around your last night. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Good evening. The workshop is now convened. It is 5:02 p.m. on Monday, June 1, 2026. A quorum of the board is present in the boardroom in accordance with the Texas
Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. Uh there Bobby Adier who joins by Zoom in person or Frost Po, Luis Galindo, Courtney Lewis, Rosa Maria Berda, Tennessee Walker, Lori George, Jace Steaggle, and myself. I'd ask
everyone to please silence their cell phones or any other electronic devices. We'll begin by the singing of our national anthem. Do we have the >> Oh,
can you see by the dar light? What so proudly we held at the twilight
last whose broad stripes and bright stars through the fight. For the rails we watched
were so gallently streaming and the rocket bombs bursting in through the night that our man
was still there. Oh, say don't ever for the land of the king and the heart of the
bra. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One
nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Please join me in the Texas pledge. >> Honoring Texas, one state, one and indivisible.
>> Please be seated. Before we begin public comment, I'd like to briefly explain the purpose of tonight's meeting. This is a special workshop meeting of the board of trustees that has been called for the purpose of conducting the board's local
orientation training. The training is required by newly four newly elected board members and is being facilitated by the district's governance coach. The topics listed on the posted agenda were selected for training andformational purposes only. No action will be taken
by the board on these items during tonight's workshop. Because this is a special meeting and not a regular board meeting, public comment is limited to matters that are specifically listed on the posted agenda in accordance with board policy and the Texas Open Meetings
Act. Our next agenda item is public comment. We value hearing from our community and want to thank everyone for being here tonight, both participating and coming to listen. I want to share a brief reminder of our process and expectations
to ensure everyone has a fair opportunity to speak. Public comment is conducted in accordance with the fourth ISD board policy and the Texas Open Meetings Act and must be managed in an orderly and consistent manner. Speakers must sign up in advance through our determined process will be called in
order. We'll have up to three minutes to speak with no one receiving less than one minute. Presiding officer may make adjustments when needed to help manage time and ensure everyone is heard. At regular meetings, speakers may address any topic. At special meetings,
comments are limited to items on the posted agenda. The board listens to all public comments but does not engage in discussion during this portion of the meeting. When appropriate, responses are limited to factual information or existing policy.
We ask that speakers be mindful of student privacy and refrain from identifying students by name as student information is protected by law. However, a parent or guardian may identify his or her own child if they choose. Speakers are also encouraged to avoid naming individual employees or
volunteers and instead address concerns at the campus program or district level. We also ask that concerns about individual employees, students, or other confidential matters be directed through the appropriate district processes rather than public comment as those
procedures are designed to ensure concerns are handled appropriately and fairly. Please respect the procedures in place as well as other speakers and audience members and conclude your remarks promptly when your three minutes
have expired. just ask everyone to treat every speaker regardless of whether you agree with with him or her her with the same kind of dignity and respect we would each expect for ourselves. Thank you for your engagement and for
being a part of this process. We have 20 speakers tonight that have signed up. This first speaker is Mindy Tacket and Miss Tacket will be followed by Father William Winston. I'm here to talk about clarifying
priorities. Over a decade ago, in our hometown of Granberry, Texas, my husband and I began watching Christian nationalists take over. Figures like Raphael Cruz, Ted Cruz's father, and David Barton, a Dominionist who runs the WallBuilders organization in Alo, were
routinely coming to town, stirring up controversy, where there was none, and targeting people who weren't just like them. The Mercy Culture crowd emulates them today. They made noise. They tapped into people's fear and prejudice. And over time, our school board listened to
them. The board full of moderates made appeasement of the far-right a priority. They supported a superintendent who bent over backwards to plate Christian nationalist extremists. They banned books. They made targeting kids and
staff who were different a priority. And the cost was real. A beloved fifth grade teacher who was gay put her house on the market and left because she no longer felt safe. A librarian who had fought to keep books on shelves was harassed so
relentlessly, followed, watched, and intimidated that she eventually resigned. That is Christian nationalism in action. And let me be clear, the true obstacle isn't the extremists themselves. It's those who consider
themselves the moderate middle, yet lack courage and backbone to stand up to hate mongers and bullies. As Dr. King wrote in letter from Birmingham jail, "The greatest stumbling block isn't the outright oppressor, but the moderate who prefers order over justice." That truth
is no less urgent today. Now, here I stand years later in Fort Worth, in the city which I now live and love, watching the school district make those same concessions, giving in to fear-mongering and hate pushed by bigoted activists and state level officials who want every
government institution to abandon genuine democracy and cater to a white Christian nationalist vision. I am asking each schoolboard appointee to think very hard about the kind of human you are going to be as you clarify
your priorities. Are your priorities educators and the children they serve, meaning all of them, or are your priorities the loudest voices demanding conservative Christian conformity? at our next speaker is Father William
Winston and Father Winston will be followed by Reed Bills. I was inspired to read that the second item on your workshop agenda today is to clarify your priorities. Evidently, this has now become a crucial issue. Over the past few months, you have lost your way,
veered from your stated purpose, and brought a great deal of shame upon yourselves and the Fort Worth ISD. More recently, you have taken on the three Abrahamic faiths by trivializing Christianity and Judaism while
demonizing Islam. Evidently, I need to remind you that the heart of all three religions is contained in the phrase there is no God but God. But you have voted to introduce the blue bonnet blue bonnet curric curriculum Bible readings
into our school system as well as include a time for prayer and the posting of the ten commandments. I addressed the Bible reading grooming process the last time I addressed you. Today I want to let you know that as
long as teachers and professors administer tests and examinations, there will be prayer in schools. There is no need to waste precious time away from the curriculum. Clearly, you don't realize that posting a copy of the King James version of the
Ten Commandments trivializes trivializes both Judaism and Christianity. I have never met a Ten Commandments advocate who can name them. And I am quite confident that none of you can recite Exodus 20:es 1-17 from memory.
Therefore, this is all performative Judeo-Christianity, not based on a devout faith, but used to poke everyone who has not embraced this blatant hypocrisy. Please be warned. Our Lord and Savior reserve his harshest
words and most violent actions for hypocrites. As you clarify your priorities, do not choose to be hypocrites. The consequences are nothing you want to bring upon yourselves if the word of God is anything to go by. But
most distressing is how you have abused and mistreated one of the most positively outstanding principles in our school system because she is Muslim. I fear that would be grounds for a lawsuit that the Fort Worth ISD doesn't need to take on. Retain our assets in the
highest positions that their qualifications and their service records merit. Your foolish decision regarding that principle has resulted in the demonization of Islam. >> Father Winston, please stop the we we're not can't discuss personnel matters.
>> I have I have I have some state this this is different from that. Muslims compose 1.2% of the US population. That means that 98.8% of the US population is not Muslim. It hardly seems to be a threat. and of the international father. I would like to
ask for a point of order. We're we are only here to talk about agenda items tonight. >> And this is clarifying your priorities in your decision to demonize this in this sed or those neighborhoods in forward which
were known as I don't judge. >> Thank you, Mr. Winston. >> Our next speaker is Reed Bills, and Miss Bills will be followed by Ken Shimamato. Yes, sir. >> Yes, I can. >> Okay. Point of order. Um, and I just need to
clarify uh what President Garren said at the beginning. This is a special call meeting. Um, in meeting words that are written on the agenda and not actually talking about clarifying priorities and things. I think that respectful and
commenters are very off. Um this is a special call meeting. At a regular meeting you are able to speak more broadly but the agenda is quite specific and so I would ask that the u commenters heed what Mr. Harry said at the
beginning of the meeting >> and specifically if people raise personnel matters I'm going to ask that the mic be silenced and the the person forfeit the rest of their time. All right. Miss Bills,
>> I knew this was going to happen, so I am addressing all the agenda items for this meeting. Orientation or training for this board is completely unnecessary. The managers were not appointed to study
the issues, clarify priorities, and make decisions. The superintendent does that. This board was appointed to vote unanimously for every proposal Dr. Lata brings to them. No questions, no
explanations, no discussion, just vote. If you doubt that this is the case, you haven't been watching the board meetings. From the first session, every proposal has followed this pattern.
There hasn't even been an attempt to show otherwise by, for instance, assigning a negative vote to one or two members. Apparently, the managers are afraid one negative vote will mean their removal.
They won't even ask a question, let alone make a suggestion. The meetings like this training are a farce. But I see that monitor progress is a topic. Maybe the managers will in fact
pay attention to how the changes they voted for affect student outcomes, but I don't expect them to make critical comments. The topic align resources will only apply to the superintendent and his
staff. The manager's role will be to vote for the decisions presented to them. And finally, the superintendent will communicate all results to the board, presumably at a board meeting open to the public. I am sure no
adversarial statements from individual members will be allowed. So I repeat this training is unnecessary and it is an effort to make the concerned stakeholders believe that the
board of managers has been appointed to actually do something. >> Thank you Miss Bill. Our next speaker is Ken Shimamato and he will be followed by Sabrina Ball.
Good evening, Dr. Lacata, Mr. Garin, members of the board. Um, I am a former Fort Worth ISD parent who served on sitebased decisionmaking for three years, so you know I'm crazy.
And in a prior life, I was an Air Force instructor. So I know a little bit about how learning happens in the classroom. I also know how to think on my feet when the situation changes. So I'm going to put aside the remarks that I had
prepared, but I am going to talk about clarifying priorities. A priority for this board must be attracting and retaining quality educators.
That profession has taken more hits in the last six years than any besides health care. We have seen an exodus of qualified teachers from this district, from this pyramid, and from Western
Hills High School where a a good friend of mine teaches. And again, I am the spouse of a retired special educator and the former caregiver for a special ed student now deceased. So, I know what love in action
looks like in a classroom. And I am the son of a man who volunteered to fight for this country when his father was incarcerated as an enemy alien. So I know about being a target. You don't have to be an educator to know
about school bullies. You know, they like to pick the smallest kid, the one who's on his own, and then they pile on. The way that online bullies will pile on
when they see a garment that marks an individual is different. And again, as a former Air Force instructor, I have to say to be a truly effective leader, one must
lead by example, not only by injunction. As you work to clarify your priorities, remember that the failure to stand up for an educator who has worked for decades in this system to improve
student outcomes sends the wrong message to every stakeholder in this district and does not speak well for your ability to attract and retain qualified teachers. I challenge you all this this evening to
say the three hardest words in the English language. We were wrong. Next speaker is Sabrina Ball and Miss Ball will be followed by Christine Combmes Moore.
When I first heard about Lonear Governance a few years ago, I was hopeful. Accountability is important. But after watching both the elected board and this one, I can see that Lonear governance is mostly performance. One statement stands out to me. Student outcomes do not change until adult
behavior changes. You have all used this statement to punish and demoralize educators without considering your own behavior and that of key admin. I have three examples. First, the revolving door of highly paid administrators continues. We were told new leadership would solve our problems. Instead, we
have admin who don't know our community, who don't respond to taxpayers, and too often disregard teacher expertise. This will not improve outcomes. Second, the curriculum problem. In 2022, the district abandoned a reading approach called three queuing that the state of Texas actually banned because it was so
bad. Those students are now in high school and we've never honestly addressed the consequences. Reading comprehension suffers when kids are guessing at the words. Since then, we've had multiple reading programs and now Blue Bonnet, another largely unproven curriculum riddled with errors and
divisive religious content. How can you clarify priorities when you haven't reviewed what got us here? Meanwhile, more than 27,000 language learners are being subjected to another grand experiment. Dr. Llata has presented a concept, not a plan, and students will
bear the consequences. Our language programming wasn't perfect, but students benefited from language professionals, putting these students in pretend English immersion is irresponsible. Your guidelines tell you not to interfere. I think you should question that guideline in Lonear Governance. Waiting for
failure before you act when you can observe incompetence is irresponsible. The previous board made the same mistake. This will not improve outcomes. And third, catering to extremism and undermining safety. The previous board repeatedly reacted to pressure campaigns
from Carlos Tersios, Libs of Tik Tok, and Bo French. Instead of following policy, it led to bookbans, disruptions, and safety concerns for students and staff. In 2024, it was documented that libs of Tik Tok caused close to 50 instances of harassment and security
threats, including a bomb threat at nearby Northwest ISD. In 2024, Carlos shared the time and location of a GSA meeting at Southwest High School. And in turn, Bo Friends suggested those parents rise up and put an end to this dangerous ideology. That school had to implement
heightened security measures to protect the physical safety of students. Now you're allowing extremists to define who is acceptable. Rather than reviewing the actual policies first, Dr. Kushner chose to publicly validate attacks on Principal Azubi, a well-qualified
educator with proven outcomes who should be onboarding staff right now. And students will suffer the consequences. This is not accountability. This will not improve outcomes unless you decide to hold yourselves accountable. It's just the same behavior with different
people in the seats. Thank you, Miss Ball. Next speaker is Christine Combmes Moore and she'll be followed by Edward Lang. >> Mr. Mr.
Are we good? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. My name is Christine Combmes Moore and I'm a retired educator who served Fort Worth ISD for 40 years. I'm speaking tonight in reference to the agenda items on clarifying priorities
because this matter directly reflects how our district defines its priorities, applies its standards, and maintains focus on its core educational mission. As we consider focus and priorities as a district, we must also ensure that those
priorities are grounded in constitutional principles and consistent personnel standards. A school district under public scrutiny must be especially careful that decisions remain anchored in facts, fairness, and policy, not in
misunderstanding or external pressure unrelated to educational outcomes. This includes recognizing the difference between religious belief systems and civil law. Religious law governs matters of personal faith and devotion. Civil
law grounded in the Constitution of the United States governs our public in institutions. These are distinct systems and our Constitution remains the supreme law of the land. Unfortunately, in public discourse, religious concepts are
sometimes deliberately misrepresented in ways that create confusion and fear. That does not help our schools stay focused. It pulls us away from the real priorities of student learning, stability, and effective leadership. If
we are serious about clarifying priorities, then one of those priorities must be ensuring that educators are not judged through the lens of fear or misinformation, but through their conduct, their leadership, and their service to students. Fort Worth ISD's
focus should remain clear. Uphold constitutional protections. apply fair and consistent personnel standards and maintain confidence in our leadership by ensuring decisions are based on evidence and educational performance.
>> Thank you, Miss Kumsmore. Next speaker is Edward Lang and Mr. Lang will be followed by Gregor Butoo. Is Mr. Lang present? Next speaker is Gregor and I beggar pardon if I mispronounced
your last name B Z W and neither Mr. Langanger or Mr. Bo is here. Next speaker is Jane Collins and Jane Collins will be followed by Elena Montalva. Uh, I wanted to come and speak tonight
because I'm a teacher that retired in Houston and I've seen some really bad decisions being made and it sometimes gets made because there's a lack of democracy. the elected school board they
get rid of and then they put in managers who may not know as much as the elected school board or have the ties with the community. I was lucky the other day to go to a press conference and hear all these wonderful people who
>> Please stop the clock for a second. Uh I ask you please address issues that are on the agenda if you would. >> I'm I'm getting ready to Okay. Thank you. >> Turn the clock back on. >> Okay. I just was introducing myself.
Okay. So, I'm concerned be having been a teacher for 25 years. I I have a concern and I was a dyslexia specialist, so I know about the problems with reading. I don't think the blue blue bunnet
curriculum addresses those and some of the things that happened in Houston where they shut down the libraries. I don't think that was helpful for teaching reading either. So anyway, I I think that we should not be getting rid
of excellent principles who the families in the school have confidence in. >> Ma'am, I hate to interrupt you again, but ask that you please stick with the items that are on the agenda. >> Okay. I appreciate you're sharing your
personal views, but they're uh the rules for the evening require you to stick to the agenda. >> Well, that this is a priority. I think that's why I raised it. We're talking about priorities, right? And I think it is important that all the students feel
represented that are in a school that all the families feel represented. that it shouldn't just be p people with a certain religion or a certain you know way of voting that should be represented. It should be all the
families. So that was my point. Thank you Miss Collins. Our next speaker is Elena Montalvo and Miss Montalavo will be followed by Michelle Foster. As I looked into the Lonear governance
model, it had me reflect on this last Friday when I attended the Western Hills High School graduation. I had many friends who were walking the stage and I wanted to be there to support them um in their completion of this chapter. And now 3 days later, a word continues to
echo in my head. Resilience. This theme was represented through the student speeches given at that graduation. The credit goes to them. And they were right. Sitting there in the audience, I remember looking out and realizing that this class of seniors and
the teachers beside them endured a lot this past year. They had to survive the horrendous leadership of an inadequate principal and school board. What is more disappointing is that during this past week, a week that is aimed to celebrate the milestone
achieved by seniors throughout this district, this board still had the audacity to continue inflicting harm upon the communities within the district. So I asked this board, how is the Lonear governance model going to be implemented to ensure all of you are
held accountable for the harm you cause? For example, when you reassigned a beloved educator like Sheam Alzubi, who is exactly what the Western Hills community needed. >> Ma'am, I ask you please turn off the microphone. We're not going to talk about personnel matters this evening.
model to ensure his communication to the public as well as hold you accountable for the communication and feedback the community provides. >> Pardon me. Please restart the clock. >> And now we are going to need resilience
more than ever because you as our leaders cannot be trusted. Cutting off the mic of a 19-year-old. Next speaker is Michelle Foster and Miss Foster will be followed by EJ Kerrion.
I think what we need more than resilience is uh courage and conviction and steadfast in the performance of your job. So, thank you for stepping up and serving a very large community that we have here. Um, you know, I I just hope each one of you
will remember that the United States Constitution is our guiding document and that you would also adhere to um someone said qualifications are not
subjective and they are not or they said they were subjective. They are not subjective. However, someone's social media posts are very um much part of the selection process as I understand it in today's employment world. So, I would
ask that you do >> I would ask that you do your due diligence. >> Please suspend the clock for a moment. Ask that the audience please respect our our speaker and uh let her continue. Please.
other people. >> I would just >> do your due diligence and vetting candidates prior to their appointment as opposed to afterwards when a problem is discovered and just be as thorough as possible. And again, thank you for your service.
