##VIDEO ID:79YHcsi1op8## product focus and and cultur you know I'd like to call to order the Highland Park Board of Education hybrid special public meeting board retreat this Thursday today December 5th um the New Jersey open public meeting Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in compliance with the open Public's meeting act the Highland Park Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting setting forth the time date and location to be submitted for publication to the home News Tribune and Star Ledger and posted on the board's website at least 48 hours in advance of this meeting members of the public who wish to address the board will well I guess won't be be never mind please strike that um yes can I have roll call please Dr here Sal here Dr Coleman she can she respond I'll come back to her uh Dr Pixley here miss Bruce here Dr schoolman Miss sto here miss bman miss Vorhees here Dr Coleman are you here yes I'm here thank you we'll stand for the pledge flag United States of America to the for stands one nation inis jice for all all right um we're going to proceed to our only agenda item for this evening which is a discussion to enhance and modifier boards committee structure I'd like to introduce Maryann fredman who is our um senior field service representative from the NJ SBA yay thank you test test test self sure okay okay good evening everybody my name is Maryann fredman and I am a senior field service representative with New Jersey school boards and the good news about well just by way of introduction I served on my local board for nine years and this month I've been with the association 15 years so um I love what I do and I'm really happy to be back in middle sex County again um I had middle sex County from 2017 to 22 so I'm really glad to be back so the good news about committees is that you have this local control to be able to utilize committees in any way that you you would like to it should be a collaborative decision between the board and the superintendent because we need to know from the superintendent's perspective if what we're planning on doing or what the board plans to do or or even suggests to do is something that the superintendent and the business administrator can work within the confines of so that's why it really does need to be in collaboration I'm going to apologize for my voice I'm not sick I do not have covid I wrecked my vocal cords last year by attending workshop and presenting five programs at workshop with laryngitis and so when they tell you don't speak when you have laryngitis don't speak when you have laryngitis okay so we're going to go through these so effective committees really can unify represent motivate coordinate consolidate and communicate and they function best when the members are selected appropriately and when a clearly defined Mission exists strong leadership is key as well you have have so much paperwork in that committee Effectiveness folder that you'll be able to look at over the course of time even and go back to there's um a model um committee report form that's in there that you can look at there's a committee Effectiveness evaluation so at the end of committee meetings you can have those and see how people feel the Committees are working um whether it's with your current committees or with something that you structure newly for the upcoming year okay so we know the committee effect that effective committees really meet clearly defined needs they're established in an appropriate manner they operate under clearly defined bylaws and there's some information there about developing a a vision and a mission for your your committees hopefully they lessen the the total work of all board members okay so that's why we have we we talk about a three committee a three Master committee system and we're going to talk about that but again it's up to you all as to how you feel and what you feel would be most appropriate for you um in a committee system you're able to explore situations and recommendations and issues much further than you can if you were a board of the whole and talking you know about everything as a as a total board in an open public setting so you can really investigate different things and the board um each each committee needs to have a committee an administrative liaison so there's usually an the superintendent is one of the committee Liaisons then usually the business administrator is another if you have a director of cni of curriculum instruction they might be if you have a director of HR they might be so there are lots of different people but those are folks that the superintendent will ask to be the that administrative leaon and the committee goes they meet the committee's needs by having that dual responsibility and their role in The District District also mirrors what you would be talking about at the committee meeting okay um hopefully they meet in a timely fashion so we always suggest that these not be kind of willy-nilly where you know this week you call oh we need an HR committee meeting on Tuesday um but have those structured time frames to be able to allow people to put them in their calendar so that just like board meetings unless you have a specific need for a board meeting like you did for tonight but you know when you're meeting meetings are you know first or third Monday first or third Tuesday whatever um having an effective chairperson is also key it also allows the board to develop board leadership positions um because as chairperson there's a little bit more that's expected of you in that leadership role and that can help to bring people up to the fold to be a future president of the board or vice president they also have a clearly defined reporting process and so we recommend that within two days that the meeting minutes the committee meeting minutes go out to everybody okay in our process and in any process that we would actually suggest that you use whatever process you might use we recommend that the agenda goes out to everybody and then the minutes go out to everybody because they're really a mechanism for the board to be able to look back and say if you're not on that committee to go back and say how did this get here and what were the conversations to it getting here and then you can do that can I ask so you said two days for the notes is there a recommendation for the agenda in advance sense so it's going to depend so we and and I know that's common njsba statement it depends um but if you it depends on what kind of structure your your system is so if you have three committee members which you can do um the fourth seat could be open to anybody who wish to attend based on what the agenda was for that particular night that would be on a first come first serve basis and then we would suggest usually after the minutes are distributed and what I did as a committee chairperson um it was late in the game in my nine years but we finally got things together towards the end of my boardsmood actually at our committee meeting develop the agenda for the next meeting before we left and so then we could send out the minutes and the agenda and then if there was a fourth person who wanted to attend curriculum instruction or operations or something because something was on there that they were interested in they would call the contact the chairperson and see if the fourth seat was taken yet okay yes I like in the agenda so much as what's happening like current well personnel and finance faciliity particularly are like more currently what's happening you know hires fires open positions right you know so some of those things and and depend it it really does depend I we're gonna talk goes to more dependent on Administration rather than on right people right so okay so and Boards committees always make recommendations to the full board they generally don't have the authority to approve anything as a committee so even some people will say what about negotiations even negotiations you're the board is giving them parameters to work with and they can they allow them or give them the authority to um to approve a tenative um memorandum of agreement but then that still has to come to the board for a full ratification okay so what we're going to talk about tonight some of this is legal information but it's not legal advice so if you need Ever Needed legal advice on any of these things you would contact your board attorney okay that's our standard um this is not legal advice so so the three Master committees that we espouse are the board president would appoint the following standing committees there would be a committee on curriculum and instruction or committee on education committee on finance and physical planter operations and then an HR committee atoc committees would be appointed as they were needed and in this model policies would go through any committee that they needed to touch so policy could technically go through all three committees okay some boards like that some boards don't so the general duties of the Committees are that the meetings are going to be called by the chairperson did I skip a whole bunch of no okay I thought this came after um we'll be called by the chairperson and hopefully you'll have a structure for those just like you do for your board meetings um everybody's advised of all the committee meetings and they receive the agenda president refers items to various committees for them to discuss and review the superintendent selects the administrative Liaisons as I mentioned before for each committee the superintendent or the administrative uh liaison reviews those items and sometimes they will bring things to the committee meeting also okay the committee reviews and discusses all of those things and then brings a recommendation to the full board all board members receive the committee agenda and the minutes the Committees report to the board within one month following each of their committee meetings and committees recommend yay nay or no opinion to the board Okay so theed ation committee is usually going to cover curriculum and instruction special education um and things of that sort so the administrative liaison is usually the administrative liaison for or administrator for curriculum instruction and they over and seee instruction and programs as well and they attend all the committee meetings so the things that the the committee the education committee is going to think about are special ed cni again reviewing policies that could be related to curriculum and instruction and programs related to curriculum and instruction and then they would make a recommendation to the full board the operations committee the administrative liaison is going to be the business