So, we are short. >> I >> We do have a quorum at least. >> Okay. >> I'm going to tech I've texted two of the three. I'm texting the third. >> All right. We'll see what you get a response. Has it ever happened where there's not I am going to call the meeting to order with a roll call. >> Timber Derek Carter >> here. >> Pepper Johnson Moore >> here. >> Thomas >> here. >> Whiskus >> here. At this time, we would like to welcome any visitors we might have or anyone out there in Never Neverland as part of the public forum. Seeing none, item three, approve the agenda. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> We have a motion and second to approve the agenda. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Uh item four, approve minutes of the previous meeting. >> Motion approved. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Close session to review discuss records which are required or authorized by state or federal law to be kept confidential pursuant to Iowa code section 21.51. Hey. >> All right. >> We have a motion. We need a motion to go into close session. >> So, is this something that our attorney has advised us to go into close session on >> in previous? >> Yes. >> And do we need a request from the individuals involved or is that wave? >> This the request is the open request. >> Do they have to request close session >> specifically that we hadn't had to have that? >> Okay. So, we have to go to close to talk about. >> I just want to make sure we're going into a legal close session. >> Yeah. Good. I like that. Yeah. Thank you. >> I move that we go into close session to review or discuss records that are required authorized by state or federal law to be kept confidential pursuant to Iowa code section 1518. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of going into close session. Oh, roll call. Excuse me. Yes, >> absent. Carter, >> yes. >> Absent. Johnson's absent. >> More. >> Yes. >> Thomas. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> We are in close session. We are at item five A. I make a motion to deny the open enrollment request. >> Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to deny the request. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I >> I >> I oppose. Same sign. >> I >> So we have three in favor and one opposed. >> We uh no longer have any old business. Is that right? >> Uh correct. Yep. >> New business. It does not appear that we have a student representative here tonight. >> Yeah, I wasn't sure if there would, so I thought we'd leave it on just in case. >> Um I do know I'll speak on behalf of our student representative very briefly to say our girls are being quite successful in the softball playoffs. Um and they have a big game in Alb tomorrow. So be ready to cheer for what would be I think officially our third upset in a row. So not >> that's what we like. >> Yeah. Uh, next item B, approved certificate of substantial completion for the high school edition project. >> Um, Michelle email that she's trying to get back in. She said she needs let in. >> Wonder if she's on the old link. I'll email her the new >> and I'm sure she's going to speak to this probably. Um, but Aaron and I did talk a little bit about the final walkthrough that he did uh last week uh with Michelle. They found a series of items that they asked for uh by today to complete. We are still working on a few roof leaks. Uh the last thing that Lance uh I guess kind of said in Aeron's presence to a subcontractor on that was I don't care if we have to tear the whole roof off and put a new one on. We need to find these leaks. So, um, I do know that th those items are still on the list and it won't be signed off on, I think, is my understanding officially and she'll be able to tell you that more eloquently. I'm kind of stalling for time for her a little bit here. But, um, but so they did catch a few things that Michelle is having fixed for us um on that walk through, not necessarily related to substantial completion, but just in relation to the building and kind of how things are going for us with that. So related to that crack windows is that part of this or not? >> So we don't feel and and now that Michelle's in she can help maybe answer that but we don't necessarily I wouldn't say that we have definitive proof one way or the other at this point on that. Relle, there's a question about the about the windows that tent cracked. That's I was answering there as you came in. >> Yeah. So, we were out there last week. Can you guys hear me? Okay. >> Sound great. >> Okay. Um, we were out there last week with the contractor and Aaron and walked around and looked it did look at those windows. The only windows that it appears that is that are cracking are the windows that do have the film. >> There are no windows on the south side. There are no windows on the north side that don't have film that are cracking. They appear to There's nothing that appears to be installed. Strange from what we could tell, obviously. Um, it's kind of a weird situation. Honestly, I've not run into this before as far as windows cracking with film on it either. So, that's strange too in my mind. Um, but we have not found any other issues on nonfilmed windows. >> Did you know Aaron has replaced I think one of them maybe or maybe even two windows and he replaced them. There was something about having a tempered glass that they thought that whoever he worked with thought probably would help that issue some. >> Yes. So the tempered glass obviously is just a little bit way different way that they actually treat the glass and if it were to like for example shatter. It's not going to shatter in a ton of pieces. It's going to shatter in crumbles. That's kind of the point of a tempered glass. So maybe it has more of a guard against that with film on it. >> Can you explain the >> Mark was talking a little bit about the the roof situation with the leaks. Can you explain a little bit about that? >> Yes. Yeah. So, we were again we were out there last week walking around with the contractor and um they were out there I believe the week before that and had fixed a few they had found a few leaks. Um and then we did see a few additional leaks when we were there last week. So, they were coming back out. The contractor bystate has been pushing on them to get out there to get this resolved. Obviously, this should not be taking this long to in to figure this out or to get this resolved. Um, you do have a 2-year extended warranty on this roof. So, it's beyond just the one-year install. That's how we do the roofs um typically. So, it's not like after this 12 month, the roof is no longer warrantied. Obviously, it does have a total total product warranty of 20 years, but the install warranty goes 2 years. >> So, were they able to figure out or have they figured out is this a install problem, a product problem, anything like that? Or >> Right now, it appears that they are just finding these little holes as they come about. doesn't appear to be a product issue because it the product has been in warrantied by the manufacturer. The manufacturer has been out and warrantied the product. So, it's been installed per warranty. I don't know if it's some little pin holes that come from when people are walking on the roof or repairing things um on the roof. That could be part of it as well and then they end up creating a new pinhole and they have to come back and patch it. That could certainly be part of it. Um, roof leaks are are a challenge to find sometimes, but it definitely seems like this is the contractor has been very forceful with the with the uh um the installer of this roof. So, >> so the warranty is two years from install the labor warranty. Um the labor warranty is actually 2 years from your substantial completion which was August 9th I believe 2024. >> Okay. So if the roof continuously leaks from before and after substantial completion and they don't get this fixed by August of next year, basically we're going to be financially responsible for a roof leak that has been there since we took occupancy. Is that possible? >> I mean, I would not recommend that be our stance. I would actually recommend if we continue to see issues in the next six months that we actually ask for an extended maintenance bond on the roof that would hopefully help get these repaired if it does continue or replacement of the roof itself. >> So what does it mean for us to take action on the on the substantial completion tonight? >> Substantial completion is this has already been approved by the contractor. This was last year. It's just official paperwork that doesn't really give you any type. It's not a final completion. We're still are not final final complete. It's just basically saying that the portion of the building that you guys occupy is usable for its original intent. That's all substantial completion really means. I guess I don't understand why it was done a year ago, but it's still not done a year later >> as far as substantial completion or as far >> all these issues. I don't understand why it's taken a year to get these issues resolved. >> Um, we can certainly bring in the contractor to have that discussion further. I know that, you know, roof leaks do happen, but we can certainly bring the contractor in and have a a sit down discussion with them on on that. So with a motion to approve a certificate of substantial completion, I assume a payment follows. Is that correct? >> No, this is just this is just paperwork saying that the building is being used for its original intent. And the reason why it hasn't been filed until now is because we're waiting on a few punch list items from the civil consultant. So, all items have really mostly been completed on the punch list as well. >> What are what are the ones that have not been completed on the punch list? >> Um, I actually think the only there's only well the roof issue that it's been on the original punch list. And then the other item is um closeout. So close out items like um O andM so manuals and um and uh final certificates. >> Is that has that the issue with that north door off the auditorium? Has that been taken care of? >> Aaron and I are working through that. Yep. >> So is it a So it hasn't been completed. >> No, but that's not a contractor issue. So >> why is that not a contractor issue? because they installed it per our drawings and so we need to get that changed out. So I'm working with Aaron to get that changed out and FRK will help cover the cost of that. >> This just it scares me with this roof issue. I I know this document maybe doesn't necessarily really have anything to do with that, but that roof issue really scares me. Um, quite frankly, I don't want to walk away from this next year with a on my face because of something that didn't get done correctly on all the millions of dollars that we spent on this building. >> And that would be separate of this, right, Michelle? Yes, that's a warranty item. Yes, that is separate. And I do agree that I think if we don't see some resolution here in the next few months, I think we need to engage with them on a different conversation. >> I would like to make the motion that we deny the certificate of substantial completion until we have time to consult with our attorney for the purpose of seeking a bonded one-year additional warranty on the road. We have a motion. >> He's going to die for like a second. That's okay. I get where you're coming from. I think this is a separate document to me. I get where we can remain remains on the on the roof issue and plan to do the warranty cla >> I would make a motion to approve second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the certificate of sub substantial completion for the high school edition project. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose saying sign. >> I three in favor and one denied. Motion has been approved. We're down to item C. approve the sharing agreements for 2526. >> Um, okay. So, again, uh, Sharon Dina Swenson, um, with Marabia, Sharon, me as we did this year, uh, to cover some of our special ed uh, support, Aaron helped with some highle maintenance needs. I think he helped with like HVAC a couple times last year, too, among some other things. Um, Actually, um, technically Sam to us should be in here, too. >> I just had to receive it from them. They >> Oh, that's right. They didn't get it to us in time. So, we may have to bring that back. We the question, we weren't sure ones that we've already done if we had to bring those back or not. So, uh, but this is just continuing our sharing with Moravia that we've done. And remember what this uh does for us financially uh is it produces do students in our home. So uh me being shared to help out with special education there at Moravia gives us actually nine student count um to go on to our um our enrollment numbers and that produces 9* 7800 for the district. So, um it's it's a matter of producing funds that uh help us kind of weather the storm of declining enrollment. >> Move to approve sharing agreements as presented. >> My question, >> I'll second. So, we have a motion and a second discussion. >> Sure. Y >> are we actually spending 20% of your time and 20% of Aaron's time? We are working >> our district. >> We are working to align that as closely as we can. I will tell you um Sam and I had a discussion this spring that we felt like we were probably under underdoing the numbers um pretty significantly for a while there. So, we've made some planned time on those Fridays to so that Sam and I can collaborate on on our issues and and provide some of those services to the districts. Um so that nobody's paying for a service that they're not receiving. Um if that makes sense. >> It does. I just to share a superintendent our building director for this the size that we have. I mean I get the I get the the ghost student. Can I get that? I just >> Is there nobody else that can meet um those qualifications? >> So if Julie were shared to do that, we would get four students instead of nine. So, I mean, technically, yes. However, um it it's worked well for us. It hasn't hasn't caused us a problem um in our operations and and it produces some much needed funds, especially given the 113,000 that we just lost to the funding freeze at the federal level. What I guess I know >> I struggle to share with his competitors. >> That's fair. I respect that. And this is a kind of thing that both here. >> I know Dina Swinson's role. >> Yes. >> What What is it that you're doing, Mark? As far as >> So, I help them with special education. So, a lot of the work that I've done for them has been in the area of Stratu, helping their Stratu teacher know how to do uh some of the computer stuff in there. I mean, she's really self-sufficient. She's she's pretty good, but every now and then I'll I'll help her out with things or some state reporting and and helping make sure that that Sam is kind of up to date. So technically a lot of the times uh Julie will watch the special ed uh director u zooms give me the information that I related to to Sam as part of our our weekly meetings and and get that information to them so that they are up to date on what they need and um and we've got all that. Will sharing Aaron that 20% cause us any lack of better word grief I guess in our do you know what I mean? >> It hasn't um it hasn't caused us any trouble thus far. Um >> and what do you like what do you anticipate like like his time frame up there? So we've made it an on call kind of basis there with them. And so it's usually like they had an HVAC emergency that happened last year and I know he went out and responded to help out with that which to be honest with you as a good neighbor a lot of these things are things we probably would do like I I talked to superintendents from other districts for example >> how good neighbors treat this district in the past. So that's >> I understand. However, however, the superintendent world works in in that we all understand that we're serving kids and we're going to call each other and we're going to help each other. If if the new superintendent of Davis County would call me and say, "Hey, I' I'd like to know something about this or this, I'm I'm going to help, right?" >> Uh because that's the that's what we do to help each other build systems that are good for kids. And when I call and I've got a concern that I don't know what to do, I know that I've got a network of 50 superintendents that I know that will do the same thing and they'll take the time to get on a Zoom with me and help me through it and work on it. So really, a lot of this is us getting credit for some of that collaborative work that we're doing. >> And the reason I ask is because, you know, I was this was brought up to me last year from some of the the members listening at home. Why are we sharing our superintendent? Why aren't we showing our building on the grounds? >> And understand the full gist of it. >> Yeah. >> You know, on circle or take a few years, but >> Okay, that answer questions. >> And and the hope would be that sharing all those different levels of expertise from different people to other districts means that we can all be more efficient in our schools. And I don't know if every sharing agreement out there works that way, but that's how we've tried to function these ones as I've worked with Sam. We want there to be an efficiency that we can get something better for our district as a result of this work. >> So far so good. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Oppose same sign. Motion carries. We're down to item D. Approve the fuel bids. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second to approve the fuel bids. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Item E, approve the induction coach contract agreement for 2526. as we continue our work with Joe Mopley uh on the new teacher center uh teacher induction. Um we have a a few new teachers again this year and this is a selling point when I go out to recruit new teachers at college teacher fairs. Um a lot of districts don't have as robust of a mentoring program as we have. was very lucky to have somebody who could go in and work with those young teachers in their classroom during the school day rather than talking to them after school about how it went. So, um really pleased with with the work that John does for us to approve. >> We have a motion and a second to approve the coach contract agreement for uh Dr. Carol. Uh all those in favor signify by saying I >> I >> oppose same sign. We have an approved. Uh item F approve regulate return coach job description. >> So I am extremely excited about this one. Um this is uh one thing that I've gotten since I came was questions about the role of student advisor and and what that looks like and what the duties of those folks are. And we've really undertaken a lot of work on trying to to figure out how these extra people we have that we need to support kids can truly support kids in a way that makes progress. And um you probably I think I think I shared a few times in my emails through the year where we sent people out to see training on capturing kids arts and on teach to heal um to try to see which direction we wanted to take our district with some of the dealing with some of the more challenging behavioral needs. And uh the group selected teach to heal which I went to a week-long training you you saw I think in one of my emails a few weeks ago and actually most of our principles are at a week-long training this week in Cedar Rapids uh for teach. So the regulate and return coach is the person who actually this training is designed for. So, um, Tyler Bae and Bridget Stickler had been um at that training that I went to to train on these skills and it's a set of interventions uh that are used to help deescalate the situation and help to build some social skills in a student who struggles behaviorally um instead of hoping crossing your fingers whatever other plans sometimes happen like that. Um so the regulate and return coach will be the person that eventually you know hopefully we'd replace student advisor positions with regulate and return positions. So these people are trained in a set of skills to be able to uh uh effectively help students to make progress on developing the needed skills for school success. >> Are these districtwide or building? >> Builder specific. Yeah. Um and they'll one of the things that the um see life lifespace crisis intervention is the training that they go to and you have to have a room for them that they can set up and it has to have you know certain characteristics that it's private. It's away from where the other students are. They have a chance to deescalate in there. So we do have spaces at Howard and at uh Lake View uh for that. Um and uh you know this this our hope would be to hit the ground running there. We do not intend to hire a person for the high school this year for this, but we will our our goal is to get somebody trained in the interventions there at the high school beyond Jenny and Jared. Um so that we can start to put some of that in. But it really would make a big impact on the K level for us. That's where we want to see the most bang for our buck with each motion to approve. Second >> motion and a second to approve. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Post sign. Motion has approved. >> Thank you. >> Approve the activity fund transfers within foreign negative accounts. Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. I. >> Post sign. Motion carries. H board resolution to transfer funds for athletic equipment FY25. Roll call vote. >> Well, the question on this one is why does this one roll call? The last one didn't >> this is a resolution and other Okay. So then why does it have to be resolution? >> State requires >> requires it. >> Got it. Can you can you explain a little >> this is um so the state allows for schools because the cost for football helmets is pretty high. >> The um really I guess other safety or protective equipment could be included. I can only think of football helmets but that's cuz I got tackled a few too many times. I played football. I don't know. But um shoulder pads. Yeah, you're right. And I I'm sure there are other safety and protective equipment for sports and activities, but they allow for a transfer from the general fund uh to be able to pay for that protective equipment to ensure that students are safe and there's a a limited life on those. They've got a certain number of seasons that they can be used for. So, uh just trying to get back on cycle. Actually had a really great conversation with uh Mr. Justin about this and the hope is you know like how we've done with the buses where now we're on a cycle where we know every so many years you replace a bus and and you know when that ought to be and when this bus's time will be up. That's what he's working to do with the helmets moving forward too. So I think that'll be really valuable for us so we don't have a lot of big hits a random year. We'll be able to have a little hit each year that way. Kevin also um the previous one is with the activity within activity and since we're doing a fund to fund transfer >> may I know you're on top of it I'm just curious for the reason so >> today I'll make a motion to approve >> second we have a motion and a second any further discussion >> okay all those in favor it's a roll call vote >> absent Carter Yes, >> he Johnson's accent more. >> Yes. >> Thomas, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> We're round to item I approve the 25 26 general cafeteria and activity fees. >> I'll just throw this out there and I wish Jared was here. >> Sorry, that was >> No, that's fine. I I attention to a couple of members in the past. Um, I've seen some, not necessarily other districts do it. Uh, would it break the bank if we were to not charge our students for our events? >> I don't know because we don't keep that data that way. >> You try to get more kids in the seats to support. >> Yes. I know that anything that reduces the amount of income the activity fund is a concern right now. >> Sure. >> Um we're on pretty razor thin margins as it is um to be able to break even or not. The only purpose for which we can transfer if I'm correct tell me if there's any other the only purpose to which we can transfer general fund money to the activity fund uh would be for safety and protective equipment. So at some point if we don't have enough gate, we won't have reps or buses to go to games or coaches. I guess we could have coaches. That's general fund. So it's we have to our income for our our gate is not good enough for us to produce gate. >> Yeah. >> Right now. >> Can we have some data on that maybe for next year? I'm not sure how I could to be honest with you because I would I I would have to tell every ticket taker, every game, you need to write down if this was a student or if this was was an adult. And I just think at at what point >> in a long way that's not practical. >> Yeah. I mean, I guess if the board told me I had to, I'd do it, but I that would be a real burden on our staff. We're who are running the gate. If you would a you have to pre- buy the tickets >> that is an option through >> that would track that for you. >> I think I think we're adding a lot of work for minimal game. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Go to a football game. Look at the line. They're just trying to take money. >> Just get going. That's right. >> Okay. So, the only two that really changed on here would be the >> adult the meals >> adult meals playlist. >> Do we have a motion on that? >> I don't think so. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second to approve the 2526 general cafeteria activity fees. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Same sign. >> Approved. Approve the building handbooks. So you'll notice uh for the most part you can see the changes. There really weren't a lot of changes this year. We did a lot of work last year to get these in shape. Um and to align them with the IASB exempt bar. So um if there are changes in a lot of cases you'll see it either italicized or highlighted in yellow. It's changing names changing years to update everything to what needed updated >> staff etc. uh period start time and time. Um if we had a change in a board policy in the last year, you'll notice a couple of those are changed to update in these just to match the board policy. Um >> there was one of them that still had Mr. Moore listed as board. >> Well, I'm not letting you take that, >> but I don't remember which. That's what Carol and I were just talking. >> I don't remember which building that was down. >> High school. >> High school on the front cover. >> Look at that. >> Of course, it all changed by November anyway. So, I guess it would really matter. >> Say anything you didn't like. >> Would you be willing to consider approving with that change? Got to bring it back to us. Thank you. >> Throw something at me already. >> So I think did anyone make a motion? >> Make a motion to approve with the change to Mr. Carter for um >> Okay, we have a motion. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Close. Same side. Motion approved. >> Approve personnel business procedures. >> Motion approved. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? >> All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. Say. All approved. Financial reports. Move to approve. Second. >> Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Same sign. Oppose. Same sign. Next. Superintendent report. >> So, uh, if you got a chance to read my weekly update this week, um, that really has the bulk of what I would say. I think for those playing at home, uh, like whenever we do a board meeting, I always think like, well, I kind of just gave a report update. But I do feel like uh one section that actually two sections of that do uh require repeating for those at home. Uh one being uh we're doing work uh to update our emergency operations plan. We've actually hired an outside person who's got uh some extra FEMA training and is working with us and our uh local emergency response teams uh to to put together an even more robust uh plan. Uh actually we did get some compliments on some things today at the meeting that we had that maybe some other schools didn't have. So that was kind of a nice little feather in the cap and felt good for a moment. But uh uh definitely adding in some new new things. It's it's it looks like something that belongs in the 21st century rather than maybe the late '9s now. Uh in that it'll have some nice pictures and some maps in it and everything and not just a a wall of text. Um we will uh look to come back either in an August meeting or the first meeting of September to ask the board to approve the new um revision of the emergency operations plan and resubmit that with the uh with the governor's office for the city. >> Is that the close session? >> Uh I still have to work with the attorney on it, but I believe that there is a part that we have to do that. Um so yes, I think you're right. Uh and then to avoid all politics related to this, but just to allow people to understand the current situation, um on June 30th, the federal government announced that there would be with withholding $6.8 billion in funding earmarked and approved by Congress for school districts that was to begin dispersement to states on July 1st. Um and that funding is frozen. Um there are a series of funds um that are being withheld from school districts and these are funds that we uh were obviously had in our our plans uh because they were earmarked for us going into this year. June 30th is well after districts make all fiscal decisions regarding staffing uh because you have to have had contracts out to people. Um so we will lose 73,000 in title 2A uh professional development uh and also that also used for class size reduction. We use it for class size reduction. So paying for staff so that we can have small class sizes. Uh we'll lose 40,000 in um title 4 a academic enrichment which we actually use to fund part of our three-year-old preschool. So, while I'm now proposing um obviously we can't be proposing cuts at this point anyway. We have contracts out to everybody. Those are already issued. We will lose $113,000 in any of our comfort uh for this year that we could have had um to make sure that if unexpected expenses come up that we were safe. There is an advocacy effort to encourage the federal government to consider consider consider releasing those funds to school districts who have planned for that. If that's where you're inclined, that might be a thing that could be beneficial to many local districts. Um, so not trying to be political one side or the other, just funding decisions had already been made by the time this was announced. 113,000 is quite a bit. I talked to a friend who uh runs a larger district and he he will be short 500,000 from his district's budget um as a result of the change on June 30th. So um definitely a scary scary deal there. >> Any questions? That brings us to the very next part. It's not Taylor's. It's not Taylor's. It's Taylor's problem. >> Even better. Who said even better? You get like Was that you? >> Yes. >> That's pretty amazing. >> You missed that part. >> What a tough what a tough conversation to follow. >> Sorry. >> No. Um >> Derek, it's Gosh darn it. It's a hard topic though. >> Just thanks for inviting me uh back to Centerville. Well, some of you may be going, I didn't have a choice. And I get that, too. But it's still fun for me to be it's fun for me to be back. It was a beautiful day to drive uh this route because y'all were a beautiful drive from my house. There's a lot of hills and a lot of ups and downs and it's really pretty. So, Mark just graciously pack passed out a packet of content that we're going to work through. You're going to work through tonight. You're going to do all the heavy lifting. Um, I always like to call out the very front page has my contact information on it. So, if you don't have my cell phone number tucked away, you should uh you should tuck that away somewhere for the time when you get a question that you're like, gosh, what's what's the answer to that? And give me just a little bit of time to go find it because I don't know in case you stop me with a question because you're very well may. So, I'd like to start off with especi especially especially after talking about serious topics of money and and so many so many districts are exactly where you all are saying on June 30th. This is what we were anticipating coming and now um not feeling good about that change. And I think that's a I think that's a very fair statement by the way. Um, so let's think about what you've done this past year because you've done a lot of really great things. And I want to start on page one of your packet. And I want you to give some thought to what is something that the board has done in this past year to help foster student success. And I don't want you to overthink this because I just listened to you do a lot of writing just tonight >> in that as well. So, I'm going to give you a few minutes to think about what do you want your thing to be. I'm going to pass around a bunch of um half sheets of paper and some markers because you're going to use those for a variety of things tonight. But after you capture your thought, I'm going to have you write your whatever that thing is. Um, I'm going to ask you to get where because we're going to post it up here on the wall so that we can see it and be reminded of it tonight. Okay. What questions do you have for me before I get arts and crafts out? >> We're playing till 7. Is that what you're thinking? >> Yes. We probably need to adjust just a little bit of material because I might have more material than we're going to do tonight, but I'm just curious cuz at some point a break. That's all I >> do. Do you want to do it? Now >> there is pizza and soda for the board members out there. I think there's even plans. >> I wasn't advocating right now. >> Well, you absolutely. >> It's not a bad plan. >> Absolutely. >> I think it would be smart. Yeah. >> Yeah. I totally would be time to grab some food and a comfort break. >> I think our subordinate is actually long. We took too much of your time by >> No, no, you had poor business. You don't always get to decide how much time you need to talk about stuff. That's okay. >> Okay. So, let's take a short recess. If it's here, let's do it. >> It's in the kitchen area there. I can start handing stuff off. >> I was just That was my plan. >> You like mute shut off the camera or >> Well, I think we're still here. So, I'd say leave it on >> busy >> busy about hi. >> I'm good. How are you? Over the four:00 start time. >> That's that's that was easy to do. >> I was knee deep, but >> you would need to eat. Hey, that happens. You just want a floater. sausage and cheese. selfcious each time I stand back. >> Trust me, not many people. We have nobody watching. So, >> okay. if if someone joins in 5:30 because they thought that's when it you know our normal start time but we upload these later and get like 80 people to come back and watch them later. >> You're not seeing much. No one's seeing much of you. Sorry. >> Okay, good. Good. I'm just going to make sure that I don't stay I I noticed it right away. Oh god. >> All the biggest sign >> All the older guys I'm 30. I don't look 30, but I have all this hair. But they hate being on here cuz they'll stand there and they'll look at the front thing and they're like, I really have that piece of hair. >> Sorry to tell you. I guess >> the camera does not lie. Guess what? >> You're good. >> Wait. What did he mention? >> We are >> I think it was up to Carol. >> Oh, >> is is the impression I guess? >> Yeah. I don't want it to be >> No. No. I I said I think she wants a floater pool. >> Yeah, I do. >> Not this black pool thing. >> No. Well, I had a hot tub and I tried floating in that, but it was fine. But it wasn't for the second. >> Yeah, >> I just can't I just want to cry. I just >> Oh, that's >> I'm heartbroken for them. >> Did they lose just one building or >> It's like the south side is like half of the south side. >> Oh, no. >> Don't you think? Yeah. Um I I didn't see too much of I know didn't one fall all the way while one of them the one on the end fell into the alley >> crazy >> you know center bells just heartbeat away >> I know and I pulled up on the square today and I'm just like you just never think about like if something like that one building starts on a fire in the square what what else is going to Cameron, you going to eat? >> Uh, what's out there? >> What's that? >> Pizza. >> I guess I'll get a slice. >> Thank you. >> There's always so much left over. Get more than one. >> Besides, you're the most important guy here. >> Oh, yeah. I bet. >> We are so lucky to have him. You know, >> and it took me six months to get, you know, think about it. >> Oh, couldn't you try the blue raspberry, too? >> Yeah. Try it. >> That makes me feel better. Somebody else didn't think like, "Oh, that's gross." >> If you say the word raspberry, I am. >> Fair enough. >> I will get anything that has raspberry. >> Hey, you do a blue raspberry. >> I will raspberry. >> If you're at a restaurant, I get that. I don't think you did. >> Did you just say you're not a dessert person? Dessert person. >> Oh, it's raspberry. I'm eating it. >> Yeah. You know, my favorite Mr. Laura, I saw you out there we eating or spring trimming. >> Yeah, you were after a little bit today. >> So the work my sh the price though get that lob soul. for a lot. Big garage. Big garage. But it's still I don't know how you put a house on it. >> No, there's foundation under there. >> Oh, they didn't take the foundation out. >> No, they didn't burn it down. >> That was actually So there used to be two houses there. >> Yeah, it was. >> Yeah. Trying to talk my dad into buying that. We have too much crap in both of our garages. We need what? Four more. Is there four garages there? >> Mhm. >> Three or four. >> We We need more space if we' be worth maybe. If you use the building and the building's very nice water and sewer does people looked at it commercial business and they come back in I can eat and work. I want to get as much time out of hand as we can. >> Even commercial