all right good evening uh this work session of the ISD 279 School Board is being held in the boardroom of the Educational Service Center on Tuesday March 11th 2025 the work session is being audio recorded the recording will be made available on the district website within two business days after
the work session is ended with regard to the audio recording our communication staff has asked that we share a friendly reminder that side conversation during the work session are picked up by the recorder and can affect sound quality also conversations during transitions between agenda items are on the
recording as well the intent of the Schoolboard work session is to allow for Schoolboard discussion of topics work sessions do not include an opportunity for audience members to address the board to acknowledge attendance this evening I'll ask that all present at the table State
their name starting with the person to the left Sarah Mitchell School Board member Kelsey Dawson School Board member Amy General councel Kim H superintendent Brian bass assistant superintendent Keith Tate School Board member Erica fter School Board member T Prince
Schoolboard member and I Thomas Brooks uh Schoolboard member and president the uh purpose of the school board work sessions is to build trust and teamwork to exchange information and when applicable to provide Direction in order to facilitate efficient and
effective decision making at regular board meetings Dr H will please share your check thank you you uh thank you Vice chair Brooks and chair Prince and members of the board and community members our first item for this evening's work session is the lgbtqia
plus history and cultural resolution with a Pacific focus on the pride month advisory lesson we are seeking board guidance on its implementation as the lesson is scheduled for release on April 1st and will be taught during the week of May
13th given recent executive orders we ask the board's consideration and direct Direction regarding the pride month advisory lesson so to provide us with context this evening we have general counsel Amy Moore with us and she will first present an overview of the
relevant executive orders and legal landscape Amy thank you good evening um so as Dr H said discussion for the board tonight surrounds the board's lgbtqi plus history and culture resolution
specifically paragraphs 1 and 7 um directing the administration to devel Vel and teach curriculum which is taken the form of the advisory lesson the reason we're discussing it tonight is for me to provide you an understanding of executive order uh in particular
14190 and its potential impact on that advisory lesson in part the executive order states that schools may have funding eliminated if it's determined that there is instruction that advances or promotes what the executive order terms gender
ideology without a definition in that executive order of what it terms gender ideology in reviewing portions related to gender there is reference to what's called social transition which they Define as the process of adopting a gender identity or
gender marker that differs from a person's sex which includes using preferred names and pronouns important with this and other executive orders is the penultimate sentence which states that this order shall be implemented
consistent with applicable law and subject to availability of Appropriations which means it must be consistent with applicable law so I'll talk first a bit about Federal funding um executive orders and what that means
federal law and the current status of state law so first in regard to our federal funds our overall Federal funding makes up about 10% of our general fund fund one budget this primarily comes from Grants for the
various titles titles 1 through four and if you have specific questions about what those entail I can tell you um with all and then we also uh the other area we get Fred funding is from the USDA for Child
Nutrition programs fund two as well as with a special education through idea um with all of these funding situations we have a sufficient fund balance to be able to cover a pause or a delay in funding if one should happen um none of these areas of federal
funding touch on the curriculum Direction discussed in the executive order Additionally the funding in these areas have been authorized by acts of Congress and is generally recognize that to change that funding would take another act of Congress there have been
legal challenges brought by States including Minnesota to the threat of funding freezes pursuant to the executive orders judicial ORD have been issued that restrain any freezing of federal funds based solely on an executive order recognizing that an
appropriate process must first take place before any funding uh freezes could happen next is the scope of the executive orders executive orders by themselves don't create law um amend
existing law or offer binding legal interpretations for organizations like schools they Direct Federal Agencies on how the president intends to enforce existing laws in our case that would be the Department of Education uh through its
office for civil rights ocr's acting assistant secretary has indicated that they will align enforcement with executive order however as previously noted it must be implemented consistent with applicable law that means their
Authority remains constrained by the text of current existing statutes and regul ations as well as by Court interpretations of those laws without action from Congress or the Judiciary many of the interpretations and directions that are not in the text of
the statute or strain interpretation cannot on their own change the current status of the law that we must follow this discussion tonight centers around curriculum and whether that curriculum violates civil rights laws first the status of those laws related
to curriculum include f federal laws that prohibit the federal government from getting involved in state and local decisions about K12 curriculum and no executive order can overrule a federal law or regulation specifically in the every
student succeeds act section 852 6A states that no officer or employee of the federal government shall through grants contracts or other Cooperative agreements mandate direct or control a state local education agency or a school specific
instructional content academic standards and assessments curricula or other program of institution instruction developed and implemented to meet the requirements of this act uh additionally there's another law called the general education Provisions
act which also prohibits any direction supervision or control by federal officials over curriculum program or instruction selection of Library resource textbooks other printed or published instructional materials when the US Department of
Education itself um came into being Congress included similar prohibitions about Federal influence over curriculum in the Department of Education organization act so when it comes to just uh local state uh agencies have
control of curriculum uh an executive order by itself cannot change those federal laws second what is the current status of civil rights laws um the text of the federal civil rights laws has not
changed while there have been dear colleague letters and FAQs issued along with the executive orders neither the EEOC or the Department of Education has engaged in the process of roeming as it relates to new interpretations of these
civil rights laws uh pursuant to the executive orders the Department of Education has indicated it would revert back to the 2020 Title 9 rules um and even if that is deemed compliant the district is
fully compliant with those processes related to title n investigations um the regulations promulgated pursuant to uh those statutes and the judicial interpretations of those statutes and
law we are fully compliant should either agency engage in rle making that process will provide us notice and historically provides an opportunity for engagement the EEOC currently does not have a quorum of its board so it can't
even start this process of engaging in rul making um should the department of education do that um like I said there is a whole process of Engagement that generally takes some time and would provide us notice um before we would
have to decide if we needed to make any updates or changes there's also been concerned that if a complaint is lodged with the office for civil rights which oversees compliance of educational institutions with discrimination laws that OCR itself
May resend funding for failure to comply with civil rights laws OCR also has a process when they receive a complaint they have a whole manual that they have to follow when they're investigating complaints uh it provides the agent see
the opportunity to provide information um to argue its legal position uh at some point if the officer of civil rights determines that a law may be violated they will engage that agency to see if they want to enter into
a voluntary compliance agreement uh that takes some time if the agency decides it does not want to enter into such an agreement it can challenge that in an administrative judicial hearing um which which itself then could be appealed to a
Federal Judicial Court so again there's quite a process before you come to a place um where you would be provided some direction um before there could even be the impact of uh potential funding uh
recision in the areas of civil rights laws it is recognized that federal laws set the base and state laws can't provide less protection but can provide more protection in Minnesota our Human Rights Act mandates that we may not
discriminate based on gender identity attorney general Ellison provided notification that schools must comply with the Minnesota Human Rights Acts and AIO schools does fully comply with Minnesota law so what does this all mean as a
school district our statutory mandate is to educate all students and we do that in compliance with state and federal laws there are many portions of the relevant executive orders that is in line with current um
federal laws and rules and judicial interpretations and our advis advisory lesson is compliant with that established precedent to the extent Federal statutes rules or judicial interpretations may change it must follow an appropriate process which will
allow us notice and the opportunity to update our policies if needed our state Human Rights Act rules and J judicial interpretations remain very clear and our advisory lesson is compliant with
that that is what I have for you I don't know if you want questions first or did you have anything yeah I just wanted to say so um so the questions that we are asking for the board to consider this evening is um due to involving legal and political
landscape we just needed your input on should we proceed as planned with our lesson are adjustments needed or should we consider an alternative approach in light of broader contextual factors um yeah so before so before I turn it over I know one of the things we
wanted to just remind board members of and and our visitors here today as well um is it because this is a work session we generally do not make decisions um so this is a discussion today and if any change in direction is needed we would need to send that to
award um with that said U board members any questions I guess was my understanding are we going over are you presenting the lesson tonight for us Dr Mass no no we're not oh okay that's what okay but
will with it being prepared for April 1st you will review it have that opportunity to review it before April 1st or on April 1st the board yeah you can review it when you want yeah okay yeah send it that tomorrow because I know last year uh sorry sir did you want
to finish your thought before I jump in oh well I I just had a question about um the notice sorry I was my understanding tonight I thought we were going to be going over the lesson so that's something we just will need to come in and view the lesson or no we will we can email it to you tomorrow
okay mhm okay um yeah I guess my first question it's interesting tonight as we're trying to Define you know what is transparency um I've asked in the past or kind of proposed um a retired principal had said when you communicate especially sensitive topics that his advice was you know three times three
different ways um last last year I think some of the confusion parents said that it was one email and maybe they didn't receive that so I'm just wondering if we're able to communicate in various ways and and multiple times um so that
parents um you know are informed or also wondering how they will be able to view the lesson will it be an easier process for parents to view the lesson yeah logistically it it's been looked at and it's been reviewed and it'll um it's going to be out for everyone to see on
um on April 1st and so parents don't have to come in and see it it'll be out for View and um yeah so we've addressed that continuous Improvement you look and see what didn't work well the last time so okay mhm okay that's great y um and just from from um how things were rolled
out last year is will this be an upt in or an opt out process for students and staff you want to answer you want me to answer so pursuing to Minnesota statutes parents always have the right to opt out a curriculum and our um uh staff yeah
there is a process for that that we follow for anything whether it be math or history or any Curriculum lesson so that will still be followed for staff it there's it's it's whether they want to request a religious accommodation and our human resources
department has developed a process for that so I appreciate um this coming to the board for discussion and understanding kind of what the facts are versus speculation it's been an evolving environment I think one of the challenges with the execution a number
of items under the resolution is that the resolution language was vague and the board never collectively provided Direction on the execution to begin with so um The Advisory lesson being a separate lesson which is um I understand
it to be meeting number one um support policies practice and curricula that respect LGBT plus students and the families in June and throughout the year there was never board direction to create a separate lesson so that was always a point of confusion so I just
want to acknowledge at the road that we got here we had a separate Administration um I think there was some confusion even over the role of committees and what are advisory committees versus what are decision making committees so I'm glad that we're having this conversation we do every
year as part of the resolution check in so it's even if we were to provide direction there's really not a board action because board action never created the lesson to begin with um so this is where it's it gets maybe a
