Okay. All right. So, let's get started. Good evening and welcome. The time is now 6:40. I would like to open the public portion of the July 16th, 2026 Richfield Park Board of Education retreat meeting.
Let's begin with a salute to the flag. Dr. Mr. Charlotte, can you please read the open public meetings act of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions
of this act, the Richfield Park Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place thereof posted in the Bergen record, Star Ledger, municipal building, board of education offices, and district
website. Uh, for public participation will be conducted both in person and virtually through Zoom. All members of the public will be muted throughout the meeting. Public participation comments are limited to five minutes. The public will
be able to both speak and be seen by the board when participating virtually telephonically via Zoom. Individuals participating virtually that wish to make comments during public participation will need to raise their hand by clicking the blue hand icon at
the bottom of their Zoom window. Individuals participating by telephone who wish to make comments during public participation will need to hit star nine on their telephone to raise their hand. The business administrator board secretary will then unmute individuals
one at a time to speak in the order in which their hand was raised. >> Thank you Dr. S. May please have a roll call. >> Mrs. Col >> here. >> Mrs. Craft >> here. >> Mr. Fitro,
>> Mrs. McNeel, Mr. Malu >> here, >> Mrs. Rodriguez >> here, >> Mrs. Schmidt >> here, >> Mrs. VeZ, Mrs. Orth >> here, >> President Martinez >> here. We have a quarum.
Uh, the board has received uh numerous correspondents, eight to be exact, uh, regarding the employment of a district employee. Uh while we're not allowed to comment on the employment of any employee, we thank those individuals for taking the time to contact the board. We have no minutes to approve a very light
but consequential agenda for this evening. Tonight, we'll have one public comment period and then we'll begin the board retreat portion of the meeting during which Dr. Vespani will present the 2627 district goals. These goals were based
on board feedback as the voice of the community and his administration's assessment of our current state and needs. Then with the assistance of Miss Melissa Del Roso del Roso from New Jersey school boards, the board will formulate its own governance goals for the upcoming year. With that, we will
now listen to citizens comments off agenda. Do we have anyone to tell I will close citizens comments off agenda and invite anyone to please contact the board directly or the superintendent directly through the website. I will then turn it over to Dr. Espinani
for a presentation of his proposed district goals for the 2627 school year. >> Thank you, President Martinez. Do we have the uh presentation uh available? >> Great. Thank you. So I am uh pleased to
share. Okay. See if it holds. Put the clicker down. Yeah. All right. So I'm pleased to uh present my proposed uh district goals for the 2627 school
year. Uh it's uh I think important to note that the first two as uh President Martinez had alluded to come directly through uh some evaluative feedback uh from the board directly to uh myself as superintendent in terms of continuing
growth uh of the district. Uh the board and community may not know that uh staff members are required um through the NJDOE to connect one of their professional development goals uh to feedback and their evaluation and although not necessarily a requirement
for superintendence uh in the spirit of reflection and uh leading by example uh I felt it was prudent to build in some of that evaluative feedback uh into the district goals this year. So having said that the uh first uh goal uh is to deepen two-way engagement with families,
students and the school community. And the idea here is to create uh various listening and learning sessions uh both for families and students. Uh creating a a way to share how feedback uh has informed district decisions. Uh
increasing my presence at such events and uh continuing advocacy on behalf of of students and families. So uh as examples and uh it's important to note that uh historically what we've done here is uh in September I provide the board with uh a bit of an action plan uh
with various major activities uh completion uh dates evidence that will be be provided uh throughout my evaluation process uh in June and I'll also be providing the board and community with updates uh on uh the
progress uh with the district goals uh most likely that will come in November, January and March. Uh so as examples of what uh may be um major activities uh in goal one uh we are planning to create a
uh series of monthly events uh for families uh and students to participate in. Uh I will most likely do these just prior to board meetings. uh most likely around 5 or 5:30 depending on the actual event. Uh so typically they would be an
hour, hour and a half. Uh these will fall under the umbrella of the uh parent guardian learning academy that I've created here in my time. And the idea here is a little bit of a blend to provide families and students uh with uh
learning sessions, but also uh to keep them informed of uh various instructional curricular programs progress uh within the district. Um, so it'll be a blend of uh actual presentations and there will also be some sessions which are more uh informal
kind of open-ended where we'll have a topic but then also an opportunity for uh families to kind of share what's on their mind. And the idea is to do them in advance uh on the day of board meetings uh so that we can encourage families to then remain for the board meeting uh to stay uh tuned into um you
know what's on that monthly agenda. So I think it works pretty well there. Uh I'm also looking to empower student voice. So I've already spoken with my uh principal team. We have some ideas. Um as examples, I'll be meeting monthly with our student government officials, which works pretty well as we have student reps uh at every uh board
meeting uh to again keep my finger on the pulse of, you know, how students are feeling and doing uh to hear their perspective. Uh Miss Trigley and I are also working on a climate survey to be provided to our uh students so they can provide some feedback. And uh just to go
back to the uh first parent guardian event, it's already planned for September 23rd, which is the September board meeting. Uh five o'clock, very pleased to share that we have Mr. David Nash uh who is uh an attorney with the New Jersey Principal and Supervisors
Association, one of the experts in the fields of harassment, intimidation, bullying. We're actually having him come for three different events. uh the first to be uh provide a refresher training for our administrators and anti-bullying specialists. Uh he'll also be attending our new staff orientation, do some
training for new staff. Uh we will then see him on September 23rd uh to present to parents and students in terms of all things related to HI and then we'll have him back on November 3rd uh to do a full staff training on one of our professional development days. We're
really excited to have uh David Nash uh join us and uh we're excited to have him present to our our families. Um I had met with a group of parents uh late in the school year last year and um we're going to be using that group um to
continue the trend of uh providing parents with educational opportunities. Uh so I'm looking to be back in touch with that group that we met with and also hear from the group in terms of what might be some topics that they're seeking. um so that it's not top down and we're hearing from our families in terms of what they may be seeking in
terms of uh continuing know their own um familiarity with the district. In terms of the uh second goal, it's to strengthen financial transparency and long-range facility planning. Again, this comes directly from some evaluative feedback. Uh we had this u somewhat
built into a goal um in the uh 2526 school year which was was only partially met. Um so there's still some work to be done. Uh we're very uh eager and very pleased to have Dr. Nick Cararlo join the team here. Um so he'll undoubtedly have a hand in this. Um but in terms of
the long range facility planning has examples the board and community should anticipate a uh facility assessment report. In fact earlier today at 2 o'clock Dr. Sarlo, Mr. Trigley and myself and Mr. Igu met with our architect of record um in terms of developing the five-year long-range
facility plan. But this uh facilities assessment report will provide us with some priorities, potential uh costs so that we can appropriately map out our long range facility planning in terms of how we're using uh our uh capital reserve so that the board is is fully
aware in terms of you know each year uh where we've ended in recent surplus how we are now earmarking that money for for projects that are necessities. Uh naturally this may also involve some uh items that lead into more wish list but the idea here is to have a very clear um
perspective on you know what are our immediate needs in terms of our facilities. Uh the board may be wondering you when was the last time we had a facility assessment. Our records indicate that it was done in 2018. Uh the long range facility plan is a five-year plan. It expired in 2026. It was started in 2021. So, I'm sharing
that because uh these assessments and plans were done prior to my time as superintendent and prior to the time uh of our new architective record. So, it's certainly overdue and I think it'll be a good road map for us um in terms of being transparent uh and moving forward.
Uh other examples uh within this goal uh will be to maintain an accurate and regularly reconciled position control roster commonly referred to as a PCR uh and some you know establishing some consistent reporting protocols so that the board receives uh timely updates on
business office financial matters. We've done some work in that space through our finance committee but again we're looking to kind of expand and make sure that that goal is is fully met. And then lastly in terms of district goal three uh as the board and community know we recently adopted the board adopted a new
uh AI policy and plan. Uh so now the roll out of that plan is is really critical to be successful. So uh goal three is to implement the district's AI policy and plan with fidelity. Uh so the goal is to support a thoughtful and well communicated roll out of the district's newly adopted AI policy and plan
ensuring that staff, students, and families understand expectations and have the training resources that they need uh for responsible use. Uh this may also include developing implementation guidance and procedures aligned to the policy uh providing staff with professional development which I can
tell you we are just light years ahead uh to when I arrived here um in my first year in 2023 in terms of the PD plan. Miss Trigley and supervisory team have done a really excellent job in terms of laying that out. So, uh, we're pretty much all set for our our professional development slate for the year, but
notably in the beginning of the year, um, we'll be sure to push out some AI professional development, uh, in our opening days with staff so that uh, we're clearly communicating, um, you know, what the policies are, kind of dos and don'ts and and then expectations. Uh so we're really excited about this and
um the three goals as a plan uh you know as a whole I think uh you know really important to continue you know the growth of our our students uh both from uh uh student achievement perspective but also uh with their experience and of course we want to hear from students and families along the way and making sure
that the board is fully informed uh in terms of what we're trying to accomplish with these goals. So having said that happy to take any comments or questions or concerns. I have a couple questions. I guess starting backwards.
Um, so I know that our policy and stress trust estimate has given us kind of a guardrail framework, guardrail policy, which I think is, you know, important first step. But I'm also wondering like are we also beginning to talk about what we do here in terms of talking about
integrating into programming uh you know what's not what's our policy but what's our vision for how we're going to integrate AI use into tech spaces into all of our other kind of vocational programs like and that policy is not
going to show up on >> yeah the policy you may recall is is um a bit But uh it's really the plan and then in addition to that the the rollout plan. So the rollout plan has already been developed. Uh you may recall that we had a AI uh integration committee
existing from last year where we had students, staff, families join. Uh we're looking to tap back into that committee to assist a little bit with the roll out. Um but the rollout plan has already been developed. Mr. Trigley again has uh worked diligently in that space along with our administrative team. Uh and the
idea here in terms of attainment of the district goal is to build in some of those major activities from the rollout plan into the action plan. But the rollout plan will be released on September and it's going to help kind of guide the roll out in terms of you know again what the expectations are kind of
dos and don'ts. Um but the it's really the the plan and the roll out plan that are going to to guide this this conversation. Not sure if I answer your question. >> Yeah. I mean I guess closer to English though. Um like are we
going to be is this plan going to result in encouraging teachers to integrate actively integrate AI into the classroom? Will it at some point be evaluative where how much have you integrated AI into your into your classroom like looking down the road that far?
