okay I think uh we can go ahead and get started I know Susan uh Stevenson will be joining us momentarily so I apologize my dog is in the background I'm GNA try to quiet her down U but I do want to call the meeting
to order um tonight is the Wednesday March 19th 2025 meeting of the school committee can everybody just confirm from the school committee that you're here um and can hear us Chris can you start I'm here I can hear
you Kyla I here I can hear you great Jamie yes confirmed great and then uh I know Caroline is here from and we have shea Martin are HR hi everyone
so and I see Susan Stevenson is logging in right now and Nancy Mara is is here from n as well oh fabulous thank you can't hear anything Nancy we can hear you so you might want to mute so I'm gonna go ahead and ask um
Kyla if you would like to report out from the search committee and I'm just going to step aside for a minute to take care of my dog in terms of announcing the three finals absolutely do you want me to I have no s you're having trouble hearing Nancy
is that the problem you need you need to either check out or mute nany okay sorry all right so the um looking for the actual name hold
on uh we so the school the superintendent search committee met there was 12 individuals we interviewed a total of 11 candidates over the course of four
evenings um and we narrowed it down to we had excellent candidates um we had a large number of resumés that had come with us many very well qualified candidates and their questions um their answers to
our questions were very thoughtful and indepth um and we narrowed it down to three individuals that we're putting forward and I'm looking for their full name in case I didn't
know hold on just a second um so we are dancing forward um Evan Bishop Mark mlin and the third is I'm looking for name sorry hold
on M great thank you kylo sorry to um I had to step sorry what was sorry I what was the last name Roth mkin M Ross malarin m u l k r i n great thank you
and Mark mlin is currently the superintendent in South Hadley Mass and Ross malran is currently the Director of Finance and operations for the noober Regional School District great thank you and I I think people locally know Evan Bishop um from
is the current High School principal of hopkington high school so did everybody have uh received the information I know that um Georgette had sent it out as well the packet from nesda uh the first part of it has was the candidate profile and it goes
through and talks about the interview stuff just want to make sure everybody is on that same page before um Carolyn if you want to take us through the next steps okay thank you well welcome everybody I'm glad you
could be here I'm excited to be here thank the screening committee for its excellent work you did have a really remarkable number of candidates a large number of candidates that we haven't seen we haven't frankly we haven't seen
that um so we were very pleased uh and they did they did the hard work of winning it down to your three finalists and the I'm assuming that the public resumés for those finalists were sent to the district
and will be put up on your website Kylie yes okay Shea so so the public will be able to find the public resumés each member of the school committee will be sent a link to access
the applications they're the um confidential applications I mean the confidential Personnel folder for each of the three candidates you'll receive that this evening we'll talk about next
steps um Nancy and I have talked Nancy kavar and I have have talked and she was talking about your interest in doing inviting both the candidates to Harington and going to see the
candidates in their home district and then I can say that this committee thoughts very strongly about us visiting the two candidates from out of District in their own in their own place yes thank you that's what Nancy was was
saying my recommendation is that you treat all three candidates the same because the district the community knows your internal candidate in one role they
haven't perceived that candidate in the the lar of superintendent's role so this is a chance for him to change that perception to to visit the district as would any other candidate to have an opportunity to meet
with the parents and meet with the teachers and to have his evening interview for you and we're going to talk about what you might want to do when you do a site visit to the candidates District to do the same thing in your own District treat all three
candidates um equal or equitably so with that said um I'm assuming that you have the public resumés I'm assuming that you received a list of references if you didn't Nancy you can text me or Sheena can text me
and tell me you have not received those because we're going to talk about how you call references tonight okay so Sheena did you receive that I I did see something that came through from nesdc today but I I have not caught up through the rest of my my
days um email so what I saw from NASDAQ today was the links um for the community to put on our website I have not seen any references though did you get the public
resumés I got three links for the website I haven't clicked on them I okay so the only thing I've gotten all right so I need to have the others sent out to you because you will get uh a resume for each of the candidates to put on the
website you will also get I'll go on to that now each candidate will provide a starter kit of references we ask them to provide it's almost like Noah act about 12 to 15 references to administrators to
school committee members to Municipal uh leaders to parents to classroom teachers Etc down the line and you'll get that list of refence references it will have the the person's name position email
address and phone number you may call whomever you wish but this is a list that they're starting you might say you know I'm interested in calling whatever Municipal leader or I would like to talk to a person in this
position in the district and you can request that you can even when you're talking to one reference say is there someone else that you think I should talk to about this or who would be the best person to talk to about this uh budget or whatever it is and you can do
that when you get the lists you can't have seven people calling one person so my recommendation is that Nancy as the chair or whomever she delegates takes a look and who
whomever on the committee whoever on the committee volunteers to call references volunteers to make available to call references divvy up the three lists among those people so that one person might call all the school committee
members for each one of them another person might call all the administrators for all three another calls all the teachers that way of calling references gives you a better flavor of the three then then calling all that you know one
person sitting down and call calling everybody from the same uh the same person okay so you're going to divide up the references there are some suggestions in your packet of what to ask when you're calling a reference I like the section
on doing a site visit when they say you're going to the district some of the questions you may ask I think some of those make excellent reference call questions too my advice is to write out your question or two or three in advance have the
questions in front of you and take a few notes when you call um my my advice also is for the people You' you've been selected to call you email them they'll have their email
address and tell them you know I I need to talk to you I need a 10-minute conversation about that this you know this person is a applied to be superintendent is a finalist to be superintendent and gave your name as a reference or I would like to talk to you