little interesting and what's discussion versus what's board direction or action um so the board never collectively reviewed or um specified an advisory lesson on its own um I we have many
different advisory lessons we recognize many different months and so um I think it might have been over time just um individual board members like we had different expectations or perspectives on this interpretation so I think we can
fairly acknowledge that um we can do better as a board when we do these types of actions to be clear and to um not put our Administration and staff in the place of trying to accommodate um six different board
members with different interpretations um and even additionally under seven with um honoring uh the history and highlight contributions we do that for um every different cultural month and we do that in different ways in different
buildings so um again this doesn't specify an specific advisory lesson with any specific curriculum standards um that was again never a board Direction explicitly um even since
resolution uh in number nine that we would uh recognize it in June that since has been changed without board direction or without a change to the resolution oh no I apologize I think we um did we amend it in the board meeting Thomas do
you recall did he uh I feel like maybe that might have happened we should check the record on that we might have had that as an amend to the resolution at um but the flag being uh raised on June 1st there was never board
direction to display the flag along with the other um tribal Nation Flags in every school all all year long so we actually have quite a bit of problems when it comes to board Direction um and what was actually authorized in the resolution and how that's being
interpreted so and that has unfortunately honestly led to what we see this evening and have seen um for over two years since this has passed which is a lot of um interpretation a lot of community concern a lot of from
all different perspectives um and I think that we've really tried to over the past two years be respectful to all voices and to listen and to understand and to make modifications uh when this advisory lesson was administered last year we saw
significant harm caused um by um students who felt that it was um against their conscience with some of the particular elements of the lesson uh and chose not to participate which then created even more division in our
community with does that signal a lack of support a lack of inclusion a lack of respect um for fellow classmates so I really think this Board needs to think about what direction we're providing tonight in a way
that's um to what was actually passed because when we think about legal framework that was just outlined this um 508 the 508 policy before this was actually the intent to comply with the Minnesota human rights um act in ensuring that we were incorporating the
most recent inun things like inclusive um Sports um and activities and bathrooms that is under the Human Rights Act we we intend to follow the law um I think as a board we would never want to put our community our district our uh
funding our taxpayers at risk by not complying with state law um and doing our best to navigate This legal framework as well so to the extent of providing Direction um I think we can weigh in on that but it would be my
recommendation personally that we not have a separate advisory lesson because it was never directed by the board and we should do so in a way that's consistent with the way that we treat every other identity every other people group and every another um month in
celebration um so the spirit of the resolution um as indicated in the early um whereas components I think that um everyone here would be committed to ensuring an inclusive and safe environment but I think we have to be
very mindful of the execution of how we do that again reiterating the board's never provided explicit Direction on the how to do that nor have we had an opportunity to take any corrective action or provide any direction since the original
implementation so that's my comments at this time but others um I do have a question so what advisory lessons have the school board directed we don't typically direct specific curriculum or advisory lessons
um and feel free to weigh in we typically um when we have like math Pilots or um reading Pilots we typically are informed along the way we get the results of the pilots um we I'm trying to remember over time if we've ever voted on curriculum but we've
typically been actively aware of what the selection process is how the pilots are going ultimately what um is recommended to the board but in this situation do you think we should direct Well we I'm saying we we didn't nor should we we didn't nor
should we okay so this was the first time that there was ever a resolution that even used this type of language um so under number one um practices and curricula we've never as a board directed any type
of specific curriculum be implemented so this is definitely was new waters for the school district and the boards over the course of time I'm thinking okay go ahead um so I have a couple questions and I appreciate you
taking the time to clarify this because it is definitely it feels like new terrain with what's happening at the federal level so I appreciate the clarity on the local level um some of the questions that I have I previously sent to Dr H which I believe
she shared with you you um CU they were a little bit more specific and I know I wanted to give you guys time to prepare that um so my first question would be if we choose not to move forward with the advisory lesson would we be out of compliance with the Minnesota human
rights act as it stands and it the reason I asked this is because it looks like we are already in compliance with the mnh V policy 102 and 514 which predate The Advisory lesson mandate is that correct
you want to use use this yeah this oh I'm sorry your voic is you have a quiet Voice have a quiet voice if we don't do the Environ lesson
are we still in compliance uh doing the it is not necessary to do the advisory lesson per se to be in compliance um it's like with anything there are layers of why you do certain
things but um if the board would decide to you know whether to resin the resolution um it really then goes to Administration to continue to do um what they do right in run which that's typically how boards and administration
function correct we set policy and then Administration procedure um and so I do want I would encourage everybody to look at policy 102 and 54 cuz I believe they set us up really strongly to support our students um and students that fall into
the lgbtqia plus Community um I think they're really well written and recently written uh policies so thank you for clarifying that um then I was wondering if you could provide and this is a lengthy one so bear with me provide a cost impact analysis of the resolution
particularly regarding the advisory lesson um and the details I'm looking for are around expens expenses spent uh such as time spent developing the lesson staff hours for the advisory committee during work time cost for ESP and staff supervision during advisory or opt out
period and the cost of the professional development um and the reason I'm asking this is we're limited on time within our school years while it's finances um and as we've seen in surrounding school districts we're facing budget issues and we know that that most likely will come for us as well so um always making sure
we're making the best decisions um with the main purpose of the district at the front which is academic so that's kind of where my question is rooted for well that doesn't go to Amy so that doesn't go to Amy no that's General c i looking at Amy yeah um but uh we can pull in the
information you need it'll take some time to be able to do that though I think it would be really helpful to have a picture of what that what our investment looks like in terms of well that lesson why just this lesson then we not well this is a set aart specific outside of the bounds of what we're
actually required by law to do May so I think one um another kind of how resolutions and Direction arise um typically in our budget process when we have new curriculum that has come through from time to time sometimes
if it's within the budget it doesn't change like it because it's offsetting other curriculum changes but even most recently L we when we had math reading science that did come through our budget process that did um show up as line
items in terms especially when we were increasing a bump and had a lot of curriculum items to execute so I think this is like I think another issue with a process of resolutions that direct particular action is that it didn't have
any budget considerations so um out of alignment with how we typically think about incremental costs um when we had the face committee that um I believe came through as a Strategic investment at that time as well we decided to keep that so we typically have quite a bit of
protocols when it comes to New Direction that ties to budget um so that there is kind of these uh the clarity as to what we're approving and this never had a budget consideration um nor were
technically it never came through as a particular line item in the budget to authorize but again that's not necessarily the case every time because sometimes they're inside the budget and can I just I just want to be clear yes the law doesn't say do a specific
advisory lesson The Advisory lesson is wholly consistent with the law and in the area of discrimination when you have um complaints uh based on various protected areas a lot of times what you do is you
do training you do education so it's consistent with that but not required it doesn't there's other policy that's already standing that meets that requirement I think that's what I'm trying to get at is we have really great come through policy and it could come
through right we could we could be doing this same thing through policy um and then could you provide insight into potential funding risks if we remain out of compliance and sorry Dr H I'm sorry but we're not out of compliance no if we are found to be out
of compliance and she explained not you I I'm going to ask my question okay um I'd appreciate a clear dollar figure as well as details on which areas might be affected if the board decides not to comply what budget assessment adjustments will be necessary and I'm
asking this question out of the desire that that impact wouldn't fall on our students or student facing staff um and based on kind some of what you shared it's how long could we withstand a pause in federal funding because 10% is 37 million correct 10% of our budget are with have
$400 million budget yes um more than three years we could withstand it for more than three years thank you um and then what is the best guess and this might go to Amy I don't know if you have an idea in terms of the
duration we would have before we would be penalized of all these processes you mentioned Lup Erica can I ask you just what was the first question just the very first one not the first one the first part of this question was do are we RIS if we remain out of compliance as
noted by the federal okay thank you so I think to clarify as Amy outlined the different sources I think you're asking for the dollars which I think John can get us yep yep and I already asked this question um via email I just wanted it
on the record and before the audience here well I think first I'd like to know has when was the last time a k through 12 school had funding withheld has that happened in recent times I know there's stuff going on with
Columbia John can you repeat the question please I guess one is the last time that Federal money was withheld from 8 through 12th school I've never seen them actually go right so like we're talking about it never has never happened I don't know if we need to
spend a lot of time researching on never happened $40 million in our kids like that I think that's something it's worth a discussion I just want to clarify which kids are you actually talking about because because this lesson this advisory represents our entire we have a
very diverse District so I'm just curious about exactly what you're I'm talking about all the children because funding impacts every child so how far does this Rabbit Hole goal because they also talk about racial indin some of these executive orders too so we're talking about one particular group of
students so I'm just curious of like how how far does it r a full goal and the question I guess what I would say is as simple as it is is yes proceed uh as a myself as a board member I would say proceed as uh planned um we've already said in every single situation we always
have opt outs for our families and students um I think that we can plan for that in a more planful way so you know which we are um but you know our point is to ensure all of our students feel safe and heard and valued and I um I'm
just not sure where this conversation is coming from like what's the kind of conception of it because is um we're in compliance with our laws and we're before this and so I think s and we were before the resolution was
written we were in compliance before it was written due to our well there's a reason we we wanted to ensure as a board that we represented every single student in our staff that represent and live in our district and that's kind of that's the really the point and honoring
honoring that so um I think the question before us is are we proceeding as planned and I am saying now yes for me Kelsey as a board member we are I I would proceed as plan yeah and this conversation for me came up that's a question that was asked great and I'm
responding for myself faster as we prepare for our upcoming discussion on transparency and integrity with Teamworks here um in our board operations conversation it's important to acknowledge that this resolution was not handled through a transparent process or the traditional policymaking channels at a minimum I hope we can
establish procedures to prevent this kind of ad hoc policym in the future and ideally I believe it would reflect the Integrity of the board to revisit the resolution and follow the proper policy process so I would choose either to modify or not do the
lesson any other board members want to provide response to dr's question yeah I also um agree with Erica's thoughts to to to revise um or take a pause and and reestablish um as our current board
taking a look at this um I think hopefully all of us here I mean for me too we're we care about all students I think that anytime we involve sexuality it's always tied um to a person's belief system it's just a very delicate sensitive topic so I think um we
definitely want to do things that respect and and like Dr H always says all means all all means all so I I would love to um um re-evaluate and really focus on anti-bullying on manners respect compassion kindness and I think