>> Thank you. >> Next speaker is EJ Kerrion and Mr. Karion will be followed by Christa Shy. S H I L D if I mispronounced the here to talk pro about priorities. I think first off I think your priority
should be to not stop a teacher talking uh to you about how they feel about education. So, three data points or themes I want to talk about that you should have prioritized is when I was here two meetings ago, me, you, Pete, we sat over
here, we talked for a good 15 minutes and you got really excited about 700 surveys from parents about the feedback they had about this school district. Um, wow. In less than 20 in 24 hours,
you got over 2,000 people to write y'all letters reinstating a staff principal to a school. And so the first thing is you can't actually talk about that you really care about data. When you get excited about 750 people, but when 2,000
people do something, you guys sit there and do nothing. So this whole data conversation is really not saying anything because you're biased on who you actually listen to. you were impressed and I'm don't know how you have not said anything after 2,000
people. And so my next thing I want to talk about is what data we as the people need to look at. We have been here over and over again and you guys continue to not do anything. So we have to realize this is no longer working and I'm talking to the people behind me. We have
to become more disobedient. We have to become more uncomfortable and we have to stand up to people since our leaders won't do this. So, let's go back to data and let's talk about Pete's data. Pete, Sid Richardson Foundation probably has given more money to Fort Worth than a lot of other people's
data about the agenda. >> And and you and your you want to ridicule and look at Excel docs of teachers, but you won't look at Excel docs of yourself. You you have cared about literacy longer than any other Fort. And somehow you have the audacity
to sit up here and shut down teachers and a 19-year-old girl who went to this school. You have lost your way. And that should be the priority of this community. All right. You I understand that we're failing, but you are the guy
who's been caring about this the most. So why should you sit up there? Like really tell me why. It's because it's not about this. It's about you to be able to go to the modern, have lunch, sit there and talk about as if you care about people because none of this actually impacts you. You you do this as
a hobby, as a convenience. And educ educator leader to educator leader, you know who I am and what I've done for a living. This is we have to start taking risk. You think I'm up here because I don't care about the things I do as a professional as well because it's bigger than sitting with you guys getting on
jets to Houston to learn about stuff that other things are happening in community. We're trying to make turn. Please turn off his microphone. >> You've lost your way. You've lost your way. >> Okay.
>> Our next speaker is Christa Shield. and Miss Shield will be followed by Dela Ecom ecombo. And once again, I have to remind you that according to the rules of this meeting, you must speak to the items
that are on the agenda. And if you don't, we're going to turn the microphone off and ask that you sit down and someone could come up and speak to the items on the agenda. and I'm the Texas director for Rare Foundation USA. I want to start by
thanking this board for doing their due diligence, for taking a pause when it comes to your personnel and those that you are putting in charge of protecting your children, to continue to review the policies in your own handbook. And yes,
this is in the agenda. We encourage you to continue to look at those handbooks. Look at your school policy. >> Lid, I I'll remind you, we need to stick to our agenda tonight, not person. >> Yes, it is the agenda because I'm talking about incoming school board
members and policy. >> So, it is and our message is simple about orientate. Your your speaker, your comment is on local orientation for the new school board. Please stick to that item. >> Yes. So, the incoming school board
that's coming in, again, we're asking you to look at open source, look at social media, do your due diligence, look at your own schools policies and follow that. And I just say that our message is simple. We don't want our
children or their schools turned into a political battleground. That's not why we're here. We're here to support the school board members and say that we no longer tolerate radical ideologies in our kids' education
and certainly not someone who's in line or personnel who are in line, >> excuse me, >> with those radical ideologies and the organizations pushing them. >> I'm here with some amazing patriots. We're here to back you up
>> and we came out to show this board of directors I'm going to have to ask. >> You have our support. >> Please turn off the microphone. I ask you to sit down. >> Okay. Our next speaker is Dela Ecombo
and Miss Ecombo will be followed by Jennifer Dramer. >> Hello. I'm here to speak on the topic of district priorities on the agenda. I would hope that the district would bear in mind that the priorities of the district should ultimately ultimately be the children of Fort Worth ISD. >> Ma'am, can you lower your microphone
just a little bit so we hear you better? Sorry. Somebody help. >> Thank you. >> Yes. I'm here to speak on the topic of district priorities on the agenda. I would hope that the district would bear in mind that uh the that the priorities of the district should ultimately be the
children of Fort Worth ISD. According to the Lonear governance model followed by Fort Worth ISD. One of the key points is community engagement, balancing the state takeover with parent, teacher, and community transparency. Unfortunately, there was a clear lack of transparency that occurred in the case of Miss Al
Zubie. Um the community has many questions as to why decision was made to reassign her without a clear prior documented reason and said that the district relied on the actions of outside agitators instead of the community. Another point under the priorities item is academic performance. The recent actions to sideline Miss
Alzubi has created a situation where a fully qualified employee who has high views and and regard her fellow colleagues may be unjustly denied the opportunity. that >> would you pause for a moment and ask the crowd please maintain order so that we
can hear the speaker. >> Okay, resume your presentation. >> The recent actions to sideline Miss Alzubi has created a situation where a fully qualified employee who has high regard from her fellow colleagues may be unjustly denied the opportunity for to lead her high school to better student
performance. If the district to if the district puts forth these priorities that wants that it wants to achieve surely it must be done with the best administrators to carry out those tasks. Instead the district decided to put the noise of social media attacks and unfounded claims and disregard Miss
Alzoo's personal right to free speech instead of focusing on the task ensur and superintendent. Can you >> member has raised a point of order. You we're not discussing personnel matters here tonight. You must stick to the agenda or please ask you to sit down.
>> Hills High School. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next speaker is Jennifer Dramer and she'll be followed by Alexander Montalvo. >> Good evening. My name is Jennifer Dramer. I'm a Fort Worth ISD parent, a local PTA advocacy chair, and a Tarant
County educator. Tonight, I'm speaking specifically to agenda item B, clarify priorities. because after the last several months, I generally do not understand what the district's priorities are anymore. No one wanted a state takeover or to lose our democratic
right to an elected school board. And we didn't want to see a superintendent who was making measurable progress removed. But when Dr. Lacata was appointed, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. We had a connection. I began my teaching career in 2003 in Broward County, Florida at Nova High School.
Then I saw the board of managers, respected leaders from our community willing to step into an incredibly difficult situation and put their reputations on the line for Fort Worth students. After that first board meeting, I left with something I never expected to feel. Hope.
You spoke about priorities, about transparency, trust, about student outcomes, and you spoke about doing what's best for students, and I believed you. I even defended you to parents, many who were ready to leave Fort Worth ISD. And then hundreds of parents, educators, community leaders, and
experts have come before you asking for transparency, for data, for plans, asking you to reconsider decisions that would harm students. Again, we have been met with vague assurances and predetermined outcomes. And now here we are.
I feel that you are betraying your priorities that were originally stated. >> I have to skip over a bunch of this because I don't want to be uh taken out of here in front of my son. So yada yada yada. But your your priority this week
of silence has allowed hateful attacks to intensify and spread. Your priority and your student of student outcomes. This is one of the most important lessons Fort Worth ISD students will learn from your leadership. So what are you teaching my
son? What are you teaching our children? What are your priorities? I cannot accept a lesson that teaches him that hate wins. I cannot accept a priority that teaches him that silence is leadership. And I cannot accept a lesson that teaches him that good people should
stand alone when they become targets. So tonight, I'm asking you to clarify your priorities. I'm asking you to reflect on the lesson your actions are teaching. Months ago, I believed we were on the same side and that we all wanted the same things and that our priorities aligned. Tonight, I am no longer sure.
And that breaks my heart far more than it makes me angry. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Alexander Montalvo and Mr. Montalvo will be followed by Zack Leonard. I can't see all those signs from back
there, so I wanted to be able to see what they said. All right. So, Lonear Governance, um, as has been mentioned by a few people, like what is that really? So, I want to go to the TEA website to
just read a little bit from the site that talks about Lonear Governance. So, I kind of find it hilarious that the headline is a firstofits-kind initiative for school boards and then follows that up with the first three
words founded on research. The reason I get a chuckle out of this because I can just imagine how many teachers, educators, parents, and students have heard that line over the last 10 to 20 years in Texas public education.
first of its kind based on research. Y'all love to gaslight everybody because this is a path to destroy public education, not to actually provide guidance and governance. But let's keep reading.
Lonear governance is a continuous improvement model that hasn't proved accurate for governing teams, boards, and collaboration. This model did so badly. Just just just to kind of reflect, this is the model
that the state of Texas is wanting to implement that the last elected school board implemented. And so y'all's decision was to remove democracy from our local community as a measure of what this is. So is this
model anti-democratic because you've been suppressing First Amendment speech every meeting you've been here? not just tonight. So, is this what you're actually learning? How to dismantle not only public education but
democracy? That's something to wonder. It says whose cho whose choose to focus intensely on only one primary objective, improving student outcomes. Now, how do we improve student outcomes?
It sounds like what's happening in the classroom and on the campus is where we're going to improve student outcomes. And it sounds like everything that is being done in Texas public education and including with y'all's leadership is to get rid of the best and the brightest
that help improve student outcomes. So it doesn't make sense. The purpose of Lonear Governance is to provide coaching and support through a continuous improvement framework for school governing teams that choose and commit to. Okay, it's just repeating
itself. This website sucks. Lonear governance accomplishes the intense focus through tailored coaching aligned to five pillars. Vision and goals, systems and process, progress and accountability, advocacy and engagement, and synergy and teamwork. Yet when the community
implements any of these elements, you want us to shut up and we're not going to. >> Thank you, Mr. Montoya. Next speaker is Zach Leonard and Mr. Leonard will be followed by Bob Brewer. >> Good evening. My name is Zach Leonard
and I serve as the president of Fort Families Organized Responding to Takeover, a nonprofit organization representing Fort Worth parents, educators, and community members who are deeply invested in the future of this district. Tonight's workshop is titled local orientation for new school board
members. And I want to say sincerely we welcome that orientation because this community has been missing uh what this community has been missing is exactly what this agenda promises. clarity, alignment, and communication. On clarifying priorities, I want to speak
directly to this item. Fort Worth parents have not been given a seat at the table when it comes to defining what matters most in our children's education. There has been no community visioning process, no guardrails established with input from families. Priorities have been handed down rather than being being
built together. And we are asking this board tonight as it orients itself to make community defined priorities the foundation not an afterthought on focus mindset and aligning resources. Focus requires what you're requires
knowing what you're protecting. Fort Worth families value bilingual education, special education supports, librarians, counselors, the arts, and many, many more. Any resource alignment that does not reflect those values is
misaligned with this community. On monitoring progress and communicating results, transparency is not optional. Parents deserve clear, honest, and regular reporting on what's working and what's not, especially during a period of significant disrup disruption for our
schools. This board has an opportunity tonight to set a different tone. Please set this priority. Resist racism, bigotry, and set your community guardrails accordingly. Focus on the students, focus on
literacy, focus on improving our schools, and will stand as a partner. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Leonard. Next speaker is Bob Brewer. And Mr. Brewer will be followed by Henry Anchando.
What are we doing? >> Thank you all. My name is Bob Brewer. I'm a retired atmospheric chemist. I taught chemistry at Texas A&M. I enhanced the emission controls on your cars when they were first enhanced
when I was at UCLA. But what that pales in comparison to what I've done to what I'm going to talk to you about the priorities the very first sentence of US law. Does anybody have any clue what that is? About five lines down it goes the laws
of nature and nature's guide. Our founders learned from Sir William Blackstone who was a god-given blessing to the University of Oxford and they studied Blackstone and those
are his words laws of nature nature's guide that's creation in the Bible and the most quoted thing by our founders outside of the Bible was Blackstone when he said no human laws should be suffered to contradict these that's creat
creation and the Bible. So, that's pretty clear about what our priorities need to be. And I'd love to talk to any of y'all any day, any time about that. So, that's the first sentence of US law. We have one guarantee.
That guarantee is, let's see, I've got it written here because I It's the first sentence of the Declaration of 1776. Oh, wait. No, here I go. Getting
excited. The uh article three or article four says the United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government and shall protect them against invasion. Now when
you look up invasion of the dictionary blacks forth which is what you that's an invasion of our rights and then it's also an invasion of our property. And then you go to >> Mr. Per I just ask you to >> we have to know the constitution and I'm
explaining something to you that you don't nobody knows. We talk about constitutional principles. We don't have those. They're all in the declaration. They're what we fought and died for. So if we don't the the priority needs to be
that we know our laws and the penalties for violating them. So, so right now our rights are being violated because we've had an invasion of our rights and the and the penalties on
that. This is Tinch Cox explaining in 1787, United States shall guarantee a republican form and uh and any banner man or body of men who shall make an alteration in that form of government
shall be guilty of high treason. >> So Mr. You don't want to know how bad that is. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Burr. Next speaker is Henry Anchando. Mr. Ron Chambbo will be followed by Deborah Goodman.
>> Good evening and uh thank you for allowing me the time to speak here and uh I am a minority here. Uh I am a Mexican-American born in uh Mexico and uh I'm actually an American of Mexican
descent. So there are minorities here represented. Okay. So uh the priority of our board the priority of our board members and if I can have some decorum that would be great. Uh the priority of our board members must align
with Texas and American values. Our country was founded on Christian values and we must >> Can you please stop the clock if I don't have the decor? Sir, could you pause just a moment? >> Under board policy, I'm I'm Could you
pause just a moment? >> If the disruption continues, I'm going to have to ask that you that you leave the auditorium. Please give this gentleman the dignity and respect that that he deserves and let him speak.
>> Thank you. So, now I'll continue. Uh, our country was founded on Christian values and we must keep it this way. not bend to the leftist extremists. That's happening a lot more frequently in a country that needs need to be
necessary. The board members must not be intimidated to make the right decisions. They must follow and abide by the constitution and by our Christian values. You all are very courageous by the decisions that
you have made and that you continue to make. And we the people thank you for that >> in hiring teachers, vice principles, principles, your priorities must be in
accordance to the Texas and the United States law and by abiding the Constitution to educate our children and not to indoctrinate them. >> We moved here from California about five
years ago and we are asking the board members not to California or Texas. We left because our child We left because our child who we adopted was being indoctrinated in the school system
there. And so far you board members are very courageous to stick to what you're doing. Continue to follow the law. >> Mr. Enchondo, I will ask that you stick to the agenda item, please. >> I was I was done. I was done. Thank you
very much. Have a nice evening. God bless you all and God bless Texas. Our >> next speaker is Deborah Goodman. >> Hello, my name is Deborah Goodman. I'm uh so we can talk about diversity. I'm half Hispanic. I'm half white. I'd like
to thank you guys for being here. Thank you that uh we started off the meeting with uh honoring our flag, honoring our constitution, and that's what really what we're here about is um clarifying priorities is it's important that our kids know exactly what role models we are. We have an example of bad role
models behind me that have been screaming and hollering during the whole meeting. And so that is something we're we're supposed to be here as as educators, as as people that are standing up for the kids, but I don't I don't see that. And so >> I'm going to have to ask you to please
confine your remarks to the agenda. >> Okay. I used to work with kids and I used to sit there and teach them that character matters, that uh we had programs where they got honored for doing things that were good in our community, our schools, our churches. And that meant a lot to them. And it's
not just the education in schools. It matters what we do as adults. And the kids used to complain that that the parents or the people that didn't show up that said they were going to be there. So my my suggestion is is that you know we get we we look at the kids and ask them what they want. We should
not be trying to politicize a role and say that this is what we should have. It should be what's in the necessity and what's good for the kids. I know my my daughter when she was in school, I remember a teacher telling her that it at reading time that she could read whatever she wanted to read and she
chose the Bible. She went to the library and got the Bible. The teacher told her she couldn't read it. And I said, "You know what? If you if your teacher tells you that again, you tell me because I'm going up there." My daughter continued to read it. So, because of our constitution, because of what our country is based on, we need to stand up
for the Constitution, for what our laws is, and what this country was built on. Thank you for your time. We'll be here at the 29th meeting also. Okay. >> Thank you very much. That's what we want. >> That concludes our hearing of speakers for this meeting. I want to thank all
the speakers for being in attendance. Now we'll turn it over to Dr. Lacata and we will begin the governance training for the the meeting. Thank you. As part of our continued commitment to strong governance practices and board superintendent collaboration, our leadership support
and governance LSG coach through this council of great city schools is currently providing coaching and support service to our board. This partnership is intended to strengthen governance effectiveness, communication, and strategic alignment as we move our district forward together. I'm thrilled
to introduce AJ Crabill, director of governance as our certified coach through LSG. In addition, he will be supported by Greg Klein, senior governance coach, and Carol Beckerly, assistant governance coach. I also want to share that during my tenure in
Broward and Palm Beach, we were active members of the Council of Great City Schools, a very wellrecoognized organization around the country. I experienced firsthand the value of the organization's support, resources, and professional networks. have seen how meaningful these partnerships can be in
helping urban districts accelerate student outcomes and organizational effectiveness. I look forward to continuing our work together and leveraging the expertise and resources available through the Council of Great City Schools to support the success of our students, staff, and community.
Mr. >> Curry Bill, >> um first just a couple of items. There's some things left on the podium. Uh, one is labeled a Bob Turner. The other is a rule composition book. I just didn't want to touch anybody's stuff if they accidentally left it.