about um this candidate and either ask them to email back with a good time to call or you say is it you know is there a time tomorrow afternoon that would be convenient for me to make that call it's harder to call call and just
say hey you know I'm calling it's best to give them a heads up when you call you don't have to write down everything they say if they say something concerning make a note if they
say something positive you can say you know and we'll talk about how to deliberate but the references were were were very positive people had excellent things to say about this candidate or whatever it is so you
don't you don't want to quote um a reference unless you tell them you're going to quote them and you can't even give away their position for instance um a Town Administrator in that town said because it's so traceable or a school
Committee Member said can't do something like that um I'll I'll Circle back to that so you're going to be calling references for the candidates um like Sheena mentioned that she received a link to put up on your
website for each of the three candidates there's a link with their name to put on your website and now as the community hears about these candidates and as the community meets the candidates in various ways they can go on the website
and click on that link and give the the uh school committee feedback on the candidates so that's a way to gather U Community input you will be escorting the candidate around the district we're going to talk about that as as the
candidate is going around the district and their day in the district people will want to provide feedback and that's a a way that you can say it's on the website go right on give you impressions of this of this candidate you also will be getting
impressions of the candidate as you was scor him or her I guess it's all HS hims around the district uh you'll want to make some notes yourself just just impressions of how they answer particular questions or something that
you you noticed that was um very positive or about their day in the district okay so what you're going to do is invite the candidate to spend a day or a half day in
hington and I don't know where Sheena is in that process I can help her design a day if there's particular things you want the candidate to see in the district make sure that China knows but generally what the candidate does is
walk with an escort around the different schools when you go into the school usually the principal takes the candidate around and talks with him um you want opportunities for them to to see students to be to look in classrooms you know just get a
general sense of the school you want the candidate have an opportunity to have a meet and greet with parents usually that's after school and um I meet and greet with teachers most districts plan to have h a
lunch with administrators in there somewhere so you during the course of the day they they'd stop in and administrators are invited to join them for um for lunch a quick sandwich or whatever it is
I can do most of that offline with uh whoever is going to be planning the day in the district if you're going to the candidates District you ask that c you decide among yourselves what it is that
you want to see who it is that you want to see in that District you I mean you'll go you'll drive up you want to have a focus what is it we're going to learn what is it that what types of things do we want to take a look at
you'll let Sheena and me know in enough time to let the candidates plan that out for you we'll say to the candidate this is what the delegation from Hoppington wants to see and then they'll say all
right then I think I'll have the meet over here in this room and bring people to them and then we'll we'll I'll take them to c x or however it's going to happen the candidate will plan out your site visit you have to provide the day you're coming the time time you plan to
arrive the time you want to leave and what you want to see and then the Canada day will work with sha and me to make that happen any questions about that okay when you're having the
candidate in the district and you are going to the candidate's district you're you're going to want to capture your perceptions so you want to be very careful you when you're taking notes you know
this is a school committee you're careful when you take notes that you stick to the topic if the topic is um special education then you write your your and you know this the people who
were on the screening committee when when a candidate was answering questions you talk about the substance of his answers you talk about so that when you come to deliberate ation and you're and you're deliberating and you're talking about for instance the budget
process you have something substantive to say candidate a you know I heard this I saw this um you know I I saw indications of this candidate B you want to be able to make comparisons in your
own mind between the among the candidates and the only way that you can do that is if you choose things things that you're going to look at for all three and listen for for all three so when you're when you're interviewing the candidates you want to be taking notes
about the substance of their answers you want to be taking notes when you're walking around the district about you know do they interact with students do they look comfortable with student you interacting with students you know were they greeting people in
the hallways that type of thing but not personal comments uh you don't want to make comments that could be perceived as well person don't you you really want to be careful about that any questions about
that any go ahead Jamie um do the like the notes that we all take when we're doing these different roles do they become public or are they for us to share among ourselves like usually in the process they you usually your personal
notes but you right but following the standards obviously yes following the standards exactly same standards apply all right so what you're going to do is for the for next week I would assume you're going to start your and if
not then shortly you should be planning what days you want to interview do you have those all chosen what days have not selected dates to to um to interview with
okay would you Rec the having going into the districts on the site visits first or doing the interviews first it depends on you don't want to drag this out too long now you've got your finalists you don't want to make a
big process of it that goes on for good goodness knows how long um um so if you have your site visit delegation if you think you know who's going on the site visits and you could get those up and running next week go for it and then
start your um days in the districts the following Monday or following Tuesday and finish it up because you have to deliberate so you you know take another two weeks maybe to and then end and then make your decision does that feel comfortable
enough to you it it does I think it makes to start with the site visits next week get those up and running as quickly as we can put the team together um that's going to go and then to bring candidates into the district and to do the interviews um I think it's important
for the community to know because I know there are people who are watching this um live because they were curious about the finalists uh to know that there would be an opportunity for them to have that time to sit and hear from the candidates and to provide feedback
directly to the school committee ahead of when we make our decision and my recommendation uh and it's generally the way things are done is if your school committee is videotaped you know is on
is on then you ask the company to hold the videos until after all three candidates have interviewed and then you play them if they interview on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday then all day Friday all day
