Good afternoon. The time is now 5:00. The Visetta Public Schools Board of Education special regular meeting for Wednesday, February 4th, 2026 will please come to order. Will the clerk please call the role? >> Colleagues, Alicia Little >> here. >> Thomas Bendy >> here. >> Sheila Prior >> here. >> Heidi Kar >> here. >> Valentina ears >> here. >> Dan Janestra. Dan Janestra is present. Milan Sahony >> present. Thank you. We have a quorum. The first item on our agenda is the approval of the agenda and the consent agenda items. There are no consent agenda. There's no consent agenda today and there are three items on the agenda. Is there a motion to approve? >> I move. >> I second. >> Moved and seconded. Will the clerk please take a roll call vote? >> Colleagues, Paris Bendy, >> yes. >> Sheila Prior, >> yes. Heidi Kedar, >> yes. >> Valentina ears, >> yes. >> Dan Janestra, Dan Janestra votes yes. Alicia Little, >> yes. >> Milan Sahony, >> yes. Thank you. We have an agenda. All right. All three items on the agenda relate relate to the superintendent search. As you might be aware, the school board has hired MSBA to assist in the search. Also assisting is Visetta's executive director of human resources, Dave Ludz. Barb Dorne, director of executive search services at MSBA, will present the three items. Barb, please take over. >> Thank you, Chair Sahony, members of the board. It's nice to see you again. I'm really pleased to be here tonight to take the next step in the superintendent search for Weisetta Public Schools. I'm going to cover uh three things tonight and there are going to be a few things I'd like to have discussion with the board and get some consensus around direction. Uh the first thing we will do is review the public engagement summary report, which I know you've all had a chance to review already, but I do want to walk through and talk a little bit about the compare and contrast the information from the different groups within uh the school communities. After we've gone through that, I'm going to um make a recommendation about next steps in terms of getting input and interaction from your school communities with your finalists. I think in a district this size, this complex, that that would be a logical next step, especially based upon the volume of feedback we got from folks um that are invested in this search process. So, we'll get to that as well. The next would be the interview training, MSBA interview training. And I do have the packets here I'll pass out when we reach that point. It's important that all of you are comfortable with the process you're going to undertake. round one with a subcommittee and second round with the full board because this is a public position paid for with taxpayer dollars. We want to make sure that you are very aware of some of the things around an HR perspective of what you can and cannot ask and things such as that. So, uh that'll be the second item we do. And then the third is I have proposed some questions for the subcommittee to use in round one. We've specifically built them around your leadership profile for Weisetta and the results from this public engagement summary report. So, I'm going to distribute those. I think there's quite a few, but we want to winnow it down to maybe 10 to 15. And I'll walk you through how we're going to do that because we're going to do it without reading the questions out loud in a public meeting where some folks who watch this meeting will have an advantage by knowing what the questions are. Uh, but we'll get to that as the third item. So, that's what I intend to cover in about the next hour and a half to two hours. Is that all right with the board or are there any questions before we get started? All right, wonderful. So, let's talk about the engagement report first. I'm going to fire up the computer and uh Amy has helped me already. It was working, but it went to sleep. So, give me just a moment here. Here we go. And the copies you have in front of you, board members, uh are yours. You can write those, write on those, take notes, whatever you'd like to do. I want you to have those and to keep those. I also would like to make this relatively informal. So, as I go through and point out what we feel are the highlights in this report, feel free to interrupt me and ask me questions along the way. I'm going to zoom in on this a little closer, I think, for members of the public um who might be watching it online. I will also ask the board upon the conclusion of reviewing the report if you'd like to place it on the website so that all of the folks who participated can see this as well as your applicants. Um, but we will get to that in just a moment. So, first of all, this is the overall report. I will say that I chuckle a little bit when we have a summary to present to the board and the summary is 68 pages long. Um, that's longer than we've ever had with a report. You also had a record number of people participating in this survey. So, congratulations on that. We will work through a couple of things here. Uh, first of all, the quantitative data. I'm going to review. when you can slice and dice data and compare, that's really helpful. Um, and so that's what we're going to do first. Secondly, I'm going to do a highle overview of the themes that emerged from all the focus groups we conducted, as well as all the open-ended questions that were in the survey itself. And then we're going to wrap up with talking about the students. Student voice was extremely well represented here. Uh, very excited about that. and it merited its own section in terms of those qualitative answers and what's on the top hearts and minds of your students here in Weisetta. So those are the things we're going to cover. A lot of the specificity around the quotes that support the themes I'm not walking through tonight because it's a lot and I know you've had a chance to read it yourself. Uh so I'm just going to do the high level overview next. So in general when I'm looking at this report I did mention you had a record number of participants. 225 people completed this survey. Uh the expected amount, we have an average percentage based upon the size of your student body. The expected amount for Weisetta was just over 1,600. So you put that in the rearview mirror pretty decisively. So thank you to those 225 people that took the time to fill this out. You'll see that the vast majority were in English, you had two in Spanish, and no surveys returned in Somali. It was also offered in hard copy in all three languages. What I want to reassure the board of though is just because people whose native language might not be English because they didn't take the survey in their own language doesn't mean they didn't participate. I think what a lot of people have found when they have a very diverse population in terms of language, many of those people want to take it in English and they'll take it with the assistance of their student from the school or u one of the liaison in the district or a neighbor or a friend. So it doesn't mean people didn't participate if their first language was small or Spanish. Um, it's not unusual to have almost everything, if not everything in English instead. So, it was optin. Nothing was required. Also, people did not have to answer every single question in this survey to be included. Some people only answered two or three of the questions. Their data is in here as well. It was not an all or nothing from people who participated. Now, the self-identifiers are right here. You'll see that just over 41% of the respondents identified as a parent or guardian. 37% selected students, almost 17% are staff members, 2% community members, 1% other, and under 1% business owner or district partner. And I recognize that everyone can have more than one category. And so some people, for example, might be a staff member and a parent. They may have taken that in two different lenses if they had a different email address or URL address. However, the vast majority of folks pick the one lens that they are looking through when they fill this out and that's how the data was quantified based on that response. You'll see the areas of expertise out of 17 choices. This is what rose to the top overall. Budget and finance was the top area of expertise that folks are looking for, followed closely by collaborative leadership, curriculum development and evaluation, strategic planning, educational equity, and student testing results and achievement. Those are broken out here a little bit later in this report. So if we go to the next page, we ask a very simple question. Is it important that the new superintendent have previous experience as a superintendent? It was a very even split with um about 53% of respondents saying yes and almost 47% saying no. I'm not a statistician. I believe that however is well within the margin of error for it to be really really close. So nothing decisive in terms of who um felt that the superintendent should have been a superintendent already. Um just very evenly split. That is also a question we asked the board which is how um the breaky brochure was developed because you took that same exact survey. Specialized skills. Again, these are going to be broken out in more detail here in just a moment. So I'm going to go through that a little quickly. But that is out of about 24 choices. Uh these are the top six that rose up for the totality of people who responded to the survey and the personal characteristics. You can see number one being effective communicator. We also have broken those up by respondent category here in just a moment. And now we're going to get into the tables themselves. So you can see here that 836 parents or guardians are represented here. 751 students. Thank you to those students for their voices being included. 340 staff members. 42 community members, 24 identified as other. Sometimes that is grandparent, taxpayer, former board member. They just have a different title they'd like to use. 15 business owners, 13 district partners, and four people skipped that question. First of all, the previous experience required. Um, the only things I want to point out here that I thought were of interest were your staff members. Almost 61% said yes. That is higher than the average of all of the groups combined together. So 61% of staff members said yes, we'd like them to have experience as a superintendent, while 39% said no. Your community members actually had the largest differentiation here where they said about 74% said yes, we should have a superintendent with superintendent experience uh from those 42 community members. And then your business owners were the opposite where uh 71% of business owners said no um don't need to have former superintendent experience in order to be considered for the position. So those are the only interesting traits. Otherwise you can see everyone else it is a pretty even split across the board. >> Yes. >> Quick question. Uh was there a minimum age for the participant? So students could be from middle school, high school. >> There was no minimum age. >> Minimum. Okay. Thank you. >> Typically, it's high school. Typically, those are the more engaged students, um, civic-minded students. Sometimes middle school kids will take it as well, but most of them are most likely 9 to 12th graders. >> Okay, thank you for asking. So, now let's look at these areas of expertise. All right, six areas of expertise. I'll just point out a few trends. So, first of all, uh, the budget and finance that rose to the top out of everyone. Um, that rose up partly because the largest respondent group, parents and guardians, did have that as their number one concern. budget and finance, but it was identified in the top six for all seven of these self-identified groups. All seven groups have budget and finance in there. Curriculum development and evaluation are in six of these seven. And interestingly, and not unusually, staff members do not have curriculum development evaluation in their top six. they are very familiar with curriculum already and they may not see that as being something the superintendent needs to have with the resources and the leadership team you have inside the district around curriculum. So staff was the only group that did not have curriculum in their top uh top six here. Strategic planning was in five of these. Uh the only groups that didn't mention strategic planning were uh students and other and I think that's partly explained why students aren't really plugged into what a strategic plan is. So that makes a lot of sense as well. Collaborative leadership is another one that was in all seven that is important to every single person that took this survey in any of these categories. So collaborative leadership is something we're going to want to stress in the interview questions for example. And then I thought this was very interesting. Student testing results and achievement. It made the top six overall. It's only in two of the respondent categories, however, and it is the parents and guardians and your students. So those two largest groups are the reason that student testing results and achievement are in the top six for the entire group. And students and parents and guardians don't always see eye to eye, but in Weisetta they do because they both prioritized that um for them. School facilities are in two groups, a district partner and parents and guardians. That's top of mind for those folks and I'm sure that's not a surprise with the the referendum coming up as well. Just a few other things I noticed when I looked at this as well. Um, the student groups prioritize two things uh that do not surprise me. Educational equity and social and emotional support services. And very often those are closely tied together. So when I looked at that, I see educational equity or social and emotional support services also in the top six for staff members. They have educational equity and cultural competency which many people see those as being married very closely. Also community members have cultural competency and folks who are in the other category chose educational equity as well as cultural competency. So I think this shows alignment amongst those different stakeholder groups very very well. I'm going to move on to six personal characteristics unless you have questions on