it starts with you know all of us in leadership roles modeling that uh and I think we'll probably have more um productive conversation once we see this year's lesson because I know um I believe there's been
modifications from last year is that right or no okay I'm just I'm just gonna be Dr okay so yeah so we so we do have it but in the lesson and I think what the concern is we discuss bioner we discuss more gender so
whatever we do to it that's in there so that that's that's the conflict for some and and it's been an issue since we began there's been since this res started um last year first year old and so um
we have discussed this every year um and we've had difficult conversation and different perspectives and I think we've sought to engage respectfully um on it I I really believe that this resolution never authorized a
specific separate advisory lesson and I feel that in the best interest of being inclusive and having consistency we should approach the same topic similar to every other people group and every other cultural
recognition and I I think that would relieve pressure um from this year from the lesson being a separate lesson I think it would remove the possibility of harm of the large opct out potential op out numbers um and even harm caused
among staff members who felt it was one outside their area of expertise um it put them in a difficult position with parents as well um because this is very Hot Topic anytime we know anytime we talk about identity whether it's gender identity racial identity
that's you know parents are really really care about what the school is communicating to their children about their identity um so I think it's it's healthy that parents are engaged um and that we're having the conversation what sparked it now yes the executive order
did spark it because we needed to assess we needed to understand what's within the human rights act versus what went beyond that um and um what might the orders mean so I don't think I'm not advocating for a reactionary response to executive orders
I'm indicating this has been an ongoing discussion since the beginning and I think we really need to look at the decisions that have taken place to execute this again without in the past administration before Dr KY
there was never board direction for some of the um um ways that this was executed so I I think we need to continue the dialogue but my direction would be that we should um take a different path and make it consistent with every other
people group in cultural celebration and recognition um so that's that's my point view thank you director yeah um I would like to keep going with it um I know there were some issues with the roll out last year um some of the opin
little confusion maybe on the day of right as far as you know uh miscommunication about whether this is mandatory whether this is optional and would you rather go playing your phones with your friends in the cafeteria or something like that so would like to see
that um kind of short up um but with the opt out functionality and things um yeah I don't see any reason why not to proceed with it we have looked in correcting all the logistic problems we had last year yeah um thank you um as it was
stated we've been talking about this resolution for quite some time now um even when it's not in a meeting the community is talking about it um I have had a front row seat to some of the discussions that have happened since
last year um when the res when the lesson was rolled out and I know that um there were a lot of lessons learned um from that process and I know that there have been um some changes that have been made and um the anticipation of that day um I
think is is much more planned and intentional um than it was in the past and that's part of learning and growing um what do that's as individuals professionals or as a system um I am definitely in support of continuing with
our current direction um I know that we because of the executive order um and general Council Moore thank you for the thorough overview of your research for today um there's actually a
lot more in there than I expected um but as far as I'm concerned um you know not only as it was stated the executive order isn't applicable but we were elected to govern the school board not DC um and it was a board that passed
this resolution and so for me um I don't see any reason to change course um I do think that we need to continue to improve um I think we need to continue to um create the culture that we've been striving for within our schools um that
part hasn't changed um but I don't see any reason to change because of the executive order um or any of the chaos that seems to be happening outside of our district um because everybody had that OPP to complete their thoughts for this
discussion so unfortunately that a divided Direction um but we trust your judgment um and uh I know we have I would say that we all have the most conf and um Dr Bass Dr KY and
navigating this and I think this will be something that we continue to evaluate as we go forward no um thank you again hey Chris Dr H um to all right thank you um um Vice chair
Brooks uh so next we're going to be working with um Christine reesi from Teamworks which we have had years of experience with and we started at our professional development training in January where the board did incredible work around proposed statement of
transparency and so we're going to continue to finish that off today actually hopefully to leave here with a statement and then we're going to look into structure and flow of committees so welcome Christine thank you very much and are are we okay if we just let out
for a second I am going to hand out a can I help with we'll do a grounding activity first which we would have done beforehand but you needed to get through that first agenda item so I am going to have you each take here we go one
postcard going to be a change it's going to be a switch and reset thank you you want to complete thank you sweetheart all right let me grab the quicker
one more time probably not I don't know what it is okay so we will get to the statement of transparency that you all worked done and you all received the report from our session with the draft statement from all of your work previously so what we're going to do uh like we've done
when I've done work sessions or Retreats with the board in the past is we're going to start with a grounding activity so this is all about collaborative cre creativity and you are one board even though you have differences of opinion you still have to collaborate together on the direction of the district so um
what I'd like you to do is take the very blank side of your postcard put it in front of you and be ready to follow the directions they are up on the screens they'll come up one at a time they're going to be simple tasks but they may be a little difficult I've done this with
some other teams before uh so just be willing to go with the float that's what I'm asking you do so what I want you to do so the front side is the blank side draw some kind of form it can be anywhere it can be big it can be little just one form and then pass it to your
left and I'm going to have you two work together and then the board members I'll just we'll just pass it to the left so draw a form form of any kind form a form y you can draw a a shape something like
that don't have to draw a you can draw a line you can draw something geometric it's just a form keep it simple just gra what I usually doodle you can just don't get too detailed
you're going to be building on each other's form we'll just let bu yeah and anywhere on the card correct can be big can be small and then you're going to pass it to the board member on your left I will
do the through okay good on the blank side on the blank side oh shoot do you want a new card no apparently not would you like a new card no no okay thank you you sure okay
yeah all right so now you received the card from your other board member now I want you to make something out of the form so if there's already something there expand on it so if it's some kind of free form you can create a person an
object um you know a building whatever you choose to do and we're going to then have you pass it again and you can take a couple of minutes on this one it's going to start getting interesting
camera building the suspense we good just keep his time Thomas if you're ready you can just pass it to the left I'm getting a sense of what it's like in some of the
gos all right the next is you can add some context so uh you can totally change the shape of whatever Direction your picture or whatever is on there do not add text yet that's coming still a drawing not work y stay with the drawing
anywhere on it anywhere on it I have seen groups completely change the course of a a story on the card it does it doesn't name when you're ready you can pass your
card on and now add some action can be drama [Applause] have to lunch sometimes yeah a good reports building each other's
work good ready pass it on is it a and now you can add testt you can create the story if you like can just a little bit can be make your story come to life here
thank you and when you're done I'm going to have you stand up Kelsey and we use just this little corner of the table I'm going to have you put all your postcards here so you can kind of take a look at all of them you all can stand up come on
up take a look at all of your fine artwork come see what you've created got a couple more coming so you can see the artwork the stories all right wait a minute before you
go oops okay I'm gonna just mix these up of artists what I'm going to have you do is I'm going to have you put your name and address on in the back then you're going to hand it to the person on your right
this time and they are going to write to you after you write your address some advice or compliment and then I'll collect those cards and we'll have them mail to you so we write our own address right you write your own address and then you're going
to pass it to your right and that person is going to send you a compliment or a bit of advice kind face go grab I can't did you pass it to your right oh I
didn't write it sorry okay I thought we doing so you write yes because I'm going to collect these in mail no time like the present get her done get her done is right
y [Music] Fe I take a good exercise you guys didn't no we see enough we'll do it with C at some point yeah we'll do it with C here we go
can I have oh here down have you tried them freeze stri that was like the thing with kids apparently I had all right so now like the taste was more done the
grounding activity we recall back to when we had a retreat and we talked about transparency so these slides will be familiar we had the conversation about what does it mean to be transparent in relation to being in a
government institution right so you have obligations within the law as Schoolboard members um and so a lot of what the bullets talk about are the things that you have to follow so you're making big decisions with input you don't necessarily have to do that but you all have stated that you want to be
able to do that you want to be able to follow open meeting laws share timely accurate information and then be accountable with the reports and data right that's something that is very common so you're trying to Define what it means to be
transparent within your role as school board members or within your role as leadership in a school district so um as I mentioned at The Retreat lots of school boards that we've been working with over the past past couple of years have been struggling with um being
accused of not being transparent because everyone has a very different definition of what they mean and sometimes they want you to be able to share information that by law you cannot so that's why we had the activity that we did the last time which is uh recall that you all
went into groups of two three groups of two uh and you decided to um articulate what it meant to be transparent Within the uh the parameters you have of being a school board member and all that the law kind of constrains you with so we
had the report um you provided some uh some similar ideas of what you wanted from transparency across your three groups and this is the proposed statement of transparency that I pulled together from all of your different statements that you provided from your groups so this was in the report you
have copies of them um in front of each of you as well and what I'm going to do um since you've all had a chance to look at that is have you get into two groups this time and I'm going to have you discuss them in your groups and see if
you have any uh changes if you like it as it is great if you have suggested changes I'm going to ask you to each take uh a flip chart and uh and write the suggested changes on there so that we could see what the suggestions are does that work for
you I know in the past you all have said it's nice to do some breakup up work at work sessions so how about if we start with 10 minutes on the time timer to have you do your small group discussion is that enough time do you think you can always add five minutes if we need to
good all right so the small groups are up there my suggestions are Tanya Thomas and Erica work together and then Sarah Keith and Kelsey work together is that good and you can take whatever marker you prefer here I do have the smelly
markers ooh so how about Kelsey Sarah and Keith over here and then you three over here you get to choose which markers you like markers want to write write any changes
if you like it as it is right have some discussion in your group talk about this proposed definition again it's based on the conversations we had at the retreat um but it is in a statement together so take a look have your discussion um if
you have suggested changes please be specific on your flip chart paper and then we'll talk through it as a full board good if you have questions or the bullet points this is all this is all one statement okay [Music]
yes long we'll see what happens if questions us came up with creative I had one picture that went from this really ugly fish to like a swan being was artistic
cabinet for the whole discussion cabinet yeah I think do you I have them go now true [Music] we read [Music]
until this year now I there were times we are easy no changes for your group are you all ready yeah all right we'll do the this down out of the way okay so we'll start with this group
because I know what they're already thinking your aside from like if comm's wants to tighten anything up or words like we didn't have any changes okay and this is your statement transparency it's not all of the implementation of how
we're going to achieve it right so oh yeah that we had a little discussion on critical what does critical mean um that can mean different things to different people so I think we kind of said well as we have this we can always identify when we feel like it has or has not been
