Right good evening everyone the dur Public Schools Board of Education.
Special meeting is now in session at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is joining us this evening the purpose of this meeting is to discuss selecting superintendent search firm finalists the interpreters for tonight are Martha Romo eres sorry illes and Vanessa P rames thank you for taking the time to join us all right so we will begin with a the agenda review and.
Approval second it's been moved by Miss Beyer seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion all right all those in favor say I I any opposed use the same sign all right it passes unanimously and so we will proceed here with our item of selection of superintendent search firms to interview and I will mention that our chair batina Umstead is going to Jo join us a little late and virtually and so we will look forward to seeing her on here in a bit but now to to start we have several different applicants and candid candidates and what we are doing again tonight is to sech is to choose three to four search firms that we want to interview next week and we will interview search firms on Wednesday March 20th and and then we will look to make a decision about the finalist sorry about the one finalist the the search firm that we want to retain on Thursday March 21st so that is our process and that's where we are right.
Now so thank you to Mr Malone and Dr Giovani for compiling all of these all of these documents and helping us to get started in this process so I believe we're going to use a table to to get started. All right so with this with this table is are we let me ask is the idea to for each of us to rank or just to indicate which of these eight firms we are interested in yes or no go ahead so it would be Mr Malone's recommendation in mind that the board members share with us which firms you are individually interested in and then kind of see if there is a kind of consensus around a set number of firms our recommendation is three but obviously the board is free to do more or less than that to interview next week okay great so we will take that recommendation of three with leaving open the possibility of four if we if we sort of can't decide here so then let's go through and we can.
Go each person and share your thoughts and what I'm hoping that we'll do is we'll see clearly that there are some firms that don't rank high and we can kind of kind of put to the side and then there are some that we don't really need to discuss because we all agree that we should move forward with them and and one one question for you to think about is do you want to say that each board member would identify their top three for now and then see how that plays out with the rankings and then kind of go from there yeah that sounds great it doesn't mean you have to interview three but maybe if you just pick your top three then we can see kind of what it what it looks like let's yeah let's do that so Miss Chávez or sorry Dr Chávez you are you have the table and you'll be marking on here which three we each select yes I will and we are just so the public.
Knows we also have a paper copy for the minutes as well to record permanently what the board is actually doing Miss Smith has that and I also have one over there and I'll go grab that and since she's downstairs at this moment awesome that's great thank you so much I would like to ask is there any other discussion about the process or thoughts about the process the idea of just going ahead person by person and we each share our top three and then looking at at what we have at that point Miss Rogers I think my only question would be do we want to have somebody go through a name and give a basic overview of all eight of the organizations that have submitted or no you mean just list their names or yeah so I'm just read like what's on the screen is that what you want I I mean it doesn't matter to me if I'm so I think I think that's an excellent point in.
That we kind of maybe I didn't share that part previously the board when you submitted the RFP for the process your deadline was March 11th at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and the eight firms that are included and being shared on the screen are the firms that submitted timely proposals based on that RFP those firms are Alma bwp Hazard young and Associates inits mcferson ncsba Ray and Associates and Summit thank you and all of their all of their materials that they submitted are available for the public and the board online great all right thank you that's that was helpful other thoughts all right let's jump in who would like to go first all right Miss.
Beyer happy to get this. Conversation.
Of. You.
All right thank you somebody else like to go next I'll go next great the three that stood out for me were ncsba Summit and. Elma all right right thank you do you want to add any comments at this point okay all right I that we didn't have a requirement to exclude any strings or connections or networks related to elected officials in Durham in Durham being Durham being Durham or any former DPS employees or any job sites that are connected to anybody in the political space so we didn't exclude any of that it's it's you know there's relationships that are already guaranteed but I I really do think for this process I would like it to be free of political influence as much as possible and so my first choice is ncsba my second choice is in bits and my third choice is bwp all right thank you and maybe we can come back to that question of relationships within the the different firms and talk about how yeah get your perspective Mr Malone and.
And what role that might play all right Miss Lewis or Miss Carda-Auten would you like to share. Okay my top picks are Alma hya and Summit and I'll say at the top of those is Alma and that is because there were a couple things that stood out to me and one is like what felt like a really intentional both track record and effort and description in the way that they are working to incorporate the voices of those that are not normally Incorporated in this process they laid out better than any of the other firms that submitted applications a process whereby they're going to be able to do that and they're the one that indicated they're able to lead monolingual Spanish focus groups interviews and forums intentional work with even our families with homeless students and our families from immigrant population so that felt really impressive to me they also indicated and they were I think the only one that did this that they conduct an anti-bias training for all interviewers that are part of their.