this thus far. Uh but between curriculum development evaluation and then student testing results and achievements, can you elaborate like how close are they or how different are they >> in terms of how far up? >> Yeah. So when we look at curriculum development, yes, that's that's a separate bucket. But the evaluation is it closely tied with student testing results and achievement or again it sounds like they are connected but they are not just trying to >> I think they are yeah they're very different for people who understand what those things are others probably blur the lines a little bit I'd need to look at the raw data to know how close it is in terms of >> Sure. Okay. >> I think a lot of people see those as being pretty closely touched. >> Yeah. And that's where because I think the collab curriculum development was third and then student testing results achievement was last. So I was wondering are they should they be clubed together? Is it enough relevance or they are so much apart that they need to be looked at as different items. >> I think they're similar enough and I know you addressed this in your leadership profile which we're going to get to with the really colorful page here in a moment. So that's a wonderful question. Thank you Dr. >> Bendy. Thanks. Uh personal characteristics, you can see them broken out here uh by groups as well. An effective communicator desired by all seven groups. Uh someone who is ethical, desired by all seven. Someone who's transparent, they're looking for that. Six of the groups had that in their top six. Uh the only one that didn't was students. Uh again, transparency might be a word that not a lot of students consider as much as some other things, but six out of seven had transparent. Seven out of seven had problem solver. And again, this list that was given to folks in the survey were 17 different things. So, the consistency across in your top six is really quite impressive. Uh problem solver, seven people, four groups asked for someone who's empathetic to be prioritized. And again, that includes your two largest groups, parents and guardians and students. So, empathy, soft skills are going to be important to those two groups. And then someone who's consistent also is in five of the groups. So perhaps no surprises there as well. But again, that vertical or hor horizontal alignment amongst the groups is a very good sign. The next page is the more specifics about how does your leadership profile align or not align with what people told us in this survey. And when I look at this page, what I'm looking for are colors because the way that we code this is the colors are the same. And so you could see for example the board's specialized skills on the left side. This is the applesto apples comparison we always talk about on the left side. Your specialized skills 1 through 10. Those correlated into the leadership profile which is up above. And that leadership profile is what is in your vacancy brochure. That's what drove applicants to this job because they felt their values aligned with your leadership profile. When you look at the specialized skills from the public input side of things, look at how many of those align with your board. Nine out of 10 and this is out of a list of 24 different things. So this is in my opinion an extraordinary amount of alignment between what you seven people identified as needed in the next leader and what the public has now confirmed with their results. So this is a very good thing. We don't always see so much color. There might be two or three things that both groups are looking for. You have a lot. So that to me is very exciting and I think it indicates that this board is very in tune with the different constituent groups in Wisetta public schools. Similarly, all three areas of expertise that rose to the top, budget and finance, uh collaborative leadership and curriculum development, those were already in your leadership profile as well. So congratulations to the board. I think you uh did a nice job designing a profile that your community would support. Are there any questions on this page from anyone? Okay, I won't dwell on that anymore. Then the next page is specialized skills. This is um this is a really great one because it is the apples to apples broken out by stakeholder groups. And so for example, you'll see that uh the number one for parents and guardians is leads with honesty, etc. Six of the groups had this in their top six as well, which is tremendous. For some groups, it's a given. Well, of course, they have to be honest and ethical. It it just has to be. And yet, calling it out, boards typically do that just to ensure that candidates know we're going to look into their core values as a leader. Um the school finance, all seven groups had that in their top. uh six develop and direct an effective leadership team. Six of your groups identified that as being important. However, the only group that didn't mention develops and directs an effective leadership team are your students. And yet the second one for your students is delegates authority while maintaining accountability and I think students minds that could be very similar. Correct? So I would say the idea of developing an effective leadership team and holding people accountable all seven groups prioritize that. Uh let's see. The strategic plan only popped up in three different groups in the parents and guardians. It was number one for community members and uh district partners about halfway down. So the strategic plan is top of mind for parents and guardians, community members and district partners. And then I thought this was another interesting one. Experience in implementing practices that support student safety and mental health. top six for your parents and guardians, right? Only one other group had it in their top six and it happened to be district partners had it in there as well. I have to admit though, the list is tough to uh choose from because again, it's 24 extremely important things. And so just because something rises up to be in the top doesn't mean everything else is unimportant. It simply helps guide candidates and MSBA and the board to know what the highest of the high priorities are as we're going through the applications and the vetting process. So, uh that was in those two groups. Communication skills were in five of these seven different groups. Um obviously important to folks. And then I made a star by a couple of different things here that I thought interested me. So your students had um two things that to me kind of falls within that collaborative leadership, diversity, equity, inclusion kind of area. Students say they want someone who develops trust and works collaboratively with diverse groups and community and they have knowledge of and experience with equity leadership challenges and opportunities. So those are relatively close. I'd call those sort of u shoulder priorities. Students identified them. staff members are looking for someone to work collaboratively with diverse groups. Uh the other category is looking for someone to work collaboratively with diverse groups. Uh your business owners are looking for the same thing, collaborative leadership with diverse groups. And so I think there's a theme within those other areas uh these last six group that resonates in that same area. And then interestingly enough, um being visible and accessible was really important to your staff. And that might be because Dr. Anderson is so accessible and so visible and it matters to the staff. So that was important to the staff. It was also important to people in the other category, but that that sort of struck me as a staff interest. And the last thing I noticed is on the far right side, um your business owners and district partners called out two things that others didn't, which is um experience in leveraging technology, AI tools, and web-based education curricula. And then district partners talked about having a visionary and creative approach to problem solving. And so some of that cutting edge thinking and uh visionary creative capabilities. Uh those two groups did prioritize and that is in your leadership profile vision and ingenuity. So any questions on that? This is my favorite one because it's apples to apples and it does show how people align this way and with you as a board. It's all good news. >> Yes. So remind me again when you asked respondents to C to put themselves in a specific category had they did they have choice of only one or did they have multiple choices? >> They could only choose one. >> Okay. Because community member only 42 I'm pretty sure the lot of these parent guardians could also be community members right? So >> yep I would agree. Yeah I would agree. >> I'm sorry. You could you could do it from a different email address >> like I did it as a parent and as a staff member and everyone had that option. So as long as you were doing it you could answer it differently. >> Yeah. But I I guess u if I did it under one email I would not really bother to do it in under because I don't know the importance of what these categories mean to the board. Right. >> Yes. So it's to me it looks like you know community members showing only a party two of them responded is kind of a >> it's probably not >> give a good picture right yeah >> correct it's a much bigger picture than that because um if there was a category taxpayer everyone could check that one community member everyone could probably check that one so it it sort of asks people to put on a hat before they answer these questions right >> and community member >> is who you are but you are probably also first apparent parent or guardian or um a student or a staff member. So, it's sort of the trickle down. So, the folks that selected other or community member or even business partner >> probably just got there eventually. But the numbers are not I would say written in stone. It's just those are the hats folks selected when they selected their answers. So, thank you for asking that. >> All right, the comment section that is it. That's all we have for the quantitative. Um, but the additional comment section, I'll just point out a few things. Uh, of the 1,273 respondents who were not students, you had um over 800 on average take the time to answer an open-ended question. That indicates high interest in sharing their thoughts um qualitatively with us. So, that's really exciting. We're going to get to the student comments here in just a minute as well. Uh, but when you look at this, these are the four questions we asked. All of the information from the focus groups are also woven into these comments. Uh we asked similar comments in the focus groups but probed quite a bit deeper with a lot more tell me more about that. Can you explain what you mean? So we have all of that data in here as well when we put together this report. So I want to thank the folks that came to the focus groups as well. So the good things taking place in the district. I'm just going to highlight the five themes. I'm not going to read all of them. I'll just read the bolded parts and uh again you've seen this but the good things taking place here there is a strong academic reputation and district performance that was mentioned most often by the people who took the survey highly skilled and committed educators a wide range of student opportunities a positive school climate and student well-being and a commitment to diversity and equity those are all wonderful things and I hope people will take the time to read the representative comments under each of these themes because there are some wonderful things being said um about this district and I think people really need to be proud of what is offered here in Wisetta public schools. The challenges, we always get more challenges than we do um the great things that are happening because challenges are top of mind for pretty much all the districts right now. Uh there were seven themes identified for that. The number one here is uh enrollment growth and capacity strain. I know these are not a surprise to the board, correct? But that was the number one concern cited by everyone except for the students. We're going to get to those in a moment. Um challenges around academic direction and rigor, facilities planning and equity, financial pressures and funding uncertainty, staffing and workforce stability, and the complexity of equity and inclusion. And finally, technology and AI use and learning. a lot of divided opinions and concern about that. There was a question about what the next superintendent needs to know in order to succeed and in this case they identified six things for us. Uh number one was the legacy of academic excellence and community pride. Also expectations for visible ethical leadership, a highly engaged and invested community. uh the impact of sustained growth and change, your commitment to academic rigor and high expectations and increasing diversity across the district. That is what respondents said the next superintendent should know in order to succeed here. And then the additional comments, there was one um not everyone fills that out. It's a sort of a catchall uh but there was some themes around the importance of leadership continuity and approach to leadership. The next many, many pages are the details. I'm not going to go through these, but I'm going to put them up just for a moment so people at home or who watch this later are aware that there's a lot more to look through. I just don't want to bog down the medium with the specificity here. So, I'm going to jump ahead to page 52. >> I have a question about these comments. Um, these look like, you know, maybe shortened versions of people's comments. Is like or is this every comment summarized? this is just kind of the the highlights or how how were these chosen to be put on here? >> Yeah, thank you for asking that question. So, every single comment whether it was in the focus groups or whether it was typed into the survey, an MSBA staff person read every single comment. So, we want people to know that we laid eyes on everything anyone typed. Then what we do is we will put it into an AI tool to help us winnow down themes and patterns. And then the staff person that looked at all of those comments will find representative comments. um sort of a a catchall