>> Do you need to project anything? >> Good evening, uh, board members. I'm excited to be with you here this evening. I know both of my colleagues are also watching on the live feed. U part of our work as schoolboard coaches is to support you all as you
execute on the core function of school boards which is to represent the vision and values of your community. Uh this is the core work of school boards. It does not matter how a school board is derived whether you appointed or elected your fundamental obligation remains unwavering uh to represent the vision and values of your community uh such
that a school system is actually effective and improve the outcomes. Can I introduce you? I mean uh interrupt you for a second. Can everyone hear the the volume is hard for me? >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
>> I can hold the mic. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Um >> you may have to. >> And and so th this core obligation representing the vision and values of the community um and and driving the school system in the direction of improving student outcomes. this is the
work. Everything that you do falls inside of that mandate. Um, our task this evening is to go over kind of what are some of the specific items. What specifically does that look like in day-to-day practice uh to follow through on this mandate that you have as schoolboard members? Um, you will walk
exactly as the um agenda insist. We'll look at elements that relate to focused mindset, uh, clarifying priorities, monitoring progress, aligning resources, um, and communicating results. But ultimately, all of this is about what
does it actually look like for you to be effective at representing the vision and values of the community. One of the big topics that, uh, we'll come to inside of all this is getting around to setting goals and guardrails of saying, "Here is the vision of the community, and we're going to adopt a set of goals that represent that." But how do you get
there? You can't just come up with it yourselves. You actually have to go out and do the listening. You have to take it to the streets, take it to the people. Um same thing with your guard rails. It's like these are the values of the community. Uh you listen for what are the values and you and you write down and you codify what are the
prioritized version of that. Um and so this is important work. Uh this is central to what it means to represent the vision and values of the community. But that this is what we'll spend the entire evening on. Uh one other thing, stop the conversation any time. There'll be times where I'll be asking you questions and to respond, there'll be
times I'll ask you to visit with your shoulder partners or whatnot. Uh, but at any time as we're going through our time together this evening, just if you have questions or there's things that are unclear or if you have specific examples that you want to unpack, this is your time. This is intended to be a learningful time, not uh simply me
talking to you, but you know, us cocreating an understanding of what it looks like for you to move forward. One more important point um that's related to this. Uh my team's been reaching out to all of you. So if you haven't had a chance to be interviewed um please make sure you're responsive uh when they uh
give you a call. The intention behind that is all of the things we're going to talk about this evening for them to actually be put into practice they actually need to be written down. There needs to be a clear plan and a timeline that says how will we as a school board implement these things are important as
coaches. The way that we uh the way that we help boards create that is through what we call the implementation timeline. And so as you think about all the topics we're going through this evening, it's not enough that we'll be talking about them, but in the interviews that my staff are having with you, the intention is to write down what
are you understanding or the the key things that need to be accomplished over the next 24 months. Um and it is a 24-month implementation timeline. Say what are the key things that we have to be about doing? Um, and then we put them on a timeline and then as coaches, our
job is to simply support you with implementing the timeline that you adopt. So, we'll create a timeline. Uh, it'll be back before you. You all will make whatever edits to it. You'll adopt it. And then all of our coaching for the next 24 months is simply aligned to that timeline. What is it that you all said
that you want to accomplish in order to do your work effectively? And our job is to support you in that. So, that that is the big purpose of this evening. again my colleagues I said they're they're following along they'll be taking notes um but then much of that rough draft of that timeline in addition to today's
conversation will come from interviews so before we dive into the five uh topics um in sequence what questions or reflections do you have uh I'm aware of uh and good evening and thank you for being here I'm aware of um
all your work and it's it's outstanding it's all over the country. Um, could you give us a minute of your expertise and how you've been very successful in implementing these type of governances in in and around the country? >> Uh, that sounds like a horrible idea. I
don't enjoy talking about myself in these moments. >> I understand, but I think uh what what we have in front of us is someone who's really made some significant changes in our in our district in districts around the country. So, we just want to hear just a little bit, please. Yeah, probably like if there's anything
powerful and transforming in public education, anything that is really driving the needle on improvements in student outcomes that lives in the classroom. It doesn't live in the boardroom. It doesn't live, you know, anywhere else. Like if if there are powerful transformative things that are happening for children, it really happens in the classroom. So then the
real question has to be what is the rest of the organization doing that's creating the conditions for powerful things to happen in the classroom. Um my experience as a school board member um um and having uh worked at the state level and worked at the district level
um my experience is that a lot of school boards don't actually engage in actions that have a meaningful impact on what's taking place in the classroom. Um, and so a large part of the design of this work, uh, whether it's loans governance
specifically for us here in Texas or whether it's other variants of it that exist around the country, kind of the core insight that I and a lot of others have had is like there's got to be a way as schoolboard members for our work to actually matter in the place where it
matters most. It has to actually matter in the classroom. As it turns out, there's a vibrant body of research around organizational dynamics of what are things that system leaders can do that have the biggest influence in throughout the organization. And none of this is um as a fourth grader once said,
none of this is rocket surgery. Um you it doesn't surprise you that setting goals as an organization is more likely to have you actually accomplish those goals than not setting goals. That probably shouldn't surprise you. This is why clarifying priorities um is on the
list. It shouldn't surprise you that organizations actually monitor progress toward those goals and create accountability for their senior leadership and on down through the organization that they are more likely to see improvements in those goals. And so th these insights which again a lot of them just feel like common sense as a
when I was a board member and other board members across the country as we were looking at our own organizations we realized none of us are doing these things like these are basic functions of leadership but none of us were doing these and so we got together and uh we put together uh systems for accomplishing that and one of those
systems is lonear governance that is really looking at you know how does that happen I had the privilege of being uh one of a large group of people who was at the table to help design that. But again, the the core purpose actually as one of the public speakers indicated was
just to help boards be intentionally focused on improving student outcomes. When I first joined my board, um uh I um not with uh pride uh but with clarity recognize that I fully failed the
children of my community for the first year of the board. My first year on the board had no focus whatsoever on children. it was entirely adult focused issues and what was popular and what wasn't popular. That was my failure and it's a shame I'll always have to carry. And so as a board member
I had the benefit of having a coach just like you all have uh that helped me kind of get my head focused on student outcomes. And so then over time uh I've had the privilege of serving as a coach for other folks for school districts across the state certainly um but also
across the country and working with them uh to cause improvements. Um incredibly proud of the work that a lot of our school districts are doing um you know just recently this year several of the districts that we're my team is working with have just seen incredible breakthroughs in performance in the
areas of their goals. Um, and it's not that something magical happened. It's certainly not because of us as coaches. It's because the board did the work and through the board the staff was able to do the work and through the senior staff the principles were able to do the work and the teachers were able to do the work and it showed up at the classroom. And so that's that's what I'm about.
That's that is where my heart is. Uh, I'm also biased. Um, I've always chosen to serve in schools where our children are furthest from educational justice. Um, where our children have been left behind. uh where they are not seeing the full promise that will set them up to pursue the American dream as I've understood it as as I have had the
opportunity to pursue. Um and so when the call came for uh Fort Worth um Fort Worth certainly um from my reading of the data uh fits that it it it fits the description of a community where I I have in the past felt uh honored to
serve and I feel honored to serve here. place where there is tremendous opportunity for children, but that opportunity is not being fully realized and it now falls to your shoulders as the new board and new superintendent uh to make good on that promise on behalf of the of the children you serve and
anything I can do to support you in that I'm happy to do. Um so that by way of introduction uh other questions or reflections before we dive into the work. >> Hey Jay, hey thanks uh very much for being here and choosing to be in Fort Worth. One of the questions and we've got several people who've been through
lonear governance training here and and are aware of guard rails and goals. Um the timeline is pretty long till we actually get or it's months anyway, let's call it before we get some of those in place. So maybe now or sometime during the training it' be helpful to
get your thoughts on the right priorities that we should have before those are in place. >> This is an important question and like I said, jump in anytime with questions. This time is for you. This time is not for me. Uh, so I've got a bunch of stuff to get through. If we don't get through any of it, my coaches and I will support
you. We'll get through all of it in time, just not today. And so your questions are more important than uh my agenda. U and so in terms of uh what do we do right now as we because you can't possibly adopt goals and guardrails that represent the vision values of the community without actually
going out and listening for the vision values of the community. So there there's going to have to be a process which means that you won't have a new set of goals and guardrails next week or next month. It's going to take you a while to do that listening. And so your question is what do we do in the meantime? Like if that's supposed to be our north star, what do we do? This is a
really important question. This is absolutely normal. This is pretty what almost every single board that we work with is in the exact same position that whenever we show up on the scene, we show up and they are where they are. Sometimes they are in the middle of a strategic plan and so we just dial into
that. Sometimes they have goals, sometimes they don't. uh and the superintendent puts in place some uh short-term preliminary goals um and uh while they are waiting for the board to move forward. So this is a normal thing. So whatever the current set of
priorities either that you all inherited or that the superintendent has put forward that's what you as a board are living with in the short term. This is wholly inappropriate uh for governance. It's it's not appropriate for the board to be uh led by the superintendent in
terms of what's the community's vision and values. I mean that's that's your job. But here in this interim period, that's the most logical thing to do. So what it means is that we just want to be as quick as we can be about identifying what is the listening campaign that the board will engage in so that we can
speed up uh the timeline on making sure that you all do the due diligence and adopt a set of goals and guardrails that you all um are convinced represent the prioritized vision and values of your community. And so this is normal. It's not unusual. Um it's suboptimal. Um but it's just it is you are where you are
and so you you find where you are in the moment and you keep moving forward. And so I'd identify whatever the priorities that the superintendent has. That's that is our temporary northstar while we go out and do the authentic work. The only other real option is for you all to just phone it in and invent some goals and
guardrails out of your own wisdom at the deis. That is foolishness because it's not grounded in community listening. Um and so that's that is an option but it's just not a good option. And so of these two options, neither of which are awesome, the better of the two is, you
know, dial in to the superintendent's priorities for the moment, uh, create a plan to as quickly as possible, go out and do an authentic listening campaign to your community, set those goals and guardrails, and then at the moment of inception, those then take over as the
priorities that are then governing the school system. Is that responsive to your inquiry? >> Yeah, that's helpful. And I think I mean we just been using student outcomes as the north star in absent of or in in the in this interim period before we get the
uh full community-led uh goals and guard rails in place. >> Yeah. It's not an uncommon position. >> So um an effort to kind of manage my expectations here like so from a timing perspective like how long should that take? um how many
times I mean you know I definitely definitely do need to hear from the community for sure but but what what does that look like from a time and perspective? >> Yeah, let's uh all the way at the end of the uh cycle is communicate results. Um but like any cycle, the beginning is
also the end. Um and so really what you're asking is kind of what does it look like to engage with the community uh and to and to uh conduct that listening campaign. So that might have been at the end of our conversation today. We're going to jump in right there. Um, and then we'll use that to just wrap around in the cycle and start
off at the beginning again. Um, and so here's a rough outline of what the community listening process often looks like. Uh, so the first step is you all would have to decide what listening do you want to conduct. Uh, and so that is
a process that my team will support you in. Um, and there are really three different pieces. The first is what's what is that listening conversation? What questions do you want to ask as you go out and listen? And it's important that all of you as you go out throughout the community are asking the exact same questions. It is unacceptable, you know,
for this side of town to get the good set of questions and that side of town got the, you know, the janky set of questions. Like you you want to have the exact same conversation wherever you go. And because this will be happening likely over multiple weeks, if not multiple months, you want to make sure that over time as people interact with
that conversation, they're being pulled into the same conversation, same questions. And so the first step in this listening campaign is you all need to design uh a script. Now obviously we'll work with you on this. We do this all the time. Um and so we'll sit down with you all likely individually or in groups
to try to figure out what are the things that you need to hear. What are the questions you all need to ask that will help you gain a sense of what are the vision and values of our community? That's really it. And so sometimes those are just simple questions um and sometimes it's more complicated. It's
really on you all to decide kind of where is our community at um and kind of what questions will be most effective at soliciting from our community uh their vision of values so that we can codify that. That's the first step uh that you all will do. The next step then is you
all have to decide who to listen to and we do that in two different ways. Community outreach and community um u and community engagement. Um what we mean by community out I'll take them the
other order. What we mean by community engagement is there are going to be groups of the community that you feel need to be listened to. Um and that you understand that if you hold a listening session they will come to it and you'll be able to hear from them. This is
commonly groups like your parents and students and staff and things of that nature. And so you'll have community engagement sessions that you host. These are often hosted like at your schools and things like that around the community. And so there are community uh engagement sessions and we'll ask each of you what are all the groups that need
to be engaged? What are all the groups that we need to be engaged with? Who are all the groups that we need to listen to? And we'll literally list them all out on a huge spreadsheet and then work with you to try to identify what are all the meetings that need to be scheduled to try to satisfy that listening obligation. and then break you up into
groups usually by twos and go out and conduct all those listenings. So that's the engagement. However, community engagement is entirely inadequate for fully getting a sense of the vision and values of a community. It's because there's a lot of folks in
your community who if you u invite them to a meeting, they're probably not going to show up for a variety of reasons. And so you also have a proactive obligation to go out to the community. And so where community engagement are opportunities that you are hosting, community outreach is where
you all say where are all the places we need to go out to to do listening because if we don't go there that we'll have missed that. In my own time as a board member up in the northeast part of our community, there was a asyl community. Uh you folks who had been
placed by the federal government because they're seeking asylum in the US. um and all of our efforts to invite them to meetings largely failed. Uh for whatever reason, this particular community never showed up at any of our meetings, but we still felt that we had an an ethical obligation to hear from them. And so we
put that as an examples on our list of outreach sessions. And so, uh one of us was assigned to go and speak to the elders of that community and say, "Hey, is there a regular meeting where family are at that we can come? We've got a few questions. We we want to listen and make sure that your voices are included in
this." And so that's the intention of uh community outreach sessions. So community engagement sessions which you all will have to uh define and and we will help harvest those those ideas from you. >> Pardon me.
>> That's the security guard. Call for a recess. Gulp for >> recess until we can restore order. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh my god. really El Paso. >> Good evening. The workshop is is now
reconvened. We recessed at 6:22. We reconvene at at 6:34. And I ask everybody to remember my warning from earlier. We must maintain uh order in in this proceeding and if
you're unable to do that, we'll ask ask you to leave. Turn the session back over to Mr. Crabel and he can continue our our training. >> All right. So, you have a paper. >> If you got pen and paper at desk, time
for you to do some work. Uh this will be a recurring theme. There will always be homework. get used to it. Um so um what we talked about right before the quick break was that the board will need to create a script. The board will need to decide who do we need to do engagement
with folks who will come to us and we can have a more wholesome conversation because the benefit of engagement is it's your meeting. So if it needs to be 60 minutes could be 60. If it needs to be 90 it could be 90. The downside of outreach is that you have to do it. You have to go to where the people are but it's not your meeting. And so like if a
neighborhood association says, "Yeah, you can come." You could go to that session, but they're probably not going to give you 90 minutes of the neighborhood association meeting. And so, uh, you're going to have to have a script that's flexible enough to meet the needs of your, um, community engagement sessions that you host and
you own the agenda on, as well as meet the needs of your community outreach sessions where you were on other people's turf. So, here's what we'll have you do. Um, three quick questions. Question number one, write down an example of a question that you think you might ask. What's a example of a
question that might need to be on the script? Remember, you all are going to develop a script that is really designed to help harness uh and harvest the community's vision and values. So, let's let's just practice. You know, there are no decisions being made tonight. This is purely for practice. This is purely to
just get the brain moving. But if you are going to go out and you're going to develop a script and you're going to have some questions on it that helped you harvest from the community a sense of what are their what are their high prioritized uh vision for what students should know and be able to do? What's their high prioritized values non-negotiables they have to be honored?
What might that question be? So what's an example of a question? So that's question number one. What's example of a question you might ask on your script? Question number two, what's an example of a community that you need to engage with that if you host uh if you host a listening session that
they're likely to come to, but you need to be intentional about hosting one and inviting them to it. What's an example of a community uh part a portion of your community, a subset of community that you need to be intentional about listening to uh that you're going to invite them to a community engagement
session and you know that if you invite them, they're likely to show up. That's that's really the hallmark of the community engagement sessions is we're hosting those because we know that people will come and and that gives us a deeper opportunity to have a richer conversation. And then question number three, what's an example of a community
that you'll need to do community outreach work with where if you host a meeting, maybe they'll come, maybe they won't, but you don't want to risk it that you really need to make an effort to go to them that you need to call them up and say, "Hey, I know you all have a meeting already. Can we get on the agenda?" What's an example of a community that you might need to do some
outreach to uh that you need to you know leave the opaces of ford buildings and take it to the street take it to the people go where folks are so that you can hear from them as well so that their voice need not be excluded all right so those are the quick three things u
question number one what's example of a question you might ask and again we're not making any decisions so don't worry about that right now we're just kind of brainstorming what will this listening campaign that you will need to engage in what might what might it look like uh who be the first to share. Yeah. >> Well, yeah. What's example of a question you might ask?
>> I would ask them what is their greatest concern? >> Yeah. Well, what is your greatest concern? Uh, and as people respond to that, then you all are going to get a wide ranging set of responses to that. And then you all are tasked with the job, the community's representatives of
trying to distill from all of that. Okay. What are the highest priority areas? because you're going to hear you ask that question, you're going to hear literally 10,000 different answers. And so you all have to sift through all that and try to figure out, okay, so what are the themes that are coming up uh most
frequently? Um and try to and try to figure out can one of those themes be a goal if it's about student outcomes? Can one of those themes be a guardrail if it's about community values? Who else? What's a question you might ask? Yeah. >> Um yeah, I I wrote down, you know, what
barrier would you remove today? uh for for the kids in the classroom and why. >> What's a barrier you would remove today for kids in the classroom and why? Yeah, this is definitely going to get you a value side. I don't think it's going to get you at the the vision side. It won't get you as much as what do we want
students to know and be able to do, but it's definitely going to get you insight on the value side. What are the non-negotiables that have to be true as we are on our way to accomplishing the goals? And so, you've got the goals, where are we trying to get to? You've got the guardrails. what is out of bounds as we uh are on our way there.
This is definitely the type of question that could help get you. What are those values? What are things that need to be out of bounds? Uh um because they would violate the values of you know for you're going to have to help me with the vernacular for Worthians. What do we what do we call folks here? >> Fort Worthians. Okay. Yeah. So what what
are the what are the values of Fort Worth Orans? Fort Worthians. Um that have to be non-negotiables for us um as we go about the business of achieving the goals. Yeah. What's got another one? >> Yeah, I don't know if you can hear me. >> Question up there, Dean. >> A yeah, what's example of a question you
might ask? >> I would say, what are your hopes for the children of our community? >> What are your hopes for the children of our community? So, a question like that actually might very well get us at the vision side of it. A vision of what do we want our students to know and be able to do? um so that they can live a choice-filled life, that they can go out
and live a life on on their terms, that they need need not be purely subject to the predation that comes from not having the knowledge and skills necessary to live a choicefilled life. You know, what are what are the hopes and dreams we have for our children? I could absolutely see a question like that being turned into one of your goals.
