##VIDEO ID:ztQmV7lqnQA## good evening and welcome to this special session of the Lake valer Schools Board of Education board members in attendance tonight include director kellerer director David Anderson chair Baker director Carly Anderson director Lind and director Thompson before we get started tonight on our discussion I just want kind of want to talk about uh why we're here tonight and what we're doing so I've had some time to reflect on this meeting and the appointment process through countless emails and phone calls I'm left feeling like the Divide within our community Contin to grow this is not about who is right or wrong who won or lost or whether you supported this process or not this decision and every decision we make should be about what is best for kids the law is clear that a board must appoint a replacement when someone resigns after the time frame to be on the ballot the law however does not dictate the process of how a board appoints someone although the law is clear it is our duty to appoint so we meet tonight to carry out that process our agenda for tonight is to discuss the questions interview the candidate discuss the interview and then vote on the appointment of the candidate as the board is not determin any qualifying criteria for a candidate in the appointment process we must look to the requirements listed in the law number one must be at least 21 years old number two must be an eligible voter number three must be a district resident for at least 30 days and number four must not be a convicted sex offender those are all listed in State Statute to clarify for the public this appointment is an interim placement and the appointee must run for election by November of 2025 giving the community a chance to fully voice their opinion board members please be advised if the discussion deviates to anything other than the interview questions and the candidates response I will call point of order in which you are to stop speaking and I will request that you focus your response to the topic that we are discussing tonight if we want to heal the Divide within our community it starts with us all right so every board member should have a copy of the questions that they submitted later um so what we need to do right now is discuss like which questions you're going to ask um there are a few that I put a mark by as I felt like they were similar to other questions um so we can start with with those first uh Brian and Carly I think there was one that both of you had that was very similar so maybe between the two of you you can figure out who's asking what go ahead and for clarification the we landed on just asking one question total one question per board member that's correct okay did we want I just thought that both of you had a had a question that was related to academic scores um and I'm not sure if I I mean given that we're only given six sent six questions I don't think it makes sense to ask two that are related to academic scores so between the two of you did you did you want to decide um or do we want input from others you can ask yeah I mean this is a discussion so thoughts about those questions Brian I'm fine letting you have that question it it doesn't matter um I do want I think the second one that you have is similar to my second one and I think that would be an important one to ask and so yes yeah okay I agree with that y you would you like to ask it or would you like me to it doesn't matter you can ask it okay so then you're going to go with your first one Carly M okay so that takes care of that one but I might actually use your question because hers is worded a little bit better mine is better mine's like did you just admit Carly's question was better admitted it yes all right all right so we have those two questions um and then Terry you submitted a book a bunch of different questions is there uh one in particular that you're leaning towards um when I look at everyone else's like I would say that your mental health one kind of sticks out as that's not something that other people had asked is that good or bad okay let me think you want to go on to the next on I'll come back um so Dave like there was one for you and I that was similar so if you want to ask my I'll ask first question and then I'll ask my second one does that work yep all right Judy which one did you want to ask of the two that you submitted um it doesn't really matter probably the first one yeah when I look at the other questions I think that sticks out too all right so Judy's going with that one so it's back to you Terry do all settled already yep I like your second one I'm still reading my book I know you wrote a lot I like the second one too mhm The Second One MH yes okay I'm go with that one all right all right Kim since we have all our questions settled um I think we'll just go in order from Judy around this way is that how you want to do it could you tell me which people are doing which questions just go from the sheet or do you have it would you be okay just you want to just ask all the questions sorry do you want to just ask all the questions do we I can ask all the questions go we should each ask questions okay but I have no issues if you want to just ask all the questions so okay got that I think we just go from from Judy all the way down to Brian and we'll just ask them all okay got is that good so we'll start with Judy she'll ask the first question and then we'll go around Kim do you want to go get in thank you I can't read your I'll give yeah hi yes you're going to need to move the microphone over so oh that's all right that's all right maybe put a little closer to your mouth there you go thank you good yeah so thank you for being here tonight and coming in for this uh interview process uh how it'll go is we'll start with Judy and each one of us