Thank you, Eric. The New Jersey public speeding law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with this provision of this
act, the Belvadier Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place thereof posted with the Star Ledger and Express Times and submitted to the town clerk of the town of Belvier on May 16th, 2025. Just amend that to
May 28th. I'm sorry, I skipped that when I May 28th of 2025. That was submitted. The meeting will be livereamed at www.belvierd.org. Flag salute,
please. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Roll call. Oh, wait. Mission statement.
Sorry. The mission of the Belvadier School District is to celebrate our past and empower our future while focusing on the four cornerstones of our district, tradition, excellence, academics, and community. We strive to build confidence and promote collaboration. We encourage
an equal partnership with our students and staff as well as its community members. We empower everyone to develop the best version of themselves. The Belvier School District is committed to shaping students into global citizens who take initiatives for their success and contribute to the continued
excellence of the district. Our students are leaders in the decision-making process of their education and will be prepared to excel in a 21st century society. Roll call, please. Mr. Blum, here. Mrs. Cone, here. Dr. Zepath, here. Mrs. Duckworth, here. Mr.
Scott, here. Miss Stephen, here. Miss Walton here. Mrs. Wer, Miss White, Mr. Cherelli here, Mrs. Gardella here, Mrs. Robotham here. Okay, so we are going to move on to our superintendent search process with
Kathleen Helawa. Thank you. Um, how would you like for me to press everybody over there? Okay, great. Okay. Thank you so much for having me on a Friday night. So very impressive. Okay,
I think this is working. Okay, great. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Shelley. All right, so I'm really I really do appreciate tremendously the opportunity to walk with you through this process. And uh in speaking with Melissa, I know we have some uh other work to do
tonight, but I figured what could we we both figured what would be helpful is to just outline what the steps are in this process. Uh especially for your stakeholders to know. Um, as you know, and I see the nice popup on your website, which is great. I'm going to be
spending the day in your district um, this coming week on Wednesday, I think it is, and we'll be meeting and speaking with your stakeholders. So, I will go over this a little bit more in detail. Um, but knowing that people will be watching this and listening to this who may not attend those sessions, I think
this is going to be helpful. These are the steps that we're going to walk through right until um you appoint your superintendent. The first one is to advertise. Um and we'll talk more about what you guys are looking for and that will make it into the advertisement.
I'll also be recruiting. So that'll be a a number of weeks there. Um and the input gathering sessions, that's another step that I take care of for you. Um, I have a survey that goes out to everybody and also we'll do those live sessions
that I believe uh, Superintendent Kuruba mentioned to you that we'll be doing um, on Wednesday. And while those things are going on and the applicants start coming in, I'll be interviewing them. I want to
get a little ground under my feet to see like what the concerns are here, what the strengths are here, talk to you guys about what you're really looking for. So that when I spend that time with those applicants one- on-one in what I call a preliminary interview, it's very
conversational and it's remote. Um I can focus in on the areas that are going to be important for Belvadier, right? So that's going on. You guys are going about your busy lives doing your thing while I'm working on that. You don't have to worry about any of that
business. Um, but when we get together again next, it's going to be a big meeting. That is where you're going to select what how many of all those people who applied are most interesting to you to meet with for first round interviews.
Um, I showed you a copy of like a report that I prepare to help you make those decisions. I will have talked to everybody by then and interviewed them. I'll have a short list for you to consider. But in that meeting, we'll go over everybody and all of their
materials and this board will make the decision on whom to interview. And then I'll set up the interviews. We do three rounds of interviews and we winnow them down, you know, as we go through. You guys make all those decisions, but I'm there to help walk you through it. Um,
and when we're down to a finalist, the next step after that, which may be done concurrently with the step listed uh afterwards on this slide, is the reference check. The reference checks that I assist my boards with are very
robust. And I want people to know, and I always explain this to candidates as well, and this is how I do every one of my searches, so it's it's nothing new, but each board member will be calling somebody about this candidate. We will
use supplied references that they give me and I will also fret it up some nonsupplied references. And there is a little box on the application that every applicant is going to check that gives us the ability to do that. We do it
judiciously. It's not a witch hunt or anything, but we talk to supplied and non-supplied references. And I think that that's important. Um, while that's going on, and that has to be successful for your for your appointment to go through, but while that's going on, oftentimes you're in contract
negotiations as well. Um, the applicant understands that the reference check has to be successful in order for the board to offer them employment, but there's no reason why we can't kind of get all the details ironed out while we're doing the reference check. Some boards do them
concurrently, some do one before the other. We'll talk about that and what makes the most sense for Belvadier. Um, when you have a successful reference check and a successfully negotiated contract, your executive county superintendent needs to approve that.
And after all of that work is done, the board will appoint the next superintendent in public session um in either a regularly scheduled meeting of the board or if it behooves the board and it's best for your timeline, you can
call a special meeting just for that purpose. Okay, so those are the basic steps. You'll also notice on the bottom of this slide, uh, you know, at the bottom at that last one, it says, um, you know, your new superintendent's start date, hello, is not necessarily,
in fact, it's not the same as the appointment date. Your superintendent, incoming superintendent, will likely have an exit clause in their contract that they'll have to honor. It could be 60 days, it could be 90 days, it might even be different from that. Every once in a while, a board will give them kind
of leeway on that. We don't really know. It's too soon to say what that's going to look like, but I did want to put that out there so that there's no confusion. So, oh yeah, we appoint in I don't know, August and we'll have somebody in September. No, probably not. So, this is
the basic outline. I wonder if there's any questions on that. Okay, that's a good plan. Thank you. Thank you. I've done this before. I can tell I have and I like doing it. It's rare that I talk about it on a Friday night. So, kudos to the board for
getting together for this, but yeah, that's the plan. And we're going to be doing a lot of working together, a lot of talking. And this search is, as standardized as these steps are, the search is unique to Belvadier. This is going to be very different from the North Caldwell search, which is going to be very different from the Stillwater search. So, I'm really looking forward
to diving in with you guys on this. All right. So, thank you. What would be your target number of candidates for a first round? Well, I don't like to set that in stone, right? Because we don't know who's going to apply, but
uh since you asked, I think eight is kind of a nice number to think about, but we'll see. We'll see how many people apply, how many people are attractive. Sometimes we do 10. I don't think I've ever done more than 10 to be honest with you. I'd have to go back in my files,
but eight's not a bad number. And if it's less than that, if it's six, okay, that's no problem. You know, you don't want to get too narrow because, you know what? If they all bomb the first interview, if you only if you're only considering three people and none of them knock your socks off, then what do
you do? You know what I mean? So, thank you. Anything else? All right. Okay. So, next up, Melissa, what would you like for me to um forgive me to to speak about for the
uh searcher? Are we going into public comment first because I know we have some work to do in executive session as well. Start talking about a generalized calendar. Yes, this would be good if All right, we can start thinking. Okay. And if you'll forgive me, I'm going to put down the microphone. I'm going to give you guys a worksheet.