Absolutely. And so these are examples of the types of questions and you all are going to have a bunch of different ones when we do this for real. Um but our job will be to work with you to narrow down to a small set. It's usually three to five. It's not a not a whole lot so you don't overwhelm people. Um and then in
these sessions like your job is largely to shut up, ask the question, and then just be silent and take notes on what people say. That that's that's really the task in these listening sessions. Just literally listening session. Um by the
way, this will probably be some of your favorite moments as a school board member. um for a lot of our board members across the state and across the country, they frequently come back to us like doing this authentic, deep listening campaign in the community was like just some of the most fulfilling aspects of being on the school board. Um
and um and so know that that is a byproduct of just asking questions and then being silent and writing down whatever people say. It's important to note on this, you want to write down whatever people say. One of the things that we'll go over in training as we get closer is you want to observe what your
community says. You do not want to interpret what your community says at this stage. At this stage, you are observing what they say. You are not interpreting. So if somebody says I don't like Pete Lacata, then I would write down I don't like Pete Lacata. Like that's literally what I heard. Uh I
I would literally write that down. I I wouldn't try to interpret it. Oh, well someone, you know, they disagree with the superintendent. Well, okay, that's an interpretation, but that's not actually what they said. Um, and so I'd be intentional and that can be a little bit tough and we're telling you, you just going to have to just have to be tough enough to deal with the fact that
some people are going to say some uncomfortable things. In that moment, your job is to simply observe what you hear from your community. Write it down um, exactly as you're hearing it. There will be an interpretation part later, but later on you want the full board to
be able to interpret from the raw listening, not interpret from your interpretation, if that makes sense. >> Yeah. Can we record? >> Oh, sorry, Lori. >> Sorry. Is there an official documentation process of these or is it all of us just writing as fast as we
can? Are they videotaped or? >> Normally, what we do is in most districts, what they do is they uh actually just like create like a Google form or something like that with all the questions. And remember, you're always going out in twos. You're never going out solo. We never never do listening solo. It's always at least two folks.
Sometimes three maybe in your case. Um but so what that means is one person is doing the asking um and engaging with folks and clarifying whatever comes up and and the other person is you know literally typing or writing down the answers that they hear and then we swap u you know then okay now I've been
writing so I'm going to ask the next question and you're going to do the listening u and this is actually a real important piece to us because your job is to represent the vision and values of the community. We think it's inappropriate for there to be anyone between you and the members of the
community during this process. And so in most school systems, what happens is when it comes time to do this, it's actually the staff who are deployed to go out and listen to the community. And the staff aren't actually bringing the the board here's literally what they heard. The staff are interpreting what
they heard and then providing and then it's not out of malicious intent. It's actually out of a sense of professionalism and decorum. Um but that is not your primary concern in this moment. your primary concern is to hear the authentic voice of your community. Um, we that's also why you wouldn't deploy us. Obviously, we could do this
in our sleep as a group of coaches because we support boys this all the time, but we aren't the community's representatives. You are. And so, that's why we suggest that you all be the ones who are literally asking the questions and literally documenting what's said. And when I've done this myself, there'll be times where I'd say, "Hold on, ma'am.
You uh you talk real fast. I want to make sure I captured everything." And then I'd read back what I wrote down. Like, did I get that? All right, ma'am. Please continue. Um, and so it does in also have the effect of slowing down the conversation a little bit because we're not just kind of screaming at each other like I'm actually trying to document the
things you're saying, but that means the pace does have to be at a rate that I can actually document it. Um, and so I I think it it helps make the conversation more intentional and more intimate. >> Yeah. >> I know for the board here, I know that you've been working with Dr. Dr. Kushner
to make sure that we're developing these plans to way that you see they work out the best and that would include taking the minutes and such. So, >> we're actually behind the scenes that staff's doing that we when we do these that we're using his brain power and experience to make sure we do it the right way.
>> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Um >> can we record uh the listening sessions? >> It's not uncommon, but remember, you don't own all of these listening sessions. their community engagement sessions and community outreach sessions. Which of those do you run?
>> You you run the engagement sessions that that's where people are coming to you. The outreach session, you're going to them. You don't you whether or not that is recorded is you are a guest at their meeting. I wouldn't just show up be like we recording y'all. Uh like I I would probably follow the leadership of
whoever's meeting I am a guest in. And so I I don't think you can rely on we will have a recording of every single one of these. Uh because I think that partially depends on you know what the comfort level like if you go to a community and they community and feel like they are at risk for some reason and they are uncomfortable being
recorded then I think you have to honor u that you're their house they're not in yours. AJ, can you speak to uh we learned a lot in training about the difference between board work and superintendent operations work and how
should the narrow scope of our service play into the crafting of the questions we're going to ask? A lot of the things that the community wants us to hear and that we need to >> are are very granular operations things which are not in line with ultimately what we're being tasked to do when we
grab these guard rails and the goals. >> So how do we how do we meld those things things together to make sure we're asking the right questions for our part of the work as opposed to the superintendent and the operations teams part. If you hold a session and a hundred people come out and they, you
know, each, you know, give, you know, 10 ideas, so you've got a thousand ideas on paper. My guess is 900 of those ideas are probably going to have something to do with uh some type of pain point that somebody might be experiencing in the moment, which is really your job is not
to be the onbudsman of the school system. Like you aren't literally in the schools on a day-to-day basis. You're not compensated to to go out and actually show up in schools. That's really a staff function. Um and so this is this is a hard part is that the listening you do people will just share
whatever they share. Um and they are doing their job. It's going to be your job collectively as a team to later interpret what does that all mean? Um and so for example if I hear 10 different people all say hey I don't like that um that my kids only have 15
minutes of recess. Well, how much time you have in recess, you know, in the, you know, schedule at individual elementary schools is probably more an administrative decision. But you all have to stop and think to yourself, is there a element of the community's vision that's underneath that that I should be paying attention to? Is there
an element of the community's values that's underneath that that I should be paying attention to? And so this becomes the work of the board is you are listening for not for individual pain points. you're actually listening for what are themes across the entire system and what are the what are the values
behind those themes and that's what we have to um that's what we have to address. Uh an example of this uh in my book I tell a story about when I was the vice president of my neighborhood association and uh basically what that means is when uh our older neighbors
call you and say they want something it's your job to show up and do it for them. Um and so Miss Johnson calls me up one day and she said, "Hey, hey John, did you come on through?" And so I show up in Miss Johnson's, you know, front stoop because, you know, my my old block, you know, all the old folks would sit on the front porch and they just watch everything. And Miss Johnson know
everything happening on the block. And she says, "AJ, I need a stop sign here on the corner." Now, I just gone through community organizer training and so I know that a stop sign is an issue. And my job as a community organizer is a is a isn't to pursue the issues of every
community member. It's to really try to get what are the values under the issues. So So I did what the training said and I asked her, "Well, Miss Johnson, why is that important? Why is the stop sign important to you? She said, "Well, these cars are going too fast." Well, Miss Johnson, why is that important to you? Well, these kids are trying to play. Miss Johnson, why is that important to you? It's just not safe. And now I've pushed on this issue
multiple times and now I've gotten to the value under the issue. This is your task. You are going to hear about a lot of stop signs in your time on this board. And it's not your job to tell Miss Johnson not to mention a stop sign. That's not your job. Like, Miss Johnson,
I don't I don't talk about stop signs. Like, that would have got me cussed out right then. Like the job is to listen to the issue but to push on it so I get a sense of what is the value underneath of it. Then my job as the vice president of the neighborhood is I actually went around and knocked on the doors of other folks on the block. Hey, Miss Johnson's got
some concerns. She's worried about safety around here. Are you all concerned? Like and other people said, "Yeah, safety. Safety is our issue as well." I took it to the city and said, "Hey, we got a whole three blocks here that they're concerned about safety. What are y'all going to do about it?" And the city planner, Travise, she she studied it. She looked at the budget. She did all these things. Um, and two
weeks later she, you know, let us know that, hey, uh, we're going to come install a speed bump. You know, that's the appropriate response, you know, for the traffic pattern in these three blocks. It'll, it'll slow down the traffic. It'll make it more safe. I go back to Miss Johnson. It's like, Miss Johnson, you going to be so excited. You
going to be so happy. Uh, like, yeah, we addressing the issue of safety. Was Miss Johnson happy with me, y'all? >> Miss Johnson was super not happy. Was super not happy. Here's a question. Did I do my job to represent the values of my neighbors?
>> Yeah. And so this is one of the hard parts about being a public representative is your job isn't to represent the issues of Miss Johnson. It's to represent the values of your community. And there will be a price to pay for not representing the issues of Miss Johnson.
Because Miss Johnson, she's respected. She's like 999 years old. She knew everybody. When Miss Johnson say don't vote for AJ, people ain't going to vote for AJ. There there will be a price to pay from not honoring the issues of Miss Johnson. But
honoring the issues of Miss Johnson is not your job. It's to it's to represent the values of the community. And that means you have to listen for themes across the entire community. And that means there will be people who are feeling very real pain in the moment. Um, and those folks largely your job in
that moment is to recognize, okay, this is this is a school system issue. I I need to make sure that somebody who has expertise in that is following up with this. And so then you you know the super you either defer to the superintendent, the superintendent would already have let you know how does Miss
Johnson, you know, get her stop sign attended to. If it's a value issue, then it's not the superintendent. It belongs to you. And so this is the distinction that I would have you lean into um in response to your question is that your job is to represent the vision and values. The super student
superintendent's job is to implement the vision and values. So he takes it to the issue layer. You all live at the vision and values layer. Now there has to be some accountability here. This is why you adopt the vision as goals and the values as guardrails. And this is why you monitor progress toward them so
aggressively literally every single month. There will never be a month that goes by where you're not holding the superintendent's feet to the fire. Show me the evidence. Don't tell me your opinion. Show me the data. Show me the evidence that you are actually moving the needle relative to the community's vision and values. Like that is the that becomes the language between the board
and the superintendent. This is how the board represents the vision and values by you write it down and then have these accountability conversations literally every month. you are literally evaluating the superintendent in public every single month on his ability to move the needle for children. That is
what these monitoring conversations are and that is what that's how you make accountability real. So it's not just performative accountability that's real accountability. Um but then the superintendent has to go out and implement. So this is the key distinction, you know, Tennessee, as you're as you're trying to think through this. I'd encourage you to do the same
thing I did on that front porch that day is somebody's going to come up to you with something. and they're going to say, you know, they're going to pull you aside, you know, at the grocery store and they're going to have an issue for you. Or they're going to roll up on you in the pew at church. They're going to have an issue for you. They're going to see you, you know, playing with your kid out in the front yard. They're going to
have an issue for you. And your job won't be to brush those folks off, but you will need to do the work that I did that day. It's like, well, you help help me understand a little bit more. Why is that important to you? Well, why is that important? Until you get a sense of what's the vision or value underneath of it. That exact same thing is not what you're going to do with the listening
sessions. At the listening sessions, you were just literally going to write down what they say. But then later on as a collective board, then you're going to come together and say, "Okay, based on what we heard, what is some of the vision and values underneath what we heard uh that are common across all of
Fort Worth." That's the nature of the job. So, you're going to do the same thing I did, but you're just going to do it in two different stages. You'll do the listening at one stage uh and just purely observing what you heard and then you'll do the interpretation of it. The really kind of drilling down what are the val vision and values under it. You'll do that together at another stage
because what I don't want is like if you two go out and do a listening somewhere I want the everybody else to have the benefit of hearing the raw thing that you heard and if you two go listen somewhere I want them to have the benefit of hearing the raw thing that you heard. But then collectively as a team do the interpretation, do the part
of pushing on it to figure out what is the value underneath the thing that we heard. That's how you'll distinguish. Um, and so yes, to be clear on your question one more time, expect that you're going to hear a whole lot of issues from a whole lot of Miss Johnson's and and that is community members. They're doing their part. They
are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. There's nothing wrong. That that is entirely appropriate. It'll be your job to capture it and then later on your job to interpret it. Yeah. AJ, I want to read something to you because I it caught my attention in some of the documents we were asked to
prepare for this meeting. It says, "The school board's job is to represent the vision of the community, which I think is what you were just speaking to." >> Yes, sir. >> Not the vision of a federal or state government. >> That is correct. >> If there happens to be an overlap
between the community's voice and the state federal interests, so be it. >> Yeah. But if not and if there is a conflict which should be determination made by the school board us. >> That's correct.
>> Then the school board has the ethical obligation to represent the community first. >> That's correct. Um and I say that as a former board member. I say that as a recovering state employee. Uh u and I said it as a state when I was a state
employee at TEA. I said the same thing then that you see written down in these documents now that the job of the board is to represent the vision and values of the community. Your job is not to represent the vision and values of the federal government. Your job is not to represent the vision and values of the state government. Job is not even to represent the vision and values of the
county government. Your job is to represent the vision and values of the community that you serve. And the first major step that you'll take in the direction of honoring that job is you will go out and listen to folks. There are going to be plenty of places, I mean, just to be blunt, most of the
interest of the feds and the states and the county and the district are going to overlap. I mean, nobody's going to stand like we we want kids to not read. Like, most of the things that people want are going to overlap. But there will be areas of non-overlap. There'll be areas where there's disagreement between the
way that the federal government or the state government or the county government sees things and the way that y'all see things with your ears to the ground. and our coaching will never once waver that your job uh in moments of that conflict is to represent the vision and values of the community. Is that responsive to your inquiry? >> Yes.
>> Thank you. >> Other questions about this listening about this listening campaign? Yeah. >> Could you talk about just give some examples of districts you worked with and and what this whole listening process looked like? How many meetings and Yeah. you know, it went from some
place has X and some place had 2X and just a sense of of how it plays out. >> Yeah, probably one of my favorite. It's a school system uh that I think it's about three no about little two and a half times your enrollment. So, they're they're significantly larger school
system. Um uh but they but they also have nine board members and they they took on the task uh very aggressively of engaging and listening. I think they hosted somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 listening sessions over a four-month period, something like that.
>> 16. >> Now, remember, it wasn't the full board going out. What did What did I say? Is it going to look like? >> Yeah. Two by two. Um, and so this wasn't wearing out. You know, it's not we're not deploying nine people 60 times. Like, you two are going to go out someplace and then you and you will go
out and and and in fact, we want we want board members to go with different people every single time. And we want each board member to listen in every part of the community. So just because you live on this side of town, that don't mean you stay on this side of town. You got to go hear the other side of town as well. And and the folks who live on the other side of town, they
need to come hear the pain points of the folks who live in your side of town as well. And so to get that to get that kind of breadth of listening, yeah, for them in their context, like I said, about two and a half times larger than you. Uh but yeah, I think for them it took about 60 different listening
sessions they had. Uh I'd say the I'd say about half of those uh were things that they were hosting like they just like went around in different feeder patterns and stuff. Um and then uh half of those were like neighborhood association meetings and you know Rotary Club meetings and and all these
different types of meetings where it's like if we don't go to these folks we're not going to hear from them. We need to be intentional about going to where they're at instead of them coming to where we're at. Um and then as a as a the sum of all of that, you know, they had, you know, tens of thousands of individual data points uh that we then
had to crunch in order to try to lift up what were the themes among all those. Um but that's that's example. And again, they're they're larger than you. So you yours might not be that expansive. Uh but that is that is not an uncommon that's not an uncommon thing to see because again, what'll happen is we'll
just ask all of you, you know, who should we be outreaching? who should we be engaging and you all will build a list and the list will be however long you all say it is and then we'll figure out who's going to all these different places and it'll be what it'll be. Uh but it it gets sorted out. I realize it
sounds a little bit scary at the moment but actually like I said when you get into it this will probably be the most joy you derive from your time in office. >> At the end of the day the more data you have the data set will be. So yeah,
>> yeah, it really is helpful to have a larger data set for this because here's what's going to happen. Our coaching is that you need to have receipts like you should not this this should not be a trust us we're the schoolboard scenario. There should be a trust but verify. And so people ask where did these goals come from? It shouldn't be well because I am
wise and I read Facebook. Like that that can't be the answer. That that can't be it. And so when somebody rolls up on you and says hey why did you pick this gold? You need to be a play apocalyp. Here's a summary of of all the things that we heard during the listening campaign. Here's all the places we went. Here's who went there. Here's exactly what
people said. Click here on the website. You can see all the raw. Like I' I'd literally post every single comment you heard raw, unedited on your website. Here's everything we heard. Here's a five-page summary of what we heard. You read this and tell me what you see. Like, we want you to have receipts. So,
it it should be easy for the community to say, "Okay, you know what? Yeah, I um I may have picked differently, but I see how they got there. I I see how what they're operating with is derived from what they heard from us, even if it's something different than I would have picked." You want to have receipts. And so, part of this process is you get
those receipts. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, it's kind of like a um just from a research perspective, like a qualitative content analysis. Like we're going to literally show the show the analysis. Yeah. And so it will be like a published article. You can see all the data.
>> People will see exactly how you got from point A to point B. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Absolutely. >> You said 60. Now, was that an outlier? Was you 30 to 60? U mo most of the districts are probably closer in size to yours, you know, and
so kind of these, you know, the Broward counties of the world are, you know, an anomalous. Um, and so it is it's unusual. Um, but again, like if if the district was two and a half times the size of yours is, yeah, I'd probably say that sounds probably about right for
what you all need to do. Um, but that again, that's a that's a choice that you all collectively would make. >> Do you have staff support? I mean, the logistics of putting all these All the logistics should be handled by staff. All of the listening should be handled by board members. >> No, but I mean as far as setting it up. Oh, yeah. You know, actually going and
making sure the place is available and >> Yeah. All of the logistics can be handled by staff. It's just the listening that needs to be handled by the board of staff. >> Just the logistical support to set up 30 meetings. >> Yeah. Y'all got other stuff to do. How much do we pay you again? Somebody remind me. Will >> it's what?
