like, "Here's what we found,"

6:36:51 and then generating and giving you a report on the strategies we are using, which could then lead to some policy things we'll ask you to do. Okay? Yeah. Does that sound right? That's exactly it. I mean, I think there's already been a push for exit survey information to that end, right? And- Yeah. Yes ... hopefully, some of the conclusions can be like- Your online school is not as attractive as this charter school is. Maybe we can then boost our online offerings, right, to be more competitive. And I do know there are some people, if the board is interested in increasing enrollment, there are some companies out there that you can hire, and they'll do a lot of this work. And if they enroll the person who is not enrolled, you pay

6:37:39 them X amount of dollars. Finder's fee, the headhunters? Yeah. No, they really are. I know there's one- That's great ... out of in Memphis, Tennessee, that actually started this, and they did the work in Memphis. But they're not cheap, because you're paying them, and it didn't work for us in North Carolina. But you will hear me tell all the principals, "Enrollment is our hustle." Yeah. Great. And I think what I like about that is understanding the why behind it, right? Yeah. I think we have an idea about how to solve a problem, and that's great. We need the board's ideas, and then we're going to task the superintendent with working with the leadership to come up with, given this root cause or the data, what is it that we should do?

6:38:25 What's the plan? Help us design something and then engage with us on it so that we can put our stamp and maybe approval's too strong of a word, but that we can partner with you on that concept. Yeah. And to that end, heard a lot about exit surveys, satisfaction surveys, for lack of a better term, maybe student, staff, community. Where are people feeling? And how do we know it? How do we engage with them and understand it so that we can take action as a district? So, exit survey has been an idea thrown out. What does that look like, sound like, feel like? Maybe you and your administrative team come up with

6:39:11 a plan to get to that piece of information, and maybe it's not an exit survey, it's something else. But what I think I hear people saying is we need to understand why students are leaving our community, back to the growth plan. And what can we do differently, potentially? Or what levers can we pull or press, or what system can we put in place to increase the likelihood that students stay- Got it ... and come? That's how I hear it. Right? Again, I want to just clarify, that's how I got it. That's number three, actually, too. So I think the growth enrollment and the satisfaction kind of pull together. Bob, and then Jonathan. So those kind of got lumped in together. And I think that the exit survey really is to find out what's

6:39:56 going on with our enrollment that's not matching the other districts in our county, and it's costing the district money. The satisfaction survey among staff and teachers really is an evaluative tool- Okay ... for the morale of the district. So that's more, in my mind, in superintendent supervision. Yeah. And I've got those as twos. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. They have a common priority point. So getting to the root cause of those things. I love the clarification around exit versus eval and kind of organizing around that. So good for everyone to hear when you're brainstorming exit. I took some liberties, and so press back.

6:40:42 It says behavior amount students, and I wrote student experience, in terms of that's maybe a student's experience with each other or their own individual experience and how they're engaging in our world and how that looks outwardly to someone else looks like behavior. And then somebody underneath it says processes. So something around focusing on student behavior and processes, and that maybe could include maybe when a student is dysregulated and maybe behaves with their body and their mouths in ways that feel surprising to ourselves or someone else. Or it could look like bullying, trying to figure out where that

6:41:30 moment is so that the administrative team can, what you're looking for, so that the administrative team can do some work. So that was bullying, and it was really about bullying. Okay. And you mentioned dysregulation, I think that will probably tie in also somewhat- Yeah ... to the student exit. There's some crossover. You know what's super interesting is I had an awesome meeting yesterday with my team around the homeschool data. And I'm going to take the trend to the superintendent group so that they can see that increase of enrollment with an average of 46 students a month to now 58 students a month. Now, we don't get a lot of rich data about the why in that space

6:42:17 because that's not our role. We sign them up. But what I think is important is looking at that trend analysis if you're a school district, and then we have that data at the ESD. All ESDs keep that data for the state. But it only sits there, and we give it to you folks, and you get to decide what to do with it. As ESDs, that's what we do. So to your point, where are the kids? Yeah. They may be in homeschool. Why? And who are those kids? We have them at Laney ESD. We can give them to you. You can noodle in there and try to figure out other trends like grade, age. And how many actually come back pretty quickly because there's quite a few. Exactly, and one of the issues we have on that data collection is a parent doesn't report when they're no longer in homeschool. Yeah.