You could sit down too. I would love that. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want to switch slides? No, I think this this will, you know, maybe maybe I should
actually. Um, if you guys wouldn't mind just kind of passing these around. Um, let's do that. Well, I need to go back into my little and see where steps
All right. I'm gonna actually use this. Is it on? Thank you so much. All right. Okay. So, what I think you all are about to have or what you do have is um pretty
much a copy of what was in those folders that I gave you the first time that we met. And that and now we get to fill in the blanks, which should be very satisfying, right? So, this is we I'd like to get a range of dates that's
going to work for each of these steps. So, um, if you look at the first line, um, on the thing where it says Birch Board of Firms, the search calendar in the advertisement, we can kind of fill that in with today, right? And I'll get
you guys a a completed copy of this for your records after we do it. We'll talk about the ad later. The surveys I'll work with Chris on, we'll talk about that later. The application deadline, we'll talk a little bit about later. What I'd like to do is work from the
very bottom. And that is when you think that might be a good a good target date for your superintendent to start. That's kind of determines the way
things best work. That's typically how I do these. Now, I took the liberty of this afternoon of look of examining my calendars and trying to look at something that would be the most um efficient process for you to get
somebody in as quickly as possible, right? And I don't mean to say quickly like we're going to rush. Obviously, there's a lot of steps and you're going to be doing a lot of work. But if we do all that work in this way, I think we can I think we can move through this throughout the summer. And
I think that it would be pretty gratifying also to the people who work here and your students and your community to know, okay, we've got somebody coming in sooner rather than. So I'm looking at an appointment during
August and we can get there and we can get there. The way to do that is to run the advertisement. We'll talk about what that's going to look like pretty soon from June 2nd until the 29th. We run it through June. I don't like a shorter
window than that. I think 2 weeks, especially at this time of year, is too crazy. I like to recruit for you, too. And I need some time to call people and get them to start thinking about, you know, whether leadership in this district is a match for them or not. And
that takes longer than two weeks to do, quite frankly. So, that's a nice four-week window. as those applicants are coming in, I'm interviewing them, all that stuff. We're going to probably get a rush of people at the last day. I always get more applicants on the last
day than any other day. And then I'll have a week to review them, to interview them, to prepare that report for you on the pluses and minuses of each of the candidates, and we will meet. So, the
way I have this calendar scheduled is I'm focusing on two days. Saturdays and Wednesdays and I'm following the example of the Dover Board of Education. It's very um frequent that I do what's called the pool delivery where we talk about
all the candidates and you look through the candidate pool and you decide who you want to meet on a Saturday. That happens a lot. Um what happened in Dover is they did because we had a very big board with a lot of things going on and it was also during the summer. We
devoted each consecutive Saturday to the search and we did all of our interviews on Saturdays. So that being said, I have us propo I'm proposing to meet on Saturday, July 19th. In fact, I have this on here. Why don't I just look at
this so I don't have to keep backwards. Um well, July 19th from 9:30 until about 2:00. And that would allow for six interviews. Six interviews. I also propose holding Wednesday the 23rd as a
backup knowing that you guys meet on Wednesday, so that's probably a decent day to to target. And the reason why this would be good to hold in our back pocket is if one of your top candidates can't make a Saturday um in Dover, unfortunately, we had to leave a couple
people on the cutting room floor because they couldn't make it. It was what it was. But we can avoid that here in Belvadier, hopefully. And um another thing too is if you have more than six candidates, you could easily do two interviews in one night easily or four
and get it up to 10. So I I like that plan. Um second round interviews and we'll go to the next Saturday. This would be a longer day most likely because the second round of interviews is I got to be honest with you, they
typically go for 90 minutes, right? I don't want them to go more than that, but the conversation really gets going. There's a lot to cover. It's a crucial round and I like to allow for 90 minutes for those. So, if we were to meet from 9:30 to 4, that would allow for four
robust interviews and lunch. Um, and also we could hold Wednesday, July 30th, as a backup. You could easily do one or even two interviews on that night. I wouldn't I got to be honest with you. I
wouldn't want to do three. That's too much. It's exhausting. Um third rounds, they're shorter. They're also very important though. So, I'm thinking, you know, Saturday, August 2nd, we could start at 9:30. I don't know what time
we'll end. We don't know how many people will make it to the third round. Um and again, holding the sixth as a backup. Now, I have in brighter red, we could even, depending on how this goes, um, let's just say you interview folks on
July 26th, and there's one or two real standouts that you're very serious about, especially if it's only one person. Maybe we could even do this on Wednesday the 30th, the the Wednesday right after the Saturday, because most
typically a third round interview is not a lot of bells and whistles. and you know your presentations that you have your candidates do if that's something that the board would like which I think is a worthy endeavor most often would happen in that second round and the third round
is just tying up loose ends anything that you guys really need to know before you vote and that typically is an hour or less so those are the dates that I'm thinking would work for interviews and as all that happens right if we're if
we're going to be really efficient I I think I mentioned earlier you could do the reference check and the contract negotiations concurrently. So, I'm being very optimistic here and I'm thinking and there's no reason not to be optimistic to be honest with you um that
we can get those done either depending on when that third round interview is by August 8th or by August 15th. Now, it's somewhere in code or statute or wherever that the county office,
which needs to approve these contracts, I believe has 20 working days to do that. Um, and one of the reasons why you guys should be one of the other reasons why you should be be grateful for living in Warren County is you have one of the
best county offices out there. Dr. Lamonte is amazing and I wouldn't want to hold her to it, but if she's not on vacation and she's willing um and there's nothing kooky in your contract, which I this is Belvadier, you're not
going to have that, right? Um she could if we submit it by August 18th, I think we could have that done within the week. I really do. Or less. I mean, she's just astonishing. But we don't know. I don't know when she's going to be around. Life throws little wrinkles at us. But if
that were to happen, once you get that county approval, um you could already have your date advertised and you appoint in mid August, right? And depending on who you get, um if they have a 60-day or 90-day notice is the
most common out uh that I see. Um if you have a 60-day notice, then they can start in mid-occtober. or if you have a 90day then your incoming superintendent this is imagining an external person can start in
November. Okay. So that's the prep work that I did coming into this and I'm wondering if there are any concerns with this if there are any thoughts or questions about how workable this calendar.