will ask a question we only get one question so you have six questions to ask um but I would like to give you an opportunity to just kind of give an opening statement or a welcome um and then we'll just go ahead and get started okay well good evening uh ladies and gentlemen members of the community members members of the board um thank you for the opportunity um I really don't have a ton to say uh I haven't been through a job interview in almost 20 years so trying to prepare for this has been a little bit of a blast from the past um I guess uh at this point most of you know some of my credentials based on the recent campaign um I'm happy to elaborate happy to answer any questions you have so I guess I'll if you'd like I'll just turn it over to you guys at this point then all right thank you Judy so well good evening thank you for being here Brett so what this is kind of um a little bit of a a probably a three-parter question um so what do you see as the greatest strengths of our school district and what is an area where you believe the district could improve and what would you do to maintain and enhance the strength and how would you address the opportunity for improvement and we can repeat the parts of those questions to make sure get all of it sure um so I think from a strength perspective we have a lot of dedicated experienced teachers and staff um I think we have a really engaged Community I think we have fantastic PTO and great facilities I think everyone on the board and the administration and the teachers um all the staff I think they truly want what's best for the kids um in terms of opportunities I would say that over the last I'll say at minimum six weeks I think as a as a group everybody's been somewhat distracted by this I would say distracted from the mission uh we haven't really had a whole lot of conversations about academics kids well-being um which is what I think we're supposed to be focused on um in general I think that communic could be improved from the board to the community I think there's typically a lot of questions that uh are still left unanswered for a lot of people um after board sessions and decisions are made uh I think how that gets communicated could be better um I'll I'll leave it at that for right now and then you want to know what I would do to maintain the strengths yep maintain and enhance maintain and enhance um like I said I think we have a good staff we have good teachers I think we have people who care um I don't want that to go away I think we need to maintain and work with the superintendent to make sure that there is a culture of excellence and a culture that everybody wants to be around so to me you know building a culture of inclusion build building a culture of collaboration um I think is something we definitely need to continue working on and that's one of those things that from a continuous Improvement perspective probably never needs to never needs to stop um I do think there are some probably adversarial feelings um amongst Union Administration things with the board everything else I I'm sure there's some hard feelings and whatnot that might have to be overcome um honestly I I'm I'm more of a I'm happy to listen I'm happy to you know ask a lot of why questions and if I don't have the answer I'll try to help find it which part of your question did I miss you got it okay um yeah well let's let's just for clarity y um I know you talked about how you would or about address ing the opportunity for improvement but do you have an idea of how you would do that with the communication to the community I don't know the ins and outs of how communication comes out of the board now so I I mean I I would have to there would have to be a little bit of a learning curve for me to figure out what the messaging is you know does it come from the chair does it come from somebody else or what how does that message get out to the community how do the emails come out and all that kind of stuff so I don't know who writes that or how that gets done yeah but um you know Clarity I think from sort of the top down is is a important thing so y fair enough Dave you're up welcome Brett so that kind of leads into my micone my question is uh what's the best way to address differences of opinion on the board or between the board and administration the best way to address differences um I like to have conversations I'm I'm a big person who wants to hear all your opinions here here the why and I'll I'll say that a lot if if that's you know if that's a situation that um if there's a situation where people differ I want to know the why behind both of them so if I don't know the why it's really hard to form a good opinion for me because I don't have everybody's perspective I don't have the same perspective or background or experience as anybody else so to me understanding why or at least trying to figure out what the why is is critical aside from that I mean I'm okay with a polite discourse so I can have a conversation and I'm not going to necessarily have it hurt my feelings um I'm I'm okay hearing anybody's perspective and if they think I'm wrong I'm happy to listen to it that doesn't bother me so are you willing to then compromise if you you need to get up to the microphone sry are you willing to compromise you turned it off are you willing to compromise to get stuff done I think you always have to compromise to get things done there always has to be some give and take so you have to be willing to listen to both sides willing to understand where people are coming from and why and then you can actually come to resolution so we typically talk about Clarity consensus and commitment so without some sort of clarity uh you can't get consensus and then you can't be committed in terms of a common Direction going forward and I think