Process so again that just for me that they stood out above the others for those reasons thank you all right Miss. Lewis so I also chose. Ncsba mcferson and inits okay great thank you all right and my top three were also NC SBA hya and I and Alma with the from their materials and recommendations of others but I did want to hear more about the relationship piece because I don't want to I want to be mindful of that so kind of a caveat there I have a question and this is about transparency with board members here in this actual deliberation and process how many of you have engaged with folks who have shared a preference for any of these who are elected officials I'm not saying constituents I'm saying elected officials or folks who have formerly worked in the district and so those were considerations because we just went through many many questions about work that has been done and delegated to consultants and that is a serious consideration too.
I think that any of these groups including the local ones like we we get to dictate what we want in terms of this process like do we want them to go to racial Equity training I mean some of them may not have disclosed that that's not to say they haven't done it we can we can put those stipulations in our in our expectations of what we want from them and so we just have to continue to do this process but also keep in mind the selection of the new superintendent hinges on what the work that these you know Consultants will do for us and if there's already influence in in any kind of way then that's going to that's that's fine it happens anyways but it's something to consider as.
Well as I saw that affiliation with with Summit and I saw it with look at my notes oh with Ray and Associates but I am not familiar of that like I'm not did you want to share more about others because I didn't see anything else to indicate that there's a connection between DPS or elected officials for the other groups there's definitely I mean you can you can we can Google it if you were to put your Top Choice so let start with Alma just do a Google Search and and it's it's going to I mean I Googled these and I I love the fact that we are a community that has so many different intersections in terms of representation and work but if I had worked for any of these that would be a Conflict for me as a board member and and there's no conflict per se in any of these right now because none of us work for any of these but that's not to say.
That there is an influence in the sense that there are prominent influential people who have worked in and you you know just Googling Alma Googling any of these you know it's just something to consider I'm not I'm not saying that that excludes I just want that consideration to be very clear we have the gift of people who are part of our community who are also in leadership who are also you know wanting to have the best for our kids and that is not questioned you know the fact that any association is because people care enough about these things and actually work in this space and you know I I mean if if you if I think I've said enough that you all know exactly what I'm talking about but if if if you needed me to spell it out like I I will spell it out it's not a conflict there's nothing wrong with it it's just we have to understand like what those connections are Miss Rogers thank you Miss Valladares for.
Highlighting that I'm going to share my thoughts on that and I don't disagree with you I understand that there's an affiliation with city council woman Javier cabaro to Alma having worked there as a former educator but I also understand Dr Giovani worked for ncsba for many years and we brought her on for that expertise I don't want us to throw the baby out with the bath order I want us to make the best choice in this selection because it's what's right for Durham what's right for DPS and really give a thorough looking at at each of these agencies even though they have connections it's just my request I I think I want to just POS a question to Dr gavan you would never bring any of these recommendations in Thon Smith right rod attorney Rod Malone none of these we have choices and that's the beauty of it we have one two three four five six 7 8 these have been vetted by you all first before you.
Brought them to us you would never no you have you didn't V them at all no you just you just did it so there could be organizations here I mean we've we've looked at the materials but it's like there could be organizations here that would not would you say that there are organizations listed on here that would be of detriment to dur Public Schools would you would that not go through a filter before you even brought this to us so what I would say is that you are selecting firms to interview and they responded to the RFP and it is up to the board to review the materials that were submitted to you and then select who you will interview but I can say unequivocally that I am completely impartial in serving this board and this community transparently in what I am presenting so there will be no favor there's been no favoritism or any I've not provided any opinion on any of these firms objectively except what has.
Been shared with the board and Mr Malone publicly and transp apparently and I have had interactions with Alma Consulting through board through training that I've done with school board partners and that's how I got connected with Alma group and I came back and I went to other other conferences and have talked about Alma group to other elected officials and that's how I learned directly from council member kabaro that she worked for them I didn't know before I interacted with Alma group Miss Lewis thank you and just since we're talking about Alma and I was looking through my emails I do remember an email regarding a late submission and then it did say that was on time can you explain what happened there when we initially created the email for DPS superintendent search I neglected to include an underscore which is required for our convention our email convention it was already sent out in the RFP people began to have to submit it and it was denying it because that email was.
Not correct I then worked with Miss Malone and Mr maumi in it and Mr Malone was copied on there that the emails with the underscore would have to be used so then we change that and it should be that emails that were sent without the underscore would come through but we did have issues with that I had several test emails that I attempted to send without the underscore that kicked back Elma did show a screenshot that they sent it to the email that I gave them without the underscore in it and within the time frame so that is why they were it was our technology that blocked them from submitting it and thankfully they did reach out to me to see if I had received it but I did every time we got them I responded received to each one of the people submitting proposals and forwarded it to Mr Malone and when I received the email from them I then if you were to pull the emails you will.