>> Yeah. No, I I don't believe it'll be evaluative. But the idea here is to expose um staff in terms of what the expectations are for appropriate use because it does require them to set u expectations within their own classroom. So naturally we want some consistency on that. Uh but the idea here is to expose
them and we've already been doing some of this work in our previous professional development. Uh just exposing them to some of the great things that can be accomplished with artificial intelligence in the classroom. Um questions. >> Yeah. And and I I guess I I'll yes you
did but I'll just close it with like the way I view AI and I think many people are beginning to view AI is like it's like the computer. So if you had a teacher who refuses to use a computer you know it would be evaluative at some point you got to work computers into
your program. >> Right. So just um for this uh school year because we are rolling out our policy and you know a vision for what we hope we recognize that there's staff who are still kind of sitting all over the
map with their feelings towards AI and the use of right and so our job first is in September we're going to just introduce our our vision what our thought process is what our expectations are like for the K2 world example there is no
student use of artificial intelligence as far as we know like chat GPT right kids are exposed to Google which is AI right so but it's just understanding like if you're using something like a chat GPT these are the parameters that we kind of expect but in that process we
also want to survey the staff and their comfort level and kind of understand where certain staff members land and we're trying to create buckets that would give us like buckets of I don't AI at all. I think I'm an expert, but this
is what I think this means, right? So, just trying to gauge that. And then October and November PD days will be differentiated, meaning like I hate it. I don't want to use it ever. So, then let's put you in a session that kind of shows you the benefits of and ways that
you can use it just to kind of get your feet wet. So, this year is really trying to understand, understand, and gauge where we are. And then moving forward our expect we have to constantly revisit our expectations can change but we aren't forcing anyone to use it just yet but we are expecting that grade levels
communicate with each other. So for example sixth grade ELA teachers across the board if they're going to do a project that is inclusive of AI that they talk to each other and the expectations and the criteria are clear so it's not one person doing one thing and another person doing another. And I
think because there's this whole thing of students use it in um in an appropriate way, it's really understanding what's appropriate and what's not and how to communicate that to the students. So that really is our focus this year. >> Can I ask a follow-up question with regards to student use? Is there a
vision for like how we're going to teach kids how to responsibly use AI? Um and if so, what is that going to look like? >> I think that's part of what we're working toward. I think until we have a really good understanding of where our staff sits with it, it'll help us determine where we want teachers and
students to go with it. So, for example, like we're thinking about streamlining programs that we use, right? Programs that that for example, we have Google Suite for everything. So, really trying to get teachers to be experts in using Gemini rather than a chat GPT. Right?
Here's Gemini. Here's what it offers. So, I think understanding where we are as a district and not trying to bring too much all at once. because everybody has an AI that they love. But I think those are the things, right? We we have to go back to the code of of conduct and what that looks like. And when we talk
about the um students cheating versus not cheating, giving the teachers the understanding of what's appropriate, what's not, what's the outcome, right? Just like everything else, when we talk about student objectives and student outcomes, it's really asking teachers to think about the purpose of what they're setting for
any assignment, what their outcome is, and how it all connects. So I think that's why PD is really important because you know there's prompting there's use the teacher themselves how they're using it versus how they're expecting students to use it are they teaching it how much of it is taking away from our core instruction right
like those are the things that we have to kind of work through and I think we're working on a survey for September to help us gauge where stu teachers will land in October and November >> thank you m um can I ask just a
We are onetoone with programs down to the first grade. >> At what level? >> Sorry. One of the things that we did a couple years ago is we um took Chromebooks away from kindergarten and first grade and gave them iPads >> to kind of make it a little bit easier,
but we do not we tried to limit the use of it because we really came down to um the diagnostic assessments that were technology based. our goal is to have books and writing and and things like that in our elementary world. That's why
we decided K2 just not >> I I guess my my question is is coming from I think that this policy is similar to the one that we did in our district and um it really wasn't contemplated that the lower grades would be exposed to AI
um or would only be exposed if a teacher did something using AI and then presented it to the students that they would have direct access Um, but Chromebooks all run Chrome and Chrome
all has Gemini. Um, you know, you can't do a Google search and not be exposed to AI. Um, and certainly if if we're, you know, it's almost like contradicting each other. So, what what's our plan for that? So I don't want to digress too
much but you know we are purchasing a new ELA program for K5 and that program is not relied upon technology meaning like that is not something that they need to be using on a consistent basis. They should be using the consumables where kids are writing their responses
and things like that. So and they really don't have time for much of anything else. So, we're hoping that because our core program, which social studies is kind of embedded in that, lends itself away from the technology use, we won't
really have that issue. >> Yeah, definitely things to think about. This might be digressing a little too much into this AI conversation, but and I'm illiterate about all this stuff, but I found out from like a college student that because I was like, how does the school know if you're cheating if you're
using AI? And she said that they have a a scanner or some kind of scanning system. Is that something that we're going to like need to implement possibly or like a cost associated with having to now watch out for AI or I'm not any free
programs that teachers use currently. We haven't purchased anything for that just yet. >> There's there is no real reliable scanner. There's plagiarism detectors, right? And the plagiarism detectors have all >> kind of merged towards
detecting AI. >> Gotcha. >> There's no way to prove that. >> Okay. I did want to say something. Sorry. Sorry. Um off of the AI. Um but back to the number one uh goal over here about
deepening the two-way engagement. Um I did want to comment. I think it's a great idea, Dr. that you're that you decided to do these events on the same night as the board of ed meeting so that people can show up. I think that's a great idea. So, >> thank you. And uh it's also >> we can show up at the events.
>> It's also important to note uh I >> that in terms of supporting our multilingual families, we're also engaging in conversations with our supervisor of uh of ML and world language uh in terms of canvasing or surveying our families in terms of what
they need and also looking into the purchase of how would you describe that the purchase of u translation devices at these events >> and also for our board meetings. who uh our ESL supervisor language supervisor talked at length with um I forget the
name of the company but they offer services where in real time it could translate our board of ed meetings in Spanish so anyone can join there might be other languages in addition to Spanish not I don't remember which one it was but we do have a quote and we
could use title fundings for that title three funding which would be you know tremendous and so these are some of the things that we're looking to do and also um devices for real time conferences and things like that, CST meetings, central office registration and things of that sort so that you know if there is
another language that's spoken that we don't have a translator for, we can use this in real time um and it'll assist with communication. >> Thank you. >> I you beat me to it, Col. Um but um no like these it's obvious that you
um took time and there's like a logic behind every single goal. Um and the fact that you're connecting um the the first goal like the family engagement and community night before the board meeting um to me I was like whoa. I was
super impressed. It's like you're working with us. We're working together to move this district forward even more. Thank you. You're not just giving us goals to give us goals. >> I guess um will the will the how will you bring the community in on our long
range facilities planning or on increasing uh you know we we had some parents who came out and said where are my tax dollars and made comments like that. I know we've raised taxes already twice in the past two years. how we how will we bring the public into our plan? >> Thanks. Yeah, I mean I think a few
things come to mind. One with a platform uh such as the events prior to the board meetings, you know, that we can certainly build in some, you know, facility updates into that as a as a talking point, but also I do the state of the district presentation in September. So hopefully folks remain after the HIP uh event with uh David
Nash. And when I do my state of district presentation, I always provide an update on all things related to facilities and the progress I've made with pictures and um also just in terms of uh any updates of my uh goals again being in November
um January and March um you know I can speak to you know the development related items. So I think there's a few platforms that we can include these things also on our social media. you know, the parking lot full of all the roofing material and things like that. People know where
their tax. We're going to begin our board retreat now very late and thank you so much for your patience and we are going to excuse the superintendent, the assistant superintendent and the BA and we promise to take time uh for the BA notes.
Thank you. Yes, thank you. >> I want to sending it give you a place to start. Don't feel like you have >> we >> we're running two hours uh well an hour
and a half behind. So, let's get started. >> Okay. Hi everybody. >> Hi. >> Hi everybody. I'm Marissa with New Jersey School Board Association. I am your field service representative. It's my second time here. Um tonight what we're going to be doing, everybody has a
packet. All right. We're going to go through a presentation about the eight characteristics of effective school boards. Um, this is a presentation I've given probably like seven or eight times so in like the last couple of months. Every time I do it with a board, it
comes out differently. And the reason for that is you're going to connect with things within this um that other boards may not. And that's the goal here. I'm also going to encourage you to ask questions during it. If we're going to have conversation, let's have conversation during it. Don't hold your
questions. Don't save them. Um, it's part of the point of this is to have those conversations and understand where you are in that kind of stuff. Okay. In your packet, you have a copy of the presentation.
You have um this form here, getting to know you. This is an icebreaker. I'm going to skip this this evening with your permission due to the timing. Um, however, I want to tell you, hold on to it. And if you have a the opportunity at one of your board meetings to take the 15 minutes, 20 minutes to do this, the
purpose behind this is that you would break up into um groups of two with a board member that you don't normally work with or sit next to. And you go through this and it's like a little interview. And I promise you, it is a really great opportunity to get to know
um other board members. And one of the things we're going to talk about tonight is in order to work well together and be more cohesive, you really need to understand where your board your fellow board members are coming from. Everybody has different ways of looking at things and different um wise and different
perceptions and things like that. I this is always pretty impressive when I do this with the boards at the time. Uh because the individual who does the interview, right, you're interviewing each other back and forth then gives a
um basically gives a uh sorry late gives a feedback to the board to introduce the board member that they interview. It's just it is really good because you connect in a way and and nine times out of 10 I hear I had no idea about this. I
had no idea about that. And it also asks for your why. So, I'm going to encourage you to hold on to it and that hopefully you get an opportunity to do it because it really is a great exercise. Um the there's a few other things in there. Anything on the left side if you're facing open your
thing. These are just supportive documents. Um so you can look at them at your at your leisure. And then on the stuff on the right we're going to go through one is the presentation and the other thing comes down to at the end we'll go through your district goals and board goals from mostly the board goals what we're focusing on from last year and we'll talk about going forward. The
presentation this evening is is based on a study done by the center for public education through national schoolboard association. It's the eight characteristics of effective school boards. So if you want to go on to that site you can always pull that up and
read the whole thing. But what this is based on tonight, this presentation. So, I want you to know that. All right. So, here we go. First, we're going to go right there.