is kind of getting in and out of >> Yeah. >> All right. >> Headlights in your tail lights. Maybe it'll be in my head. >> You go first. >> No, you go first. You go first. You go first. >> There it is. >> My favorite kind of time. Well, >> now >> Hey, now we're getting somewhere. >> We're getting somewhere. >> Okay, let's try the rest thing. >> Watch this. That's good. >> Yeah. >> I feel like it's kind of thing where there's plenty left. Are you okay if it's just like, hey, if you need something, we'll replenish and we can do our thing as we go. >> I will never stand between anyone and food. >> Well, a few of these guys, you don't want to. >> No, totally. >> I didn't I said I didn't say names. Hey, I'm going to follow Mike Moore's lead. I don't want to get through there. >> Why don't you do the double stack? >> I did the first time. >> Not my first rodeo here, Carol. >> Okay, gotcha. >> So, are we are we answering number one on this? >> So, yes. If you've got a bite to eat, you're ready to ready to hit it. I would say let's look at page one, fostering student success. >> You got half sheets of paper in front of you and some markers. So, I'm going to say um I'm going to have you give some thought to again what is what is something you've done in the last year to foster student success as a board. And if there's anybody in the room that's competitive, it doesn't have to be unique. It can be doesn't have to be. You don't need to worry about >> what's the thing with the program at the high school with the acronym. I'm ter >> not like a program. >> No, >> cuz it feels like like the whole year was so big that I'm trying to figure out what >> what all we did. Um, >> are you talking about Jag? >> I want that one. >> Yes, you don't. Okay, maybe I Jag. Is that the one you're >> Yes, it is. >> Okay. >> He's He's showing you his job. Oh, >> I get it. Is that just >> That's a good one. Yeah. Uh, Iowa jobs for America's graduates. >> Yes. I will judge. >> Come on. >> Come on. Yeah. >> I don't want to answer first. It'll copy. >> Yeah. Once you have your idea written down or ideas, if you're an overachiever, um I want you to take what you have and I want you to go share it with somebody you're not sitting next to. >> Mike, >> yes, I agree. >> In a perfect world to like get up and move and talk to each other. >> Carol and I got this down, right, Carol? >> That's a good one. >> Yeah. What's that? >> Yes. >> Most of the time. >> Once you share, are we going to come pick them up over here >> so we can see them >> and you should be prepared. I might be able here. Yes, we're around it. Um, you might be asked to I might ask you to tell me something you heard. So, I hope you had a good conversation who shared something else. >> Oh, hey. Yeah. >> Can't read my handwriting. >> Yeah, I think that's a big I couldn't even remember what it was. >> Well, then I can stack. That's good. >> That's all right. >> I'll go at the same time as you. I'll take one side. You take the other side. I'm glad. >> Look how artistic. >> Hey, now I want you >> to talk with an elbow partner and answer this question from the list you created. So, whatever you whatever you put out there, how do you ensure the public knows what you're doing and why you're doing it? Talk with an elbow. >> First of all, what I was playing along that legit >> I don't know. >> There's some things behind that one actually. >> Yeah. Some of these are not like the other. >> How does your public How do you ensure your public knows what you're doing and why? >> I will tell you very >> elbow partner. Not yet. Elbow partner. >> I can't wait to hear what you have to tell me. >> Yeah. our advertising program. Yeah. >> Which was hard. Yeah, >> either way. >> Open. >> Lisa wants you. Well, first of all, I want you to tell me um tell me something you heard that something that you heard your partner told about fostering student success. And I took a picture so I can be lazy and not stand up there. So, I'm going to so I can see what's there. So, what was what was something you heard in your first conversation about something that the board is doing to foster student success? Well, Tom brought one up and I wouldn't have thought of this one is the job fair. So, they had a job fair at the high school. Really, I don't know how much the board really did it, but I think we we'll take some credit for the conversation here that um our high school staff put together a job fair. It actually had three other two or three other districts that came in. There was over a hundred different employers that came and kids all the way down to like ninth grade were going through just to see what it is. And so I think that's, you know, we're I guess creating the culture that they would do something like that. And I forgot about that. That's truly the student success part of our mission. >> And we thought, you know, a ninth grader and 10th grader came in there and they talked to different ones, they might decide the courses they're going to take >> or the next time. He said, "You know, this iron working sounds pretty good. I like their wages." >> Mark, what did you ask? >> We wouldn't have the college and career techn uh transition coordinator if the board didn't approve that. So, the board beautiful piece. All right. >> Um, that's fabulous. So, how do you ensure that your public knows about that initiative? So whether you want to say specifically the job fair or maybe you want to think take that up to the board level of you approved a tell me project and I'm going to take repeats in your mouth. I'm so sorry. >> No uh college and career transition coordinator. >> Thank you. I'm like I know that term college and career transition coordinator. So you approved you approved to have a spot for that. How did you make sure that your community knows what you did and why you did it? >> Lisa had a very good point on this. >> I'll So when we like this, we're live streaming. Live streaming. We have no lawful. We don't have to um we don't have to live stream. We don't have to put it on go pitch. We don't have to do anything like that. But we have choose to do that. Put it on our website, different things like that. And what were you saying? We're the smallest. >> Well, I'm just saying not all districts this size actually do that. So, >> and I will say today I had somebody in a conversation today told me how they brought up something in a board meeting that happened more than 6 months ago. >> November, I believe. >> Yeah. Yeah. And uh just made a comment to me on that. So, and these are busy people that are professionals and so they're taking time to watch that and and I was surprised that um I think we'd all be surprised how many people watch it. >> Okay. >> We'd be surprised how many people watch it. >> I can give you some stats. >> He doesn't know cuz he's >> Oh, I can give you the the stat. >> We can talk about that a little bit here. So, so everybody who does watch it either or come back to the website or watch it on the pitch I Yes, absolutely. All that goes together a lot of stuff >> to Lisa's point. I love you don't you're not required to do it and I guess is that is that what I would call a coke keeper? Were you doing it prior to co >> we recorded prior to co >> Okay. >> But we didn't live stream like this. We just recorded. >> We have a partner in the community that live streams for us. >> Beautiful. So beautiful. Um, so does the partner in the community then shoulder some of that expense to live stream >> all of it? Because they get the ad from it. >> Okay. Does the public know that? >> So they also do all of our sports and sports rated hills and some other districts around here. So the public is very aware of their existence. So what are you asking specifically? >> Does the public understand the I'm going to call it a donation. I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth, but nothing is free, right? So, if you have someone who's helping offset a cost to live stream, does your community understand that? And I'm not saying that it's $10,000 or $5.32 or but does the community understand that you have a you have a huge opportunity to talk about wine. You're practicing transparency to the very best that you can, right? you're choosing to live stream and it's so important you have a community partner that is helping you do that. >> I would say >> beautiful story. >> I would say that the live streams whether it's for our board meetings or city council and the board meetings by what they do gets almost taken advantage of and expected when they're doing that for free for community outreach. And people expect it to be done even though they don't have to. They don't have to do what they're doing. >> Well, they've been doing it for about eight or nine years. They started doing high school sports and so they've just expand. It started with really a couple guys and now they have I don't know 8 10 12 employees. And so it's their business model is to sell ad revenue for your sponsorship for the city council for this for this. So so they they are selling ad revenue to do that. Now, does the public understand the business model? Probably not. But it but I agree with you. Does it does the community now kind of expect them to do that? Absolutely. They put themselves in that position. So, to me, it's it's a good um you know, it it's one of those things. It helps us to get out what we do. It gives them content. Community gets involved. They they have grown jobs. It just works really well on and everybody's benefiting from it. >> Yeah. Okay. You have an opportunity that you can also in some way potentially talk about that. Right now, you also want to be careful not where you going with this. >> Well, you just hold on to that. >> Um, remember the D, right? You the D doesn't like to sit and wait for everybody else. All right. So, let's talk about something else. What else did you hear? College and career readiness was a great one. What else? What else did you hear someone tell you about fostering student success in the last year? >> The people that have been hiring Beautiful. And why is that important, Carol? Because we're hiring them to be leaders. And we all know how important an effective an effective leader is. And so we just, you know, through the guidance of Mr. Taylor have hired some fantastic people. Let's say one of those positions wasn't filled. What would happen to whatever program class whatever that that partic the a pick any one of those if it wasn't that spot wasn't filled what would happen >> at all >> um >> I mean high level it doesn't have to be exact >> you would have other people picking up the slack you would you know it would just double everybody's workload >> do you have a potential that you wouldn't might not be able to offer a program >> probably >> and if I can't get a program that my student really really wants as a parent, what might I do? Might go somewhere else, right? So, filling those spots, h putting right people in the right spots, it's a beautiful way to support your staff. It's a beautiful way to help uh help foster success for your students. Love it. >> How do you talk about that with your public so they know how incredibly important it is? >> Talking to Lisa, for me, it's a little bit different. I think um one being what I do for a living, I'm always talking to people outside, but then being in the schools as much as I am in the schools, you get the chance to talk to all the employees to make to to listen to them and to give your answers or reasonings or whatever on why the board did what they did. And and to me, that's huge. Let's do one more. What's one more that you heard? >> There's lots of great ones out there. >> I'm going to give go with mock trial. I'm going to give Mark credit because he started mock trial. So, our superintendent is very involved with student success that he personally took on the leadership of a student activity after school. And I think that's an outstanding and rare characteristic of a superintendent. I know. I took the bag the wrong time. Why? Why mock trial? Why is that important? >> No, I want you Kevin I want you to tell me why is mock trial important. That just sounds like um sounds like a bunch of who? >> Cuz the >> bunch of kids talking about stuff they don't know about. Say anything about >> the goal that we've set years ago was to have an activity for every kid. Now, I don't know how many of these kids are in the this is their only activity, >> right? >> So, I I can't quantify that, but that's why we've invested in esports because there's a lot of kids in esports that aren't in any other activity. So, we want we want an activity for every kid and a kid in every activity. That's a culture thing. >> How do you do you know what I'm going to ask? How do you ensure your community knows that you believe every student should be in an activity and there's an activity for every student? >> This kind of reminds me of you can you know what is it? You take a horse to the water but you can't make him drink. I mean we can put it out there on the pitch. We can put it in the paper. We can do all these things, but if somebody's not interested or they're not asking questions or they're not watching or reading those things, you know, I think we're doing our part >> and I don't get saying you are >> right. Right. >> But what I do want you to realize is you have a lot of really great things going on. And you're right. You can put the live stream out there. Maybe people will watch it. There are some people in the world like me who like to watch that kind of stuff all the time for real. Um, there are lots though who won't watch it when things are going well or when they feel like things are going well. >> Your opportunity to have just a little bit more conversation at the table about the really incredible work you're doing. Two more sentences to say, why is that mock trial so incredibly important? Why is esports so incredibly important? Why I Jag? Why is that important? Just to give one more time for your community if they are watching or if they go back and watch that recording but they get to hear that. It also lets you all practice. What's the thing I'm going to say when somebody stops me at the grocery store, the gas station, the wherever I'm at, the ball game, and they're not happy about whatever that is. You all giggle like that's happened before. Um, what's that nugget? What is the thing? And you can't answer Jag for everything, right? I get that. but that you take a little bit of time to practice what are those things because I believe that you want Centerville to be the district that is the destination for all students. Fair statement actually maybe you would disagree with me because maybe you would say Tammy it already is and I would love that. But when you are asked about your district, when you're selling your district, this list that I'm going to, as you all probably be like, okay, I did that. Okay, that's a beautiful list. So, I don't want you to I don't want you to forget or sometimes get in in the even the moment about talking what the current news says about funding you're going to lose. This this is amazing stuff you're doing for your students. So that's what I want you to kind of I want you to tuck that nugget away for tonight to think about what are those things? How can we talk about that? What does that conversation look like at the board table as we're voting? You had a um you had a meeting with a ton of big things on it. Friends, you didn't make easy decisions tonight. Um and I followed it all for the most part, but I've been in your shoes. I hadn't sat and been in your shoes. I don't know that every single thing you would have done would have made sense, right? So sometimes just those couple extra sentences, it's a great way to sell the work you're doing. Okay? So if you do not feel like you've been patted on the back, you should feel like you've been patted on the back. That's a great list. I'm going to capture each one of these things that we do. Um I'll type them up. Um and I'll send a summary letter. I'll send it to Mark. I'll send it to Mike. Lisa will also get a copy, but you'll get that back. So if you see me taking pictures of stuff, that's why I'm doing that. Okay. >> So if I can answer Carol's question, I agree with him. You can make them drink the water. Absolutely. >> Two things. One, when the community started to go after the main street thing, whatever, 10 years ago, >> a guy from Main Street came down and presented. He said something about how long it takes to make change and people to notice it. What he said was, "When McDonald's changes the format, the design of their menu, even their most regular customers takes two years to notice it." The second thing is I'll just use this. You know that brand, right? >> Did you maybe see a commercial for it on >> Super Bowl, stuff like that? >> No problem. >> Yeah. >> So, if everybody in the world knows that brand, why do they still advertise? >> And that's because to stay relevant, they have to keep their message out there all the time because even your most loyal people will take two years to notice you change. >> And that's that's the whole point. Oh, I firmly believe we have to give them. I mean, we are we I think we do a really good job of it. >> I don't know how to >> how to do it. >> People see it, >> right? But what Tammy used to lead us to is just it brought me back to the realization that >> people are so busy in life, they're oblivious to things around them >> and they only pay attention to it when it's close because it's the it's the closest battle now. And I think your point is we need to make sure we get our message out there relevant all the time. >> And you'll have new people that will hear your message, right? So maybe somebody new moves to town that hasn't they're tuning in for the first time, right? Or you bump into somebody that I mean to Kevin's point, right? When I'm if I get a little wrapped around the axle about something, it does happen on occasion. That's the thing I'm focused on. And by the way, sometimes when Mike then can catch me and go, "Hey, but did you know, right, or help me just just enough switch my gears that sometimes I'm like, "Oh, well, tell me more about that program." Or my trial. Oh, and your superintendent's leading it. That's a really cool story. It's a really cool story. >> I have a cool superintendent. >> You have a cool You have a cool everything. All right. Um, so we're going to leave this, but again, this is your this is your reflection moment of celebrating the work that you've done. As we walk away from each section tonight, I want you to think about um hop, which is um I want you to think about what is um what is a habit of practice? What is a habit of practice as a board you are willing to talk about from thinking about this exercise that you just did? So, you talked about one the great things that you've done this year because I don't think you get to talk always about the really great things you do and you get to hear somebody say these are amazing things. So, let me say that again. You create a great list. What is your habit of if you were to pull one thing out of this as a whole