Saturday and all day Sunday people can sit down and watch the the three interviews and provide their feedback so you want to you want to provide opportunities for people to who can't attend the interviews to watch the interviews and to get feedback but you
don't want to to live stream them while they're happening because it gives an unfair advantage and and blurs when you're trying to make a decision between the candidates you can't tell who's already heard the questions and who has not that type of thing do you have a
suggestion for how long this interview should be I know we had a certain amount of time for the screening committee so for the school committee how long should that one be 90 minutes it should be 90 minutes
and there's a a sheet I gave out to the screening committee but if you have a 90minut interview and you have seven members you have seven members right yeah who would be asking questions if everybody wanted to ask what you have
Jamie there's five members okay I don't know there's so many names on here I thought I was mistaken okay so you have five members all right if everybody wants to ask two questions that's 10 questions and you have a good 9 Minute
time that's a long time though but you have a good long nine minutes to communicate with the candidate that allows you to ask follow-up questions you know when you ask your question you can you can say oh well could you talk a little bit more about
the parents with that could you bring that back and tell me how that how that works you know on the elementary level or something like that it it also shortens up the time when you think about if you want to have an opening
question and time at the end for um the candidate to talk about their candidacy and we'll talk about the kinds of questions you can ask so I recommend that each School Committee Member plan two questions and we'll talk about that
tonight to ask and that if you then have if you say well GE we should really have a better question about technology in there somewhere then you ask you add a question to your to your list and you
decide when the candidate comes in and and um the the chair Jamie will open the interview by saying who they are um the length of time of the
interview how many people would be asking questions that there'll be time at the end for the candidate to speak or to you know you'll know by that time what type of questions they're going to ask and so you you set the T home Nancy
as they as the candidate is there uh you caught the the school committee members look to you and you say all right Jamie would you please ask your question
or Chris you know you direct them to ask their question if you allow enough time it won't feel pressure to think oh my gosh they're going over the 3 minutes and I know the screening committee can feel very rushed you don't want that at
the school committee level you want to give the candidate a time to answer the question now what will happen is some candidates will not use all 90 minutes fine you don't have to drag it out you ask your questions if it ends early it ends early but you don't also want to be
rushing the candidate through responses so you can decide if you start with the basic two per candidate and then have a good opening and uh a good closing time that narrows your time down to talk with them to maybe six seven minutes for per
question I think that's that'll work well any questions about that in your packet are some is a some good um school committee questions that you can build
from um Shea if you wouldn't mind providing the school committee members with the questions uh the sample questions if you have them from the packet from the screening committee and then um Kyler and Shea and Susan the
questions that you actually asked the candidates too from the screening committee so the school committee knows uh what it has access to a resource of questions and the questions that you actually ask the
candidates any questions about that I have one and just because I know everything was confidential so now we're giving this um school committee the questions that we asked but we can't provide any feedback on the answers
correct that's correct okay that's correct um so if I could just follow up on sheena's questions so some of the questions seeing that were asked in the screening round
um the school committee might also want to know the answer to that because obviously three of us weren't there it would seem like it some of the questions might be repetitive is that they might they might be repetitive they might be phrased differently they might be more
complex they might be from a different perspective but I think that it it would be remiss of you not to ask a budget comprehensive budget question or special educ Ed ation question I think that people are expecting to hear curriculum
questions and Leadership questions and culture building questions you have your successful candidate profile that was developed from Community input and people you know their voices were pretty
strong about looking for um I get your profile here I know you have it but instructional leadership using data knowing you know how how does the
candidate know when a program is effective what criteria do they use what data do they use how do they monitor Effectiveness have they have they used have they done anything about it if they found a a program to not be meeting
whatever standards or criteria they uh use so those kind of things and they want Community engagement people want in the that's unless you want the forecast from Alexa in Arlington talking so uh
Community engagement was huge and operations in fiscal management so and in the profile it there's the three areas and then there's all these indicators of what somebody with real
skill and competence in those areas would know and be able to do and would be doing what you would see so you can take that and read through it because that came from the community and you you worked on it for a long time so you take
a look at that and you can ask a question how do you do this how have you done that talk about a time when you actually you know what if we were to bring you into this community what what proof would we have that you have these
skills you don't want to ask theoretical questions like what do you think about X or um you believe as we believe because of course they're going to say they do you want to have indicators you want to see evidence so you want to ask your questions so that
people provide evidence what I'd like to do tonight I'm not sure that if you're ready to do it but would be for each of you to talk about two areas where you might want to prepare your question does anybody have an area where
they really want to ask a question so that we can she you might want to jot this down if they provide any have you thought for people um that have they want to look through the packet as well there are definitely some
good um suggestions on areas um even if you don't know what the question you want to ask is specifically areas that you might want to put under your um your for what working on right instructional leadership Comm Community engagement uh
operations in fiscal management I'd like to I'd like to put a process in place and a deadline for for some getting your question um the different from the screening
committee the whole school committee is not going to vet your questions but this but some BEC and you can only have one- way communication so when your question is ready you send them to whomever you agree to send them and then that person will look to
see you know are they are they all about one thing which I'm hoping not that's why I'd like you to choose some themes uh do they are they two alike is there a Gap so you need to when you're asking a question say have we covered