There we go. Okay. So, we're going to start off with talking about board members as individuals before we get into working as a team. Okay. And what what we're looking for the price of greatness is responsibility. And responsibility starts with you. So, you as yourself
have to be a good board member in order to then work well together. Um so, effective board members make effective boards as individual board members. You put your students needs first. You focus on student achievement and continuing growth. Um, ensure your decisions are
based on the needs of your students, not party affiliation or political ideology. Remember, you represent all of the students in your district and uh be a great role model for your students, staff, parents, and community. So, obviously, you're always being watched
when you're working as a board member, but you're also being watched when you're not sitting here at this table. So, that's just something to remember. Um, you know, you're always being considered to be a board member. Okay. as individual board members, be aware of your body language. So, when
you're sitting here, um, how many people here take watch your recordings? Okay. Okay. So, what I'm going to recommend that you do if you have one where you have a lot of people come in and and nobody wants to do this. I don't watch
myself either. I fully get it. Nobody wants to do it. But just something to think of your body language, especially when it's a three-hour meeting and you have comment after comment after comment, you can't respond and you know, you're kind of getting pummeled. That's
what happens. Uh most times the public shows up when they're not happy. It's rare that you have a full room just to say what a great job you're doing. Right? That's the nature of being a board member. So, and again, I don't I said it last time, but just I should
remind you. I sat in your seat. I was a board member for nine years. I completely understand what you go through. Um it's it's a tough job. It could be a thankless job, but obviously it's rewarding when you see uh the effect that you have and you do have a
major effect on the district. Just a lot of times people don't realize it. Again, they only come usually when there's something wrong. So on nights like this when you have nobody here, you're obviously doing something right. Okay. But being aware of your body language, it's hard. It's hard. sit for three
hours of of public comment and and no matter what you do, if you smile, somebody's going to read into that. If you don't smile, if you sit there with a straight face, all of these things have impacts. But just do yourself a favor if you if you have the opportunity, just check it out or be aware of yourself
every once in a while. Put a little note on your um computer that's reminds you to take a look at yourself and check yourself. Um and I know it's difficult, just something to think about. be be attentive to the motions of discussion. Rephrase what the person has stated if
you do not understand. When you do that, be careful how you rephrase it. Do not rephrase it with um judgment, right? Rephrase because sometimes you may not be understanding what you're hearing and you don't want it to come off as an attack, but you do need to understand
it. When you're listening to somebody, somebody's during commentary or during um you know, when somebody's doing a motion, whatever the case may be, be aware to listen, not to respond, which is what we usually do. We're preparing. What is our response going to be? Just
listen. Take your time. Don't rush. Um prepare your comment after. And that's because a lot of times we're so busy, we heard something and we're so busy getting ready, we don't hear the rest of the comment. um or we don't understand where they're from. Just something to think about. Avoid cell phone or
electronic devices during the meeting. Um I might have said this last time I was here, but I feel like I say it all the time. Um if you have Okay, let me just start by saying we all know that you get a giant check at the end of the week for this job you do, right? So before you go cash that
zero check, um I just want you to be aware everybody has jobs. Some of us have children and all that kind of stuff. So when I sat on my board, I always had my phone with me because my children were with babysitters at that point in time. But if I were sitting on
a board today, my daughter's in college. Either way, doesn't matter where they are on the on, you know, on the the spectrum of of time, um, it's important to you and that's fine. But if your phone rings or you get a text that you must take care of, excuse yourself and
take it and leave the room. It's really important. The other thing is don't scroll on your phone. Don't reply to a text at the table. Don't look through your computer. Um, I have watched it happen where somebody over there is is texting or doing something and somebody over here is looking at designs for
their house because they're not engaged in the meeting. Again, not you guys. I'm just saying two two separate sides of the room. Um, and if you're redesigning your house, I apologize. Uh but my point is to the public it appears that you're having side
conversation and then that opens up another problem. Okay. So yes, you have a life and you have responsibilities and if you need to deal with them you should but you need to take them away from the table if that happens. Um it's the perception of what the public sees and
um you don't want any issues there. Okay. um look at and be interested even after three hours. Apologize when appropriate. You if you misheard something or you are quick sometimes we
get very passionate about what we're doing and you should because that's why you're here, right? Because you passionate about student achievement and the students and everything else and that's a good thing. Um but if you feel like you know you need to pull it back, it's okay to say I'm sorry. It's okay to say, "Oh, wait a minute. Let me check
myself." Be vulnerable. Being vulnerable is not a bad thing. Okay. Um and what happens in executive session stays in executive session. Um understand your roles and responsibility. Conduct yourself with respect and
civility. Actively listen to others with an open mind. We just talked about that. Um imagine the other person's point of view. It's also why that is such a great opportunity before we go into this because when we do the icebreaker, you really get an idea. Wait, I didn't
realize that. I didn't know they had that in their background. Now I better understand why they're so worried about this when we talk about it. Um, so that's kind of important. Uh, be inclusive rather than exclusive. Be aware of your own implicit biases. We all have them. Take advantage of professional development as an
individual. And that's that offered by school boards, but any other way that you have uh that you you know any other professional development. If someone comes to you with an issue, use the chain of command, right? Everybody knows that. Do you have that on your website? A lot of districts do have the chain of
command on their website. Um, and basically it's just telling the public and you would follow the same. If somebody comes to you with an issue about a teacher, refer them back to their to the principal first. They should go to the teacher or the individual and then to the teach to the
principal and work their way up. You obviously should not get involved in that. The reason for that is as soon as you get involved, you don't even want to know the facts. So once you do, if it was to elevate to the board level, you now need to recuse yourself because you've gotten involved
in the situation. The other thing is it undermines the authority of your administration and your teachers. People will feel the need to go right to the top and you want to discourage that. You want them to go through the chain of command. listen, acknowledge the best
way to assist them um is to refer them back. Refer them to the lowest level in the chain of command. All that stuff we talked about. Also, if that were to happen, let your superintendent know. The reason for that is so that they're always prepared. And when we The biggest thing you'll hear me say tonight, um and I say through every presentation I do,
no surprises at the table, no surprises to the board, from the superintendent or administration, and no surprises from the board to the superintendent. You can let them both know, but the reason I say the superintendent because that's where it's going to end up, right? If there's an they need to know
if there's something brewing in the school. It may never get to their desk, but it could. And that way they're not surprised. Does that make sense? I guess an example would be when something jumps off on Facebook or you
know there people are gathering the pitchforks >> anything like that anything because that's not something you're going to get nobody came to you on that right that's something that you're seeing happen usually So, okay. So, if it's social media, I'm going to go through both. If somebody
personally came up to you, you can just you can make the call if it's if whatever your board norms are, and all boards handle things differently. I'm assuming it's not happening every day. I'm assuming it's going to happen a handful of times at their time on the board. And that's why I say let the superintendent know directly. The point
is not to involve everybody on the board, but just making the superintendent aware that this is brewing that or that there was an issue and you referred them back. The reason for that is should that person go to the principal, the teacher, whatever, and now say, "Well, I spoke to Mary and
she's on the board and she told me you shouldn't have done that." That protects you because you've gone to the superintendent to say, "Hey, I had this conversation. This is what I recommended." It's It's kind of being ahead of it. Um because sometimes people will read into,
well, I think she really agreed with me because I could just tell the look in her eye and then it turns into something else, you know? I mean, there's only so much that you can do from from that perspective and they want the support. Um, and then also maybe eight times out of 10, it's going to turn into nothing. It's just making sure that your
superintendent's not surprised because if your superintendent then hears it from the teacher and the teacher works their way up to the superintendent and says, "Well, apparently there was a board member involved and they were like completely behind this and told this person I was wrong." That's what you're trying to get ahead of when it comes to
social media. Um, stay off it, right? Stay off it from You can review it all you want and I do think that's a good idea because you kind of get an idea of what's brewing. Again, if there's an issue, that's usually where you're going to see it first. Something to keep in mind, just because it's blowing up on
social media, doesn't mean it's a major problem. You get a lot of the same people in there and then it turns into like a telephone game where everything changes. So, take it with a grain of salt, but also be aware of it. Make sure your superintendent's aware of it
because chances are they're not looking at that and they're not in that group. Most importantly, do not comment. don't comment. You know, um you will never win because you'll be dealing with facts and they deal with non-facts, right? The people that are looking to make a
problem. You just want your superintendent to be aware because if it is a bigger problem and they need to address it, they can address it in the proper way as opposed to social media. Again, you will never win on social media. Um one thing I say with that, especially with the
elementary, you'll see it start. Are we going to get a snow day? think we're gonna have a snow day. I think I heard we're gonna have a snow day, but we didn't get a call. Why didn't we get a call? I heard that district got a call. What's happening? And you know there's not going to be a snow day tomorrow. Or maybe you don't. Whatever, right? Stay out of it. Don't respond. Everybody knows. If you want the details, go to
the website. But this is how it plays out. Don't don't take the bait because that's what's going to happen. And at the end, you know, even you know, somebody will I promise you somebody's going to go out there and give the right information and somebody's going to give the wrong information. So it's all going to be out there. It's what people choose to follow
and believe. Of course, the school social media, that's fine. Let that run. You know, sometimes people will do that. It's been put on school social media and then copy it over to, you know, the mom's group in Facebook. But in all honesty, I highly recommend you just
stay out of it. Okay. Um, okay. Realize that none of us know everything. Uh, even though the public thinks you know everything. They think you know every single thing about every student in this school. Just remember that. Okay.
Um, ask questions when appropriate. You can disagree without t attacking the individual and avoid criticizing or embarrassing someone in public. And that goes to obviously um here at the at the table that we're referring to. I'm going
to throw something in here that I just picked up in a training session in Idaho a couple weeks ago. Um, and there's a lot of um, information coming out down the pike about conflict with boards because there's a lot of that happening. There's a lot of
dysfunctional boards. There's a lot of political stuff coming into the the the school boards and it's getting more and more difficult, ugly, and things like that. So, when it comes to the board voting and making decisions and you have discussion on a topic, okay, a couple of
things. One thing is um you you operate with committees, right? So, it's it's good and the public often doesn't know that before something even gets on the agenda, it's been vetted through a committee, the board has reviewed the notes. Everything's kind of played out.
So, sometimes it appears to the public that you're just yesing everything, right? It is okay that if you for you and and this is maybe deard um as some people would say, but it's okay for you to ask a relevant question even though you all
know it for the sake of the public, right? Um you're not going to be surprising your superintendent or your administration, they're going to be able to answer it. But if you think there's something in there that is going over the public's head because you've already had been privy to all this information, don't hesitate to do that. I mean, don't
do it all the time. That's not the point. The point is if you know it's something that's controversial, people are going to have questions about something that you would think was an issue if you were, you know what I mean, don't be afraid to do that. That's fine. Um, the other thing I would recommend is when you go around for discussion, when
you're voting on something, if this is a an issue that you know the board is going to have some disagreements on, um, and obviously the board functions as a group of one, right? you're one body when you're all together and you go with the majority opinion. I recommend that
you don't just go with the majority opinion. Consider consensus. So if you have a minority group that is completely against something and then you have a majority group that is for it, it's okay after you go around and understands everybody's position before you finalize your vote to try to understand what is
the major issue for the people that are in the minority because there could be just a piece in there that incorporated into what you're deciding or how you're moving forward will make everybody comfortable. So, it's just something
it's consensus building. And again, consensus building is going to go down to uh understanding each other and where you all come from and understanding why. And sometimes it's not going to happen. Sometimes you're just going to completely be on opposite um sides of of an issue. And that's okay, too. Respect
it. It's part of the job of being on the board. And whatever the majority of the board decides on, that is the decision that the board has to back. Okay. Um there'll be more coming down the road. I have a lot of uh information coming out in creating some presentations on
consensus building and that kind of stuff. So stay tuned for that. One of my goals this year um okay communicate with the committee chair and that administrative leaison if unable to attend committee meeting. Um come
prepared for committee meetings having reviewed the agenda and attachments beforehand. Communicate with the board president and or VA if you will be late or unable to attend a board meeting and come prepared to the board meetings having asked questions beforehand. Being prepared makes everyone look good. So if
you have meetings where we go through roll call poll and you call out a name and there's no response, right? It's okay and then we move on to the next. It's it's a good thing for the board president or an individual to say, "Oh, they can't make it this evening." You
don't have to give a reason why. You know, you can if they want, but the reason for that is otherwise it kind of appears like, oh, just didn't show up. They're just not here. Don't let the public feel that. Make sure you know that it's um it it appears that you are
all functioning as a team, right? And the same thing goes if you know somebody's going to be running late and you do the roll call. They're running a little behind. They'll be here in 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. just so the public knows if they walk in late, it's not like, "Oh, that one
didn't show up on time. There's another one." Right? You kind of want to make help everybody look good. That being said, if you're not going to be here or you're going to be late, make sure somebody knows because otherwise they're going to you're going to you're going to be out there because nobody's going to speak up for you, right? And and that
does happen on board. I know a few that they just don't know if they're going to have a quarum. Um so, and again, that's a respect. It's a respect for each other. Even if you don't agree with another board member's perspective or where they're coming from, you have
to agree that you're all here putting in the time um without the benefits and pay that everybody thinks that you're getting. Um so you're here for a reason and everybody is here for the students. You again, you might be coming at it from different angles, um but
everybody's here for the students. So work to build a consensus which we just talked about some ideas on how to do that. Realize the importance of a board decision making u process I realize that you may be in the minority opinion from time to time and when a majority of the
board votes to support A it's time to stop lobbying for B. Example don't bring up at the next meeting because you think that the rest of the group didn't understand what you're trying to say. Even within the same meeting, don't keep going over the topic again and again and
again. When you're preparing for the meeting, if you think you're going to get resistance and you think you're going to be in the minority, prepare your argument. Be conise, be clear, excuse me, be specific because you have a few minutes to make that point. If you don't make
that point, and you may make it, they may get it. But you have to accept the fact that that opportunity was your opportunity. And don't keep bringing it up. Unless a couple of months down the road things have changed drastically and you need to revisit something, that's a different a
different story. But don't assume one little thing changes. Um when a decision has been made, respect the board's decision and support it. That's really important. There you go. No surprises. uh we talked about this uh from the board to the superintendent
or the superintendent to the board. When you have questions on an agenda, how do you handle that? If you get the agenda packet and you have a question, what do you do, board president? And then okay, so you have a timeline to cut that
off, right? What happens after that timeline? after a time where you know it's not a hard cut off. If a board member has uh a specific question, an important question, they're still given time. >> Okay. >> To retest the superintendent.