I've never done this. You're the You're the man. All right. I like that. That sounds good. Does Well, I guess the the the question is, are Saturdays workable for everybody?
The first one, the 19th, I can do Saturday, but I can't be here till 10:30. So, you can either start at 9:30 without me or start at 10:30. That's fine. There's a 5K in town at 9:00. So, after that. Oh, okay. Good. Okay. Well, maybe we either push the start back. If the 5k is in town, we can push the start
time back. I still get to school. Figured we'd talk about the dates like in a second more so to I think the big I think the biggest question is is everybody willing to do a few Saturdays in a row. Like is that is that doable on people's calendars? I know people have
kids, people have, you know, commitments that they can't always have somebody else take care of them for them. So I think our biggest pull is as a whole Can you say confidently you could make, you know, most of those Saturdays or
would we be looking at splitting it up? I mean, like round one, you're talking maybe three nights in a week to make it all happen or two nights in a week as we get narrowed down or a Saturday, you know, that's not as long and do the
Wednesday. like I like we need to kind of come together as to what's going to make the most sense and most available for most of the members. Yes, very well said. I think you know part of a Saturday and Wednesday evenings are are
feasible. If you said 9 to5 on Saturday, different. But um my one question is in your past having done searches, have you had a similar timeline where you were working through summer months? Absolutely. And and had
this is consistent with experience. Yeah. This is this is except for the Wednesdays on hold. This is how do it, right? Um and theirs was in the summer months. Yes. Yes, it was. and and and it worked out well. Um on the reverse side,
tried to do this with another district, but everyone's vacations were all over the place and we just wound up banging through September. And I don't that was a little much. It was much for the candidates. It was a little much with
everything going on. It it I wouldn't we could do it, but it's more frenetic. You know what I mean? So So I was going to bring that up. I I don't have any patience planned and I fine for me. But if we do commit to a
Saturday and a Wednesday for the entire month of July and all of these dates in August, it's really no vacations for any of us. So, we have to commit to that. I mean, a couple of days here and there, but we're not leaving like Saturday night and coming back a Friday. Mhm.
I I just wanted to point that out because we have a meeting at a fine restaurant. Would that be I would love that. Right. Maybe we'll Yeah, we'll open it for down the shore, right? Yeah. That would be a hard pass. Yeah, I'm just throwing it out there. So, I mean,
I like that. You know, if we wanted to hold both of those days, it is twice a week for the entire summer. I think we've signed up to do this and our responsibility to do it. So, whatever I I'll do whatever every but like you me I have nothing
planned. I'll do whatever you need to do. Wednesdays, Saturdays, Mondays at 4, it doesn't matter. I'll do anybody everybody else. Beautiful. Thank you. Is there anyone who's concerned about it? If there's is
there anyone who's saying nope, this is not going to work for my family and me. looking at those exact dates. August 13th is the only one that's not possible for me at all. But next the next meeting August 20th is our regularly scheduled board meeting anyway. So great. Okay. It doesn't have to be a Wednesday either.
We could do a Monday that work Thursday or Yeah, absolutely. I figured Wednesdays are, you know, our target. We just she just started with like right a range so that we can have a starting point since like none of us have ever really done this. Right. Yeah. And the
nice thing about doing a Saturday, if it's nice to hear that you're all willing because I I I'm very pleasantly surprised to hear that are limited in the summer. It's less but it's less meetings, right? Like like for the first I like if you notice on this thing um I
say hold three dates for your first that can be a little much you know coming out in addition to your regular committee meetings, your regular board meetings. So, we kind of bang them all out on a Saturday and god forbid somebody can't make it, you know, candidate-wise, we'll, you know, put them in on the
Wednesday. I I I'm kind of feeling I know Saturdays are not always ideal, but I feel like we have those meetings in our standing board meeting. I feel like we have a lot to talk about over the summer that if we sprinkle more of these interviews during
the week, we're not going to have any time with home. Yeah, I agree. I think this if everybody could do Saturdays. I rather get it all. Are these Saturdays going to be rainy or sunny? Well, I'm going to have them sunny when
we leave. There you go. When we leave. So, my only issue by then, right? I mean, I personally middle of August isn't even an issue because the third rounds are in the beginning of August. So, that's the only Yeah, we're
good. Well, I because when we we talked earlier about what like we needed and I felt like if we could get like just basic weeks on it'd be a great starting point for all of us to have this discussion as opposed to sometime between now and November like that was
that was blowing my mind. So, I thought if she could put something together like this and you did a great job on that, it'd give us a starting point and then we could obviously if one week was horrible for majority of the board, then we adjust it if we need to. And then my
other question is, so if we had an issue, we had a hiccup, we had things took longer, what, Chel, what is the time frame that if we needed to squeeze another meeting in that it needs to be posted? What's the the legal advertisements take five days to go in
five business days? So I would need to have no and then five days out get it on. Okay. Okay. Great. Just so that we have an idea because if we had two other candidate like something just changed or right what wiggle room we had. I think
you know possibly by the end of the night like you guys are going to nail out each one individually. I don't I don't think it's a problem that we can advertise our whole list. We could put tentative and then just post
on the superintendent search section of the website that this particular meeting is is canceled, canceled, whatever. So that way we already have them all advertised and we're ready to go and then but the public can always just look on the website to know whether we're doing it or not. And I think the other thing possibly mentioned through all of
these it'll be a public board me board meeting that we're going to advertise because we are we're doing this as a whole board of 12 where a lot of times boards do this just as committee and then you don't have to advertise the meeting but the agendas will be there'll
be a public participation because there's required but the whole entire meeting will be executive. Um so they'll be kind of set up and more informal. We're not going to live stream um because we're not going to have all that set up because there just be the board coming in and interviewing the candidates and
executives, right? And we'll put a little asterisk on the website that explains that too. Um but just so that understanding that Yes. No sense. There's no sense coming out on a Saturday. Yeah. And Kathleen, could you explain why interviews are done in exec?
