Why is that a school board special meeting for March 2nd, 2026? >> [snorts] >> Good Afternoon. The time is now 50:01. The Visetta Public Schools Board of Education special regular meeting for Monday, March 2nd, 2026 will please come to order. Will the clerk please call the role? Colleagues, >> Heidi Kar >> here, >> Sheila Prior >> here, >> Alicia Little >> here. >> Paris Bendy >> here. Valentina ears >> here. >> Heirs, excuse me. Dan Janestra, Dan Janestra is present. Milan Sahony >> present. Thank you, Dan. We have a quorum. The first item on our agenda is the approval of the agenda and the consent agenda items. There is no consent agenda today. There is one item on the agenda. Is there a motion to approve? >> I move a second. >> Moved and seconded. Will the clerk please take a roll call vote again? colleagues. >> Dan Chanestra. Dan Chanestra votes yes. Alicia Little >> yes. >> Paris Bendy >> yes. >> Shayla Prior >> yes. >> Heidi Kedar >> yes. >> Valentina Ays >> yes. >> Melan Sahony >> yes. Thank you. We have an agenda. All right. Um the sole item on the agenda relates to the superintendent search. As you might be aware the school board has hired MSBA to assist in our search. Also assisting is Visetta's executive director of human resources. Dave Flutz Barb Dawn ex director of executive research services MSBA will facilitate the discussion. She will discuss information from the interviews and name candidates who will continue for second round of interviews. Also finalize the schedule for a second interviews, candidate tours and second interview questions and procedures. Barb, please take over. Thank you, Chair Sony, [clears throat] members of the board. It's wonderful to see you again. Congratulations. You're at a very exciting point in the process to select your next superintendent for Weisetta Public Schools. Uh we have a lot to cover tonight and we're going to proceed uh first and foremost with talking about the subcommittee process used last week to interview the semi-finalists that were selected by the full board. After that, we do have uh some housekeeping items to prepare for the activities this week on both Thursday and Friday. I just want to remind the board that the conversations we're having tonight still contains private data. So, all of the semi- finalists and the recommendations from the subcommittee will be referred to by their alphabet identifiers only. In fact, the motion will be passed pending the conversation at the board table to interview them by those alphabet identifiers only. I will at the conclusion of the meeting read the names aloud of those the board has selected as finalists. Finalists again means anyone who's going to be interviewed by the school board for this position. I will do it at the end of the meeting on purpose because uh as soon as the names go public in this meeting the googling begins and I want to be able to um step out and call the candidates myself before their phone starts uh indicating that their name is public. So I will reach out to them after the meeting. That's why I'm going to wait and read those names aloud at the conclusion of tonight's meeting. We'll also be talking about interview questions and you've seen some to consider tonight. We'll do the same thing we did last time for the first round in terms of raise your hand, how many prefer which questions. So, we'll try not to read those aloud either, but we want to make sure that we are asking the right questions on Friday that the board's going to inquire. That helps you decide who is the truly the best leader for the district stepping up next. So, that's what I'm hoping to accomplish here, and I'm really looking forward to uh visiting with the board and answering any questions you may have. The first thing I'd like to do is very briefly review the uh process that brought us to this point. And obviously, you've been doing this for months now, so you're very familiar with it as well. Uh we began by establishing a leadership profile with the board when we also distributed the vacancy brochure and the um timeline for the search. The survey was open shortly thereafter. Search preview meetings were held with internal district constituencies. Uh focus groups were held. All of the engagement proceeded um in a very robust fashion and again you have over 2,000 people that participated in that which is the most we have seen for a superintendent search to this date. All of that information was compiled and shared with the board. Meanwhile, the position was posted and open based upon that leadership profile. Applications were coming in. When the deadline passed, you had 20 extremely strong applicants in that pool. You had access to those as board members. So, you did review all of the information contained in those applications knowing it was private data. Thank you very much for your help assuring that those names did not go public. That is why we're able to share that information with boards because we trust you to hold that information in confidence. So, thank you for that. Meanwhile, MSBA conducted our vetting of those individuals with our team of service providers. uh we did pre-in candidates, we spoke to references, we did social media sweeps and so on and so forth and brought to you a strong 10 which we had at that point seven that we thought were the strongest to align with the public summary report as well as your leadership profile. The board that evening did accept our recommendations and proceed with seven semi-finalists whose names did not go public because they were not being interviewed by the board. They were being interviewed by a subcommittee of the board. Those interviews were then scheduled with all seven. We did have one of those seven withdraw from consideration. And so your subcommittee did end up interviewing six semi-finalists last week. I want to thank them for their time because it was a lot of work, a lot of effort, um a lot of heavy listening, six people, two-hour interviews each, as well as deliberations on Friday. They did arrive at a unanimous recommendation to the full school board of who they feel should be considered as finalists for this position. I know you know who those are. I'm simply going to use the alphabet identifiers to share with you that candidate E, candidate L, and candidate T are the unanimous recommendation of your subcommittee to move forward into the second round of interviews with the full board. Those are in random order. They are not ranked in any way. They are not in alphabetical order. It is simply the alphabet identifiers that help keep these names private. So with that, knowing what the recommendation is, I will turn it back over to Chair Sony to facilitate any questions or discussion you might have on the recommendation from your subcom. >> All right. Okay. Thank you, Bob. Before we move into the questions, I'm going to read the recommendation and during discussion, we can bring up those questions if we have any. So the recommended action colleagues is to move to extend an offer for second round interviews for the Visetta public schools superintendency to the following candidates not listed in the order of priority. Candidate E, candidate L, and candidate T. Is there a motion to approve? >> I so move. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. Now we can have the discussion. If anybody has any questions or comments, please do so. >> Yes. >> No questions, just a comment to say thank you to um directors, Kedar, and Sahony for your work on this. Um, I'm sure everyone, you know, recalls the reason that we did the committee was so that we could keep um the candidates names private for longer, you know, knowing that this might be a watched um uh process and we, you know, we're hoping that because we wanted to encourage more people to apply and just wanted to thank everyone who did apply and come to the interview process. Um, and also to say that I um trust that the committee did their due diligence and I'm excited for the c three candidates that we have. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Okay. Um, >> if I could just offer you please. Yes. So, um, thank you, Sheila. And I I just want to, um, take a moment to offer some comments to underscore just the robustness of my confidence in this entire process. Um, this process was extraordinarily competitive, like extraordinarily competitive, very thorough, it was rigorous. We did our due diligence. I really want our our community and my board colleagues here to be confident. And admin, please know we really did our due diligence. I want to thank Valentina and Melind. We definitely brought different perspectives to the table as we always do. Um but this respect the respect for our robust process has really brought us I think to the right place that we should be. Um and I'm fully standing behind where we're at. We've done our due diligence. I will say that again. And I want to thank you for your effort, your time, your care for the district, its families, and most importantly each and every one of our students. This is an exciting time. Um, it is a shifting time and I know that there's some unease about that, but it's also really exciting and so I'm looking forward to the next steps. Thank you, Barb. Thank you, Dave. You have led us to a really good place. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. No, I just wanted to echo what Sheila said. Um that is the reason why we trusted you three to be on the committee because again you three bring different perspectives but at the end of the day we all and I know you three kept that on the forefront the the what is the best outcome experience for our students. Um so again thank you very much and again we trust you. Um I know you guys have looked at it from different lenses that and I we are confident about the due diligence process. So thank you for all your help and support. Okay. Um I just want to say thank you for for the trust that you have put in the three committee members and let me assure you not just spend we did we did not just spend hours you know interviewing candidates and deliberating but we were very very thorough in in the process and led by BHP of course and helped by Dave in the process and I want to thank my colleagues as well uh for the for their participation and I'm going to read a little thank you recognition kind of thing after we we finish our vote. So, um if there are no other comments or questions, I'm going to read the recommended action again is to move to extend an offer for a second round interviews for the Visetta Public Schools superintendency to the following candidates not listed in the outer of priority. Candidate E, candidate L, and candidate T. Uh, this is a roll call vote then. Colleagues, Shayla Prior, >> yes. >> Heidi Kedar, >> yes. >> Valentina Ays, >> yes. >> Dan Janestra, Dan Janestra votes yes. Alicia Little, >> yes. >> Paris Bendy, >> yes. >> Melan Zahoney, >> yes. >> Thank you. The motion passes. Congratulations to the candidates. So, I'm not just going to take a moment to recognize the work of of our first round interview committee, if I may. Over the past several days, three board members dedicated more than 25 hours to reviewing materials, conducting interviews with six strong candidates, and engaging in thoughtful, thorough deliberations. The level of preparation, professionalism and care in that process reflects the seriousness with which this board takes its responsibility to select our next superintendent. So I want to thank director Kedar and director he s for joining me in the process. I also want to extend sincere thanks to our facilitator Barb Dawn from MSBA and to Dave Luds executive director at Inis director of HR in Visetta. Your guidance, structure, and steady support ensured that our process was rigorous, fair, and aligned with best practices. So on behalf of the full board and our community, thank you all for your diligence and commitment to getting this right. All right. So next we are going to go ahead with item 3B on the agenda where we are where Barb will facilitate a discussion decision and schedule the next steps necessary for the rest of the hiring process. Barb, >> thank you chair Sahonyi. Well congratulations again at the end of the meeting I will make those three names public but we're