administrator because they are the ones that are typically responsible for finance facilities transportation and physical plan and they're going and that can include Athletics as well um they're going to review processes to ensure Financial oversight and monitoring discuss Transportation building and grounds and athletic Poli policies and related plans board members May review the the monthly bills before payment auditing for proper protocol and and process validates receipts of purchase and correctness of the amount propriety of the purchase and then again makes recommendation to the full board and the human resources committee and this is the one that a lot of boards say we don't want a human resources committee we want the human resources to be done as a committee of the whole because most of the time that a lot of that work is done in executive session anyway so and then if you don't have an HR committee what several districts that I have worked with um to talk about committee Effectiveness is is they'll have a policy committee and then HR is a board they do as a board of the whole okay but for HR this is a very highlevel HR it's not really a Personnel committee okay you're not attending interviews and things like that looking at rumes or applications that's not within the role of the board so you're going to be looking at job descriptions at um qualification of employees Rumer remuneration terms of service and other related matters evaluation of teachers if that comes up the review of those procedures and administrative structure and management Improvement and then would make recommendations again to the full board so the benefits of the committee system really are that the agenda and all of the minutes go to every every board member so they can see what's going on as I said in the the three Master committees there are three people on each committee and then the fourth seat is open so every board member has one committee that they sit on and for a lot of boards they like that because a lot of boards that I work with have 10 11 and 12 committees and so board members are on three or four committees yeah no thank you right so you know that's one of the reasons that this came about and actually when I was on my board and this I came off the board in 2008 to work at njsba we the year or two years before we had our field service rep come in and talk to us about the three Master committees and we did find it to be very helpful and we like it it worked for us a lot I either find as a field service rep that this either works really well for you or it doesn't work at all and it's absolutely okay okay because there's nothing that's tied to this that says you have to do this it's up to you all to make that decision oh I say what doesn't when it doesn't work what what is what's the problem with it so sometimes it's because people aren't really reviewing the agendas and they're not reviewing the minutes um you know that's part of your role as a board member is to review your packet and not everybody does that so when they're not doing that that's a problem um and also sometimes as I said you know there there were several boards that didn't like that the policies needed to go through every committee because you could tie up a policy for you know a month or two so if you have a board that doesn't agree that would be maybe something that but I mean if you have a pol if you could get tied up at every so I mean that could just like be a problem for yeah I'm just think about a circumstance Angela somebody okay sorry oh okay you recognizing my hand raised yes yes sorry great um so I I guess in this conversation or in this slide here you're you're you're really I think highlighting um the Ben well now you're at the benefits of the committee system uh and I feel like we have been reaping the benefits of this system with our committee structure and our model that we have I mean clearly we we have uh more than three committees but uh we as a district have prioritized equity and Excellence which is why that is its own separate committee um and we also implemented the um process of having policies um run through each committee as um as needed or as relevant I guess which sounds to me um consistent with the model that you're recommending yes I think my uh question would be about and I don't know if we've gotten to this point yet but in the case where um HR Personnel issues become a committee of the whole or that committee becomes a committee of the whole to be discussed in executive session um then that means we're adding a lot of time to our executive session s because as it stands now our executive session time of the bulk of it is really dedicated towards like looking at discipline reports Hib and so forth um which takes up quite a bit of time sure so you know generally when when the committee system is working well the committee me the Committees are meeting generally for about an hour sometimes it may be a little bit shorter than that operations is going to be a little bit longer during budget season um but generally they're going to be able to to work you know for within the hour um and I do realize that that can add to your to your executive session um and actually Allison and Marilyn put get have put together a couple of different models that we can talk about um I just wanted to get through the the committee system first as we espouse it and then but understand that also we're going to I mean njsba is never going to say and I'm never going to say well that's a terrible idea because if it works for you it's not terrible it works okay so um so we will we will get to that's Mo'Nique right yes thank you I figured I was jumping ahead so thank you yeah no that's okay that's okay um can I ask a a question as well so you're going through these models and what I'm curious about is just if you think about the state of New Jersey and who who uses what model and percentage wise do we have any data on we don't we don't have any recent data anyway well recent data do you have previous data I'd love to see it I I can't remember when the last time we did a survey about committees with boards but I can check with Communications Department tomorrow and see yeah what we had I think it might be like 2016 or 17 okay so maybe not relevant I mean not relevant I know boards have changed over a hundred times it's worthwh to see like we're obviously going to come up with something customized for us that works there's no doubt um but it is useful like if if on average like this kind of on average if like this kind of things work over that so while you walk through this I'd be very curious to get your kind of like in your observation over your you know 15 20 years of experience the things that you've seen work really well you know we don't have to have the data for it but just to get your perspective on it while we're going through this be really valuable I can pretty much answer that question though what works well for the board is what works pretty well yeah okay you know because every board is different and every board has different needs and they have different wants about how they do things so you know I usually will say if you have a committee system that you feel works for you it's not broke don't you know the old saying if it's not broke don't fix it but at the same token if you want to look at other models this is a good model to start off with and then as I said Allison and Maryland have kind of come you know come up with some different conf reconfigurations of this that I'm going to ask them to talk about when we get to that and I think that they're all very valuable too to consider so it's not you know it's never going to be my way or njsba way or the highway it's whatever works best for you so a lot of times I go in and I talk about the the three Master committee system and then like a year later somebody will say well we tried that for you know six months but we we modified it and we really like the way we modified it and that's what's working so sometimes it's completely by accident that I find out that what they ended up with is completely different okay okay so again the committee system is going to allow you to have a more in-depth view review of certain topics and issues it allows that leadership to develop as I said before um they're organized the meetings are organized and and um really scheduled around the committee agenda um meetings can occur monthly prior to meetings so to your business um your board meetings so what we did at one point was we had we had two meetings a month and we had two committee meetings right before our board meeting for an hour so board members for those two committees would get there at six o'clock and then the board meeting would start at 7 and that that can work really well because you have a structure that you have to be in your board meeting 7 so all of the different like off-topic things that sometimes happen during committee meetings cease because you've really got a time limit to be able to do this in and then the other committee meeting because we had a small District so the other committee meeting was the committee liaison for two of the meetings was one person so we couldn't have them meet at the same time because we couldn't clone anybody so we thought about it but we couldn't do it so um so that person that person would then do the their committee meeting the next time but those two committee meetings ran concurrently with their committee um liaison okay um it can provide more efficiency to the board and to the board meetings it's a higher level of discussion then at board meetings um you don't have to do a full committee report of reiterating everything that happened in the committee meeting because you've already distributed the minutes and you're going to talk about the things that are on the agenda for that night and that you're going to be asking the board to approve or to look at and then you know it allows um people to explore more issues at one particular time sorry just for the Distributing the minutes is that for just us or is that for public so generally the committee meeting minutes are distributed to the board members and then the committee chair will give a um a recap but it's not a full if you're if you're going through every committee meeting then you should be a board of the whole because you're you know you're having a committee meeting and then you're coming back and you're telling everybody exactly word for word what happened during that committee committee meeting you know how much have you gained and you've now taken up a lot of time for the board okay helpful thank you okay Alison did you have something no I was I was like oh