everything um I'm going to come back to that so I want you to be thinking even now what area do you think think you might want to write a question around two questions around and Kyler are you comfortable
showing Nancy the sample questions from the the sample packet that I gave out at the training session with all the sample questions because Nancy it would it would be um it would fall to you or your
design to ask the opening question and generally that's a question where you want to make the candidate feel comfortable and what the one of the questions in the packet that we have you know is that the school committee could ask is you know why Hoppington and why
do you something like that but you need to put a Time on it otherwise the candidate will run away with the with they'll still be talking 20 minutes later about that so you really have to say you know we have this many questions and this amount of time but we'd like you to take five minutes or so and just
talk to us about this and then you can ask how you want to Freight you can you can phrase your last question is there anything about your candidacy that you wish to tell us we haven't asked is this something you'd like us to know or now that you've had a chance to spend the
day in the district this could even be the opening one now that you've had a chance to spend a day in District talk about your impressions of the the district and why you want to be our superintendent you can make that you
can work that into something um stronger and I can help so I'm absolutely comfortable with the the opening and closing of it I think it just in terms of in Shea I'm G to throw you on the spot a little bit if
that's okay but I think it would be helpful if people sent you um what areas they want to do the the qu the questions they have specifically just um to make sure that we're not inadvertently going to violate open meeting law you're
talking me you want them to send them me no no talking to Sheena oh um if it's okay with you um once people have chosen the qu specific questions they want to ask for you to be the person that screens to make sure that they're
not too similar yes that's fine with me and I agree that we probably shouldn't really talk about them tonight just because this is a public meeting well you can talk not I agree I agree you shouldn't
be vetting your questions but you do you it's fine to talk about areas that you want to ask your questions tonight if you want to choose your areas um let me see I'm just going down this oh I want to talk to you about
deliberations all right you're when all this is said and done you're going to need to deliberate this is going to be public it's going to be memorialized it'll be watched Trust Me by people from the candidates districts
and in the future because only one person is going to be appointed so those the the the remaining two candidates if they apply elsewhere people will come back and watch you need to be very careful about
how you present yourself as a school committee you I mean to be honest with you I don't think a lot of people outside of hoofington are turning into the hoofington school committees on a regular basis but in this case it will be and first impressions you want to
make a good first impression and you want to make a professional impression so your job is not to determine if somebody is would make a good superintendent or if somebody is qualified they're qualified and they would make a good
superintendent they might your job is to determine if they are a match for what hackington needs in a superintendent so you are looking for a match for hackington that's your
lens and I think Nancy when you open the um deliberations you need to acknowledge the hard work of the screening committee acknowledge um I guess the happy problem that they faced by having an abundance of
candidates that were you know um qualified so and then you want to talk about the fact that you've got three qualified candidates before you and a difficult because it will be a difficult decision to make and that you are looking for you at
that's the point where you want to talk about your successful candidate profile and what the school committee is looking for and that are looking for the best match for what Hoppington is looking for okay so then in that case
when you're talking about the candidates you'll each feel that one might be stronger than another in in different areas or in general however you feel you do not please I'm asking you
nicely do not denigrate candidates in public it's not necessary it doesn't look good and frankly it's in poor taste so what you want to do is when you've got the candidates you talk
about I feel candidate a I I feel I would I feel strongly that our special ed program whatever it is and I feel that candidate a in both the site visits and the interview really
understands that really gets what we're about and what we need I heard this I heard this I heard this in the special education and I really feel that that candidate was really strong in that area somebody else might say I heard that too
now don't panic at this point if that's not the candidate you feel that you want for superintendent you're here to deliberate and to listen so a candidate might have really strong answers in one area really strong answers two or three
areas but not be in the end the overall match for your District somebody that somebody else says you know I heard all of that about special education and I agree but I was listening for a I was listening to the answers around budget and in that case I
feel candidate B's answers were stronger so you can do that you can talk about the strength of answers or the the in you know the examples this candidate provided or the experience this candidate has had you know I feel are
really a match for what we're looking for or really something that we can build on so you talk about that and you'll come to see from listening to each other Nancy will get a sense of it's if it's time to
maybe ask for a motion somebody will say I make a motion to you don't make a motion to offer the position to you make a motion to enter into
negotiations for the position of with so and so um and then seconded all in favor type thing if that has a
majority you do not need to vote on the other two candidates okay um you also want anyone coming into the position to have the full support of the
school committee so people School committees generally say you know I favored this candidate I really favored this candidate but whoever gets the position I'm going to support because
it's the Hoppington Public Schools I'm going to support the candidate I'm not going to work against him I'm not going going to you know to do anything I'm going to try as hard as I can to make sure this superintendency is successful so therefore after the
vote if there is a majority someone from the majority makes a motion I make a mo I make a motion that the school committee vote to show unanimous
support for our new superintendent and generally that should pass unanimously you you know it's just a way for the school committee to vote now um on rare occasions School committees don't do this and it's harder for a
superintendent to come in with a divided board and everybody knows it's a divided board um so I'm telling you that good grace is that you you do something like that it's your choice do you have any questions it's
it's harder than it look it it's harder than it sounds but if I were sitting right here and another search consider from a different country was company was sitting you you
certainly if I were sitting right here wouldn't say well we certainly aren't going with nesc because that Carolyn Burke she is clueless you know you think of a better way to say it so I'm saying use that same filter when you are deliberating