looking forward to a very busy week for those individuals as well as members of the board and the community. The first thing I'd like to visit about is the reference check process. So we have spoke about this before in that MSBA checked references as part of our vetting process. However, because names are public data, we were limited to speaking with people who were listed as references or included their letters of recommendation. At this point in the process, once these names go public, very often board members will do their own due diligence to make reference check calls because you are no longer limited to people that they are providing to you. So, one of the things I'd like to ask is there anyone on the board who would like to between tonight when the name goes public names and uh Friday morning, maybe Thursday night to be safe, make some calls and ask about these three finalists. I do have information that I will share with you with some guidelines and how to make a verbal report to the full board on Friday. Uh but we thought we might give the opportunity to the folks that were not on that subcommittee to see if it's of interest to you to participate in the vetting process. We can have more than one board member doing it, but I just wanted to find out who is interested and then ask for you to stay after the meeting with me for maybe 10 minutes to talk about how you can then pursue those reference checks. So >> I'm interested and willing. >> Okay. >> I'm interested. Anyone else? >> Can I ask a question? Clarification question. So they those who opted to make the checks reference checks can select whoever they want from those provided as well as who they might know might know the candidate. >> Correct. >> Okay. So they don't have to call call everybody on on that list of references. >> No. Okay. No, I would say do not call everybody because some candidates have a lot of references listed. Uh this is more of an informal process and so we we would encourage you to coordinate efforts so that you're not calling the same people. Uh so we'd meet and talk about what kinds of people might you want to reach out to? Who do you already know that might know information that will support the candidacies um of these three individuals? Uh what kinds of questions will you ask so that we're consistent in how you're making these calls? I would ask the other board members to not do reference checking because you very well may unintentionally duplicate the efforts of folks that are making the calls on behalf of the board. So I would just be very careful that we don't have everyone making calls because it gets a little chaotic. But at this time I'm hearing uh Director Little and Director Prior are interested. Is there anyone else who would like to participate in reference checking between now and Thursday night? Okay, great. Thank you. If you could both stay after the meeting, meet with me for about 10 minutes, that would be wonderful. I appreciate the opportunity to have board members do that. It's surprising sometimes uh what people will share with board members that they are not comfortable sharing with the search firm. So, it's just a really nice final confirmation that these are the leaders that you really truly want here in Weisetta. So, thank you to both of you for that. All right. I also want to confirm the activities this coming week on Thursday and Friday. I will share this information with your finalists as well. Uh we have some things on the schedule. The first thing I'd like to do is ask um Executive Director Loots to confirm what's going to be occurring on Thursday, which we are calling the day in the district for those three finalists. So, I'm going to turn it over to Director Loots to visit with you about what's going to happen that day. >> All right. Thank you, Barb. Uh board chair, members of the board, I'm excited to provide a description for what we are calling a day in the district for our superintendent search finalists on Thursday, March 5th. Uh this superintendent search engagement activity is relatively unique to Weisetta and allows engagement from representative members of the Weisetta public schools community. So a summary of that on Thursday each finalist will spend approximately 4 hours in the district um which will include student and principalled school tours followed by a tour of our district service center um and a large group interview with representatives from our school community. Uh so with the student and principal le tours, they will be visiting Birch View, Northwoods, West Middle School, and the high school. And we'll try to fit that into the time allotted. Um finalists will then also receive a tour of the district service center and will participate in a 1-hour interview with 36 individuals who have been selected uh as representatives from the various focus groups that we utilized earlier in the process. And so participants will include uh school building and district program leaders. It'll include representatives from each of Weisetta's various employee groups. It will include parent representatives from district liaison uh and also community and parent representatives from our five Wetta public schools advisory groups which includes the citizens financial advisory council uh the curriculum and instruction and technology advisory committee, the community ed advisory council, the special education advisory council and the Wisetta Indigenous Advisory Committee. Uh so we have a large group that they will uh interview with and and meet. Uh feedback from both the uh school community member uh interview and also the site visits um from our staff and our students and families who are or parents who are participating and community members who are participating. That feedback will all be sent to the board uh so that it can be considered prior to making a final decision on on Friday, March 6th. And so after the board completes their interviews and and uh finishes those interviews, we will be sharing a summary of that feedback um with you. Um so the school board um will have uh really good and and robust feedback from an exciting engagement opportunity. Um the executives to my right and left here will also be joining me as we'll be the kind of the the school bus of that tour. So Dana is driving that was already established. Um she'll get us to where we need to go and and we'll have some exciting time to engage with the the finalists as well. So >> I have a quick question. >> Yeah, >> Dana, do you still have your bus driver license in place for this? >> You know, I do not, but I think it was determined that I had the nicest looking car. We we don't take Dave's truck seriously. So >> that's true. Thanks. >> Thank you. I also want to acknowledge how much work it is to pull together a day in the district. And thank you very much, executive director Loots. So, uh, ideas are easy, implementation is hard, and sometimes it sounds great to do all of these things, but then how is that going to come to life in the district? And he's done a really nice job getting people to participate and have their voices be a part of this. And as he mentioned, we'll share that feedback with all the board members. Not until you've completed your interviews, however, and entered your results in the rubric as far as your scores of how the interviews have done. We don't want to bias you ahead of time with the feedback from those groups, but it will definitely be something that you're going to have some time to review prior to deliberating and discussing and potentially making a decision on a loan finalist. So, thank you. >> I'll add one comment, Barb. If we recall [clears throat] from our last board meeting, uh the board did uh allow Barb and I to review that feedback in advance of your interviews on Friday. So that if the feedback has a common trend with information that would be helpful to gather in the interviews on Friday, we'll be able to add um a couple of questions to those interviews uh to be able to to ensure that the board is getting the information they need from the candidate. So, if we see a pattern of wonderments um where it's I wonder about or this wasn't necessarily addressed um we'll be able to enhance Friday's interview with a couple of extra questions. I'm recalling that correctly, right? >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you for remembering that. All right. So, then that brings us to Friday, which is the board interview dates. So, if you could take out the information in front of you. I put it in on your chairs um ahead of time. I just want to confirm that this is how Friday's interviews will unfold. And if you want changes, now is the time to change these things. So, for example, the first page says draft. It talks about calling the meeting to order at 8:30 Friday morning. I do expect there to be questions from the board for the first 10 or 15 minutes about how this is going to work. Um, I've tried to put some things in here to help explain it, but I'd like to spend at least 10 minutes with the board before the first interview to make sure you're comfortable um with the rubric, which I will hope to send to you at least Wednesday night after we've selected questions tonight. We'll develop the rubric, send it to everyone potentially by Wednesday night, so you have all of Thursday to review it and decide how you'll use it during the interviews. So, um, that would mean the first interview could start at 8:45. I'm proposing an hour and a half interviews with a 15-minute break between. If these remain an hour and a half, this is what the schedule would look like with the first interview at 8:45, the second at 10:30, and the third at 12:30. There's a half hour break for lunch at noon on Friday and then at 2:00 there will be a break. MSBA needs about 20 minutes or so to compile the results of your exceeds meets disappoints rubric. Um it is the same one also that the subcommittee used and so they're familiar with how this process has worked with the rubric and the EMD form. But I'm suggesting that we don't start that first interview till 8:45 and then run every hour and a half after. Some of this could change depending how many questions you decide to ask, which will be the last thing we do tonight as well. We could certainly expand it, but I'm thinking the subcommittee had 14 questions identified by the board. Correct. 14 questions that the board had selected, and many of the candidates of those six took almost the full two hours giving very in-depth answers, um, very specific examples, very concrete ideas. So I would suggest if they're an hour and a half interviews, 15 would be a lot to ask potentially in round two. We want to allow them time to dig even deeper into giving those kinds of examples. So maybe fewer questions. And if we want to ask more, we could lengthen these to an hour 45, potentially even two, but those are long interviews and I I want to make sure that we're able to be as fresh on the third interview as you are on the first. So does anyone have questions on the first part of this schedule? Does this look okay to start with? We'll circle circle back and confirm this is okay based on how many questions you choose. >> Yeah, >> that was my question is if we could kind of see how the questions go and I know we're talking about maybe even a presentation of some sort and then kind of think about how that would all time out. >> Correct. We will circle back but so far this looks good. Correct. Okay, great. Thank you. I also want to point at the bottom I highlighted something. All of the interviews will be here in this building. And I wanted to ask if this is the appropriate um phrasing because we've talked a little bit about why you may not want to live stream those interviews. Uh it does give candidates an advantage if they are later in the day to potentially watch the first interviews or hear the questions. Um so one of the things you could think about to ensure a level playing field for all candidates, the interviews will not be livereamed. However, recordings of the finalist interviews will be posted for viewing on the district website for any number of weeks following the interviews. The loan finalist interview will then remain posted indefinitely. So, this is something I'd like the board to consider. You