okay so the role of the committee chairs is really to to coordinate the work of the of the committee so they're going to work closely with the administrative liaison they're going to develop the calendar and the agenda with the committee the administrative liaison will help to lead the discussion and the focus on the committee meeting agenda items and the district goals work with the liaison to establish those committee meeting dates the location the times all of that and keeps everybody fully appraised of what's going on so you're going to make sure as a committee chair that those agenda items go you know that the agenda goes out well beforehand as of you know as much time as you can give it and then also that the minutes of the meeting go out and if you can get it done you know kind of within two days or so of your committee meeting typically the board's not looking at their full board agenda at the same time so it also allows board members sometimes to take a little bit more time with the committee meeting minutes and the agenda for the next meeting than they if they're looking at it all the same time they have the board agenda to go through okay and they're also going to be the committee the Comm communication liaison between the committee the board and the superintendent um so they make sure that the committee reports um are completed and are distributed to everybody communicate and anticipates any problems that might be coming up to the board president and the superintendent arranges through the superintendent for other administrators to work with with the committee if it's so needed okay because that wouldn't be the board asking for somebody else it would be the committee Lee aison the administratively aison to do that and then sets Target dates for completing committees and and um tasks and reports when I when we were doing this format um I was a committee chair and one of the things that I always asked when we got into the meeting is what kind of time do we have to make decisions on these agenda items that we have on here to discuss because if we've only got tonight and this is on the agenda for the next meeting we need to focus on those things first if we have six months for it I'm not saying we wait six months but we have a little bit more time so you want to try and look at what's coming up next and what really needs to be focused on okay and then the committee meeting the committee members um they can really help to make the committee meetings more effective by really looking at that agenda reading the minutes being prepared come on time contact the chairperson if you're not going to be able to come just as you would if you're a board member and you're not able to come to a board meeting one of the things that's always nice um for the your community members too is when somebody can't come to the board meeting and the role is being called for somebody to say Mary and Mrs freed been called and she's not she's going to be late tonight she's running late from work or she's not going to be able to come tonight there's a family issue that she has to deal with or just she's not going to be able to come tonight even because that lets the community know that you guys are talking to one another so it can either be to the board president to the ba or to the superintendent and then if it's a committee meeting it's to the chair of the committee okay um when you stick to the agenda at a committee meeting because sometimes I think we all know you know we start to vary off and we take detours and we go down different roads um really refraining from those sidebar conversations can be a big help too keeping everybody focused making com ments that are on point engaging in that active listening instead of I'm listening to you so that but I'm hearing what I want to say next I'm focusing on what I'm going to say next um and that active listening and then being able to request additional information if it's needed okay this is tough to see but the way this can generally work is the idea surfaces or the preliminary discussion surfaces and administration professional staff board member or Community refer it to the approp committee okay then they're going to do research um evaluate make recommendations think about how it fits the mission and your District goals how it applies what what kind of long range plan it fits into does it fit into the budget and what are the timelines for that so then that's going to be discussed by that appropriate committee they may put a report together on something or they may just come up with the minutes again and you'll have the committee's recommendation then that's going to be brought to by the committee to the full board for discussion and for action and they're going to report back what what was discussed but the full complement of what was discussed is going to be in the minutes so it's going to be a briefer um kind of a report but it will give your public enough information to know how you got to where you got to okay we're not trying to not be transparent we're trying to make sure that the public gets the information they need to be able to see how you got to this decision to bring it to the board but not the full complement of the meeting and then the board either approves it and then Administration implements it or if the board denies it it can go back to the committee or it can go to another committee if it needs to so something doesn't necessarily just die if the board doesn't approve it and somebody can say and as president you can say to the committee chair would you like this to come back to the committee to modify to before you bring it back to the board those kinds of things okay I know that's hard to see um then okay so then we have the committee of the whole which I don't think that you're interested in so I'm just going to fly through that um it really I mean there are there are benefits to that because everybody gets the same information at the same time however it generally makes for very long meetings okay so and most board members and it doesn't lessen the work the total work of each board member so that's why a lot of times especially Boards of nine committees generally work better um if you're a five member board Committee of the whole is going to be the better thing to do otherwise everybody's on multiple committees anyway okay so then sometimes boards will decide that they want to have a workshop meeting and an action meeting so the workshop meeting is one where everybody will discuss everything they'll ask their questions they'll ask Administration to get answers to questions and then at their NE so that's the longer meeting and then their regular Action meeting or their Ram meeting we have cows Committee of whole we have Rams which are regular action meetings we have acronyms for everything um the regular Action meeting would be fairly quick because if there was anything that the superintendent or the business administrator any the Liaisons needed to get back to you on they would do so at that meeting and then you would be taking action so the the time that the public generally wants to come is to that Workshop meeting where you're discussing everything in open and then you know from your committee reports and things like that and then you would have your Action meeting but you also can have one meeting a month and you have one meeting a month right we have a mix we have a mix um so we have some some months where business tends to be busier our two meetings a month and then the like less busy months are one meeting a month yeah okay and that's fine too whatever works best for you I know um with a lot of really large districts the one meeting a month can't fly because it's just too much coming at them all the time and then they feel like they get behind on things when things need to be taken care of more immediately so this can you know something like this a workshop meeting and an action meeting can be helpful and something for you know for you guys to consider as well um so at this point I was thinking Allison and Marilyn maybe you could present you have copies at your seat I think they're right there yeah and I'm gonna give this back to you so if you have want to say anything you can thank you that's okay well we have a spot for you up here too with a microphone if you'd like to join us on the day all right do you have those slides too I think I sent them um also if you want to pull up those close this if you want on actually help leave it on right yeah leave it on slid up oh yeah actually I'll take everybody at the end yeah yes did you make these slides that's pretty all right um so when we uh Maran presented the three uh what was it three Master Three Master model we were like this is interesting but we have a very different structure currently and we were not um sure that that would work for us considering U what we've prioritized in our district so um what you'll see in front of you is we have our current committee model um we have five committees and then our ad hoc um negotiations committee um each one of our committees is supposed to have four members our polic um right now our bylaws say that our policy committee has to have for um each vice president I'm sorry each um chair of the committee as a member and the vice president is the chair of that uh the policy committee um and so we kind of took our current committees and thought about how they could potentially be rearranged um to think about or to uh kind of align with some of uh what maryan have presented so um you want to move to not the next oh I we have to do it oh there's the click we just put you to work and then one more um so the first idea that seemed interesting to us was the idea of personnel being a committee of the whole um all of us have to get the information um anyway um and Personnel is one of those committees that does um have to remain confidential um and the exchange of information is kind of um you know is a little bit more difficult um having the whole whole board here for executive session um to have that committee meeting at and during executive session seemed like an interesting idea um we did like the idea of having three committee members per committee to leave that open um open slot so that somebody could um join a committee if they were interested um this model would collapse equity and excellence and policy for uh two reasons one equity and excellence and policy both often don't have things to move ahead um a lot of it is discussion um and the second reason would be that most policies would continue to go through um the the uh the Committees that they are you know aligned to but end up with that Equitable lens um and so like the