>> Do you respond with answers or does the superintendent respond with answers prior to the meeting or are they answered at the meeting? >> Prior to the meeting as much as possible. >> Okay. So, something to think of. I would do a card cuto off. Um what's today? Thursday. Do you meeting
on Thursday night? >> We usually get the agenda. Uh the board gets the agenda on a Friday >> and a Friday before the meeting which is on a Wednesday. >> Okay. >> So usually by >> Sunday or Monday >> Sunday night or Monday midday. >> So I whatever your whatever your cuto off date is it should be respectful of
the administration to be able to pull together those answers if they're responding right. Um and this is a good example right? If you have multiple board members asking the same question that's a great opportunity for one of those conversations when the board is discussing it. If a couple of you all had the same question and you got your
answer, public might have the same question, too. So, it might be still one that you want to bring up even though you're aware of what the outcome's going to be, right? Um, just for the public to know that you all have the same concerns. Um, but that being said, you should have a a a deadline whether it's
Tuesday night, five o'clock, whatever. And then anything after that, still take the questions right up to the last minute. If you have questions and you know, don't be afraid that you're reading that packet the morning of the meeting. It happens. We all have a life and everything else. Don't be
embarrassed by that. Get that question to your administration or through your president, whatever your board, whatever your process is so that at least when you ask the question that evening, your administration is ready to answer it. Otherwise, you lose that opportunity because you might not get that answer till the next meeting or it might
disrupt the ability to vote on. So, my point is have a deadline where you're going to get your responses, but then the questions can still come. But just understand you're going to be more likely to get that answer at the meeting. Okay? Just respect each other.
Okay? So, now we're going to go into how that was talking about how you behave individually as board members. Now, we're going to talk about how you're working together. Um, school boards in high achieving districts exhibit approaches and characteristics that are markedly different from boards in low achieving districts.
Um, this is just something to contemplate as we go through this. What kinds of things do you think school boards do to influence student achievement? That is your main role as a board member. And
if you always go back to the question of whatever's on the table that you're trying to decide what's the best thing for the students, you'd be surprised how easily you can come together on a consensus. Right? Remember when you're doing that, you're thinking of what's
best for the students, not what's best for what the parents think best for the students. Right? That's why you're here. You're a diverse group with that decision making power. Not saying don't take their thoughts into consideration because that's why we have public comment and that's very important and obviously their children. But all those
things considered the school and the board has to look at everybody and if you're getting a loud group of parents to a specific group that might not be the best thing for all the students in the district. So, just some things to think of. And sometimes it's hard
because you want to hear, you know, the squeaky wheel, right? And then you're worried, we're all saying this, maybe I should rethink my and and you should you should always reconsider what you're thinking. Um, but at the end of the day, your answer has to be what's best for the student body overall. Okay? And if
you do that, it'll be a lot easier to uh come to a consensus. All right? We're going to go through these. There's eight characteristics. the the numbers you're going to see within your thing are not in numerical order because we kind of group them by category. So this is vision and belief
um effective here. Okay. Effective school boards commit to a vision of high expectations for student achievement and quality instruction and define clear goals towards that vision.
Effective boards have strong shared beliefs and values about what's possible for students and their ability to learn and the system and its ability to teach all children at high levels. uh boards in the studies feel internal urgent desire to improve adopted vision
statements committed to success for all students. Use statements frequently in public and staff presentations. So you should be making sure everybody knows what your vision is. First of all, you should know what your vision is. Um they refuse to make excuses for poor performance or blame external factors
and believe that staff was capable of improving results and would need to change in structural classroom practices to make that happen. Okay, before we go on to goals, is everybody familiar with your mission? And do you have a vision statement?
>> I have a mission vision statement, but I'm thinking out loud that I don't have it committed to memory. >> Okay. >> And I probably want to add it to the tagline of my email so that I see it. >> Exactly. Right. So, the blue paper in
your packet gives your district mission. It's long, so I don't expect you to be able to me remember it or recite it, but what you do want to do is make sure that you're aware of it and that it's tied to the decisions that you're making and that the board supports it. Um, vision
statements tend to be very uh short and they should be based on what a kindergartener could recite to be perfectly honest with you. It's what drives you and it's where you want to be. The vision is where you're going. Okay? Um, and that's your direction.
and that that could help you make your decisions, right? But most importantly, every single one of you should be able to have an elevator speech, right? That two minute heads up is what makes this district so great.
As board members, you should know what makes your district great. Um, so it's just something to bounce around to think about. But if you were put on the spot, somebody comes up to you in the public and says, "Hey, why is he what what do you think that this pool does so well? You should have that answer. You should
believe in that as you sit on this board. It's very important. Usually, it's a vision statement and and that's what you would start with. Um where we're moving after this budget cycle, you're probably well aware. The public's going to want to know more and more
about what's happening in the district, right? So, if you go back several years ago when we used to have every budget voted on, um is there anybody here through that >> where the town votes for the budget, >> right? Where it wasn't a 2% cap that
goes to Richmondville Park opted to take that away from the citizens by moving the election from April to November. Those boards of education that continue to vote for their board members in April have the right to vote on the budget.
When I was president, we knocked the community knocked the budget down. We had to have joint meetings between the school board and the board of commissioners, which is part of the process to get a budget passed so that the school district could function.
Personally, I think it was a great miscarriage of justice to take the voting away from the citizens. >> Okay. So what happens is if your uh budget is voted down right by the
public back then it actually went to the town the Okay. Right. So okay mayor and council then makes a decision on what your budget said. The reason a lot of districts went away and were happy with a 2% cap and
and plus your waiverss, etc., is because if it's voted down, it is now in the it's out of your hands. Um, and you lose control of it. So, there's pros and cons to both sides. Um but the 2% path is not going to sustain the districts um going
forward if health care costs keep going and the costs keep being driven in the manner that they're driven. Right? The other problem districts have is if you weren't um if you're not raising your taxes by your maximum which would be the
2% plus your waiverss, right? Because we know it's not 2%. It's a lot more than that when you take in the waivers you get for additional student enrollment or healthcare waiverss etc. Um there are school boards that want to keep the public happy and not raise it. You just
need to be careful when you do that because you don't have a savings account as a district, right? So when you do that and you keep cutting yourself short, eventually you're using um you you're running out. You can't you just can't sustain it, right? Um, most
negotiations go higher than 2% for your staff increases. Um, so when you think about that being one of your largest costs, then add in healthcare benefits for your staff, at some point you're continuing to pull right from your ability to just
curriculum and things like that, never mind, you know, building, you know, building uh repairs and improvements. So, just something to consider when you're making those decisions when it comes to budgets, and we can talk about that in much more detail at another time, but look at your history. Make your decision based on not just what's
happening today, but on what's going forward. And my purpose of this conversation was about you will soon need to be able to answer questions to the public on the finance side. Okay? And you're going to need to know why you're so good at the district and why
you deserve all that taxpayer money when it comes to the town and making the decision for you on your budget. Um, my experience has been, and I'm not saying this is your district, I mean, your town, but the town tends to say, "Hey, the reason the taxes are so high, if you
ask the mayor and council, is because of the school. That's where all your tax money go, right?" Um, so you need to be able to explain why that's a good thing. And it is a good thing. It is a good thing, right? Because we all know that our value in our homes, what is the first thing people do when they're
looking for a home in a district? How's the school? How's the school? That even if you're not have children, how's the school? Because that drives your real estate um value. Just some things to think about. You will need to be that good. You will need to know. You'll be able
have to answer quickly when asked what's so great about your district and you need to passionately be able to expand on that. And then we'll talk separately about finance. You need to be well aware of what's happening on a finance level. Okay. Let's go back to the presentation.
I have a >> um going back to the um district mission, is it appropriate or inappropriate to maybe create a poster and have it like here in the library or something?
>> Of course. Um you you would you want to make sure that it's available to everybody, not that you know it yourself, you can put it on I I don't necessarily think it makes a difference. You can put it on your agendas. And again, it's why I always push the vision
because the vision is so much easier, >> right? Not that the mission isn't important because it is, but the vision is just quicker to say, quicker to constantly it becomes, be honest with you, your vision is your brand. So, I want you to think about you're going to be marketing your district. And that's what it all comes down to. you are going
to be out there selling your district if you have to go to vote on your budget. And in all honesty, you should. The the schools tend to be the center of a community. There is a um division now a little bit, right, for people that don't use the schools,
even though it's still the center of your community. Maybe they're not as in touch. You want to make sure that the whole community knows the value that you bring to your community because even My guess is that the wreck groups end up using your school and there's, you know,
you're tied in a lot of different ways to your community that they may not be aware of now because they're kind of separated. You want to make sure your your community knows how good your school is, what you do great, and why it's so important and why they should all support it. You want to do that before
you have to go out and ask for money. You want to you want to make sure that they're they're bought into, you know, and understand the importance, not And and it is it's not this isn't a game. This is a reality. It's just not in front of them, right? You're not you're
not, you know, playing a game with them. It there is value here. They just may not be aware of it and you need to make them aware of it. Okay. Um so study had goals that change I'm sorry change in achievement required fundamental changes in instructional practices. So goals
focus on improved achievement and instruction. So your goals need to should be something focused on student achievement. First of all, everything you do comes down to student achievement. I have boards that say your question you should be asking yourself at the end of the evening reviewing your agenda. What did I do today for the
students? Literally look at your agenda, take five minutes and think, what on here impacted the students? I'm going to be honest with you, you should be able to find something on every single thing that you did that impacts the student because they do. You just need to be able to understand it and tie it back to it. Okay. um if you're putting a new
roof on, how does that affect the students? Well, a student sitting in a leaked classroom isn't going to be able to learn. So, yeah, that roof is important to the students. So, there's your example. Um detailed knowledge of relationship of goals to curriculum,
instruction, and assessment. Uh remain top priorities. No, uh detractors or attention or resources expected to see results quickly as a result of improvement efforts. So, one thing that You should be asking especially during
your budget process, right? If you have a goal, you should be asking this obviously during your goal. If we're going to implement these things, are these sustainable? I heard tonight you're talking about changing curriculum, right, to pay to buy for English. Is it sustainable? Are you
going to be able to continue to purchase the items necessary to continue that curriculum? Um because obviously if you can't, that's a problem. So those are the questions. And I'm not saying that they can't. They haven't answered the question. I'm just saying those are the things that need to go into your head
because we're no longer in a world of what are our wish lists. It's what do we need? There are no wish list anymore in in this time. All right. So your goals need to align with that stuff and you need to support those goals. Um our so this is just something for you to
reflect on. Question is our board has established a written vision that commits to student achievement as the top priority of school board, staff and community. And then the question is where are you? We don't want to do that right now. Just something to think about. Um, and it's something you if you don't have the vision
set, it's something you may want to do and you could do that as a board working with your administration and come up with something. Again, it's branded. Our vision is clearly articulated and known to all stakeholders in the community. By the way, you are not required to have a vision, but you are
required to have it. Um, so you could always sub this out for your mission statement and based on what we just said, you know, there probably could be some work for that, but my perspective is if you have a vision that that kind of encompasses the direction of your
mission, it's a little bit easier to remember and it's a little bit easier to share. So, how do we know that the district's vision and mission reflect the student achievement, expectations, and needs of the community? and how do we foster and guide community dialogue about the vision for our students in schools?