certainly could put all three finalist interviews up indefinitely as well. The one consideration is we want candidates to feel comfortable as well. And if they are not the successful candidates, sometimes they may be pursuing pursuing another opportunity and perhaps bringing down their interviews off the website at a point as a professional courtesy is appreciated and then the lone person's um interview stays up. >> So the question as to putting all of them up or putting one of them up from the beginning, I think comes to why why would you be putting these up there? And this was a conversation the subcommittee had. If it's to introduce the new superintendent to all of the district school communities, the one interview would suffice. If it's to allow folks to watch and evaluate all three of those finalists, knowing that the interviews are are one piece of a much larger puzzle that you've considered in selecting that loan finalist, you could put all three of them up, so people could see those interviews at a later time as well. So, I just want to confirm what the board would like to do relative to this final paragraph. So I'll turn it back over to the chair. >> Um, thank you Barb. I have a question. Now these will be just recordings that would we are proposing to be posted, right? Not not a video. >> It would be the audio and video. >> Audio and video both. Okay. >> Correct. And I would recommend that they be recorded as separate interviews instead of one long interview because it's easier to put them up and take them down if they are separate. You know, this person's this person's and this person. So yes I think audio and video both >> audio video both okay >> correct >> and u yeah so so the live streaming the main reason for that is uh is so that we we do not have the second and the third candidate get an undue advantage of you know listening to the questions beforehand right okay thank you um what what do you all think I'm okay with posting only one. >> So I'm aligned with that as well. Yeah. Because I think so from my perspective um the decision is going to be made, >> right? >> And um to me it's really an introduction to the one person that we choose. But um I I'm open to hearing other input. >> No no comments, no thoughts. I have thoughts. I'm just not I'm kind of flip-flopping in what I think I'm what is our community like what would benefit the community. Again, the decision has already been made and having just one as an introduction seems like the right choice. Um I mean people might be curious though. >> Yeah, I do. >> So I I don't know. But is that a reason? I I do feel like I want to be um considerate to the candidates and would they want that out there? I mean, I think that it will be they, you know, the videos will probably show them in a good light because they're interviewing, but Can I ask a question? Do we necessarily have to have them up for weeks or could it be until the end of the day or the end of the weekend? >> You could do whatever you like. Yeah, >> as long or as short as you'd like to leave videos up, it's entirely your prerogative >> because I feel like I mean if it's within the same day we're deliberating and somebody wants to jump on and watch, right? Like they could get posted the sec well they would get posted after the third interview. They could get posted right after the third interview and we could during our >> technologically speaking I don't know if they have to be uploaded to YouTube which can take some time. Correct. I don't know if it can be an immediate turnaround. I don't know. >> It takes a matter of minutes. Yeah, it's it's a non-issue. >> You tell us when. >> Yeah. I And going back to Barb your earlier comment, there are multiple facets, right? Not just the interview alone. That's where I feel why unnecessarily publish other two interviews. Um obviously some of the data that we will get from Thursday interactions, we're not making that public. So that will go into our consideration too right. So the interview is not the only criteria we are going through and that's where I feel I think we should post only the final candidate and not other two because again I feel they don't have you know same advantage because not every detail is published. So that's where again if we were to have everything laid out but that's not the process right. So that's where I feel maybe just one interview >> just to add to the conversation I kind of am feeling the same way. I don't know that I feel super strong one way or the other. The only thing I will say and maybe it feels different as somebody who was not in the initial committee of like wanting to make sure our community feels like they are having as much transparency with the process. We have not, you know, some of us have not met these individuals yet and many of our community members will not be part of the Thursday experience and may have no idea who we were even meeting with if they don't have that access. And so I I appreciate wanting to respect the candidates, but I also feel like the idea of maybe putting up for a limited time, I think more than a day, but not an extended period of time, like maybe a week or less, just for an opportunity for the community to see, these are, you know, the impressive candidates that we met with. And even though it is just a snapshot, we are coming from having such a long-term deeply embedded superintendent in our district. And I think there's going to be a lot of emotions around this decision and it would just be a nice way to give our community a sense that they were a small part of understanding where we're coming from. But again, I don't know that I feel super strong one or the other. It's just one idea that I have. >> Yeah. I think what I would, you know, add just to respectfully disagree with Alicia is that, you know, if someone's interview is up there who didn't end up getting the job, what my concern would be is people would say, well, why didn't you hire this person? That they might have the ability to sort of critique our end result and say, well, you you missed this or you didn't consider this. Um, that would be my concern with putting the two unsuccessful candidates videos up. >> Clarification question. Sorry. Um, these will be open to the public. The interviews are so people could come >> but you know people have jobs so [laughter] >> yeah. Okay. Valentina >> um I respect that we would like uh to give candidates opportunity. I I mean whomever will not succeed to have an opportunity. I'm I'm actually liking it but at the same time I feel like our community is going to be asking us uh questions why we cannot uh see yes there might be questions why you didn't choose that it's at any time you can get that kind of questions uh but at least we can we can tell that uh you had let's say that I'm just uh discussing I don't know for two weeks or so. Um then we can say that we have enough I mean we show it to you um but we had also other side of the candidate. So and it's we we that's even at the board we're sitting we have some different perspectives. So yes, I mean it will be like that but at the same time I keep wondering if we are going to just post uh finalist that our community will be upset with us to be honest that we we are not transparent. We are not allowing them to see um whom did we consider that my concern? >> Okay. would um how would candidates feel in your experience? Usually are they okay or somebody might say I don't want my interview to be public. >> Everything all of you have said is correct. There are many different ways to look at this. I can't speak for candidates. I think if someone uh if someone does not do as well in the interview as they had hoped to do, they'd prefer that it not be posted for public consumption. I think if someone um is used to being in the public eye and superintendents are used to being in the public eye, they are on video all the time in many different avenues. It is not something I think that is as concerning as it might have been prior to everything going virtual and everything going online. So I it's hard to speak for them. Um, just you have to wonder about if you were in those shoes and you went through a very public interview process and if you did well or didn't do well, does that affect how you feel about your video being up? I do know we'd prefer they not be up forever because people grow and change and have other job opportunities. So, we don't want those up there forever. >> Yeah. But let's say if we decide to maybe leave it there for a week or, you know, whatever the time frame is, right? But if one of the candidates or somebody says, "No, I don't want my video to be public." Then we cannot or we we still can do that. >> You still can do that because this is a public meeting and if you choose to record and play your public meetings, um I I would be surprised if candidates wouldn't um accept the idea of their interview being recorded as part of the application process to be a superintendent. They understand all of the questions and ideas and concerns that you all share. Uh we just want to be careful we're not um we're not making their lives more difficult by leaving them up for very long. Truly, the people that uh want to see these will be most excited to see the one who is the lone finalist. So if you do post all three, there's always the possibility that the vast majority of folks will zoom in right to that one of the person you've selected, perhaps won't view the other two. Everyone's lives are very busy and they may not have six hours to devote to watching all of the interviews. So that's something you could consider. But I I can't specifically speak for the candidate. Thank you for asking that. >> Thank you, Chair Sony. Um I I just want to clarify too just so that we're all starting from the same starting point. This posting them posting the recordings um video and sound is not a statutory requirement. This is kind of a nice to do that Weisetta would be offering its community. Um I'm I'm not as concerned about their future whatever. To me, it's about why why would the community want it or need it? Um, I think our our process when we talk about transparency, I always it's a it's a complex word and I think transparency can mean many different things to many different people. Um, and so in the context that I'm viewing it, I think our process is very transparent because it's clear and people know what to expect. To me, that's what transparency means. Um, I'm kind of like you, Alicia, where I I don't have a very strong feeling one way or the other. I think a shorter amount of time, I think 2 months for example, is too long. Um, because also we have to keep in mind when we hire the next superintendent, which is really exciting to say, um, we announce their name on Friday and then the work of transition begins. And so I don't want to linger in that hiring process for too long. I want to shift our energies and our efforts and our mindset into that transition phase. So that's that's kind of where my head is at from just a strategic standpoint and um and how we are going to start engaging our community um and how that person is going to start coming into the fold. Um so that's that's where my head is at. Just something just food for thought for everybody. >> Okay. So thank you everyone for your your comments and your input. This is the way I look at it. This is a the the reason we we have a public meeting is so that the public can see what we how we are deliberating how we are interviewing what the candidates have to say. Um yes they can come here and watch but like Sheila said most people work uh and this is during the daytime so it may not be very easy for people to come and sit in the room and watch them. Um as far as post not posting all three because we will get push back from the community as far as how we have interviewed them. I think that is a matter of how confident we are that we are doing the right thing, the right job, right? Interviewing them correctly and and that that is again at the at the heart of transparency. People we I want the community to know that we did the due diligence. We used information, data, listened to them carefully and then decided on the final finalist the the future superintendent. As far as u candidates that do not make