finishing touches would be that equity and Excellence lens um we would not have the communication um component of personnel um but what I would want or what we would like want to consider is how um each of our committees would communicate um you know more intentionally what's going on to the community okay oh I'm sorry oh yeah oh okay yeah okay okay I thought they somebody would had a question okay um all right I didn't click without having to be asked the second uh model is the same basically except that our equity and Excellence committee would just um just equity and excellence and then policies would just run through the Committees that they are aligned with um and there would be no policy committee uh which is how the uh three Master model is currently and then option number three um would maintain all of the same committees except that um we would have three members members per committee except for policy um the one adjustment that we would like to consider is that uh perhaps policy would not need to have the chair of each Committee Member but perhaps just representation from each committee um which might make things a little bit more flexible in terms of the Committees that people could be on um most me committee members um would have two committee me two committees um one person would have won so uh don't you know if you would like one don't knock the president over yes don't knock me over um uh and um except for policy which would have four members um the policies would still do like what we do now which is go through the Committees and then end up with the policy committee um and then this would oh and then I forgot to mention with the other models um each Committee Member would have two committees because it would be the Personnel um and the committee of the whole and then one other committee that they would be assigned right now some of us have two and some of us have three so it would kind of reduce um the workload a little bit for some of us and then the uh other option obviously is to stay the same so that's uh that's also on the table um and that would just remain our you know our committees with four and having the four chairs be the policy committee and then I here I just put like a monthly timeline um thank you for being more clear about the time frames that's very helpful um so the committee sh agendas would be shared with all the board members um they would board members would reach out to the chair if they had specific um questions or wanted to attend a committee meeting um of Interest the committee meetings would be held and the next agenda would be started at the end of the meeting um while we do think like it would be great to be created we do want to remind everyone that they are kind of living documents and maybe adjusted in between like when they're created at the end of the meeting meeting and then when the meeting is held um the minutes would be distributed within two days um and follow-up questions would be addressed uh the board notes that Dr Cisco always sends out would include any additional information needed and then the voting meeting would include committee reports discussion public comments and vote and then um with the workshop plus voting meetings basically the only difference is that there would be the workshop meeting where those committee meetings would um those committee meetings would be uh reports would be shared um with those follow-up questions and concerns addressed and then the Action meeting um actually shouldn't have committee reports there because we would have done those already um but in any case that's those are the those are the possibilities good job so if anybody would like to share any um any thoughts reactions questions um any other ideas it's open for discussion I love I love this just how you spelled this out my um my question I love your graphics they were very clear I knew what it meant um but for option one my question um maybe it's relevant for some of the others um when you have the Personnel Committee of the whole that would be an executive session would Al I would imagine then the the incident is hi so it would be maybe longer it would have to be longer yeah which is fine by the way I'm just um okay that's helpful to know um and then you know I think for option one two what what you outlined is really important which is communication isn't on here so when you think about like an agenda recap or it would have to include something around Communication in order for you'd have to have some kind of systematic way to make sure we're so you know driving that forward I guess so with the committee meeting minutes what you could do is can you mic so when is that it is on okay it doesn't S it doesn't sound like me um so when we had committee meetings somebody would we would have the agenda online you know on on our laptops or whatever and remember this goes back a long time now and we actually did have like a laptop with us and we would take them we would take our minutes while we were discussing and then what we would do is at the end of the meeting say okay what what are the points here that need to be shared at the at the board meeting and so somebody then you know whoever was taking the minutes would kind of highlight those and then that's what we would send out so we knew exactly what was going to be mentioned at the board meeting and that it was agreement by everybody that that was what we were going to do so the minutes were taken care of the part about what was going to be discussed at the meeting at the board meeting was taken care of and then we would always look at what our next agenda needed to be based on what we accomplished or didn't accomplish that night and so that would be ready to go also so it was it was really quite efficient um that's a great thank you I have to have everybody wanting to do this though also you know because if everybody doesn't want to do this then there's going to be lots of potholes along we um we send out a board bulletin after the board meetings and very often Marilyn and I are like well what do we want to say like we have to go back to the agenda so it's um so that would be very helpful actually also for that I almost wonder if if having the minutes to be shared with the board which is just seems like what you're saying but this kind of report essentially could be the structure that is shared with the public or shared in the like in the um board report to the public um that because I think sometimes when we're giving committee reports they end up being more like a running record of the meeting which means it's long and there's unnecessary detail and so I think I like this idea because I think would focus us but also Focus us and I think share more with the public about specific things that that we're talking about but I think for board members having the minutes could be really helpful just to see a little more detail but it would this would focus I feel like in sharing with the public particular maybe the public wouldn't get so in the like it would be easier for them to understand because they're not so in the weeds of it's because you're reviewing a lot sometimes it's hard to keep track of what's being said if I'm sharing a running record of you're like wait what was that like well no they just said this I agree and that's why sometimes like adli you know because you're in the meetings you're like this was the really important thing and and so if there was a way to systematically capture that I think it would be really great I also want to comment that I think it's you know when we talk about the Committees because I get to be on and and sit for all of them the idea of the um Workshop to Workshop voting meeting combo the the either one meeting a month or two meetings if if the two meeting a month structure is a part of what we want to continue then I want to be really mindful of when we have our meetings and even if we just do one meeting month we still have to be mindful of when we have our meetings because if we are going to go with the workshop to do all the committee reports and all of our committees need to really meet before that and thinking about our timeline of when we do that and then same if we do the one meeting month and we're strengthening the committee work and they might be a little bit longer same thing on when we plan it because it's hard to like that's why I always felt Personnel was really complicated because I'm like I have to oh this is too soon this you know and and then there's things that happen in between all of the most not necessarily for some of the meetings but definitely for personnel finance and Facilities things come up in between I think that's where my board notes come in but then the public gets concerned because this is the first time they're hearing of it that's because it came up in between when a committee met and when the board met so from my perspective it's just very it gets kind of complicated when every day things are happening but you only see it at certain times or they only see it at certain time so I'm not really sure if you have a recommendation on how that works of committees to the community to kind of mitigate a little bit of that if you can have um if you can have the committee meetings the week before the board meeting that would probably be one of the better things to do um because then you're you're technically really looking at things that are on the board agenda as well as you know things that might need to be added but it gives you time to be able to add those things too so if the committee comes to a decision um and that way you have all that information that then you can give to the to the public when you're doing your recap thank you I mean I think part part of the issue with our current structure is we have a working meeting but maybe only two or three committees met before The Working meeting that means the voting meeting right yeah then we have two more committees that report at the voting meeting which means that's kind of like a workshop meeting too so then when I first came on I was like wait what's the difference between these because committees are sharing to both of them and and um so all the structure stuff actually makes a lot of sense if we keep the working meeting I think the Committees have to meet before there to actually make it working like a workshop maybe yeah but then it's also so early it's hard to coordinate hard to coordinate and especially in a district this size where we wear many different hats in a district our size we we make I wear many different hats Finance facilities Transportation right um Etc and so does Christina so oftentimes I'm not prepared for the workshop meeting