6:43:04 So we were trying to think of a system of going to the school districts and saying, "Hey, can we have a quarterly check of student names so that we can cross off and really have a clear identification of who's in our homeschool environment and who's not?" No judgments. That's an opportunity for students and families, and it's also an opportunity for us to understand who is being educated at home, and to what degree can we change our practices to increase the likelihood that they stay in our school or come back to our school. So- Yeah ... it was a brilliant conversation yesterday. So I guess, speaking to the, I guess, the student experiences, do we look at the SEED survey results that- Oh, my. Gold star for you. And evaluate those in terms of how they compare

6:43:50 to- Is that the statewide? They do. Yeah. Impressively. They have it by district. Yeah. Each district, you report it, and it pulls out a whole range of questions they ask. I think it's a great starting point. Yeah. Seems like- SEED is- I don't remember what the acronym stands for. Yeah. Me neither. Is that a student or staff s- It's a student. It's a student-based survey. EVE is the staff one. And that's the one you got the notice on Environment Day I assumed. Yeah. Yeah, and then SEED is the student one. And then there's even a summer SEED, which is beautiful. The experiences of students in summer programming and- And there's also a good product called Panorama. It does a really good job. It measures to the extent that students feel

6:44:35 love, challenge, and affair. Is that a separate one we'd implement? Because the SEED one is our one- Yeah. It would be a separate one. Okay. It's nationally normed, and there's a lot of districts that use it. Oh. And I find it to be excellent, but there's a cost, so we might not be able to afford it. Yeah. But I think the conversation is a good one. Yeah. How are students in terms of the experience? Big data we have- Yeah ... already to kind of- Yeah. And then trying to solve some concepts around bullying. We have other state reports around restraint, seclusion. We have other state reports around disproportionality of our local populations and expulsion, suspensions, et cetera. And the student health survey. Yeah. So there is a whole host of data around student experience that we could pull and maybe think through. And one thing, Bob, I think I heard you say earlier, for some of these, when

6:45:22 people ask you about bullying and you don't really know what the process is, that I thought about, is that something we can create like a little one-pager? Like, "Here's the process. If you feel your child's bullied..." Give it to you so you would know kind of what to say. Because, again, I apologize, I don't know, but in other districts, there's actually a place on the website you can go, say, "Report bullying." Right? And- I think we have that on our website. Yeah. And that should be one of the first things you do. Say, "Do it." I know I will make sure that staff is monitoring those or whatever, because a lot of times people say their child's bullied and never tells anybody except for you. They haven't told the school, they haven't told the

6:46:07 teacher. And so, yeah. Or it may not rise to the definition of bullying- Yeah ... but it's still wrong. Right. I've been wrestling with that lately- Yeah ... is like, just because you haven't violated X law doesn't mean it's not a truth about what's happening on both ends of the spectrum. And so, if a student's experience is X, even though it doesn't rise to bullying, huh, question mark, what's happening here? And what can we do to maybe improve the student experience? Yeah. From my perspective, it's, I guess, twofold. Number one, I want to understand kind of the way... It's like, well, it's not technically bullying because there's now a power differential- Exactly ... or whatever it is, right? So there's normal interpersonal conflict, and then there's bullying.

6:46:53 So kind of understand the district-wide definition of bullying- Mm-hmm ... to the extent that there is one. Mm-hmm. Or if it's different for high school than middle school than elementary school, to know that. If it's different between high school. Yeah. Kind of understand how that's defined. And actually, I hope it's not different between high schools. It is not. And then understanding, okay, if someone does, is there a complaint and what happens as it goes through the pipeline. Yeah. Got it. All right. Process. Perfect. And then legislative plan was number four, and number five is everything else on this list. Thank you. All the other things.

6:47:39 Going back to the enrollment, though, the other thing I think we can be better at is promoting the great things that are happening in the district in a very explicit way. If you're from out of the area and moving in, you're going to go to the website, and I think we have a pretty good website. But I don't see much on the CTE programs or some of the performing arts or whatever. There's just a lot of really good things going on, and I think we need to be more aware of using that. The enrollment is down statewide. Everybody keeps saying that. It is, yeah. But if I have a business- It's disproportionately, yeah ... and that my enrollment is my customer base and I lose them, I'm going to want to find out why and then what can I do better. At the same time,