that speak for a lot of folks in that same area. Uh we don't include comments that might um have names include names or anything that might be um defamatory or inappropriate. We won't include those comments in here but they are representative of the whole and in some of these in fact I know that there are some areas here like for the first one um that area of perform uh well high performing well-run school district 274 related responses pulled that up. So we don't have 274 comments in here. We probably have 50. Um, and then there's a couple other later down here where it says, you know, the word budget was mentioned 19 times or declining enrollment was mentioned 15 times. So, we tried to summarize it in such a way that you'd be able to absorb it all and have it make some sense, but it's not um commented, not edited comments. These are actual comments. Now, someone wrote two paragraphs. We didn't include two paragraphs. Maybe a sentence or two out of their paragraphs, but there was a lot a lot to go through. Thank you for asking that. Director Prior, >> I have a a specific question and if you don't have the answer right now, that's okay. Um, the AI tool that you used, is it a specialized AI tool for qualitative data um creating of of themes or is it a generalized tool? >> It is a generalized tool. >> Correct. Yep. Thank you for asking. The next we're going to do is student summaries. And that's I'm going to forward ahead pretty quick. I hope to page 52. I'm almost there. That's 46. Okay. Lots and lots and lots of comments. There we go. Student summary report on page 52. Again, a shout out to all the students that took time to do this. uh 751 students took this and 530 on average responded which we were very excited about. >> Are these separate because on page eight earlier students were not a part of the category you know the 800 out of 1273 that responded right additional comments student are not in that c in that in those comments. So are these the the ones from the students? >> These are the students starting on page 52, >> right? But on >> everybody is together with the quantitative information in the first part of the report where we broke it out by respondent category. That's everybody. And then we took all of the open-ended questions and put all of everyone except students in the first report that I just went through. And then we put the students here at the end because there were so many of them >> and we just wanted to call out student voice separately. We didn't want them to get lost with the 1,800 adult voices. Uh but the quantitative data was everybody altogether. Does that make sense? >> Right. Yeah. So now I now you basically answered the question I had earlier. I I was holding off on that because I thought maybe it's coming up later. >> Okay. And >> here it is. Y >> thank you. >> Um so for those students that took this survey u more than 500 again on average took time to answer the questions which is phenomenal. They didn't just want to hit buttons and pick top six. They wanted to talk and share their thoughts. So as far as the good things in the district, there were four themes that emerged for your students. Uh number one was the wide range of classes and activities. There's a welcoming and inclusive school culture. There are strong academic expectations and there are supportive teachers and staff. That's what rose to the top for them. Now, one of my favorite things to do is to go and read all the student comments. And when you read what the students are saying about their experience in your schools, that just hits home. It's wonderful. So, I would encourage everyone to take the time to read through every student comment that's in this report. It's wonderful stuff. However, they are not immune to seeing that there's challenges here. Um, they identified these four themes. Number one being enrollment growth and overcrowding. They're also aware of the financial pressures and funding concerns, technology and AI challenges and facilities and space limitations. And when you do read the student comments on these, again, brilliant, brilliant minds at work here and very insightful, including on things such as the use of AI in education. So, I'll encourage you to read that. But those were the the things they were concerned about. As far as what the next superintendent needs to know, they only identified two big categories. Um, one was they want them to be approachable and student centered as a leader. Very important to them. and they want the next superintendent to recognize the diversity of the stool school community here. And then finally, they did have an opportunity to tell us um anything else you think and we get lots of stuff about um parking lot and uh menus and buses and things like that. However, we also get a lot of really wonderful stuff and this says uh deep down what they're ultimately looking for is a leader who will listen and understand schools. that came out of the students and then here are the comments that I was mentioning earlier. So I would encourage you to take some time on that. That concludes my overview of this report but again it is a lot. So my first question for the board would be um is it okay to place this report on the district website on the superintendent search landing page. I'm seeing nods. It's by consensus. It doesn't need to be a motion, but I know that um candidates are also very interested in seeing this and I know the folks who took it would be excited to to read it as well. So, I'm hearing that as a yes. >> I would say that we should do it in my in my perspective. Um there's there's nothing but gains from it and I think it's really important as I'm looking at these results and thinking about results that we got from Peter Leatherman in in particular. >> Everything is so well aligned. Um, I think what's really interesting is what's important to students is also important to staff. And having somebody who's visible, who has strong leadership, who's approachable, that's super interesting to me to see those two. So, it's the people in the buildings who have this have similar needs. Um, and I think parents and community partners both want to see a safe school. We have them. Safe schools and buildings, we have them, but there's a concern to keep it that way, which I think is important. And that was also reflected in our Peter Leatherman report. And so from my perspective, board colleagues, I don't see any reason to not do it. I think it's mostly useful and good to have it out there. >> Uh before I say yes, I have a question. So when when we posted the the job, um we had a profile that that we also included, right? Profile of the new superintendent. So would this survey actually be very close to the profile that we expected from this from the candidate? >> I think people would be very pleased to see the leadership profile aligning so closely with the results from this survey. >> Okay. >> And um that tells them a couple of things. It would tell them that the board is in touch with your school communities. Um, and if there are things in here that maybe aren't in the profile, we used this to vet all of the applications in addition to that profile. And we use this to help create interview questions and candidates would appreciate seeing more of that so they can prepare for perhaps their interviews too. >> Right. I So I think if there is a lot a strong alignment between the profile and this survey >> should not be any issue in posting this. Yeah. Um I think uh and I'm sure Amy can give us more inputs uh but uh the way you explained right how this information was pulled together I think it would be helpful to put some summary there so it's not literally not every single response is documented it's a summary so I think if you were to give some context because again if if folks are not listening to this conversation if they pull up pull up the link we don't want them to think that their inputs haven't been taken into consideration. So I think putting some verbage there will help along with this information. >> Okay, we will do that. Anything else? Great. All right. Well, thank you very much. Um did you have something? >> I do. I have a question. Yes. >> And if this is not the right time, tell me. Um, do you see any gaps in in what what we collected? Is there anything that we missed um as we're moving forward towards the next step or do you think that this was a robust enough? I mean, we got phenomenal turnout in these surveys. It's incredible how many responses we got? But is do you see or does MSBA see anything that we missed? I >> actually had that conversation today with um our our metro team about Weisetta. Short answer is no because it is so thorough and supported by that colored page. If I could find that colored page again. Uh the one thing we talked about um was perhaps being very aware of the importance of technology and AI to the students in the business community and maybe including things like that in our vetting process and the strength of folks understanding that as a tool in leadership development. Um, so that was probably the one thing we talked about today that might require a little bit of a tweaking, but otherwise, no, I didn't I don't think there's any gaps. I think it's incredibly close. Truly. Yeah. >> Okay. >> And this um is to to build off of um Heidi's question. Um just asking about, you know, how representative the survey is. Um, with the incoming superintendent starting at the end of the school year, it's possible that a a senior in high school might say, "Well, this individual will never be my superintendent, so I don't have an incentive to fill out the survey." Did you find based on the suggestions or kind of comments students were making that it was all at least all four grades at the high school represented? Was there a a viewpoint there? >> That is a great question, Director J. I I appreciate it. I don't know. Um I do know that the focus group we did was with 38 students at the high school and they represented lots of different interests and then within their own clubs and organizations they were going to go out and encourage people to take the survey. I can't tell from the comments if someone maybe is eth or nth grade or 11th or 12th grade. I don't think there's any clear delineation. there wasn't a lot of talk about um when I graduate or when I'm not in school next year or when I'm at university, whatever. There weren't those comments that indicated um a lot of seniors were taking it. But that doesn't mean they didn't. They just focused on the here and now and the needs of the superintendent who's going to be here in July. But that's a wonderful question. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. And just a a clarifying statement that the the um focus group that you had with our students was with Fusion, which is a group, is that correct? It's a group of of many different organizations and so it's a really nice cross-section of our students at the high school. >> Correct. That was the fusion group, correct? Director Loots >> Fusion. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. There's a great group. I learned a lot. All right. So the first question I have besides can we put it on the website and we will prepare some overview introductory paragraph for that. Uh do you hear the voices of your constituents in this report is it broad enough where the people that you have spoken with about the school and the direction you're heading are they in here or are we missing someone that you talk to a lot? Feels pretty all-encompassing. Okay, good. That's good. So, what I'd like to do now is I do have a recommendation about next steps because I know when we laid out the uh timeline. We talked about the fact that we don't want to make a decision about engagement during the interview process for your school communities until the board has seen this report and absorbed the information. So, now that you have the information, um, we've looked it over and I I do have some recommendations and so I want to run them by the board and I think I'm going to Can I just close this? Amy, could you close this since I'm not using anymore? Thank you. Um, this is what I would suggest and I want your feedback on it. So, because of both the size and the complexity of a district like public schools, I would definitely recommend some interaction or input during the second round of interviews with the school communities. Um the interest in this of course is obvious and I think your system is so big that getting more voices in the process at the end in round two would be beneficial to you as a board. So how to do that so it doesn't bog down the process or it doesn't um give away your authority as the hiring body for this position because we don't want to have anyone believe that they get to tell you who to hire, right? They're not the hiring committee. that's that's you. However, from an advisory capacity, they may have some insights that you could use during your round two interviews and your deliberations. So, um what I might suggest is two things. Now, if you remember on March 6th, you are conducting the board interviews, right? On March 5th, candidates have reserved a day in the district and we said we'll figure that out when the time comes. So, the time is now. One of the things that I definitely think you should do is the the district tours, building tours. You have a lot of buildings. Um, but there could be representative schools that uh the finalists are taken through and given a tour by the principal in that building and programs are talked about and they'll see students in the halls and all of those things. It's really really good for candidates to have that opportunity. Um, I would also suggest that your executive leadership team accompany those folks on those tours. Let's say you have three people in the second round to take them all of them with that person around. Whoops. So they can answer questions um can also drive them between buildings and that sort of thing. So I think that involvement um so they get to know one another would be really valuable. And I think we could create a pretty simple feedback tool for the senior leadership team to have um some input to the board, not about who you should hire, but about the conversations and the strengths of the people that they