or you know having this committee meeting beforehand it's too much information I don't have the time to gather it all and then I feel like I did a bad job like so no but I mean that that's a fair point though because if you look at the amount of things that are added so in right now when we do our Workshop meeting months we have that and then they'll see the the community and the board see and bold the additional items that are added and if you look at it a lot of it are finance and Facilities right it's like the bill list the secretary's report personel those are the two and Personnel right there's a lot of things that are added on and if Personnel met already ready or financial facilities usually meet and then now something adds on now the board is aware of it because they get my board notes for those but the public necessarily isn't and I think that's some of the feedback we've been hearing it's like wait but that's the first time we're hearing of it but the committee's been reviewing it or it's been in between so just trying to find that balance right and then remember you're posting your agenda also before the meeting so somebody could actually see that this is something new on the agenda right and that you'll hear more about it at the meeting then right because it's not always possible to get everything out to the public before it comes to the meeting right yeah to me there I mean there's no doubt that our current structure is not ideal I'm just curious what folks feel about I I have a strong go for it an option I don't really I I like to let I I like I think option one is a good one um and option one or two but what I I like I like the Simplicity of it I like the thoughtfulness of how it modifies existing systems but makes it us right it takes our existing infrastructure we've got equity and Excellence as it in yeah so anyway for me that feels very like custom yet um doable and and um solves for some of these issues where we're not going to have these meetings where you know we're not timing them quite right and just the inefficiency issues that that's how I feel but convince me otherwise yeah I have to agree with Sarah I do I I like it for the same reasons um I also like the fact that equity and Excellence are with policy because the policy is really what is our standard of how we how we do things and it should always be done through an equitable lens um my I only have a question about because and I think it was mentioned before but I se more clarity on the executive session if that is the committee of the whole how do we fit in the disciplinary and Hib and and all that or would that be later meeting or it would be like we would have to start at F like 5:30 like 5:30 to 6:30 is Personnel 6:30 to 7: is Hib and discipline now does Personnel have to be every week or is it still once a month as it it would be the once a month with the meeting oh oh okay one of the other things you could consider is pushing discipline to the equity excellence and policy meeting and then Hib and Personnel be in uh committee for the whole as well because obviously it's through an equity and Excellence L we review anyway um but the sort of um requirement of the board is really obviously to review and approve hibs so something that you could do if you wanted to move that to part of a committee work because we're looking at it already through we're doing it we're doing it already and maybe something to pick up to look at that we could still continue to do the discipline report thank you to my amazing secretary who spends a lot of time putting it together um but putting it you know through that lens as well so that might free up a little bit of the time because I heard some comments about potentially it being a longer meeting but maybe that might take the burden off where it's hibs and then personnel which might help a little bit I don't know so that sounds like a so still so so we're still really deep going deep into the discipline work and I would probably argue that we could go deeper because we actually have a little bit more time and we're looking at it through the equity lens versus the half hour or time that we get and we're not really voting on discipline you don't vote on discipl no just the absolutely there's nothing that you vot on that's a yeah because we covered in equity and and Excellence the thing that call out is that because we have an incident issue in like we need really good notes from that like we need like really massively good communication from that committee so I'd say the burden on that committee is going to be pretty high we could all get those discipline the same report you could still get the report part of the minutes not necessarily Link in the agenda yeah meting like already happens in equity and Excellence yeah I put that right I put all the links in there or chair could or I could yeah co co co-chair that uh that link but yeah it's already done and you would have access and it would be in your board folder like it is now the conversations about it would be more focused with the idea that you know there's always an extra space if someone wanted to join you know if they wanted to or ask questions about something because they could read it ahead of time and then say Oh I just have some questions about some of the discipline that came in can you ask these during the meeting or something like that that might help with the yeah with the conversation I don't know I think so I mean I just food for thought I think it's aide IDE I had another thought it might be a bad one B one well maybe I'm just put it out there so you can all shoot it down but um another thought I had was um to put equity and uh with curriculum instruction because a lot of the discipline stuff is about classroom management and how those things are handled that might make put too much in curriculum instruction I think that might be the worry but then you could pull out uh personnel and policy you could do a different third committee possibly or um or the policies shared across them like in the Masters so that was one thought I had because I think they are very interrelated at least they're very connected in my mind um I don't know that would I had actually had one that had that um and I thought about it for a while but um having been in curriculum like well you're in both the discussion in both can clearly go 60 Minutes both you know so I'm I'm I would be concerned um that that it would be too much I think also there's a philosophy underpinning which is like equity and curriculum and instruction is one way to achieve equity and Excellence but there's like to me it almost Narrows the focus of how we think about Equity maybe I don't know does it make it too narrow I mean to me it does I don't know because when we are in equity and Excellence we're having much more broad discussions that aren't necessarily related to curriculum instruction at all right so if you put them together I think it limits the the breadth of the conversation that you have as it relates to equity and Excellence but I too am in both and that that's my like curriculum instr well it's a timing but it's also like curriculum instruction is a thing equity and Excellence there's policy there's um CL climate there's incidences and behavior issues that are stemming from socio I mean there's all these things that are relating to like pop like so you know there's no doubt they're related and there's no doubt that a lot of our conversations are overlapping there are yeah there are a lot of things that we do send back and forth between equity and excellence and curriculum instruction um I don't know Mo'Nique yeah I just had my hand because I just want to add this conversation that what we did in the past um and this was more so a kind of a scheduling um way of addressing um the this issue that there is so much overlap and there is there are often instances where either the chair of equa and Excellence or the chair of curriculum instruction or any member of either committee want to sit on the other committee because there are issues that um you know kind of are clearly overlapping or impact both areas so what we we've done what we did in the past was we would schedule those meetings to occur um kind of back to back so um we always kind of aligned cni and equity and Excellence meetings and we found that really helpful because again either myself a chair or another Committee Member would be able to push into that curriculum meeting and vice versa um and again that really just helped with especially specific topics in in cni that um clearly had um um needed an equity lens and needed to be um discussed through that lens so I just want to put that out there it's something we may want to think about um um in the future for next year and we're scheduling yeah is to perhaps get back to that um and it just we I think we did that also with um was it no it was just with eni cni and equi and excellence and then um because of the policy overlap um I think you know just moving to this idea of having each committee um get get get their hands on policies um that were pertinent to their area their scope um really helped as well so I just wanted to add that historical context and then um I I think since kind of Sarah uh shared her um preferred option you know I really first of all thank you Marilyn and um Allison for putting together these scenarios um okay thank you Alison all Al I I I feel like I you know they're they're so all of them are really well put together I I don't have a strong um leaning or preference I I think my top initially I just thought maybe option two would be what I preferred and perhaps that is my bias for wanting to as an equity and Excellence chair I don't necessarily see an issue with collapsing equity and Excellence excellence and policy either so I mean again however whichever way we decide to go with this I would probably be okay um I think I already raised just the one thing that I was thinking about and we've already touched on is just the fact that Sarah I believe mentioned this already our equity and Excellence committee meetings and I believe this is the same for cni um take up a full 60 Minutes most of the time and that's you know just getting through our agenda items so um and sometimes there is like a to be continued right because we still haven't finished discussing certain items and I don't even think it's a matter of not being efficient or you know getting off topic it's just the nature of the um topics that we discuss maybe sometimes we can think about um you know moving through a little bit more quickly but um when we think about then at the end of these discussions then also as a committee sitting and looking