>> How much do we pay you to be on this board again? >> We're doubling their salary this week. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so there are certain things that it makes sense for y'all to do that you just have to do. And the listening you just have to do um regardless of your generous compensation
package. But everything else that you don't absolutely have to do, we would encourage you to delegate to your staff. Um you know, since there are people who actually are compensated for that, it just makes more sense. it's less likely to fall through the like the last thing you want is to tell a community that you're going to come and listen to them,
but then a volunteer is responsible for logistics and it falls through the cracks because you do have a day job. Um, and then that community doesn't get listened to like we need quality control on this. And so when you need quality control that it's helpful to have staff for that, but the actual listening that needs to be y'all person
>> Yeah, we are going to follow um best practice presented by council great city schools because it's been so successful on how you guys have implemented. So we will be following that and staff will be handling it with your consultation and >> yeah went through a similar process in Broward. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> Um the first question was what question
might you ask? Let's go to the second piece because this actually gets you know Peter what you're lifting up is what's a community um or group of you know your community that you that you might want to engage with that that if you hosted a listening session you feel pretty confident that they would likely
come and so that you could then hear what their vision and values are. So what' you put down for the second question? What are examples of uh listening uh of engagement that you might do where you as a board host a session and people come to you? Who who you going to listen to? >> Um so I put down the uh fort group uh
Fort Worth resisting the takeover. Yeah. Group Zach Leonard who was here. >> Yeah. Absolutely. So there are folks who are going to show up at meetings. You know that these people will show up places and so host a meeting and make sure that they're invited so they can show up as well. Um and there's there's a wisdom here that is just worth taking
a moment to note. Your job is not to represent the vision and values of the segment of the community that you agree with. Your job is not to represent the vision and values of the segment of the community that makes your job easy. Like the I can tell you from lived experience. There going to be days that
you go home in heartbreak. There are days when your um integrity is called in question, where your character is impuged. uh where people are angry and they have a righteous right to be angry and you are on the receiving end of that and that is what you signed up for and your job is to honor that they have a
right to share their anger in whatever way they choose to share it as long as they aren't violent or you know harming you. But th this is this is a hard part. This is a hard part of being a public official is people are going to say stuff to you and it's not going to be nice and it's not going to be designed to be nice. Sometimes it's just because
they're coming from a place of hurt and you will faithfully listen and and honor the hurt. Sometimes it will be intended to be hurtful like I'm I'm trying to call you out and you will be faithful and listen to that as well. That is what it means to be a public official. You are public servants. You don't have a
right to get angry at people because you hear things that you don't want to hear, things that are uncomfortable for you to hear. That's just part of the job. Um, and so as you're listening, like my coaching to you would to be hardened enough that you never waver from the job of
representing the vision and values of the community, but softened enough that you never stop feeling the energy that's being sent your direction. Like if you get too hard and you don't feel what's coming at you, you won't be the advocate that children
need you to be. But if you're so soft that you will crumple under pressure, you won't be the advocate the children need you to be. You will need to be hardened. You will need to be soft to the moment's account. And this will be some of the hardest tests that you can face. And that will happen during this listening campaign is that people will say things. It'll be hard to hear. And
it's your job to hear it. It's your sacred obligation to hear it. And and and you won't probably be able to say thank you at the bulbit, but the correct response is going to be thank you. The correct response is going to be thank you. Yeah. And so whatever that's a perfect
example of a group that we have to engage with is folks who have a very different view or who have expressed things in ways that were uncomfortable, you have an obligation to hear them and it's wise that you put them on your list to identify these are folks that we have to uh extend an invitation to as well.
Uh who else? Uh who do you need to engage with? Yeah, >> I wrote down the forward council of PTAs. >> Yeah, these are folks and if you if you send out the call, they're probably going to show up. And so the that's a perfect example of a group that you want to engage with like, hey, we want to
hear from you all your vision and values as we're developing the five-year priorities for the school system. Um, and so, you know, come on out. Yeah. Who who else you going to engage? >> Don't let him speak first ever again. Don't do that. >> Yeah. Uh, who else? What's an example of
a group that you might engage? I really think it's going to be a great effort and a a focused effort to get to the people we don't hear from, we don't see all the time, that have great voices, aren't coming here to tell us or in papers or wherever. I think it's important that we hear from the folks
that are very quiet. >> So, uh that's going to be a challenge. So, we will have to incorporate our churches in our community places that uh people are very comfortable showing up as well. >> Absolutely. It is very common, you know, to see uh boards as they're engaging in this process to be super intentional
about reaching out to the ecumenical community, reaching out to faith leaders and trying to identify, hey, you know, you got some parishioners, you know, they live here, they stay here, they they work, they worship here. We haven't heard from any of our meetings. C can we come to a gathering? Uh like I don't know if you want to take over the revival. I don't know if the pastor
going to hand you the microphone, but something that allows you uh to make sure that of voices that aren't heard uh get heard during this process. >> Yeah. Anybody else? What's an example of you engagement where you will host it and you have pretty decent confidence that they'll show up? Anybody else engaged?
>> The city has 26 community centers. Yeah. You know, half of them are in the >> uh forth ISD and and some of them are very well connected within their communities. They have community leaders. have regular gatherings, a place that community feels comfortable
gathering that's convenient. >> She might say, "We're going to host our own 60 90minute listening session, you know, of the 13 community centers, you know, we're going to pick these five. We're going to host um and we're going to invite folks in the surrounding communities to these." Yeah. All right. And then the third question was,
>> who are you who's the outreach who if you if you don't show up where they're at, you might never hear from them. Who's somebody you put down on your outreach list? Yeah, >> I said um special education parents, but specifically um minority and um
culturally diverse special education families. Sometimes it's really hard to get child care or, you know, various things like that. So, creating a space, meeting them where they're at, whether it be a park where they can bring their children, uh or offering a Zoom session,
um something. >> Yeah. in in our modern era. It didn't used to be this way at all, but really starting uh in 2020, I'm sure you can imagine why. Um a lot of sessions started happening via Zoom. Um and so recognizing that there are communities
that may be difficult for them to come to you. Zoom is a way that you can kind of reach out into where they're at. It's technically more of an engagement system because you're the one hosting it, but it but it is a way of going to people uh that we didn't really have prior to 2020. that there just wasn't a common
thing uh to do before that, but it's really common now. It'd be wise to take advantage of that in areas where you feel like there there are communities that if we don't do this, uh their voice probably won't be heard. Anybody else? Where's a community that you'll need to go out to? Yeah. >> Yeah. We just witnessed graduations this
last week and I was looking at the audiences and looking at the kids who came through for graduation and many of those kids were I'm guessing first generation Spanish speakaking. >> You look at the audience and that's their parents.
>> Yeah. >> And they don't speak English. They don't come to meetings. And yet they make up about 80% of our school district. That's the challenge that we have. And if we're going to reach the community, the community that we serve, we've got a
way to find a way to go to them. >> You're going to have to decide how serious you are about the listening. You're going to have to make that call. Um, and again, you the more intense you are, the more work it is, and there's nobody to delegate to. It's just going to be the 90. Uh, it is taking on. I do know of one particular board is also a
nine member board, so they had some people to spare. Um, but they actually had uh a similar scenario. it it wasn't Spanish speaking. Uh I think it was like Burmese or something like that is a a a group of families had been relocated by the federal government and and it's like
like we don't it wasn't even large enough yet to like have a formal community center like there but there was just a region of town and so the board did like hey let's let's take it to the streets and so they took their script they adapted it and they acted like they were on a a campaign for the school board.
Hey, I'm school board member X. Uh, you know, you know, we're just doing some doornocking in this neighborhood. We want to make sure that we hear the vision and values of families in this neighborhood. You have a minute to answer a few questions. They literally took their listening campaign block to block in this particular community to try to hear from a group of folks that
otherwise they wouldn't hear from. They felt uh a calling to make sure that that community uh got heard. Um, but they recognized all their other strategies had failed. And so they said, you know what, we we know how to knock on a door. Let's do this thing. and they took it to the streets. I I think you all are going
to have to make some decisions about, you know, what is true for Fort Worth, what is true for our communities um and what efforts will we have to take uh to make sure that we're engaged. Remember, at the end of all of this, there's going to be a document. It's going to be about five pages. It's not going to be long. There's going to be a summary of what
you heard. It's going to be a summary of the process. And what you don't want is the people to open that thing and be like, "Hey, I noticed there wasn't a single listening session on the entire east side of town. There wasn't a single listening session this entire segment like that's not what you want. You you want there to be a completeness to the
listening. You all going to have to decide what that looks like. I can't decide. Staff can't decide. Uh this is the area where you and you alone have the expertise to represent the vision and values of the community. We're talking about the listening part that leads to the goals and guardrails. What questions do you have? Anything about
the listening campaign that leads you to the goals and guardrails? What questions do you have? I know this is not your first time hearing this and for many of you not even your first time hearing it from me. Uh but just know that um uh as you have ongoing questions, this is why there's a
threeperson coaching team. Contact any of us at any time. Um you know, we live in three different area co or three different time zones. So anytime you choose to pick up the phone, one of us is going to be awake. Um just anytime you're you're wrestling with someone, you just want to talk through things, feel free to, you know, reach out to us.
um you know we're happy to be of service. You will have more questions about this but don't worry we'll have a full workshop that all we do is the literal planning where we just sit down at that time the brainstorming that you're doing on paper this is just for practice at that time it'll be real where we actually do the work and then
we'll help you uh put all that together and then use that to develop your community listening campaign questions or reflections before we move on from community listening. Yeah, >> I was just going to share um Rotary clubs and chambers of commerce. >> Yeah. >> Um a lot of in here in our area, there's
a lot of um community events that offer nonprofits and different organizations to set upformational booths so we could take advantage of those opportunities as well. Just show up to those events and you know take advantage of the traffic that's already going to be there.
>> Yeah, absolutely. Uh definitely wise to do so. take exactly as you said, take advantage of the traffic that's already going to be there. Other questions? >> Yeah, a question about doing it in the I don't know if we can move this quickly, but in the summer, have you had experience where families may be out of
town on vacation or less available compared to in the fall when school's back in session? >> So, not surprising this comes up. Um, uh, and I think you all know better than I do because I I don't know Fort Worth. um big fan but don't know anything about so I'll be relying entirely on your
insights um and so you'll have to make that call. I know in my community when we were going through all this when I was a board member like oh we can't do it in the summer because everybody's going to be on vacation like like 90% of our kids are on free reduced lunch like who has all this money is going on
vacation and sure enough is I went around and talked to all my neighbors wasn't nobody going on summer vacation and so in our context it was a perfectly appropriate time to do so but if if your context is different and people are legitimately like gone you know maybe they're going to you know you know aunt
uncle's house for the summer you know they got other they do like you know your community and so if summer is appropriate for you then I'd say listen to the summer if summer is not appropriate for you then I would say don't listen to the summer um in my context you know it worked out fine for us we you know all the people are still
around it was an issue but if in your context it's different then you have to then you have to calibrate for that but but we'll rely on your insights for that because you know we we know what questions to ask but we don't know the answers we'll rely on you for the answers Yeah. And in the absence of clarity, we
generally encourage elacrity like like let let's move this thing. Let let's let's get moving. Like the the children, you know, like little AJ ain't getting third grade twice. Like we we want that first one to count. Um and so the the quicker the board can move, you know, the better. Um but it has to be
measured. And so if there are things that um structurally you all need to slow down for uh to do right by your community, then you need to prioritize that. Other questions or reflections before we transition topics. Questions or reflections?
All right. So I want to zoom in on really the next piece of that puzzle, which is the clarify the priorities part. This is the actual adoption of the goals and guardrails. So when it comes time to adopt the goals and guardrails, uh there's two major pieces of information that you will need. The first we've already discussed. It'll be
the summary of the uh community listening. And so that document will be the key document that you use for designing your goals and guardrails. Be a summary of the community listening. But there's another document that you need and that's going to be a summary of kind of what is true for our students right now. This will really be a data
deep dive that's provided to you by your superintendent. um in your unique situation there's actually a third document that you all will have to rely on and that is what are the exit conditions uh for this intervention. U we say unapologetically
and we'll repeat it over and over. It has nothing to do with any of you. That our belief as schoolboard coaches um is that for a district that is used to experiencing an elected school board that the best thing for that community
to have is a fully functional, highly effective elected school board. Obviously, that's not you. Um what that means is you all have to put in place the systems that really set uh the elected board up for success when they come back. Um, and so finding ways right
now immediately like what are all the ways that we could be helping make sure that the elected board members are set up for success so that as they start to transition back in uh that that can happen uh quickly and smoothly in a way that's not harmful to children. Um, and
so part of that means looking at that third document, you know, the the document that describes what are the extra criteria for this intervention, like what are the things that the state agency needs to see to know that this is ready to be handed back to the elected
officials. You'll want to you are in a unique situation that you'll need to look at that document and make sure that um it is not ignored in your work. What I found so far is there tends to be a whole lot of overlap actually between what the state expects which is generally a fairly low bar of
expectation. Kids should be able to read. Imagine that. This is a very low bar. You should not experience that as a high bar. You should experience that that is a low bar of expectation for our children. Um and and so I again this is one of the situations where I don't think there's going to be a a lot of variance between uh the vision and
values of the community and what's on that document. But that is one that is in your unique situation because you have an obligation of transitioning this intervention back to the elected officials in a way that sets them up for success. You'll want to consider that as well. But in most situations, there really two key documents you're looking
at. What's the voice of the community and what's the current truth for our children? The voice of community. You all gather the truth of our children. You'd ask your superintendent with providing a five-page summary of that. Yeah. >> Yeah. A I'm glad you brought up the third criteria which is unique to our situation. That was a question I wanted
to ask kind of as overall contextual is >> um in your board coaching, have you worked with boards that are under a state intervention previously? Yes. >> Uh because and my question too is as we work through all of these things with the state overlay that is there. I mean it just it's the elephant in the room.
It's there. >> What level of autonomy do we have um with that to your knowledge versus the state coming in and saying you know that vision of value is good, that vision of value is good, that one not so much. Are there three seats at the table? Superintendent, operation side of the
state. >> I would wholeheartedly ignore anything that is not derived from the vision and values of your community. >> Like you need to do the authentic work of governing and that means your job is to represent the vision and values of the community. Um and so no, if you get a call from the governor himself says,
"Hey, this is what I think the goals need to be." I would encourage like, "Thank you, governor." And then promptly not add that to your notes. like what needs to be in the documents that you write down is this is what the voice of the community has said and and this document you know that says here's
the voice of the community needs to purely and authentically be the voice of the community and so yeah everybody else has a right to their opinion it's a free country everybody's going to call you people who have never lived in Fort Worth a day in their life will have opinions too um and you will have to decide are they part of the community that you're listening to in which case
you will include them in your notetaking or if they're not then you won't include them in your note-taking big. Um, but yeah, there will be external voices and you will listen to those external voices, but I would I would not encourage you to add that into your process that your process needs to be this is the vision and values of the
community. Um, and the only one sliver of caveat to that is it is wise to try to speed up the day at which things transition back to the elected board. for that reason to speed up the transition. That's the only reason I'd
encourage you to be mindful of what's in that document because you don't want to unintentionally artificially slow down the transition back to the elected official. Like it is it is a healthy thing for that to occur, but to occur in a healthy way. Part of your job is to make sure that that transition does happen. it happens in a healthy way and
that along the paths literally starting today not waiting three four years from now literally starting today what are the things that we could be doing uh as the seated board uh to be supporting the elected board members of being ready to come back and be wildly successful at serving children
>> and follow the exit criteria document that's going to come out in those who creates that document >> uh the commissioner of education >> that's what I thought >> um and having some familiarity with the commissioner I suspect you are going strongly agree with everything you see in that document. Um, you know, it's
it's probably going to say things about here are the here are the things that we want children to know and be able to do. Um, I I I I would be shocked if there's anything in that document that you you strongly disagree with. Um, it's having seen previous versions of this. It's typically here's what justice for
children looks like and we expect you to go out and get this. >> Other uh questions about that? So, so I want to lean into this. Uh, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. >> Does Bobby have a question? He turned his thing on. >> Oh, yeah. What's up?
>> I don't know. I'm good. I just I'm in and out of reception, but this is great. This is very helpful. >> So, I want to uh briefly transition and do a deep dive into the goals and guard themselves. After you've done all this listening, now you have the raw material. You've got uh this summary, this five-page document about the vision
of the community. You got this summary, this five-page document from your superintendent about what's the current reality for our students. you know, where are the areas of highest need and highest leverage? You have this document, you know, that talks about what are the action criteria, how how do we speed up the day that we return uh to an appointed board rather than appointed
board. Um, and you'll use those. What will happen is we'll come together um in a workshop. It'll be a dayong workshop. It's trust me, it's going to it's going to take at least eight hours. It always does. You always think it'll happen quer. Um, it takes a long time as a deliberative body to really dig into all
of that data and to start to synthesize from it. Well, we've got a hundred different ideas of what our community wants our children to know and be able to do. But we can't have a hundred different priorities. In fact, in our coaching, our recommendation, you have one to three, definitely no more than
five goals. Why do you think that is? Why do we recommend that you have one to three definitely no more than five goals? Like you're going to hear at least a hundred different things that the community wants prioritized. Why wouldn't you pick a hundred different things? >> 100.
>> You're definitely not going to, you know, you definitely not going to be able to hit all 100. If we if we pick a hundred >> focus the focus of what we're trying to get done. >> If we have a narrow set, it will strengthen the focus. And so it means we have to pick the things that matter most. Uh because that sets us up. Yeah.