were walking through the buildings with. So I think that would be really wise to do. I also think though because of how big the district is that there should be um an opportunity during that day for each finalist to meet with some sort of representative group. And one of the things that might work and I actually spoke with executive director Loots about this is it went really well with the search preview meetings. I think we met with five or six or seven groups and we did focus groups with those same groups and they felt like a really good cross-section of your your school communities is asking for some folks to be either nominated or something from those groups to meet with the candidate for like one hour. I don't know if we call it an interview or not, but maybe an interview or maybe a Q&A. Um, it might be 20, 30, might be 40 people, but we have an instrument that we use fairly often called an input form. And we ask people to indicate, you know, the candidate they just listened to or interacted with. And we want them to share up to two or three strengths and up to maybe two or three opportunities for growth. I think if everyone individually had a chance to fill out that form, it wouldn't take very much for MSBA to take that information and condense it down into some themes that emerge from those 30 people. We'd also give you the raw data to look at and I think I could have that to you by that Thursday night um by maybe around six o'clock because we don't want it to take a lot of time because you start interviewing right away Friday morning. But if we did those two things and I'd like to hear what executive director Lutz thinks about that as well. Those two I think would get you a lot of helpful information without having people tell you what to do. Does that make sense? What do you think, executive director? >> Yeah, I'll add the comments. So, oftentimes we use this in our interview processes in our district um when we assemble an interview committee and we use the term strengths and wonderments quite often, right? And so we have the individuals provide the the strengths of a candidate which which are are very helpful. And then those wonderments are things that that uh the hiring administrators, which again the the individuals making this hire would be the schoolboard, um should look out for in the next part of the process, right? And so you could take that feedback from those groups and make sure that you know questions um that you're using in the the final interview. Um get at some of those wonderments that individuals saw when they interacted with those candidates. um you could make sure that that again you're you're considering those as as you finalize this process. So I think it's a a helpful way um to gather that feedback but also ensure that individuals stay within their role of that process. Right? this is the board's decision to make. Um and and you'd be using that feedback in a way that's appropriate versus um we we've really gotten away from interview committees ranking uh candidates or saying, "Hey, this is my person." Um because that's not their role in the process, right? So having them specifically serve that purpose of identifying strengths and wonderments has been a shift that we've made here in the district with our interview teams and it really honors the people who are participating because then you're using the feedback in the way that you intend to, right? Um and so that role clarity um but also a really good opportunity to continue what we've done throughout this process, which is engage with our uh school community members and make sure that there's voice throughout that process so that by the end of it when you're making your decision, you can feel like it was a very informed decision um that represents the best decision for the district in in general. >> I have a quick question or a add-on comment. A wonderment, Dave, could also be something, for example, that didn't come up, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be >> Absolutely. >> Okay. So, it could just be like, "Hey, we didn't get to this. >> I wish I would have heard more about the following." And then that's something that you can use as a a lens for that next part of the process. Absolutely. >> I like that term a lot. Thank you. Thank you. So, >> you're welcome to use it if you'd like, Barb. Okay. You just have to credit me every time. No, I'm just kidding. >> Um, I just want to make sure that that's all right with the board that the best way to proceed is probably at some point when you decide this is okay is I just work directly with Executive Director Loots to pull together the activities for the day of Thursday the 5th. So, turn it back over to you. >> Yeah, I I'll let my colleagues comment first and then I'll add a couple of comments afterwards. Yeah. >> Uh, no, so I like the idea. Obviously we need representation but given the responses we have received I think we will find candidates who can come and participate. So I think I think that's great. Um my only question is as you summarize the information um and maybe we'll get to that in our next topic here but when we look at questions and answers and kind of will there be similar rubrics that we will get it when we go through the interviews and we can take notes and again if there are collaboration communication you know knowledge making it up right so those are the three categories so would Could you give us something along the same line as you are summarizing audience response? >> Yes. Okay. So for the subcommittee as well as the board in round two uh once the questions are identified we have a three-point liyker scale that we use that um the answer exceeded my expectations their answer met my expectations or I was disappointed. So E M or D. But we would have a rubric that says if they say this that's a good answer. if they say this, if it's missing these things, that's not so good. So, we will have a rubric so everyone's on the same page about what you expect. And I I'm not too concerned if it's shoulder scores, if it's, you know, a two and a three or a one and a two. When it's a >> someone's disappointed and someone's really excited about it, that's where the rubric is really helpful. So, I think that's what we do. >> Perfect. Great. So, based on your experience, what would be your recommendation as a board member? Should we be looking at those results before or after the interview because again I don't want to get biased right like I would want to go through the interview process put my thoughts on paper and then see what the responses are you know from day before is that the right thing to do or what what is the best practice you have seen >> that's an excellent question typically if it is done the day before board members will look at it before the interview just to get a heads up on some things that might have been concerning to people in the in the audience. Um, very often that input is not provided in advance. However, it's provided during the board's interview. People watch your interview and as you're interviewing candidates, they're typing in strengths and wonderments. So, you see it after your interview in that case. But because we have the luxury of time that the entire day ahead of the interviews is being provided, unless you think you would be uh biased in some way, I think it would be helpful to read the highlights of what people in the school community is saying. And yet it will remain a personal choice. I think best practice might to look at it, look at it when you get it and yet if someone's not comfortable, you can wait and do it afterwards if you'd like to. >> Okay, >> great question. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, >> I have a quick comment. Um uh okay so I'm very sensitive and this might get as a little bit this I'm very sensitive to um not hearing all voices or you know making sure that we have even minority or underrepresented groups being a part of the process. Is there a way for us to make sure that we're not hearing the same voices over and over again throughout this process, but really making sure that we're getting different perspectives throughout each one of these different opportunities? >> I'm going to defer to executive director Loots. He knows the district so much better than I do. I definitely believe there's a way to do that perhaps through SV and her team, but I'm going to defer to you if that's all right. >> Yeah. So, a couple of the things that we've already done, um we did partner with our um our uh department of of equity inclusion to make sure that um we have different roles in our district for engaging with with some of our our families that we maybe wouldn't hear from um if we didn't didn't have an active engagement with them. Um some of those roles are our family partnership leads and then also our family liaison uh specialists. So, we did have um a specific outreach to them, training them on on the uh survey tool, how to access it. Um and then some specific outreach to some of the families that they work with, just encouraging them to, hey, participate um if there were some some translation, you know, support needed or survey completion support needed that that we could uh make sure that that we provide that support. So, um there was some of that already. Um, one of the reasons why we selected that the student fusion group is because it truly is a kind of a a broader representation across different clubs and activities and whatnot. And as we met with that group, you could kind of feel that it was a a representative student group um with some different opinions and and uh interests, etc. Um and then uh you know not just choosing um one of our advisory groups for our you know how we're going to get uh parent or community member feedback. Um I think we were intentional about doing a selection of each of our advisory groups. And what that did was uh I over time I believe um for each of our our family advisory groups, we've been intentional to to either invite or or nudge individuals from a variety of pro perspectives to participate in those advisory groups. And so I think if we were to draw from those same groups, we could be strategic to to try to have balance in that representation. If in the public process we were uh to have, you know, a community component or a um that additional kind of interviewer meeting that that Barb was talking about that might have, you know, a larger group of of 40 or whatnot that would be able to provide feedback. So, um, I will say I think I think we've we've been as intentional as possible to make sure that we're hearing all voices in this data that we've already collected. And I think, you know, next steps we could make sure that we're intentional too to have a a wide range of perspectives in the room. Um, if we were to do that that um, you know, school community member uh, kind of large interview setting. Okay. So, um Oh, sorry. >> I just want to clarify um just so I'm maybe maybe I missed it, but I just want to make sure I'm on the same page. So, what we're talking about is we had put in like a tentative Q&A session that evening I think on the 5th. And you're saying in lie of that embedding into the day with tours and such would be pulling you know a few people from each of these various groups and they would be the ones that would be giving a Q&A session with the potential or with the finalists and then we would be able to get that feedback. >> Correct. And thank you for asking for that clarification. So that was one of the things we talked about doing in the evening with the turnaround with your interview being in the morning the next day. We thought if we could incorporate those folks into the daytime activities that we'd be able to share it with you sooner as well, but we would definitely include those folks. It it wouldn't be an open >> everyone show up who wants to participate because we might get two people and we might get 300. It would be very targeted representatives of all of the groups that are a part of the the Weisetta public schools. Is that okay? >> Yep. And then I guess to piggyback on that, those groups then whoever is going to be that spokesperson would have the opportunity to ask the rest of the group to give input that they would be maybe the person that would be the spokesperson or the you know person asking those questions that are coming from those various groups. It depends on um we could do two ways. We could do show up and put questions on a car comment card and turn it in to myself and director Lutz and we'd ask questions um of the group or we could ask everyone in advance, send all the interview questions you want to ask or things you want to know about, send them to MSBA. We'll go through and combine the ones that are similar and we'll have a set list of questions because if we only have an hour or an hour and a half, we want to get to what the majority of the group is interested in learning. So by asking them for their questions in advance and then we screen them for legality and for the things that align with what the leadership profile is seeking then we simply ask the questions that are on the you know predetermined questions so we don't get down a rabbit hole with people asking questions and then they ask a follow-up question and an hour later you haven't gotten to academic rigor you know so we want to make sure that we have I think it's a better route to gather questions and pre-screen and create them in conjunction >> that's what feels right to me is like maybe giving everyone in the group an opportunity and then saying this is the one or two people that are going to be our you know they're going to be asking the questions and doing that for the group makes sense versus the day of >> thank you >> so I I like this idea a lot and I'll tell you why because in my former life okay so I was not VP of R&D let's say I was vice president of R&D and I was hiring a lab manager during the interview I would want that lab manager to go to the lab and talk to the technicians and chemists and anybody else that would be reporting to them. So in addition to the community participating, I think it would be very beneficial for the executives that would be reporting to the superintendent to see, you know, how how they would be able to interact, you know, and what what