6:48:25 maybe talk about the great things that I offer as a business. And I think education as a whole doesn't do that very well. And I love that comms is in the room, too, because I see them typing- Sure ... when you say amazing things. And also that superintendent can host that conversation of popcorning around the experts in the room to come up with ideas. Yeah. And that's also, to be honest, this is something where the board can be very powerful, too. So when I send pictures of, like I did the past couple, if you're a tweeter or something like that, they're designed so that you could take them and tweet them out. And then I think we have to make sure at board meetings that that's what we're talking about, the real positive things that we're seeing, because that's what people are

6:49:13 hearing and listening to. And a superintendent I really admired in Colorado talked and said- Every time he talked, he was talking about all the great things that were happening in the district. Now, within the district, outside of the public, we all told the truth, but he wasn't going to talk about what the negative things are that are happening in the district. And so I think that's something we will look at when it's calling promoting the district, because this is one where everybody needs to promote the district. Right. Let me clarify a little bit more, though. I think there's things unique to Springfield. Yeah. And if I have a unique- Aspect unique ... business, I'm going to want to point out- Yeah. Yeah ... you can't get that at home school. Yeah. You can't get that in church school.

6:49:58 Yeah. That's right. And I think we have plenty of examples of that. Sure. But I just think we need to be- Yeah ... better at it. It's already there. Here's what our data says. And if you're making a decision to move to this bedroom community of, um, Springfield and Eugene versus another one, you know- Well, you see it in athletics. Yeah. Honestly, even at the high school level where families move into a district- Sure ... so their kid can attend whatever the powerhouse school is. And what I'm noticing is, we've got some rural-- that quote-unquote, "we're rural" because there's definitely farmland. But that access point to Springfield and Eugene is really close. Yeah. And so they're rural, and in my old world on the South Coast, Reedport to Brookings, you're truly talking about rural.

6:50:43 But it takes two hours to get to a hospital. It takes two hours to get-- or three hours to get to a thing. And so as I'm driving around meeting with folks, I'm like, "Okay, I drove 15 minutes. This feels rural." And yet in 15 minutes, I can get to Walmart or a Fred Meyer or, you know- Symmetric? Yes. I mean, and I'll tell you, if you're from the South Coast, it's symmetric, right? It is. When you go and you're headed out to Powers and it takes an hour to get to a Safeway- Yeah ... um, that's a big deal. And the only thing they have is a dairy mart size, uh, tool- Yeah ... to access food. And so, uh, you know, I think it's easier to live in a pleasant hill region and work in Springfield than it was

6:51:29 reasonable to live in Brookings and work in- And check the bank ... sure. Which is for me, yeah. So it's curious the dynamic that you're naming, uh, and how unique it is here versus my previous district, where it was much less likely- Mm-hmm ... other than North Bend, Coos Bay, um, you didn't really-- You weren't driving your kid 45 minutes to school and back every single day. That's too far. Yeah. Well, if you're in market size- Yeah. Yeah ... that's a very small market. But in Springfield, might be a small market, but we're in a greater- Yeah ... much greater, uh, pool. And so if kids knew about this, and this is our kids, too. Yeah. You know, sort of the pull-through strategy. If middle school kids and elementary school kids, say, knew, for example,

6:52:15 that there was an auto shop like we had, and they'd grown up around that. Yeah. I think some of them don't know. Yeah. So we- And so how can we do better internally? How can we do better external? Brilliant idea. Love it. Yeah. Okay, we've got a half hour, and I want to make sure that we, um, give folks an opportunity to communicate on this next, uh, level here that the board's asked about is, uh, to our administrative staff. Um, again, you're welcome to write it down and also popcorn out, um, ideas. Uh, when the board is operating at its best, what does it do that helps you be successful? We'll see how, um, briefly I can get this out. I think the key to that is that--

6:53:01 So one of our major focuses on the instruction department is making sure that, um, principals have what they need, because when they're the most dialed in and focused, they are partnering with their teachers, and they're building, um, leadership team to make sure that every single kid has everything they need every day. And so from our perspective, principals have got to be dialed in and focused every single day, and that means that they're free from distraction. So when the board is dialed, you know, there's less distraction, and we're able to be focused and partnering with the principals.