met and we can learn the norm of what that means as we okay yeah and it's a statement I mean it is not a policy either how about I mean I think we just about like that last bullet I mean I think we understand where it's going but like even kind of more plain language for
people like and also is there is there any way we can kind of say like what we can and um like what what can we share legally like it's like almost like we can't share like student data we can't share
Personnel data we can share this like we can't share like police report you know what I there's certain things like and I think it would be helpful because I think when things happen in our district people well even the incident that there we've been in the news a couple times and it's like we don't we can't like we
just can't and a lot of times we don't we're not even priv to that information you know but I don't think we will know that like so even if it could be like a little bit more this is like I get where that's going but we get it because we're in it every day like if it could even be like simpler do you all generally agree
with that yeah idea and I I to build up like Kelsey said which I think is a good point is that there might the there's top of Mind things that people need to know so I think even being proactive and putting some of that information out there um about like what we can and can't share particularly with fights
like we can't identify students we can't identify discipline we can't um uh there's just like just the common ones maybe there's an FAQ common yeah good ide because and I think we can get to like what are people actually looking for like I mean if is there some data
that they like like feel like they would want because I think sometimes we're like we can't share that information and then some people are like oh we know you can't share P or like student data but can you share you know I don't know going to get to that hard all right so I am just putting a note here um for kind
of focus on that very last bullet and simplify it um give some very specific examples common examples of what you can share and legal examples of what you can't yes I'm seeing I'm seeing this okay and I can work with uh Dr H and her
team to to get that to you so that you can finalize it but it sounds like we're close okay all right well that was that was quick all right so um the structure and
flow uh I just want to start with this is going to be a bit of an overview and I know you have some veteran members of the board here you have some newish members of the board so we're going to do um an overview of structure and flow most of our conversation is likely to at
least start on uh looking at what are your different committees and advisories are they reporting to the board or do they report to the administrative team under the management role so is it kind of a governance function or a management
function what I can tell you before we start the overview is this is another challenge that school boards regularly deal with and unfortunately our state laws sometimes conflict with good governance and they put school board members on what would typically be
management committees so you talked about curriculum or we talk about special ed and sometimes board members need to be on committees by law but if you want to follow good governance we've had school board say so what is my role on those committees since I'm a decision
maker it could be a conflict for me to actually participate in the discussion and recommend to me what the state what we should be moving forward at so um that's just a precursor to everything so as we talk about sound structure and workflow we
have your informal committee meetings and the ones that are specifically of the board are ones like your policy committee or if you have an executive committee where the the chair or the chair and voice chair sometimes meet with the superintendent so what are the
specific Committees of just board members sometimes with support from uh an administrator on administrative team so you have Committees of the board then you have advisory committees and we have what we used to call councils that used to kind of differentiate between what
was a board committee and what was a management committee um they used to be called councils and now it's all intermingled so um the only thing that's different from committees and advisories and councils are task forces because they're time specific so they come and
they go they have their job and they go away so you have your in formal committee meetings they generally do not have authority to take action on behalf of the school district um it's the school board or the office of the
superintendent right then you have what we're doing today which is we're calling this a board learning session so some school districts call them work sessions some call them study sessions some call them learning sessions where you have meetings um where the board can get together with the superintendent's
office and discuss uh issues in detail right and youve you have the purpose of this work session some school boards that we've worked with have combined their work session night with their business formal business meeting night and it's a lot in one night some don't
even have work sessions where we've advise them it's a great idea to have work sessions it tends to reduce some of the conflict and the difficulties that come at a business meeting if you're trying to make decisions and get information all at the same time so you
have your committee meetings you have your informal board learning sessions and we say informal because you generally don't follow Robert's Rules of Order um in these kinds of sessions um you might at some of the advisory committee meetings depending on you know what they look like and then you have
your formal board action meetings so that's your business meeting and that's where you're going to follow Robert's Rules of Order you're going to um uh vote take action on specific items uh and that tends to be if you're working
well probably a shorter meeting than you might have if you don't have work sessions um in fact I worked with a school board that had done away with their work sessions their business meetings were four and five hours long every time and
then they decided to add a 45 minute work session to the front end of their meetings still didn't really help once they separated it out and were able to articulate you know we want to be able to get to things a week or two or further out before it comes to the the business meeting that's where you have
this that's why we call it that workflow so committee meetings informal meetings and then you have your your formal meetings and ideally your back mapping to the time that you have to take any action okay so that's what we're talking about
here um the cycle and flow of how the information gets from a governance committee so something like policy committee to the full board is also sometimes an issue with school board so we have this image here we created this with one school district where um there
was a legislative committee that was of the board so it was board members that mostly comprised that committee they had a policy committee and then they had a third committee and they all wanted to have a very specific flow where if
something had to come action had to come before the school board that there was opportunity for input from the full board before action was taken on behalf of the board so this cycle that you see here talks about kind of an ongoing cycle where you
have your committee that develops draft recommendations that the Board needs to consider it goes to the full board at a work study session uh sometimes at a business meeting if they don't have one or if they don't have time and you have some review and discussion and ideally
there's time for revision and clarification at the committee meeting before the board takes action that is a desired flow especially if it's uh something that could affect the school district we know that sometimes you have to Short Circuit these things and you have to jump some steps but this was uh
a suggested cycle so that one committee isn't kind of doing things on its own um in your case if you had a committee of three board members and they hadn't come back to the full board and they're acting on the District's behalf the other three board members might feel
like it's not necessarily moving with the full direction of the school board and support okay so that's what we're trying to do is address gaps as you're preparing your annual calendar um of your committees it's also good to keep this in mind back mapping from when the
board if the Board needs to take action you all have a one-year board plan that you've been following um most of you know that we Teamworks recommend a three-year board governance plan years two and three are generally not full but it's based on the five authorities of
the school board and you map that out over three years so things that generally would be on there are how frequently do you want to have uh board learning sessions for example so Retreats you might say you want to do that twice a year if you know you have Board elections coming up and you want
to be able to do board orientation you would put that on there if you know you have big changes coming up or um consideration of a referendum this is just an example uh if you had a levy that was up for Renewal that would be on a three-year calendar so we would put
things on the board governance calendar so that you could keep looking out over every three years so you you do the one-year calendar regularly um and that sets up the flow going from work session to business meeting in some cases also
from your advisory committees right and I know that there's been some questions about what are the what's the authority of the advisories and who do they report to so we are going to have those conversations um in the packet you have a table where I have started
to consider uh the actions you want to take and how you want to review the Committees okay anyone have any questions or L coming at you okay overview so far all right all right so um just I want to do a quick checkin
first on so this is one of your work sessions and you have your formal board action meetings just want to do a quick check in on how do you think they're generally going so I also thank you to Sherry we have posts what I'd like you
to do is articulate what you think is working well in terms of your work sessions and what may be confusing or challenging to you and then for the the business meetings same questions what's working well and what may be confusing
to you so on post it go ahead please put if it's a work session you can do WS if you prefer that and you have the markers from the bo great I'm just going to use where would you like to put these you're going to put them right up here
on it's not we're going to meet this Friday at 11 the tomorrow know what to the mar and only you can say it that way you two can feel free to
cont oh it's here though I'll take the 11 11 and when you're ready just go ahead and post them on the foot chart any for a couple of you it's still pretty
fresh but there are reasons why you want to be on the board thank you Kelsey first one up know your new tennis shoes from the other week would go well when Kelsey is up there I know y they 18 yep don't we need to S something
[Music] [Music] would you like put any of those up thas pile wow hopefully they're all hopefully they're all was working [Laughter] well see second term
that's read a book CH GT [Laughter] SP are we all you still working right we'll take a couple more minutes you know you got
that all one and nice detail they just let take a so for work sessions all right great content this one says overall no
comments but can we make them more of a conversation with cabinet Administration versus presentation the question so I think that's come up before two right can you say that one again I'm sorry so uh overall no comments about work sessions but can we make them more
of a conversation with cabinet Administration versus presentation in question yeah okay yeah okay uh working well board questions to the superintendent in advance of the
session uh responsive to the board's interest in learning more about specific initiatives topics and priorities all right um what's working well for work sessions here partnership collaboration
with Tanya and Thomas and Thomas leading so it must be the leadership collaboration what's challenging would love to create a more collaborative environment where any question is seen as an opportunity to team and increase trust okay um How do you set a topic on
the work session agenda I understand our I can't read this word um our desire thank you uh is to be aligned however there are topics
um we agree on so is debate acceptable during work sessions ah there are topics we won't agree on mine right and there and so one of the things I like to tell board members is you will debate and you will more often than not
have your debate at work sessions especially once you get into the flow of things and then you get to the business meeting and you take your action and sometimes once you get into the flow even if you disagree hopefully it's not a 33 vote because that makes it difficult for you but once you have
action and you move forward then you move forward with one voice as a board right whoever won that particular action you move forward and you say that that is the will of the board that's the will of the district and so when you have your work session agendas that's the
time to ask the questions um get the differences of opinion out um and you may even be accused later on of having just rubber stamped the administration because you did all the debate in your work session and less so at the business meeting and so some school boards get to
the point where they're actually saying we had a lot of debate about this in two work sessions right and we had input through our decision- making process and we had a forum and engagement session and in the end this is what our decisions are and this is why we're voting so it sounds like we're wondering
about how do the topics get on the agenda and how do we have that those discussion kind of like you did tonight okay informal interested in finding out that sweet spot of what's in and out scope for our role okay
work session challenge uh room to tighten up presentations with reports in detail okay work session what's going well um plus uh Vice chair Vice chair leading thank you questions in advance and real
time as evolved discussion before advances to board meeting we just talked about um hearing from school site staff directly is nice at the work sessions presentations have been shorter leaving more time for discussion so again moving in that direction um do we ever provide