they see as their strengths and their wonderment and then report back to the board. Eventually, obviously, the board will decide, but I think that's a great idea. Um the other comment I had was because the time is so short the evening before that Friday if we can make that as brief as possible only higher level so the board does not have to spend hours that evening at night I I I think that would be helpful if it takes that that that long that's fine too but yeah I know because the next day is going to be very busy all day so yeah so that that's my those are my comments so but I think it's a great idea Thank you. So, what I'm hearing from the board is I should work with executive director Loots on a plan for the 5th of March. Wonderful. All right. Thank you very much for that input. I appreciate it. Uh we're next going to move on to the interview training and I'm going to distribute an abbreviated copy. Um what was emailed to you was um very very long. And so this is an abbreviated version, but I'm going to screen share the long version. There's just quite a few things in the long version. You know, there's probably 30 pages of policy. um that we don't need to print, but I'm going to review it here as well. So, I'm going to turn um hand this out to you for just a minute. Um Amy, could you get me to screen share again? I think I've got it up. All right. Thank you so much. So, this is our interview training and preparation um step. So, I'm going to go through this in um fairly quick fashion because you do have it to read if you'd like, but there's some really key things I'd like to point out. In the interview training packet, we always share um the leadership profile to remind folks of what you are seeking in the next leader for Weisetta, uh your strategic road map. But this page, we have spent a lot of time on this page since your application window closed. That and the report I just shared with you. So, this is just a reminder of how the process has unfolded to this point and what your timeline is. So, in looking at the timeline, I'll just do a few very quick reminders. All right. Tonight's meeting is February 4th right here. Meeting for interview training and to discuss the public input report, interview questions, and the round one, round two procedures. Uh we've already decided that round one will be with the subcommittee. uh those three days at the end of February they'll be coming back on let's see here March 2nd I believe March 2nd um the subcommittee connects conducts the interviews this day three days and then March 2nd they will make a recommendation to the board candidate names will still be candidate A B and C I want to thank you very very much for your help with the fact that this is private data that you are dealing with I know it can be very tempting to look at your computer when you're sitting in a coffee shop. But I really want to thank you for that because that enables us to get ex excellent categories and pools of applicants to know that their name is being held private in accordance with our laws here in Minnesota. Um, but on March 2nd, you will have an opportunity as a full board to hear from the subcommittee as to why they're recommending candidate B, D, and L out of the pool that they interviewed. um you can choose to accept or not accept that recommendation and that night ultimately you will name the finalists. You'll make the motion to move forward to round two candidates B, C, and L. Um if that passes, then at the conclusion of that meeting, we read out name out loud the names of the round two finalists. Everyone else that was interviewed and everyone else who applied, those names never are made public. because they were not interviewed by the board. Correct. They were interviewed by a subcommittee of your board. Open meeting law doesn't apply to that because of your policy. So, we want to just be sure that you're aware even if the subcommittee is interviewing these folks, those names are private data. We're comfortable with that. Thank you. All right. Then you see here it does say March 6th um here at 8:30 in the morning. You'll hold your second round of interviews. We are going to ask a member or two of the board to do some reference checks between maybe March 2nd and March 6th. It's not a heavy lift, but it is some due diligence that we encourage board members to uh do those reference checks. We want it in an organized fashion, however, so that all seven of you are not making calls randomly about your finalists. Um, so we'll be talking about that more uh I think in preparation either on the 9th of February or the 2nd of March who on the board is interested in making reference check calls and then I'll work with you to sort of go through a process of how that should be done. All right. Um, between now and then, you cannot be making any reference check calls because these names are private data. We've done reference checking. We can only call the folks however that are listed on their application as references or have written letters of recommendation. Uh because if we call anyone else, we've just outed their candidacy to people who may not know they are looking. So we're limited until those names are public with who we can talk to. Once those names are public on March 2nd, you can call anyone because their name is public. Okay? And then um if it goes well on the sixth, we don't have the fifth on here, but it's on the brochure. So candidates are holding the fifth and sixth for round two board meetings. However, it's only on the 6th. You do not need to come and we really don't want you to come to anything on the 5th of March. That's the day in the district without the decision makers tagging along. All right. Uh if all goes well that evening afternoon, you will find someone you'd like to enter contract negotiations with, which can begin immediately. Uh we are doing some research and working with Executive Director Loots on some contract language. We're also investigating the possibility of performance incentives. I didn't forget that that was a part of our conversation during the creation of the salary range. So, we're going to be bringing some suggestions to you in that regard. Um, there would be a lot of research that needs to be conducted before something such as an incentive pay is included in there, but I think it's something we need to address and let you talk about as a board. So, those wheels will be in motion. And so beginning on the 7th of March, maybe even the night of the 6th, you can enter negotiations and hopefully sometime in March, finalize a contract and approve it as a board with your new leader. Any questions on that timeline? >> Yes. You mentioned two board members calling references and if I heard you correctly, they can call references not even on the applicant's list of references. Is that that is that >> once their name is final? >> Right. But but outside the ones that were given to us. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> You can call anyone because now their name is public. It's not even a reference check. It's more >> um because reference check sort of implies it's someone listed as a reference. These are people who may know this person. You know, education is a small world sometime. And you might know someone who's worked with them or know someone who is a business leader in the community that has a partnership with their district. You can call those people about their candidacy here in Weisetta because their names are public. >> Okay. All right. So, let's move on to interview training then. I'm going to go through a couple of things and I've got the abbreviated packet um because this is an important one right here and this is in your shorter packet. >> I have a quick question before we move on. Sorry. With the schedule. Um it was my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong that it it'll be us that's negotiating the contract and not MSBA. Is that is that the case or am I remembering that incorrectly? >> You are remembering correctly that MSBA does not negotiate the contract. >> Okay. We do have the model superintendent contract that MSBA and MASA have agreed upon and so both associations support this version of the contract. However, most districts particularly in the metro like to lean on their HR executives and their council for the contract negotiations and so we will not work on negotiations for you. >> Wonderful. Thank you for that clarification. >> Thanks a chance to clarify that as well. >> All right. So in the relevant law area there are things you cannot ask about. Now, the questions that I'm going to be proposing for you tonight adhere to all of the restrictions around protected classes and categories and so on and so forth. The reason we want to remind folks that there are things you cannot ask about um really are twofold. We're going to discourage you from asking follow-up questions during the interviews. Uh because follow-up questions could go down, you know, a slippery slope and you might end up talking about religion or age or family. and that's not allowed to be considered as part of this process. Um, so that's that's uh one reason I had the second reason. It was right there. Follow-up questions, it'll come to me. Um, oh, your board notes. That's why because your board notes during the interview process, you're going to have to write stuff down about people because these are going to be tremendous interviews and so you're not going to remember everything everybody says. So you're writing down things about them that you like or areas of concern you have. Please do not write anything down in your notes that touches on any of these protected categories. Your both your not your notes as board members would be subject to a data request. And if you in your notes have written down things about their age or gender or race, you know, not appropriate. So please don't write anything down in these classes as well. That's why we want to make sure you know about it. Uh there's several pages that talks about the interview questions. Um things that are protected, things you cannot ask, permissible to ask. I'm not going to spend time on these. I just want you to be aware that they're in here. I do think, however, that based upon the needs of this district, there are far more important things for you to ask about than any of these things that are considered protected classes. I just want to make sure you're aware that there are some things that are permissible to ask, but I'm going to go right past that. All right. The policies are not in your um abbreviated packet because there's a lot of them. These are our model policies. They are not specific to Weisetta. But I do want to talk about the model policy we have that I know you've adopted because you are an equal employment opportunity employer and we are an equal employment opportunity search firm. So that's very important to make sure everyone knows we're adhering to all of the requirements therein. The next policy I want to talk about is 406 public and private personnel data. I'm going to jump ahead to the third page. On this page, halfway down, it says, and we talked about this before. Oops, I don't have my mouse. I'm using my finger. There we go. Names of applicants are private data except when applicants are considered by the school board to be finalists for public employment. So the names of applicants are private data except when applicants are considered by the school board to be finalists for public employment. So then it begs the question, what is a finalist? And this is where statute is a little in my opinion not consistent because it does talk about what a finalist is and it defines a finalist as an individual who is selected to be interviewed by the school board for a position. So, in round two, it's your finalists. In round one, it is your semi-finalists. If the board has selected to have the entire board interview the semi- finalist, their name goes public. So, a finalist is someone who's going to be interviewed by all of you. Now, in your case, it's true. The semi-finalist will be interviewed by the subcommittee. The finalist will be interviewed by the board. But I always tell folks, their name still goes public even if you're a semi- finalist if the full board's interviewing you. So that's just one of those quirks I think of statute. >> Uh the next one. Oh, sure. Go ahead. >> Um so the and again subcommittee uh so the questions obviously we'll go through them. They'll be scripted but this was a good reminder not to make a note. I think that's great. So for subcommittee then they shouldn't note down the name of the candidate when they are going through the first round then >> or they have to excellent question. the subcommittee will refer to them in their notes as candidate >> candidates one and five. >> Okay. >> Thank you for asking that. >> Okay. Uh the last policy that is a part of superintendent search are simply the open meetings and closed meetings. And we talked about the fact that as a board you cannot close a board meeting during the superintendent search. Uh you may only close a board meeting for your superintendent in terms of their evaluation. Um conducting the evaluation not choosing the goals and standards by which to evaluate them. that will be done in the public. A big part of that will be the transition workshop that I'll come back and do with the board and the new superintendent this fall. Uh so those expectations will be done in an open meeting as well. So open and close meetings will get past that one. See, I didn't need to print all of this. All right. Um this one, other search considerations based upon statute. I don't think this is in your abbreviated packet, but I'm not having lux zooming in, so I'm just going to talk about it and hope people could zoom in on at home if they're interested. So, um, we want to make sure people are very aware of a couple limitations. One is that you, uh, have to let me know if you're related to a candidate within the fourth degree. I think we talked about that during the dos and don'ts at the planning meeting and it has happened twice in the last year that someone on the board is related by blood or marriage to one of the people in the pool. So, let me know if that's the case. I haven't heard from any of you, so I don't think it applies