6:53:50 Because really, the expectation is, in a real fundamental way, partnership, principal, and all of their teachers. Yeah. And I think that's where that comes in is that from top to the bottom of the organization, without saying there's an actual bottom, but every level of the organization- Left to right. There you go. Thank you. Every part of the organization is dialed in, and that allows us to make sure that the principals are dialed, and they're working in partnership. When there's distraction, it allows them to not be in that partnership and, um... Yeah. Yeah. So I wrote efficiency of system and focus. Mm-hmm. Right? Focus. Maintaining

6:54:36 all the systems super well so that they're not distracted by extraneous items, and instead they're dialed into to their building and the work. It's just day to day, week to week, it's so complicated, so busy for every teacher, and if they're not getting what they need from the principal partnership with the teachers, then they're not giving what they need to every kid. Yeah. Other items. I know it's a lot. I have some. Great, thank you. So first of all, setting clear priorities and measures of success. Uh, communicates

6:55:22 early Doesn't let things fester. Fester and rot. Yeah. As soon as they hear something and- Get involved. Yeah. And then, and this goes both ways, that goes along with communicates, listens with openness. So for instance, you guys hear a lot from your constituents, teachers, and all that about whatever. I think you need to listen with openness there and then listen the other way as well, if you bring this. Because what my experience has been is people will tell the story, but they might leave

6:56:09 little pieces out. And so I've had some, when board members are at their best, they're like, they'll listen and really get the facts down and communicate. And when it's not at its best, it's they'll listen, someone will say something, and then they'll say, "Why do we not feed kids in the morning?" Or something like that. It'll take one little thing, and they'll make it sound like that is the thing when... And it takes up a lot of time when you don't listen with openness, because then I have to make sure that we are feeding kids. But I also have to then take a teaching stance to say, "Here's what happened and why." And so listening with openness on both ends. So not thinking that anything I say is the gospel truth, but also anything when you get a complaint or a suggestion.

6:56:57 And then finally, if you have a problem, being problem solver by communicating the issue as well as the solution you would like to see. So not just coming with a problem, coming with an idea of like, "This is what I would like to see." Perfect. Other groups that are comfortable sharing. I would say having a board that trusts the work that we do and is our cheerleader and listens with genuine interest to what we're doing and why we're doing it, asking questions. We don't have to worry that when we leave the room, people are going to say stuff

6:57:42 about us and our work, that it's going to be positive. That you're not just listening to a subset of teachers, but you're listening to us because most of us have all been at the classroom level, and we care deeply about our work. We're very connected to the research, and our outcomes are improving, and I don't feel that support. I don't. But I have before in my career. I've worked where I had functioning board, and it was amazing. I never thought they would say something bad about us. Is it fair on that one, and sorry that you're not experiencing that support, it's hard. Mm-hmm. Is it fair to say, positive communication/support

6:58:29 of the work efforts, the words matter? Mm-hmm. Is it all of that? Did I get it right? Sure. Did I miss anything? Because I want to make sure I captured your thought. I think also just getting our input and hearing. Yeah. For like, "Why do you do these things?" Or, "Why do you think that's important?" Just like literally asking and wanting to know. So getting input. Yeah. It feels like that's happening with the teachers and not to us, for us. Yeah. And we all care a lot. We were all at that level. Yeah. And we ascended because we did really good in those roles, and we kept doing good, and we kept climbing, if you will, because we care so much, and we want to have a broader impact. And the things that we are doing are research-based, and they're having positive results for kids. Thank you for saying that.

6:59:14 Yeah. This was a big part of my ask of Tenneal to give this open opportunity for you guys to provide feedback. Because coming in as a board member, I want to be a good board member, number one. Like Sean, I get my gold star. But is there a mechanism already in place for that exact input you're talking about? Like feeling heard and seen, like what your input is. Because when I see most of these board meetings, it's typically not the staff presenting, it's usually one or two from the administration presenting, so. Yeah. And that's not typically in most districts the norm. In most districts, the superintendent rarely speaks. Yeah. And if they are, that's probably a problem. It's staff that is doing it. I speak to staff saying, and any presentation that's given, I'll look at it, but we want

7:00:02 them to speak. And part of the communications plan I would love to have in our operating agreements is if you have, for instance, if you have a question, go through me, but then if I were to turn it off to Brian, right? And then you would no longer have to go through me. I would want you to go, because it's inefficient when I've given it to someone to work, and then you ask me, and then I ask them again. It's much better for you to talk to them directly. So having whatever the communication protocol is, is like initially with the superintendent, but for any ongoing issue or issues that are on the agenda, feeling free to go straight to the person who is handling that, right? With maybe a CC to you.