Oh, absolutely. Well, New Jersey is one of the states where that's, you know, this is confidential information, right? So, the board is elected to do this job and the board is the one that makes the decision. So, um that really lends itself very nicely to the
confidentiality that candidates expect. Um, and you probably may remember like years ago, um, there were it was it was a thing to like have and I'm talking years ago like be I started working for NJSBA in 2016 and we didn't do it at
this time where you'd have committee member like you know someone from the community or an administrator or this or that come in and be part of the interview process. That is not the industry standard at all now. Um, and that does cause concern for the
candidates and oftenimes they'll ask me just to make sure because only one person can get the job and most of the people in the pool do not tell their board or their employer that they are looking elsewhere, you know. So that's
the reason for that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else have any questions about the process or the advertisement? Is it typically that four weeks? Because there's something in my brain that was saying that we discuss two versus four
versus, you know, if they're going to apply, they're going to apply. They're ready and waiting to apply now. They people know it's available. I I so glad you brought this up because was not a bad thing because it's get them in, get them. I disagree with the sentiment that
if they're going to apply, they're going to apply. Um, and I say that because a lot of times I'll call candidates. I say, "Guess what's open?" and they don't know, right? Or someone from someone who doesn't work in this area, but who lives within a reasonable commute who wants to
do something like that who doesn't know, right? So, that helps my recruiting. Um, and it's true that a lot of times people are aware of what's going on, especially those who are local. But another thing is I ask for a pretty robust application
package. I'll ask for a cover letter and a resume and I have them fill out an application which is a real pain in the tail but it's got all your legal questions on it and protects the board. Um, and I also ask for their two most recent performance
evaluations. And that takes some time to get together. And it's the end of school, so it's already um a pretty active time in the life of the people who are going to be applying for this. Um, the standard when I worked at NJSBA
doing these things, and I still abide by it myself is five weeks. I think that's a pretty good one. There have been cases where we have a smaller window, but um the one that I'm thinking of like there was a big leadup to that. The
superintendent had announced that they were going to resign at like the beginning of the academic year and everybody was kind of fluttering around like fireflies around a campfire trying to figure and that wasn't an issue. But most of the time, you know, the extra
time and the advertisement does a good job. And I want to also make it plain to the board, which I think has already been made plain, that if they're if we go through the candidates and you interview them and none, they're kind of
lackluster or even at the second round, you're just like, I don't know what happened, but they're not fits. Then we go back and get somebody. But that is probably not going to happen. And the reason why I'm confident to say that
that's not going to happen is because we will have cast a wide net and you'll have a fair amount of applicants to choose from. And if we short change the advertising time, you're just not like I just don't believe in the philosophy like ah let's and I'm not saying that this is the philosophy of it. Ah, let's
just see who applies. If it's not good, then we'll just advertise. Again, that's not a good look for the board, right? to advertise quickly because like what they can't get anybody well maybe not right um maybe I should and it's also just a lot of energy like you want to do two
pool deliveries you know do you want to do two rounds of no you know so I think that frontloading the time on the advertisement will pay off in the end thanks for the question but I I do agree one of the people that we interviewed to
do it said that like because I think other of us had that I had too that one of the vendors that we interviewed said I'm completely Yeah. I thought so. A lot of us were like, "Wait, yeah, right." Yeah. So, I'm glad you asked. Yeah.
Thanks for that. But I I feel pretty strongly. I mean, I work for you, so you guys tell me. If you say, "Nope, we're going to do two week." I'll work with it. But I just think it's better. All right. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Right. So, if the dates on this slide work, what I'll do
is I'll take my electronic version of that thing that I just handed to you. Um, you don't even have to copy them down off of this and you'll have it for your records and and Shel, you'll know what dates to advertise. All right, that was beautiful. Thank you. Okay, great.
Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Yes. Oh, that's a great idea. I wrote it down. I can Yeah, I can just sh I can just Google share this with all of you. Or Shel, you can just kind of You have it already. You can pass it along. And we I can share this out.
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Done. All right. Beautiful. Yeah. All right. Did you get it? We're not done. Don't go anywhere. Don't get out. Step on. Step on. Yay. That's an important step. Don't leave, Bob. We're not done. Nope. All right. I'd also like speaking of the
advertisement, we are going to talk about the advertisement, right? So, I think is now a good time. Yeah, we start. Yeah, we'll start. Okay. All right. Pass these puppies. Yeah. I was going to say I'll give you some for that side.
Much. So, what I have here that the board is is going to be examining and working off of is what I call um the uh advertisement template. And in a folder that I distributed when we were first
talking about this process, I had sample advertisements of that I put together. I could even bring some up on the screen, I'm sure, if we needed to see them. But I think you guys got a good vibe for what the advertisements should look like. Um, and I write the verbiage and
make sure that the board likes it. Um, but what I need to know is what you guys are looking for initially, right? You I can't write it myself. I could try, but I don't think that that would be a good um I I think that would be shortch
changing the board, so I don't want to do it. Um, so the first thing is, you know, you'll know number one, okay, this is a superintendent search. Looks good. Um, and then describing the district. Um, you probably know from the ads that
I write that I do give a little feel for what the community is going to be like so that people can match themselves. You know, sometimes I I frankly sound like a real estate agent in those parts of the ad, but it's it's all good. I'm trying
to get, you know, people who would be good fits to consider the district and people who are excellent leaders. So why you know some of the qualities that describe Belvadier um and the Belvadier school district. So talk to me about those things. What are the ideas we have
there? I'm going to be there's no wrong answers but yes the word tradition comes from tradition. I like that. I I agree. I when I think of Belvadier School
District I and the kids I think of a heart a lot of heart here beautiful community it's a smaller yes close net community beautiful
thank you I I must say like going on your website and looking at at how you have your mission statement lined up is a beautiful thing like you guys did a great job on and you read your mission. So you have that's good stuff. Um a
vibrance program. I know we're very strong agricult. Sure. That's a Yeah. You you have um FFA here, right? I want to say that we're a town, but we're in the country. It's kind of how that describes Belvar. We're in a town, but
you're in the midst of the cows as well. Yes. And the tractor. You saying we're stinky? We're wellrounded. Still short. We'reound. I'm just saying. We have cable and indoor plumbing. All right.
I'm going to leave that out though. You know, if they ask me, I'll tell them. That's good to know. But one thing that one thing that always strikes me, and we've talked about it multiple times at board letters or board meetings, we've even gotten letters about our board is how active our kids are in the community. like our kids go out and are
helpful and like so I don't know what would best sum that up but our kids are productive people in our community. Our kids are involved in the community affairs like they're the Lions Club. There's a Lions Club. Oh, beautiful. Not that you would put it in the advertisement but for context.