Again, that's the sharing. These are things to contemplate. We don't have to answer these this even, but feel free if you have any questions. It is something you may want to put on your list of things to have a conversation about at some point. Okay. Uh effective school boards are accountabilitydriven, spending less time on operational issues
and more time focused on policies to improve student achievement. Effective boards are data savvy. They embrace and monitor data even when the is negative and use it to drive continuous improvement. Um I my background
um at one point was of being a compensation specialist for uh Fiser and at the time there was only a few of us and I could tell you there was data up and down like I had so much data to review ridiculous. So anybody that works with data knows you can tell whatever story you want with that data. It all
depends on how you spin it. The key here is if you have and I hear this obviously in all the districts our scores are no good, our test score are abysmal, how are we going to improve and stuff like that. Don't judge the data. Let the data drive what you're going to do. Don't get
caught up in, oh, they just keep coming back with issues. Um, know your the question isn't why is the data why are the test scores so low? That's not your question. The question is what are we doing to improve those test scores and how are we breaking down those groups?
because the you know if you're looking at your whole numbers of test score and everything's intertwined you're not finding out there could be one group in there pulling you down and there might be a good reason for that and more importantly maybe it's easier to focus on that group that's pulling it down and
the other ones are okay so it's a matter of how you're managing that data that's the point of this and there's a story um I think they used to tell it the old governance one training um about I'm gonna really mess this up, but I'm going
to go with it anyway. Um, there's an ice cream u manufacturer professional. He has his own ice cream. They the best in the country, etc., etc., okay? And he makes ice cream, but he decides to get interested in school boards and now engaged in public
education and making schools run more efficiently, like a business model, yada yada yada. and he'd go out and he'd give all these presentations on how the school district would just do so much better if they listened to him and they ran it as a as a business because his business was so successful and his ice cream is the best ice cream there is and
nobody's going to deny that. And he was in a in a giving a presentation and a teacher stood up and said, "Okay, let's talk about it. What's your best flavor?" Just say blueberry. My blueberry ice cream's the best. People for it. Everybody wants it. There's not a better blueberry ice cream out there. And then
she says, "Okay, great. How do you pick your ingredient?" Well, we only have the best ingredient. I get the best cream right from the cow. 24 hours old. I get the best sugar. I get the best blueberries. We go through those blueberries. We handp pick those blueberries and we pull out all the blueberries that are no good. Okay,
great. Then she says, "That's wonderful. And that's how you run your business and you make great ice cream." And that's great. Unfortunately, we don't pick our blueberries. We get all students, regardless of whether they're mushy blueberries, um, you know, not ripe blueberries. You
have to take all of your students in consideration. You don't have the luxury of treating this like a business and throwing out the bad blueberries. You can't throw away. So, it's just something to remember when you're doing this because you will hear this from the public. You will think it sometimes if you're a business person,
you'll hear, especially if you have a finance person on your board. It's it's the go always remember that you don't get to pick and choose who comes in here. You have to teach all your students and they all deserve the same um level of education and uh respect and
all those other pieces. So, just just remember that when you look at those scores, um it's not necessarily that there's something wrong with your blueberries. You just have to figure out how to work with those blueberries. Okay? Um and use your data to do that and make sure your administrations look at it at it that way. boards and studies
clearly describe current levels of student performance could describe in detail the type of data used regularly moni monitor data and discussed at meetings and use data to diagnose problem and take corrective action. Um so again it comes down to the right
questions when you're looking at that data and you're not solving that problem. You're at a governance level that you are asking your administration to tell you how they're going to solve it. Right? Your questions are are geared towards what are they going to do to move this along. Why are we having these
issues? Where are they? And how do we break it down so that we do the best thing possible for the students? Boards in the study held themselves and superintendent accountable for student performance progress, took policy roles seriously, developed policy supporting instructional reforms, and focused on
decisions that supported improved achievement rather than day-to-day operations. So, which statement best applies here uh for you? Do you frequently monitoring achievement and progress toward district goals or B hearing annual progress reports on
achievement. So there's going to be two things that you're looking at here. You have your district goals and you have your board goals. Do you get and you don't have to answer do you get regular progress reports on
your district goal? Okay. Um if you they're in your packet probably towards the back of the supplemental material. Second last one, you'll see something like this, the board responsibilities. This is a usually a school board 12
month agenda planning. Okay, everybody should have this and you should keep it handy in with your board stuff all the time. And if you look at it by month, you'll know what you should be expecting on your agenda for that month. Um, and you'll see that built into that are
uh goal updates. When you're getting updates on your district goals, you should also be doing updates on your board goals and where are you? And again, it's okay. First of all, you are not you are required to have district goals, but you are not required to have board goals. Board goals will make you
more efficient, uh more effective, and okay. Um, so things to uh remember if goals are fluid, okay, goals can change.
Remember COVID, right? When COVID came about, certainly nobody prepared for that. And I can guarantee you there are plenty of districts that did not meet any of their goals that they had planned prior to COVID. Doesn't mean that they didn't do an amazing job and step up and and and do phenomenal on a bunch of other things. So always keep that in
mind. Sometimes the goals have to change a little bit. Um, but even yourself monitoring it and accepting it. Don't judge it. The only reason you should judge it is if you aren't looking at them because what's the sense of creating goals? Just to look at them at the end to see, well, okay, we didn't do them. Well, you didn't do them because
you weren't able to look at them, right? You weren't able to see your progress. And if you look like you can't get it done, it's okay. Just as long as you keep working towards it. Sometimes we don't make it by the deadline. Doesn't make you a bad group of people. Remember that paycheck you get at the end, right,
of of the month. Um, okay. It's in the mail. There you go. Um, what role do uh student achievement results play in evaluation of the superintendent? Um, how does the board evaluate itself in terms of student achievement? And
what are the systems rewards and consequences for success and failure? All right. So, okay. Um, New Jersey, uh, school board association has the board self-evaluation. Have you ever done that?
Okay. So, that will incorporate it. There's a bunch of different pieces in there that ask those questions. Remember, everything ties back to student achievement, right? um if you're keeping the facilities up, if you're doing the things that you need to do, but but more importantly, you
evaluate the superintendent, and there's definitely factors in there that look at student achievement. You can tie some of your goals. Um personally, I would say if you're reviewing data and you're evaluating your superintendent on the student achievement, right, with your data and
seeing progress, you're doing your job. That is part of it. um it doesn't necessarily have to be tied into your specific board goal. But the other thing too, if this board is running as a cohesive board and an effective board and you're making
decisions that move student achievement along, and again remember most if not everything on your agenda should tie back to student achievement, that's your answer. I would recommend if you really want to track it, not to give your administration more work, but something to consider that I recommend for boards
when you come up with your board goals, uh you're going to categorize like uh BG1, BG2, BG3, your board goals, your district goals, DG1 and B1, B2, D3. Anything on your agenda that would apply to those goals can just be coded. You
can go back over your ne over your year agendas and see how many times was there something related to a goal, right? Is there some anytime something on that agenda touches on one of your goals and you'd be surprised how often that will
happen. Um but it's it gives you the ability to really know when you sit here, oh, we're hitting it tonight. We're definitely we're um Yeah. Um, can that be done within committees instead of
the agenda? I would say both. I would say both. You could do it on your committee. I mean, the major agenda is probably easier because it's it's it's taking effect what your entire board is doing. So, you have one committee doing all the work, right? Then maybe it's not
affecting all the board members. Right now we get updates uh the superintendent gives us updates on district goals I'd say at least quarterly maybe a little more frequent than that maybe every other month we get you know in committee and he also mentions them in in the in the board meeting we haven't
done that where uh having him like you know just put a little asterct or something like that on individual agenda items that might be a nice little touch that >> and I'd highlight them and I'd save them I'd go back and look at them. >> The reason it's great for the superintendent is because that's going to be part of you know when you do your
CSA evaluation there is um supporting documentation right that helps them stay on track from that perspective um so that's one way of doing it again I'm not looking to give your administration more work >> so just tread lightly with that
>> but it's really just a thinking process and adding D1 D2 an example is I have a district that decided they want to go out and do a demographic study they haven't done it in a long Um, so I said, "Okay, there's a perfect example. If you're going to do that, you're going to go out for bid on that.
You're going to have that on your agenda. You're going to have the opening, you know, you're going to have the the awarding. You're going to have where the processes is. And every time that's going to be board goal one, you know, on there. It's a process. Um, it's a way to document it without doing a lot
of extra work. And more importantly, you as a board will see it on a regular basis. >> So, who would so who would put the, you know, the G123 on the main agenda. >> The board secretary because they create the agenda. I mean,
they create it in collaboration, but they're the ones physically writing it up. >> And again, I don't want you to surprise them. They're not here. So, >> yeah. No, >> something I'm throwing out there. >> We'll bring it up. It additional work, but he really does have the board the district goals >> front and for, you know, front and
foremost at all times. >> Yes. I don't >> district goal. Yes. >> I think Jan's right. I think he might love he might love that idea. Yeah. >> So the district goal, yes, but then the board goals he would do also. >> The board goals. So then
>> us. >> Yeah. So >> and the board secretary would put that information on the main agenda, right? On the final agenda. Okay. >> So your board president could bring that up. I assume you're in the agenda meeting, right? The agenda planning meeting. You say, "Oh, that's one of our board goals." So just put that there. Don't if you miss one or whatever.