it not not appreciating that maybe maybe maybe that's what the community needs to know. That's that's the re you know unless they see what the interaction was how they responded to the questions how they justified you know what they did during their previous experience with examples unless they see that interaction the community is really at a loss to understand why we why we did not select two but selected the third one. So I think I think I I would I would be in favor of posting all three not for months right obviously not but at least for a couple of weeks maybe and then taking those two down and then leaving the third one indefinitely as as proposed. Yeah. Otherwise I I I think we'll hear more from the community that is not happy if we don't post rather than when we post. Yes. >> May I ask in other um superintendent searches that you have led um as as the consultant, what have boards opted to do? Is there a history of them doing what you know one board member's advocated versus what another has? Like is there a clear decision they >> I wish there were, but there's not. Uh different boards do different things. So maybe maybe we'll we'll just see what I don't know. I don't even understand what the consensus is. I >> there isn't one yet. >> There is no I know. I know. But uh maybe we should just go around and see how everybody feels about not posting all three. Let's see. Let's do that first and then see if there are there are opinions on the other side. Alicia, you want to Sorry, I'm not trying to put you on the spot. >> Fine. I personally like the idea. I don't even know that it would have to be two weeks. I literally think a week could be enough. >> I feel like anyone who's paying attention is paying attention and those who are not are not. And that would be enough time to allow individuals who couldn't make it here that day to feel like honestly even as somebody who does not interview for a living. I think I've learned so much and I know you've this smaller committee has done a lot of hours but I can't even tell you how many hours I have personally put in at this process and I think you know a lot of I wouldn't have known this had I not been here right now at this table and I think this is just another level of getting our community to understand the amount of time and thoughtfulness and process and I think seeing more than one interview would even show how consistent we're being with the way that we're treating each of these candidates and the questions we're asking and the process we're using. So, I'm in favor for I would put out like a one week of showing all three and then pull the two. >> I um I I appreciate what Alicia said. I think I agree with with Heidi though that you know posting the videos the unsuccessful candidates would sort of keep us in the past um versus you know moving us forward with that necessary transition process. Um but I do also appreciate the um compromise that we wouldn't leave it up let's say indefinitely for a month. It would be just one week. So, um I'll um I'll go with the consensus of the board then. >> Um I I am supporting or I'm supportive of posting three for a week, the two that don't make it for a week and then the the one that does indefinitely. Um, I just feel that, um, we have our public meetings and and as a, you know, I think as a board, we do appreciate the videos online because it gives people an opportunity to see um, our meetings when they aren't able to attend in person. And I think keeping with that, I would like to at least have them up for a week. >> Heidi, >> um, I'm going to align with Alicia. I think let's think about this. Let's think about two weekends. So if it was 10 days so that you give everybody an opportunity, right? So we so we would announce on Friday, everything would go up on Friday the three videos. We'd allow them to stay up for that weekend, the full week, go into the next weekend, and then we'd pull them down like Sunday night at 11:59 something. You know what I mean? Like it would be not 11:59. We will make it a normal hour. Can we make it workers, [laughter] please? for those that have to >> absolutely Monday morning. >> How about that? Monday morning. >> You have to stay awake till 11:59 p.m. on Sunday. [laughter] >> Sounds good. >> So, that's where I'm at. Three videos, short amount of time. I think two weekends is plenty of time to allow everybody to have view of it. And it'll also it'll it'll get back to my idea of let's move forward in the transition and then and then we're good to go. Valentina I think that as I said I still I wanted to have all three and separate I appreciate it because then it's allowed I mean it's easier and um I like the compromise of doing 10 because uh the weekends specifically all people are busy there are so many things sports and all so at least we can say that we did our due diligence that's my >> thank you >> no I think that's a good compromise. And again, I think when some of us were talking about just publishing the one, we were more thinking about other candidates, not necessarily, you know, the transparency, right? Um, in fact, I'm glad when Barb did that assessment, when we put together our leadership profile and when we got responses from community, um, there was largely overlap. So that gave us as a board members confidence that hey our community is also thinking along the same line as we do. So I think that that's a good sort of starting point right and we have built on top of it. So again we think we will be more aligned with community. So again at least when I was proposing that I wasn't so much worried about push back but I was more worried about other two candidates but I think this is a good compromise. Again two weekends sounds good and we can publish them. So when I made my comments earlier, I forgot to mention one point. I I think the community is also looking at us in terms of how we are going through this process and evaluating board members as the board members are evaluating the candidates. So I think that's something that we need to be cognizant of and I'm okay with compromising. I would have liked it a little longer but 10 days is fine, better than nothing. So, so I think I think I'm hearing a consensus uh to have all three videos posted for a period of 10 days, whatever that second Sunday happens to be. Uh that's the 15th of March, I think, right? Yeah. March 15th. All right. Thank you. The one thing I've always appreciated working with this board for the past several months is the thoughtfulness you're putting into each decision you're making. Every step in this process matters. Even something as small as this. And I think the care and the consideration that you're exhibiting for your candidates as well as your community members is very clear. So thank you for that. That makes all the difference when you take the time to think through, deliberate, discuss, compromise on something even as seemingly small as this does make a difference. So thank you very much. So that is the Friday schedule and I appreciate the direction on the uh videos remaining up and then the one person's remains up indefinitely. The next two pages I won't spend too long on because they're really to help you prepare for Friday. I'm going to cover them very briefly, but you can have these to think about to read through. The subcommittee will recognize the first finalist interviews page. This is exactly what they did. Uh the board chair welcomes the finalist. um explains how many questions there are, how much time there will be. I will be here uh this time holding up signs so they know how much time is left in their interview. So it feels familiar to those three individuals, but for the rest of the board, I just wanted you to know this is how it's going to unfold on Friday. Everything in italics is not something that the chair will read aloud. It is simply here's what's going to happen next and then then this happens. So the things in italics are for your information and this is not necessarily um a hard and fast script. It can be modified. It can feel more conversational. We just want to make sure that each candidate has the same experience, which is why we put all of this in writing for you during the interviews. It talks about schoolboard members asking questions until complete. So once we finalize how many questions there will be, we'll put those into an EMD form. Exceeds meets disappoints. Typically the chair asks the first question and then you proceed to his left or to his right and we just continue in that format. We do want each of you to ask the same questions of each of your three finalists each time. Consistency is very important. One thing that we'll also revisit next week is follow-up questions. Not next week, Friday. Wow. Um follow-up questions. Typically, we want to be very careful that each candidate gets the full amount of time. So, the only follow-up questions that I would suggest be asked after they give an answer is a clarifying question. If you didn't understand an acronym that they used or a program you're not familiar with, any of you can ask the question, excuse me, could you please clarify what you meant by? And they can certainly do that. I would say that you can think about, and we'll talk about this in the questions. If you want to ask a follow-up question to one of the answers that they gave you, we'll just say if there's 12 questions, you're taking notes. You're jotting down their questions. You might have a wondering about one of the answers they gave you. Each of you could potentially ask one follow-up question to any of those 12 questions, but at the end of the interview, so we don't use up their time with follow-up questions. Does that make sense? They have to be relevant to the answer the candidate gave you. We don't want you going down a rabbit hole with a question unrelated to their answer. So, I think that's a really nice way for the board to still ask follow-up questions within reason. and if we have time at the end of the interview. So just proposing that right now. Yes chair. >> So clarifying question about the questions. Um so the clarifying question about acronyms or something that we somebody did not understand that can be done immediately after that question is answered. Right? We don't have to wait for the end of the interview. And but the other ones the follow-up questions would be after the after all questions have been asked. >> Correct. Okay. >> That's what I would suggest. And I've heard executive director Loot say this that if you have a follow-up question, and you do not have to ask follow-up questions. You may have so much information that they've shared with you that you don't have any. I think it's based on the answer you gave to question seven. I would like to know more about something. But based on the answer you gave, is that correct? How you would say follow-up questions should be >> asked. So B wrote it in the candidates's response. If you needed extra clarity on what they said for any reason, that would be a a follow-up question. Tom. >> So are there. Oh, I'm sorry. Valentina, >> one more clarifying. How would you suggest to ask? Let's say that I didn't understand abbreviation. I feel like it's good idea not to interrupt otherwise a person is putting so much effort and thought and then if you we are all humans and uh some people are good at immediately and then going some people are not. What is going to be your suggestion to ask when a person stops, pauses or to ask that clarifying question, let's say about abbreviation after they finish their train of train of thought, how would how it will be better for the candidate. I I appreciate you asking that. That's very considerate because sometimes they do have the answer in their head. So, I would suggest when they finished their entire answer, even if the acronym was used 5 minutes earlier that you hold off and wait until they've clearly finished their answer, and then you could indicate that you have a follow-up question and and the chair will call and then I would say doing that is a very very considerate thing to do. Thank you. Okay, any other questions on this first page about the interviews? It'll make a whole lot more sense on Friday, but I just didn't want you feeling unprepared for Friday. Okay, the last page in