Why >> if we try to do everything, we'll do nothing. the the the board that prioritizes everything is the board that prioritizes what? >> Nothing at all. Um and so there is playing the board and there is being the board. And boards that like to play at boardsmanship, they will come back. Hey,
we got 130. This actually happened. I got a phone call one day. Boardman, AJ, hey, we love this idea about having goals, priorities. We're all over that. I just need some help sorting out some of the details. Uh can I send you our list of goals? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, madam chair, no problem. Send me your goals. I open up this document. It's like, ma'am, is this a typo? He's like,
"What? Um, there are 130 goals on here." It's like, "Yeah, yeah, that's that's what that's what all the listening said that we should these are 130 things that were most important to people." It's like, "No, ma'am." Let me ask it in a more adversarial way. What's the benefit to the board of
trying to adopt 130 goals? What's the benefit to the board of trying to adopt 130 goals? >> They'll look successful no matter what or everyone will be so confused. Yeah, we we could pretend that we're successful cuz we got we got to hit at least one of these 130 like and so then we'll just carry that one as the banner
for look we we got to go for kids. What's the benefit to board of pretending to govern by having 130 goals? >> You make all the adults happy. >> Look, it's going to be some happy adults. When you roll up in HB and somebody talk to somebody, they be like, "Hey, uh do you have a goal for me?" "Yes, ma'am, we do." And when you roll up in church and somebody slides up next
to you, like, "Hey, do you have a goal?" "Yes, sir. We have a we have a goal for you." Uh you know, we think you're like, "You get a goal. you get a goal like and and we please adults at the cost of sacrificing possibility for children. This is >> Can I add AJ to your point earlier about
the the speeding up the transition back to an elected board that it makes that less likely, right? In other words, if you have 100 goals, there's always more work to do in five years and 10 years and 28 years or whatever it is. >> Yeah. Yeah, if we have 130 goals, the transition back to elected board will be, you know, um after we are all long
gone. Uh the transition will be as a result of a series of um funerals. Uh yeah. So, no, we we want it to be sooner than that. Um and and part of that is we just have we have to be clear like what are the priorities? And in our coaching is we'd recommend one to three definitely no more than five goals. Uh
you know, fewer gives you more focus. Um more gives you less focus. And so it means is you've got to listen for the community and try to dial into what are the what are the one, two or three that are going to make the biggest difference for the biggest group. Like if we if we nail these, there's going to be this larger effect for for our entire
community, for our entire student body. Like what do like if there if there are 10 that are important, what are the first one, two or three that we could take on that's going to help us uh gain momentum and traction in the direction of the other, you know, seven, eight, nine. Uh that that's got to be the
thinking that you go into this with. And by the way, this this whole idea about prioritization, this is going to haunt you. This this will be every day of your life as a school board member is that it will be about prioritization of a finite set of resources. When we talk about goals and
guardrails, the finite resource that you're actually prioritizing around is uh the time, talent, and treasure of your school system. Um but that's that just starts with the goals and guardrails. That will wind up being true in every single meeting you have where you are voting on anything is that you
have a finite set of resources and you're trying to decide is this thing sufficiently aligned with accomplishing the community's vision that's in our goals. Is this thing sufficiently aligned with honoring the community's values? It's in our guardrails that of all the things we
should be investing in, this is a thing. And that's the challenge you give to your superintendent. and the superintendent uh can't show up and say, "Hey, look, this thing is, you know, we explicitly picked this thing because of its alignment with the community's vision and values." And here's the evidence of that because you don't just
want to trust the superintendent's, you know, word on this. You you want him to bring it, you want him to bring receipts just like the community is going to expect you to bring receipts. They seem to go like, "Hey, look, here's what we picked and here's why we picked it. Here's the evidence that this this is something that can really make a difference for our kids." like that that is the level of rigor that you that
you're going to have to have because you have a finite resources. If you had infinite resources, none of this conversation matters. But in the context of finite resources, you're going to have to dig in and say, what are the one, two, or three things that matter most? Um and then and let that be our north star over the next fiveyear
period. Um and then as we accomplish those, then what are the next one, two, or three? And as we accomplish those, well, the next one, two, or three. And that's the baton that you're handing back to the elected board. Other questions, reflections about goals and guardrails? Other questions, reflections about goals and guardrails?
I want to talk about what you use them for when you have them. Um, anybody remember some of this from some of your reading? What do you wind up using once you have you've you've done all the listening, you've done all the discernment, you've adopted a set of goals and guardrails. Uh, now you've got
them. What do you use them for? >> This is part of accountability. You use these at every single meeting. You're going to monitor progress toward at least one of your goals at every single meeting. Every single meeting is a micro public evaluation of the superintendent. Show me evidence that we're making progress relative uh to the p this
community's priorities. Every single meeting. Or as we like to say as coaches, every not every meeting, every month, uh that you should monitor progress toward your goals in every month that you care about children. If there are months where you don't care about children, don't monitor it during that month. But in the months where you
care about children, in that month, at some point during that month, monitoring should be happening. Um, and so this is the first thing that you'll use your goals and guardrails for is this is part of your accountability, your monthly conversation with your superintendent. How else do you use your goals and
guards once you've adopted them? What are you going to evaluate your superintendent on? Say what? >> Student outcomes. >> Which student outcomes? >> Not merely the ones related to our goals and guardrails. Your evaluation instrument for the superintendent will
be the goals and guardrails. That that will be the superintendent's evaluation. So conveniently, the entire public will all know exactly what the superintendent uh evaluation is because it's public. It's not hidden. This is this is the data that you all have publicly said. This is what we're focused on. And so it makes it plain.
And it makes it visible that this is this is what we're out to accomplish. This is what we evaluate our superintendent on. So this is what we have conversations about every month. This is what we evaluate our superintendent on. So um will your evaluation of your superintendent be on your opinion of the superintendent? Hey, we don't like this guy. Is that is that
the basis of your evaluation? >> No. Is the evaluation Oh man, best guy ever. Love this Lacata guy. Is that the basis of your evaluation? No. The basis of the evaluation is show me the data. Show me evidence that we're actually making progress in the direction of honoring the community's vision for what
students should know and be able to do and honoring the community's values, the non-negotiables. Uh that they have to be protected on the way to the vision. What else will you use the goals and guard for? >> Yeah. To inform our votes. >> Every single vote. Every single vote. In fact, one of the things in your self-evaluation in the Lone Star
government's instrument is an expectation that you have memorized the goals. Why do you think that you should have memorized the goals in their current in the current status of those goals where you are currently relative to them? Why do you think that might be important? >> Yeah, because you can't it can't
influence your vote if you don't even know what it is. Um and so yeah, each of you anybody should be able to roll up on you at the neighborhood association me and be like, "Hey, I heard you got goal number one. Uh what is it and what's the current status?" And and all nine of you, all 10 of you should be able to go to a be able to answer the question. Question is, are y'all going to be able
to answer the question? uh all 10 of you will need to be able to answer that question at any time that it is a fair question for members of the community to come and say you said that you listened for our vision of values. You said that you wrote it down. Now read it back to me. And that is a fair expectation for community members to have. And so you
all have to have memorized that. And one of the side of benefits of that is when I have it memorized when the staff brings me a proposal and says, "Hey, this is going to help us with goal number one." And goal number one is about science and Lata is bringing me something about golf balls. I'm like,
help me like connect the dots. Like what are we doing here? Is there some special experiment I don't know about? Like how are these related? How's this related to gold over one? And it's going to be the superintendent's job to make it plain to it's not going to be your job to simply trust that that it's connected. It's the superintendent's job to help connect the dots.
uh you know grounded in the evidence that my team has and the and the expertise that we bring to bear. Here's the direct line between this and accomplishment of the goals. Now, understanding there are some things that will have absolutely no relationship. Um at some point, you're going to buy some more light bulbs. There's not going to
be a direct relationship between the purchase of light bulbs and improving student outcomes. There are things that are just kind of the baseline set of things that have to be true in order for the institution to run. Because if none of your classrooms have light bulbs, is there going to be a whole lot of literacy instruction happening there?
No. So that's just it's a baseline thing that happens. Having the light bulbs isn't causing children to learn. Not having the light bulbs would cause them to fail to learn. And so there's this whole kind of just base layer of stuff that has to be true. Um and and the superintendent should either be saying,
"Hey, look, this is just an operational thing we have to have in place. Somebody's got to mow the lawns. We don't want to be losing kindergarteners in 6inch grass. you know, somebody's got to, you know, you know, we got to feed kids, we got to do all these other things just to keep the the organization moving. And that's one set of expenditures, but there's going to be a
whole another set of things the superintendent comes forward and say this this is what we believe is going to move the needle on our goals. And the superintendent is going to have to be able to provide you the evidence like why do I believe that if the board adopts this and then my team moves forward implementing it that this is going to make a difference for
principles in such a way that makes a difference for teachers in such a way that actually improves the quality of instruction that happens in the classroom because at the end of the day that's that's the whole game like if it's if the quality of instruction that little AJ is experiencing day over day isn't improving then nothing else that
you all are doing is going to make a big difference for little AJ. like that that's that's the that's the whole thing. And so he's he's got to be help help you connect the dots. It's like here are the student outcomes that you say you want to see improve and by taking these steps engaging these strategies. This is what's going to help
us create the conditions in the classroom for little AJ to grow in this specific area of the goal. It'll be a superintendent's job to help you connect the dot because when you all are out in the community, you know, you all are, you know, out at the fair, you know, grounds just trying to, you know, eat a
waffle cone or whatever you do, like somebody's going to roll up on you and they're going to have questions about, hey, why did you why did you vote for this? And that's a fair question for community members to ask. Remember, this ain't it's not your school district. It's the community school district. Community's money, the community schools, the community's children, the
community's dollars. And so community members have a right to come and ask you these questions. And so when somebody rolls up and you ask, "Hey, why'd you vote for this?" You need to have some clarity in your own mind. Look, here's this. Here is what we're trying to make happen in the classroom for kids. And here's how this thing how we believe this is going to connect to making that
difference happen. They don't have to agree with you. Your job is not to be persuasive to everybody, but it is your job to be able to answer very basic questions about you representing the people of this community. And that is a basic question. Hey, why'd you vote for
this? I voted for it because here's the goal that we have for what students should know and be able to do. And here is how this is a strategy. Here's why we think it's going to make a difference the classroom for our kids. Um, and so the goals and guardrails show up in literally all you almost every single
decision you make here in the boardroom because you're going to want to be looking at like I said, there's a baseline operational stuff. You know, you you got to have carpet, you know, you got to have parking lots. Um but for all of the things that are really about instruction, you want to see, hey, show
me how this is setting us up for success uh relative to the community's vision uh that we've adopted in our goals. Uh any other thoughts about goals and guardrails and their use before we transition? >> I just want to bring in the idea that when we get all the community information, one of one of the difficulties is taking what they have
and what they've brought us to put it into a tangible and measurable piece. And that sometimes really drives some difficult pieces because some of the input is not always tangible. And how do you how do you make it so data reinforces what they want or what what
what the goal setting is and I know that's that's always a challenge. >> Well, but but there's another uh challenge hidden inside of your comment and that's the reality that this is going back to the stop sign issue. Is your job to represent Miss Johnson or is
your job to represent the community? >> Yeah. Yeah. that this is not a hard question. Yeah, it's always going to be the community. And so one of the challenges is that you were unlikely to hear from a representative sample of the community ever, except for the times
when you intentionally try to generate that during your listening campaign. But outside of that, you should generally expect that unless you orchestrate it, you are never going to hear from a representative sample of your community. And so there will be people who are passionate about the particular issue they have at the moment. But listening
to them and you may you know agree or disagree you may be inclined in whatever way but in that moment you do not have enough information to act. Why do I say that? In the moment that you hear this this heartfelt plea th this legitimate moment
of pain that a community member is bringing to you, you don't in that moment have enough information to act. Why do I say that? because it's not a sampling of the community >> because you don't actually know what is true for our larger community. And so the problem is the moment you make it about whoever spoke to me last, the
moment you make it about whoever is loudest, the mo the moment you make it about whoever makes me feel the best or you helps protects me against, you know, not feeling bad. Like the moment you make it about that, it stops being about children. And so to help it constantly be about
children, you you've constantly got to be able to pull back and say, "Okay, well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Like what what is the what is the larger picture here? Cuz I got to make sure that the decisions I'm making are taking into account the vision and values of the community, not just the issues of
the community members in front of me. Now the important part is it is someone's job to address the issues of the community members. Whose job is that? >> That's staff's job. Yeah. So, so it's not as if the issues of community members should be ignored. I'm not
saying that. I'm just saying the issues of community members isn't your job as board members. Your job is the vision and values of the community as a whole. Um, and that is functionally impossible for you to discern from listening to one or two or even a group of people. U that if you want to have some insight in
that, you're going to have to uh be more intentional about trying to harvest that or go back to the document that you have that summarizes that. It's like, okay, I hear you saying that this is the value of the community. let me go back to this five-page summary document of all of these hundreds and hundreds of people we
listen to and see if that lines up. And if they do, okay, so be it. But if they don't, it's like, okay, I hear that this is an issue for you. Um, let me connect you with the right staff. You let me tell you who the staff are to connect with on that. Um, but in the back of your mind, you got to know as a board
actually that's not that wasn't here in the list of top priorities, and it's not in our goals and guardrails. So, as a board, we're not going to take action on that. Uh but if it is directly related to your goal and guardrails, then it might in fact be something that the board you take action on. Uh but this is but this is the discernment you're going
to have to be about. And your goals and guardrails are a major tool for being in discernment on which things do we need to take action on because we have captured a more full listening of the vision values of community versus which are the things where we don't know if this is an isolated incident or if this
is just an issue for one or two people in which case that uh we hand off to staff. And that's the reason we hand it off is because we want to make sure that at all times the work that we're doing is derived from the vision and values of the community as a whole, not derived
from the influence of an individual community member, even ones that we agree with, especially frankly ones we agree with. It'll always be easy to lean into the Miss Johnson the world. If you were ally of Miss Johnson or Miss Miss Johnson has she has stood at this uh podium and she has spoken blessings over
you and she has protected you and she's said great things about you. your temptation will be to fail your duties and to and to give credence to the cons to the issues of Miss Johnson. That too would be you know abreation of your duties like you you need to be focused on the
vision and values of the community as a whole. Um, and so this is part of the challenge, you know, that's baked into uh Licata's comments here is that listening for one person or even a group of people. Rarely will give you any meaningful insights to is this is this
something that really bubbles up to something the board needs to focus on or is this an issue that the staff needs to immediately go to work on? >> Yeah. Do you you know this year of course we're we're doing a budget without goals and and guardrails and
vision. Uh looking to 2728. Uh could you talk about how the goals guard rails and and vision guides the board in the proper governance role? >> Yeah. As far as the budget, >> this is really important because this
actually comes down to a timeline. Uh so I don't know uh soup if you have this already plotted out in your mind. When is the earliest date that your team will start like in earnest working on the SY
2728 budget? >> Will you start that probably around November and December? >> Yeah. And this is this is the normal answer. Um, and so what I would say as a board that means if you want the goals and guard rails that you've adopted that are derived of the community's vision
and values to be an influence on SY 2728 budget, what's your timeline? >> Yeah, I I I wouldn't I wouldn't play chicken with it. I I I I'd back it up a little bit before that. But so I would say based on what I just heard, your absolute latest is you need to be
adopting uh in October at the absolute latest, if not before. Um, and so we know what the absolute deadline is. So when we put together that implementation timeline, you will never see board adopts goals and guardrails anything later than October as a recommendation
from us. A as a result of interviewing you. We may hear an earlier date, but we would never hear a later one because if it shows up in January, then that just means great. Um, the current priorities the superintendent has derived will now be the ones that drive SY 2728. And now
you talk about SY 2829. that is not the situation you all want to be in. Um and so that gives you a clarity about what your timeline is for adoption uh of your goals and guardrails. So you don't have an infinite amount of time uh is very defined by when you need to have those
in place. U is that responsive to your inquiry. It is is a starting point. But once we have goals, guardrails, the process, can you describe the the proper role of the board in exercising its governance now
that we got our goals and guards >> in the budget process? Gotcha. So the first step in the budget process is the is the superintendent pulls out the goals and guardrails and says this this is the northstar. Um and to fast let's start with the end in mind. you all will
then adopt the uh budget for SY 2728 um hopefully in May, maybe June, but hopefully in May of 20 uh 2027. Um and so at that time, here's your decision-making criteria, and we're
going to work our way backwards. Your decision-making criteria for the budget is what? Any guesses? doesn't have >> goals and guard by the way like 90% of my questions are probably going to be the same answer at this point going forward goals and guardrails like your job is to represent the vision values of
the community the goals and guardrails are distillation of the vision values of community so like pretty much every question I ask you got like 80 90% chance goals and guardrails are going to be the answer and so when it comes time next May to adopt the SY 2728 budget the
thing that you are asking yourself isn't do I agree or disagree with the strategies in the budget that is not what you're asking. Do I like or dislike the things in the budget? That is not what you're asking. Um, do the people I'm hearing from like or dislike, agree or disagree with the things in the None of that is what you're asking. What
you're asking is, has the superintendent provided evidence of alignment between the goals and this budget? Has the superintendent provided evidence of alignment between the guardrails and this budget? And it's not your job to assume that that alignment exists. In fact, our coaching uh you know, Peter,
you might want to close your ears. Our coaching is that you actually assume that it's not aligned. That your base assumption is that there is not sufficient alignment between the community's vision and values in this budget to proceed. And that's our starting point. Superintendent, provide us evidence to the contrary. Provide us
the evidence that convinces us that there is in fact sufficient alignment between the goals and guardrails in this budget. Um, and at the moment that the majority of the board is convinced that that is true, that's when it's time to proceed with the budget. So, I start
with the end in mind because that informs all of the steps that need to happen before that. So, are you going to be convinced of that? If the first time you hear a presentation on the vision of values uh in uh goal in guardrail alignment with the budget is in May, is
that going to work out? Yeah, probably not. Um, and so that's the problem you want to solve for is how far before May and what kind of evidence would make sense to help us uh be convinced that there is in fact
alignment and and we'll, you know, obviously work with your administration. We'll show them examples from other school systems and all these other things, but ultimately this is on your superintendent's shoulders to come back to you with sufficient evidence that you are convinced. And our coaching is quite literally don't come into this thing preconvinced. your job is to come in
this like I don't know if this is aligned soup you're going to have to show me something. Um that that is the orientation that we encourage you to take with the budget and then the superintendent's job is to bring the evidence say here's here is what the goal one says and here are the strategies that we think are necessary
to accomplish goal one um and here are all the investments we're making to implement those strategies and they amount to this amount. Last year we spent X. This year we're spending you know 1.5x. Last year we spent Y. this year we're spending you know 3 Y like show me there's some escalation in
resources from the previous year to the current year in these areas that are directly aligned with the budget that's the type of thing um that you need to see uh I'll just say superintendent is there a CFO in the room is there a CFO CFO somewhere >> CFO
>> uh hello >> this this one is for you the problem with what I'm describing to you is that it does not conform with the expectations of the great state of Texas. So the budget that you are normally presented is a budget based on
statutoily defined buckets. Am I right on this one? Yeah. And so what this is what your staff has been trained to do. This is what's expected to do. Like there's this bucket, this bucket, this bucket. Here's how much is going in each of these. And that is what legally you all need to adopt. That will provide you
no evidence of what I'm describing right now. Knowing which bucket things in and how much is in each bucket will not provide you any meaningful insights into alignment between the budget and the goals. And so what that means is that functionally you're asking your CFO to
do double duty. That on one hand she has to follow the law and she'll do that effectively. But it also means that she's going to have to work with the superintendent and say okay so that's one view is a bucket-based view of the budget but here's a goals and guardrails
based view. Here is an investmentbased view of the budget. Most districts never provide this to their board largely because it's double duty. Like there in pretty much every state there is a standard expectation for how the budget is presented to the state. Um and so everybody just does that. But that
format I have never seen an example of a state ask for that in a format that reveals alignment to the board's adopted goals. Um and so this is extra work. That's why I looking at you right now just let you know my my condolences. is we're signing you up for extra work next year. Um, but what that means is
fortunately you got a year to work it out and our team is going to have your back every step of the way. Um, but that is the expectation you should have. Um, and and that's also why if people ask you how is this any different than it's ever been in the past, this is not the way the budget is typically presented to
most boards across the state don't see a budget that is programmatically aligned to the goals explicitly. They see a budget that is aligned in the way that the state expects it to be submitted. Um and so that is that is a difference maker that will help you have an understanding of yes here's the
evidence. Other questions about budget? Yeah. >> So we have a budget meeting next week. >> Mhm. >> How would you recommend us evaluate that? >> Yeah. You all are in essentially almost no useful position. Uh which is to say you were in the same position most
school boards across the state are in. And then most school boards across the state can't answer this question either. Um, and so you are functioning in the same position most school boards are in. Um, I would ask these questions uh largely to give your staff some practice. Um, u, and I would certainly
encourage them to have been thoughtful about this and try to bring them forth and say, hey, here are the priorities that I have and here's, you know, the amount of resources that have been allocated on a, you know, percentage basis, on a real dollar basis or something in prior fiscal years, and here's how much is being deployed this
year. And here's the reason why like I'd encourage them you to do that but honestly like it's it's time out for that is I mean it realistically the time for that is already passed. It's like you're we are literally in June. Um and so um asking you know the staff to uh
burn the midnight oil to try to put a bunch of things together that don't already exist um is not going to be the it's not going to be the quality of work that you want from them or that they want from you just because it's so last minute. Uh but you know asking some of those questions hey do you already have
some insights into alignment here um early on I think it's a reasonable question but just be prepared to see a budget that is based on buckets because that's what every school district um is legally required to do um next year definitely expect a budget that you have
both the legal view of the budget which is the bucketed view but also the community vision and values view of the budget which is here is the investments we're making to actually move the needle for little AJ in the classroom view. That is just a completely different view
of the budget than most boards have. And so, yeah, you're going to have to you you are flying as blind as most of your colleagues around the state are. Um, and you'll just have to make you'll you have to use your best judgment and make the call. Uh, but you won't have the insights that I I would want you to have. You you're not going to have that
next uh this month. Other questions about budget? So knowing that that is the decision that you're trying to make and that's the basis for that decision. Now what you all have to decide is how far in advance of that do we need to see
a rough draft of this from the superintendent and his team so that we can have opportunity be like yes this is very convincing or no this is not convincing at all. You don't want the superintendent finding out on June 1 that his convincing evidence ain't convincing nobody like it's a little bit
late for that. Um, and so you all want to collaborate and think, okay, so how early in the process, you know, it's it's not going to be October. It's probably probably not even going to be January or February, but how early in the process um do you want to have that conversation with the board so they can begin to see and connect those dots. So
if there are any dots that aren't connecting that you've got time to either think through, okay, okay, how do we connect these dots and you know, what are some changes we make? Or you have time to think through how did we fail to communicate this thing? And so now we have some time to figure out, oh, you know what, we didn't mention, you know,
we mentioned step one, A and F. We should have mentioned B, C, D, and E as well. Um, and so, however long that'll take, in most places, we're talking 30, 60 days, you know, probably 90 at the most. Um, that meeting is generally one
of the first times that the board is going to be um, uh, in a meeting taking significant uh, action to discuss the budget. What that doesn't mean is that the superintendent isn't doing his own uh listening work um in advance of that.