in Weisetta. It would simply mean that we would need a unanimous vote of the full board for that person to be hired. A majority would not be allowed to hire that person and all seven people would need to cast a vote. So if someone is ill and not at the meeting, you need to meet again and take a full vote of everybody unanimously in order for someone to work for you as their superintendent. That's not the case. So So that's good. And then the other thing I always say here is keep in mind that you cannot require residency. Many people want them to live within the district boundaries, but for purposes of residency, it's just like a teacher. A superintendent is a teacher for the purposes of these statutes. And it includes moving to your district. So, they could live anywhere as long as they're meeting the criteria you have laid out in your job description and in your contract. If they can do the work, living 300 miles away that you spell out, that'd be very tough to do, I think. But they could be hired as your superintendent. >> Yes. You would have screened all that right before you before you recommend the candidates >> will have screened for residency. >> Yeah. All the all the requirements and everything. >> We know where they live and they know that in order to do the job that's going to be expected of them. They they should live pretty close to my question. As a board member, I don't have to worry about those things, right? >> No. The only time it might worry me is someone might offer in their interview, "By the way, I'm planning to move here. I'm going to buy a house. I have 10 kids that are going to contribute to the enrollment in this district." Those are all personal facts and the fact that they're going to move here should be struck from the record. Just you can't consider that even if they offer it up. So, that's when I'd say disregard what they said about moving here. It's not something you should consider. >> Yeah. Barb is a question maybe or is a question maybe that MSBA has screened for all of the requirements that somebody would need to be employed in Wisetta public schools. >> That's a true statement I think. Correct. >> Right. >> Lensure is the big one. >> Y we don't do any I9 certification. So once they're hired proof of employment to work in the United States is up to the hiring authority the I9 verification. We will not do that. But we'll do background checks on everyone that we are recommending um as a part of our services automatically and their national criminal database um checks and lots and lots and lots of other stuff. Thank you for clarifying. So yes, but residency we don't really screen for. Sorry if I misunderstood that. That my question was answered. I thought maybe the question had been misunderstood and um director Loots clarified the question and you answered it. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much. Keep in mind that you can uh negotiate a contract for up to three years and you can begin negotiating another contract um within the last 365 days of their third year of the contract if it's a three-year contract. So, if you really like this new superintendent, I highly encourage you in July of 28 or whatever year that would be, start talking about locking them in for the following July because you are allowed those 365 days. And I think Dave, if I'm not um I think that's what we've been doing, right, with our like previously prior to I know the last several superintendent contracts we've been doing kind of yeartoyear, but prior to that we've always looked at three-year contracts and the year prior to that is when we renew. >> I believe that's true. Okay. >> All right. Thank you. This is in your packet. Common interview mistakes. You will not make any of these. For example, um you have very specific selection criteria and it is backed up by the public input engagement survey. So you know what you're looking for. Um if you had not defined that early in the process, you would get all kinds of different leaders applying for the position. But you had some very specific things you're looking for and those are the sort of people that then thought, "This sounds like me and I'm going to apply." So that's great. Uh you won't make a bad impression. I will tell you though, candidates these days are interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. It does happen sometimes after the interview, the candidate withdraws from consideration. I don't think that will happen with this board, but please do know that they are trying to find the fit for them just as much as you're trying to find a fit for you. So, keeping that in mind, uh we're not going to violate the don't ask list because we just talked about that. Um, you know, one of the things with questions, I think we're getting better at creating questions that are uh behavior- based, looking for evidence and examples specifically of things you have done. Uh, we don't have a lot of questions anymore that say, well, what would you do if anyone could answer that if they're good at interviews and they they are eloquent, right? We're looking for some concrete examples to support their experience in the areas important to this board. So, you're not going to have vague questions. Um, I can assure you of that. Keep in mind the big picture. This is a big decision, but it's also a monumental decision for the candidate as well as for all of you as board members. Uh probing motivation. This is a little tricky because we prefer you not ask those follow-up questions unless they're clarifying that you didn't understand an acronym or a reference to a program or something like that. I think your subcommittee is going to have more flexibility in that round one interview because um you will be able to really learn from these people what drives them and when they do answer a question you'll have a rubric but I think in that setting I would be more comfortable allowing some follow-up questions to really understand what they are sharing with you. Um, that would be my recommendation, but as a whole board, when we're in a public meeting and it's recorded and such, just be careful not to ask follow-up questions that could take us off in a whole new direction. U, we'll stick to what we we need to know. Um, not a one-way street. We talked about that already that they are interviewing you, too. Your notes subject to data requests. Keep them professional and appropriate. You'll be good. But do remember that your brain's going to be very tired. Even after interviewing three people with the level of intellect and the responses you're going to be getting, you really should jot down the things that stand out to you about these people as they speak because the third interview, you're going to be tired after the first two interviews. So notes are really important. Take your time making a decision. You don't need to rush. The plan right now is that you'll choose someone to enter negotiations with on the 6th of March. If it doesn't feel right, you can hit pause and reconvene the next week. You always have options. So, please don't feel pushed into something or make a decision that you're not comfortable with as a board. Don't take the wrong fit. Um, aligns very much with what I just said. And I do want to speak about bias just for a moment. Um, it's important that folks are aware of it. I know that this board is aware of it as well. There is a a page in your abbreviated packet about unconscious bias. The easiest way to explain this in this context is I'll give you examples of when bias has interview excuse me entered the deliberation stage. Um the questions aren't biased. The review of the applications were not biased. However, during deliberations sometimes things will occur. So I'm just going to share this with everybody so that you can listen to one another and be aware of it during the conversation. Um, one of them that seems to occur pretty regularly is age bias and assumptions that we make about people based on their age. Uh, one that I thought was very interesting is two candidates were in the finals. uh the board really wanted someone who understood technology and they said they asked the question and both candidates answered it well and then during deliberations someone said well you know I think that we'll pick Sue and Tom I think that Sue knows a whole lot more about technology I mean look at how old she is Tom was much older and they made that assumption and the joke was on them because um the younger candidate didn't tweet didn't want to do anything online just had a social media Facebook page and the older candidate was a prolific tweeter. Five, six, seven things a day. So they made an assumption that I think hurt that um process a bit about technology and about age. So that's one example. Uh the other one and the reason we actually started doing bias training was again a board this was about five years ago had two finalists and during deliberations they're talking about what they liked about the candidates and some of them were willing to share what they weren't as happy with. We've since changed approaches and recommended don't talk about deficits unless we need to break a tie. Let's keep it positive. But at that time boards were willing to share more and we were thinking it's okay if you share concerns. Now, with all the things being live streamed and recorded and such, we just don't think that's fair to candidates. Um, but at that time, someone said, "You know what? I think Tom would be great here, um, very direct, straight shooter. People in this community are going to respond to that really, really well." And lots of nodding around the table. And then they move on to the next candidate, and the exact same board member said, "You know what? Sue is a straight shooter. She's pretty direct. Um, I don't think that's going to play well here in this community. Verbatim the comment with the tone of voice being negative for Sue and a positive for Tom. So, what do you think that bias was? Gender bias, a gender bias, the assumption that women leaders are warmer or nurturing or should be and men should, right? These the shoulds are where bias really get us in in trouble. um that was a very clear example of it and we just thought okay we need to start talking about this so people are aware of during the interview process and what you say in public about your candidates will matter people will be watching so that was another one we also hear geographic bias quite a bit assumption that people from greater Minnesota aren't going to fit in here and people in greater Minnesota thinking h those metro people they're not going to fit in here please don't do that I have to tell you um how excited we are about your pool and it is not only from the metro area. So the geographic bias um and sometimes the size of the school districts, you know, that that might cause you to have some assumptions about these people. Set those aside also. And then the final bias that we see is um famili familiarity bias. It's a difficult word to say. If you're familiar with someone, whether they're in your um conference or your kids go to school and you know these people, if you know them, that is a benefit and a disservice to that client because or excuse me, that candidate because you know them, right? You know all the good things about them and you may know some things that you don't like. Do try to set that aside. um it's difficult because there'll be names you probably recognize and there'll be names you've never heard of before. So trying to keep an open mind with that familiar um piece of things can be challenging, but I just wanted to highlight it because it exists. Are there any questions on bias? I'm not going to speak any more about it. I think your board is already ready to have this conversation, but just an awareness of it at the deliberation table especially. All right, we're just about >> uh sorry, would you be able to ask questions or clarify when we are deliberating or it's just so you as an observer if you feel hey there is some unintended bias? Would you interject and ask that board member more questions or or >> I don't think I would do that during the deliberations. Um I don't want anyone to feel as though I'm correcting them in a public meeting. I trust the board to self manage those comments. >> If it becomes problematic, yes, we're going to talk about it, but I won't be facilitating the conversation either. Chair Milind will be will be >> Oh, so that that's the board meeting. >> Board deliberating. I'll be here sitting over here, sitting over there. >> But we will have a process and we'll explain kind of how you walk through and what you do, >> you know, positive comments and then we do reference. So, it's we'll lay it out, but I'm not going to facilitate the conversation. This board's going to do it, and you'll do a great job. All right. Um, I do want to talk lastly about deliberation scenarios. Um, because I think you're going to have a difficult choice. I think there's more than one really great candidate that applied for your job. So, I want to at least acknowledge the potential for um getting stuck during deliberations. If there's not one clear rockstar winner, it's a good problem to have when you have so many good people that the final three are so strong, you just don't quite know what to do. So, what might you do if people on the board start digging in because they are convinced as individuals that this person is the best and other board members think this person is the best, no one is willing to move. I'll suggest what you might do in that case. Um, one is go back to your public input summary report, right? I saw some of you thinking about that already. Pull that out and say, well, look, this is what's important to our parents in this community and our guardians say this. Look at what our staff looking for to some degree because I agree people are kind of cross reference there, but pull that out and refer to it. Also, please go back to that leadership profile as needed. Even if you are stuck between two people who are phenomenal, you could as a board discuss, look, our first criteria is this. Let's talk about Sue and Tom around this criteria and then let's talk about them around this criteria and just very methodically work your way through that leadership profile and talk