the audience to comment should we also do engagement session in addition um other committees example legislative so um generally School boards don't have public comment during a work session because it is your time
with the administrative team some school districts and school boards will have other things that they do so they might have specific engagement around a decision some school boards have listening sessions with or without topics but they are also structured so
that people understand like this is what to expect when you're going to okay work session what else is working well informal and real topics are open to board members additions um audio recorded versus video recorded um tables
and the Forum room not tonight but yes reports and presentations so all of those things right um we talked about this one uh staff taking questions or criticism personally a defensive language and Body Language so this is a
challenge sounds like work session even better if um leader voice and discussions uh continue board breakout like the vision cards okay uh student participation in the past has been valuable for work session
and you have you do have student board members Representatives correct yeah but we're is it right for me to say okay but we're going to be revamping that talking to chair and vice year so it's um more getting more information from them than just reporting out an event of what's
going on so so they are ex official members too not quing members all right so the business meetings can we truncate items that are redundant or are they required um IE any reports uh that could
be received by email instead of being shared this way we also went to National Convention in Louisiana and we are able to convert something in writing to a podcast so you may get that coming up so fanc so you
can listen while you're driving perfect uh upfront portions are lengthy it Waters down the attention on each area uh challenging the last one was
long Christine can you go back to one upfront what was a this one Whatever said upfront was the first line upfront portions of the meeting I'm assuming are lengthy and wers down the attention on each area all the reports there's some
redundancy with the points of Pride and the and have presentations can just be a lot thank you business uh well appreciate no surprises um as pre-work is done at the work
session challenge would like to see more timely meetings less time on redundant information communicate new information during brief points of Pride so it is nice to have all that information but is there a way to condense it all right uh current School
Board uh rep model has not proven to be as valuable for student engagement in decision making so you just address that um uh working well smooth and efficient should we change audience opportunities to
be uh sorry I am having difficulty with this handwriting tonight prior to board meetings uh role of student aison do they feel valued okay that's come up three times now um audience has to wait sometimes hours for the board to make a
decision yeah that is that is just part of what happens um especially if you have a lot on the agenda uh let's see points of Pride right now is long decorum uh Community is generally respectful toward each
other at your meetings um school student presentations so is this a positive I think Thomas this might be yours is this a positive or is this something you wanted to say as a challenge school student
presentations oh that is a positive so that's um when our teams come to visit and oh yeah that's Park Center CTE that was such a good presentation good uh let's see uh advisory committees uh may be work
session uh opportunity to act on recommendations or discussion further okay and uh a plus is the prediscussion at work sessions for board meetings plus is policy detail and detention and and
uh plus is public comment rules all right so you have a sense that I mean there is some agreement here on what's working and what's not um and I think you have enough information I will take this and do the report like I usually do and send that to the superintendent uh and then I expect
she's going to have some suggestions for you as well I don't know that you need to work through these you've shared this information some of it you've shared previously and the the administration is working to f some the presentations slowly moving in that
direction any other questions or comments I can answer the how things get on the agenda and we've been talking about making it even easier so at the end of each work session we asked what do you want on the agenda but at that time we' both said that like you know we just had a full work session we're not
always like thinking we're tired it's like late at night so we talked about um a Google form um that anybody can type in um either questions that they have that they are interested in having answers to or want more info on um or adding agenda uh recommendations for
agenda topic so we haven't worked out the details of how that might be executed but we want to make sure it's as open as possible to add um or have input we can't necessarily if everybody adds everything they want we're probably going to have too much so we'll have to kind of work how if we get a flood of
items how we'll work through that or maybe we could do that at the end of the work session when we see what we have so I think we want it to be very open are you going to suggest any lens for adding agenda items like how it relates to the
Strategic plan or upcoming decisions or if you had a board work plan right does it does it line up with some of the things I know there are some things that come down I'll just say the react because that's easy to deal with so sometimes things come up that you weren't planning on um that you need to
address as a board um give advice to where the superintendent might want to share information with the board do you have any lens you want to be looking at we have the one document that talks about like the flow um and it was sort of with the resolutions but I think it applies to any topic um so that it would
come to work session first before board meeting things like that but um we've kind of had uh ways of working that if more than one board member has interest in that topic because then it just kind of maybe um narrows it but we could develop that um because if we have every
single individual board member yeah having work session I that may not be consensus of the board then we're may not be using our time wisely so I think to your point we can maybe that's something that we work on in chair Vice chair meeting and then bring back to the
board okay good um I do have a question so I can't remember are there the student School Board Le on are they compensated yes they are okay they aren't in every my Advisory Group isn't I have a super tend I don't you know I have a superintend grp yes
they are yeah good any other comments suggestions about the work sessions and the business meetings I just think that like I do think that we I would like to kind of talk about like just our engagement with our community because I think that um aside from kind of our
strategic directions there are stuff that comes up specific to our community and AIO that is derain and it may be timely and so you know however you guys come up with the process I think that that could be we were just chatting in policy session actually um about like
what um policies come up and might we want to proactively put engagement session in or listening session in in advance so we get more input up front before we go into the policy I think we could think about that for um our work sessions or board meetings or cheero like hot topics I think Hastings has a
committee that's um it's a uh I don't know if it's standing but I know it's like it's more it's assembled with specific topics in mind so it's assembled and then periodically they meet and they're providing input on specific topics okay um so maybe it's um
safety at schools um or maybe when we see things in the media and people get concerned that oh my gosh what's happening is are there are there more fights um we can be proactive so sort of the response or proactive and I and um
we haven't had listening sessions in a while so we should re-engage on those too and nice I don't know how it was done but we could talk as well to fortat that correctly so that all people can have a voice there's been ways that it's been done through focus groups with like um reagin Minnesota where you actually
had like seniors and Juniors were the main ones they took the information and people could have that then that was shared out so yeah I was going to second that having if you're going to have engagement versus a forum a forum really isn't engagement it's people coming up
and sharing over 2 minutes right what they're going to do but if you want to have engagement it's a very good idea to have it facilitated to have roles specific to have facilitators in small groups and then share out some of that information and always always always
share those reports out with your community given your transparency piece that's one of the things the International Association of public participation has said the biggest mistake that public organizations make is you do all this engagement and then you don't share the reports after the fact or the decision and why the
decision was made you know it's easy enough to put those out there and say this is what happened this is how we're using the information because I think we've been quite successful uh with kids with our attendance boundary because you have smaller tables where everybody's voice
is able to be heard and pulling that back in so good any other discussion around what's working what's not and ideas from that okay all right so now we're going
to work uh a little bit more looking at committees councils advisories so we talked about the fact that you have Committees of the board for your governance work so there's executive there's policy sometimes there's finance and planning um I
mentioned one district has a legislative action committee of the board um and then you also have the the advisories of the Committees for the management work that's where you will see more committees than under the board um and
so things like curriculum Community Ed Special Ed I know you have a list of others and I have that happen to have that list too um so there's a number of those committees ideally they would be operating with a
very specific charge or purpose and then limitation statements or some kind of parameters about what their role is and a Focus for their work and um perhaps so you have a one-year board agenda there might be suggestions for what this
committee would be covering in terms of topics so school boards generally don't have management committees though I've seen it happen like negotiations they're generally not doing those or the calendar committee or technology or curriculum those are not committees that
board members are generally running or generally on again unless it's required by law and then you want to have a clear understanding of what the role is of a board member or board members on those committees I have seen a fair number of districts have curriculum committees and state law does specifically identify
that under our responsibilities to manage so that's one that I've seen more of it's just you described it as management but I have seen a lot of districts have curriculum PES and we used to actually have a board members that don't and and when school boards still
decide to have a board member represented on a curriculum committee it's uh it's a very good idea to say what's their role right are they there as a liais on to the board and they're basically there to listen and then report up to the board what's happening at that committee um and uh and I've had
school boards that I've worked with who literally were running negotiations and were on the calendar committee and the school board memb said I don't understand why we're on that it feels very strange given the fact that we have a committee of most mostly staff who are charged with developing it and then it
comes to us as a board and we take those actions so that was kind of the defining line is even if I'm required to be on the committee what's my role so that when we make the decision eventually it's really clear that we are Choice makers and we're not the people who are developing
options so that's what we're kind of I want you to be thinking about as we talk about considerations for committees so these are just some questions I think you have seen probably the slide deck before tonight so if board members are on an advisory committee are they board
are they actually voting members or ex officio so I have worked with school boards that said I didn't really realize that I shouldn't be voting but now that I know I'm not going to vote on anything right I'm going to try to kind of just watch listen and kind of respond when
asked but really not provide a recommendation and I'll keep my opinion for when the board Acts um this is another uh piece that comes up a lot because some committees are around for a long long time and they may
not get reviewed unless there's a new superintendent or the board change is over so what's the purpose the role and the parameters of each committee and each advisory are they clear if they're not clear what would you like to do about that um how are recommendations filtered
and reviewed and shared if they are an advisory committee that reports up to the superintendent are they filtered through the superintendent's office even if they're an advisory committee that comes up and will be eventually having recommendations flow up to the board are they filtered first through the office
of the superintendent because your superintendent is charged with implementing your strategic plan on the day in day out business of the district um and then how is that committee work discussed at board meetings do you have a regular calendar if it's of board
committee um so uh you know some districts will have a finance committee and they will work with your uh Finance director in bringing their recommendations forward but those committees also have pretty tight parameters we have some school boards that we work with that for these
committees or for you know decisions that they're making will have a guiding change document that they develop either for the committee or each year if there's a budget or something is changing with finances and some of you are familiar with our guid change document others of you aren't but we can
certainly reintroduce that to you um and then what are the parameters of authority between kind of full control and no control over those committees right so do you want a hands-off approach or do you want to be really involved so those are considerations