word that you would say we could make that a habit of practice? What would be one thing? be one thing from this exercise of celebrating your success and how you're going to talk about it in the community. >> Kind of like a >> kind of like a a review a like a quarterly review of highlights things that we've done, programs or or things like that that we present at the board at a board meeting. >> Do you all like that? >> You're not marrying anything tonight? You're not committing yourself to anything tonight. And above all, I'm not trying to create extra work for you. So, please know that Mike, you were either going to you're either taking a breath or you're about to say something. I cut you off. I'm really sorry. >> What I have learned is the quickest way to get a crowd is to have kids perform. If you want to get a crowd, you invite the tumbling team on your stage. And every parent and grandparent will show up to watch their kid. And that's the quickest way to get our message across is to have the kids deliver the message. >> What if you had your students come talk to you about mock trial? What if they shared that sometimes? >> We did. Yeah. >> Beautiful. Or I Jag or the tumbling team or whatever that is. But you right. Your mic was spot on, right? when all of a sudden it's the kids because we can create a great list of all the things I'm completely jazzed up about trial of all the things that a program will do but when you hear it from your students and what a great way to highlight your students right all right you can't see the hop back here in the corner but what I'm going to write is quarterly review or quarterly highlight again I will bring this back to you will do with it whatever you want hopefully you'll pick something off the list. All right. All right. And I'm going to do some um abbreviation because I'm a horrible speller. So if uh you look at something and go, "What is that?" You'll know what it is. All right. Here's your next activity. I want you to turn to page two. So before you get to that, what I'm hearing you saying is that at first when we started talking, I thought about, okay, how are we going to reach more people? But then what I hear you saying is we need to fortify the message. >> Yes, >> we're getting it out there but adding, you know, the students or a little bit about it. We're fortifying the message. I like that a lot. >> And and may and maybe it's adding students, maybe it's just, you know, you you all come in after you've had a long day of doing something that's very important, but then you come and you sit at the board table. And I was very guilty of this. We worked through that agenda and we wanted to be efficient and I don't know about all of you but on times it was a really short agenda. It was like how fast can we get out of here and maybe there was like a little discussion before the meeting started. It's only going to be 20 minutes. I bet you can't do it in 18 and that I love that efficiency. I do. Um, but I want you to think about you're so used to it because you're living, breathing, eating it that yeah, just that >> just that extra little bit each time that you're talking about something can really help. Again, I'm not encouraging meetings until 2 a.m. friends, please know that. Um, but yes, fortifying, Carol, it's a beautiful, it's beautiful state. All right, I want to talk about observations for just a tiny little bit. Um, as humans, we are really good at this. And as humans, we are really, really good about creating a story in our head when we see something. I believe we even do it subconsciously. Sometimes the story is really interesting. Sometimes the story might not be as happy or maybe it's just downright angry or maybe it is, well, I can't believe they did that because blah blah blah blah blah blah. That's the voice in my head what it sounds like. So, what I want you to do is take a look at the picture on page two and I want you to answer a couple uh two questions there. What do you assume is happening in the picture and what makes you say that? >> She's clearly resisting. Don't tell anybody. >> Uh, and the second one, the second question is, what are you curious about? >> What are you curious about the picture? >> And if you could ask a couple more questions, what would you ask? >> I think that's Tom Johnson. >> And you can't share. It's not a partner project. You two, >> right? >> We're not very good about this. >> I see. I'm going to set my um You're trying to take full responsibility for myself. >> I recognize too. No, >> I've always wanted to say that. >> Uh, I'm going to set a timer for four minutes. >> I forget what we're supposed to do already. >> Questions. >> Um, >> just jot some notes to yourself because we're going to talk about it. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Let's make a list of facts. What do we know about the picture that you're that you see? What are some facts that you that you know or would say, "Yeah, I feel fairly confident in saying this." And don't be afraid to state the obvious. It >> is spring or summer. >> Okay. What else? out for a jog. >> Okay. What else? >> Oh, >> yeah. >> One's older >> age difference. Anyway, >> I got a totally different story. >> I don't know. Guy in black shorts trying to bug the wolf. >> She doesn't have a purse. I thought it was a cross country team and then coach leading the way. >> No, no, no. See, the crispy cream light just went off. I tried to eat by four there. It won't happen. >> Mark, do you remember what you said just a couple minutes ago when somebody said the guy in black shorts is bugging the woman? >> Uh, actually that was I think somebody else that said that. >> Who said under it was it was like it was a low. No, but the statement was made. >> I think What did you What did you say? I thought it was a cross country team and she was the coach. >> You said something different. >> Well, it fits that narrative, but it was muggy, not mugging, >> I believe. So, okay. I don't know. Was it? >> I thought >> you said very different story than I had. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I said. >> Keep going. What else? What the facts? >> At first, I thought it was like a 5K run, but they don't have numbers on it. >> Oh, good call. >> That's why I thought training for one. >> Okay, sure. So they must be running for fun, >> which I don't understand. >> Yeah, I put I put down that I thought it was in front of >> the timer. Sorry. >> I thought it was a >> It looked to me like she was running walking fast. >> It looked like he looks like a school. Like >> that's downtown. That's not a downtown. That's a That's a retail store behind. >> Okay. What else am I missing? Tommy said running. Somebody's running. Somebody's walking fast. >> What else? >> I thought so. >> I see. >> That's perfect. >> Oh, they're both wearing Brooks. So, that means that they're most likely Charlie related. >> Oh, >> they're probably related. >> Okay. Now, this one says CS >> because she's wearing an Apple Watch on her left hand. >> Yeah. >> And he can't keep it. You are such a cop. You've got great. I know she's older cuz we have the same chin. >> Cheese. I say, well, it does look like you. >> Oh, thank you. >> It does. It does have some resemblance with you. >> It isn't. All right. So, there's a pretty good list of facts. Now, some of those Can you prove it's spring or summer? >> No. >> Green grass. >> Could be Hawaii. >> Could be early fall. >> Could be Hawaii. Could be early fall. >> Um, can you prove they're jogging? >> You have a really funny walk to a gate. anyone dancing. >> Okay. Can you prove their mother and son? >> No. >> No. >> But Tom did eloquently say, "But there is an age difference because I wrote that next." Um, black shorts is mommy no woman. Now, we all might giggle at that, but could you >> You absolutely you could absolutely put that to that story. Okay. Um, y'all talked about that there's there were no uh you said they're not in a race. I wrote no numbers. That's why I thought they were not in the race. >> Can you prove that they are not wearing numbers somewhere else like a tracking device in their shoe like they do in a big marathon? >> Right. Um, >> we did say somebody's running somebody's and somebody's walking fast. >> That kind of gets back that we don't necessarily know, right, what their pace is. Uh, I love the Brooks tennis shoes. So, they have the same Brooks tennis shoes on. So, they have to be related. They just shot with the same phone. >> They might, right? And I wrote down that she's wearing an Apple Watch. Uh because that is probably actually a pretty darn close fact. We don't know for sure that it's Apple, but >> you also said she's got that there is a device, right? There's some sort of device on her on her arm. All right. What do you assume is happening in the picture? What did you write down? What do you assume is happening in the picture? I put they're training for a race, a marathon, etc. Okay. >> I put that um he's training with mom and my thought was for school sport. >> Beautiful. >> What else? >> I offer a job possibly a gym class. >> Anybody have anything else? I kind of like the mother and something. I didn't say that, but I think she's trying to get her younger youngest her young son in shape. She might have been a runner at some time. I just think of my my oldest son running with his uh daughter and his son trying to, you know, you need to do cross country and I'm going to go out with you and run with you, >> force you to go in cross country. And and tell me why you would default to cross country versus a marathon versus a festival race versus >> I don't know anything else >> school's going to >> that's what he's familiar with. Okay. >> See I'm trying to figure out what the three kids in the background are doing. >> It looks like it's after school and they're waiting for that ride. That's what I wrote down. >> So was that something you'd like to know about? >> Well, cuz it's not there's not a ton of kids like a school unless the bus has already come a long time. >> I think it's before school. Do you think before? Yeah, she's walking. This one's walking into the building. That's part of his school. >> I just think it's in front of the school. I just think they're trying to get somewhere. There's no panic. They're just hurrying to get somewhere. >> I would want to know. >> I think it's >> like if you stretch this out, are there more people? That's what I want to know. >> See, I think it's noon because the shadows are not overly long. So, it could be morning. >> That's a great one. >> But why are three kids out there? What are they doing? because there's not there's not a 100 kids waiting for a bus or to be picked up. There's just three and it's a little median between two streets. >> They're skipping school. >> No, no, because they're out in the open. They're not they're not out at the reservoir fishing or they're not playing. >> A lot of times people who skip aren't good at hiding. >> Well, and some people parking lot duty. There's always the kids that their parents are late. >> Yeah. >> There's always a few. So that's >> that one's on their phone. So >> So do you know the answer? >> Oh shoot. >> Our human tendency >> is to look at a picture like this and we jump to a conclusion. Our brain is wired to say when we don't have all the details. We're going to fill the spots in and we're really not going to do it in a positive way. It's how we are. We tend to think of things like cross country because It's what we know. You all just had a conversation about skipping school because it's what you know, right? It's the work you're doing. Um, it's easy to do that when we don't have all the information. And it's where we as humans can become very biased in looking at something and saying here's the story. And I recently read while you might not be able to control your first thought, you can control your second thought and then where did you tell yourself? Now what's interesting is outside of mother and son, I didn't really hear a lot of rosy stories about what could be happening here. But it's how we're wired and it comes to the communication we have with each other. So, when I get a little upset because I walked in the door and Mark maybe didn't greet me like I thought he was going to and I sit down and I'm like, "Well, he's mad mad at me about something and I kind of huff and puff about it." I start to create the story in my mind all because I didn't say to Mark, "Hey, how are you today? It's really good to see you." And maybe he was in conversation with Mike and he wasn't going to, by the way, he didn't do this and he didn't want to break the conversation he was having with Mike just to say hello to me. But if I don't ask Mark that, I'll never know the story. But I'm really good at that story I'm going to create in my head. Do you want to know what's really happening here? Sure. This is um the superintendent of Mcora schools. Her name is Tara. I have permission, both her and this young man, to share the story because she shared the picture with me. Tara's a runner. And this young man when he started in high school or in junior junior high and I'm completely blanking on his name right now. I feel horrible. Um he wanted to run cross country but he's legally blind. >> Oh wow. >> The school district said we will hire someone to be a guide for him to run with him. So Tara put an ad out. >> Nobody applied. >> Nobody applied. So Terra said, much like Mark Taylor would say, I'm not going to let this child not be in the activity they want to be in. I'll be his guide and it's really good for me. And when I would say to her, Tara, this is an amazing story. She would say, well, I want to be totally honest though, my son's in cross country. This is like this is self- serving for me. Self- serving is my word, not hers. And I said, I don't think so. I'm like, it's still a great story. So in junior high, it really wasn't a big deal. it was a big deal that she ran with him, etc. When they got to high school, the rules change and you can't just be a guide runner for someone even with a visual impairment. So, and she goes, "We didn't know that." So, we kind of learned our way into it. So, they had to register ahead of time. There are certain rules. She cannot cross the finish line. So, she has to drop off within so many feet of the finish line and he has to cross the finish line by herself. Think about what their conversations sound like when he's when they're running cross country. >> There's a hole. Go to your left and she's in front of him. So, she's got to make sure he can hear her, right? What does he have to have complete and total what in her to be able to make decisions >> because he never really sees the finish line? There was a great article uh one of the local news channels did a great article. This was I think last fall. And when I found this exact picture, I said to her, I said, "I need to use that picture. Can I may I do that? And will you get permission for me?" And she thought I was kidding. I'm like, "No." I'm like, "There are a thousand great stories in this picture about what we do for each other, about building trust, about having great communication." At the time the story broke, it was even said that they now have a code word when they want to pass people because she can't say, "Okay, there's only there's, you know, in 50 more feet we should get up and catch the next bro." She can't coach him on the trail and she has to run at his pace and just right right above right what his pace is so that he knows where she is. And so yeah, now they have a code word if they're going to pass people so that she's able to say, "Okay, we're going to this is who we're going to pass." But that whole part about she doesn't get across the finish line and she has to drop off. Then she walks around and she comes to the end of the finish line so she can verbally talk to him so he knows where he's going. It's a pretty incredible story. But if they don't have really good communication, if they just y'all came to very different stories, which by the way, thank you for playing along because it's exactly what I wanted you to do for this picture, right? It changes the whole dynamic because now you're probably going >> and we took time to find out what the story is, right? So great trust. Uh while there's lots of conversation about trust and how we build it with one another, it's really about our communication because if we're not talking to each other, we definitely aren't going to build trust, right? And so thinking about what these two do and have done now for several years, um we would schedule board meetings and board workshops around cross country >> because she would literally come running in the door dressed about like that uh for a board meeting or board workshop during cross country season. But it was really important. I don't know if they'll try and hire somebody for that this year or not. >> So that answered a lot of questions, but now I'm mad at the state. >> I am. Yeah. >> Why can't you cross the finish line? >> Yeah, that's I think that's I think that's an Iowa High School Athletic Association. >> Madam the boss either >> because if they're saying that's a competitive advantage to have a coach lacrosse, then let every other kid in the state run blind. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I I don't I don't know. nice conversation. >> Yeah. Um well, and what's interesting is in in middle school it was okay, right? I mean, Tara, when I really started to dig into this and she said she's been doing it for, you know, several years, blah, blah, blah. And um Tara is probably most uh she's one of the most unassuming people you you will meet. So, she would not want the press to be on her in the story. She wants it to be on on the student, right? What he's doing. He talked about in the um article and I have the link so if you really want it I can send it to Mark and he can share it out with you. But he talks about right how he's gotten better through the years and but Terara said when we moved into ninth grade she goes it was a whole new ball game of what we were I was I had to be really serious about checking in with him. Um I don't know if she gets I don't know if she technically registers as well as he how he would register in the same way but it's a whole thing. So, um, and yeah, and then she would say, "And I get all the great benefits of running and getting, uh, and getting that in while she's helping him." But again, you talk about an activity for every student and a student in every activity, y'all. That's a beautiful It's a beautiful statement to make and the the lengths that you're willing to go to as a board to make that happen. >> So, you could take cross country this week. >> I uh, I trial. All right. So let's think about let's think about practice of habit or a habit of practice >> from that conversation. So you looked at a picture, you answered some questions, you created a list of facts, and then you learned the story. What's one thing? What do you want to take away from that to say this could be a practice of habit that the board puts into place in our work? I think we need to be very conscious of the image that we project especially at a board meeting like this. And I don't I mean I'm not saying that we don't but we need to be mindful of a professional appearance and you know professional conduct and I think we have that but I think we just need to be conscious that that's always out there. That's a beautiful statement because if somebody only clicks in for a couple of minutes and they only see and they see maybe they see you having a really great honest conversation that sounds tough, right? And I don't mean I don't mean you're being disrespectful to each other. I don't mean that at all. But if it's the only snippet I see, remember what I will automatically do in my head. They don't get along. They're not nice to each other. And by the way, I'm trying really hard. I was I'm practicing this whole I might not be able to control my first thought, but I can my second because oh boy, do I need to work on that. Um, and it's it's it's hard. It is hard. I think about the conversation about what's happening, right? And cuts that are being made and I have lots of things I want to say and how do I help my first thoughts not really nice. So, I like that being mindful of what you do collectively together. It's beautiful. I think one thing that in reflection on and I'm only going to speak for myself not other board members um the work that we do as a board member I hear that a lot and I hear it a lot from you like you know how hard board members work and I'm not going to discount that we don't put in little time and effort cuz we have um but I think the effort that personally speaking for me in the years that I've been on the board The work that I've done to further schools pales in comparison to the superintendent, the principles, and the teachers. Um, you know, my work is to come in here a couple times on a month, read a board packet, come in here, have conversations in between there, but really the daytoday get it done stuff is nothing that I do. We may make a decision to say, "Let's support esports and spend money." But that means he's got to go out and do a ton of work to make that happen. He's our co esports coach. >> So, he's got to go out and do all that. He's got to support that. She's got to pay the invoice. Everybody's got to do that. And and the decision that took me a few minutes to reflect, he spends hundreds of hours a year doing. So the work that I do in the board is really to make a decision and then enable somebody else to do the work because I'm not going to do that work. He is >> so support and get out of the way. >> And maybe part of that is being reflected right at some point in time that you say I'm going to go back to what Mike suggested. If you did a quarterly review on all the great things you're doing, maybe a tie into that is it's hundreds of hours that are spent on that list to do those great things. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours get spent like to implement it, >> right? I think the most important thing that that I've learned and maybe just being in the community but on the board and in different boards than this too, you don't want to be on it unless you are really sure that this is the this is what you want to do because when you talk to people, we want to build our school up. We want them to think it's a great school and great facilities and great teachers, principles and all that, but we want people to to be excited about our school. And I think that is really, you know, when we talk to other people in the community and and I think Mark is is such a good leader in that way. I don't go to coffee class very often, but I was lucky enough to go last time because somebody wanted to tour the school. But anyway, there's about 30 people there and they give a report and Mark gives a report on the school and they give a report on lots of other things. So there's a lot of people listen to that and I saw Ashley Bird taking notes on it during that. So there's some report going in the picture someplace on what happens and so that's a way that that we you know he builds our school up too and I think that's so so important that we have to >> do that for the community. >> What time does this coffee what did you call it? Coffee >> coffee clutch. So, >> what time does it start? >> 10:00. >> Yeah. During the day, 10 or 11. >> I thought you told me it's like 6:00 in the morning or something. >> No, it's on Wednesday. If you're working, you can't go. And so, when I was working, I >> never went to coffee class. >> All right. So, what do you want to put for a habit of practice? You want to capture a couple of things. Um, Mike, you talked about uh can I say board function? Can I say team function? Does that capture that thought of because I think it's both what the what people see and what people hear. Sometime if you want to do a fun experiment, go watch like 25 minutes of your board meeting without volume >> and make a list of what you notice. >> I do that a lot and it tells me a lot about a board. Just sometime for fun do that. Um and you and you'll just you'll be amazed at the things that you'll pick up on. Um, okay. So, okay. So, my T board function. Does that is that okay? I'm going to say look and sound. No, I'm going to say look and see. That'll tell me what I need to remember. Um, Kevin, let's think about let's think about yours. You wanted to be you wanted to uh say thank you to others who are doing that who are doing the work. >> It's more than that. It's it's our decision as the board is to set a culture and policies, but it's not our job to get the work done. So, it's basically lead, but don't get in the way. >> I'm going to say impact of decisions. How is that? Um, and then I'm going to say >> lead but don't get in the way. I don't remember who taught me handwriting, but they'd not be proud of me in this moment. Okay. All right. Those are good. If I look at this um picture and I think, okay, this picture's our board meeting, but there's a lot of things left out. Had we known the whole story or had more information, we would have had a more accurate picture of the board meeting. So, by us adding the information that we talked about earlier, that's going to give a much more clear picture and I think that would help the public a lot. >> Oh, I thought you never Are we recording? That's you are which is why I keep walking over here so I'm not showing my back to um it's a it's a beautiful it's a beautiful analogy, Carol. Beautiful. You're right. This is your board meeting. But think of all the goodie that we missed until you until you got to take a chance to hear the story. Right. And by the way, you made a you made a great list of facts. If you're thinking about, well, can I pick out what's happening and until I started to challenge you on them a little tiny bit, the Brooks tend to lose. Never would have called that out again. >> That was pretty intense. >> That was really good. All right. Um, I want to uh do a couple of things and for the sake of time, page three of your packet. I know that you all have seen this. I'm not going to um I don't need to it's really important, but I don't want to belabor it because I want to give you some a couple other activities that I really want you to get to. This is your kind of one pager on what is it that what is the board's role? And I want you to notice that it says in the T-chart, it says governance and then it says management. And there really should be an and between there because it's not a one or the other. It's not one against the other. You have to have both because you'll notice this is collaboration between the two. So Kevin, I'm going to use your example. we approve uh that we're going to do esports and then we say good luck with that. Let us know what you need. Hopefully it's not money. Um not because not because it's esports, by the way, because that's just how it always works, right? Um but that the board says, >> well, maybe we shouldn't call it esports. Can we call it something else? Can we call it uh and and pretty soon you hear, "No, no, that that's what it's called." No, we don't really like that name. Can we call it Can we call it E fun sports? Can we call it No, no, no, no. Or that's not your uh that doesn't become your role, right? You want an accurate representation of what it is. You want to know that it's acknowledged by other school districts. Go, yeah, we have one of those, too. And then you look to Mark and you look probably to Lisa and say, "Okay, good luck. Do we need money for that?" Because Lisa's probably going to go like any good SPO, she's going um because that's important, by the way. Uh, but they're going to figure out the pieces, right? They're going to figure out when they're going to meet. They're going to figure out how many students they can serve, etc. But you do get asked really great questions. Uh, you had some really great questions tonight during the board meeting and I should have wrote them down because there was Carol, you said at one point in time, and I don't remember what the topic was, you're like, "Hey, tell me, can I ask a question about whatever it was?" Right? It was it was a great question, but to give you all time to kind of talk through that talking about your um I'm going to call it your building occupancy. That was not the very first thing about the roof. You had really good conversation about what does this document mean? What do we need to be concerned about if we say yes? What do we need to be concerned about if we say no? Have a really great conversation about that. It's exactly what should happen. No one said, "Could we please see the document? We'd like to rewrite it." No one said, "Um, no one said, "I I don't trust the way it's written, and how are we going to assign it? Do will we do that tonight?" Nobody asked that because that you knew that that wasn't part of what you did. The um top half of the sheet on this developing a governance mindset comes from the book, The Governance Core. I uh for whatever reason, I did not bring it with me on this trip. Um, there is a new version of Governance Core. It's called the Governance Core 2.0 and I love it. I didn't think I would because I I love the first version. What I like about Governance Core 2.0 is it talks about the pandemic. It talks about what happened during the pandemic, not the logistics of that, but it talks about it changed everything we did from the way we bought toilet paper to how we grocery shop to what happens in education. It talks about having a time in our country where politics might feel I don't know what the right word is going to say strong and that's okay. Government still has its place and it's probably even more important. But you're not asking people to come to the table and not have their own personal view. But you are saying we still have to f focus on our governance role. So, if you're looking for a good board book, Governance Core 2.0 is fabulous. So, there's just a few pieces on there. I also like to think about board, you're doing the what and the why. You're going to look at Mark to do the how and the who. So, Carol, I'm going to guess that all the um hires that you made this year that you all didn't say to Mark, "Hey, I really want to interview all those people though. I need to talk to all of them." You probably listen to Mark say, "This is who this is my recommendation. By the way, they have background checks. They've done all the things they need to do. This is who I'd like to hire." And I'm going to guess you all said something like, "You believe these are the best candidates. These will fill the right positions. They have the right credentials." And I'm going to guess he said yes. And you all said, "Great. Who's making motion?" Okay. All right. So, I don't want to not give that a good commercial, but there you go. Let's look at page fourth and let's talk about this one together. This is whose job is it? And I love these questions. Let's start with the very first one. Lights on the athletic field. So, Mike Moore, you're at Mrs. share second grade classroom and somebody comes up to you and says, "I'm so glad I saw you because I need to talk to you about the lights on the athletic field." I think we should have the colors uh each month a different color to support whatever's happening in the community. Can you make that happen? If you want to look at this chart or this little chart, you have a couple of options. There's is it the board's role? Is it the superintendent's role or is it somebody else's role? Might be principal, might be, you'll notice it says business manager, might be Lisa, might be your buildings and grounds person, right? If I want it all different colors in the athletic field. Um, and monthly, by the way. So, in fact, I've already created a calendar of all 12 months. I made it really easy for you. I'll tell you what color I want. And we're going to start in July with pink because it's my favorite color. I would put a check in. It's the board's roll. Is that a true statement? >> No, >> but we're like tight. I mean, I see you every week. >> You're correct. But, uh, it has to be directed to the rings grounds person first to see if it's even possible. >> I don't even like I mean, we went to school together and >> I get it. That's where you have to start because I can't make that decision on my own and that's not a board thing right now at this point. It would have to get brought to the board from either you coming to a meeting and suggesting it. Then we could possibly put it on the agenda if we thought that was the best or take to a bronze ground supervisor and he can speak with the superintendent and see if it's even something that we're able to do. >> Surely somebody um agrees with me on this because my talk about can I see you guys in July be awesome. >> I do agree life would be awesome but I can't make that decision. >> All right. political. >> That's a beautiful It's a beautiful answer. Let's look at the next one. And by the way, this is not a political statement. Mark can confess I can confess. Mark knows I we just talked about this. Um so in 200 two 2005, uh the state came out with a straight across the board 5% budget cut and it was sort of similar to what y'all talked about tonight except it wasn't in two days. It was like in three done. There's just no funding. When that happens, what's the work of the board? What would be specific action board that you might take at the board table? Or you could think about tonight's conversation >> to approve the cuts that superintendent brings us. >> So, you're going to say to Mark, good luck with that. >> Pretty much. >> We're recommendations. and Lisa. >> I was going to say and then we're going to slide over to that last column and most likely Mark's going to go work really closely with Lisa to go, okay, how are we going to do this? >> Because even tonight, what you talked about, you can't cut out enough paper and pencils, right? to make that kind of >> they're going to have to make the hard calls on what's best for kids >> and what's best in the buildings because I don't have the data or the ability the knowledge to say that this needs to happen in Lake View, this needs to happen in Howard, this needs to happen in high school in order to come up what that 5% is. As a board, I have to rely on the superintendent who is the only employee we we directly supervisor and Lisa the SBO to give us that information and then we have to come and say no, we I really don't like cutting this. Is there something else if we want to push back on something, but it's really for them to bring it to us to make that decision. It's not my job to to pick areas. No, the only time it's our our job to pick areas where to cut money is value engineering on on a construction project. Other than that, they really need to bring it to us. >> We kind of had something like this. It was our first or second year on the board. Um, >> are you talking about the signs? >> Uh, no, I'm talking about the uh uh band director. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, um, >> the star band directors. >> Yeah. So, >> yeah, it's true. All of a sudden, we hear hear in the community that one of our band instructor positions has gotten cut and we as a board do nothing about it at all. >> Yeah. It it was cut without board knowledge. >> Yes. So, we had something like that. >> It was retirement. >> No, it wasn't. >> I thought it was. >> No, it wasn't. >> It was. >> Um that person's >> It wasn't replaced, >> right? Is it >> the board was not advised that that retirement was going to happen and we were not going to back throw it. We were never told there was no back plan. >> Yeah, >> that was that was that was a real for me a rude awakening because well we approved the budget someone else deals with it. >> But that was 2020 in co >> Yeah. when and we'd only been on the board a few months and I think there's some weird things with t and we just >> Yeah. Go ahead. Keep going. >> No, I mean that was it. It was it was one where Yeah, we don't really have the say in it. We approved the budget and we trust like Mark to run the budget. market around the budget, but it's still one that probably stuff like that should come to the board to one either say, "Hey, this is what I'm thinking or this is what I'm going to do." And at least have a discussion about it. Yeah, that does happen because I'm thinking when we went through the the building project, one of the things that I think this one there was only three of us up on the board from when this happened, but we were told in the planning that there was not going to be a replacement of equipment in the weight room because the principal, the superintendent at the time came and told us that the equipment was okay and we could cut that from the budget. And so we didn't add that into the capital budget. Well, we get everything all said and done and come to find out that the equipment probably some probably needed to replace, not all of it probably needed to be replaced. And then it became just a big issue in the community, but we as a board went on the advice of, you know, some people that we we thought were giving us good advice is no, we don't need to replace that stuff. And that so so decisions will come back and get you both ways. And sometimes it's hard to find that place of what is our role and what isn't our role. Right? I'm going to guess that now when you look at a list of retirements, Mike, that you one of the first questions you're asking is so we're backfilling all of these, right? >> Right. It changes it changes uh it changes when you've had a experience and it changes how you approach that next thing. Right. And also being really careful that Mark did a beautiful job tonight as he said, "So, we're not going to get this money, but oh, by the way, contracts have already been issued. We have to honor them." So, if I'm a brand new staff member that we're listening to that that could have been impacted, what I heard him say is, "Well, that that's that is not an option. We don't get to do that because, by the way, you're going to follow the law. You issue a contract, you're going to make good on that contract." Um, but that was a beautiful statement