at what our agenda will be for the next meeting um and or before that going through what the notes are going to be what we're going to send out we really have to just be mindful of the fact that that will add on I would think you know that would definitely take us beyond the 60 minutes which again just for historical context I will say on average Equity Nexus committee meetings used to run probably more along the 75 minute Mark so um prior to um I guess under the previous superintendent um tenure it was not unusual for our meetings to run over an hour um I do prefer to stick to 60 minutes I think that there you know we can get what we need to get done in 60 minutes but if we are about this in terms of the communication the note and the or the agenda creation at the end of our meetings and that we will need to just be prepared to um have that extra time over 60 minutes I just can't see us functioning um and trying to get all that done in 60 minutes and do our due d diligence around the kind of topics that we discuss the good thing if we were to go to this three committee model is that we only are sitting on of one committee so if your one committee goes a little long it's your only committee for the also Personnel right but that I think we're here I think we're here in executive that doesn't bother me as much it doesn't you know that our you know is not not additional to my to my month right that I've already allocated that night to be here in my you know for that c but here you if you have one I right now sit on three committees so if I had one committee and it took 75 minutes I'd be okay with that right I think it hopefully helps our administrators who are sitting in on less committees as well you know it's typically Christina or Denise um so they also have have where the meeting might go longer um but there's less of them so hopefully hopefully it's more efficient use of time well when I'm looking at these options though I thought the Assumption was that we'd each have first of all yeah whoos you Marilyn I I just think like three committees yeah we should not have to be like sitting on three committees are really doing a lot and we appreciate you dearly um and we want to make sure that that does not continue because it's a lot of time um but I'm looking at these options and I feel like they all will involve one committee plus Personnel is that correct correct correct and then like some of us negotiations or you know and anything that we might create ad hoc but um but yes most of us but pretty much all of us except for anybody that's involved in negotiations except well yeah any some of us um for a few months next year um but then we won't have negotiations for a few years after that so right um so it'll be just uh one committee plus Personnel so everyone will have two so let me let me ask you this if Personnel is Personnel a a much longer committee that than an hour it depends or is it shorter it honestly depends on the topic happen yeah so that we have sometimes where it's um like we're within 45 minutes or so um we're off in less than an hour unless like in the spring when you're looking at uh yeah like if we do like our when meetings where we have our non-renewals or um particularly challenging Personnel issu yeah we have some particularly challenging Personnel issues but they're not often but yeah because I was going to say would it be better to have Equity e Equity excellence and policy as a committee of the whole and have no and have personel have HR as the separate committee but have Equity excellence and policy where everybody is there so whatever else whatever other committee you're you're on you're able to contribute to that committee at one do you know what I mean I don't know if that makes sense yeah I guess it probably would depend on what everybody feels they like if everyone feels if the entire board feels strongly that they want to know about Personnel then Personnel should be committee for the whole right but I think if everybody feels strongly about discussions around curriculum instruction then that one I think right I feel like it's equity and Excellence as a whole isn't that now a public meeting yes yes and then the Personnel one would not be public because of because it can't be so there's an efficiency component but also the confidentiality of the discipline data that's discussed with equity and Excellence would that could put us into executive so it's a little tricky because there are some things in equity and Excellence that can be discussed in public and some that can't yeah yeah and the same really go holds true for personnel too because some of those things can be discussed in public a lot of them can't so it's just a question of what you know because if everybody wants to be able to feed into Equity excellence and policy from curriculum and instruction and from facilities and from operations um then that might be the better thing to do as a committee of the whole I'm throwing it out there but I don't have an opinion on it because yeah is it efficient do whatever you want really is it efficient though to have that many people discussing the equity and Excellence I mean if yeah no I don't think it would be good I feel like we it's really productive and if you know the get that way yeah I don't I yeah yeah I think what's interesting about when Monique said option one two I agree with you Monique like one or two the big difference between the two is that you've got um you've got policy and communication so the question is like how do we want to treat policy and communication well communication would be a common thing like again intentional but so really policy well and so option two same with policy right so we so to me that's the decision which is like if you want to make policy and communication run through all of them because it's a core tenant of them which by the way it should then you do option two we just have to be very methodical about how we treat that publicly so it's just a it's a charge on ourselves to be systematic with how we treat those two things so Monique did you have something to say yeah no uh just lost that lost the train of thought um I guess my my only concern though is that uh running okay so running policy through or each committee I guess looking at policy as pertinent to their area that's okay I'm just thinking I that removes kind of the central policy committee who at this point is almost like a central Hub right that distributes right um I like that's an effective to me I feel like that's quite effective that we have kind of the central Hub that their sole responsibility is policy and they're able to distribute out stay on top of the Committees to make sure that they're you know reviewing And discussing the policies and getting back getting back the feedback to the policy Committee in a timely fashion um I actually like that model um and I guess my only concern when we pull away that dedicated kind of central hub for lack of a better term is that we lose that um uh one um Central Focus just on policy right that that again doesn't remove any of the um policy discussion from the the Pol the Committees that um where the discussion should happen but it just ensures that um those committees are moving along as they should and are having those discussions um based on the policies that are fed to them so to speak from the policy committee does that make sense like I just feel like it does but I don't really feel like that's how policy has been functioning hasn't it hasn't been functioning like that um because we've been meeting to review policies and you know we've reviewed policies in our committees and then the policies come to policy and we look at them for the F you know like to them on for first read so but we haven't like sent them out it's Christina that's done that I am the central Hub the central Hub so that's different from I'm sorry to cut so that is different from probably the way we functioned perhaps two years ago where literally it what they were the policies were germinating from the policy committee um and then we would get from let's say for example a policy chair who I think was darc the last time I can think about the way this was working that way um or an maybe it's an I don't know would send out those policies to the respective commities like these are the policies we need you to look at um and send back your um you know your your feedback suggestions comments so forth um that might be that might be before my time because when I took over Darcy gave me the structure and she said to here's you know the 1000s go here 2000s 3000s Etc and then so I would get them across my desk and then I'd put them on the agenda items the piece that I was missing that I got feedback on was to Loop them back into the policy committee because the policy committee has specific ones that they review I think the 1000s and 2000s and so that was the piece that I wasn't doing that I am doing now and have been doing for a little while is Loop so after curriculum instruction reviews them or equity and Excellence or Finance they then go back to policy for a final lookover so um but if it was done in a different way where policy was disseminating That's before my time well you've taken on that lo you Tak on that sort of um responsibility uh it sounds yeah okay so so along with history I actually had coffee with Mark we had some hard conversations so back before Darcy there literally was nobody discussing pile there was piles of books and papers that's that's his perception um but at this point which is like many years later um Susan's not in her head at this point many many years later um there's we're up to dat on policy right I mean thanks to you know the work Christina's done and Susan's done and a little bit before them as well maybe starting from Darcy at this point we're only discussing the changes that are coming from St Esme or something that might need to generate from our own um like the cell phone that we begin to talk about a little bit or field trips things that are generating from need within the district so but otherwise that's a wonderful place to be right so we are in a really good place so I you know would feel more concerned if we were where we were a few years ago and we didn't need a committee to you know stay on top of it but um and we could always do an ad hoc I mean if right if there was some we get to the point of like cell phones or something we needed some serious time on something we could pull a group together yeah so like if we went with option two and we're like you know what we really want to revive rethink our cell phone policy then we could do an ad hoc cell phone policy committee that's going