yeah go ahead and I don't know if this is relevant to our topic tonight so that's not we can address it later but um I have a question around can we clear more clearly Define staff involvement at the Committees because I've been on several committees where it's been unclear what the role of staff is like
if they should be leading the conversation um in terms of just facilitating it or if they need to be giving ideas and like kind of following them sometimes it felt like the staff was leading us a certain direction versus letting it come from the community and um kind of to Kelsey's
point I'd prefer Community to really give input um and staff has has different Avenues to do that so if and if certain committees are one way or the other that that's just clear does that make sense yeah I think that's fair it's
come up in some conversation before um that each committee kind of seems to operate a little differently in that regard I really um personally love how ecac at the start it defines the role of the ecac committee like they talk about being advisory not decision um they do
bring in that case an neck they bring recommendation that the people put on whereas now D's a little different because it's like required by law and that's meant to be truly organic um and in that facilitated approach um the facilitative staff are
not meant to provide input but there are staff members who serve on the commit so um and we got the kind of the list of the ratios here and I think that's something that we should be as we kind of continue to do this work on committees um we do technically approve
them in the consent agenda at each annual meeting or each um organizing meeting so I feel like we should continue to do that and we should I'm sorry what do you you what does the board approve so when we approve committee assignments oh committee assignments
okay I hear the assignments part okay but I think we're technically approving we're authorizing committees at the same time sure okay so I think we might want to take a look at that and say is there any additional things that we want in those that authorizing like is it okay
designing that we want this many parents this many community members this many staff and I I feel like we have that on the Committees but it's I haven't looked at that in a while or even just a simple thing here of what you mentioned operate with a charge and purpose ases every group have that and are they consistent
are we intentionally making them different or is it sort of by default and often times sometimes it's really tight because the director that's charged with organizing and leading that committee is you know is tight about that thing and that's the way that they
operate and other times it's it's by personality rather than by structure and so so it's about you know what would you like to see generally consistently you still want to have some flexibility obviously for the Committees because they do serve different
purposes I have a question on the first um bullet point about voting other than policy are there any other committees right now that people are voting on I know the Committees I'm on there not like a vote the tallies to like do consensus us CU they voting yeah and I'm
really thinking about uh more advisory committees where board members by law are on the committee so are they voting members so something like policy that is a board committee um that then goes to the board as opposed to it's an advisory
committee to the district so is it advising the superintendent is it advising the board and even if a board member Again by law must be on that committee you all can decide what is the role of the board member on that Committee just because you have you're
on there doesn't mean that you can't follow good governance though the state is trying to push you out of it with that decision so so just clarify any other other than policy are there any other committees that we're voting on than so s for like CPAC ma do they just
ask for advice from you as a board advice okay recomendation on ideas yeah yeah so I hav't experience just curious yeah I think what's hard too is I'm I'm looking at some of these boards and or some of these committees that I've done as a community member and it's
like start of the year there's 30 people there and the end of the year there's four people show you know what I mean so it does it definitely becomes the percentages have become pretty skewed by the end of the year right so and how frequently some of these
committees meet could be part of that as well sure yeah and uh I mean I know I've worked with some districts where they have committees that you know went virtual because of covid uh like early childhood committees and they found that they actually had more attendance when
they kept it virtual so some of them have chosen that they can be home with their kids on their lap while they're in meeting so sometimes that can be helpful too all right so any other questions around these consider that I've offered for you and then we can start kind of
working through these Dr H Dr best do you have any no cautions where you go see all right and so now I mean I have I was going to say the only other and it's not like an advisory but the only other voting is amsd like they do yeah that's
but you're appointed by the board to the right but it's on behalf of I mean your question same for B right there are some appointments that you will have uh 287 287 yint yeah and you are appointed by the
full board to that to that organization yeah thank you yeah so yeah there's so when you all do your liais on Roll sometimes it's because you have to be on an advisory committee by law sometimes it's who's going to be on the policy committee and
who's going to and some who is going to be appointed to some of these external organizations on which you're a member okay I'm not going to go there um so I had put together in your packet if you have your packet
just on page four and five it was a way for you to reflect and these packets are really background information and give you more information and I don't think you need me to talk through everything with you but it's really to give you more information so if you look on page
five here's where you want to hold up what it should look like cuz in our four packets it's numbered differently sorry looks like that so it's page 23 okay on your packet sorry yeah it says AIO committee Council
review the top okay okay sorry to confuse so I'm offering you what I've uh worked through with some other boards and uh there is a couple of pages before that I gave an example of a board where we literally on flip chart paper were
working through each of their committees and at that point they were trying to decide do we keep some of these committees do we re-evaluate them what are what is our role on the board do we pull board members off some of these committees because they were in a very
confused State about what they wanted to do so this was the beginning of that conversation and then we Revisited it for you all on your page 20 what page what three or 23 where it says AIO
committees Council review all right um I have the name I think of most of your um councils or committees and then I have some uh some things for you to discuss is it required by law and hopefully your administrative
team can let you know that is it a governance or administrative committee because that will help with you know who does it flow through um are there is there a clear charge and parameters for the committee
um do you need to re-evaluate it and you know on the end there do you keep the committee I mean if you were thinking about sometimes districts have redundancy across committees too where they decided you know what we're going to merge these committees to Keith's Point sometimes you lose people and some of your community members end up being
on multiple committees because they're involved uh and so do you find a way to collapse some committees uh roles as well so what I'm offering to you is we can start to talk through these right now and you don't clearly have to make
decisions because it's a work session but it's what I'm offering to you and to your uh your superintendent to say would you like to just talk through these um as a board and I am looking to you all to
decide if you'd like to to do that yes I got one yes yes I'm seeing generally yeah looking for yes Thomas walk through the Kelsey all right good can I ask a question is the special advisory
committee just not one of she not a formal committee is that why we don't include it the cak I expect I just left it I have that in my notes too yeah that should be on here yeah okay y I was curious about that one because we don't have a board member on
it add that on okay they do a fabulous job of running by the way okay and we don't have a legislative you don't no I'm asking here one our
s we can discuss it if there's ads call see if this uh sometimes we have a committee that is defunct and a district has said you know what we really need to have a committee but maybe they don't meet very frequently and part of the reason why people didn't come it's
because we weren't clear on yeah what its purpose was okay all right so uh Community Education Program advisory Council these committees are a mouthful um is this something that's required by law I don't believe it is I'm thinking
it is but I'm gonna call Brian cers in Hall while you keep talking so why don't you go uh and is it a governance committee and here's so is it and should it be a governance or administrative committee those are my questions to you meaning to have
representation is it something that reports up and through and advises primarily the management side of the organization or the school board side what's that are you asking us I'm asking you
all yeah admin admin y all right and um as far as you understand are there clear uh is there a clear charge in parameters for this Council I don't know I'm not on this and it's okay if you don't
know I'm pretty sure it is because you have to have a certain certain community members I think your special ed I think it's legal your community ed correct are both required but you know what we will work with your administrative team to answer this column specifically tonight
is getting started on this and then you can revisit it if that's my suggestion yeah for my experience on the committee I do feel like there are clear parameters and I appreciate it's it's a balance of parents community staff there's a good there's good balance on that committee so okay I would say yes
but that's just one person Sarah says so say Sarah yeah and it's okay to say you don't know uh do you have a sense that you would need to re-evaluate this committee okay
yeah no no need to reevaluate that one um so your District 279 Foundation I know that's not required by law but many school districts have it and it is separate usually these foundations are a separate nonprofit with a separate role but they have a connection I know it's
on your list do you have board members who are Liaisons or members on them yeah they Le on only because it's the Board of Trustees so they don't vote okay so Le on only board members and it's neither a governance
nor uh administrative committee and in terms of the charge and parameters it's really you don't have oversight of it right so I'm just how about your deac your District planning advisory Council and required
by law y yes easy answer and so is it a governance or administrative committee well kind of is yeah I mean it we it's one of the Committees that give a recommendation to the board so I'd consider it a governance but I think we
previously had some discussion on I think they all it's been unclear as if they're truly reporting to the board or reporting to management but presenting to the board but for now maybe we just work with if they present to the board it's
governance for now typically the content is like man agement type stuff like how and do they present to oio school board yes okay but technically any of the Committees could report to the board so I guess maybe I'm Le
admin um they are providing recommendations to the board but I don't know what that necessarily means that it's a Well I wonder if that's and I don't know what legally they're required to do but if that's something to clarify like what what direction do we want deac
to go do we want you to are there specific topics to look at like we do student services as one of them or how they're doing Middle School type stuff um which that's all function over form we have talked about should we have
should certain things get input from deac I think the cell phone policy might have been one but I think the nature of it by law is that it's supposed to be their opportunity yesan but it's not to say we couldn't leverage them to provide input
yeah the recommendations have implications for administration right and you all would would support or have discussion around it and maybe ask about any of those things if there
are things that you think okay this might need to elevate in prioritization for operational planning but to your point Thomas about it feeling more admin I agree with you on that yeah do never felt like I was
volunteering on behalf of the board when Ser on oh I think that's a yes and that's that might be a different question as to the role of the board members no I'm talking about as a defend oh as a member oh before you okay yeah uh Brian St in Saw Hall said yes
it's a state statute yep that's what I thought okay for Community Education Council okay in terms of DPAC um are there is there a clear charging parameters as as far as you know from your time there
Thomas i' say so i' say so yeah purpose yeah I wasn't on it at the beginning of the year it seems to have um it's more focused this year which I really appreciate um how they've facilitated it it seems like there's
more Buy in to the final recommendations they're headed towards which I appreciate okay that's good feedback for our director yeah yeah it's doing a great job I I do think that um yeah it's clear like when I've served on it I feel
like the facilitators are communicating exactly what the role is and what they're seeking to do it does lead me to the question like we've got like our little blurs of each committee MH so what is the board
technically approving in those definitions versus how they run we just that might be an opportunity to tighten up so we're all it's all hanging together good yeah just writing some of these things down okay so kind of the descriptions
and right so it doesn't sound like you need to re-evaluate DPAC at this point all right and it sounds like you're all saying yes you should keep it I think we have to legally required it's right it's right
here that's right I just read it we don't need to reevaluate how it's how it's operating here how about that how about your enrollment and capacity management advisory committee these are long [Laughter]