that's critical so thank you all right how will you address the different needs of all students well I hope that's not my responsibility to address the needs of everybody well when we when we think about like what our job is as a board member elected to this office um we all have like things that we are passionate about one of mine is Special Ed but um as a board member I'm representing all the students in the district so um yeah so how do you address the different needs of all the students um again I think it's going to be mostly about listening for me um I am not a teacher I am not a educator by trade it's not something I've done um I I get a lot of input from my wife who is an educator uh she likes to explain a lot of things when I say why do we do this kind of stuff or why does this happen um she helps clarify a lot of things from a different perspective for me um the way you can ask different questions and find different ways to understand again you know who do we need to help and why I think is important um I'm not going to ask a clarifying question but I am going to say my husband and I have those conversations I'm an educator and he's an engineer and he doesn't understand education so it's okay there you go I I definitely feel that hi Brett thanks for being here um in our recent lovey asked the community to approve adding student supports at all levels um so behavioral support specialists at the elementary level and counseling supports at the secondary level there was also things related to music and Librarians um did you support this Levy when talking with the community why or why not um I did support the levy I didn't try to persuade anybody to vote for it or not vote for it um talking with uh a few of the board members and some other people in the district I I did express some concerns over the messaging so I'm there are some things that I'm not surprised it didn't go through because I don't think some things were clear um I did express that to some folks in the district office um and I thought it might be helpful if that clarified you know if some of those questions were clarified for the community to have a more informed vote um I heard from a couple people when I was door- knocking like is this really are we really 512 to one like is that really our teachers and staff ratio um I think the initial information that came out was not clear about that I don't know if it still had that little parenthese underneath that said this was support staff only um but people took it as you know it was teachers and everything else so clarifying that a little bit was I think good um but I do think that from a messaging perspective we can do better and if we need the money and we need the resources I think we can do better in terms of having a good articulate way to explain why and I think that's that's something we should do um for the record um when the newspaper actually called and asked me a similar question um you know I said I'm more than willing to sit down and go through the budget and figure out if these are the types of positions we need and we're short on we should figure out how to staff it and I think that if we need to do a zerob based budgeting exercise or something like that to sort of get the information and the data we need to prove to the community that this is necessary and we can explain why I think that that would go a huge I mean it'd go a long way to helping justify things like that um so I might I do want to follow up um you know whenever we add something right in this kind of situation where we this this board has really worked to turn the budget around um and we're certainly moving in the right direction but we're we're operating on a very thin line here um at the moment so when you add and these are I would say critical supports that are necessary so even thinking about you know at the high school level with the counselors that have been added that that's grant-based funding at this point that's not school dollars or District dollars for us and so as as far as we know those counselors are booked every half hour of every day um and so at some point if we don't have additional funding that has to come from somewhere so do you when you say you know um do you have ideas about where we're where where we're fat at this point that we can take away because that would be what we would have to do without Levy support I understand that part of it I do not know where we would have any areas to cut at this point I haven't had a chance to do a deep dive into the budget um I didn't know if i' would be in this situation so honestly I haven't I haven't um now from a budgetary perspective I would be interested in knowing if we staff those positions with the existing budget what stuff would we have to drop off and I think it's important to then prioritize is there something that could drop off that would be a lower priority for the district lower priority for the schools and then these positions could be added to better support the students and if that's the case then I think we need to talk about that and have a legitimate conversation about that I mean if there's something that is less important less impactful for the for the majority and it can be cut and that money can be shifted and again I understand there's a lot of nuances to the budget that I I'm learning I don't know I will not say I'm an expert at but there's a lot of stuff that can't be moved and I get that it's very comp I have asked questions about you know can you re can you reclassify staff is there different ways to sort of move those cost centers so that you're tapping into some of those resources better um so far a lot of the answers are we don't think so or you can you know there's limits on how much um Government funding you know State funding things like that that can