There's a requirement the kids have to complete 20 hours of community service and that sets it apart. So we're instilling a value of community as well. No, I don't mind putting that in the ad because I'm just giving context for you to work with. I think that that's
lovely. That's pretty distinguishing. We promote community service maybe to our students and they do it. They they and they go above and beyond. Yes. People say so many great things about our students in the community, especially for the small number of
students there are. Okay. Beautiful. All that stuff is great. Is there anything that jumps out at you that we didn't talk about? I'll read it to you all. A traditional a lot of heart, small, close-knit
community, strong agriculture education with future farmers, um, rural in the country, well-rounded, kids are active in the community, productive, helpful. You instill community service, and your kids go above and beyond. I I think
maybe sell it even a little bit more in the sense of like agriculturally FFA has been recognized in a national level and national. Yeah. Beautiful. So I think that's something definitely to brag about. Beautiful. And I don't know how you
would write it in an ad, but you know our bowling team in on its first full year is state champions and that was studentdriven requests. Yes. Right. Not that I want to like highlight any specific sport, but the fact that they
stepped out and said, "We want this. They got the support and they executed." One of the things that's I think is really important about our school district and the kids here is you can be on the state bowling team and the
national FFA award winner and the field hockey team, right? You're not just an athlete or a farmer. It's a well-rounded piece, right? It's a it's okay to be all of them. You're wellrounded. Well, maybe vibrant growing programs, something like
that. Yeah. Like, but that shows a lot of leadership in our kids. And you're right, like we've got an FFA student who's a a Leo, an officer, and she's a dancer and a strong academic student. Like, that is pretty diverse. Wow. Yeah.
Wow. and just a good kid. Maybe so they can explore their diverse interests, right? Yes. Excellent. Okay. Beautiful. Thank you. Anything else that jumps out at
you? All right. Good, good, good stuff. So, the next is kind of like the black and white district facts, your configurations. Um, I have number of buildings. I know you have two schools. Is that accurate? number of buildings. Okay. Um in one really Oh, okay. All
right. Well, you know what? I'm going to put two schools because it is two distinct schools, right? So, it used to be two connected. Well, you know what? I I you know, easy for me to say I don't have to maintain it and it's
Yes. And it's a it is a beautiful I love your building like driving up to it. It's connected by the cafeteria back. Yeah. One facility, two schools. Well, we won't get into like the, you know, wings and all that. Two schools, I
think. It's building one building. One building, two schools. Two school. Well, I could say two schools in one building. And never go outside. Two schools in one building. How's about that? Okay. All right. And it's just such a beautiful structure. It's really like
very historic. I love it. Architectural. Uh, okay. So, enrollment, I don't know if you know that, Shelly, off the top of your Okay, you can get that to me. Um, and then like other like interesting little facts about the different districts. So, clearly having a 12
member board of education is pretty interesting. um hope white. I'm not even saying I'm not saying any anything um you know that they wouldn't find out but it's just you know that you guys are able to work together as a 12 member
board is pretty cool. Um Hope White and Harmony also you know that dynamic. Is there those are noteworthy? Anything else that's kind of I don't think so but am I missing something? The only other thing that is hanging out there is a regionalization study was
just completed. Yeah. and we're putting it off for like a year or two or whenever the state gets her act together. But that is that could be right. There's definitely an interest and that could come to fruition at some point during this person's tenure. Okay, good point. Yeah, any of the options,
right? And you wouldn't even want to name them because there's like Okay, and that'll be a big point during interviews, I'm sure. And we can talk a little bit more about that in search progresses. Okay. Might be a good selling point.
This could be a superintendent regional district as opposed to we need somebody really good. Yes. Really re not just good. We need somebody great. All
right. So, that being said, um you know, there's a lot of people can do the job. There have been superintendents elsewhere, but there there's different skill sets, right? And there's a ton that are really important for every superintendent to have, but
what do you want um to focus in on? What sorts of areas of expertise um are we looking at? Now, sometimes I see I hear strong in curriculum. Um when I'm doing a regional high school, I'll hear strong
in high school programming. Um when I it might be you know strong you know financial acumen, it could be organizational skills, community engagement. What jumps out at you guys as we start to talk about this special
education. Okay. I think community since that's such a core value and uh accountability. Yeah. Ability to proven ability to hold
accountable. Yeah. Hold people accountable. That is huge. I'm not sure how you want to say that. I'll word smith it out. Um proactive instead of reactive. Yes. Beautiful. I think um long-term and shortterm strategic planning.
Okay. Communication. I think understanding also how to evaluate the work that you do like outcome monitoring typical like check act how smart goals like I don't know if that's PI
quality but that's really well I'm thinking we can kind of combine that statement with the long and shortterm planning like someone who has an eye on, you know, who knows how to set goals but also knows how to execute them, right? Evaluate. Yeah. So, execute
and evaluate goals, right? Maybe some creative problem solving. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I've got a a big list already, so I might just cut you off here.
Um but what I have here um special education community accountability proven um meaning the proven ability uh proven ability to hold people accountable um proactive not reactive long and short-term
planning expert at communication um executing and evaluating goals um creative problem solving. So I'll work those kind of ins. I hate to throw one more in, but I feel like it's really important is uh curriculum academic. Um I just feel like
our our test scores and um I think that's somewhere where we our Sure. And and I've got that on the list and and that I think is going to come up in my next couple of questions. Right.
So we're now we're so those are qualities, right? skill sets but I also want to talk about qualifications. So the only required qualification is that they have the right cert right that's kind of it but
is there something that this board wants to make sure that the candidates have in certain districts they say you know superintendent experience or assistant superintendent experience
required a doctorate required um you know in regional high schools a lot of times high school experience required some so now and when we say required um it does narrow the pool it does
narrow the pool so I'm thinking about somebody who um is a director of curriculum that I work with right that I've worked with before um and they do all of the work of as an assistant superintendent but they don't have that title so if we said you know assistant
superended or superintendent experience required then that person really couldn't be considered for this. We just use third. Absolutely. Yes, we can. That's why that's the next part on that on that sheet. So, typically the required stuff is a little thin, right?
Um, in the searches that I've been doing, the search is a is a given, but sometimes required teaching experience shows up here because you do not need to have teaching experience to get the
cert. Most people do, but there are a number of people that applicants that I've worked with who do not have teaching experience. It's up to the board on whether or not that's important enough to make it a
requirement or not. I would prefer it. I don't know what other people feel like. I feel like it's more relatable because how do you how do you help those in that position if you haven't experienced it? That's my opinion. Required or is it preferred?