7:00:48 Yeah. For sure. Yeah. But it's interesting you say that because when I first got to one of my districts, they were like, I had a coach, and like, "Why are you talking so much at the damn meetings?" So yeah. It's rare. We want our staff because they're the ones doing the work. And then I think that helps with the problem. The issue that you might have seen is because you see them as professionals, you get to see their passion, you get to see their knowledge base and their research. Yeah. I'm coming in, obviously there was evidently a lot of bad air prior to my joining the board. But it seems to me that- Being inquisitive on my part, I absolutely want to know the why behind things.

7:01:35 I'm not going to pretend like I have the answer to everything. I don't have any answers. I have lots of ideas, and I would love to know why those ideas may not work in practice- Mm-hmm ... because obviously your expertise is valued. Like, okay, here's a bunch of things I'm proposing. Shoot them all down and tell me why, and then we can figure out, okay, well, within that vein of the why that I understand now, what can we do, right? Yeah. Let's work together to make sure that we're all obviously aligned. And I want to make sure that everybody's felt and seen and heard, supported. So that's it. I want to make sure we've got the mechanisms in place so everybody is always felt and their valued input is available, right? And if we don't have an avenue for that, let's get an avenue. Mm-hmm. I think it has to be intentional, though. And so I think we- ... as a district haven't

7:02:20 listened, and all of the different constituents share a perspective that's unique to where they're at. They're a teacher, they're an EA, they're a custodian, they're administrative. And the answer for a lot of the ills in education are in transit, the people doing order, and I think the board needs to intentionally set things in place that we can hear and have that conversation. No finger-pointing, but how can we be better together? I think. I didn't mean to come back to that, but- No, I'm glad you did. I'm- That's a huge- I'd love to hear that. That's great ... huge job and a huge system, and we're better if we're really listening and trying to support things that each of us in our respective roles can do to be better.

7:03:08 Yeah. And I think to the point is like with listening, I think there's some times when you guys, the boards, just need to listen. Me, superintendent, staff need to listen. There are times, and it sends a great message, when we are listening together at the same time as well, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's kind of the idea, what you said and what Jonathan followed up on, was what I meant by listening with openness. Yeah. Back to our- Yeah ... norms in the morning- Right ... which everybody's done an amazing job of. I have a few for each category. Love it. And I preface it with, these are expectations I have of myself as well, but I believe I model and expect of the people that we support. So I just say these things with respect,

7:03:54 and also personal expectation. So, under the first one, listening to all stakeholders while, this is kind of that an effective board member listens to all stakeholders while avoiding decisions being driven mainly by the loudest voices. And I think I've heard a theme of that. Treating district leaders as professional partners. Creating room to discuss challenges honestly. I've heard several themes about that. It's been really helpful when boards recognize and celebrate progress while maintaining accountability, not just focusing on what isn't working. Staying focused on governance while allowing administrators to lead the day-to-day instructional work or

7:04:40 operational work. Under trust, I have avoid personal agendas. That's really hard for myself as well. I have raised children. I have my own values and beliefs, but I serve in public schools, so I have to set my own personal feelings aside and agendas and focus in on research and the needs of our community. Applying policies and expectations consistently. Giving credit publicly and handle concerns privately and constructively. Admit mistakes and correct them. What helps us stay focused or me stay focused on students as schools is when our board goals are specific,

7:05:25 stable, and connected to student needs. I don't know, 10 plus years ago, our board, I think Jonathan was a part of that board, went through a comprehensive process to develop a strategic plan and strategic goals that really allowed us to build goals and measurable outcomes, and we have stayed true to those, and we've created through lines and had expectations in our buildings, and absolutely time to review those and refresh those but we expect that from our principals. Our principals expect that from our teachers. And so it's really helpful to have that clear strategic plan and vision. That sounds like that's something that's very important to you as well. Helping us stay focused is when there are clear roles between the board, the

7:06:12 superintendent, and district leaders. And, I think a common theme of that, celebrating progress while remaining attentive to students in schools helps us stay focused on that support. We, by nature of our job, are focused on continuous improvement and refinement and it sounds like that's a priority of our boards as well, so. I'll have you submit those to the district. Yeah. I have- They were brilliant, and I tried to write back.