any questions about that all right when you have deliberated and you've reached um you've you've taken this vote and you're you're good to go and I think you should deliberate long enough so that you you've can have a unanimous
vote if you can't you can't and Nancy will will know that it's time to vote um then you stop because what you don't want is for people in the audience to text the candidates before you have a chance to tell the candidates so
generally and you can talk about this you take a break and you call the three candidates and generally you assign that chair calls the person you um and and you know two other members of the school committee call the other two
candidates any questions about that okay no that's the way we did it the last time was we took a break and made the calls and um they know they know Kyla and and they know Susan so it might be
that the three of you make the call since they will have somebody that they know on the other end of the line but that's up to you um if there comes to be a situation where the school committee decides none of the candidates are meeting our
criteria do we then say we're this process and going to you make you make a motion to extend the search Okay um have we gone
through I think when you read the packet you'll get good questions to ask the references that's that's difficult because some you know you don't want to be on with a half hour with a reference uh you you you have something you want
to find out if you have a particular question to ask say to them you know I know I know you you probably would love to talk about this candidate for a half an hour I'm I'm limited to about 10 minutes so I'm going to ask you some
specific questions do you be sure to read this successful candidate review it you've already written it so um and I your to-dos are on the front of this packet choose the dates for your
interviews choose the dates for your site visits determine what you want to see so you don't need me um I'm going to I'm going to mute and give it back to Jamie to lead the rest of this meeting to me I think you mean I mean excuse me
to nany I was looking at Jamie that's okay do people have any questions before we move into that piece of the meeting so the I guess the first question is if we're going to try to do the site team visits next week which I
think is a great idea um what are what are people's thoughts on that for next week okay I okay who who's going are all five of you going no I so typically what we've done is we have made sure we did
not have a quorum uh because just in I think the practicality because it's going to happen during the day U might be more challenging for some than others but I think we could do looking back at the notes what we did last time when we did site team visits
is we did them all from 9:30 to 1 um for one candidate I don't know if we want to stick with that um format or if we want to do um try to do two in one day and one in the other to make it two days um do you Carolyn have a recommendation on
whether we do one a day or whether we try to do two in one Daya it it just really depends on your fortitude and how how far away the districts are um if you do two in one day you might want to have one here you know your internal candidate
and or something like that yeah who uh from the school committee is available and is interested in serving on that um doing the site visits next week if we could and then we can narrow down which dates we want to do and fill
in with other people in the district um that we think would be important to be part of that team I'd be available I'm available on two of the days next week okay yeah my availabil availability
is um dependent on the date okay just me um it um Kylie and I have already met these people it might be a good idea for those
who weren't on the screening committee to do the visits so that they they come to the table with some some ideas too so I actually sent out an email to
different districts in Massachusetts today and asked them other people who have participated in um a superintendent search who was on the screening not screening but the visit committee and how many people they
had and generally the answers that I got back was three to four people and they usually picked the people who had been on the screening committee from the school committee because they did have that
Insight so that now they had deeper knowledge because they had already heard about them so now they can kind of pick out other things so that was just a recommendation that I got today doesn't clearly does not have to be that way but
that was just their input that it made sense for the people who had already met them to go see them because they already had knowledge of them that does make a lot of sense because we also we also know what questions were asked asking
how they responded to them it there's You could argue both ways communities do it a number of ways and Sheena um thank you for that survey we have groups that actually take
members of the staff with them they might take the special ed director they might take the bu the the Budget Finance and while I'm speaking about that sometimes school committee members
ask staff to help with the question um you know you have to be careful because you have an internal candidate but you you can ask you know if you're just thinking H you can ask somebody in the district with expertise in that area to
help you phrase it you know you go ahead we're talking about your site visiting so I know that um our assistant super or one of our assistant superintendents has expressed
interest in being part of the group as well and he has done that with other um in another District as well I think that that might be an appropriate person to add in in terms of um other staff I don't know
um you know what what others think who other people think would be important to have in that group um but I I think it would be good to have two school committee members if we able to make the schedule line up I think would
be because special education and parents of special education have such a critical piece I think it would be really good to have um Abby hansom involved because she is so
well respected by that community I I think that's a great person to also invite um and I know Sheena I don't know what your availability is but I think you would be an also another person I think in the past we've also had a
teacher but it could be complicated with um teachers having to miss um class time to do this so I would want to check in with somebody you know from the administrative side before we commit to having uh teachers pulled out for two or
three days sorry go ahead sheina sorry um personally I can make myself available I can work around things I was just gonna say if we choose um two school committee members who weren't part of the search team or
whatever she know would also help bridge that Gap that she was talking about because she's met all these candidates and can use that as perspective even though she's not a voting member in the end she could share her perspective to be you have to be really
careful on the ride down and the ride back not to be discussing the candidate um you can't do that okay I think I have enough experience where I could just discuss what I'm seeing at that time
yeah I think it would be ideal if we could get the site team uh visits done ahead of our school committee meeting next Thursday uh because then we could use that time um we don't have a lot on the agenda we could use that time for kind of the next to bridge into the next
piece um but what I would want to know too what are Chris and Jamie what are your schedule limitations or availability Tuesday and Thursday are my uh flexible days next week Chris what about you what is your
um Monday is pretty wide open uh Wednesday and Thursday are tough for me Tuesday is fine if it's uh if I'm done