Preferred. I would be I would agree with preferred. I'm saying prefer. Yeah. And nobody wanted to add to the required. Right. Right. It's good for me. Awesome. Well, instead of teaching, could we say educational experience because you're getting rid of counselors, people that come up that
don't have they may have years of education. I don't know. That's a little vague, right? So, I can tell you this. a superintendent from Rumson Fair Haven has some classroom teaching experience like as a you know they went in as a substitute or covering or this or that
but that person has a counseling background but they rose to the level of deputy superintendent and I also as part of their application process we asked for um them to supply us redacted copies of their evaluations of educators and
clearly this person knew what they were doing right so I don't know if that person would fit the definition of an educational background because clearly we're not going to have like a banker in here, you know, they would, you know what I mean? So if you say teacher, you're eliminating that person because
they didn't have classroom teaching. Yes. Yes. If you if you make it too tight and that's a requirement that would have eliminated and you're doing it as preferred, so it's still not or strongly preferred. I mean, you know, strong I like strongly preferred because it reflects what you just said for your
staff. Like we want somebody who can relate to you, right? Yeah. We want somebody who knows what you've gone through. You know, want special education certification strongly preferred. I know we talked about depends. They got to check another box,
right? We don't know what that other box is and what qualifications somewhere. That would be a nice box to check. But if they didn't check it, I would But that's why I make it. I would just make Yeah, that's just what I'm All right. So, I'm thinking teaching is going in
strongly preferred or am I just projecting there. Does is strongly preferred good for teaching? I'm okay with just preferred. Just preferred. Okay. Is there anything strongly preferred? Because I'm moving through this methodically. Anything strongly preferred?
So, I would like that they have done this job before. Yeah. I would strongly prefer in my opinion, right? I would strongly prefer that they had some kind of leadership role that administrator. Can we back up to number one? What was number one? Sure.
Position info. No, we can't be quiet. Yeah, but we we had before we had seven different options. Everything we right now we're talking superintendent. Pretty sure that we're hiring a superintendent slash something. Is that we think? Yeah, that's that's they got to check another box. Well, we don't have a budget to
hire a superintendent 100% time. So, that's what I just wonder that shouldn't our ad be that we're hiring a superintendent slash what are you going to say slash? You don't know what slash is. We don't principal of something. We don't know what's principal. We're
dana budget having I don't mean as a number. I just mean that's I mean I'm maybe I'm but I just felt like that was our No, I'm not title. No. So in your because I don't know that this is your standard superintendent search because this is a
three administrator building. But that's part of but that's part of it right from what my understanding is when we first had some of these conversations was that if you do that it limits your search pool whereas if you do like strongly or
you know you're widening what your other option could be not holding you to right so if you if you have somebody who would really fulfill role not only superintendent but role A right you have the flexibility so so you and say, "You
know what? We were considering role B, but this person is role A. We can fill role B in another way." So, that's a board decision and we can do that. But Shelley makes a really important point that I did want to talk to you guys about. Um, this is going to be a dual role. We just don't know what the dual
role is. So, I would like to in for full disclosure for these folks, right, who are going to be applying for it. Um, I think a good place to put it would be in the ad, but even if it's not in the advertisement, I need to talk to them about it when they're applying. Right. I
need I need to say, "Look, are you go through all this effort thinking they're going to come get a super like, you know, a principal that said, I don't want to be a principal anymore. I want to be a superintendent now and then they do all this effort and they apply here and well, you're still going to be a principal of something." Yeah. We don't know why. or someone coming from I mean
I don't even know if this would work out but someone coming from a big district where there's like 90 million they'll be like what you know I thought I was applying for super no you know you do every I mean people figure that out who wind up in this pool but we got to be fair yeah we do that and say
superintendent slash whatever it may change the qualifications well it would that's why the qualifications are not and that's a really good point they're not binding binding like you know that's why the
required stuff is thin here you know we just have that one and then I like to focus on different leadership qualities and things like that but the skill sets you know it's kind of um you know we'll
see who you land on you know what ca what you know what candidates shine that might be in ro this or ro that you know what I mean I'm not saying that I was thinking we shy away from the required, right? But I'm thinking if we can
continue the conversation around the qualifications that we're all kind of already have in mind, then that might help facilitate, you know, you work backwards into, okay, these are the things we we are looking for because we know they're things that we need in our
district. Okay, then now then that leads to filling in question one. If we get rather than forcing into a box, let's get everything on the table and then that will lead us into what that should be. Which then will hand in hand go with
the budget all at the same time saying, "Hey, we're hiring a superintendent." It's also It's also an important point for your community to know, right? Because they know that you're stewards of the of the budget and and you're being responsible here. So,
it's a really great point. Yeah. I just let's finish this and then I think that'll feed more naturally rather than in the inverse. Yeah, because you're right. It is a a dual role. We have to decide what that dual role is. I mean, okay, we hired you as a
superintendent. Oh, and by the way, the person drives the role. Well, maybe we need as a facilitator, right? I will feel obligated, you know, and I know you guys agree with me obviously, is to say to the applicants, look, this is going
to be a dual role. Where it lands is kind of up for grabs and here's why, right? And have that conversation with them and see if they're still interested. And then what those like what those what you're going to consider
will probably really drive a lot of conversations in certainly the second round, right? Um, we'll set the table a little bit in the first round, I'm already thinking about questions that we could ask. Um, and by the third round, you're going to need to know in my humble opinion, right? And and I'm sure
because you're going to be negotiating a contract with this person. So, you know, it's going to be very interesting. So, can I just um I want to even back up further um just really quick um while we're still in open session.
um on the calendar, the proposed calendar, I know that there's a session coming up with community students that we have written down. How do you um provide the board with that feedback? Oh, it's a big report. Okay. So, what
I'm going to do is I will have sneak peek for everybody who's going to come. I'm going to have a a presentation up and then I have some blank slides with a series of questions. And as people answer that, I'm going to be typing it in. I'm going to make sure that what the
people what I'm typing reflects what the participant says. And I basically copy and paste it and put it all into a report. Okay? And then I also analyze what people are saying through the survey and this to come up with what the commonalities are, like what the
different groups are saying that's in common or maybe outliers, but that keep showing up that the board really needs to consider. But you'll have all of that data. Okay. No, thanks for the question. So, would that be best like to meet and
review that? Oh, yeah. Prior So, cuz cuz your your pool deliveries July 16th. So, are we looking at putting in a meeting to meet with you after you get all the data? Yes. So, okay. I will have I mean depending on when the survey closes, I'll have plenty of time I think to put
that report together. Okay. So you will have it in advance and the way it normally works is the first anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour of the pool delivery we talk about that report. Okay. All the same separate meeting. We don't need a separate meeting. I mean
you could you could even do it at a regular board meeting if you wanted to. Yeah. I'd be too soon. Definitely too soon. That's only a week. That's definitely too soon. That's why I'm great with copy and paste. I know. But but the survey like I do percentages.