as well. You didn't say any names. You didn't talk about any positions, but it's that piece, right, of how do how do we say that as well? So, you're not just looking at the picture of the runners, right? And wondering what's going to happen because if it's any of us, we'll quickly create the story in our head. And then we'll believe the story in our head because that's the only story we know. Let's talk about one more. Mike Thomas has a child who was at the ball game and had some really naughty behavior or maybe I should say behavior that we would prefer did not happen and his child was asked to leave the game and helped out of the stadium or the track or wherever. What is the board's role in that situation? Did I say it was my son? >> What's this? What's the superintendent's uh job in that >> political? Well, there there's a scenario in Southeast Iowa that that's pretty close to they got >> if it's okay. If it's a home game, it should be the ad, right? >> Yeah. So, beautiful. Carol moves right out of the note. We're going to This is where it's going to go. She's beautiful. Now, if it really were like Thomas's child, most likely Mark's going to be notified because somebody's going to go, "Now, what am I supposed to do?" And then Mark's may be the one that gets to deliver the news, right? And it may be that is hard to do but that piece of but it's not our it's not our gig, right? Uh and it's also hard because I also understand that when you're well known in your community, everybody comes to you better at Oh, Tom, I'm so glad I'm reading to you tonight. Never mind. In fact, you're trying to enjoy dinner with somebody um you'll wait till it's cold to eat. But let me tell you about I need these pink lights. So, all right. My wish for you would be that you just on occasion say, "Hey, let's walk through what what does this what does what are these two these what are these two pieces look like and how do they fit together and how do we make sure that we're supporting Mark and how do you make sure that if you need more information, you say to Mark, hey, we need more information on this topic. We can't make a decision and that you talk about you talk about that and what that looks like." when I was here in February of last year. No, was it June of last year? >> Years ago. >> Um, so Carol and Tom, I don't think you were on the board yet. >> The board did a self assessment. >> It was in February, a year and a half ago, about 18 months ago. >> Okay. So, the board did a self assessment and they used what's on page nine. I'm sorry, what's on page five? It's page nine. The cheaters uh on page five and on page six and it's standards for effective school boards. And what I did several years ago is to say if for boards who said what does this next level of work look like? How do we take the things we do and carry it to this next level? We created six standards and gave some specifics under those standards of what does your work look like? The board did a self assessment. So I came I think I talked about the standards. You all did an anonymous um you sent a survey back. We collected the data. We synthesized it. I brought it back to you. You all looked through the data. You talked about it in those six standards. Uh, and this isn't the exact question, but my words, board, where do you think you're knocking it out of the park? And then you talked about where do we want to focus? I want to be really clear where you wanted to focus. It wasn't where do we think we're not doing well. So, when I do these with boards, it's not uncommon that the areas that we do really well are the areas we still want to focus on because we don't want to take our eye off the ball. Now, I didn't uh I looked at your data from back then. I didn't look at what your answers were about. What do we do really well? Where do we want to focus? But what I did look at is, and I bet I didn't. Oh, if you look at page seven, I just gave you the three areas that the board said, here's where we want to continue to keep our focus. So, the first one was on student learning, and that was standard two. Standard three was about district culture, and standard four is fiscal responsibility. sometime because I want to keep you moving tonight. Sometime I'm going to give you homework and Mike, a really good activity to go through with the board is to say when you think about each of these three categories, what are things that the board has done in this past year specific to these categories to really keep your eye on that ball? And if you looked at that list and you wanted to say student learning from that list, is there anything that would fit that the board supported that would add to student learning? >> Right. >> Hiring right. Absolutely. What else? Which spills into standard three as well. >> Yes. to him too. I mean that >> which probably also falls into standard four because >> yeah they have to make those decisions too. >> So hiring rate Derek that's an excellent one. What else? >> Mon trial something else for them to start learning. >> Absolutely. >> So student learning I I thought like student achievement student learning same thing but I would put that under that category. Absolutely. Because they're going to learn something. They may come to school because of mock trial, right? They may not come to school for anything else. They may come to school for mock trial. They may come to school because of marching band. They don't care about anything else, but they know they have to pass their classes if they want to be in marching band, if they want to participate in Jag. If they want to do mock trial, >> you didn't talk about financial stuff tonight. You talked about it when you talked about um equipment. We talked about helmets >> and how important it is that you can't put your students out there without helmets to protect their heads, which by the way is really important to their student learning, >> right? >> Little bit, >> a little bit. Um but even even that and then hearing Lisa say, "Okay, but we can do this. So, we got to move this fund this these monies here to do this because of you also said shoulder pads. Shoulder pads are important apparently. Who knew? Um, but you you had a conversation about that because I think somebody said tell me somebody asked a question about moving funds money from one fund to the other and I don't remember who it was but Lisa Mark that was a great example of a payment. Here's why that's so important. You had a great conversation about gate money. By the way, Derek, that was a great question. Can we can we do that? What does that look like? Why does everything have to come down with money? >> It does, right? >> Yeah. So, at some point in time, I would like you to revisit this list because Ford, you did a lot of really hard work on it uh at the time, and if you might if you ever want any of the other content from the survey, I'd be happy to give that to you. Um, but in the essence of time, what I want to get you to is I want to talk just a little bit about goal setting and I want to end on that piece tonight. So, I want you to look at page eight. I want you to read what's on page eight. I want you to highlight, circle, underline, splash, anything that sticks out to you that's important that you like. Could just be a word. It could be a phrase. unknown call. >> I turn I turn off even though this is rotary find a dollar each time. >> He said $10 each time heard Put it. Title money making back my title money. >> One at a time. >> What did you highlight? What did you underline? What sticks out to you? >> Setting and sustaining the direction. It's not executing the direction. We set and sustain it. Beautiful >> decisions made by the board here will have a profound impact on the success of the district >> and it might be long after you all are not sitting around the table. >> Quite true. >> How impactful is that to think about? Think about how many students will go through all of those new buildings, all of that cool stuff after we've all What else? >> Once goals and indicators are adopted, it's the board's job to stay focused on strategic goals. >> Beautiful. How hard is that to do? How easy is that to do when you get news that you have a big cut of some sort coming that you can't control? >> Well, I think one of the things though that even with this, right, even with this cut and stuff, our our fiveyear plans that we've set in place and you know for different things has has made it to where, you know, for our financial planning, we know that we can make this work. And even if you can't make it work exactly how you thought, you still have a bit of a north star, right? You can say, "Okay, so this shifted a little bit, but if we said student learning, student achievement, student success, if we said that's really important, okay, Mark, figure out how to make all and we said figure out how to go stretch that money, do whatever you do, but that is the most important thing." Well, and I think there's a couple of things that and I don't think we did it tonight, but we used to start off every meeting read the board mission statement and that's something I got from the ISB when we did that up the president's deal in uh in a couple years ago and that's why we bring a kid in here. Uh a kid, I'm sorry. why we have a student representative that comes in and talks about some things is so that that's that's a practice that we started so that this the people in this room around this table make decisions. Remember that we're making decisions for kids and it impacts their lives and the teachers lives on a daily basis and we just may make a decision move on but we want to keep that and those individuals part of this because that's really who we're here to serve. What else? >> Anybody highlight the believing all children can and will learn at the very beginning? >> I noticed how that blends well nicely with our first part of our mission statement. They're connected. every single student. And Carol, I'm going to come back thinking about all the positions that were hired and being in the right place, right, for the right whatever the fill was. Thinking about again the esports, the mock trial, the having something for every single student, a place where they're connecting being so incredibly important. And then one of your last activities tonight is page nine. Again, I want to be really clear. We're not committing to anything tonight. You're not creating more work. This is a little bit of an opportunity for you to do a little bit of dreaming, though, if you will. Um, I've been watching this post-it note over here, which looks like tangs, but that really is an H. It's been bugging me all night. I'm like, this is my h this is my own fault. So, page nine, you're going to have your half sheets of paper. You have your markers. I want you to write down one idea on each piece of paper. You only need two, Kevin, not that I'm speaking to you specifically, but two pieces of paper. What two things would you like to congratulate the superintendent and district staff upon achieving by June of 2028? Two things. What would they be? So, you're going to have two pieces of paper. You're going to thing on each one. It can be a complete sentence. It can be a thought. It can be one word as long as you can explain it. But two things. Two things that you are going to congratulate Mark and district staff upon achieving by June of 2028. >> I might deserve it. She said, Use two pieces. Nope. >> You're just terrible. You're going to need two. Nope. >> No. No. No. Don't take them up yet. Don't take them up yet. You need him. You have another task to do. Sorry. >> See there. I told you. >> Dererick is trying to be the overachiever regions. I do want you to stand. You would not want him in class. >> Actually, you wouldn't. Would you be entertained? >> You might learn something. >> She's learning something. >> Okay, I am. Will you write your second one second paper? If you need to get ready >> Oh, here. >> I have a lot of >> So, you want you want the second one or the second? >> Yeah. Or even, you know, my turn half. It'll work if you want to do that. So, you don't have to write. >> You want me to tear it in half? >> If you want to just because you're going to you might need to move them around. >> I can do that. Whatever. >> No. Not yet. >> Sorry, I was not listening. >> I already got yelled at. >> I got that. >> You're pigeons. >> This one does not. >> You know what pigeons do? the sport. >> It's a little short. >> Not successful. All right. Now, you need to go talk to somebody that you cannot talk to. >> Share your idea. You actually have to get up and move. >> Yeah. Call me up. You're going to share it. And when you're done, >> I already got it. >> No, you have big elbows. You're too close. >> Don't we need a group three anyway? >> Oh, Kevin. >> Do we have an odd number? If you have an odd number, we need a third. The group three, you can do that. >> You're right. I can share. Okay. >> We just became best friends. >> All right. >> Huh? Oh, that's so true. >> Okay, >> everybody have their >> We're going to get Lisa and Carol here just a quick second cuz I need time to share. >> You can now take them up. And Derek, I'm going to but I am going to give you an assignment. So, will you stay standing while you're there? And because Mark would not follow directions, will you rip his in half? He's going to need that as two. Oh, you mean Kevin? >> Oh, I mean Kevin said, "I'm so sorry." You You said Mark. >> I was like, "What did I not do?" >> I'm sorry. Kevin is ripped in half cuz he needs to be able to have two. >> I need to. >> No, you do. Cuz you're going to have to physically move them. >> There's There's a project. >> I know you think you have the answer, my friend, but you don't in this scenario. >> Did you even do the picture assignment? still appreciate him. Here we go. See what happens when you overachieve on one. >> Oh, yeah. >> And there was no way to just All right. Now, you're going to need to be able to read these. So, you might not want to go too far away, and you're gonna ask Derek to do some work for you. So, tell me something you heard and popcorn your answers out. And if time is of the essence, so if you want to get out in good time, >> can I just start? >> You may not just yet. >> Mike is going to add his knowledge, please. NT and MN. >> So, what did you hear? What was something you heard? What does somebody want? >> Climate. >> What about the climate? Like hotter, colder, less melting snow? >> That's a cold climate. >> Did it means did they give you any anything extra? >> I'm guessing it the atmosphere. >> Yeah. I'm assuming. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Okay. What else? Mike Moore is off the hook. Kevin, the question was, what was something you heard? >> All students in at least one activity. >> Love it. >> What else? >> Uh, raise test scores, math and English test scores. >> Beautiful. What else? >> That was >> surpassing precoid reading and math achievement numbers. And is that surpassing COVID blah blah blah or is it tell me >> surpassing precoid numbers but we have not yet >> as a system beat our precoid numbers. >> Gotcha. Okay. What else? >> We're using the open enrollment out. That's really important. >> Yes. >> Yes, it is, isn't it? And y'all need to know you're not alone in that. I know it does not I know that does not feel good, but you are not alone. every district I talked to. What else? What's in the pink lower hand column? >> Decisions made in the best interest of students. >> I love that. >> Derek, do you see any themes? You're sitting the closest. Now Derek can't move anything, but you tell him to move something. >> He's our puppet. >> So if you tell him >> Yeah. Just watch your hands bastards. >> If you tell him what to move or things that might be similar to group together, which by the way will make the activity go a little quicker. Uh what would you group together? >> There's a whole bunch of achievement things there, like scorers things. Not to self- advocate, but when I the reason I put down reduce open enrollment out is because we've done all of these things to make this the school of choice in the area. And so by that we should have there's a lot of subsidies to all that. So I I just picked it the most high level thing I could on that one. That's smart. >> So you can put mine with however you want to. So that one that can go into that achievement one scores that goes with that >> let's see attendance are all >> that's a that's achievement related yeah >> or at least an outstanding state report card >> yeah and that kind of fits with the achievement and the attendance Okay. >> Yeah. Sorry. State report card. >> Oh yeah. >> So that would fall that fall under your open enrollment state report card. >> State report card is mostly based on attendance and achievement. Lot of climate. tender. Grad rate would be uh an item attached to like attendance and uh school report card or the grad rate is on the school report card at least. you know, lowest absentee area. >> What does area mean? >> Um, our surroundings, the school districts surrounding us that kids are open to rolling to. >> Okay. >> Did you say >> every school district that borders us? We're the largest >> 100% activity, all seasonal activity that follow school climate. Seems like an item we >> activity probably. >> Mhm. the green on the bottom. >> I think this was you and me. >> Stable administration team focused on future success. >> Does that go with hiring? >> I think it goes with hiring. >> Their own category. >> Okay, I'm going to get a little crazy. every single one doesn't matter if they're in different categories or not. It all reverts back to student achievement. >> Yeah, I I agree because if attendance is better, they're going to achieve. If they're not in school, they're not going to achieve when they come back. >> Like we put in financial along with that hiring. See a year and a half ago we talked about we talked about student achievement and culture >> decision >> being two of the most important ones and they went >> the goals have not changed >> now maybe how we execute the goals have but the goals have >> I think that goes to the third column >> right here. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's good. Okay, Derek, before you sit down, if you were going to name those four columns with a dry erase marker that is over there, please don't pick one up off your table because I will never get invited back. >> What would you just scroll something? What would you call them? What would you call those categories, friends? And again, if you're not wearing what you call it tonight, I want you to have something so when I send this back to you, you'll go, "Oh, yeah. I remember we called it this because of XYZ. Well, I would call that one staff, but then you have the bottom one on that. >> Yeah. >> Which maybe goes somewhere else. >> Yeah. It's kind of just a weird one in there in a way. Talking about the first column. >> Yeah. >> I call it the right stuff. If you need to tell your community that you're going to have a goal around something called the right stuff, >> can you sell that? >> If we put that little song, what was it? In sync. Who's hanging out? >> Oh, yeah. >> Start doing the moves. Maybe >> I don't have the moves though. >> I don't have the singing or the moves. Yeah, >> it's like you can put these here and put here. >> I think it's I would change the first one to to uh personnel. You're so professional. >> That's good because then you know personal Lisa too heard that financial >> and Mark >> could at least complete staff. Is that easy? >> Spell >> person. >> And it's okay. Whatever you write, I'll know what it is. >> We have a song for that. >> You might have to create one. >> I do not have a song for that one. >> Human capital. >> Yeah. >> Human and emotional capital. >> Okay. What's your next one called? >> Climate. >> Climate. >> Yeah. It really climate culture. >> Culture. >> Climate shortterm. Culture is long term. Then you have the culture club. So you could go on. >> Yeah. >> Mark, say that again. >> So climate is shortterm. Culture is long term. >> I'm pretty good at coming up. Okay. So if I'm not happy with the decision that's made, is that culture or is that climate? >> Right. Shortterm, right? It's the time. >> Culture. >> Climate. >> Culture and climate. Why not? >> I don't think we can control climate. >> Correct. Actually, we don't control. >> I would argue that we have a larger impact on the climate and through impacting the climate, we build a culture. >> That's ways >> and that's kind of that's kind of how a lot of the writing on this is in at least in educational leadership. So, if you want to change your culture to a positive culture, you fix your climate. >> Feel good every day. >> Yep. And you make it acceptable to be the people who are doing the right thing and you make it hard to be the people who are doing the wrong thing. >> Dude, you're doing a great job. >> You do rock. >> What's the next one, friends? Numbers. All the numbers. >> Student achievement. >> Yeah, I'll get all that. >> Student achievement. Mhm. >> And I'm going to ask, >> do you want student achievement or do you want student success or is there a difference? >> And you're not marrying it tonight. I know I've said that multiple times, >> but >> actually I like success better because to me achievement >> sounds generic and like state level achievement. >> Success has a positive outcome. >> Yeah. And we know that grades are not the only thing that's important. You can have somebody that graduated the 25 and has so much success with what they can do in life. >> And it doesn't just have to be academic. >> It does. >> Okay. What's the last one? >> Increasing grades, passing pre-COVID, reading and math, raising math and English test scores. Oh, I guess that other >> expectations That's all. >> Right. I was going to say it's almost like those last two columns fall under that same category then >> the way we worded the previous category at least. >> There it goes. >> All right. >> So friends, you just ended up with personnel, climate, and culture and student success. If you focused on those three things for the next 50 years on >> So we replace financial management with the first one what we did from a year and a half. >> Well or well first can we come back to that if you if you focused on this for the next 50 years. >> Those be the right three things to focus on. >> Yes. >> Probably focus on those three things for the next hundred years. Right. what you do, the physical stuff that you look for work to do under those will change from here to here. Um, some words will say, Lisa, I'm sorry before I let me say that first. Some words will say, well, I know she may not like that. She may or may not like this. Some words will say, "We're not going to call financial stability or finances out as a separate goal because we know it touches every single thing we do." And we are going to consciously say finances ties into each one of those things. It's going to tie into your staff. It's going to tie into your cultural climate. It's going to tie in your student success. >> That's interesting. I feel like that's been a shift for us over the last three years since we start did the work with you to now. I think early on it was easy to focus on fiscal responsibility and and all that in a vacuum. >> Yeah, I think this is just my >> assumption on why we focused on fiscal stuff when we first started this, >> right? The board members that were here prior did not have a lot of good feelings about the financial situation and how things were not not because of >> right >> but there was a lot that we didn't know >> because it's interesting we have grown I think as a team in that three years to where we recognize that the fiscal is always there right but we're thinking about the impact on students and if we do this that takes away from that >> and I think we've shifted our thinking as a team at the table on that. >> I think my first workshop that I came to work with you all I think you were just getting ready to um catch for lack of a better word. You were talking about bonds because you had Matt Gillespie and he was in on Zoom I remember um and it might have been top of mind in a different way as well. So when you're talking about we we're either going to run the bond referendum or we've just done it, we're successful now we've got a gigantic pot of money and we have to spend it wisely. Right? So you may have also been in a little bit different mindset. Most importantly, not just so that my friendly sister likes me, but you won't ever get away from not focusing on your finances. You don't in your personal life, right? I mean, if you all are going to the store and buying whatever you want whenever you want, please invite me along because I've got a little list. Um but traditionally we all have to like think about right we can't maybe buy furniture for the whole house but we do it room by room right so again you're not committing to anything tonight but I do want you to marinate on that finance piece just a little bit but I have a lot of boards who will say we are going we're going to consciously say think about the picture if you're not saying it people don't hear you saying it all the time they only hear you say talk about three goals and you're not talking about finance right? They're going, they don't care about the money. So, just think about what you want that to look like. >> I think some of that comes from experience, too. So, what Mike is talking about, there was a finance committee and a facilities committee. They would meet before the board meeting. Then they'd come and report out at the board meeting. They're 90 minutes and about 18 seconds. And neither side really knew what was going on. He was on facilities committee. I never knew what they were doing. I was on finance. He didn't know what we were doing. And at one point in the meeting when you challenged something and wanted more information in the finance, you were told by somebody in the room who says this is why we have a finance committee. You should take our recommendation and and and yeah, that's that's the way it was. And so when when some things changed, it was just like we need to get rid of the committee so we all know what's going on. And I think that's so that's a board culture that's shifted and I think that's what you're talking about. Plus in doing that is and with monleser is the the trust in those two to come and bring the finances to them. We don't we have full trust in them and their integrity to bring us the best solution. So there's been some cultural shifts on the board where now if they come and say hey we can afford to spend this money we know that they have done the work because they've proven it to us that yeah yeah we can spend $30,000 on these sports. You're welcome. it a little from my perspective, a little bit of the history was finance was a really big thing to get your to get your head wrapped around >> and facilities was a huge problem. >> I mean, we were doing Lake View and closing Central >> and talking about a high school and then power was, you know, on the horizon. And so it was kind of a let's kind of divide this up a little bit so that just a small group can focus on. And as it matured and everybody some of those things came together then it was wait a minute wait a minute I think we can handle it now. >> Yeah. >> But and you I think you brought it up and it was a good time. I mean your timing was perfect. >> It was it was time to bring it all back together. U finances was a tough tough issue because we knew we were wanting to build a new school and to try and get all that together was just a huge process and it's this board is the best one I've been on because we all seem to understand everything. I mean, there's there's always something to learn, but yeah, we see we got some things behind us that we don't have to worry about anymore. And now we can get back to things like student achievement and climate whereas before it was >> Nobody said model you. >> Yeah, >> what you're saying makes so much. kind of brings it back though because we have the we're able to have higher level conversations as a board than we could even just a couple years ago because of the knowledge that we've acquired around the table. But then it comes back to how does our how does our public know what it is we're talking about and why that's a big deal. So it's giving that description or that explanation as we go through these meetings >> kind of how does our public know, >> right? >> Yeah. How does our public know? One thing that is very important that I think we need to remember because first off we don't know what getting rid of the patronates when we're talking about things. >> Getting rid of the MTSS, what's that stand for? The ABC123, >> you know, we need to actually do a better job of saying what it actually is as far as it's in the acronyms. So just like every profession there's acrement, >> but I think Julie's gotten really good at that when she reports. She'll stop herself. She's got a lot better. >> You know, I talk about a former board member. I think a legacy that Bob left with our board. It was a lot on that acronyms issue cuz he was one who regularly encouraged like, "No, don't use the acronyms. Let's use the words." And I think that's a really big deal to think about where we've been and people who have gotten us to where we are >> and remind each other that. So if somebody uses an acronym table and it's the first time of the night, right? Can you remind us that stand or hey remind us what does model UN what does UN stand for? Right? Just even the things that you may be like doesn't everybody know that. Um I think that is huge. But I also think you might want to think about a practice of have a practice thinking of the things that you were lifting up is what is your own world as a board look like. You just talked about some beautiful pieces tonight. And even to be able to say or maybe you don't do it every quarter, but maybe you do it once a year or you talk about what's something we changed. Well, you know what? We don't have two independent committees anymore because the board doesn't need them. At the time it was created, senior board member, somebody speak up. It was for blah blah blah blah blah. But you know what? We don't need that now. We can work as effectively or more effectively without that. It's also a beautiful thing to highlight. And you might say, well, the public doesn't care. You all get to verbalize that, right? It doesn't take very long. But that could be a beautiful habit of practice as well as talking about that learning piece. Let me look at page 10. Try to get you all out of here. This is for the visual learner like me. This is this is what your long term is looking like. And friends, it doesn't have to be this exact thing, by the way. But you'll notice um I put your mission statement, which by the way, you didn't say all students will learn. You said all students will learn well, which I really like. Um so there's your mission statement. you just really identified your three long-term goals. So that very top bucket where it says A, B, and C, that's that really high level. Here's the thing we're going after. Now, if you're like me and you came from a background in the private sector and it's got to be a smart goal and we have to know by when and all the things, I agree with that. But if you were going to go out in the community or I were your backyard neighbor and I'm out watering my plants and I'm kind of crabby one night and I say, "So, Tom, I hear that you did this six-hour board meeting and they brought in strawberries and uh pineapple and that you took a break and there was live music and what in the world did you even do during that time?" And you might say, "Well, actually, we didn't do any of those things, but we did I did have a slice of pizza, but we did our goals." Tom, I don't know how your memory is, but mine is like I need the shortest, easiest. I could say personnel or staff, climate and culture, student success. I could like rattle that off to say those are three really big key things that we're doing. Now, your grouchy neighbor, Tammy, may still say like, "How do you know you're doing it? Like, what are you going to do?" You know, we're still working on that. But high level, what I always want to remember when I sit down at this board table is what are we doing in the realm of student success and what does that look like? Carol, yours is at the top right where it says um that's always for the best intent of every student. So, those are your three buckets or big rocks I like to call them. Then you look to Mark and say, "If we said those are the things that we always want to do," which by the way, I'm guessing it's kind of what you're already doing. Mark, would you create some specific goals to say what is your work under those areas? And I would say couple of things under each one. Please don't do 50. Please don't even do 10. Right? Laser focus. What is it that you want to do? And then I think to help the board understand I'm so I'm going to make one up under student success and I saw a lot about ISAP reading scores. So let's say I'm just making this up. Let's say that Mark comes back and says we really need to focus on our third grade reading scores. So by the end of 2028 we're going to be 100% of students are going to be reading on or at grade level in third grade. Okay. Um and maybe they already are. I'm just making that up. Um, one, I'm gonna drive back down here and high five every single one of you if you agree to a goal that's 100%. Because your mission statement says all students will learn well, become lifelong learners, doesn't say the students who can read. If you're not willing to say 100% of students, and if you only want to say 93%, you might as well go pick out however many of those kindergarters that aren't going to make it and just tell them to stay home because you're just going to focus on the ones that'll be successful. That also means at the end of the year when Mark brings you data back and he only brings you 85%, how do you react to that data? And I hope as you high five each other and say this is amazing, Mark, what do you need from us to go get that next 15%. Right? 85 90. Um but how will you talk about that as a board? Because that comes back to that piece about what are what is it that you're going to say? And by the way, it's really really hard. my experiences. It's really hard for boards to say it won't do 100% of anything because I saw the look in all of your eyes like that's not going to happen. And it won't if you all don't say it well. So, I'm going to leave that with you. Um, but give Mark some time to think about what's the action under there and then give Mark some time to think about what is your responsibility because it's not hey everybody go sign up to read in the third grade classroom. but it is to talk about how will we know when we're making progress Mark what will it look like and he might say again I'm making this up you know we had professional development on letters this year and um here's what the cost is here's how many times they're doing it professional development and we believe that by April we're going to see dramatic differences both from the professional development that staff are getting and whatever students are doing but that you all talk about But what when when will we see that? What does that what might that look like? You turn to page 11. This is a very similar template, but what I like about this is if you take one goal at a time and you say that top line where it says superintendent goal, let's say you put student success there. Mark's going to take care of the what's the short-term goal? What's the initiative? This is where the smart goal comes in. It's going to be specific. Um going to be going to have the time attached to it, the action. What are key indicators? Look at the very last talking point board. For every goal that you have, I want you to ask yourselves, why is this goal critical to the district success? And if you all can't identify that, I'm going to guess it's not the right goal. So, if Mark says, "One of the things we're going to do is make sure that every student is in at least one activity and you say, "That just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know what the correlation is. Why is that important? Let Mark tell you why that's important or help like have that conversation together." But for you to identify what your work is, by the way, a piece of that is going to be looking to Lisa and say, "You're going to keep us right with our financials just like you always have, right?" She's going to go, "Of course I am." Which is why I'm saying, "Hey, let's make this little transfer in these activity funds one from the other." Right? So, we're trying to avoid balance, right? Is that okay? So, that right, she's going to say, "Yep, that's a piece of that. That is a piece of student success." Um, if either one of these are helpful to you, I'm always help I'm always happy to share them in the format they're in versus Mark has them in the PDF, but if you say, "Hey, we want to use this, we want to change it, we want to fill in, let me know." I'm happy to share that. Page 12, the last thing I want to leave you with for you thinking about how do you get the information that you want. This document with March help could be a really helpful thing to give to your staff to help the staff understand what information does the board need about goals. So when the staff comes and presents to you on what was something staff presented to you on recently? >> Tell me a topic. It's been a minute. >> Julie did some state reporting. >> Okay. >> On one of the many um acronym program she's got report. >> That's true. I think it was on um um it was a career item. >> Yeah. Right. >> It was an acronym item. >> Well, let's just say it's state reporting generically. given if you said to your staff or if Mark said to the staff, "Here's things that would be really helpful for the board to know." One of the very first ones is whatever you're sharing with me, how does this tie to one of those three goals? In fact, which one of those three does it tie to? And they may say, "Actually, it