about your candidates. That helps too. Those are the two best things I would say you could do. >> Questions on that? That one. Yes. So now that you're talking about deliberations, are these is this done after the interview is done while the candidates are still sitting here? >> Thanks for asking that. It is after let's say there's three interviews and by noon you're done with all three interviews. That is when you start your deliberations about who to make an offer to. So they're not here anymore. The candidates are gone, but you've concluded all three interviews before you start talking about the folks and making your decisions. So after >> it's still being recorded, >> correct? >> For the public to see. So it's we're still visible to the to the community, right? >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. May I ask one more clarified question? Uh during interview, but uh it's not going to be recorded immediately. I hope so. So that the second and the third candidate would not be able to see otherwise they would they would know obviously what's going on. Am I right? >> Thank you for asking that. >> We will recommend you not live stream those interviews because it does give an advantage to the last candidate or two to watch. I don't think um I think the professional integrity of these folks I don't think they would do that. However, we don't want to even open the door to it. So I would suggest not live streaming the interviews. Some districts do like to record them. However, and what they often do is the successful candidates interview is posted on the website. The two people who were not offered the position, those interviews aren't posted. It's up to you. Um, generally speaking, the candidates who are not selected will be disappointed and may or may not want their interview out there into perpetuity on your website. But the candidate who's successful, that might be something you could place out there. So people who couldn't come here and watch the interviews could watch the successful candidates interview with the board. That's something you can think about. But yes, you're absolutely right. We don't want people watching them ahead of time and knowing what the questions are and things. Okay. Um, sometimes in deliberations it happens because this is a very important decision and stress levels can be reaching a peak at the end. If it becomes heated and it starts to devolve into an unproductive conversation at some point, uh, the very best thing is call a recess. Just the chair, you can gavvel a recess or someone can request a recess. just go for a walk, get a drink of water, um get a fresh air. That sometimes really helps bring the temperature back down if the deliberations are not going smoothly. I doubt that's going to happen. It does sometimes, but just be aware you can call a recess as needed just to take a take a break. And then the last thing is uh the rumor mill. Um during deliberations, one board member says they have information from credible sources about these finalists. Uh we'll talk more about this once the names go public because once the names of those top two or three people go public, you will be lobbied by people in favor of and against all three of those folks. And so we just simply want you to say thank you for the input. I appreciate it. Do not engage. But hearsay should not be shared in a public meeting at this board table. So during deliberations, please do not say, "Well, someone I know works in that district and they said this and it's going to be not great, right?" Don't do that in this room. If you have concerns about things you're hearing about your folks that are named publicly, call me because our job will be to investigate those things and there's a really good chance we already know about it and we have a really good explanation for why they still deserve to be your superintendent. But do reach out to me if you have concerns. Don't handle it on your own and don't encourage people. Just thank people for input because people will do that and you should be listening to them, right? They're going to have some good opinions that might guide you in your decision- making. So, that's it for deliberations. I'm not going to do anything with these interview questions because I have some much much better ones for you to consider. These are generic. Uh they're part of the training packet, but we have questions created specifically for Weisetta. All right. Lastly, the candidates's turn. Uh they're going to ask you questions. I'm hoping that if we allow an hour to an hour and a half per candidate that they will time it well. So if you have 15 questions, they're done with 15 minutes left. Maybe they're going to ask you some questions about the district. Um please speak up. The chair will field the question may answer the question or may say who would like to answer this one. And I would hope that several board members will do that and build upon one another. very often they're wanting to see how you interact with each other, how you build on each other's ideas, how you support one another in conversations, how you um respectfully disagree or have another option for them to think of. So, please participate if they ask you questions. Uh, one of the things that I have seen lately, I'm always impressed. These are some possible questions. There are sometimes candidates that will ask you a very specific management related question. Why might they ask the school board a management related question? >> So to know that if you are willing to go into his work and do work for him, I mean superintendent supposed to do management work. >> Correct. They are trying to ascertain how much micromanaging you're going to do of your superintendent. And if this board has an answer to a very technical, very managementoriented question, it's going to tell them, "This isn't a governing board. This is a micromanaging board, so I'm going to think about this." So, be honest, be authentic, be yourselves in your answers. Just be careful you don't get trapped into trying to answer a very specific question that your executive leadership team should be the ones who know those things. That's not your role as board members. Correct. So, that's been interesting. I don't know if everyone does it, but some people recently have done it and one person pulled out of a s a search because the board knew way too much about the day-to-day operations of the district. Okay, isn't that a fun thing to think about? I think candidates are phenomenal. All right, the last thing in here is uh reference checks and we will be discussing when we come back in March which two board members want to do some reference checking on behalf of the board and I have sample questions. Um, you'll also be giving that report verbally to the board after round two. You're not going to type anything up. You're not going to quote anyone, but I do have a packet for the folks that are going to be doing reference checks. So, please consider whether that is something that um you'd be interested in doing and have the time to do between March 2nd and March 6th. That's a pretty small window. I believe that's all I have. We've already done deliberating in public. Um, and here's our sample model contract. And I believe executive director Lutz already has a copy of this as well as the current contract with Dr. Anderson. So are there any questions about interview training? I know that was a lot but I think we covered the things that are most important. >> Barb, one quick question. So um the candidate will have an opportunity to ask questions as we go through interview. um is that a possibility even during the you know 5th March uh where let's say the SLT members the parents when they are asking questions would they have questions for audience or when would they talk to for example SLT team just to get just to feel how the leadership team is etc how does that happen >> I think they're going to be asking a lot of questions of your executive leadership team while they're getting the tour. >> Okay. >> The large group of 20, 30, 40 people. I hesitate to open it up for them to answer questions from the candidate because some of them may not know how to answer those questions and they could scare off a really good candidate with an inappropriate answer. So, I don't know if I'd let them answer questions, but I'm sure that you all will get lots of them during the tour. >> Yeah. So, tenatively on that that day prior, we'd have um executives um myself, uh Dana and Trevor would would participate in that tour and um that'd be an opportunity to um have some informal Q&A going from site to site. Um when we arrive at sites, um we would have a principal and some student reps meet us there. Um and so we obviously wouldn't be able to go to every site in the district. Um but would be able to have, you know, some some uh good representation of our districts with sites visited. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> Yeah, >> we'll try not to scare him away either. I'll bring candy. >> All right. Thank you. So, this is the last part of the meeting that I needed to uh complete with you tonight. These are the proposed round one questions. Um I think what I'd like to do is give you 10 minutes, five 10 minutes. I want to point out that um each of these areas are one of your hiring criteria, your leadership profile bullet points. So, for example, question one is usually just a softball. It's a good way to get the ball rolling, that kind of thing. uh but questions 2 through 7 are based on that leadership criteria. Questions 8 through 12 etc etc. So I think what I'd like to do is give you some time to select um let's try two questions in each area as individuals. Just I'm going to collect these back from you but just circle the two that you like. So, everyone gets two in each area. And that includes the last page, which are questions designed around the public input summary report. All right? Because there were a couple of areas that bubbled up as being pretty important that we didn't have initially, as much questions as we wanted. So, I'm going to give you about 10 minutes. Everyone pick two in each category, and then I'm going to do a quick tally and see where we land. All right. Thank you. If you finished with them, why don't you hold on to them because I'm going to take a quick tally, but then I'll collect them back from everyone. Is that okay? >> Sure. >> Sure. or >> should we just circle the number right? >> Circle one. Is everyone okay if we start to take a tally on the numbers or do you need to solve technical difficulties first? We're good. Okay. Uh so just a reminder that these are the questions your subcommittee will be using. All right. So these are approved by the board for the subcommittee and we will create a rubric around the selected questions to identify answers for these questions that might resonate. Okay. So the simplest way to do this is just to raise your hand quickly if you liked the question and I'm just going to do it one through 30 if that's all right with everyone. Tends to go faster. So I'm going to just make a quick count and make a note so it goes quickly but if you have questions stop me. So, how many um liked question one? >> Opening question. Yeah. >> Yeah, we're good. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty standard. All right. So, questions two through seven, you could pick two of those that you liked. So, as individuals, how many liked question two? Two. Question three, one. Question four, three, five, 1, 6, 1, and 7, five. All right, the next section, questions 8 through 12. Uh, question eight. One, two, three. Question eight had three, correct? One, two, and three. Okay. 9 2 10 4 Question 11 1 12 5 All right. Questions 13 to 18. Uh please raise your hand if you liked 13. 1 14 1 Oh, two I'm sorry I didn't say that. Two 14 15 6 1 17 3 18 two Next section 19 to 23. Who liked 19? 3 20. 1 21 6 22 23 2 24 24 to 29. How about 24? 2 25 4 26 1 27 >> 26 >> Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. 2 >> 26 >> Thank you. 27 1 28 29 four and the next section is 30 to 35. So question 30 1 31 1 uh question 32 1 2 3 4 3 3 4 2 3 35 2 3 36 to 41. How many liked 36? 37 1 38 39 3 and 40 1 and 41. One, two, three. Okay. Uh, closing question. Sort of standard. It's all right. Okay. And then the last page. I apologize for the wrong number. District number in question two. That's an error. All right. So, the first category, questions one through three. You could pick. How many picked two in these or versus just one? >> Two. >> Did you pick two? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Let's do two because we'll see what pops up, right? How about question one? Five, six, >> seven. Yay. All right. Uh, question two with the right number. Zero. How many? Question three. I'm expecting that to be okay. I could have guessed that. Seven. All right. Thank you. Uh, four through seven. Question four. One. Question five. Three. Six. four and seven. One, two, three, four, five, six, and 8 through 10. Eight, four, nine. One, two, three, four, and 10. One, two, three, four, five. Okay, thank you. So, I'm just going to pick the ones that a majority of the board noted. One thing we're going to be careful of is not to have duplicate questions. Um, and yet some of these because we have a lot with three. Um, you are certainly welcome to advocate for a question. Um, we don't have a limit on questions because we haven't yet determined how long round one will be. Um, we'll be meeting with the subcommittee I think on Zoom maybe in the next week to decide if we can do an hour and a half or two hours with each person. Normally, we're like, how many questions can we do in an hour? But in this case, we have flexibility. I think with the three days being set aside. Question one for sure. Question seven for sure. Question 12, 15, 21. 