here talks about deliberations. Uh this is after the interviews. Um when you are in a public meeting discussing who you are going to engage in negotiations with to become your superintendent. So we talked about this during interview training um maybe a month or two ago already and one of the things we talked about was the importance of recognizing that everything you say is on the record. So, we really truly want you focusing on the strengths of these candidates. We want to encourage you to say positive things about each of them. And in fact, I'll be taking notes and we'll ask each of you to share something positive or two positive things you really liked about their candidacy. We um we have an overview of how these things occur per candidate. So, I'm just going to very briefly tell you and then let you sit with us till Friday when it makes a lot more sense. Uh so the first thing that we'll do after deliberations and after you've had a break I'm going to give you the feedback that um executive director Lutz and I have seen from the day before the day in the district. So we'll give that to you because you're going to need some time to digest it. There will be highle overviews of the themes that emerged uh from the from the interview and from the tours but we want you to just sit with that for a while because you've already submitted your own ratings as individuals. Correct? So while you're reviewing that information from day in the district, MSBA will be um coalating all of the information from your ratings of the answers. So that's a good thing for you to do while we're working on this back in St. Peter. Um then we will have that to share with you. So the next thing is I will review with you very briefly the results of the EMD form. I'm not going to spend very long on it and it is not going to tell you who to hire. I just want to make sure that everyone's aware that it is just one tool out of many, but it will indicate how your fellow board members felt about the answers that each candidate gave. Obviously, the more ease or exceeds someone gets, that indicates a lot of support from the board. Um, maybe the more the more D's or disappoints, that's not not as great. But it's not statistically intended to tell you anything about who to specifically hire. So it is not um an analysis that I would lean on as the primary tool. It's just an indication for uh foundational discussion amongst all of you. So that will maybe be a minute or two. That's all I'm going to spend on that. So it'll be very brief. It is not a ranking of candidates. You're not going to come out of that with a first, second, and third place person. You're not. Okay? Rankings are public data and this is not a ranking. It's just where you're leaning. Then we're going to move into facilitating a conversation around the strengths of each candidate. And I would suggest you start with the first candidate who interviewed with you. You know, you'll be by this point you'll using their names. So you can go around and the chair will facilitate uh who would like to share a strength of name. And so I'll be sitting over here taking notes what you say. And we want each person to have a chance to share a strength that you noticed or two. Uh the first person should not list seven strengths because then each person says well what they said and you kind of run out of things. So we want you each to have an opportunity to share. Um and you can continue that until there are no more but usually one round each person saying one or two touches on the high level things that really impressed you about that person. I would say while we're staying on that person that the people who have done reference checks will give a report verbally on what you learned about that person as a candidate as well. and we'll talk more about that after the meeting. So that's another part of while we're talking about, you know, Jane Doe, we're going to talk about Jane Doe's strengths and we're going to talk about the reference checks. So we'll we'll do that with each candidate. Also keep in mind, and this is probably something for the chair, as people are invited to share strengths of the candidate, start with someone someone different each time so that the same person doesn't always go first and the same person doesn't go last. We do want to mix it up a little bit. With three candidates, you're not all going to get to go first, but we do want it kind of popcorn style where you each get to be at a different spot in that. All right. So, then you get into the solid deliberations, and this is where the rubber meets the road. You are now talking about the candidates and who best aligns with this position. Generally speaking, it happens fairly organically. You don't need an official process. You will not be taking um a ballot to see where people are at. Someone might feel comfortable offering, "These were three phenomenal people. I'm leaning toward making an offer to John Doe." Someone else may speak up and say, "Yes, I agree." And I also thought that Jane Doe was phenomenal. So, it just becomes a conversation amongst you. Um, there does not need to be emotion right away. You want to wait and see how people feel about this. The discussion can last as long as you need it to. If you get uh sort of plateaued and you don't have a clear first choice based upon how you all are feeling, we will pull out the leadership profile and talk specifically about each of those things that you are seeking and who perhaps aligns most with that profile. We will pull out that public engagement summary report and revisit what all of your school community members are looking for. That can very often help break a tie as well. I hesitate to ever go to deficits unless you absolutely have to. If you've reached a point that they're all so strong that there's not differentiators among them in terms of strengths, maybe one person is stronger, which means the other two might be weaker in a particular area. So, we could go there if necessary, but you'd be surprised how often it's not necessary to go to deficits at all because you found the right person as the conversation happens. That's all I have for this is how it's going to happen. It sometimes takes half an hour. Um I've been with boards that it takes six or seven hours to arrive at a decision. If you get stuck, if you remember from interview training, we talked about taking a break, walking around, clearing your head. Uh we did talk about the tools, the report from public engagement and the leadership profile. All kinds of things you can do. You could also call a recess and come back the next day. This is not something we want you to feel rushed into. This is a decision that's going to have major implications for your students, your staff, and your family families. So, uh, take whatever time you need on Friday. And if you arrive at a a decision as a board, that's wonderful. If you don't, that's okay. We will work through it and continue to help you along the way till you do have a decision that the majority of the board supports. Does not have to be unanimous. We've talked about that. A majority of the board can hire the superintendent. It is helpful for a new superintendent to step into a united board. It is not required, however, as part of the process. That's all I'm going to say about Friday's deliberation. So, I'm going to turn it back over to the chair and see what questions there might be. >> Yeah. I have a question. Um, in your experience, what's the shortest the fastest deliberation and how how long was the longest deliberation? >> Oh, wow. >> Just curious. [laughter] >> Um, I would say the shortest is probably about 10 minutes. Wow. >> 10 minutes. Okay. >> Um, the longest took several days. several days and it's easy when you have one really strong candidate and two strong candidates. It is very difficult when you have three extremely strong candidates. It is I don't envy the decision this board's going to be asked to make on Friday myself. But yeah, it can go a long time, >> you know. >> So Barb or chair, so if we were to get consensus on Friday, do we vote on Monday? Is that how it works or Friday is the decision? >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Ready? Go ahead. >> I would recommend just from my experience with this board and our intentional decision making as Barb said earlier, plan for a long day on Friday. Um, we can take breaks and we can come back to it. Um, like I'm I'm literally telling my family I'm out all of Friday evening where I'm not available. I've made Saturday available in case we need to come back. Just this is the biggest most important decision we're going to make and um and so we should just be available >> for that. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Question just to me. I'm sorry. >> That's okay. >> Um if we have to deliberate for more than one day, um how much notice do we need to give the public for that meeting? because we will have a quorum. That's a great question. If you continue the meeting, it remains part of the same meeting that you're starting at 8:30 on Friday morning. You can just roll into it the next day and roll into it the next day because it's not a separate meeting that requires the 3-day posting notification. Uh most boards will come back the next morning or the next day, but it's a continuation of one meeting. So, people who are watching the first meeting, well, the beginning of that meeting know that you're just rolling it over and continuing it the next day. So, thank you for asking that though. I appreciate it. >> So, it'll be it'll be with a recess either long or short depending on how late we work on Friday. >> Yep. >> If we work till midnight and come at 2:00 on the in the morning on Saturday, it's only a 2-hour recess. >> You're right. [laughter] You're right. >> But yeah. Okay. >> Yep. The latest we've gone has been 2:30 in the morning and boards at 2:30 tend to be tired and say, "You know what? Maybe we should call it a night and come back tomorrow morning." And it's amazing what a good night's sleep can do because the next day in half an hour they were done. So, we'll just see. I'm excited for you as well. So that's all I wanted to share about Friday. It will be a big a big day but a very wonderful day. >> One more clarification when we will be looking at EMD results. Uh we're going to be also just in case if it's going to happen that some will show exceeds some all of a sudden disappoints. It's a huge discrepancy. Are we going to be how are we going to be handling that situation? So thank you for asking. Uh what we'll do is have the overall results for the board to look at and see the trends that are emerging if there is a particular question because the results would be broken out by question. So maybe question nine, four board members thought it exceeded and three board members were disappointed. That would be highly unusual because you will have a rubric helping you determine how to score folks. If that question is something crucial to the decision that you're going to make, we will revisit that question and ask people to say, "Well, who felt that it exceeded and who was disappointed?" Let's talk about that and see if there are things that we're just not quite hearing the same way. So, we can go back to it at any point if there are those kinds of splits on the on the um EMD form. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. So, that's what'll happen on Friday. I am going to ask um executive director Loots to give a very brief update on what will happen if you are successful on Friday in finding a loan finalist. What will happen in terms of negotiations next steps? >> Yeah, so very briefly uh the board would enter into negotiations with their selected uh superintendent with uh support from uh human resources and we also uh get support from our district's legal council as well. So that timeline will vary depending on when we reach an agreement. Um and then we would either utilize an upcoming meeting or or schedule a special meeting uh to make an approval on the superintendent's contract. >> You're not expecting to do it right away on Monday though, correct? >> I hope not. >> That would be really really need some time to to think. Yeah. take the time you need and yet get it approved potentially um this month if you can. I know that that's going to be a goal. >> Anything else on negotiations? Okay. >> Do you have a question? >> Yeah. Um I do just want to ask just to kind of understand better the the situation of negotiations. Um where we have one candidate who's been selected and then seven board members and a member of administration negotiating. Do we have a member of the board kind of lead the negotiation? I'm just I'm kind of imagining one person negotiating with seven. I'm just trying to understand how that's narrowed down to be efficient. >> To save time, the chair represents the board during negotiations and works closely with director Loots. Correct. Great question because otherwise I don't know if we could find a time for all of you to meet with one individual. >> Seven on one is a >> Thank you for that question then. >> Thank you. And then just to add to that, typically so so this board has seen two contracts with our current superintendent and it's always been in conjunction with the superintendent evaluation process, the annual superintendent evaluation process and then the contract also gets. So even moving forward, it's typically the chair who heads that, but the su the superintendent evaluation committee also does compensation. All right, thank you. That is all I have other than the interview questions and the announcement of your finalists. So, if you could pull out the interview questions that I had shared with you earlier. I also placed a hard copy of five additional questions that were suggested to me this afternoon uh by board members. There is a sixth suggestion in your inbox um if people would like to take a look at that and consider it. I know these are a lot of questions and I just got done telling you that you probably want no more than 12 to 15, but I believe I proposed close to 60, something like that. Yeah, more than that. Um, but the idea is to find the ones that resonate with you the most. Uh, has everyone had a chance to go through on your own and choose 15 a piece? I don't want to rush anyone either. >> So, those 12 to 15 questions include the opening question um three, four, and the closing questions. Whatever that number is, I don't even know what the number is. >> Yes, it would include those. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, is everyone comfortable if I just do the tally like we did last time if you have had a chance to look at these? And we'll circle back to the ones that are additional questions for consideration. And there was also a suggested rewrite of uh question five on the hard copy that I gave you and a couple of highlighted minor changes to question 8, 12, 17, and 18. Just food for thought that we can make those changes. >> Could we have just a few minutes to review them again? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes, please. Is everyone ready if we start going through and tallying your thoughts? Anyone need a little more time? >> Before you do that, Barb, I have a question. >> Okay. >> So, last time, how many questions did we have to select from >> last time? >> Yeah. >> For round one, >> 14 15 from whatever we had, right? Do we have many more this time than the last time >> to select >> options? Yeah. >> Yes. I tried to put four or five options under each category. >> More difficult [laughter] task than the last. >> More options. The clarification question. I'm wondering because there are so many options and I kind of checked all the ones that I thought were good questions knowing that we'll probably have to whittle it down because I have a lot of questions that I liked. Um, so if we do the tally, I mean like so you suggested a certain number of questions, but I've checked many more than that. So as we go along, just it's okay for us to have like a lot and then we can just see who which questions have the most and kind of whittle it down that way. >> Sure. >> Okay. I don't know if my board colleagues are feeling the same. >> I I assume that that was okay. I did the exact same thing. >> Yeah, I have more than the number that you suggested, right? Yeah, I initially did. I did just go through though and try to do a quick cleanup and try to do like one per section just because I think it could get a little overwhelming if we vote on 40 each and then have to go back through again. So, >> I also think we can combine some of them. So, as we go along, we can we can bring them together and get to the con to get to the root of or concept of certain things. >> Agreed. I wonder if though if there are like some questions that I would be totally okay with that other, you know, that those of you, you know, voted for but that I didn't because I could only choose one. But I don't know, >> it's not an easy process because there's so many things you want to know about these finalists. Correct. So what I did when I did this is I took the advice of the subcommittee. We had categories that we thought based upon the folks they were recommending that we should ask about this area. So that's why there's some of these in here that are in highlighted yellow. This area we need more information from these folks. Also, the round one questions are at the back here because we didn't want to suggest that the full board is not allowed to ask those same questions. If you want to ask those same questions that were in round one, you certainly may. It is however a lot of questions and we understand that. So we also went to the leadership profile and we picked those bullet points and said these are the things that were the priorities for the board two months ago or three months ago. We need to ask about this. And then the last thing we did is look at your uh report from your school communities and say this was important to some folks especially this and that's why there's one category in particular about kids. So we tried to winnow it down but it's very difficult. So I'm going to acknowledge that right away. Too many good things to ask. I can try and whittle mine down to one per section. That seems to be >> that might be helpful because to the point director little made is it can be a lot and we just could be here forever trying to whittle down. But >> I would like to ask oh well maybe to be honest some topics for some of us are more important and last time I felt like there were was at least one topic which we chose two. So I would like to have an opportunity to some topics um because it's if it is just one per topic but I might I might be flexible with uh leaving one topic off but I would like uh to choose two out of another topic or how about maybe not more than two per topic then will it make a little bit easier. Alicia, >> I'm just u I think right now we've got 15 highlighted areas. So if we pick one per, we're at 15 and that doesn't include any of the additional um topics. So I think you can definitely >> but it could it could very well hap likely happen that even if I have only two questions on one topic, those two may not be a part of the majority. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Correct. then then you know then >> well let's see where we land tonight right okay >> so um the opening question question three this was something that we visited with the subcommittee about and it was they were supportive of this idea um because it was a possibility that the board would ask for this I did mention this to all of the recommended finalists last week so they've had an opportunity to think about question three since Friday night I didn't want to spring it on them tonight knowing that they are booked solid Thursday and Friday. So, um, how many would like to include question three? 1 2 3 six. All right. Question four. This is uh similar question. We felt it was important for the full board to hear this answer as opposed to only the subcommittee, however. So, how many people would like to ask question four on Friday? >> No. >> Can I ask one quick question? Um, do you all see similarities between question two and question 65? >> Are you saying question four? >> Yeah, question four and question 60. Sorry, question. Yeah, question four and question 65. >> Thank you po for pointing out my original thought was that 65 can be used as for conclusion. >> Right. >> So if we keep 65, we don't need to ask four. >> Correct. Correct. >> Is everybody okay with that? Got it. All right. Um I'm going circle 65 at the end here. All right. So, u miscellaneous, I'm not going to read the categories out loud other than that. So, you don't have to pick any of these three, but did anyone really like question five or did you prefer the rewarded version that was halfway down the hard copy I put in front of you? Says Q5 and it's rewarded there. >> Question five. >> Question five. either question five on the multiple page or the single page. If does anyone like that question? Question five. >> Okay. Nope. How about question six? One, two, seven. One, two. Okay. Eight. One, two, three. And I like the rewarding. I made a note to reward and I appreciate the >> Okay, so the rewarding on the single page. So we had three on Q8. All right. Uh question nine one two 10. >> So >> one two >> uh uh question for board colleagues. So is question 10 does it seem like follow-up question to question eight? Do you think question 8 might cover question 10? Because in that case then I won't I won't go with it. >> They don't seem overlap to me. >> Okay. I thought it >> could be followup. >> 10 could be either follow-up or it could get answered as a part of question eight. It could. Right. So all right. So I won't say 10 then I'm You can always combine some questions. We did that in the first round as well. When people liked parts of both questions, we'd weave them into one. So I had question 10, I had two. >> Um, >> so I originally thought to be honest eight or nine, but I didn't I was even thinking they're kind of can be put together. So I never made uh I wanted to choose one of them, [laughter] >> eight or nine. >> Yeah. Um, I would have said I will choose eight. >> Eight. So, should I add you to that? >> Four people. >> Yes, please. >> And I think there's a later question that might encompass nine that I circled. So, >> okay, great. Thank you. So, how many uh liked question 11? No one. Okay. Um, question 12. One, two, three, four. Uh so so but then what is the difference between 12 and >> I appreciate the reward is what I was going to say for this one as well. >> Okay, >> got it. >> Um do you guys feel question 12 rewarded question 16 they are more or less same? In that case I'll go with question 12. Otherwise I had question 16. >> They are similar. All five of these are actually similar. >> Okay I'll go with 12 then. Okay. So, six people then in that case. Oh, no. I had you counted in this one, director bar. Okay. So, um 13 [clears throat] 1 14 none 15 none 16 one. Okay. Next section. Uh 17. One, two, three. I see three. One, two, three. Okay. 18. None. 19. >> Um, I choose several actually from this topic. Um, >> but I have two choices. Can from one topic or do I need to >> Okay, I'll take a little bit of time then. Sorry. >> That's okay. >> Uh, we'll come back. I voted to include Um, so I had three on 17. At this point I had none on 18. Did anyone uh like question 19? >> I think that we can combine 19 and 20 if anybody. >> Yeah. If anybody's interested in those >> is it directors. >> I like 17. >> Okay. And originally I chose 19 and 20, but uh 17 and uh and um this monitor uh 17 and 20. 1720. Okay. >> I could be okay with 17 if we reward it a bit. >> Okay. >> I'll be okay with 17 as well. >> Okay. So, we're up to five or six. It is rewarded on the other sheet slightly toward the bottom of Q17. >> Does that help that rewarding >> better for me? Not for you. Uh, so word number one, two, three, and four, I really could care less about word number three. I would care more about closer. Um, so I would want to change that word. Mhm. >> I don't necessarily agree with that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think it's important. I mean, obviously, we care about both, right? We care about both. However, I want to measure or I want to have I don't want it to be too big of a response. I want to make sure that it's oh this is very hard to talk about in code. >> I'm looking for a a bigger response. >> Um not bigger but targeted is what I mean. >> Yeah. >> Specific more. >> Yes. This is very hard to talk about in code. [laughter] >> Would you just take it out completely? >> The term >> it's just that word the one two the third third word. >> I mean that would be fine. >> I think it's >> Hang on. Let me see what the rewarding is. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> This is the art of conducting your meetings in the public. Um, right. >> Okay. So, okay, I'm looking at the rewarding of it. >> If we could take out word three. Okay. And then go down to line three. I don't want to see. I want I only want this one, two, three, four, and five. Words four and five matter in this because let me tell you why in let me think. [laughter] Um because it's really hard because because it'll they're they're only going to have so much time to answer and I want it to be I want it to be really focused. I think if we add too many facets to it, it gets things might get lost and I want them to stay focused on what could be beneficial to us. Oh, that was really good. [laughter] >> Um, I agree that the focus should be on what is beneficial to us. >> Yes. and >> and I think that those are important words that I would that are important. >> But if they don't have if they don't have if it's not theirs, >> well then it's >> No, but here's here's where you go. Well, you know, >> then it's theoretical. >> Not necessarily. Are they >> okay? >> How much do they know about it? All right. Let's >> How much do they know about what's going on? >> I will compromise. I will compromise. Let's go with it. >> What if we added some piece of 20 to that question though? Would that help >> from 20? Yes, it would. >> If we can tone maybe. >> Yeah, I love those questions. Was sad that I could only choose one. So, >> yeah. I feel like if we could blend four and five. >> Yeah. Words four and five out of 20 would be helpful. >> Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. >> Does that make sense? >> Four, five, and six. Sure. >> Let's do it. Four, five, and six. >> So, question or words four, five, and six in question 20 will be incorporated into 17. >> Yes. >> And we're keeping the third and fourth words in 17. >> Yes, we're getting rid of the third word in 17. Okay. And we're keeping the other words. >> Okay, cool. Get rid of the third word. >> And we are adopting the change of wording that was pre Yeah. Yeah, >> that's right. >> The rewarded version. >> Okay, so the change over here on question seven. Yeah. All right. Great. Thank you. >> At this point, can you repeat it back, please? [laughter] >> Okay. You're going to start with the rewarded version. >> Mhm. >> On on this separate sheet. >> Okay. We're taking out word number three. >> We will include from question 20 >> words >> four, five, six, seven, and eight. Oh, okay. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> And that's it. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> That's helpful. >> Did I get that right? >> I believe so. Wonderful. Nicely done, everyone. [laughter] This is this is like a dance. So, um 20. We're incorporating into 17 those key words. Uh 21. Does anyone have 21 as something you must ask? Okay. All right. Going on to the next section. How many liked question 22? One, two, three, four. 23. 1 2 24. I could get behind 23 if we took out word 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. Mhm. I'll put that as a question mark. Okay. Okay. Uh 24. 1 2 3 25. 1 2 6 1 27 1 2. Okay. So we'll come back to that. It looks like the the topic is important. I'm just not sure we found a a clear winner in question other than 22 was pretty strong. Okay, next section. 28. How many liked 28? None. 29. 1 2 30. None. 31. >> Again, I want to combine 29. >> I would like to combine 29 and 31 somehow. >> Okay. And 32. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Okay. Thank you. Uh what about question 33? One, two, one, >> three. Thank you. >> Three. Uh 34. None. 35. One, two, three. 36. >> Oh, you were 35 also. Thank you. 36 1 37. None. Okay. Question 38. None. 39. 1 2 40. 1 2 All right. 41. 1 and 42. 1 2. Okay. Uh, next 43. 1 44. 3. 1 2 3. 45. One, two. 46. One, two. 47. None. Okay. 48. None. Uh, no, sorry. One, two, two. 49. 1 50. 1 51. One and 52. None. Next section. 53. None. 54. 1. 55. 1 2 3. 56. None. 57. One, two, three, four. Okay. Question 58. None. 59. 1 60. 1 2 61. 1 2 3. Okay. 62. 1 2 3 4 five six. 63 1 2 64 none. Okay. I already heard 65 was of interest to folks. Okay. Uh 66. I would hope that that would be an opportunity as well. Okay. Great. So then I just want to take a quick look on the next two pages. questions one through six or three through 16 from round one. Did anyone >> are we going to go through the addendum first? Okay. >> Correct. >> Before you do that, >> um I'm just I have it open so I'm going to do it but I won't count these necessarily. Was there any questions on the first round that anyone wanted to ask again? >> Um so just asking a clarifying question for 66 and doing my best to do this in code. Um, do we designate an individual? Do we take turns maybe engaging on that? >> Oh, sure. >> Yeah. And that's we can, this is a standard question. So, if the candidate has questions for the board, they will address them to the board chair and the chair will facilitate who would like to answer that question and sort of look both ways, sometimes answer them themselves, but invite opportunities for you to build on each other. We'd love to have more than one board member answer each question, but you all do not have to answer every question. That'll take too long. So, thank you for asking that clarifying. Okay. Was there anything in questions three through 16 on the next two pages you'd like us to consider for round two? I'm seeing nos. >> Well, what what about question three? I mean, it's kind of an abrupt like our opening is very abrupt. >> I don't know, maybe it's just me and maybe nobody else feels that way, but would we want to start off with three more. >> That's actually question four on this also. I did lift that one. >> Yeah. >> And we already discussed that and so we moved that. Okay. Sorry, I'm trying to pay attention. >> No, that's a lot of questions. Okay. So, for this at this moment, we will put that aside and round one questions we'll set aside. So, now I want to go to the additional questions. Uh there were five on here plus there's the one in your email. Um so how many thought that question uh one of the separate sheet would be good to ask. Question one. None. Question two. One. Two. >> I need a couple seconds. >> Oh, sure. >> I was thinking just I combined them. >> Okay. >> Yep. We can wait. So how many we can choose from that topic? Just one. I say if there's ones you really like, you can >> topics topics. >> Even with the 66 questions, we have whittleled them down to not more than 10 or 12 because most of them did not have a majority. Right. So, >> it worked itself kings were kings worked out by themselves. >> Yeah, >> you could ask if you like some of these. You certainly can say let's ask these and then I'm going to go through and anything that has at least four votes. So, I'm going to count how many we have and see where we land because I think you might be right. But people can always advocate for a question they really want asked, even if it's not a majority opinion here. >> I know this is an arduous process. Also, I want to really thank you for hanging in there. Important. We think that all of your candidates have the same shot at the questions, not just those who watch this meeting and know what they're going to be. So, thank you. >> Comfortable. Okay. Um, so question one, I didn't see any hands. How many liked question two? One, two, three. Okay. Three. None. Four. One, two, three, four. Uh, five. One. One, two, three, four. >> So, I have a question. And between again four and five, they are very close. >> Mhm. Um do we see any opportunity to add either four or five because the entity we are referring to in those questions can they be part of leadership team accountability. So can I just say number one whoever suggested these questions four and five thank you for adding those um in number so I see a strong distinction between four and five because if you look at word number one in number four that's very different than the intent of question number five in words 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Yeah, >> that's different than word number one in number four. >> I agree. >> Um, and I will tell you number five is something that is extraordinarily unique to our district. >> Okay. So then I think I'm going to go with four. >> Okay. Okay. And and they would be asked at separate times in the interview also. Anything that feels relatively similar, we separate in the interview so that you revisit it at later. >> Yeah. So, I I had uh four people. Question Well, let's do it again. Make sure. Question four on here. One, two, three, four, and question five. Oh, >> one, two, three, >> six. Six on question four. >> Yeah. >> Great. Yeah, I have seven. Look at that. Look at Okay. Uh, question five, one. >> So, we went down on question five and up on question four. So between the two, I'm feeling like four had more support. >> Yes. >> Are we okay with that? >> But but like like Heidi said, they're different words, right? Two different >> They're two different concepts. >> I I'm I'm yes on both. >> Okay. You're yes on five and four. I only have two people though on this at this point that said yes to five, but we we'll revisit. Okay. And then did anyone have a chance to read the question that I emailed to you as well that came in? Okay. So I call it question six. Can >> can I time out for a second? Yeah. the day in the district. Could Could we Oh, shoot. You don't have these questions in front of you, do you? >> Okay. Because I'm wondering if number five is part of day in the district. It certainly could be. I'm working on those tomorrow in conjunction with executive director. >> That's a good idea. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. In fact, any of these if the board feels that you would like that committee to ask, we can certainly take a look at it because we're developing those right now. >> But I I think number five could be for specific group. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> So I I so then I withdraw my >> Okay. So if we include question five >> if it is if it is included in the >> Okay. >> In the Thursday question >> and it feels like that would even be better that we would get more information. Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. Uh, so how many read the email that I sent and how many would like to include question six that is in your email? One, two, two. Okay. >> About the music thing, right? >> And I wonder if that could be something that could maybe be addressed during day in the district at some too if that would tie in naturally. >> Okay, that's also an option. A Thursday question mark there too. >> A good idea. >> That sounds like a good idea. >> Quest that one that was emailed. You'd like that asked on Thursday as well. I hear three, four people want that. Okay. So, good. Questions five and six on this sheet then will be a part of our Thursday interview group questions. So, I'm just going to do a quick highle how many people chose which and we'll see where we land. Uh question three, eight. And again, these have some suggested rewarding on that separate page. So, question eight with the rewarding. Uh, question 12, 17 with the additions from question 20. Uh, 22 and 32. 32 I had six. 35. Is there a way to combine 35 and 36? We can come back to it, but it's just a thought that I'm having. Um because again I wonder if 35 is not going to um the the way that the question is getting asked. I think I understand why my colleagues want it, but I'm concerned that it's not going to get them the response or the information that they're looking for in that question. >> Are there words you'd suggest moving into 35? >> Can I think about it and we can move on. Okay. Yep. So, the next few sections, there were no clear winners. Lots of twos and threes on everything in 38 to 42. Similarly, 43 to 47. 