names uh I don't believe that's required by law I feel like it's oh sorry ding uh governance uh Administration ad admin yeah it usually would be clear
chargeing parameters now I'm going to look to the people on my left no need to reevaluate yes got it your financial involvement School Community accountability liaison advisory wow
that's amount that's trying to get to fiscal pretty hard I was really trying to get to that acronym tell me what you know about this one I don't I don't know if that's required by law I don't think so um again you can get that you don't have to
get it tonight and is it a administrative or governance committee yeah would this I'm sorry I don't know would this be our finance committee because then it is my thought there's no other Finance okay sometimes administrative for that one as
well admin that one's a good balance of parents community members staff yeah that's a good turnout do you have board members on that committee I'm on that one okay and you don't vote you generally don't give suggest okay uh
clear charge and parameters for that advisory yes I would think got it so no need to reevaluate and by law of course you're going to keep it all right uh your rise committee ra radically investing in Scholars EXC exence yeah so
this is uh not required by law this came as one of the action items for the uh George Floyd and systemic racism resolution okay um so that um similar to the lgbtqi plus uh advisory committee
are advisory right so they're providing recommendations to the cabinet um for consideration around the action items outlined in the resolutions so it's an administrative advisory y so can I ask a question just um because I'm I haven't been involved with two of those
committees there but DPAC we typically present at the end of the year is that a pattern that those committees follow as well if they're providing recommendations or that provide recommend so the advisory committee has um rise uh has in the past um and then
most recently has not like in a board presentation or is it okay okay thank you yeah so uh also rise the intent was also for it to be um really a two-way conversation though with the board too
because we wanted originally the intent was that Rise um the the families or caregivers that were part of that would also give feedback or things that were happening at the board level and I don't know how I mean I haven't been as involved but that was kind of the Hope
was that you know we weren't um it would be another voice to into our decision making and that's where your board report would come into play right where we would hear about it then I would say it's um it's structured very differently than deac I would say even more informal
okay um and it really is an opportunity for them to build relationships with staff learn more about the district um creates you know that ability for a 2A um communication um it's our most
diverse committee um know for that reason um so yeah I it was it really a way to engage our families in a different in a different uh way besides like anmac a DPAC uh you know it's just another Avenue for more
engagement would you say that there's a clear charge and parameters for the committee it sounds like it maybe has evolved well the clear charge is engagement um it's not a working Comm like they're not necessarily developing
recommendations unless necessary um it really is that sort of communication and dialogue with st so that could be the charge right it's the the communication there have been there have been recommendations from Rise that
led to us updating the harm reporting protocol um and the survey scale for belonging for family stakeholders um in inclusion so there there was some some early work in the early um in the first couple years that that that had some specific things that they wanted to get
um to give input on that that we let that group kind of you know like right like what's happening at the board at that time the harm so it was like they really took that on yep so even like last year I think one of the questions they wanted to know more about Recruitment and Retention so we had HR
jump on and share more about Recruitment and Retention the the lgbtqi plus advisory committee um with a with a resolution that was providing accountability to a a recent policy in in the 508 gender
inclusion those items were new items to our system right that we hadn't implemented previously right or been directed to implement previously so the advisory committee providing perspective and giving input to the cabinet to the
superintendent on here's what we would recommend to implement this and then the cabinet saying okay right like okay to some of those and some of those uh maybe not um and so there there there was this two-way there has been a two-way communication around those uh those
recommendations but they come as recommendations they don't come as well and that's the question about how they come to the board because if it's a board committee are they being presented to the board or is it they're not coming to the board they to administrative committee yeah yeah okay um and then I
have a question because how how do we align when it comes to staff and and community members or parents and students on these boards and making sure Community is being heard and I believe staff has a separate advisory committee
for lgbtq is that correct there's a staff affinity group right yeah okay so I'm just curious because that's a pretty large number compared to the other two and then along with what was thator sorry so I just have a question about that and like how do we how do we better align or are we is there enough
information about rise out there that we're getting people um to attend or so I'm wondering with that that's a great question Eric I'm wondering but then I don't know so it's an ask that it sounds like if it's an engagement it's more people coming together to engage
and talk than to be this formal committee where we only have six community members and am I interpreting that maybe correctly yep but I don't know if Ry says we can only have these many community members these many staff and these many oh and I think that would be completely unnecessary it's
engagement um nor I think it's unrealistic given oh I'm not saying a limit I'm just saying can we better balance some of these committees I think if we're talking about balancing we're getting into a conversation about limiting participation I don't know how we have
the conversation with I think it's more limiting staff because they they have avenues for input and if these are truly Community engagement and this may not be a community engagement committee maybe it is truly staff and um Community but that's the question is like is that
defined and who's joining the committee but also we don't know like sometime I mean I maybe people are identifying as staff but they're also parents or committee members and they just yeah that's we don't know delated here we were asked for that I asked for that so that's here I mean I
also I guess I'm a little lary about moving toward a system where we're outside of the board excluding people from having a voice um particularly when we have these committees or these bodies that were
created for that exact reason to give staff and the community The Voice um so yeah I mean I I'm not seeing different issues well like dpack was the same way and it felt really uncomfortable as a community member to
give feedback because it was like you were talking to the person that was in charge of it and you're like trying to give critical feedback and it's hard to take that sometimes when you're the person and so I think it's not even just these two committees it's as we approach any of these committees how do we have
staff representation that's leading the conversation and what their role is and maybe that's more what I'm getting at is what's the role of those staff members on the committee um and making sure that community members are really truly being prioritized in these conversations um
depending on the committee and maybe that's not relevant for all the Committees so I just want to clarify so So when you say community members you also mean parents okay non-staff yeah we delineated because um I know like DPAC has legislative specificity so it's
helpful to see also when we get recommendations I want to know who the recommendations are coming from are they coming from community members are they coming from parents I think it matters I think it does matter whose weight is in the committee and who it represents we've been saying that we want to ensure
that everybody's voice is heard but if we only have two community members then the community's voice members voice wasn't heard the other voices were heard so I think it helps us to interpret and understand who is the voice I mean that's not necessarily true that would be an
assumption but if you're two people saying that we shouldn't strive to have more parent or Community or even student voices on these communties I agree especially student and then I do also think it's important that we delineate between to director
Foster's Point delineate between like staff Leons and then staff that participating as stakers in our district totally um and those lines got blurry sometimes on the committee yeah um I think if they're creating a space it doesn't feel
safe for community members to um participate I think that's a culture conversation APAC won't always want a board member there oh no you know and they'll say you know I Ethan what when when do you want you to show up right like that the
conversation it's just something to rethink and evaluate so I guess I never so I think that whatever is on our committee the committee list that we approve in the consent agenda should have all the Committees that have been
are providing recommendations um or have a board member assigned to it because they're not consistent and when they're not consistent we can't see like what is the purpose of it so for example edbt Q committee was not on our list and so do
I understand the purpose of it it's not is it documented somewhere did we authorized that purpose or did it get created and we don't we don't know the purpose anymore so I just think they should be consistent um and they should be in our board packet at the
organization meeting if we have a board member assigned to it so all the district ones like that's management we're not on it like that's that's your your mechanisms and I heard you say the rise and the lgbtq IIA are both
administrative committees and so in terms of charge and parameters I'm not saying that I'll have to be you know this is exactly if the charge is they are there to provide two-way communication I mean I think that's part of what the parameters in the charge are
is there there to hear and provide advice to the administration as outlining the resolutions okay that's where the purpose in charge yeah so we can take it right from there and put it on our papers our sheets um so I'm hearing keep the
Committees we have to they by resolution they don't be change the V thereby your law right okay your policy uh American Indian parent advisory is required by law oh yes yes we're not there is that a governance
administrative committee admin admin um they have they do the concurrence yeah so it's both it's kind of bold it's odd but it's bold yeah it's an unusual yeah okay do they have clear chargeing parameters I believe they do by state
You by Statute by Statute um any need to re-evaluate anything about um APAC as it relates to how they interact with the district the board provide we're going through their tribal consultation if we do it okay no choice
on whether okay uh safety and Emergency Management advisory committee I don't that's not required by law is it no it's something that uh that's done here where we get input in regards to our safety and Emergency Management that we have here so we have
um had grants in the past where they have to have one yeah no where we have like police officers and people from different areas as long as and it's why there's so many staff is because you have the majority of your principal sitting in on an AP sitting in on it so yeah and that's an administrative
committee yeah clear chargeing parameters yeah so this doesn't have a board is on so um is it on our list because it's got community members yeah that's why we
added it on we didn't know for sure which one you going so yeah and and going through this list sometimes it's helpful whether you have a board lay on or not to understand what all the Committees are doing policy committee is a governance committee right uh so uh
and so it's you have a property committee correct in case we need it yes in case you need it okay why do I have the foundation on there twice don't know um any changes that you see need to be
made with policy committee the c um C act or special ed advisory committee yep we yeah did we add that on there sorry yeah sorry hand wrote that in in the bottom I was just going back up to policy committee is uh is it working as you would like it to
yes yes yes okay so no need to reevaluate sometimes even how it functions since we had our discussion earlier about structure and flow all right and the property committee is just when it's needed meets when needed okay
uh so the special education advisory committee right is required by law I was yes yeah as I recall it is is that a governance or ad uh administrative Committee in terms of how it functions should be admin yeah admin
when I said it on it it's seemed to be admin slash um like a like not a parenting group but just like a affiliation group where they um shared stories and learned how to create access for their students and it kind
like engagement is well yeah engagement thank you okay so that gets to the is there a clear charge and are there clear parameters and I'm seeing Dr say yes any need to reevaluate this committee how it functions here so nobody do no board
memb Ser Ser on no I would actually say maybe we should look at this one for reevaluation in terms of just um are we helping them enough in their capacity and their role as a committee and then what else can we do to support them um
and what do we need to do some sort of liaison with them so that we can understand the priorities coming out of that committee better or get a recommendation presentation from them something like that would it would it help just to have them come someone come from the to a work session and present
along those lines and it almost seems like the LGBT advisory committee and Rise have a the same kind of support to say I mean I know they have board L on but maybe they also come to the board meeting or there to see if there is more support in those committees that they