25 and 29 got four votes. Are they different enough to include both 25 and 29? If they are, we'll ask both because they got four votes for each. >> Yeah. So, I the way I looked at question 25 and 29, they were kind of like a follow-up question. So, start with 25 and 29 was followup. Again, that's how I read it. Uh but again if if we have to keep one yes there is that opportunity. >> Okay 25 and 29 both I think at this point and I don't know if they'll be in that order or not. We'll kind of drop them into the interviews. They won't be in this exact order. That's too easy, right? We want to mix it up. Have the tougher questions in the middle to the middle of the end. >> Is there a way to combine some of these questions rather than doing it as a follow-up? Okay. >> Yes, that's an option as well. Obviously, we don't want to read it out loud tonight, but what sometimes happens is if the board's interested in combining two questions together, what I'll do is work with maybe one person from the board to word smith it over email. So, I'll just make sure that that's what we use. So, yes, we can certainly do that. All right. So, 25 and 29. Uh 32 had four votes. um 36 to 41. There were lots of threes, but I wonder if those questions are addressed by questions six and seven on the next page because questions six and seven are similar. Um and they had four votes and one of them had six votes. Six and seven or one or the other. One in round one, one in round two. Are they too similar? But six and seven I think could fill the need for questions 36 to 41 where we didn't have unanimity on anything. But on the second page for sure, question one and three, I'm sorry, the back page one and three and question seven had six and question 10 had five. Um, several others had four votes, but the ones that had the most were 1, three, seven, and 10. >> Uh, 36 to 41 didn't have anything that had a majority of the board. So, that's I'm wondering because of the category that it is if question seven would fit in that same area. Yeah, on the very last page if seven if question seven would suffice for questions 36 to 41. There was more consensus around question 7. >> Can you remind me what were the top two in that area? I know they were all scattered. Were there any they were all threes basically >> in 36 to 41? >> Yeah. Yeah, it was I'll just It's three 1 3 3 1 3. >> Would it be okay if um in questions 36 through 41, I underline in 31 what I thought was very relevant that you could potentially add to number seven. >> 31. You said >> 39. Oh, 39. Okay. Thank you. >> Could I underline that like the there's there's particular verbiage in there that I think is really important that is reflected also in our um profile. >> Yes. >> Okay. Let me >> So toward the end of 39. >> Yep. >> That you want woven into question seven on the last page. >> Correct. >> Does everyone hear where she's heading with that one? >> Yeah. And I guess I for whatever reason I feel like the first se you know sentence in 38 feels important for whatever reason to me um some of the language there. So I don't know if there'd be a way to maybe combine those two. Um >> 38 could stand on its own because it's very different than question seven. >> That was my only thing when I was looking at the ones in the back. I feel like that's one that has a little bit like tap. This is where you can advocate for questions where we only had three people or even a one. You could say I really feel this question is important because and so I I hear director little saying perhaps question 38 could be added in the mix. >> I you're saying >> I am very much I think 38 and 39 are incredibly important. Um and I made a notation about why I think that's important and I've underlined why I think we should add a portion to number seven. I'm wondering, Barb, and board colleagues as well, um, finance and budgeting bubbled up to the top for us and for our community and our students actually, like it's across the board. I wonder if we lean into that. And if we have more questions, that's okay. >> It is, especially because round one, you're not limited to the one hour. >> Yep. >> So, there's room. There is room. >> Is that okay with everybody? I mean, I'd rather I'd rather get the information, right, instead of just being kind of boxed into >> Yeah. >> one or two. >> Uh, I have a question in uh 30 through 35. >> 35. >> Uh, well, so in that bucket. >> Oh sh Okay. Yes. >> Um, so the 32 is I think what where we have most votes. Um and when I was looking at other options 33 35 >> Mhm. >> Um it felt like it was more measurable. So it it was actually you mean 33 35 is talking about okay tell me what was the outcome versus >> okay sorry >> no sorry yeah >> so it's not a theory it's actually the outcome oriented so again I think we can achieve it there are I think enough questions but just wanted to ask more colleagues um that 32 felt more theoretical versus 33 and 35 they're much more outcomed driven but again it we don't have to change it just wanted to find out >> one of one of the answers could be 32 could be quantitative measures >> sure but the question doesn't it question is more theoretical more theory >> theoretical >> yeah what was 33 35 35. We will What was the vote? >> Um 32 had four votes, 33 got three, 34 had two, and 35 had three. >> Oh, 33. Okay. Now, if we think the answer could be more outcome based, that's fine. It like I said, just wanted to check with everybody. Keep in mind, you might be reading it a certain way and just because like you might ask the question and they might surprise you with how they're answering and it could they could give you both responses and so it might actually be beneficial >> to have something that's not so prescriptive. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. No, that's fair. >> And we can always go ahead and ask them for examples. Yeah, we can always ask them for specific examples with numbers, >> right? >> Uh, we're not doing follow-ups, are we? >> The subcommittee, I think we're going to talk about that next week when we look at schedules, >> okay, as to how much room you want if you want clarifying follow-ups only or a a deeper probe followup. Um, you do have flexibility with the way you're conducting round one that you normally wouldn't have >> otherwise setting. So you certainly could and I think the three of you um will find a time to visit with director loot and myself. >> Uh I would like to advocate for a question number 36 because it might be not popular but at the same time there is a specific goal. How many people voted for 36? >> So I've heard someone advocating for 36 and 38. How the board feels about that? 37 and >> 37 >> would it not that in some of >> uh 37 feels familiar to seven >> I do think 36 is different and 38 is different. So we could add both of those or combine them somehow. This is really up to you as a board. Whatever you'd like to do. >> I voted for 36. So we if you could add that I also did. So you know go for it. >> I was just going to do a quick time check. I am sort of at my limit. Is there anything that I would be missing if I were to leave at this point? >> All I need is to collect the questions. I think the fact that you had a chance to identify that the questions you felt were best suited for round one is more than enough. This is the very last thing we're doing tonight. So >> it is curriculum night at the high school. So it's a really important point. Yes. >> Yep. Thank you, Alicia. >> I missed which question got the most um votes between 13 and 18. >> Between 13 and 18. >> Yeah. >> All right. Question. 13 had one, 14 had two, 15 had six, 16 had one, 17 got three, and 18 got two. >> Okay, so 15 was the one there. Okay, >> 15. >> Yes. >> Can I mention something since Sheila brought it up? Thank you. Thank you. >> In those questions 13 through 18, when I looked at 15 and 18, I was wondering if there was a way to bring both of those together. Um because in 18, if you look at word number 1 2 3 4 5 and six in that >> I'll underline it. I think I think having that concept in the other question is important. >> Word four, five, and six, those words could be woven into question 15 pretty easily. Is that okay with everybody? Okay. So, I'm going to review the questions I've circled and we didn't land yes or no on a couple that were advocated for, but at this point, I am looking at question one. 7 12 15 with those words included from 18. So 15 21 25 29 32 uh and the end of question 39 woven into question seven on the back page. those last couple of words. Um, question 42 and on the last page, question one, three, seven, and 10. Okay, there's one more I wanted to talk about. Um, board colleagues, number 35. Um, this is something that we did face as a district and I wonder if it would be worthwhile to include something around that. >> There were three votes for 35. >> I had that 35 circle too. >> That is something in a recent history that we've dealt with. Yep. Am I seeing a majority of the board saying yeah question 35 should be included or not? Okay, I'm seeing nods so I will circle 35. >> This conflict is between >> No, can't do that. >> No, I'm I'm I'm trying to I'm asking clarifying question. >> So when you talk about through a challenging conflict, >> what which conflict is this? This would be someone's experience where they've managed to navigate something that has challenged them and they're they're going to share what that was from their own experience. >> It could be any conflict. >> It could be any. >> Okay. Yeah, that's fine. >> You'd be surprised what people will share when you ask them things like that. >> That brings us to I believe about 14 questions. By adding that one, I did not include the 36, 37, or 38 that someone had mentioned. Liking those as well. This is your chance to include them if you'd like. Sorry, this is a good number of questions. I I think they're pretty in-depth. Now, if you remember from the application, those were pretty and then round one, we're getting down closer, but round two would be very specific scenario questions, maybe um a presentation of some kind. So, it's going to get more specific in the second round as well. But, thank you for doing this because I think it's important the full board had input on the questions that this committee is going to be asking. >> Can I ask one? >> Yes. from 36 to 41. The topic is quite important and I feel like there are should be two questions taken. >> So which one would you like to include? Possibly. >> I would like to I mean I would like to know which of the questions had closest ones obvious which we made this >> 36 had three >> 37 had one 38 had three had three 40 had one and 41 had three. So basically 38 39 and 41 between them would be nice to choose if it's >> 36 38 39 41. They all had three correct. >> What's the total number of questions you're up to right now? Barb >> 13. >> It's getting long. >> Let's have one plus 13. I will do whatever this board directs me to do. >> Did we take a portion of 39 and put it into another one? >> Seven. >> The last >> I think. Yeah. So, we have two in this bucket. >> Sort of two, but >> the last six words or so from 39. I made an arrow to go over to question seven on the second page. I do not have any other ones circled. uh 36 through 41 and I only have seven circled on the second page. >> And again, this is for round one. >> Round one. >> So, we still have an opportunity in round two to follow up on things. Okay. I'm okay with it the way that we've um that we've decided already. So, would you like to have a not >> We have already 14 questions, right? So, >> it's 14 right now. Let me check. One, two. >> I think we have 14. 13 or 14. Three, >> four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 right now. >> Okay. Thank you. >> That is all I had for the board tonight. Thank you for your time and attention. I know it was a lot, but I really do appreciate it, and I'm very excited to meet with you again next week. I will be sending you something on Friday to indicate which candidates ABCD, etc. that we have taken the deepest looks at and are recommending as your semi- finalists. However, please call me from when you receive that list until Monday night because I think it's Monday. I'm coming back um with questions about these individuals if you'd like to. I cannot share in an open meeting why or why not some things that might identify those folks. But I'm happy to answer your questions if you call me one. Weekends are fair game. So, do reach out and I can't wait to see you um next week. >> Barb, was there anything that needed a vote this evening? >> Usually, this is all done by consensus. >> Okay. >> In our experience, unless some boards um have the formality of wanting to take an action on something, they certainly may. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> And you want this back, right? >> That reminds me of one thing. May I share one final thing? I am so sorry. During the deliberation scenarios, I meant to mention something that very is very important and we'll talk about it again, which is when you are deliberating, obviously we're using positive comments about our candidates um because they've been in the public eye. Uh we also would encourage the board to share your authentic feelings about who is the strongest and if it is clear that you are perhaps in a minority of who is going to be selected by the board as a whole, you have the option to change your vote to support the will of the board. Uh, it used to be that candidates would not walk into a split board. That was pretty clear. And it say if it's a split decision, thank you. I'm going to respectfully decline the opportunity. It's more common now for people to come into a split board because it's becoming more common to have split boards. It is simply very um it's a good show of unity to the community, to the candidates. Uh if you can come out of this with a 70 vote, not required. You need a majority vote to hire someone. It is simply a very good idea to get to a unanimous vote if you are able to do so. The message it sends is very powerful. But I wanted to mention that during deliberations and I forgot. I'm sorry. Now I'm done. >> You want these back, right? >> I do want the questions back please. >> Okay. Thank you Barb and thank you Dave. Thank you colleagues. I guess this concludes the Visetta Public Schools special regular board meeting. The next regular school board meeting will be on Monday, February 9th. The time is now 7:15. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So move second. >> Moved and seconded. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppos? Nay. The motion carries. The Visetta Public Schools Board of Education special regular meeting for Monday, February 4th, 2026 is adjourned.