You'll see it. It's a wonderful chart. And then what I also do is I write a profile. And this this is probably what takes me the most amount of time. Like I really think about what's been showing up, what I know about your district, right? what you guys have told me, what
people have told me live, what shows up in those surveys, and I write a summary, like a character profile of what I think you should be looking for based on, you know, the results, right? It's not just coming out of my head, it's coming out of these results. And that's something
that we also talk about and I do that in executive session as part of the pool delivery. Did I miss anything? Is there something here that's just outright wrong or does this work for everybody? Is this helpful? So, when we're going through the search, we can look back at
that report and keep in mind all of the outcomes of the report and match them up to your And we think that 15 minutes before we start interviewing people is enough. That's what I'm wondering because we have the June 11th meeting and then nothing again. When you're reviewing resumes, that's a full
deliver, right? Yeah. Before All right. You'll have a copy of it before. I have been here every day this week. You guys are You guys are champs. Believe me. So, I'm gonna get you an electronic copy before this thing. Right. So, I know the electronic plenty
of time to look through it. And yeah, and I think 15. If it's 30 minutes, it's 30 minutes. I don't know. However long it takes where I was, right? All right. She was She was thinking it was Saturday on interview day. Oh my god. That would be terrible. Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't catch that. I didn't
catch that. Thank you. Yeah. And you know what? I don't think that there's going to be anything in the report that will surprise you. You're from this community. You know the deal. But it's very interesting to see what the percentages are, right? And it's very interesting to hear what people are
actually saying in response to these questions. All right. So, where were we? Okay. We're on strongly preferred qualifications where we wrote everything up. Um, so I know we said like superintendent or assistant
superintendent would be especially attractive, right? Is that Well, okay. I thought we're looking for administrative experience. I'm Yeah, I said some Well, they have to have some kind of administrative, right? Whether it's supervisor, a director, but they need to have direct reports. They need to have a
proven leadership of their direct reports. Okay. We can see if we heling the money accountable like what we call central office explain, right? But you want somebody with direct reports. That is kind of different. Like not all supervisors have direct their supervisors and that doesn't really help
us out. Yeah. So, but that I can get into when I'm diving into their, you know, so into their individual things like those are the ones that'll be most attractive, but just to avoid a bunch of word soup and all that, I think I could put assistant superintendent assistant
superintendent or or director uh principal ask though like if um like when I think about things that we're required to submit and what our current superintendent signs off for on and QAC and all that stuff if we don't have a
superintendent who's going to help to onboard that person if they don't have superintendent experience to know to do all those things that's part of the superintendent association and the county roundts every month so there will be to orient who superintendent. They
have a network they can find and they have a mentor as well. They'll have their own mentor that the association for school administrators assigns to them. Yeah. And I got to tell you like Warren County, they're so the superintendents
are so supportive of one another is a beautiful thing. It doesn't happen in every county. Some counties are very, you don't mind, they're kind of competitive among each other or they're, you know, not as unified. This county is outstanding. I I
would prefer an previous superintendent. I was thinking budget-wise, I just want to prefer one, but I don't want to limit. Right. Right. If you got somebody from a huge school district who was director of something who had 30 direct reports who that's kind of like a super, you know, that's what I'm just trying
not to rule out those people. Well, And let's talk a little bit about that huge district thing, right? Someone from a huge district is going to have and I don't, you know, culture shock coming into a district with three administrator. Someone from Patterson I
I you know I'm sorry to just throw that out there would I'm sure there is somebody from Patterson who gets it but wow you know what I mean? Yeah. That happens in the business world all the time. Move from AT&T to the garage shop down the street. Different world. I know
I find in my in my experience not that but um that going from a smaller district is way easier to go from smaller to bigger than the reverse but I don't know I'm not saying count out a a big district person the perfect person may very well be from a big district but they got to understand that they are
going to be wearing 9 million hats million hats right they need to understand the difference in the resources right you know Hillsburg High School has a vice principal for every grade level. That is not happening here. So, they need to understand they're not
going to have that same kind of resource structure. Which district is this? It has. Oh, yeah. Which is I mean, it's right here. It's not as it's much closer than Patterson, but down the road. Oh, I know. But like Patterson, they're a former Abbott, right? So, you know, it's
it's different. It's different. It's different. But they have to what's nice about PEG though is like they still are in Warren County so they get the Warren County dynamic you know which is and we collaborate right our swimmers swim there and so that they need to be able
to understand how to leverage a network right and maybe that includes tapping into a white or superintendent you know or because we don't we're not big enough to have all of our own programs they need to understand Hey, maybe I should reach out
to, you know, North Warren to have them send their field hockey kids here and my mind and we'll relationships. So, a network and relationships is what I'm hearing, you know, and I won't put that in, but that's good for me within within the school. It's very important within our
community because we we all know each other and within the academic community you know because they they need to manage the relationship with our sending districts outside as well as our neighboring schools where we collaborate
services right because it we we have a good number of kids who go to Warren Tech but then they come here for their athletics because they would have come to our high school but currently they're not choosing that and then they need to we need to figure out how to care
for cuz there are kids in our community. Yeah. Even though they've chosen they want to be welders so they need to go to tech but they need to be on our field hockey field or that's great. That's the only sport I can think of off top my head that they don't have and that we have because we don't have lacrosse
which is a challenge. I gotcha. Thank you for that. Okay. So as far as like strongly preferred, I mean I can put um you know uh I mean we also mentioned principal,
right? So superintendent, assistant superintendent, principal or director supervisor experience. I I mean I may may as well just put the whole thing. Does that work? I may as well. It's okay. Run it through the garden. Yeah. Okay. And that's going to cover a lot of
people, but that's okay. I like a big pool. I don't think we want to limit ourselves. I'm looking for a person like I just Yeah. Yeah. That will fit a fit. Yeah. Yeah. Less than a resume.
Well, that's why I am so grateful that you've contracted with me and allow me to do those preliminary interviews first because like you are are implying I believe is that there's so much more to a person than what's on paper, right?