That's not This isn't about being be perfect on it. It's just something to remind you of what you're doing so that you know you're hitting your goals. And then you know what? If you don't see it for a while, it's like, whoa, wait a minute. What are we doing? I haven't seen that in a while. Are we staying on top of it? That that's more important that it just might be the reminder that
we need to be doing it. If training is one of your board goals, anytime you have training, and it doesn't mean just me, right? It doesn't it doesn't mean that. or um if if being data savvy is part of you know and and reviewing student achievement and you know that you're going to have those reports from
your superintendent, mark it on your thing so you know how many times you touched on that. Okay. Um okay effective boards align sustain resources such as professional development to meet district goals. So you'll hear that you're having and you
will approve professional development. Make sure you understand how the professional development is relating to your student achievement. Make sure you can tie it back, right? If you hear they're doing something, get a little bit more information on the
impact of that. Um similar to if you're tonight talked about a new curriculum, if you're approving a new curriculum, make sure that you mark on your calendar or something that you want to make sure that you get an update in six months. How is that roll out going? And then in
a year, what do we think the impact of that was? And then and then the next year because obviously you're it's going to take a while for that to take root and and have an impact. But those are fair questions because you're approving the change in curriculum. But do you go back and say, "Okay, well, how did that
go?" remember when I was on the board it was going to go math with the big thing and everybody hated it and parents were pulling and complaining like why is this new math why is it done totally different I don't understand this it's math how is this happening there was so much push back and I could tell you as I sat on that board I couldn't tell you I
just knew I heard complaints over and over again um I didn't realize back then that's something I should be doing hey wait a minute what is the impact how are the kids how's it affecting their grade right we knew how it was I could tell you I could tell you how it was affecting the
parents. I knew that for sure. That was definite. And and also keep in mind the the way it affects the parents is not necessarily the way it affects the students. Another big thing that came out when it used to be the testing park testing I think the time they keep changing names and it went to computers,
right? And we were going to go well parents were up in arms, right? Like what is my kid is going to have no idea how to do that. and but and and I know in our district our superintendent did multiple presentations on it showing all the the complexities of it and parents
how are my kids how my kids going to know what to do with this well I can assure you they had no problem at all because they're really good at that but the parents were having a nervous breakdown because they would not be able well I can't type so I mean the kids can't type how are they going to be able to answer this question what are they
going to do how are they going to know to move this thing around the screen no problem at all no problem definitely much more problem for the parents. So again, is it the best thing for the student? Yeah, that could go in debate debate too. But okay, take responsibility for the core business of education
instruction committed to sustaining reform over the long haul. Change takes time. That's why I'm saying you just make sure you're following up on it. It's easy to lose track. You started a curriculum, it's easy to lose track of it a year later when 50,000 things are hitting the fan, right? Because, you
know, things are just happening. Uh, make sure you make notes and you go back and you you check yourself. Support extensive researchbased professional development for teachers as a way to implement needed changes in instruction. You talked about it this evening. AI, that's huge, right? And there's going to
be teachers that have been doing have been teaching for 20 years that are like, I don't want any part of this, right? And that's understandable. That's human nature. But the question is, what's best things for the students? those students are going to need it. So
the teachers are going to have to figure out how and where how they're going to get comfortable with it and how they're going to do it. You cannot teach students the same today the same as it started 20 years ago. And I'm not implying that any teachers are doing that. I'm just saying that is the role of the board to make sure if there's
resistance, it's understandable. How are we going to work through it? Because the reality is AI is here and we can turn it into um uh a bad thing, right? Or we can embrace it in a way
that's beneficial for students to learn, right? And how they're going to use it. It's not fair to say we're not going to let you have it and once you're out of school, good luck. It's just not fair. Um, I I like to think about I don't I
couldn't put it in place when it happened, but just think right when when you could start googling things, right? And go back to show how old I am right now. And I remember going we had an encyclopedia set. I was like the coolest kid as far as I was concerned because I had my own encyclopedia set and I didn't have to go to the library like some
kids, right? But think about how old that encyclopedia set was after a couple of years and here I am thinking all high and mighty and you know it's old as could be. Um, the same thing with, you know, Now you have the internet. Don't use that because you have no idea. But what you do is you teach the kids to check where you're where your what your
sources are and make sure that you're using good good information. It's not just about don't use it. How do you all right? Allocated resources to priorities including teacher professional development even in a tight budget time. So you may not have the money in your budget to do um professional
development. Think outside the box. There's always ways to do that, right? It might be that different teachers take on different pieces of it. Limited improvement initiatives. So those that could be adequately supported and said no to initiatives that would distract from improvement effort.
So just don't waste money on uh an issue we can't sustain. Our board allocates resources to a limited set of specific priorities for improving student achievement that give everyone in the district their focus. Where do you stand on that? Um and again
we don't have to that now because we need to contemplate our staff training is designed exclusively to support our student achievement priority. Think about effective school boards have a collaborative relationship with staff and community and establish a strong communication structure to inform and
engage both internal and external stakeholders in setting and achieving district goals. Um collab collaborative relationship does not mean that you go and meet with the staff and ask how heads up on that. so that there's no confusion. Effective school boards lead
as a united team with the superintendent each from their respective roles with strong collaboration and mutual trust. That goes to the no surprises. Boards of the study speak with one voice about improvements. We've talked about this. Sought a superintendent who shared their vision for the improvement,
connected with district staff leadership, and build public will for the vision of success and the sense of urgency and responsibility um for improvements. So, we've covered all this, right? Making sure that you're able to speak good to the community. How can we build on what teachers already do
to create partnerships in the community that enrich the instructional program? Again, that community partnership is going to be massive. And it sounds like one of your goals that your superintendent has is obviously to work on that, which is perfect timing because it really is going.
Um, it's also important as board members that you're here. Um, so it was good to hear that it's on the evenings of your board meetings. One thing I will tell you, everybody wants turnout for board meetings. You don't want turnout for board meetings. You like a room like this. You like an empty room. It means that you're doing a good job. Number
one, and more importantly, I always like to say your board meeting should be thought of as an interrogation room, what you see on Law and Order, where everybody's standing on the other side of that glass, because the idea is transparency. The idea is for the public to see what you're doing, and if they
choose to, it's for a trust factor more than anything. Um, that you're not doing behind closed doors with secretive and stuff like that. Um, if your if your community has confidence in you, you don't have a full. Um, however, that being said, what they do want to hear and what they do want to know is the
forums that you're having where your administration is running it, right? Where your administration is teaching them or giving them the state of school address which was mentioned. That's really important. And it shouldn't be coming from board members. It should be coming from your administration because they're the ones that the parents in the community want to hear from. They're the
ones doing the job. you being there is an important part of that. So, also just be careful on that and check with your attorney to make sure that you might have to open if if everybody's there um whether or not that's going to be an issue for you public meeting.
So, go back on that because if you have a full form for that, do you need to open it as a public meeting in advance? Just something to think about. I don't above my pay grade. uh what alliances and collaborations would most advance student achievement goals and objectives
in our district. So how can you engage your community and with your students? Do we engage in legislative issues? All right. So the board you take an oath um to follow the ethics and the first tenant of the ethics is that you will
um support and implement statemandated and um initiatives and laws. So, in this day and age when there's a lot of political push back, some board members when they come on the board, especially candidates that come on the board and don't understand that, will think that
they're going to push their um they don't like this in the curriculum, they don't like these books in the library. You know, those are the the current public political pushes. Just remember that you take an oath to approve state mandates. That doesn't mean that
you don't have a role in legislative issues as a board member. Um especially if you go to county meetings for the association, the association is associated schoolboard association is an association of board members. Um I feel like one of the most least understood
part of that is as board members, you have a voice. We're basically your voice, the association. If there's things that you don't like coming back from legislators, that's your opportunity to get all of everybody together and speak as a whole board
member. So, we could talk about that separately, but that is an opportunity. My point is making a stand at the table for something that's mandated is only going to end up working against your students and your district. Not because it's not important, but because when it's gotten to that point, technically,
you're supposed to approve it and mandate it if it's mandated. So, again, we can if you have any questions on any of these things, I I could keep you here all night. That is not my goal. So, um, I'm just touching on some things and that was the point of this whole presentation. There's so many factors in here that most of us don't think of as
board members and and in what our roles are. Um, but don't ever hesitate to give me a call and we can talk about these things. Um, and then I can always come back and talk about any topic in more detail with you when you have time. Okay. Effective school boards take part in team development and training to
build shared knowledge, values, commitments for their improvement efforts. So you can take training individually, but training as a board is always more beneficial because you all hear the same thing and if there's a question, you all work together and you hear the answers to that. Um, and also how it affects you um, as a board uh,
can be responded to. How often does your board engage in whole board development with the entire board participating in training together? 80% of boards in survey have full board learning experience twice a year or more. So, you're good already because this is my second time in. So, folks, uh, but you could always do
better. Uh, a car and and by the way, when I come in, my goal is always to really have an effect. I'm not here for you check a box and just say, "Oh, yeah, we did that." I really want it to be something that you want to hear about and something you want to engage in. And again, I respect your time and I know
how exhausting this is. Um, so reflect on your board, superintendent team. We're not going to do this. what we would do if we had more time and it's something that we can talk about uh another time. We always go back to this. Pick two to three traits that are strengths. Share evidence. I mean, I think that's really important. It's one
of the things that we talked about uh early on that you know, uh it all comes back to that you're able to say what's so great about this district. Um pick one to two traits to focus on in the future that need improvement. and uh pick one to two danger signs to be
diligent about and avoid in the future. So this is a special thank you to National School Boards Association because it was based on their study and if everyone is moving forward together then success takes care of itself. So make the commitment to work
together move your district forward to positively impact achievement. can't read, but those are your because that's a reminder for what you are doing and that was your district goals. Now,
board goals. Do we want to take a minute to talk about those? >> I know you're all tired. >> You know, I mean, we're really tired. Do we want to take a five minute break and then at least approach this topic? I know we're all tired, but since we're here, um, I hate to let this opportunity
go by. All right. So, let's take a four-m minute break. >> Four minute break. >> Four minute break. >> Four minute. Three minute break. Let's take a brief break and then and then push through. >> And again, you know, I guess as we as we're still in the room, two things that
I'm reflecting on is that one, we we are a really high highly functional board. Like we check off on many of these items and the items that we don't fully check off are items that that we'd like to improve on or we could do better. But like we we really are a highly functional board and and and we don't
have to have really detailed extensive board goals. We can you know >> okay I won't do. >> Okay. Yep. That's the um Right. Right. All right. So, we have um your
board goals on the blue sheet um from last year and um so there is also nothing wrong with rolling those forward if you haven't um necessarily met them to the degree that you'd want. So the first one was strengthening board capacity through targeted professional
development to enhance effectiveness in governance and oversight um as we will engage in structured development throughout the year with a focus on finance, policy and student achievement. Um so that's definitely something that I can come in and help you with any of those subjects or all of those subjects
and I highly recommend doing finance and budget um because you need to be comfortable with that next year because it's going to be a difficult year. Each year is just going to get harder and harder and it's making sure you know the basics and also knowing when to kick it off to somebody else. Like when do you
send questions to your VA as opposed to dealing with it yourself, you know, for yourself. So understanding that and I will tell you there are plenty of board members that are very good in certain areas and then try to avoid finance and that's normal. Um but I can help you understand the things that you should
understand and the questions you should be looking at from a government's perspective. So, uh, goal two was revisit, um, and where appropriate refine committee structure to improve communication and oversight. You can let me know how you feel about that. And strategic planning is the last one. And
I'm not sure where you are on that. Uh, but I can talk to you about that a little bit too. There you you have first of all, I do want to say, yeah, that's the summary. I saw your goals. They're very, very detailed. Yeah.