Um and so he's probably gone out and you know has you know groups of students he listens to, groups of teachers, principles, other staff that he listens to. Um so a bunch of listening will have happened. Um and so it's not on the board to have done the listening necessary to develop the budget. That's
his job. Developing the budget is his job. Approving or not approving is your job. So any listening that needs to happen to develop it, it's on him to go out and do that listening. Any listening that needs to happen to adopt it, that's on you. And so you'd have to decide in between that first budget meeting and the adoption budget meeting, is there
any additional listening? That's a decision you'll have to make. Uh I'd say most boards don't outside of just regular board meetings and public comment. Uh but sometimes they do if there's just like huge major revisions uh in the budget uh that they want to just be doubly sure to communicate
about. Um, and so those are the biggest tent poles of the board's involvement in the budget all the way at the beginning with adoption of goals and guardrails no later than October and then sometime in the um first quarter early second
quarter uh getting that first taste of is there alignment or not in advance of being able to then adopt the actual budget um by the statutory deadline. Other questions, curiosities about budget. The budget is actually a useful topic
because a lot of the things you'll do will follow this same general process where you need to think to yourself there's a huge decision that needs to be made. By when does it need to be made and start with the end in mind? Um and then when it's time to make that big decision at the end, guess what you
should be asking yourselves in advance of making that big decision? >> What's the proper lead time? Yeah, absolutely. Like we we got to know that there's actually some relevance to the goals and guardrails in this here. And so in order to make that decision here, like we gota, you know, how how do
we back up to that to make sure that we've had time to provide that feedback to the superintendent and reflect on it uh so that, you know, we don't find ourselves in a bind. Like these things just take time. Governance is is often not a fast process if you're doing it well because there is this discernment
portion to it. there is this communication of the community's vision and values that serves as a drag that this slows down some of the processes and that is a healthy drag to have involved in the process but you just want to have planned for it you don't want to you don't want to get to June and be like wait a minute we need to
have three meetings what are you talking about it's already June like you want to have planned that out and so pretty much any major decision you'll want to start with the end in mind when is the absolute latest date that we're going to make this decision and then work backwards what are the things that we need to do leading up to
Conveniently, you all will be interviewed about this in the not too distant future by my team and I because a lot of this will try to bake into your implementation timeline. So, you'll have a rough draft of this for the next 24 months and then you all can look at it like, oh, you know, um it
looks like AJ and the team heard that we want this in April, but really we want this in March. They heard that we want this in, you know, April and May, really we want this in March and June. And so you all will move things around to whatever you want, but then you all will adopt that timeline and then that will
be the document we use to support you for the remainder of the next 24 months. Um, and so this won't be a guessing game. We're going to put in black and white all the things you're asking about. They will be on paper says this these are the exact dates week by week by week of what the board's going to
engage in for the next 104 weeks. >> What's our timeline for getting that timeline done? Uh we hope to, you know, as a result of our time together tonight, we uh we hope to get all of your interviews done sometime over the
next couple of weeks. Um as we get those interviews done with each of you all, then usually it takes us about a week after that to synthesize all that into a rough draft of a timeline based on what you all are telling us. Um and then we get it back to you. So um probably bo
before the end of this month. Um as long as y'all pick up your phones. So, don't act like y'all don't know us. Um, but as long as we can get a hold of y'all. Um, then we can conduct those interviews. Uh, then our intention is to have that to you before the month is out. Um, and then we just say put it on your,
you know, July agenda. Um, and then have some discussion about it. You know, again, you this is just a rough draft. It's your timeline, not ours. So, if we miss the mark on something, we have no pride of authorship. You should move stuff around on there. However you all like if we say something should take six months but you want it to take four and
you're willing to do the extra work do it. Or if we say something should take three months and you're like bro I got a job uh and we need to stretch it out to five months then do it. Like you you want to build something into your timeline that you are giving the community your word that this is what you're going to do. Our coaching would
be honor your word. And so don't adopt a timeline that doesn't comport with the work that you all as a group of volunteers are actually willing and able to do because you have additional commitments. Uh you you probably got some kids out here like they they still want to eat. Oh man, these kids um you
know you still have you know spouses and you know siblings and parents and you know friends you know that all need some of your time and attention. So be realistic about how fast we can go. The only commitment I'll make to you is you ain't going to out hustle me and my squad. However fast y'all want to go, we going to run with you.
Other questions about the implementation timeline. Questions or reflections? All right. So, we talked about uh clarifying the priorities. This is really the process of the goals and guardrails um and of adopting that. Um we talked a little bit about monitoring
progress. This is that monthly just, you know, drum beat of accountability where we're looking at a sliver of our goals. We're taking one of our goals and taking just a sliver of that and doing a deep dive into it to get a sense of are we seeing uh movement for our children and and where we're not, so be it. And what
strategy are you going to deploy to cause movement um for our children in these areas? Uh and we talked a little bit about alignment of resources. That's really what um a lot of your work winds up being around when you're voting is you're saying we're going to spend money
on this instead of that. And usually the basis is this is more aligned with our vision of with the community's vision of values and that is. And so we talked a little bit about alignment of resources. Um I want to come all the way back full circle again back to uh communicating results because you'll go out and you do
the listening. You'll adopt your goals and guardrails. you will the superintendent will use those in creation of budgets. Uh you all will adopt a budget. Um and then as we get into the fall of 2027, uh people are going to start having questions. It will actually be a little
bit too soon, but it doesn't matter. People have questions when they have questions and people are going to start asking how are we doing relative to the goals and guardrails. One of the things that we're going to recommend and it should be baked into your implementation timeline is you're gonna have to have a regular
cadence of going out to the community and say here's where we are right now. It's like here's what we heard from you all. Here's what we turned it into. Here's how we use what we heard. We turn it into the goals and guardrails. And now now fast forward 12 months from when we adopted those. Here here's where we
are right now. Um and here are some of the things that are working. Here are some things that are not working. you will be honest, you know, we'll be transparent. We're not going to try to sugarcoat things. Here's what's working, but here's what's not working. And here in the areas where things are working, here's what the superintendent is doing to really accelerate that. And where
things are not working, here's what the superintendent is doing to turn that around. Like it's it's your obligation when you go and ask people for their vision and values. it's your obligation to complete that that circuit and go back to those folks on a regular schedule um at least once per year um
but you know however many times you desire but where you're having a a meeting that is just specifically about how are we communicating back to the community here's what we heard here's what we adopted those into and here's where we are right now and that needs to
be you all telling the story because you're the representatives they need to hear from you directly at board meetings must most pretty much every month they're going to hear from the superintendent, but at least once a year they need to hear it directly from the representatives. Here's where we are. Here's how we're doing. Um here is where we're seeing growth. Here's where we're
not seeing growth. And here's what you should expect to see next in response to that. Um that that that is an important part of the work that you all have to carry. And so that's what that's part of what it looks like to communicate the results is that on a month-to-month basis that really happens from the superintendent and staff, but at least
once a year, you all want to have that conversation yourselves. In addition, as a part of that, it's going to be helpful for you all to be constantly communicating with your community around what does effective schoolboard governance look like? Because remember,
you have a special obligation is that you need to be taking whatever steps you are reasonable for you to take to set the elected board up to be successful um at representing the vision and values of the community when they return. Um and so you want to start thinking what can
we be doing now? What can we bake in now? And you may even bake in specific things in your implementation timeline. what are things we could be doing month in month out, quarter in, quarter out or whatever. Uh that is helping position our elected officials for success uh so
that they um so as they are phased back in uh to the um into authority that they come back in and and they they coming in brand new like they already have an understanding of what's going on. They they know exactly um kind of how the board is governed and why and kind of what their role inside of that is. And
so constantly not only in communicating the result results and saying here's how our students are doing but also communicating the results here's how our governance is doing um and intentionally inviting your elected officials into that so they can be set up for success
as they return. Um though that set of activities is a large part of what we mean by communicate the results. This is where we have really come full circle again um in this process. What questions do you have about communicating the results? I I describe to you two key activities. You know, one is just at
least once a year sharing with people here's here's how our students are doing relative to the goals. Here are our school system doing relative to the guardrails. Um and finding ways to be intentional about communicating with your community about what does effective governance look like and being intentional about trying to include uh
your elected officials. What questions, comments do you have about communicating the results? >> Yeah. >> Could you say a little more about the second one? like again what are some examples of what that might entail and I I get it might vary district to district but give can you give us some examples of what you're think
>> so first question >> yeah so his question is what are some examples of what it looks like for you all to be involved in the work of setting the elected board up for success um so first a boundary condition it is never acceptable for there to be a lack of clarity about who the current school
board is so any actions you take in the direction of setting the elected board up success can never come at the expense of clarity. There can never be ambiguity. Well, wait a minute. So, who's actually running the district? Is it is it elect board or point of board? That that can never be a point of confusion. So, you there there is a
boundary to this. Uh there is a boundary to all the steps that you would take uh to include the elected board and to set them up for success. Um but generally that boundary is pretty far out. And so, here are some examples of things that I've seen. But again, your you know your community, you know your circumstances.
And so not all of these would make sense for you all, but as a real simple one, uh I know one school district, they said, "Hey, uh each of the elected board members, uh we're going to set aside a professional development budget. Here's some professional development that we think is super valuable. We're going to go to ourselves. Uh we're going to set
aside money in the budget for you all to go to as well. We want you all, you know, to have access to the same training that we're having access to so that as you all are phased back in, like there ain't nothing brand new here. You're ready to go from day one." That's one example of what it looks like. Another example what what I was just
talking about is you all actually hosting a training for community leaders around hey here's what effective schoolboard governance looks like. You all have seen me like you're literally seeing me now try to offer some explanations around what effective schoolboard governance looks like. But maybe it'll be you uh the nine of you
are the ones who are delivering the session for members of your community and especially uh inviting and including uh members of the elected board as well. So they are hearing that message as well. Um, another thing that I've seen is I saw a board that was intentional
about trying to identify u elected board members who wanted to be part of the solution. And um, you know, sometimes a lot of times you have elected board members who want to be part of the solution. Sometimes you'll have elected board members who don't want any part of collaboration and sometimes you'll have
elected board members who just kind of ghost entirely. Um, I that's their choice. They're adults. They make their decision. But for the ones who do want to be part of the solution, they do want to, you know, have insights into how to be effective as they come back in. Um, uh, I've seen boards say, "Hey, you
know, we've got these, uh, committees." It wouldn't be a school district if you didn't have a whole bunch of committees. Uh, and say, "Hey, would you be willing to serve on some of these committees that you have an inside track on what's going on so that when you eventually do u move back into uh, board uh,
membership uh, that you are fully ready and prepped to go." Those are three different ideas of what that might look like. Uh I've seen a number of others. I just am reluctant um to go too far because I don't want it to sound like, hey, you should be doing this. I think you all going to have to use your discernment and figure out kind of which
of those categories do I like to are are they folks who it's really on their heart to continue being of service um even in this kind of moment. That's got to be truly fresh. I can't imagine like when I was board chair, the state showed up and said that they were going to
dissolve our board. And I remember just like the the pit in my stomach from hearing that. It's like I it would be hard for me to want to be a partner with that going on. And so I can understand some people just like I'm out. Um but if you do have folks who they still have a heart for service and still want to be
involved and preparing themselves for uh return to authority. um that I would actively be looking for how do ways do we honor that and we that we we create a space uh for those folks uh to be uh constantly leveling up and involved so
that they are ready on day one. Um I have a real fear for you and I'll just express it right now. My fear for you is that you'll be wildly successful at improving student outcomes. Say that again. >> My fear for you is that you will be wildly successful at improving student
outcomes and that you will do it in such a way that you cause an allergic reaction from your elected officials and they destroy it all when they come back just because it's politically unpopular. That is my fear for you. And that is the task that falls to you is to not merely
be wildly successful in improving student outcomes. I have every confidence that you have the tools necessary at your disposal to pull that off. but to also try to figure out how do we do this in a way so that the improvements that our children experience are sustained even through
governance transition for students to get the benefit of educational justice for a brief moment and then have that snuffed out. Um that that would be sad. Um, and so trying to be thoughtful today about how do we in a responsible way try
to make sure that we are inclusive uh and respectful of our elected officials who are currently disempowered, but how how do we be inclusive and respectful of them such that they don't feel an obligation that we got to come blow this thing up when we come back. It's like no actually that they can actually say no
this is different but but but this actually makes a difference for kids. It's not it's an uncomfortable difference and I I wouldn't have voted for this but now that it's here I can see the difference this is making for kids. Um and it's a difference worth protecting even though it's not what I would have done like that that that is a
powerful place for elected board members to find themselves. I don't think they get there by accident. I think they get there by through your intentional leadership. Other questions or reflections uh implementation timeline? No, I I'll um
in the spirit of transparency and vulnerability, >> um no, I'll say this is this was needed tonight for me. Um and I I'm leaving tonight thinking we we we should have gotten this started yesterday.