want like a check in just like the special I think consistency is always a good thing so if we defined a committee for a role whatever that role is should be they should be consistently treated so um yeah so if we if we say that they
that we want rise to I and we can choose maybe it's a work session or it's coming with recommendations I think that's open for options but I think it's I consistency is important everyone has the same opportunity whether it is to provide recommendations to the board or to come to a work session whatever we decide on
that so one of the things that I'm going to look to Dr Hy for is perhaps she with cabinet can kind of have a check-in with all the Committees uh and see where they are sitting in terms of do they feel they have a clear charge in parameters in their
role um yeah we're yeah yeah that's I don't think you need to make decisions here because it's a work session about exactly what's going to happen I think we can tighten this you know complete the table and then have you come back with maybe some recommendations from the
administrative team on what to do moving forward if you're open to that and then if you need to have further discussion I think What er those are good questions and I think that you could apply them to some of the more like more of the engagement role committees to yeah and mine is more coming off to reevaluate because I do think that there's a big
need they're just in in attention from us yeah that's a good point like the perception too like um you know do if people are meeting we do get the question like does the board know like this is what we're talking about this is what our concerns are and so if there's
a board member we a on we get our board reports and we're more informed in other committees that don't have that don't have that access so to speak so I think we just again back to like clarity for those participating for for the leadership and for us I think is is a
good thing with this exercise so that doesn't mean that everybody comes to the board and everybody has leas on but I think it goes back to that consistency and Clarity because I would need help with so one of the things when I came in to oio I was unclear on the direction that
was coming from a committee or an advisory or whatever so it kind of confused me because you're my bosses it kind of excuse me am I getting direction here am I getting direction there kind of who's on first so I just need to make sure I understand if it's a recommendation vers you know is it
recommendation is it something like DPAC I think you know they have to present and you know we have to but yeah so yeah Clarity will help yeah maybe there's some committees who say like they don't want to present to the board every year we may not need to so um maybe that's a
sense check with some of them sure but I think like we talked about before like when we want to engage our community we want to make sure that um we're not just engaging I mean we there's like a kind of a endgame too like it where does where is it going you know just that not
wasting people's time right yeah and clarifying the charge the parameters and their role is helpful for them and then there isn't the confusion like when your superintendent is coming in because sometimes people think I'm on this committee it's a district committee flowing through the administration and
therefore my recommendations are going to be implemented right that's kind of human nature right and so if there are clear parameters and clear roles that this is an advisory committee and when you're on this committee you're providing maybe not even recommendations
right you're providing input or feedback um with a district lens right because if you're an advisory committee you're also remember the education leadership system you're you're being asked to kind of think above the line from the what does
the district need well it's an also an opportunity to have ambassadors for what we're doing you know and so they can say like hey this is what's going on and you know I was part of this or I knew about this and you know so we can they're and they're a pipeline to yes they all of
you sitting up here as well right you generally want them to be involved on committees and understand some of these things before they uh before they get on the board so we have a sense of these committees do you want to um um it sounds like most of
these have clear parameters but you might want to tighten up uh some of the descriptions for some of these um do you have any desire to create kind of a guiding change document that would start maybe with the administrative team around committees generally speaking where you have Clarity around their a
governance committee or their administrative committee that we want to be clear on you know their charge and what they do whether it's around engagement whether it's around providing recommendations is it goad I we because we have something like
that I think we should take it to that next step or at least refine it so that it's clear we already have a document that says some of this but maybe have some gaps so maybe start with that document and refine it that is
clear clearity would be good my only comment was going to just be around timing knowing there's so much on the plate right now is this something we could do in the summer and have more time to con conate on it when boundary changes are over and some of those bigger issues are off the plate I think
to that point if we're looking at making any changes to committee charges um we should be Consulting those committees yeah um so I think that's another maybe something we could do with Bo BL
you these two I mean I I think there should be a formal process so I don't know of us individually doing that is formal enough but I I don't wouldn't feel comfortable making those changes without consulting the each other and giving them a voice no well yeah for
sure I was just trying to say like there's a lot on your your team so you were volunteering you're being volunt Thomas you're being volunte yeah it shouldn't be that difficult to um when these committees meet to pull the charge and
purpose the only thing I'd like to consider is a legislative committee because I don't always feel comfortable coming up with a platform without Community I mean there's so many things that happen in the legislature um there's so many opportunities to engage our community whether it's on behalf of
the district for a hearing or anything like that and so um I just I mean we don't to talk about now but I I mean I I I'm a huge advocate to have that and I've seen it modeled in other districts and I just think it's a another you know when we talk about transparency away I mean that's a huge
piece of what we do as Advocate at the leg um and this is this is the start of your your conversation on committees and kind of before so me just kind of saying like that maybe RIS resurrecting it yes yeah
at some point we'll have to say what committees do we want to add or have interest in like I'm very interested in adding that curriculum maybe you can just get that out now like do we have additional interests so we've kind of validated say we need other ones we have not that we want to add a whole bunch more but right now are there any
interest areas where we have seen other districts have a particular committee and that way we can bring it back into the right mechanism to approve them later so I heard legislative curriculum you do you have a curriculum review
process though right oh gosh yes and that's generally something that would flow through the administration yeah or if we make changes to how we approve curriculum it's just that's one of the main questions that I get a lot of um one I I see that at other districts and when we think about board
reports and things that are being done like curriculum and the fact that like we're trying to make progress is so significant we have it in our strategic plan I feel like that there is an opportunity there I don't I don't have it fleshed out on exactly okay I I kind of like the
technology too was having set on that with Anthony folks last year they were talking you know lots it was actually really active group as far as parents having opinions about Ai and use of AI that are students and and things like that I think it's really kind
of yeah really he adding on I think so yeah yeah it's it's they're having some cool conversations there for sure at least you know the it was it was weird it was a very engaged group like Anthony King it was [Laughter]
weirdy good weird bad weird but it was uh it was a you know I mean I think he came to talk to D for a little bit I think like 10 D folks just immediately joined up with that Technology Group you know [Music] so any other I think there's you probably have
a lot of Engagement opportunities that are not necessarily committee but I think like climate all the climate work that we're trying to do and student experience and I think a lot there's elements under our strategic priorities that we could probably use some engagement in and maybe we could do that through or like have topics and
listening sessions or you know and FOC like focused conversations that's good idea all right I will take this information I will Circle back with your administrative team and we'll get the report to you we didn't discuss the role of board members so much you're right we
didn't uh do you want to continue that tonight or do you want to revisit that well we might be able just get some head knots maybe instead of and if we're not on the same page then we can table it for another time um so um I guess my my thought on this is
that we're there we're not there to influence like we're there to just to have awareness to understand bring back our board reports or um I think from time to time like if they're so let's say de for example like they're um they're discussing a topic we can say
well you know we already looked at that two years ago and this is kind of what happened at that time that might inform um kind of how you position this or how you will get now so I feel like our role should should not be actively like we shouldn't be active in it or
swaying or influencing we should be listening bringing back having awareness and we're appropriate reflecting kind of what board action has maybe taking place in the past more collaborative than than influencing kind of I just like I try not to even participate in discussions
honestly because it's not my place on my voice um but I think we just need yeah ask clarifying questions and things like that do you feel like they people that also serve know that about like that's one thing I think I did not know that when I was on committees I'm like why isn't that board member
talking so that might be a good clarification clarification R the board members are there as a on primarily just to listen and provide information about the governance role or or information
that has come up at the board table that be help yeah that as Choice makers it's it's probably better if you don't participate in developing recommendations and participating in providing your opinions at that table that you'll save it for when you're at
the board table yep I agree with that okay I'm seeing a lot of head knots Che there you go that was handled fin that fast um I have one more thing before you officially close out your meeting and that is as you think about your work session tonight including the uh the
conversation you had before you did your postcards um what was one you liked using your post it something that you wish either for the future or would have happened differently and something that you're going to commit to doing um as you move forward and you can put it on
this other foot chart over here and then I am done with my part of the meeting then I'll have one quick ask and then we'll be out you want three separate okay three sep chns left side is the current reality
and I'll just need these back you need to have the same color P when you do this activity and this last one [Applause] little Chillow is supposed to be
7 I thought it was 72 tomorrow 40 well 54 62 67 Sor comes oh and I'm definitely going to keep my distance Furious all right you y I just have um
usually I just want to ask the board for one thing so our next schedule works session is April 8th and Sarah I know you've already told us that you couldn't be there and one of the things we did have on there was monitoring report for vision card C and D but we're going to move that till May because we're going
to be finishing off our vision card so we will be doing that in May so the only other item on that day is attendance boundaries okay so April 15th we have a PD scheduled and with that PD that's scheduled there we're going to go into that whole communication process right
what should we communicate it out what should we not communic getting in so as to have that discussion uh superintendent school board relations and just reviewing process for the superintendent goals so what we could do if any anyone agrees is for not to have
a meeting on April 8th and then do it all on April 15th and we could move that policy meeting from the 8th to the 15th as well no we had one that's right added one yeah that would be great so taking
away one meeting yeah okay no two and a half hours all right nice cheer Brooks thank you oh you'll see it in the report okay yeah does anybody want share anything sometimes anybody want to share yeah you
can certainly share if you like this is even in big groups when you do this you it's just it's like a exit ticket ah got it I will share since I go ahead you brought it up well so I think you know elements of tonight could have been
professional development but I think having it in the work session environment and having the opportunity to have transparency about how we work together how we have some of these processes and just putting it all into one I think was really good I think two
um we've had in the past again this is a different board but we've had times where we've had a difficult topic um and frustration and we could not come back together to have productive discourse for the remainder of meeting so I just would like to um celebrate that and to
say thank you to everybody for engaging in the next topics in this really productive way and just to add to that I think Dr High also want to say like I really appreciate in preparation for the work session you were really clear with what the questions were we were being asked so I think that helps get keep us
kind of focused on so it's not like all over the place and so I thought that was like very helpful thank you MH and I liked I like a lot because I like focus and Alignment so I like hearing what's working what's not working so we can tighten everything because the worst thing you could do is sit somewhere that
you don't feel that's working so I really appreciate it understanding the wants that we want here so meeting is a Jour at 36 feel better to you