uh the the doing a strategic plan, a formal strategic plan can be very uh difficult for the administration. And what we decided was that we were going to learn more about what strategic planning entailed. And at least two of us went to the strategic planning
workshop at schoolboards and uh I know when I spoke to Diane afterwards we were like yeah I don't think we should do planning because the the the world is changing so fast that for us to spend as much time
and as especially administrative administrator's time to come up with a strategic plan then a year and a half from now AI makes you know computers irrelevant. or something like that or co happened is that very few fiveyear street plans even look relevant after
two or three years. So, we decided to back off of that, especially now that we're still getting our feet under this. >> And let me just add in there two things. That's perfectly um good for a goal. Like if you decide, you've done your research, you have it as a goal, and then change. That's why I said goals are
fluid. Um so that's definitely a way to go and and you've met that goal if you've gone through that process. I will give you a little background on strategic planning because obviously I'm a big fan of it. Um, just so you know, school boards does it and it is an added
fee and it's $4,500 and it's facilitating the entire process and it's there's two different plans to it. And the one I'm talking about is the lesser plan, meaning the less involved. There's one like it's a weekend plan and it's a little it's much more difficult for the administration to manage versus um the
other one is like a six-month plan and it's three input sessions with the public and and and it's a process, right? and it goes through getting the public's feedback to drive the direction of of the school
strategic plan. It's not that um it's really getting a feel for your public, but at the end of the day, it does leave the um whether or not you're going to move forward with those specific goals will be left to the board
to approve and the administration decides how it's carried out. It is not decided by the public, which is a big deal because as we all know, um the board should not be running the district, nor should the public be running the district. It is the administration and how they're going to make things happen. Uh but what I will
tell you is the feedback I've I've received from the ones that I have physically done, not to mention obviously that I know about school boards has done. It's it's a very um I almost want to say a remedial process because it's and and it works out well where the public all gets to give their feedback and they and they learn a lot
about the district. It's a very good communitygaged process. You may not be ready for it and I get that. I just wanted you to know that there are a lot of pros if you want to involve your public and if you want to engage them and it's it's a path forward. The goals
are very uh broad. So they can go in a lot of different directions, but the outcome is what's the common theme? What are you hearing from your public? So that's all I want to say. if you decide to go down that road down the future. Um, you know, and you could check this box off for your
goals if you've done the homework. Uh, but I can come in and I can give you a little bit more detail into the process. Uh, >> yeah. For those of us who go to school boards, um, We can sit through the workshop. >> We can commit to sitting through the
workshop. >> I can give you a presentation here in about in in a 30 minute time frame. >> I can give you an overview. So, all right. One of the things I will tell you, everybody pays every district has to pay by statute um membership dues,
right? For the association. You need to take advantage of as much as we can offer you. And again, I'm not telling you this, $4,500 isn't a lot of money, but it's also might not be money within your budget, and that's fair, and I'm not trying to say anything about that, but we give so many things to you as
part of your dues. Um, so take full advantage of them. If there's something you want to learn, take go down to schoolboard uh workshop and do it, but also know I can come here and give you just about anything you want as a as a group. I can come to you. Somebody once
said, you know, it's like having a gym membership and not going, right? Because you're paying for it every month if you don't go. But it's actually work because it's like having a personal trainer. You you pay for because I'll come to you. >> So it might be it might be best for us to,
you know, two of us can schedule throughout the next year. A workshop on finance, a workshop on strategic planning, and a workshop on student achievement. Finance and budget. >> Can I ask um in terms of finance and
budget um how many different workshops or um are there on specifically on finance and budget? Are there have to be double
different levels of them? because I feel like now I'm on the board what too long. Um I've been to a lot >> but then it ends up feeling like well I heard this already and so then I tune
out and I might miss the one because I've tuned out already. >> Um so are there like like okay this is my first presentation this is what I need to hear but for some of us who have
been through it and have, you know, kind of suffered through learning it on our own. Um, is there something more? >> Yeah, that's a fair question. And I'm I'm going to tell you it's one of my, again, one of my goals >> uh that I came out of my training thing for is to have um certain training
programs that are progressive. That wasn't one of my list. I'm not going to lie. Um, however, I will be presenting um, excuse me, at workshop on finance and the questions you have to ask and things like that. So, there when
it comes to finance, there's probably not going to be multiple levels, but what I would recommend that you do is bring to the table the questions that you have because that's what grows. One of the one of the things I did it I did it at a district the other day um and one of the questions that came up was
about the treasur report and you know your treasurer versus your board secretary and your VA and all that kind of stuff and that's um it was an interesting conversation and sometimes it's something I won't even have an answer to which then I will now add into my presentation process. Uh so it does
evolve based on that kind of feedback. But the the goal is even if it's a basic presentation if you have more detailed questions I will either be able to answer them or I will get you the answers or your BA is in the room will also expand on that.
But I I doubt finance will ever you know I mean there'll probably be trainings within school boards especially with what's to come with much more detailed um and higher level but probably not to present to a board. Maybe we can do is the month before we we're scheduled. Like let's say we're going to do finance
and budget in November. Well, in October, I can get to the board questionnaire. I mean, solicit questions from the board on finance and budget where you think your strong parts of the agenda, you know, are just silly numbers.
>> It because I just feel like particularly with finance and budget, you don't know what you don't know, right? and then until you find out because it blows up for whatever reason, right? Like >> and you also you also may not know what
you forgot or like, oh yeah, forgot to keep doing that or I wasn't paying attention to that. >> Yeah. You know, I I don't know. Like just there's there's a lot of detail to it and then, you know, I still feel like four or five years in and I've been
paying close attention. um it's still like crap, I didn't know that, you know, >> and I do get that feedback from the presentations that I've been given. Um it just might be one thing that you get out of, especially if you've been on the board for a while. But the key to it is
as an experienced board member, your questions are going to help raise the bar for everybody else or help bring in something that we may not be thinking of. But in general, you're going to want to keep it on a especially with finance on a basic to mid level. Um, or else
you're going to lose the room. I feel like finance is one of those things that a lot of people will as soon as you say we're going to talk finance immediately it's like this isn't going to be for me. And I'm one of those people. I'm I'm not going to lie. I'm one of those people. So, >> but the same would be true same would be true if we were talking about facilities
and somebody came in and talked to us about boilers for for an hour. at a certain point like, oh, you know, we're going to glaze over. >> And the and the important thing is not that you you you should be able to know where to dive into if you're a finance person and you want to get a little bit
more into those into the weed, especially dur during budget planning time. Um, but in general, you're not supposed to be a finance expert, nor are you supposed to be a boiler expert, right? That's why you depend on the individuals, but you are governance. You need to become an expert on governance
over time. And that's where our focus is. So what are the questions you should be asking? So when it comes to finance and budget, are you getting a regular update on how many on your student enrollment versus your staffing? You know, are you looking regularly at how many staff members you have and where those numbers are going versus your
student enrollment? If your student enrollment is going down and your staffing is going up, that's a question from a governance level. Those are your those are the things that you're looking at. Um and again, that doesn't even mean that there's something wrong with it. It's just a question. It's a question to say, why is this happening? Um I
wanted to put together a focus for board members because I think as new board members come on or even seasoned board members and you hear about the things that are happening in the different districts such as Hackin Sack and Montlair and you're sitting here thinking oh no >> was am I missing something am I going to
be in the news am I going to be the person sitting there that everybody thinks just completely >> right I mean that's what we're we all think in this role and you don't want to be that person but you can't go the opposite direction of over micromanagement either. So, where does that fall? And that's that's where the
focus needs to be. What are the things I should be looking at? What are the flags that I'm need to pay attention to? And that's one of the big ones that came out of Hackinack. And if you they're public meetings um and you know, they're board members just like you. But if you go,
they had a meeting in December, beginning December, and they had the auditor, they had brought in an outside auditor, and that auditor spoke for about 30 minutes. I mean, the meeting was like seven hours. But he spoke for 30 minutes. And if you go back and look at it, he spoke so well. And I probably
learned more from watching that than anything else I've ever done. And he clearly explained the two big things were again the staffing going up while the numbers of students are going down. And it was over a period of time as well as the issue with um COVID money, right?
You can't use COVID money to pay staff. You never could because that money runs out and now the money's gone. And what do you do? You can't sustain it. And that's why we talked about sustainability. That's a key. And again, this is not me judging Hackinack. Please don't. They know I talk about them when I talk about this because I think they
were there's such a they learned a lot. And you cannot lose sight of the fact that you did not go to school to be a board member. You did not, you know, that is not your background and and it shouldn't be. It's how the system is made. But you should be while you're sitting on the board growing as best you
can and getting you know and you know there's checks and balances to everything there. There are checks and balances but what's your part in that? >> So I have a question um um when talking about finance would it help us as a board if we understood
better our budget >> you know to to kind of understand more the finance piece of it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, they go hand in hand, >> but how do we go about like can we ask our BA to give us a
one-hour presentation on how our budget is broken down? >> Yeah. Yeah. You also could meet with your BA because everybody's going to have different levels, right, of how how much they want to know and and how deep they want to get into it. It is perfectly acceptable for you to spend
some time as a board member to sit down with your BA and get a full understanding of how it works and ask those questions. What you do not want to do is look at the bills list and say that landscaping bill looked likely high
so much cheaper. Why don't we why are we using this person? That is going into the weeds. that is, you know, but that doesn't mean when you see a transfer of money or you do see um a line item that you don't understand and it's like
$5,000, it's fair to ask that question. That is part of what you do and and and that's fine. It's it's how you ask the question and how often you ask the question. Um and and that you're not offering up, but I
have a guy that could do it so much better. That is definitely That's the example of the worst case scenario. >> So I I think I just want to propose. So if we take these three topics for that targeted trainings goal, take these three topics, we we solicit questions
from the board before school boards comes in and does a training. We also get questions afterwards like what parts are you still unclear about? Where do you wish we did more? And possibly have more training on that. And then if we also come up with a a meet the BA sort
of schedule. I know when I first got on the board, I met with Mr. Teas and he took about an hour with me and showed me every page and, you know, I I never understood it well enough to teach it, but I understood it at the time well enough to to look at it and kind of have a feeling for what I was looking for.
And so, we could also arrange that and it might be a good way for us to meet the new BA. Anyway, all the different topics that they can suggest would be why don't we look this and pick a bunch over here. >> But we have three that we we have finance and budget, student achievement,
and strategic planning. If we want more, we you know, we can get more. >> How often do you find a board retreat held this way compared to other ways? >> Usually, it's done um
>> at a resort with open board. Then you learn a lot. No. Um, but seriously, this is the typical retreat. And sometimes boards don't don't publicize and don't don't record them uh so that you're a little bit more comfortable in in u in diving into things. But either way, this
is a good forum. But we can also break things down and do them when you have meetings that have less agendas. You'll know your time of year when you can do that, where we can do trainings. The key to it is that you're comfortable like we're doing this evening. the point of a retreat and why we did the topic we did is that you're comfortable talking to me and ask questions that you're
comfortable with learning um because you're not if I sit here if I stand up I think the first time I came in here that was a lot of me lecturing and not having a conversation. You need to be comfortable to have that conversation. And if if you're not comfortable asking the question because it is a public
forum and there's a question, write it down and follow up with me the next day and give a phone call if you feel a little bit more um comfortable. it that way because the key is that you get out of it something. It's not checking the box to say, "Yep, we did our training. We had school boards come in free time." That's a waste of your time. It's a
waste of my time and it's not a benefit to you. I want to come out here. I mean, I hope this evening you got something, some tidbit. And it's usually just the tidbits. It's not necessarily your whole view has changed, but it's like, "Oh, I didn't think of that. I didn't think of that. I thought about that." That's the goal of why I'm here because again, this
is, you know, your volunteer role, but it's a very important one. um you know so and again if I anything I can do to make it easier on you that's the whole point of schoolboard association and the training and making it as easy for you as possible.