be attributed to salaries and and whatnot now I don't know all the ins and outs and you know if you can only use 10% of that bucket towards salaries or what but I again I I think those are questions that we should ask and we should we should do a bit of a deep dive honestly and and figure it out and if there if there are some areas where we can make Cuts I think I you know I think it's worth a conversation yeah I would just add director Thompson and I did a very deep dive when we were almost two years ago when we were facing the $7 million budget cut that what that we came into and um most of our most of our general fund budget goes to staff and so that is the complication that we face um and so that's where you know I feel strongly about those those positions we were advocating for and I can appreciate your comment on the communication um and part of our challenge is so much of our community doesn't have kids in the school and so how do we how do we reach those people too and at the same time you know in this situation um with a rapidly growing District it's hard to it's hard to pull money from elsewhere at this juncture thank you thank you hi Brett hi studies show that mental health of students directly impacts academic achievement you stated in for that we need to decouple mental health and education and that the reality is that teachers are on the front line with that how would you decouple mental health from education and why that's a it's a very difficult question for me um I I don't know the perfect answer to that now when I say decouple I would love to be able to separate the types of things that my wife tells me she has to deal with versus actually teaching kids and it's a very difficult situation when you have kids who are um on the Spectrum or have certain behavioral issues sensory issues where they see themselves in a mirror and you know they just can't not see that and they keep you know they're distracting themselves they're not paying attention they're distracting others how all those things sort of play into the normal classroom that's really difficult I think for our teachers today to try to be one thing for everybody and I think that's that's the point I was trying to make is I wish we could figure out a better way to decouple the say traditional classroom experience with all the behavioral and specials special that we need to sort of support all the different variations going on right now I mean it's it's almost impossible for you know a kindergarten teacher to you know to expect them that they can diagnose or know the right methods and techniques for every single behavioral mental health type of situation that they face nowadays and I think that's it's almost an impossible task um to try to think that somebody can be that as well as a great educator as well as you know all the other tasks that they have to do all the administration work that they do the paperwork um documentation and everything else so kind of goes back to I guess your question in terms of support staff you know can we better justify it can we better explain to the people in the community why we need the resources and why the resources are absolutely critical at this point and I think if we could find a a better way to split you know those Avenues we might make a little bit more Headway with the community as a whole thank you did you have a followup Terry no okay Brian hey thanks thanks BR for coming coming in uh how do you think we should best evaluate student achievement and academic outcomes for all uh and then what are the challenges of relying solely on test scores or other factors uh do you think and what other factors do you think are important to consider when interpreting test scores um so test scores the the MCAS are one thing that I do have a concern about um and I've heard from people that we did the AP testing during the same week that we did the um the state test for the MCAS which I guess people were also allowed to opt out of so I have a lot of questions in terms of like the standardized test that is used to sort of evaluate the district as a whole it's the only consistent measure across the entire state that we have at this point um when you compare us to you know districts that I would think we would want to be like or want to be compared with um your edas your minitonas your wi zettas you know they're they're consistently in the 70s almost across the board whereas we have not been we've been in you know 62 I think for reading 55 56% in math and 48 or something like that in science that's that's not a trend I like um now I don't necessarily think that that metric alone is the only thing that matters cuz we also have a 92% or 94% graduation rate um I I know a lot of kids personally from my neighborhood and others that are you know in college and had you know done really well and the ACT scores that I think we typically show are a lot higher than what some of those scores represent so I think it's important to sort of know why that number is what it is and I don't know if we know that right now but I mean a few of the things I mentioned are things I've heard so far I think it's worth looking into and figuring out if you know if if that's a a legitimate metric for our district right now because I I don't feel like it is I feel like we're better than that but again it's the only thing we have to go off of that's consistent across the state so if we want to be compared against any of the other districts for a Litany of reasons I think we should figure out the why there what was the other part of your question okay you didn't have a followup okay all right so thank you for coming in is that it yep six questions that was it so thank you for coming in and uh talking with us we appreciated that and um the next thing the board will do is we'll