7:06:57 So I got- I'll have to read them. You did get them. Well recorded. Yeah. It was wonderful. Yeah. And I do think our communications team, speaking of public recognition, has done an incredible job. We've seen great growth and how they do put forth a beautiful story between Allison's day-to-day social media posts to Sha Chris and Brian Richardson's long-term news stories that are up and highlighting the work in our buildings and our schools. And if people aren't aware of what those things are, it is good to hear that maybe people aren't aware that that story is being told, and it's being told beautifully in pictures and video and highlighting our operations team, our instructional team, our educational assistants, our students, and in their learning and their activities and what they're doing and

7:07:45 We get the privilege of seeing that and living that and reaping the benefits of that, and our communications team has done a really good job of telling that story. So how we tell the story that it's there is a good reminder that those things exist, and how do we point people in the direction of those beautiful images and storytelling. So that was good to hear, that maybe people aren't aware that that exists. Yeah, I think you have to approach it from a standpoint of being totally unfamiliar with the district. Mm-hmm. It's not unlike introducing a new product to the market. How do we create our brand? And I'm such a dyed-in-the-wool Springfield person, and I see all these great things and I want... And I think they're competitive advantages.

7:08:30 And again, the competitor in me says, "Man, I want every kid. I don't care. I-- Well, yeah, I do too." We do too. Yeah, I do too. We do too. All kids now. Yeah. And if they only knew- Yeah ... they'd be here. That's right. Anything, any last words on that? I'm going to take some time to reflect on some of the questions for myself personally, and I'll share that on Monday. But one observation today, throughout the course of today and in board meetings is we tend to focus a lot on teachers, which is important, but rarely do I hear any conversations about our classified employees. Mm. More than half of our employees are classified employees in our district. And we don't talk about our classified employees.

7:09:16 We don't spend a lot of time at board meetings representing- Mm ... classified employee voice. We haven't talked a lot about classified employees today. I've heard a lot about teachers. But this is a large chunk of our population of our employees, and I don't know where their voices are heard, outside of the work that we do at the district office, because we don't hear about them a lot. So just wanted to call that out and say that I hope that that's a focus as we move forward in this work. It really has to be. I thank you for- Mm-hmm ... mentioning that. Really. Because I've been in the trenches, I've seen, I don't care if it's a connection with a custodian or it's a nutrition person or whoever they are, I've seen kids, they come to school

7:10:04 because of that person. Yeah. So they're all teachers in a way. So how do we elevate them and, yeah, have those conversations? Right. I apologize that I missed part of the discussion. I don't know if it's been mentioned. We talked a lot about upward advocacy. I don't know if that's been mentioned here. Mm-hmm. But I think that that's for us to do our job best, there's so many things, and including some district leadership in that discussion of how you can support us by reaching out to legislatures. And we're talking about student behavior and some other things there. I think that there's definitely policies and legislation and different things that we could use your help by taking that to legislature and

7:10:51 trying to make a difference. Yeah. Teachers, there's always more being put on their plate. But I think the unseen, definitely by the public, is the burden- Yeah ... all this accountability and testing is put on you folks in here. And does anything ever get taken off the table? Well, I think in the day that we live in, there's so much legislation that's being passed all the time that has so much impact on so many aspects of our jobs and our work. And I think sometimes maybe the legislature doesn't understand the impact that it's making and some of the negative impacts that are coming from it. So-

7:11:37 I think that just- ... that would be cool ... to build off on that, the three big priorities for the largest districts were a new funding system, but that's not for this session. It's special education funding, and it's the mandates. Kind of- Yeah. The unfunded mandates is what we call it. Yeah. Those are the three big ones that- Yeah ... we're thinking about. With great power comes great responsibility, too. I know. Geez. Well, oftentimes as they're trying to solve a particular very focused- Yeah ... problem, it creates other problems, or- Mm-hmm ... and so that's the challenge- We had that exact discussion while you guys were out about managing to the least common denominator. Yeah. Well, and it underscores

7:12:24 the distrust. Obviously, you have to have this legislation because, what's it really saying? You have to be accountable. At what cost? And I don't think there's a consideration there, both financially or just for us in the organization. Well, you have to remember that representatives are elected for a two-year term. That means they have one short session and one long session to make a legislative track record. And so everyone wants to get a bill that they think can get passed, so they have something to run on. And they don't necessarily talk to the expert before they write those bills. Usually, they don't.

7:13:10 So- Or their expert is the 22-year-old that just got out of college that's- Then they're legislators. Yeah. Well- That's nuts ... part of the upward advocacy is educating our legislators. Mm-hmm. Because they don't know, and they may not have anybody on their staff that really knows. So yeah, it puts more work on the board, but if they heard the stories we hear, and they understand the system as we may understand it, before they ever develop the legislation, maybe they'll be more thoughtful. And when you have deep relationships, then they're willing just to- Yeah ... give you a call. On the South Coast, we had such a good relationship. What the senator or representative would be like. There's a vote.