So um yeah >> and and the reason I asked was previous board retreats that I attended they were an all day an eight hour event and every board member was asked to select one
topic and each topic was addressed for a half hour and we were given a small smidgen of this to understand those areas that we had particular concern for. It was held here. It was held at a
retreat facility. Um, and they provided us with breakfast and lunch. It was pretty nice and um I think we got a tremendous amount out of that. I just curious for the board that did that or if this was a typical thing. >> Uh, who who did who ran that?
>> It was okay. >> Yeah. I mean that governance one is great. New board member orientation is the best. Yeah. And um if you can get in on that, that's good. And it's a lot of interaction. But typically, no, retreats aren't done that
way. Even though we come and we facilitate them, they're usually run by the district. I would hesitate to do an eight hour retreat because getting again volunteers the extra time engagement. Although I do I do think training wise like that if you sign up for it we do
offer schoolboards offers weekend um training sessions on certain things. They have the leadership ones and things like that. And of course workshop it's really the definition of workshop, right? Getting down there and getting as much training as possible. Um I would prefer to see you tell me what you want
and let me come in and let's dedicate an hour to each session. And I love the idea of you um and now I'm going to use it for any other the training I do to ask for any questions on the topic in advance so I can make sure I'm hitting them. Um, and
you know, to your point, I think eight hours of listening to something by the time you get I I don't like to do a retreat for more than three hours, I feel like you lose people. Um, but I also think it takes more than an hour to get momentum. But if we build like we have built a relationship now that I hope you're comfortable with asking me
questions and know I'm going to give you honest answers and sometimes we can agree to disagree and sometimes it's not something that's going to work for your board and those are all things that you need to take into consideration because I'm giving you an overview um and I and I'm also having the opportunity to get some best practices from other boards.
So there's some things that other boards might be doing that you're not doing that oh that's a great idea. Let's just put that in. Try it. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. But um I do think it I do think it's a good idea to and and if there's something you're looking at that list and there's other things that we
can do. If you look at that list or you think of something that's not on that list, let me know. I can find you information and pull it together and we can talk about it. I'm happy to come in and do it. >> And and John, we can also add, you know, I mean, my goal is just to come away with a goal or two. I'm going to put it together. I'm going to put it out to the
board for your feedback. If somebody wants to add anything else or sees another topic or another structure, this is a living document, so we're not married to it. >> I'm also going to encourage you, and I know we talked about it before I started this evening about board certification that you consider that board
certification is u be a certified board where you will get like a little plaque and you get awarded for it. It's over a period of time, but it's basically 16 hours of training. So, it'll be be a couple years, but it could be a goal of yours. The only thing I'm going to tell you is you need your You need at least
seven board members. It's usually seven out of nine. I have to go back and find out what it means for 10, but I think it's seven. So, I will follow up on that. But you have to have seven out of nine like goes down down from there. Five out of seven and four out of five board members for it to count. And you
also need your superintendent. And the reason for that is you operate as a team and that's the point of the training that your superintendent be here for. It doesn't make the training any less valuable if you do it and you don't have everybody. So, you know, that's just things to to consider and I'm flexible that if you we put a date on the
calendar, sometimes it's hard to get dates on the calendar. If you put them up in advance and you you you find you're not going to have enough people and you want to hold it off because you you don't want to waste a topic. >> Um meaning until you have everybody and you're working towards that. It's just something to consider and it is really
good for you to go out there and say we've done this like I think that's a an important badge of honor because it's taking time to advance yourself on governance and understanding and if the board learning these things together it's that much more valuable than individual board members being certified board member board leaders those are
important too and they're great but learning together is a big is a big difference. So just something to consider as well. You're going to do it if we can get the credit for it. Let's do that too. So where we are on board gold now is
we're going to talk about training. Um do I mean in all honesty that could be your you can have one goal >> and I and I'm not I'm not because there's a lot of different pieces of information that we're talking about here. huge goal,
>> you know, it's it's training and it's exploring more things. Um, and you have a list of them and let you know certain the key is every time I come in, you knock that you you make the point to say this isn't part of our board goal. You
know, you have a lot on your plate. Um, and that's a a large amount of training that we were just talking about with those three things and and we can expand on that. Um, I'd recommend student achievement one of your topics. And again, we don't have to do them all in one shot and they don't
all have to happen in one year, right? But there's different pieces and and then you take what you want. Our board meetings are typically pretty short. Um sometimes under an hour, so I don't think it'd be a big deal for us to
add a half hour training on the end of or even an hour train. I'd recommend giving 45 minutes because that gives you a little bit of the overview plus questions and answers that you allocate for that work. The other thing I'd recommend is the second goal is maybe board self evaluation
because why I feel that's important. You will get even more information out of that in what the board's looking for in development and what you think you do well and what you think you can improve on. Um, so >> you have to wait till the I mean
>> you just hop onto the calendar >> for board self evaluation. I have like May or something like that. >> You can do it at any point. >> Um, we could do it um in fall. You decide. Um, at this point if you're going with your board goals now, I would
say we're going to do it next um spring, right? Because you're going to also, it's kind of like doing the CSA evaluation. You're going to have your board goals first and then you're evaluating on um different aspects of how you function as a board and how your governance is. So those two things I
would hold off. I put it on here and we'll do it towards the end of um you know toward towards the spring of next year. >> Our goal is going to be targeted training. Our goal is going to be us doing targeted training on finance and budget, student achievement, strategic
planning to begin with. any other top that have school boards come in to trap school boards with questions that we may have specific and also to do a debrief afterwards as to what areas we still need more training and then to also facilitate meeting with BA as many of us
can meet with the BA for an hour session where he opens up the books and says this is how I do this this is how I do that this is what the check register is this is what these transfers mean just go through the books kind of >> ands your board self evaluation >> and then board self evaluation
>> and that's an easy goal >> but it's really important I don't I don't want to miss out on that because you evaluate your superintendent staff it's welcome >> have a list of what we have to do to become certified with Yes. Yeah.
>> So, those do apply towards it. Those >> those do apply towards it. I think a lot of us Sorry. A lot of us probably have it. Um you just have to go to your school boards and then look at the transcript and then look where you are. >> But that's individual. That's individual. But in order for us to have
it, four or five of us have to have it individually. Correct. That's what you said. >> Nope. No. You can individually have certifications and I encourage that. >> Right. That's going to trainings. It's going to county meetings. There's a bunch of different criteria. Yes. But to be certified as a board,
>> the criteria is based on 16 hours of training. >> Okay. >> As a board, >> right? >> Um there's a couple of other things in there, too. That that's the general rule. There's a couple of other >> So then those those hours count towards >> those hours count towards the individual.
>> No, board is separate than individual. So you're talking about like a certified board member compared to the certified school board, >> right? >> They're two different things. >> Do these classes like ones Ricardo was just mentioning, would those count
towards our 16 hours? >> Yes. >> Perfect. >> Yep. >> And that's why I'm saying take advantage of it if you're going to do it anyway. The key has to be you have to have the majority of the board here. As I mentioned, I think it's seven out of nine. And you also have to have your superintendent here. That does make a difference.
>> That's gonna be goal three is going to be looking into board certification. >> Well, you don't have to look into it. Well, I mean, you can put it down, but we just covered it. It's whether or not it's taking advantage of the training to make sure that it goes towards that. It's just an added benefit. You're doing
the training anyway. Let's get the credit for it. That's the way I'm looking at it. Not so much. >> No. >> No. No. And it's a year period. So over four years, you need the 16 hours. If you get it in two years, like tonight
will count towards it. No, it won't. Sorry again. Super's not here. My bad. Sorry. It could count towards it. And when you do your board self-evaluation, um that's another factor doing a board self-evaluation. So that's fine. That's easy. Um also, when you do your board
self-evaluation, I'll come in and we'll go over the findings. I'll do a summary and I can I will do it. It's during public session if you want me to. I don't have to. You will all see the compiled list and the details, but I'll give an overview of it and then what'll fall out of that is what you're looking for more development in and we can come
up suggestions for that. But if I'm here for that's usually like a 20-minut visit, that's half hour towards your training if you have enough people here. Anytime I come in and we're talking about something and learning about something, it qualifies. If you come up with a topic that's not on this list, but we spend the time and you learn from
it, that counts. That's for development. >> So if we you said we have to do it in four years, >> it's over four years. So yeah, if the training that happened >> falls off after four years, so your hours change, it's a rolling four year time. >> How does change of board members affect
that? So we have seven of the nine people attending and then we replace three board members and they haven't had any training that then impact the certification of the board. >> No. um if there's a significant change over your board that is a factor and I
have to go back and look at it but I mean we're talking about like you have complete change over in your board over a period of time but regular turnover is not an issue and again that's part of the difference between individuals >> certification versus board and learning
as a board you're still growing as a >> and besides like a pat on the back for us if we get the certification as a board like >> is that >> how many boards are certified >> I mean is that on website is that >> I don't know the answer to that but I will get that for you >> and I'm I'm working on making it a lot
more >> few a lot >> there's a handful I don't I don't have a lot yeah >> so so it would it would make us look very good if we did this right >> it's going to make you look good regardless because you can you can say that and and and you know that's part of
the whole high functioning boards and that's piece of it and explain why that's important but even even more so it's really good for you and it's okay that you You know, unfortunately, the board that gets the certification is the board that's here when you have the 16 hours. So, unfortunately, there may be some people that work hard on it and are no longer on the board. Or you may have
a new board member who didn't do much of anything but still gets to be there for it. It's because remember you the board is the board. It's not based on the individuals. It's based on the board. And if there's enough of you and and there's a majority because you're not having a complete turnover of the board,
you filter that out to your board members and how you function. >> And and I think, you know, again, I say it all the time, the board is really, really high functioning. We've done some pretty incredible things over the past couple of years and and not because we all agree, but because we believe in the
process and we abide by those eight rules of high functioning boards. But, you know, you never know what happens tomorrow, what kind of stressors happen to the district and what kind of conflicts come up or struggles. And so, the more we know and the better we're situated, we can be prepared for that.
One of the big ones is again that AI is a big thing that's going to come our way that could transform education and the other thing is as you said a couple of times the finances and the burden that's coming our way to every district in New Jersey is is going to be significant. >> Yeah. The two things that are going to be really important for you to be able to speak to are student achievement and
finance. Those are going to be key and you need to be comfortable with it and that's what we need to make sure that you're at least at a comfort level. Again, doesn't make you an expert. You have administration for that but that you are showing that you're knowledgeable. the person who's the community wants to know that the the
people making decisions are, you know, knowledgeable in those categories because those are key right now. Those are the most important. You don't have to know how to change, you know, replace a boiler and what the impact of that is, but you have to have the high level to make sure that you have a boiler working. That would be good. You know, those kind of things.
>> Okay. How do we feel about this? >> I think it's really We're going to >> Well, we're going to get c we're going to get certified because we're going to work towards the professional development to be answer to be able to answer all of these questions, right?
>> Certifications come as a result of >> it's going to come. Exactly. But the but ultimately we're going to be certified in all of this because of all of our >> You're not going to get it done. >> That same energy to us. >> You're not going to get it done in a year. So I would word your your goal as training towards
>> uh you know >> yeah it embedded in there working towards >> the goal was to look into which could be we just did that >> nothing to look into. >> Okay good put it on there. >> I know that's why I said it's going to be very easy checked it off. Very good. Well done. >> Boom. We just finished
>> well done. Well done. >> All right. Um thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, this was a very good training and I look forward to many more. And can I have a motion to close the meeting? >> Well, I write that down.
So, Jody motion. Second.