just we'll deliberate we'll talk about things and then we'll actually put it to a vote and we'll let you know thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] all right so uh we've completed the interview um opening the floor up to discussion for board members to kind of talk about the questions and the answers and and how you feel about things um so I'll go ahead and open the floor up for discussion any discussion okay you want to have something to say I think well I go ahead um I think um in terms of some of the questions we had regarding you know the board Dynamics um thinking about some of the interpersonal things that can impact the board functioning um I appreciated you know feedback about or his comments on listening I think polite discourse conversation those things are obviously very important to um how an individual board member functions as well as how we uh function interpersonally alog together MH um you know I think my I would say my main concern was I don't want well when we think about what was said at The Forum um in terms of I I think you know as a as a neuros psychologist I don't think you can ever decouple mental health uh from education and you know I one of the challenges is for me is in his in his response there he absolutely identifies the need for supports which to me is is what we critical critically need to address a lot of the mental health concerns or um neurodevelopmental concerns that are impacting the classroom environment and likely impact in how kids are learning and therefore that has the down down uh trickle effect on educational outcomes so the thing I'm probably and and this isn't specific to um him necessarily but it's specific to you know a large part of our community and and per the levy results and why I'm trying to have some some conversations with people in our community these these supports if we want to think about moving our district forward are critical um I don't know how we're going to come up with that amount of money to address what we need to absolutely address critically right now so that is my main concern that that we've talked about too is um we need board members to support levies that make sense for and we need board members out advocating for these levies and to me this isn't political it's it's it's about um doing what's right for our kids which right now we need those supports more than ever so that's my main concern is is we can't decouple those things those if you if anyone in this room were to step inside of a second I I did last year step inside my second graders uh class and saw all the needs it's overwhelming um so part of my feedback is to our community but this idea that we can decouple that is is impossible and I do want someone who's going to advocate for our levies um but I really did appreciate a lot of the other things that he said about you know being a board member who listens to both sides and is able to think critically about what is best for our kids that is absolutely what we need so thanks Terry your mic on I pulled the D here I was fine with his answers I just um I have some notes i' like to to read from a little bit for two reasons number one I'm old and sometimes I wander off from the subject and secondly I want to be very clear in what I'm saying so over the years political entities have become involved in nonpartisan School Board elections even theist has become a reality in District 194 and it is a reality which saddens me greatly many communities have decided not to go down this road in the last two weeks I've received emails from community members urging me to take various actions in regards to selecting the seventh School Board member many of the view many of them I view is purely political I answered these emails by stating that I'm totally against politics being involved in school districts because their agendas usually do not benefit kids but instead benefit the political entities Schoolboard should not excuse me Schoolboard should put the needs of students first political agendas simply muddy the waters that's if you've sent emails to me you probably heard that because that's the way I answered a lot of them a good good examples of this are the issues that Hastings oio uh an Noah hanapin have had resulted in resulting in divided boards and divided communities and that's one of my biggest fears in regards to selecting our seventh board member I supported the first proposal that we should just appoint whoever comes in fourth place to me that was the best non-political decision that we could make because we would let the voters decide however we changed our minds I used the word we and decided to adopt this process when when we did that it became a political situation for many in our community personally because my feelings regarding politics because of my feelings regarding politics in school I still believe that the best nonpartisan way of selecting our seventh board member was the first proposal which I intend to honor whether I agree with the candidate's views or not it is the best way to represent our voters preferences that's it thanks Terry Please Please Don't Clap please yeah Brian yeah um I I think some of the comments that Mr Nicholson shared uh resonated with me I think director Carly Anderson you are right we we did go through a budget exercise and there wasn't a lot that we could find uh but again it was maybe an exercise where we you and I weren't super knowledgeable of the budget and we didn't have a list of every single budgetary item that we could review or not review and our district has roughly a $250 million operating budget take that back but 20 209 but 250 or so a year I mean we're going to spend a billion dollars over the next four years and of that $ 250 million if we can identify an extra 1% that's $2.5 million here to