to examine that over the course of a few months you know draft whatever and that's like a committed group that's very interested in that particular topic that's willing to donate that time um so that's another way that we could perhaps you know uh do that if we did not um go with having policy as part of a committee yep that makes sense and it's all about as to to Marilyn's Point really maintaining this nice that we're in um on top of policies and just making sure that it stays that way and we don't get back to where we were right joined it was just so so many policies that needed to be reviewed and updated and yeah and like I think that that's you know why we're here today is to say like well if this is the model that we want then we all have to be an agreement that you know we need to make sure that we're re looking at the policies that are being put on the agendas that we're doing the pre-work for the meeting like you know we're reading our materials before we get to the committee we're asking questions you know like kind of coming to that agreement that this is only going to work if we're kind of we're all um I guess playing our role yeah so to speak so you know if we agree that we're just going to run policies through the different committees then we're agreeing that we're all going to move those policies through the Committees and kind of keep tabs on them yeah um for you know for each other you know that's what I mean like that is a very explicit thing we should State these and and I think all they could all work it's just like there needs to be that kind of statement up front and then speaking of policy the process here is is is policy connected because if we reach consensus here tonight or you know in the I don't know at be on tonight then the goal would be um policy committee is meeting next Monday Monday the idea of looking we've already pulled Susan's already pulled the policies that relate to our committee process we have to revise the policies that relate to our committee process so that um our first read in January I guess would be new policy would be oh we have right first read would be in December so that in January our reor could have this our new model in place so there is a policy component just getting know we're like on a timeline um unless for some reason that you know people don't want to do that but if we're looking to make a change then we ideally we make a change so the policy could look at it next week and we could have a first read and then um Maran did say this try it for six months and if you don't like it then you can go back or you can change to do something else or you can you know uh the the world is our oyster I like that approach I like that approach so um with if let's say we were to go to something like option one or two um would they all be in the same week is that what I heard you say Maran that's desirable so then you can kind of get as close to they can be but however it's best for you to work them yeah so so one thing I would name um uh is you know oftentimes There's issues that come up in the public that feel very urgent and and sometimes they need to go through this mechanism or some through some other mechanism and I'm just maybe this is a different conversation than this but like when things come up that seem urgent or we need to put them like how how do you how do you make sure they get through the right the right Channel and if they're all like a week before you know the the final meeting it just it makes it so maybe there's not a if people have concerns they're not to be brought to public attention until I don't know I'm just bringing up that it it changes the way when a public member brings to a concern when it can be handled and that just seems like part of the thing we should think about which is like I don't know maybe there's a I don't know just throwing it out there so you talking about if somebody comes up with somebody brings up an issue at a board meeting and then how you emails us emails us and we want to be able to say we're addressing it and if we say we and maybe that's what it is we can't address it into meeting 3 weeks from now and sometimes that's kind of like a painful thing to hear but if it's something urgent or emergent then it's going to have to you know it'll have to be dealt with and then go to the superintendent for that most of those concerns most go to administrate to so what you're saying is like yeah there's other thing there's there's things that are handled through some other mechanism and if it's not that urgent it'll be handled through okay right and then sometimes you're going to refer people to the chain of command also I hope which is the you know put them to the give them to the lowest level of the chain so if it's a parent or a student issue they want to talk to the teacher first then you know perhaps an assistant principal or a principal then to a supervisor or an assistant do you have an assistant superintendent okay so then um you may have you know coordinators or supervisors or whatever that it could go to and then to the superintendent and then it would come to you as the board you're the court of last resort but the thing to remember is that sometimes people can't get exactly what they want they may need to understand why they can't get what they want because most people in in the communities unless they've been a board member before or they know somebody they related to somebody who's a board member someplace else they don't understand the complexities of some of the issues that they come to you with you know I want to change my my students bus route you know that's a major issue it's it's money it's time all of those things people don't realize that so sometimes it has to go through certain you know um mechanisms in order to be able to get solved but if something was emergent it would need to go right to the superintendent obviously that's fair that's helpful yeah okay all right um do we want to come to a consensus it looks like we're between numbers one and two can I can I ask like um as the folks on the administrative side that are kind of have to deal with this like do you what what feel I mean you know this is this is a collaborative we want we want this to work and you know I think that's their most Commit This is why we're here so I'm just curious what feels right to you I mean I like models options one and two I think they're um both really good I think to me Personnel is something that's a really big deal and I'm usually reaching out saying I need to make sure that everyone's on board with some high level Personnel decisions so um I think to help prevent the president from constantly being the middleman and calling everyone individually and whatever else we have to do on Personnel matters you know seeing that as a committee for the whole would be helpful I will say I any structure that we go with I want to make sure that we're we're doing right by it like I said I struggled with the two meeting a month because to Dan's point I just never understood like if we Workshop something and then we're adding things and we don't Workshop those things and some things we talk about here and sometimes we talk about them there and it just never seemed an efficient use of the time um if we can really commit to our committee's meeting you know a week before getting that communication out with the agenda and and having that flow which I think we really could um either options one or two work work really well um I think policy's in a really good spot um you know one of the things I would argue too with something like um you know policy is that if policy impacts you know I know it comes with the number and we put it through but something like the cell phone policy is a really good example where it might actually impact all of them right curriculum instruction would want to look at it from their lens finance and Facilities because if we're going to buy Yonder pouches that they need to have their hands on that too if that's going to be a policy that you're going to implement so I would even argue that those policies that we Implement that either are Strauss or above and beyond Strauss um would go to all of them anyway potentially if we make that decision where we look at them saying you know what I actually think we should review this by all committee or something like that so um in which case equity and excellence and policy might not be needed and and then maybe option two would work a little bit better um yeah that makes a lot of sense and I think it preserves that timing because we know being in equity and Excellence how much time we really have really now we're gonna we're g to some of that is going to go into personal on committee but I do will say I don't feel like we spent the time that we wanted to because we it there's so much in there so I can appreciate that if you had policy that it would be yeah I'd like to keep the continuity of what we're doing in that and because we're in a good shape with policy I think it'd be really great to continue the work in committee on looking at policy and then maybe those 1000s and 2000s that would have gone to policy we can kind of look and redistribute those or something like that um or it goes to the whole board in an email or something also we don't really have to edit the the description in the PW okay perfect then we're we're good three and we'll fig three and we'll figure it out I'll pick that one for the win there to to help Madam president here um no I I think that's a really good point if we are you're right like if there are policies that are we're gonna are touching multiple um committees regardless then no then that makes sense option okay um all right I would at um well I think I already said it I think I'm leaning I'm definitely leaning towards option two um and I think drct sesa's last Point um was well taken um and I wanted to say something about policies I'm sorry I'm not feeling the best tonight um but yeah I think that's it that's all I have on my mind at this point but again thank you and um I'm not so strong either way but my preference now is two um but I'm curious to hear what other think between the options presented Nikki what are you thinking still thinking there's no wrong answer n we're all pretty much in agreement which is kind of f yeah I mean I'm really set on the whole Personnel committee as a whole that's like my favorite thing yeah um yeah I my only concern with policy not being an actual committee is forgetting about it and we don't want things to pile up so I don't know if there's like a point person who would be like hey this policy came in we need to run it through the other committees me I am the committee