by noon 12:30 p.m. can can you take some time now and pick three days for your interviews the following week yes absolutely so the interviews would be in
the evening for us correct that's um I think probably the easiest thing for our um like a collective availability and so that puts us out for the week of the 31st um Jamie and I have negotiations on
April 1st so I think that's probably not a good night um and we have school committee on the thir and we have well we do but I we could potentially try to tweak things around since we haven't even planned that
agenda yet um and we could do two two interviews one night and one another so are people available on Wednesday the
2nd to try to do two interviews then I'm available I am not available you are not available okay um what is your availability that week Chris um the
31st I'm available uh the you're talking about just at night correct just in the evening yeah first and second I'm not available and then the third I'm available um and the
fourth I'm not available so really just the 31st and um the third okay I am not available the 31st H uh
so do you want to back it up and have uh when you're doing your site visits have something on Friday before you know have one next week get your site visits done early in the week and then Thursday or Friday
have an an interview so could we do an interview on Thursday um is that work for people because I know that we have uh really nothing on the agenda I I actually discussed this with George at ahead of time uh other than we're going to need to have an executive session to
discuss negotiations ahead of time but we could devote a a good amount of time to have um one or potentially even two for doing I think that'd be great idea just because it seems like the the
following week is so challenging so the that would be the 27th we do two interviews uh and then look to do Chris what what did you say for the week of
the the the week after your availability it was it was you're not available the first and the second but are you available on the third yeah the third yes okay so that's awesome a school committee night but I think we should
prioritize this and then work our school committee meeting around that um so is that a problem to do them a week apart Caro ask me no um but you want or we could go ahead go ahead you you're
usually the candidate spends a day in the district and then has an evening interview so you would want um um I think that the you could do your two outside candidates on the 27th have one come for the district and on the
third have somebody come for the day in the district your internal candidate you could be a little bit more flexible and have the day in the district and then have the evening interview on the 27th or the 3 okay and then we need to make
sure that those aren't um broadcast until all three are finished exactly correct right correct so it would it it would be just in what type of experiences you could set up on the 27th
the thir and and whatever other day you pick and I guess that again Falls to Sher so it would seem to me if we have our final interview on the 3D uh that we could potentially do our um deliberations Del
liberations the following week on the 10th is that that push you could that's really pushing it back I mean you can if that if that's the earliest you can do them okay so you wanted it's I only said the 10th just because that happens to be um
Ty way but it's now today is the 20th right or the 19th so you're waiting and you know next week you're going to be doing your site visits your first day in the district and your first evening
interview um the following week two other site visits and two other interviews or however you do that I thought we're gonna do two interviews on the 27th okay so two so if you're going to do two
interviews on the 27th then we could do a site visit on the 26 for the internal candidate site visit on the TW 27th not site visit I'm sorry day in District on the 26th day in District
on the 27th and then have the 26th and 27th candidate interview on the 27th in the evening that's great uh are you going to do a are you going to do a site visit for your internal candidate or just a
day in the district so I I feel like we should treat the three the same U because in my recollection from when we did the last uh superintendent search was that we did do all
three right and it was helpful because the candidate that who who ended up being our successful um candidate Dr Kavanaugh was able to bring in people to to speak to the the site team right that we wouldn't have otherwise had that
conversation right so Sheena would it help if instead of if on the either the 20 if on the 26 it was a a site visit and a well can we pull off the site visits on the 24th and 25th we do two
one day we'll do the IND district one one day and then the outer District went on that same day since it's already in District and then on the 25th or the 24th we do the next candidate for the
site visits then we have the internal on the 26 an external candidate on the 27th come in District we have those two interviews and then the next week we have the other site visit and the
interview on the same day sounds good so and to go back to the school Committee Member piece it I think I I like those dates but is it okay to have different school committee members there on Monday and Tuesday since the
availability is different yes and then um I forgotten now Jamie you could it sounded like you could do Tuesday and Chris you could do Monday is that accurate yes yes next week I can do the 24th on Monday okay
I I think it's good to have as many eyes you know let people have a variety of opportunities to meet the candidates and and um you're going to be try escorting somebody might volunteer
to escort for part of the day you you don't have if you volunteer to escort a candidate around the district you don't have to do it all day you can assign um you know a staff member to take them around but it's nice to have a school
Committee Member take them around and um if they're going to be there all day maybe one does it in the morning one will do it in the afternoon um you switch off however you want to do it and I think that's what we did last time was we had um a school committee
member who was helping uh get the candidate from location A to B where they were doing different things in the district right and that's an opportunity to meet them I mean while you're W while you're talking with them you know you you don't have to just talk about the
weather and buttercups you can talk about something significant too so I I guess um the question I would have from the committee is two things one is um who would be interested in
escorting candidates for either part or all of their day in District um in which day between the if we're doing we said the 26th the 27th and the 3D for in District is that where the C Shea is
that those were the three dates that's the three dates I have yes um and then so school committee members who would be interested in helping um get the candidates around and then school committee members who would be
willing to help with reference checks so um I'd be more happy to help with reference check that's great thank you Susan um I'm also happy to do that as well I mean I think as many of us that are able to U particularly if we're
looking at 12 to 15 referen I think is what you had said Carolyn um times three candidates it would be helpful to have as many of us as are able to do reference checks do that would it would it be
good to have like one person do all the reference check on one candidate or to mix it up so I think it was the idea was to mix it up and to so that one um one school Committee Member might ask all of