help offset or rep prioritize things where where where we could um uh where it might make sense and so I I don't think it is too far of an ask to say hey can we find a half a percent or 1% or whatever it might be within the budget I I don't know so those are things that we can ask the superintendent or things that we can explore but uh uh but wanted to just touch on that comment uh secondarily I do appreciate uh Brett bringing up that his wife is an educator I am not one and I know we have one on on the board here uh but I think it's always good to have someone who uh might be with someone who has boots on the ground and and um might be able to share the pros and cons and the life of of of an educator um I think uh from my perspective I do come into this more with the business-minded aspect um I tend to look at process I tend to look at uh you know how the governance that we do and sometimes may Knack May lack the boots on the ground perspective and so having someone like that I think would be value for for some for for a board like this so those are my thoughts so I just uh just for clarification the $250 million budget that we have contains many areas and silos that are not to be where monies can't be moved from one to the other so finding uh 1% across that 250 million isn't really the solution you have to find out what's in the operating side of things not within the other components of the budget of what we can utilize into the classroom so um I think we have to be careful on making sure that people understand that it's a very limited amount of dollars that we're looking at to be able to find savings that go into the classroom um so the um overall statements I you know I uh agree with um you know the first solution that we brought to the table was to select the fourth largest vote getter um not knowing who that individual was and just making that commitment which um some of us did and that did move forward and then was Unwound and so we are in a position now of talking specifically about an individual and whether or not we see them as a good fit for this board in the short term because long term um that individual if so chooses would need to get um elected onto the board no later than November as chair Baker had said so you know there's decisions now to be made knowing what we each know and um how we each um feel about how that fit Works into the board so I know we received uh several emails talking about um our position what we had stated but that was under um a different uh scenario which has changed so there are different discussions that we have to have at this point and um I appreciate um Brett being willing to be part of this process um I appreciate all the candidates being part of the democratic process and stepping up and offering to serve the district it's an honor to be serving the district and keeping our kids in the for front and um so with that I just um I have to agree with Carly in the fact that um you know the levy that we were trying to get past is part of what we really needed to help with what um director Lynn's question was around the decoupling of the mental health from the classroom not sure that we can decouple it but we can help ease that pain and the support that our teachers and our staff are facing with trying to help our students and so that is a big concern going forward when we talk about the Adas and the minotas and the Y zettas they're investing in those supports and that's why they're able to do I believe better in the MCAS and um you know that's one area that we really do need to focus in on and understand why it is the way it is and from what we heard through the need for these supports was that um the 512 to1 is part of this issue so um I appreciate all of the um areas of response that we heard um and um I guess they how to address the different needs of all students I appreciate the listening but there is more that needs to be done than just simply listening in order to be able to address their needs as a board member and um again really truly understanding the mental health um support that our students need is really going to be critical for any board member David yes I I agree with Carly and Terry that uh it's very difficult to separate the the mental health uh part with the academic part being a former parent special ed parent liaison and Kim being one too and de with a lot of special ed families and I have a special ed son so and I know it's very difficult for teachers to do that so I do think that we do need additional staff to help with that because you you you can't learn if your head isn't in the right place and uh it's hard even to be on the board when your head isn't in the right place so uh I totally agree with him on that so I'm going to I'm going to speak a little bit to that um because I don't think it's uh I don't think it's right to hold someone accountable for not understanding what it's like to be a teacher in the classroom um I'm a I'm an educator it's been my career uh it's been my passion my entire life I'm the only one in my family that is an educator so I've had to teach my entire family about that and they didn't understand uh there were times my mom would come and help me set up my classroom um there were times that you know she's like why why you have this whole cart full of coats and gloves and hats kids don't have a mom and I I want to make sure that you know the kids in my classroom are warm um that's what teachers do you know we provide for our students um we're in the classroom every day and I I I don't think that anyone can fully understand what that's like unless you're a teacher yourself um I do know that the district had teachers involved in uh making videos for The Levy and kind of explaining what it was like in their classroom um again that's very very hard to