of the one well and what's been really great and I can I just interject here what's been really helpful Dr cesa now that you've you've been doing that um and you tie it right into the committee agendas so yes um again I will admit me as a committee myself as a committee I'm not going to look for like what policy What policies thatly looking at you know so it's really helpful that you've you've taken that on apprec much appreciated um and so yeah I think that alleviates the concern that I kind of raised um about this whole idea of well who's going to be that Central um that Central Hub yeah and if I'm on and I do attend all the Committees it would still continue to do that if something came up so you know we had talked about grading policy which isn't a Strauss update but it was something that actually we internally was our regulation we're like oh this is 1992 was the last time it was updated and we've since changed it and I'm like okay we've got to run it through curriculum instruction and equity and excellence and we're we're talking about it so our policies and R so you know and if someone if it comes up from the board member that hey we should look at this policy we've done that before I usually pull them get them as Google Docs get them prepared for commenting and then send them out so I I think that has been working really really well and I think it takes the burden off of the board to have to look for those things or ask for him also the the most recent ones we've worked on have been coming from the the central either Central leadership team or your leadership teams you know in the buildings so you're bringing them because the high school principal you know realized that X Y and Z was a problem so it coming from the school so it had to come through you yeah you know the lunch the lunch one we done which was an easy one but came from the buildings where they we realized policy was not in fact what we were doing in that building so this does there's no way around it policy always flows through me so I think I'm a good Central if for some reason like in the next couple of months that structure isn't continuing to work for whatever reason we can always we can add it or revisit it or whatever but um I I mean I'm gonna say that I don't think that there's been any problem with with our policy work with with the way we've been doing it so that's why I particularly like number two Mary question do we we don't vote on this at this point we just what's you know not vo we it's not a voting meting not voting meeing no action taken no action so so we basically can go ahead and just a workshop meeting we are workshopping this yeah so at at your next meeting you can you can take a vote on which one you would like to do yeah based on because we'll have policy because you'll have the policy upd that's where we and then we also mentioned I like I liked the idea of discipline going through the equity and Excellence okay committee and I don't know if that is a separate like because equity and Excellence talks about discipline correct I've never been absolutely so would that not be the natural way to like place the put discipline yeah I don't think but that's not in our I don't think that's in the policy or anything like that that was just something I think that was brought up before my time so that's not anything here practice it's just more of a practice than a policy so we can decide how we want to do that practice and we could try it one way and if it's not working we could always go back for something too I mean well I I'm not sure hi I'm not sure I understand what what you mean because we are already are so what equity and Excellence does now are you saying taking I think Nikki was just asking if disciplines already discussed in equity and Excellence during an executive session um it would definitely it would be like you know five hour meeting if we actually do vote on hibs we don't vote on discipline so that happen publicly in not have that as part of an executive function makes sense executive executive session my last thing that by a certain time we all lose our executive getting Clos one one other I'm just thinking about timeline a little bit between the committee meetings if the committee meetings meet if the Committees meet the week before I'm just thinking about agendas getting out minutes and then the agenda for the voting meeting it might it might make sense to meet the week before that uh just to give the two days for the minutes to be written up to give the time for that to be put on the agenda and that kind of thing it's if you meet the Thursday before the Monday it's not right like two weeks typically our voting meeting is the fourth Monday of the month so perhaps all committee meetings should be the second [Music] second finan facility is Tuesday I think you have Personnel before finan fac on Tuesdays if it could be the same day of the second week and yeah I like the aidea of having see uh the curriculum instruction and equity and Excellence back to back if you're if you're I'm in it I in get back be awesome that would be great um and that would be it we just have to make sure this time because what happens for those who if there's anybody watching out out in the public there um is during reorg one person thank you during reorg um what we do is we establish the Committees yeah and then what happens after that is comes back to my office and then we schedule those meetings so I usually work with each chair to say when would you like to meet and at what time so we just have to be mindful I don't I'm flexible my schedule is incredibly flexible I have no problem with the back toback I didn't mind it when we had it before the things that change are just because people's schedules change and we're not some people aren't available or whatever so um you know I think that's just something that I want to take into consideration yeah and I think as long as we kind of Prior like we make this something that we wants know about it it work the one thing I would say is that like I really like I really like these suggestions and this move just communication is an area where we struggle and I know I've said this already but like in the write up notes it's like such it's maybe has to be a requirement that we have some communication implication or some like have to about this yeah when I was thinking about how um our like you know committee reports or agenda or whatever would be structured I'm like thinking about a communication to the public area um uh which not only is for the you know the the report but which could be for the report out right but could be for the board bulletin yeah um and I think could be in conversation like what are the things that we want to share about like these ongoing discussions that we're having um and what we're pushing through at this meeting um because there's you know I mean we you guys had the um strategic planning session and we were speaking about a lot of decisions that were made but they the people that attended had no idea that these decisions were made right so it's um you know to be really really intentional about yeah what we're going to communicate um from these areas um except for personnel from these areas and by the way what you just laid out I think is like absolutely going to be an improvement because if you have like notes and then there's like a communication SE of like what matters we're naturally going to be doing that and that can be repurposed in other ways and so I I feel very confident about that as long as that's ingrained into the followup no yeah I just feel like creating something like this might not be exactly like this with some template that minutes and then it's kind of it would would formalize it too because we each do minutes differently yeah that would be good too it's a good idea and you can modify that however you would like to I would say and this Monique here I would say I don't even like to use the phrase minutes in my because I really do not I cannot attend being the discussion be engaged cheer the and take the minutes so I am very clear about saying I take notes um I my notes too yes yeah but they are not and I do think the public appreciates um and I know sometimes our reports especially NE and Excellence are lengthy because of the types of topics that we are discussing and the discussions we have and the notes are l but I think the and I know I should say I know it's just from feedback that I've gotten that the public appreciates um the level of detail that we include when we're reporting out um the meeting notes because um they feel like they're really getting good insight into those um you know into those important discussions that we're having so I think um whether we're SE I like the idea of separating out like what are our what are our key bullet points in theun as that we want to communicate but also recognizing sometimes that what we may find to be the key points we want to communicate may not always there may be other points right and there are other nuggets in the discussion that members of the public May value and appreciate as key um highlights from the discussion right so there's kind of different perspectives can I just ask that can I a silly point of clarification these would be public though now no they're still okay no they're so they're not yeah not public good to know what's public is what we say got got got okay yeah yeah like think that that's an important Point um you know that what we're trying to establish is clear communication about things that go from discussion to action yeah um so picking up on those key points um you know even though there are things that are they they're being discussed in committee that are being flagged now um for potential decisions later on knowing that these are going to surface again um because we want to establish that um you know chain for for the public so that when if a decision is made you know for example like the cell phone discussion if a decision is made um and you know they they we can backtrack and show how you know how the decision has been discussed over time right that makes sense okay I think we are finished okay all okay with the one meeting a month except for Budget I think it's two meetings right sorry okay sorry sorry conversation I know we're all so it would be the one the committee meetings the second weekend of the month the voting meeting the last Monday of the month yep except for Budget season when you have the hearing right is it called that would be a special special public meeting for the budget only all right okay all right all right I'm going to move to adjourn second all in favor thank you Maran we appreciate it thank you