the questions about um talk about a particular topic for each of the three candidates with the their references or they might I thought it was parents somebody might say I'll call a parent exactly administrators yeah somebody else might call Municipal
leaders yeah yeah I'd be happy to help with reference checks um I am available to uh act as an escort on the um I just lost track of 27th I think
was the day that you the 27th I'm available yes thank you um I am available on the 26th um but I would not be available all day so I would if somebody wanted to do split that day with
me although I think that's also our our in District person who probably knows how to get on the third yeah on the third we would need somebody for for sure do you want me to go with Evan just
to make it all the same like if we do him on the 26 in the morning would that or do you need the morning so so not trying about this site visit I'm talking about the IND District piece so it's actually I'm I've mixed up the dates because I've got like 15 dates in front
of me the in distri not the site yes so the 26th is an in District day right not theam um I so I think we were trying to get we were trying to get two on the 27th and him on yeah but I was just talking about
school committee members to okay to go around with the different candidates to get them from A to B okay um the 27th I have cafeteria negotiations so the 27th I don't know if that's already covered
by others but the 27th won't work for me okay I can do the 27th in District and I can do the 25th out can do the third in District you can do the third k for the
third Jamie for the 27th um okay and then Sheena and I if nobody else wants to do the 26th Sheena and I could maybe do that um divide that up and I don't know you think Aban will be
able to find his way around the district I do but it gives you know an opportunity if they all have an opportunity to have a little bit of that time with a school committee member um as well I do have a little time midday on the 26 if that helps
all can you define midday 12 to 1 maybe a little after all right so we can do lunch no just kidding yeah that's it now if the candidate is going to be in the district
for the day of course you want to have a place Sheena knows all this but I'm saying it for the benefit of the school committee members when they arrive a place to hang up their jacket maybe have a cup of coffee then go off with who's ever es scorting them around you want to
provide lunch and you want to provide either uh tell them a great place which I don't I I think you should provide a supper just a just a quick even if it's just a sandwich and a little bit of time for them to
decompress so here's a sandwich and a room to yourself you can go on your iPad you can think about what you've seen today and all of that and and I think it's I think it's whatever you do for one you should do for three so do you
suggest if we're providing lunch and dinner that it's well dinner mostly is that only with that one school committee person or should I would give them I would have them have it alone I think that's their time to to to
you know and even lunch if you well lunch generally is with the administrators you we you you pick a place you tell the administrators this is where the candidate's going to be for lunch come on and meet this is your time to meet some administrators will have
met the candidate showing them around the school some won't be able to make it but you at least want to have um a time that's set aside for administrators to meet the candidate um I have a question about
that do we get any of the feedback from the administrators what they think they they go right on the same website oh okay okay yeah you should really encourage um
what who's ever es scorting the candidate around just gently remind people you know if you if you'd like to speak on behalf of any candidate or give us any insight on behalf of any
candidate there the links are on the web page now what what um NASDAQ will do is if you're when you pick your dat that you're going to deliberate nzc will um you tell us when you want those feedback
links to shop and then we'll send you the whatever input we have so that school committee members will have that available to them when they're deliberating okay to go back to the calendar you were saying that the 10th
seems like it sounded like you feel like doing deliberations on the 10th is it seems a long wait it seems a long way especially for the people who interview on the 27th they're waiting two more weeks to hear how they did but I understand and um if that's the first
time you can do it but I mean can you so I guess I'm thinking the if we have hcam play back the interviews starting on the the Friday the 4th sorry it go Friday the 4th Saturday
the 5th and Sunday the 6th we would be good for any day during the week yeah Jamie and I can't do the the eth because we have potentially have negotiations then as well um but would people be able
to do Monday the 7th or um Wednesday the 9th I'm out of town that entire [Music] week I'm available all week I'm here that week everything except for the
seventh Chris would you be able to zoom in to do deliberations because I would hate to push that off to the following week is there a day you'd be available by Zoom uh is it during the day or at night
or in the evening we could try to um uh yeah I I yeah I'll I'll I'll my phone wherever I'm at I can if it's in the evening or night I'm sure I
can be available yeah I'll figure it out yeah does the ninth work for PE I heard somebody say the seventh does not work what about the ninth which is Wednesday ninth is good for me ninth is probably the best day for me
that week the third third Thursday I'll be on a plane in the evening but the 9th is is good for me okay that's great all right so then kind of next steps from here um
just Shea you'll help get the um the scheduling piece figured out yes the notes we have thank you I appreciate that we can touch space tomorrow too if that works fabulous and you'll let me know Ma or Nancy as soon as possible what it is you want to
see in the district because the the candidate has you know to pull that together yes Sheena you want to talk about that tomorrow morning sure y because I know you have um data from what other people have done as well yes
or other districts sorry not individuals Okay then if there is nothing else um we can do the the sorry to interrupt you you'll or someone can email what everyone's doing on which
days yes great tomorrow get that out tomorrow and then um if people want to um do we want to go through what topics we want to do for questions right now quickly
beforehand and then people can send their specific questions sometime between now and the beginning of the week um to Sheena that would be helpful I will also email um every school Committee Member
the questions that we asked at at the interviews is there somebody specific that wants to do budget I'm not comfortable with numbers has any of this I guess I'd be curious to see what the questions that have already been to sheena's point that
she's gonna send yep so we'll look at the question she's going to send but just in terms of when we're coming up with with our own questions um and I suppose we could do that because it's really a scheduling issue under um kind of by email to let Sheena know what
topic it is that you want that the suggested topics are in the packet right she it can't be two-way communication so when you pick your two topics I guess you just let Sheena know
um it's It's tricky because then if there's a big big gap you're asking three special education questions and no budget question and that's a little I can say that can I can say right that we ask questions in each