explain to someone who's never sat in front of 30 kids and tried to explain you know and try to teach especially with differentiating instruction and trying to meet all the individual needs that come into a classroom you may be teaching second grade but you may have five kids that are at a preschool level three kids that are at kindergarten level two kids that are at first grade and then you know some kids that are clear over here on the other end and they're three grades ahead um and then being able to do that at the drop of a hat every single day and account for all those differences and make sure that every kid is making progress It's it's a hard ask um so I appreciate that he is willing to listen to um the Educators around him and get perspective from that um that's what my husband does when I'm having him cut out lamination of the many visuals that I'm laminating for students every day um so I understand the needs of the levy I supported it as a as an educator who um works in the classroom and understands the needs uh that our teachers face every day within this district and with districts across the country it's not just Lakeville it's across our country um and I do feel that um there are mental health needs that are that are just evident in our kids right now um because they've experienced some traumatic events I mean there was a whole year of instruction that was really um not as consistent as we would have liked during covid and it takes kids a while to catch up from that and and make make strides so I think our Educators have have done a wonderful job during that um I I agree with uh the academics I appreciated the answers with that um knowing that test scores are not the only average of what's going on in the classroom um I appreciate the fact that you know we're thinking Beyond just those test scores because that's a that's a glimpse that's a window of what happened that day and that child could have been sick could not had breakfast could have you know had a million things happen um and the fact that there were kids that some of our students that weren't even taking it because AP uh testing was happening in the same week I think that was a very important point to bring up um the graduation rate was great I appreciated him highlighting that um that is something I'm very proud of with Lakeville um that also holds true for our special education population if if that if people aren't aware of that um it's a very much a point of pride in Lakeville and one thing that uh we stand out with among other districts um I also appreciated the comments about communication and how it's important to work together and collaborate um particularly around culture um and building that culture within our district uh that's a that's a top- down thing you know we're working on uh healing some of those bridges that happened um and and I I appreciate that that he sees that um so anyway that's that's all the notes that I have from it and anybody else have anything else that they would like to add the the only other thing I'd like to add is back to something the director Lind said I know in our I think it was our uh we did a community survey um and one of the things that was very concerning to our community that um ranked very high was to have less politics in the schools and I do agree with Terry Lind in the fact that um in the last couple of campaigns that we're seeing more um political endorsements and political um ways of getting elected and if you look at how Lakeville and the school district actually votes were pretty purple and I think we are it's very it's to me in a nonpartisan um role I think it's very dangerous to start walking the line of politics all the time and so um I I just hope that we can get back to a place of having our candidates and campaigns campaigning on what they believe in and what is best for our students and um not having the politics being involved in there um I I do hope that who's ever sitting at this table whether they were elected under a political endorsement or not that or any endorsement for that matter that that is all set aside and the focus is on what is best for our kids and our students and knowing that our community is really looking for people to be seated here to do just that any further discussion tonight okay so if the board is ready we'll uh go ahead and put uh the candidate to a vote uh we'll do a roll call Vote for This vote so uh Kim Elson will call out each board member and you will say your vote do we need a motion we can yeah technically yeah we probably should so we have a motion to put it to a vote I'll make the motion have a motion by director David Anderson do have what is your motion to appoint Brett Nicholson for the seventh board okay so we have a motion by director David Anderson um to vote to appoint uh Brett Nicholson do we have a second director Thompson I'll second so we have a second by director Thompson any discussion on the motion okay hearing none will'll put it to a vote so Kim do you want to do a roll call vote please Anderson no David Anderson yes Terry Lyn yes Baker yes Brian Thompson yes Judy no all right motion passes for two uh the process that we will go through after this vote um is there is a 30-day waiting period for uh the candidate to take office um and then after that time they'll the person will be able to be appointed to the board um having completed all the items on our agenda for tonight um I'll call for a motion to adjourn second and I didn't hear a motion make a motion to adjourn all right so we have a motion by director Thompson to adjourn the meeting do we have a second second second by director Lind any further discussion okay hearing none all in favor to adjourn the meeting say I I I all opposed motion carries meeting adjourned thanks and have a wonderful evening for