48 to 52. And the next time we have a majority is 57 in that category. >> 57. >> 57. Yep. If we jump ahead to 57, we do have four people on that. uh 62 and then 65 and 66 and question four on the separate sheet. I'm going to count how many that is and then come back because there is one category in here I think that maybe we should ask about based upon what I heard in focus groups from some folks. So 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. We are at 12. >> Hey, there you go. [laughter] >> 12. >> It wasn't bad after all. Right. >> That's great. >> Yep, we did. >> Yeah. >> Um Yeah. The one section that I would suggest we consider adding a 13th although it is a 13th question which takes more time. >> I had picked 22 by the way. So guess guess what? Only 12 eventually got selected right. So >> okay. >> Yeah. >> I was wondering about the category 38 to 42. >> Yep. Um focus groups people were pretty comfortable sharing about this. >> Yeah. I also think it's um that is that is a huge part of a transition and we need to understand how that that is going to work now it could be addressed earlier >> um in like number three did we have any votes I think like did did we just not have a majority or were like >> for 38 through 38 38 zero, 39 had two, 40 had two, 41 had one, and 42 had two. >> Okay. So, >> so the board does >> question. I just don't think we agreed on which question. >> Yeah. >> So, is there a way to find agreement on that? 39, 40, and 42 each had two votes. >> 39, 40, and 42. >> Yes. >> And no way to combine them, right? A couple of them. >> I think there are ways. Yeah, we could certainly find a way to combine those because that that would get us to 13 if we add a question from this category. You're at 13. >> Yeah. >> For an hour and a half interview, but actually it' be an hour and 15 minute interview because the first 15 minutes will be that presentation >> and it's an important category I think. >> Yeah. >> Would there be a way Could you share again the questions that receive two votes? >> 39 40 42. So, I'm seeing a lot of similarities between 39 and 40, especially talking about I'll have to count one, two, three, four, five, six. So, perhaps the tail end of 40. >> Yep. >> Could be applied to the tail end of the uh true question in 39. Here's here's what I'm thinking too. Um Dan is in 40 if we look at the so line the first line of it. >> The last four words of that first line I would like to take a more positive >> I agree. I don't I don't appreciate that question because it's so negative. Um, and I think I think we can morph it into 39. >> And then to ask further, um, looking at the the second sentence in 39. >> Yep. >> Is that piece I I guess I'm questioning kind of the the the appropriateness of that piece being in there just for your guys' reflection or consideration. >> That's entirely up to the board. I would say there's about 10 to 15 questions in here that were suggested by individual board members. >> Are you talking about uh the second sentence? >> Yes. >> I'm all for it. >> You mean the set of four words that is in there? >> Yeah. >> I'm all I'm for removing those. Yeah. >> All right. >> You're for removing it. >> Removing those. >> I'm all for it. >> I I also support question 39. I just didn't vote for it because we could only vote for one. But if um that seems to be the one that people are gravitating towards >> taking out those words, I would support that. Let's go. >> Taking out the four words. >> Yeah. Okay. >> So, am I hearing question 39 is all right with that second sentence being removed? >> Sure. >> Okay. And then is there anything from the other questions that you want to weave in 239 or is it okay as is with that one short sentence removed? >> I think we were talking about adding 40 to that one but cleaning up the final four words and using a different way to phrase that. And I think that's the only benefit to maybe keeping 39 a little shorter and tighter um in language if we're going to combine 39 and 40. So we might just need to words smmith that a little bit offline. Okay, >> I agree. >> So 39 and 40 will be combined and we'll shorten some things in. Okay, great. So that puts us at 13 questions. Yes, sir. >> Number in each question. That way we know exactly which word you're talking about, which number [laughter] right. Otherwise, we have to sit here and count. Right. >> Oh, it's almost like we're doing Mad Libs here and figuring out questions with Mad Libs and adverbs and things. So, all right. Are people comfortable with those 13 questions? And does anyone want to advocate for any question that they just loved and it didn't at this point make the cut? Because I'm certainly happy to visit with you or add it to the possibility of Thursday questions. >> So, Just to clarify again one more time, question number four of the additional sheet that you provided us today >> will be a part of our questions. Yes. >> Number five will be a part of uh >> day in the district. >> There's uh in the district. Yeah. >> And question six, day in the district, the one that is emailed to you separately. >> There was a six in there. There was only five, right? >> Yeah. >> Um I called it question six, but I sent you an email with it right when the meeting started. >> Oh, that that one. Yes, that number >> that one will be a Thursday question also. Okay. I would really like to advocate for at least one question out of one, two, and three on the separate sheet. Okay. Because it's a theme that was very important to our students. >> One more time. >> Um on the separate sheet, questions one, two, and three. I think we should choose at least one because I recall that as well. >> It was really important to our students. >> Would we want to substitute it for a different question if there's something >> we could take out if this is getting too long? >> But I think we need to do it. >> It's completely up to you. Or we lengthen the interviews to an hour and 45 minutes each, which puts you back about an hour. These are right now they are scheduled for an hour and a half, right? >> These are an hour and a half. The first 15 minutes being the presentation. >> I'm okay with 145. >> I agree. It's more likely going to be like that. More likely going to be like that if not even two. >> Um may I clarify from that additional one which you provided uh one to three. What was the original vote count? >> Question one had none, two had three, and three had none. So question two did have three votes for it. >> So I'm okay with adding question 14, you know, 14 questions and additional 15 minutes. >> Okay. >> I'm okay adding number two. >> So question two on here would also now be included. >> Yes, please. >> Okay. And then that will adjust this >> schedule. Well, you know, an extra 15 minutes on three people. So lunch will be a little bit later than on Friday also. Um so I will redo this to 1 hour 45 minutes. And again you'll notice it says times are approximate the asterisk there. It just means that if someone's done sooner they're more succinct. We can certainly just stop sooner. Um we can also start a little early if people are comfortable with it. But this is a guideline for when we're going to. But I will be here keeping track of 1 hour 45 minutes at the max. Congratulations. That was the heavy lifting of the evening are the questions. So nicely done. I will have um our staff will develop the rubric for you and get that to everyone now that we have the 14 questions. Uh 14 questions. I want to get that to you soon enough that you can um take a look at it and become familiar with the rubric as a part of your scoring system. On Friday, I have nothing further other than to announce the finalists and you can adjourn your meeting. Is there any other business about the search that I can assist you with at this point? >> Okay. Can I just take a moment, Barb, before you announce the um candidates? I just want to thank every single one of the candidates, every single application that came in. Um our community should know that we had an incredibly strong pool of candidates. Um, and the thing that really, it's hard for me to put into words, um, but the pool of candidates that came and the things that they highlighted about our district, it's it's all the things big and small that each one of us does on a daily basis and the consistency that everybody brings on a regular basis, whether it's from the PTAs to, you know, the admin to the the strong leadership we've every single person that has touched this district has made it a place that is a crowned jewel. And so the the candidates that came to us were a complete reflection of that. We started with an incredibly strong candidate pool and we're ending with three incredibly strong candidates that we're taking forward to the next stage. And I just want to thank each and every one of them for spending the time to to come forward to us. Um for those that were not selected, I wish them all the best in all their future endeavors. They're incredible leaders in their own rights. For the three that will come to us uh this Friday, I'm really excited to get to know you more. Um and it was wonderful to spend two hours getting to know you already. Thank you. I concur. It's a great pool. So, I will give you a homework since uh after tonight you will have um confirmation of who you're interviewing. First homework is feel free to go back into Revelis and reread the applications for these three individuals. It will make a lot more sense now that you are preparing for specific people versus looking at an entire pool. So, go back into Revelis. Please do reread the public engagement summary report. I think your school communities put a lot of time and effort into that and it's a very good report and will help you ground yourself in what your communities are looking for. And three, as always, that leadership profile is your northstar. That's something you decided on months ago. And I would encourage you to take another look at that in context of these three individuals. Finally, and I know people are waiting for me to read these names out loud. Please know you're going to be lobbyed as board members. It is a part of the job as an elected representative to listen to your constituents. And when these names are public, let the googling begin. It will happen. You will hear uh wonderful things. You will hear not wonderful things probably about everyone. And that's just the world we're in today, especially with social media's influence on this. I would simply ask that you not engage in a debate with any of your constituents about these three people. Trust the process. Again, I've been really impressed with the work your subcommittee does. The integrity of the process is very strong and there are lots of things out there in the world people will read and not all of it is true. Some of it has a grain of truth and some of it has no truth whatsoever. So please keep that in mind and welcome the feedback from people and say thank you very much. We'll take that under adisement. I appreciate it. Just don't go down a rabbit hole with people. It can take a lot of energy for you to do that. Okay. If there's nothing else further, I will read the names of your three finalists aloud, at which point you can then adjourn the meeting and I'll go make some phone calls and then come back to meet with the reference checkers. Okay. Congratulations. Um, Wisetta Public Schools in no particular order other than it's finally in alphabetical order, not tied to your alphabet identifiers in any order whatsoever. You will be interviewing as finalists here in Weisetta three individuals. Dr. Rainey Briggs, Mr. Corey McIntyre and Dr. Rob Virgin. Congratulations to those three finalists. >> Thank you, Barb. And congratulations again uh to the finalists. Um this concludes the Wisetta Public School special regular board meeting. The next regular school board work session will be on Monday, May uh March 2nd. No, it's not. No, today is March 2nd, right? No, never. There will be a regular meeting on Monday, March 9th. Um the time is now 7:26. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> I so move. Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Nay. The motion carries. The Wisetta Public Schools Board of Education special regular meeting for Monday, March 2nd, 2026 is adjourned. Congratulations. Thank you.