category during the screening right but that there was a curriculum question a budget question special education question A diversity question a leadership question right so in that's we want to make sure that we get done during the
final interviews is that there's even if it's a different question um that there are questions that are covering all those topics you have to you have to every school Committee Member should hear the answers to every category and you will never hear the answers to the
screening committee questions so it's moo um you have to ask uh now if you're not comfortable asking a comprehensive budget question ask your Finance director to help you um but then you have to know
what you're listening for but you work with the with the superintendent and the budget and there's also some pretty good examples of questions in the packet so as school committee members working with a superintendent about the budget what
is it that you would want to ask him about that process and what would you want to ask him about I mean you work with very closely with the superintendent so what do you need to ask in order to make your decision um think about that as an
individual School Committee Member what to what do I really want to know how they've dealt with X or do I really want to know how they will deal with why so then I ask them have you ever dealt with why tell us about it so that I can get a
sense of how they're going to act in this so the the themes in that have been called out here are accomplishments and challenges is one leadership and professional development is another
budget is another collective bargaining then communication slash gaining support for schools conflict dispute resolution and problem solving and then curriculum uh development implementation and
assessment decision making Personnel evaluation planning problem solving collaboration yep you using your leadership team well knowing I mean you can you can
delegate you can delegate but not responsibility you can you can delegate responsibility but never accountability so how do you feel comfortable delegating especially with a with a team you don't know so all of that stuff if
you read the if you reread the successful candidate profile you should choose a question under say my question will come under instructional leadership and then figure it out I want to send a question under operations and fiscal
management and then figure out what it's going to be so there should be um like two questions under each of those categories and then so is it okay if I make a working dock that I share with everybody and so as the
questions come in they just already see and they don't have to ask an additional question I think that's a really good idea idea but it violates open meeting yeah um but but so it if you know what the
questions are that people are going to ask sha you you would know if each School Committee Member send you to you would know if people have uh if they're repetitive or too similar and because you're not a school Committee Member you could say if Jamie and I send you the
same question you could say you know can you think of a different question to send back to one of us or both of us the thing is there can't be a quorum of people in the discussion okay so as long I can come back and say we already have a question on this or we
already have two questions on this could you am I allowed to say we are Miss missing questions about leadership or we missing questions I I think you it would be fine to say we already have a question on this would you develop a leadership
question okay yeah so that you're telling us the categories and we're just responding to you that we're not seeing each others because then that's open meeting law problems okay right but it would be good for Shea to see these specific questions just so
that she knows that um if there's a problem with three of us asking the same questions because they kind of touch on similar categories so then ideally we're sending Sheena um sort of the category that our question is designed for and potential
wording for our question right and there's plenty of good samples and I can send I'm going to send um Jamie and Gina some more to send out to you in in the morning so do you do you want that to go to me or do you
want that to go to Jamie or do you want it to go to everybody I ncy I don't know why calling her Jamie looking at Jamie I mean Nancy I don't know why I keep saying Jamie because she's right in front of me my screen because it's morning where I am
so it just it's really bright just is is there anybody that has a specific category they want to make sure that they're able to ask the question and I think now would be the chance to say that because we're in an open meeting um if you know that you have a specific
category you want to discuss if you want to go ahead and call that category right now that's fine if not we can I'd like to talk about the like that communication getting support for schools Community engagement piece that like Community leader piece I remember that being a really strong theme in the
focus group that I attended you have another category I think you and Chris should go first with your categories before season [Music] in I can do the business questions bu and stuff um I would also be happy to ask a
special education question I can do curriculum our goal is two is that right two each two two questions each but it would seem like one am I right Carolyn one from each category at least yes I mean not two
questions on the same thing from one person I would be interested in collaboration um in communication oh wait you had communication that might be yeah that might overlap quite a bit okay um do you mean like the conflict dispute
resolution problem solving Kyla um yes I can do that or if you want to take over like I was thinking leadership oh the leadership professional de leadership SL I pulled the categories from the document that
Carolyn I was kind of thinking about um uh conflict resolution and uh Collective bargaining okay and I I will do the opening and closing questions I'm happy to do anything else
that um if we find that we have gaps but I I think you also might want to do one Nancy on um School how does how does the candidate work with the school committee I mean something
like responsibilities or something like that my category it's not on a lift here but I'm really interested in um student support and diversity that's good all right so everybody feel do you
feel like you have a sense of what your homework is to develop the questions on yeah we're having them to Sheena by the end of the week okay yes what time would you like them sha I
know you have to put them all together uh any anytime on Friday I'll likely work on these on the weekend into yeah on the weekend so that's fine perfect thank you all right so I want to thank
everybody for um Coming Out I know there are definitely people in the community that were interested in hearing this uh and I want to thank the screening committee I know we do at some point need to to disband the screening committee as well um but that's not on tonight's agenda um but also just want
to thank all the people who applied and expressed interest in the position and it you know I think it's a testament to our district uh that so many people wanted to get involved into to apply so and I would entertain uh a a motion
to adjourn if somebody would feel so moved to do that I move to adjourn a second motion by Jamie a second by Kyla and we'll do a roll call starting with you Jamie yes Kyla yeah Chris yes
Susan yes and I am a yes and so we are adjourned at 7:28 uh and for anybody watching at home the materials that we had discussed earlier would be uh public resumés will be up on the website tomorrow under the superintendent search
tab so thank you all um and thank you Carolyn have a good night have a good night thank you good night re