7:13:57 Here's what I've heard. Can you level set with me to a couple of the superintendents in the region as a kind of a last, as you paid attention, is there any last advice for me as I make my- But your adrenaline just go off the charts. Yeah. And you're like, "Yes. Sell, sell, sell." Yeah. No, no. Here's what's going on. Yeah. It's beautiful. And that's what we want to build actually with our legislators and the folks that they know. Because, in our particular location, our legislators are pretty, I would say, supportive. They could be better informed sometimes. But it's also who do they know in other areas, Eastern Oregon in particular or some... So it's just getting the whole system.

7:14:44 Or what committee they sit on. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So knowing our Senate ed and House ed partners- Mm-hmm ... and then as well as our individual legislators. I had the opportunity to present to the Ways and Means subcommittee for three and a half weeks straight for Right ... a couple years, and I was just surprised about how much information was delivered there that wasn't delivered in Senate and House ed, and how few people were in that room. Mm-hmm. And I was like, "Oh, wow, as a leader, this is a really important meeting that I wasn't paying attention to when I was in K-12 land." And now that I'm in this space, I was like, "This is a really important space." So,

7:15:31 everything you're talking about in terms of getting yourselves embedded and experienced is just going to pay dividends in the movement that you're hoping to see and the power of your guys' conversation. It's really good. Last comments. I want to make sure that we don't... And we've got seven minutes, but not to pressure you. Want to make sure. And thank you, Matthew, for stepping forward and asking for this facilitative moment, because I think it's been really rich and important. Just one last thought on there. So I think tomorrow, and maybe I don't understand what tomorrow is, it was an opportunity for us maybe to come and say hi. Just that. That's all it was. Yeah. Is there a regular cadence of meetings? So, okay, let me just step back at a higher level. When we talk about the importance of school visits, the

7:16:17 importance as a board member is to see and feel what's going on. Not to evaluate, right? Yeah. Not to be instructive, but to understand what's going on. But kind of like what Justin, I think, was bringing up, what's also important too is the unseen people in our district that also is work is the administration itself and the leadership team and whatnot. Is there opportunities for the board to sit and listen into things like that or to be in a reverse role where you guys are having a meeting and reflection and we can be just passive listeners? I mean, I feel like- Careful what you wish for. Oh. Well, there's not a reason. There's not- I don't mean to sidestep. So I understand- No ... your job is to reflect most of their needs and wants to us,

7:17:02 but is there a reason we wouldn't want to sit in on things like that to be able to- No, it's the only thing that makes it, that people worry about, or at least I worry about, is sometimes when you make sausage, you got to cut up pig guts and all that, and that's not the prettiest thing in the world. Yeah. And so like giving people the space to do that. But I think just because of the reason I did the invite, because I guess maybe in the South it's kind of whenever we had a big convening of whomever, it was typical for not the whole board, but a board member or two to say, "Hey, the board's behind you. We are welcoming you," and all that.

7:17:49 And I don't think that's been the case, and so I wanted to just offer that opportunity. And then, the new teachers is coming up at the 29th or 28th, one of those two dates, and I've already talked to Dustin about what's the best time for either the board members or a representative to come and welcome them. I think it's important for a couple of ways, because if we're going to be better together, we have to be together, right? And so, I think it's better for me to hear, and that's my navigation, what you'd like to see, and then find places for that to happen. But also to an extent, using the board matters is saying, hey, I didn't put on there the

7:18:35 administrative retreat, but maybe I should've, right? And that way you guys know, and if you said, "Hey, would it be a problem for me to stop by for an hour?" or something like that, just to listen. So I think once the trust is built up, it's not a problem whatsoever. Yeah. It's going to take drops, but it's a really long answer to, yes, it can happen- ... as long as we have the trust. Well, and I think I've heard throughout the day that we may find ourselves instituting a superintendent, a seated committee with teachers and staff and administrators to work through a project, to work through a topic. And that's a wonderful space for a board to be at with

7:19:20 everyone in your world to listen and hear, as well as contribute and then report back. So I think some governing design models that I think Shawn has on his mind and with all of you of designing more frequent spaces for you to rumble on, and support initiatives and conversation needs to exist. Yeah, because it makes my job easier, to be honest with you, if you hear a lot of the same things I hear, because then I don't have to say them again and again. I mean- ... so it's to my benefit. But again, we have to- Have an aspirational vision of the future, but still honor what has happened in the past. Yeah. And it'll take some time. It will. But I have really enjoyed this time, and I