And how are you going to know that? So when I give you guys a short list, I will have talked to everybody on that short list and then some and I'll be very confident that these are worth a consideration. They might be great on paper, but if to your point, they're very much competitive and it's about,
you know, they wouldn't want to talk to another superintendent. Yeah. That's not going to be a fit. No, it's not going to be a fit. And and convers this resume stinks. Like this is not telling me anything about this person. Let me talk to them. And they turn out to be, you know, there's much
more. So, it works both ways. You know, watch those conversations are so important. I've had some of the greatest hires who had resumes that HR didn't want to get past and they wound up being great fits. Wow. Because on paper they they were they were taking whatever job
they could to feed their family. Oh wow. All right. So they looked bad. I'm telling you it's going to be a very interesting process. I'm really looking forward to it. But I think we have I'm going to just preferred qualifications. Um we were talking about some of the skill sets. So, I mean, I
don't know if we need any preferred qualifications. I think I have a pretty big list here. And I also think just saying the wide net, the superintendent, principal, director, assistant super, supervisor. I think we're in good shape there. Is that is that a fair statement?
Yeah. Okay, good. All right. So, timeline. What's our projected starting date? Should we say midocctober, mid November? Does that work for everybody? We got to shoot for that. Good. What' you put? 10 one or I was 10 one would be
the perfect start yet. However, I don't think that's going to happen. I don't want to put October one in case somebody has a 90-day notice. I may be wrong about that. But did you say desire 101? But I'll say mido target. You know what?
I could put I could put timeline target date 101. I mean, but we're not going to it's not it's not going to happen 101. going to happen. There's no way. So 10:15 11. Yeah. Um first quarter I'll put target. No, no, no. Third quarter.
Third quarter. As soon as first now. Thank you, Eric. Well, who knows? Maybe it'll be somebody that's got a 30-day. You don't know. Oh, you if Yeah, you never know. Someone with a 30-day got released or they might they
might let him go. But they might let him go, right? So for Demerest, that guy had a like 180day notice in his contract, but the board in where he was coming from said it's okay. Get out. If somebody's going to hire an interim anyway, they might
say they're going to start interum 91, especially the beginning of school instead of 111. And the other thing too is like if you have a principal who's being mentored by their superintendent who really wants to see them their wings spread, you know. Yeah. So, we'll do
October 15th target. Does that work out? Sure. Works. Beautiful. And um I will have deadline date the 29th. And um if it's okay with you, I'll do the resume, cover letter, search, and
I'll also get their last two performance evaluations. Is there anything else that you want me to ask for? Usually, that's a pretty good application. when you mentioned that you've uh asked them to provide references what are they references u employer references
what what that's a good question so on the application that I have them fill out I have four blank spots for whatever reference they want to put in but when it gets to the point that we are going to run a reference check on a single person um I want to hear from depending
on you know who we're speaking with I want to hear from people who have worked for them. I want to hear people who they have worked under. I want to hear from different cons, you know, depending on the candidate like
um maybe the PTA president, right? Depending on the district, if they're very strong on security and they keep telling us how, you know, strong their relationship is with the local chief of police, we'll be talking to that person, you know. Um, so I kind of look for
stakeholder groups that are important in this district and try to match up a reference from each of those groups that you'll be calling whether they're supplied or unsupplied. Okay. All right. But that's but we don't do the
reference check until we get to work. No, I just want to understand, you know. Yeah. And I want your community to know that, too, because they'll be wondering like what's going on. But it's going to be really airtight until of course. All right. Like the suggested credit
credit report. That would be unusual and different. I've never had that in a search before. That's done in the business world. Possible. Um you wouldn't want that at the outset of the application process, would you?
Okay. business world, the credit report is typically done during Yeah, we could we check and we'll get guidance from your attorney on how to do that on your finalist or last couple of finalists. All right. And I'll put that in my little box on
the application. Thank you. All right. I think we're in good shape. That's um those are the big conversations that I wanted to have with you on this. I know you have public comment to get to and everything, but I
think we've done Is there anything else in the conversations that we've had that we haven't expressed that you want to talk about? All right. Thank you. Oh, but next steps, I'll draft up an advertisement, send it to you, clean it up with me, send it to the board. If
there's anything wacky, you know, or anything adjustments that you wanted to make, let me know and I'll do it. But other than that, then I'll work with you, Shel, to post it on the New Jersey School Board's website and I'll put it on my website, ASA as well. We'll start getting the word. All right. All right.
And you're you're going to stay for exact so we can finish up the But I think I should the last personel. Yeah, that's fine. Wherever Wherever you're comfortable. I'll sit over here until until you need me again. Okay. We are on to public participation
limited to 5 minutes and 30 minutes um total. Any public participation for this evening? Come on down. I can't hear she needed a second, I think. Hi, I'm Katie Galen. Um, I'm a parent.
I'm I'm a former board member. I'm here today to ask the board not to renew the business administration administrator's contract. We cannot afford it. The renewal means we, the taxpayers, will pay over $200,000 salary for zero results. The school is not succeeding in
any form. Low academic achievement and horrible administration is the regular at this school. If you choose to renew this contract, it's clear how little you care about our community. And I also would like to know why did the meetings of the the minutes of the meetings online, they're not being
posted anymore. They stopped being posted on March 19th. And I'm wondering why. Usually it's supposed to be within a timely manner. It's not. So maybe if she could do that, too. That'd be great. Have a nice day. Hi, Vicky
Davenport. All right. Um, so you guys hired a bunch of aids. I want to say three meetings ago. I want to know where they are because my son's class is supposed to have five aids along with the head
teacher. We have two a uh one aid that is full-time. I believe he is a substitute. We have two aids that only make one person even though their times overlap. Um I just want to know where
the people are because it's not safe. Uh the other problem I've been having is that we've been having a lot of behavior complaints from our kids and they're not allowed to go into their normal classes. That is a needed thing because they need
to learn how to behave like a normal child. They need to see how it works. And I do know that there's a huge problem with bullying the kids who are special needs. Which leads to the next one of do we still do anti-bullying seminars? They
did them when we were kids. Can we start them younger like second, third grade? Only because the kids need to learn younger that we can't bully the special needs kids. The special kids needs the special needs kids don't understand.
They understand I'm stressed out and I'm going to explode. They do not understand. I need to stop and think and not hit this kid. And unfortunately, that's what happens. Thank you. Any other public participation this
evening? Nope. Okay. Can I have a motion to go into executive session for personnel? Motion. Second. All in favor? I. Any abstensions?
Okay. We'll be going into executive session for personnel. Any discussion held by the board which not need remain con okay let me start again. Yeah. Any discussion held by the board which need not remain confidential will be made
public as soon as practical. Minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists. The board will reconvene in public session in maybe a half hour.
Um, no action will be taken tonight when we come back. Okay, we're good.