ties to two, but it leans more towards student success." So, that's where we're going to focus tonight. Beautiful. Then what if they said um what if you asked them what will it take to implement this well or how will we know when it's success when it's successful what will I see what if you asked them uh what if you said tell me what roadblocks you have what if they knew that ahead of time >> here's what's really critical for the board to know you're not trying to limit conversation but you're giving them a little bit of guard rails to say here's what's really really helpful tasks. Here's where we can ask good questions. >> Well, here's an example. When that really went well was recently during budget when we had a had to do the mailing and the budget. People came in and talked about, you know, when they had the public hearing and everything. Um, and a lot of people of course get, you know, want to voice their opinion on property taxes and everything. And what we talked about afterwards was we didn't do enough to talk to the people in the room that time about giving them some background information. So you went to Lisa and then each time we had budget after that you presented to give us and go you gave us that that uh handout and everything so that we knew and you reminded us of all the acronyms, the timing and everything. And I think that's an example of, you know, that happening because that made all a whole lot easier on us because it's a timeline, you know, well, but you just kept us up to date on on something really. So I think that's an example of having done that recently. So, >> and I would say as a board talk about is it helpful? Is it helpful? You said there's always three things that we want to know. Doesn't matter what the topic is. Here's three things for sure we always want to know. And then work with Mark. Does it make sense to to the staff, hey, to really help the board be focused, we want you to think about these questions >> because if they don't know what to bring you, they're going to bring you lots of great stuff. But what I found is I was looking at pictures of field trips and I was looking for is my child in that picture. I was like, that looks like a cool project. And it was all really great stuff, but it wasn't at a steering level. It wasn't that kind of content that he talked about. So helping guide them could also help you with an efficiency of your time that you spent. Not that they don't not that they're not efficient today. So thinking about goals, thinking about that exercise that you just did, what would be a good habit of practice? So, it's one thing you want to remember about not even specifically what is up there, but how you got there, the conversation you had. It's a good habit of practice. I used my teacher wait time but now I can't not talk. I think keeping these things under our mind as we're doing any random thing. I mean substantial completion of the high school is an item that we have to tackle as a board. But what goal does that impact and how does that impact that goal? Just keeping that in our mind consistently like the state board actually will list on their agenda which goal >> yes >> that aligns to. >> Yes. And you could do that. You >> could >> you could easily do that and you might find that you have an agenda with one goal listed 10 times. >> No harm in that. How many people go look at your um agenda from time to time? There's one more touch point, right? your mission statement's at the top. Um, even if you just, you know, maybe you even number your goals or letter them or whatever, whatever system you want to use, but to help you even constantly put those in front of you. Why do we um, we talk about the killer bees, Lisa again, sorry, budgets, buses, books, those are really, really important, but sometimes we don't tie back to is it important to student success? Yeah, we got to talk about the bus route. Yeah, kids, we're limited by law on how long those kids can ride on a bus because it's really important because we don't need them on the bus for three hours so they get to school even more exhausted, right? Um I'm going to say I'm going to say focus on goals. Is that okay? >> I write that. >> Yeah. >> And you may need to think about how do we create that? All right. Now, here's my question. I'm going to ask you to write a letter to yourselves because I don't ever leave without doing that because you just gave me a hard two hours. If you go home and you do nothing different, you come back to this table in a month and you do nothing different, that's a total waste of your time. What I want you to think about is in all the conversations we've had tonight and all this stuff, what is something that you want to be reminded of in 30 days? You're going to write a letter to yourself. Going to give you a blank envelope. You're going to put it in the envelope. You're going to seal it. I'm not reading it. And in 30 days, you're going to be a little freaked out when you go to the mailbox and see this letter in your own handwriting. Like, what is it? And you're like, "Oh, yeah. Now I remember." And you're checking in with yourself. So, I don't want to know anything that's there. If you want to email me in 30 days and say, "I read the letter," you can, but it's a check-in for you. Before you do that, selfishly, I'm going to ask you though for a takeaway from tonight. What is something uh what is something that you would say? Uh yeah, you know what? This was an important conversation we had. This was a it was really helpful when we talked about X. And I'm going to let you popcorn the answers out. And it was a lot faster if you pop the answers out. I'm a visual learner, so I really like that we took the time to put it up and organize it and so I can see it. That'll help help us to get a lot better. >> Oh, great. >> Former third grade teacher. So, you know, >> I would agree with that, too. And I would also I would go back to the picture. You know, everything is not always as it may seem. you know, ask ask a few more questions. such good >> we just keep need to keep a focus on why we're here and our job as as a board is is to support Mark and his team. So, I'm going to put you on the spot. I'm going to put you on the spot. Well, I I always think that being a school board member, you are a cheerleader for the school and you are in the community supporting your school and trying to, you know, we make some decisions here that can affect you as uh people in the community. And we want to make those best decisions and we want Mark to be the one to do that. and love that we want to make the best decisions and love that >> we kind of like Mark. >> Oh, nice. >> I can see why. >> Mike Moore. >> Yeah, >> I will have to say with the mics. I have to either I either have to say Mike M and Mike T or I got to say the whole thing. >> So, okay. I have something but rephrase your question for me. >> Um, so what's the takeaway from tonight for you? Well, so this every time you're here, this gets me enthused even more. I mean, I love I love being on the board. I love it. But it just it gives me higher hope that we can do even more. >> So, power. >> Yeah. Yeah. You know, Carol and I went to the one over in uh Sher >> and I guess every time we do something like this, >> you get fired up a little. You just get a little fired up. That's important. >> It's like I appreciate you do. >> You all were there. It was the day of the Perry shooting. >> That's how I remember that. We debated whether we're going to do network or not. >> Okay. By team, >> I want to increase our viewership of board meetings by interspersing 30 second commercials just like they do on TV. The commercials would feature a student, an activity, something that showcases our school. Okay, I can take a 30 second commercial break. It sounds weird. I know it's not a part of a public meeting, but I think I know when when my business has a 30-se secondond commercial, people look at that because they're going to they're going to gain information. They're going to see somebody they know. It could be funny. And like I said, all you got to do is invite the tumbling team or the dance team and you got a crowd. Yeah, that's good. >> As you were saying that, remember the first sentence I was thinking when I'm like, "Yeah, I get totally annoyed with Netflix when I don't have the paid version and I have to and I can't fast forward through it." And then you finish the sentence, I'm like, "Oh, that's brilliant." Um, I know a district that will run a feed before the meeting starts. I don't know if they do it five minutes before they, but they do that exact thing, right? They'll highlight different things or they'll talk about the softball team or they'll that could be another that could be another great way to do that and again get >> and I was thinking earlier when we talked about the acronyms having the ticker go across the bottom of the >> more like back in the day MTV >> Cameron you paying attention because think of how you can even do that. >> Did everybody get a mark to finish or something? I we >> everybody did everybody give share of Lisa. Do you want to share something? >> Um >> just as boring as finances, it feeds into everything. The goal is students. >> May I substitute the word boring for complicated or complex? >> Nerdy. >> I got to say no. I I've I've worked with a few SPOS's in being in an administrative role or or even when I was teaching and Lisa does a really good job of recognizing that students are impacted by those financial decisions. Like when we talk about like Lisa will be the one to have to be like no we can't do that. There's been many times in Lisa's office and this is what's really cool about her. Many times I've been in her office I'm like I don't know if we can afford that. She's like no if it's what the kids need we can we'll figure it out. So I think that's pretty cool. >> I just remember we were having when we had a board meeting not or up at the up de mo not the last one the one before and another superintendent from a different district came up and he didn't talk to any any of us. He talked to Lisa about how about the vans and how he needed help with how to figure out how the size of vans. He didn't talk to any of the board members. He talked to Lisa. That's where the information was. >> That's funny. That's a huge compliment. So, just give thank you both. Your um letter to write yourself is the very last page of your packet. You can read it off. A quick little highlight for you all before the meeting started. Mike, Derek, Mike, my team and my M and Mark Taylor. You all had 16 hours towards your board morning. So, you have two more tonight. Um, Kevin, Carol, and Kevin and Carol, you have 12, so that'll get you to Oh, and Tom. Sorry, Kevin, Carol, and Tom, you all have 12. So, that will get you to 13. Sorry, Tom, you have nine, not 12. I'm sorry, I can't math. Well, um, you all are really close. >> I'll watch a video. Um you are so you are really close. >> How many do I have? >> You have 12 right now but you'll get two more for tonight. >> So you need one more hour. >> So um there are several recordings on our website that you can go watch for free and then you just self-report. Um the most recent one is over um some of the new policies that came out. So that was in June. That would be a fabulous one if you've not watched it. Um, >> if less than four are interested in watching it on the screen in my office, uh, I plan to watch that one. So, >> there you go. >> Viewing party. >> Sure. >> Um, and there's nothing that says if there were something like that that you wanted to watch as part of a meeting, friends, you I mean, you have to decide if you want to do that, but you could do that as well. Um, there will be some great content in there. Um the consortium of school boards uh for the US also has we have some of their recordings on our website. So they do some really great stuff on poverty. I can't remember they might have something on AI out there but you can all of that is linked from our website. So you are well on your way to earning your team award again this year. And is this year number >> three in a row? Yeah. >> So as the kids say definitely start in the street. You cannot break the street. uh you've got to earn this year and then that means that whatever happens next that you have to tell uh whoever you have a new new member of your board that joins I don't know who your situation is for November um that you've you've established a thing and they have to keep it up. So there you go. >> Well we three years in a row better board no two years in a row as a board. Three years in a row, the entire board went to the convention and one year where the entire board got individual board awards. Those are the three. >> Fabulous. And you're close to doing that. Um Carol and Tom gave a really good uh light commercial for ready set cover which is geared for new board members when they're elected. We will do that on the road again and you all the closest the closest >> probably. >> So and I believe they're on the land we're working on putting all that together. Um, and we encourage, we love to have experienced board members come as well because you add great voice in the room. Um, that will be either December or January. Don't remember where we were placing things. Yeah, that's like putting a big jigsaw puzzle together. Um, but so that'll be we'll be in your neck of the woods again. It'll be uh I think there'll be three of us that will be delivering content. So that'll be after board con or convention. That'll be the next thing that will be close to you all. So, I want to thank you all for your time. We're thank you for the work that you do. You're leaders in your community and it's a big deal and I know it's a heavy lift sometimes. Um, I'm always cheering for you and let me know how I can help you going forward. >> Thank you. >> Ask me. >> Oh, yeah. We got to give the markers back. >> No free costume. >> There's no such thing as a free marker. >> Oh, you want this extra pages? >> Um, my very fancy uh eloquently cut sometimes ripped pages. Yes. I suppose she wants us to come. >> No, wrong with that. You just have to give it to me and go get it back. >> How about that? >> We got postage out there. I know we do. >> You are worth all 72 cents or whatever it is. >> Did it go up today or yesterday? >> I was going up sometime. I don't know. One more hour. >> Actually, I I seriously >> when >> Oh, it's not fine. Uh I can do it whatever day. The only day I can't Friday. Turn >> your vacation Friday. >> Oh yeah, I better not Friday. I I would have gotten in a lot of trouble with my wife if I >> Thursday would be good. >> I guess I can sharing the question. >> He doesn't even know. >> Oops. Okay. >> Where we at? >> Take away. We are ready to takeaways. We've just had it, didn't we? >> You want some more takeaways? >> Always good for more take. >> Okay. Who wants to go first? >> Person could say ditto to what I just said. >> Again, I'm like you, Mike. Anytime we get Danny involved, it's it's excitement because any convention feel kind of see how similar we actually are in our thought process and it's just it's a nice it's a nice >> um I would be glad to see I mean a lot of new hires on there already tonight and uh great job getting people in the place where we need them. It's my turn. >> Your turn. >> I thought the two hours was very valuable. >> I enjoyed it. Also, I'm going to give a takeaway on on part of the board meeting that I wasn't there and where you had to explain that we lost that money on July 1st and that and I think that you know that's a lot to handle at one time for you and Lisa to take care of and figure things out. So, I appreciate that you guys are capable of doing that. I thought the uh assembly and that sort of process I was uh thought it was easy to use. I like where you can click on the uh the background information. I'm looking forward to that. Mr. Whiskus, >> I'm going to have a plot twist at the end of mine. >> Okay. So, first of all, Tammy, thank you. I first met you on a Friday morning, new board presidents, if you remember that. And I came up and I said, "Hi, I'm new. I have an a situation on my hands all the three days of being a board president that the board member didn't show up, wasn't sworn in. What do we do?" And you helped me through that. And little did we know the hundreds of hours of conversation that would turn into with all the things that we dealt with. and you have been a phenomenal confidant and you do a fantastic job in what you do and you you make school board better and thank you very much and I appreciate your friendship. You do an awesome job. You've helped me through a lot. So I've had a uh um we're pretty fastpaced personal last two weeks and what I'm going to announce tonight is I will be residing from the board. I'm going tomorrow out of town to sign a contract on the house and I will be moving. So, um I will tentatively make it effective September 2nd. Uh I will make it earlier than that if necessary, but the board needs to think about uh all the implications of filling an open vacancy in a in a uh election year because there's some talk. We have an hour this week just on this and it's a very complicated legal uh time frame to do it so close to an election because you have time to appoint but then it's so close to an election that it will have to be filled by an election. So that's a path that you're going to have to work down. But I uh I've been here 23 years in the community. I've made a decision that it's best for me and my life to move on and I'm going to be I don't have any family here and so um I have no family. Um my a lot of friends, a lot of friends in the room, but I'm going to be moving and sign contract on a house tomorrow. So, there's your plot twist. >> Well, it sounds like that's all good. >> It is >> good. >> I certainly appreciate your time on the board. You've brought the board and a school district a long ways through your efforts and uh you will be missed without a doubt. Uh you bring a perspective that the rest of us don't have and that has always been and I appreciate appreciate and thank you for your service. Thank you. >> You don't have to cry, Mike. >> Like, how am I going to handle how >> big stuff without competition? >> Yeah, you get a promotion out of the deal. So, >> yeah, I would ra, you know, if all things were different, I'd rather serve out my term because I could sign up for four year term. But at this point, there's just been a lot of change in my life. A lot of health things. Um, I had five surgeries in 14 months. A lot of people don't know that. And I just need to do some things for my health and >> may I ask where you're going? >> Not publicly right now. >> Okay. >> So, I'm staying in the state of Iowa. >> But I would I would prefer not to be to to say that on public record. >> That's your out of here. Call >> Motion to Mark. >> Did Mark have something you want? >> No, I was just looking to see if we were going to journ. >> Okay, we have a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> We have a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. We are concerned. F2.