7:20:06 really want to thank the staff for being brave and saying some things today, because I thought that was brave, and you made me very proud. So thank you. Beautiful. I'll just take one facilitator moment, and I'll pass- Yeah ... it to you or anyone else. Just thank you for inviting me. Thanks for letting me spend the day with you. It's been a pleasure, and just super excited about the work effort that happened here and all of the conversation that ensued. I think at the end of the day, we talked about this a couple different times. Today is only as good as the leap we're willing to take to move it forward, and to follow through, and to lean into the

7:20:51 conversation and the work. And that takes all sorts of trust, and follow-through, and responsibility, and co-ownership, and everything we've talked about today on both sides. You mentioned acknowledging the past. There's still a lot of hurt. There's still a lot of stuff kind of sitting there. And we're at this moment where we both have to remember it, learn from it, but leap forward for the betterment of our students, families, and the community, and each other. And it just felt so good today to see you all getting ready- Yeah ... and planning to do it. And so super proud to be in the space with you and thankful to learn from you. I'm taking away just as much as I wrote

7:21:37 down for my own personal professional practice as well. So just, again, appreciating you. Leave the last words to Chair and Superintendent, and then I'll- Lorna. Well, start. I think this has been a day of really great conversations and getting to know each other better and perspectives, and that's the ground floor moving forward. So a small token of the district appreciation for you. I think I have to acknowledge, right? Dustin put it together. Nice. Very- It depends on the- I'm here. I'm taking a picture. You did not. Anyway. I think you've done an outstanding job, Shawn. I think you've done an outstanding job also in building this.

7:22:23 Board members, thanks for listening and contributing. But, um- Thank you. I'm excited. We've hit the note we needed before any of the other issues, right? Yeah. So- Yeah. That's part of this. Thank you so much. Don't shake that. It's a kitten. So I think I said the whole, "Man plans and the gods laugh." I think we got an eighth of what we actually planned to do. But I think the work that we did was much better than the plan that we had, if that makes sense. And so,

7:23:10 I thank everybody for kind of getting in that space that I challenged us to all to be in when we started this morning, which is thinking about those conjunctions and thinking about the ands. And it took bravery on both sides, and I really appreciate that and want to acknowledge that. I definitely have a lot of work to do, but it's good work, and we will do a follow-up, staff, the timing on Monday, where we'll take some of these things, hopefully maybe even do a draft these expectations that we have right here. Oops. And, go from there. Yes. I think as a next step, too,

7:23:56 the timing of any data and response. Response is something that I know this board has said today is how do they get access to the information? And no one can read my handwriting. So it may take a little bit of deciphering, but making sure that we follow through on- Yeah ... you know. And that will, of course, come in board notes and other spaces. Yeah. I think the follow-up activities that I think I heard is making sure that people have access to the information, making sure that you're reporting back on those priority lists, and then getting this kind of operationalized into something that we could utilize to move forward on. And then maybe whatever next step process it looks like for you to convene in some way, whether it be at the next board meeting or another retreat

7:24:41 or a work session to kind of keep this work moving- Yeah ... moving forward. So this isn't a one and done. This is the foundation, to your point, and everyone should expect to see this continue to iterate. Your handwriting is better than my handwriting. I will write stuff on my board, and I can't even read it. I can read almost that whole report, so. We can talk about how I can help, too. Yeah. Any final thoughts from board members? Productive time for me, and so it's very useful, so... Yeah, it was absolutely fantastic. Just coming in from the outside, obviously, this is a newer world for me, so. But it was fantastic to see all these things.

7:25:27 And everyone here, Brian doesn't know this, but he and I are going to... I've got some templates, too. We'll do a very, very short survey, no more than five questions that we'll want to send out just to get some feedback on. Okay? We should have done a 360 moment and had Brian come back and say, "What's your word now?" Right? Maybe that was it. That's fair. That'll be our next- Definitely. That'll be our next retreat. Brian can- All right. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, staff. Really, you make this all happen. You make it look easy. Yeah. Marty. Marty, yes. Allison as well. Yeah, Allison and Brian. It's been wonderful, so thank you.

7:26:13 Fantastic. We need ethanol. They'll come in handy. No, those are mine. Those are normal. Yeah. No, you should save those because that's like gold.