And the faster we get this started, um the sooner things will begin to slow down, right? So, I I think we need just need to prioritize getting out in front of the community so we can understand what the what the uh sentiment is to
develop some guard rails uh to to support our goals, right? Um yeah, I'm I'm leaving thinking we got to get this done now. So, >> yeah. Um it's as they say, the best time to have planted a tree was 40 years ago. The second best time
>> right now. Um, I will offer you a caveat though uh because I would not be honoring uh you as a coach if I didn't if I didn't mention this one extra piece is that there is a danger that comes from doing your jobs. The danger that
comes from going out and listening and engaging and doing the work that is a portion to you to do and that you do need to do to do your job well. But the danger that associates with that is the seduction into the arms of Miss Johnson. And so you will find yourself as you are
out engaging in this listening because you are not really people but you know probably I don't know you all personally but you're probably really good people. I'm guessing that's the case that what will happen is that you will hear the pain of Miss Johnson and be tempted to promise her her stop sign.
that that is the danger that comes from doing your job and and you will be seduced out of justice for children and you will change it in for justice for Miss Johnson and in this moment you would have failed the opportunity that lands in front of you. So understand
that I will be playing two roles until y'all get rid of me and y'all may wake up when they we got to let this brother go but until you get rid of me I will be playing these both of these roles simultaneously. one saying here's what it looks like to govern in a powerful way that's focused on improving student outcomes and here are the things you
have to do and you and you do you do have to be out here and you do have to you know be in the community. You can't represent the vision and values of people that you afraid to go talk to but simultaneously you cannot be seduced out of your focus on student outcomes. You you can't
become kind of so desirous and solicitous of the um of the approval and praise of others that as you are out um doing your job that you allow it to seduce you away and abandon a focus on representing the vision and values of
the community and trade that in for the joys and the privileges and the rewards that will come from handing out stop signs to Miss Johnson. Mr. John, she she waiting for her stop sign, bro. She waiting for it. Um, and she will love you when you give it to her and she will reward you and you will feel better at
night as a result of Miss Johnson having received a stop sign. She'll give you that hug, you know, that little that little old grand lady hug. But in that moment, you will have abandoned the children in the school system. And so you you've you've got to be able to do both. You've got to be able to be out here in the community and
do your job, but you cannot you can't do the job in such a way that you abandon the big picture that that you and only the nine of you can really do. And so that this is a hard thing. This is why I said earlier like you got to be hardened enough that you stay on mission no
matter what, but soft enough that that you don't fail to be wounded by the pain that other people are experiencing. um and holding that hardness and that softness simultaneously. Just to be blunt, most people fail. Most people fail the and so the
uniqueness that you have is you have a coach who will be ruthless and relentless. I am not here to help you feel good about your life as a board member. I'm here to help you be great on behalf of the children you serve. >> Hey Jay, can I can I ask a question? So like is there is there an element of like the outward facing? Like I was
almost thinking when we do those community conversations is there's some component of of we are articulating or trying to articulate um what you just said that again you know we want to hear them we want to integrate uh their their
feedback into goals and guard rails but that our relentless focus is on student something like that I I just I don't know like because it seems like that's an important part of Miss Johnson understanding why um we hear her we feel for her but but that may not translate into her priority is getting her a stop
sign. >> Yeah. So, the way you just said it, definitely don't do that. Um only because people aren't going to they're not going to hear that. They were like, "Well, you know, I would do what you're saying do, but I care about the children." Like that that was not going to go over well. Um and but but the point you're making is actually spot on.
The point you're making is absolutely correct. Is that you all do have a proactive obligation to be in communication. Here's a way that I'd probably go about it differently. um is I'd probably lean into expertise. It's like what we want is we want your children to have the benefit of the the
highest expertise for whatever the situation at the moment is. So if little AJ um needs a IEP, are the board members the ones with the greatest expertise to get that for little AJ?
This would be yes. This would be no. Yeah. I need y'all to be clear, folks. The answer to that question is no. And I need y'all to be like internally resolved that the answer to that question is no. And so in the moment that you realize, you know what, I don't have the best expertise. It's not that I don't want that for little AJ. I'm just not the best expert in the place to get
it for little AJ. And so now my job shifts the moment I'm not the expert in the room. My job shifts to how do I help this person navigate the system such that they get connected to the expert. Um, and by the way, the superintendent probably ain't the expert either. So it doesn't mean, hey, call the superintendent, see if he can get that
popping. Like no, you got to think like like where in the organization is the person with that expertise who would be the best person to serve? Pop quiz. Who are we most likely going to ask them if they talked to yet? >> Yeah. Have you talked to your teacher or your principal? Real simple. Have you
talked to your teacher or your principal? Oh, you haven't? Hey, give them a call um and check in with them and see if they can get this going for you. And if for some reason your teacher and principal say, "Yeah, we don't do IEPs in this district." Uh then then the call is back um and I'll tell you who to go to next. Realistically, you ain't
going to get a call back because the teacher and the principal will handle it. And the the reason that works is because you've identified who has the best expertise for the situation. Now, if somebody comes to you and says, "Hey, I want to talk about the vision values of the community. You ain't going to send them to the teacher? Who you going
to send them to?" >> Yeah, us. Yeah. This this is a us problem. We're the board. We're the ones who represent the vision values of the community. And so, if people have something that is on that level of conversation, we we are the right ones. I would have that conversation with folks. What I find is people can
generally understand what I want most is for you to have ex access to the experts for in whatever your given situation is. And 9.999 times out of 10 that's not the board member. Y'all just not the experts in all the stuff that these kids need. Uh but your job in that moment is to be
a navigator. The moment I'm not the expert, my job is to be a navigator. Is not to be like, "Hey, uh I'm that's that's not board work, so leave me alone." That's not what you do. Your job is to help them navigate. Hey, um I'm not the expert on that. I I want you to get make sure that this gets handled and gets handled right for you and your kid.
Um let me figure out who it is you need to talk to and I will get you their contact information. Don't call that staff person yourself. You are navigating. You are helping them get connected in the organization. You are not going out and doing that connecting on their behalf. You are not handing out fish. You were teaching
folks how to fish in that moment. Um and and so that that is the work that comes to you and uh and that's that's generally the way I explain to people is like I I hear you have a concern. What we need is who has the most expertise to help address that so it could be addressed properly and quickly. That's
not me, but let me help you get connected to who that is and then get them contact information. And then as a boardman, what I would say to folks is and if this doesn't work out, give me a call back. But I basically never heard back from folks because teachers and principles, they they know this stuff cold. Yeah.
They they they get this stuff figured out and so you're almost never going to hear back from folks. But that's how I would respond to that. Um is people will share with you. They have every right to come to you. You are in that moment the face of the school system. You're the public representative. They have every right to ask you. And and if it is a
board issue, then you should have that conversation with them. If it's not a board issue, then in that moment, your job is to be a navigator and help them connect to who does have the most expertise so that can be addressed properly. Um, there's one side element to this, which is that some people are
like, well, why don't can you call the teacher on my behalf? Why do you think I don't want you to call the teacher on their behalf? Why do you think I don't want you to do that? >> Any guesses? you give the teacher name.
>> Uh so um um my uh brother retired from the Marines as a colonel uh which is just a way of saying he's been through an absurd amount of leadership training. Um and one of the things that he always shared with me that really resonated for him as a leader was this idea that they
beat into his head that advice from above is indistinguishable from a command. that advice from above is indistinguishable from command. So if you roll up on a teacher like, "Hey, you know, I think you should uh man this uh your display board, why why is it red
and not blue?" And then you walk away. Have you demanded that they change it from red to blue? No. What might they have heard? >> Change it. >> Change it from red to blue. Uh and I give that example because this is the flaw that I made literally my first week as a school board member. I was just out
visiting one of our schools and I made some off-hand comment about a display board and I can't I didn't even think about it. I leave, my phone blows up as a superintendent, you know, calling me everything but a child of Christ trying to understand why I'm yelling at teachers and tell them to change their display board. It's like that literally never happened. But now with the benefit
of hindsight, I recognize in the life of that teacher, it did happen. In the life of the teacher, it did happen. That I was abusive of my authority in that moment. not intentionally, but I was abusive of my authority in that moment. And so this is this is the nature of the task is that I've got to be mindful that
um in this role like any anytime I engage with staff that advice from above might be indistinguishable from a command. And so um I I don't want to put myself in that situation where I'm contradicting the wisdom of the teacher. Like they hear me say do X when in their
spirit they know they should do Y because that's the best thing for this kid. but now they're going to go do X anyway because the board member said so. Um, now I've actually made things worse for that child. And so that's why I don't want you to be in that position. I don't want you to make the mistake I made. Um, and so I would not have you
contact the staff member on anybody's behalf. That's not what a navigator does. Uh, you are helping them navigate, but you are not doing you not the one actually going out and navigating on their behalf. Um, and so that's that's the caveat I would add to that. I often get the question is that you
guys are new. You're not experts. How do you know what you're doing is right? And why aren't you listening to those people who've been doing it for years and taking what they say into consideration? Why are you going off on your own deal making all these changes? How do you know you're right?
>> Yeah. The reality is you don't. And that is a hard cold truth that you're going to have to wrestle with. And if your time in service is anything like mine, there are going to be nights when you cast a vote on this stage and you will say to the people of this audience like the reason I'm casting
these votes is this is how we get justice for children. And you will believe that in your spirit, but you won't know that to be a fact. And you may find yourself like I did at home after a long difficult meeting where I had to really wrestle
with the options and find myself just kind of quietly, you know, crying to myself, Lord, I hope and pray that this was the right call for children. But you won't know. And unfortunately,
you will you will plant seeds. And in some cases, the season will come where you harvest fruit. and in other cases you will not be here for the harvest and so you just won't know. That is the hard reality of governance work. That's just it's the nature of it. Um and so it
behooves you to do all of your homework in advance and it behooves you to push on your administration say hey what is the evidence of alignment from this? Because that that that's going to be kind of my safe quarters that I I go back to. was like, "Well, hold on. Here's the evidence that I have and and I have reason to believe that this
evidence is accurate. This is the basis of the decision, even though it's still weighing on my spirit and I already cast the vote, but this is what's going to help me. I I'm blessed and that the hard choices I made as a board member have panned out. The children uh children have been
blessed as a result of that. Uh I stand on the benefits that ultimately uh crude to children in my community as a result of uh the work that our board did uh to really make the hard choices and improvements in student outcomes require. But that doesn't make them any
less hard in the moment. They were absolutely emotionally crushing in the moment that I made those decisions. Like nobody gets on the board, you know, wanting to make hard decisions around facilities, hard decisions around people's employment and things of that nature. Like that's not why I ran for
the school board and that's certainly not why any of you raised your hand. But those hard choices are coming and you will have to wrestle with those choices and you will want to lean away from those choices because they will be hard and it's your job to make the hard
choices even when they are hard. But no, you will not know 100% ever. Is this the most optimal call for children? This is why my encouragement to you is to have a north star. your goals and guardrails and constantly look for what is evidence of alignment to that. That is the
closest you're going to get to a purchase on truth for the future. Uh is you see that alignment and this is why I said don't don't assume that alignment exists. Challenge the superintendent. Show me the alignment. I I need to be so clear that I can reproduce it when somebody rolls up on me in the grocery
store to ask about it that I can say actually here is the alignment between that and can I can I 100% promise that that's this is how it works out? No. Um, none of us have the capacity to see what happens tomorrow in the future. Like, we we won't know till we get there. But here's the evidence I relied on. Like,
here's the voice of the community that told me this was the north star. And here's the evidence I relied on that this is aligned with the community's voice. That is going to be, you know, the the strongest of balm that you have. the moments when if your time in service is anything like
mine, it will be an emotionally devast there will be emotionally devastating nights where you go home and kind of rock yourself to sleep and and pray over the decision that that the hard choices you made were the ones that will lead to improvements in student
outcomes. I'm sure that is exactly a message you all hope to hear, but that's the truth of it. Um, I want to begin to wind down our time together. Um, and I want to take a moment to harvest the learning. Um, and the way I do this is two different ways. Uh, we'll
we'll start on this end and we'll make our way down. If you could just use one word to describe, uh, kind of what you got or what you're taking away from our time together this evening. We've had this long ranging conversation, you know, looking at clarifying priorities and uh, monitoring, you know, progress, aligning resources, communicating the
results. Yeah. As as we've been having this conversation, uh if if there's only one word that could describe or sum up what you got or what you'll take away from this conversation, what would that one word be? >> Um re I'm thinking re-energized.
>> Re-energized. Yeah. >> Hopeful. >> Hopeful. >> Excited to get started. >> Excited. Urgent. >> Urgent. >> Resolved. >> Resolved. >> Motivating.
>> Motivating. >> Overdue. >> Overdue. >> Uh reassured. >> Reassured. >> Encouraged. >> Encouraged. On the screen. >> Focused. >> Focused. What will you take away from our time together this evening? As our last way of closing out this segment of
the conversation, what will you take away from our time together this evening? Who will be the first to share? >> Urgent. >> Yeah, you're welcome to use more than one word. Anybody else? What will you take away from our time together this evening? >> I am so happy that you're here.
>> I am uh feel privileged to be back. Like I said, I'm I have a very soft spot in my heart um for Fort Worth and so um am proud to be of service. >> Yeah, I was going to echo that and to my word overdue was I really sincerely wish
we would have started our first meeting with this session. >> Yeah, >> for me it's um glad that this is all on camera and I can watch it again and again and point others to it as well. >> Yeah. Anyone
else? What will you take away from our time together? >> Give it up for Lori. Um, yeah. No, it's it's time to get to work, man. It's time it's time for some real work to start and uh and and letting letting the community see that we're here for the kids. >> Yeah.
>> You know what I mean? So, I guess time to get going. >> Well, and as you said at the beginning, there's really two phases of this. We fell in on a school year ending >> in process. Yeah.
>> Uh on March 21, we had a May 10 deadline that a whole lot of decisions had to to be made. >> U there was no way to do goals, visioning guidelines. >> No way. in order to to be able to meet
the urgency of the moment. But it's time to get after it so we can fulfill the role that we envisioned for ourselves um starting next August. >> Yeah.
>> Any other reflections before we close out? >> I I think it's important um and I've echoed this publicly a lot. Um, a lot of people aren't here or don't show up here. These are some of the nine of the best people in Fort Worth. I met these folks
and they are here for the right reasons. And they didn't all of a sudden just change. They're still the nine best people, nine of the best people I know in Fort Worth. And they all want to do this. And we want to get moving. and
they are very very very involved in getting this done the way we want to get it done and you said something about sustainability and I think all of us have talked about that recently we want to have a sustainable we know we're going to get the data we know over years we will be moving we just want to be
sustainable so we're back back on track >> and Miss Johnson every neighborhood's got one >> um and one other thing you said I just like to reiterate I think it's it's so important for us to keep the long game
in mind and and you said you achieve you fear that you achieve these great student outcomes but lose the the long game. >> Yeah. >> You win the battle but you don't win the war. >> That's right. >> Uh you fix the schools but you destroy the community.
for this to last for for our kids, we we've got to keep our eye on the present. But we also have to keep our eye over the horizon and build those uh that infrastructure so that when we move on, that we're going to leave a system
that's going to serve our our kids well and it's not going to be just dismantled >> uh the moment that we we check out the door. and uh takes some real strategic thinking and vision and um hard hard
decisions to make sure that we set this system up for success in the long term. So I'm I'm very glad you brought that up. Yeah. >> Well, just end with a word of gratitude. Like obviously um all there's a lot of hard work ahead of us. Uh, I can't tell
you how excited um uh both Carol and Greg are um you know uh to be part of uh the the the Fort Worth story um about what what you will accomplish and through you uh what will what will emerge for the children of Fort Worth
ISD. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Thank you, AJ. Are there any other questions or comments? Board members, Dr. Licato. >> Yes. Uh you've received something from Dr. Kushner about already jumping on and
getting these things scheduled and getting rolling uh with the guidance of council great city schools. AJ um this is important and as as we know that some people may be on vacation. I don't think we really need to wait. I think we need to move as fast as possible. Uh as you
know I we had our first little board exercise together with you all today. We didn't have those guard rails and guides that u were talked about, but when I arrived here, I knew I had to develop something we could go off of, and they're very common. And I think you'll
recognize them as the five pillars. So, um it's a great start. Doesn't mean we have to use them, but uh it is giving us something to work off of making students first and everything falling in behind it. And there are five of them. I remember the story. I started with 15 and I got down to three and somewhere in there we figured five would be best. So
that's that's the disadvantage of where we started, but we I try to make it so we can come in and at least have a guidance on everything and that's why all our actions are usually uh checked off on which pillar they they are addressed to and we will continue that until we get this established and we do
it together and we make sure um we have some significant changes coming up but communication outward facing on our websites of all the data coming out in the next three weeks. Uh I' I've seen it, we've reviewed it. Uh Mr. Chowdery and I, myself, Daniel, we've looked at
it very closely already, but there's going to be more looking. There are some good things, there are some not so good things, but we're going to keep the data as raw as is. We've only been here for 68 days. Uh but we're going to continue pushing that out as hard as we can and being as transparent as we can with this
data and and how we can fix it. So, and that will help guard address and work through our guard rails as well because we have to be data centric. But again, this is listening first. It's all about listening. >> Okay.
Any other questions or comments? Um, Mr. Crayville, thank you for being with us tonight. We look forward to working with you and your team over the the days, weeks, months, and and years ahead. Uh, this concludes the items on the agenda
for tonight's workshop. I'd like to close by saying thank you to all who were with us tonight and shared their their their views. Uh again, thanks to Mr. Crayville for his part participation. Thank you to the the staff that's doing such extraordinary
work working around the clock these days to do everything we can for our kids. And as there's no further business, the time is 8:32 and this meeting is adjourned. >> Thank you, sir. Heat. Heat. N.
Oh, I feel so good. I feel so good. It feels so good. I feel so good.