See that I mandated that they provide me with proof that they had submitted it to that email without the underscore and they did that so they were timely it was an IT technology issue all right can I have Mr Malone if you would share any any thoughts about associations that people may have with DPS who work at these agencies what would is there are there things for us to consider legally worked so the the only legal issues that you you have would be your nepotism policy which would mean that you know the ownership of one of these groups is related to you in a familiar way of the board member or it's related to like central office staff or I guess technically a principle is kind of what your your policy would say what your what the statute would say is that for it to be a conflict conflict they would need to also have 10% 10% ownership in in one of these companies like one of your family members but beyond that the fact.
That someone used to be a Durham Public Schools employee has a family member that's a former dur Public Schools employee none of that legally would prohibit you from hiring that firm and I do think that in your in the questions that you may develop between now and next week you may want to Target some questions in that direction if to to see how people respond to some of those issues but you've got you've got the flexibility to hire or not to hire I mean you certainly can use that concern as a legitimate basis to not choose a firm if that is the concern of of the of the boards but there's nothing that would prohibit you from hiring a firm un the only thing that would prohibit it would be you know the the spouse or you know a family member that's like an an owner of of one of the companies beyond that the most it would require would be disclosure by by a board member or a central office.
Staffer.
Candidates like when you get into a search and it's a confidential search applicant names are protected under statute right well one of the things that I would presume in your questioning of the candidates that you will want to hear how they handle confidential information obviously one of the most important certain things in a search like this is confidentiality one of the decisions that boards often have to make when you get to a finalist or a couple of finalists is whether or not you're going to disclose the names of one or more finalists before you select them because that is often something that believe it or not that will turn off many potential candidates if they know their name may get out before you've actually decided to hire them so many of the candidates most of the candidates expect this information to be very confidential the issues that people have had in the past is when a name gets out it certainly can create a problem for that person especially if that person.
Is not hired by the board so Dr J's got some experience there she yes and I would add Mrs by to your point that that's why it's important that the firms do recognize the confidentiality and that the board when you hire that firm that you entrust them to do your background checks and to reach out like it's very important that no board members if you find out that you know that you call your a fellow board member at another District if there's someone that a board wants once you get to that stage of taking references and finalists if there's someone the board wants The Firm the search firm to talk to they share that with the firm and not you don't go kind of do your own background because that can get you in trouble with some privacy laws and Personnel laws so just want to lift that up that and to Mr Malone's Point those are some questions that perhaps as we're crafting the interview questions.
We can include I'm going to make a note just and we'll defer to the board on what how you want to proceed but I do think that's an area for inquiry potentially from these firms I mean that is in the sample questions that we have put together one or more them deal with that that specific issue yeah that's that's helpful and that's good a good reminder for us that we can hone in on the things that we want to in our interviews searchs next.
Week welcome chair Umstead and so now I think ask for for her three yeah yes got audio John said are you. There all right while she's getting on I'm going to just make some observations here so I again I would like us to go ahead and rule out the ones that clearly aren't fing or coming to the top of our list and and go ahead and try to say yes to those that we can so ncsba has five of five votes there so are we and and Mr Malone will you speak to this do we need to vote on each one that we want to interview I think it's perfectly acceptable for the board to once you kind of decide a cut off to just say that all that received XX number of votes will be interviewed if there's a tie you may need to try to vote between two that are tied at the same number of votes but or if you want to just say for instance ncsba has five do.
We all agree that we want to interview them for sure I mean you could however you choose to proceed is up to you okaya said that she's almost online but is she or I just heard the zoom but she also sent me her choices so let me share those with with people I'm sorry I forgot oh I'm yeah I'm here Emily but if you want to go ahead and share them I did not share them in any particular order and excuse me hello everyone I am traveling so not able to be there in person I have ncsba mcferson and Associates bwp and then Summit so I did four and chair I'm said if you had to pick three would you could you let go of one of them sure I'm not I'm not sure I have a thought on that at this point okay all right so all right then looking at this again ncsba has the most votes so I'm just going to ask are we okay with go ahead and putting them on.
Our list to interview okay okay seeing nods and yeses hearing yeses so all right we will go ahead and say yes to interviewing ncsba Alma is the second Top Choice with four votes I also so I want to see do we want to put the on our list and also are there things that we should keep in mind miss vtis you asked a question about like if people had Communications about certain firms are there if we did interview Alma are there things that we might want to put in place like or could we put in place like not having certain conversations with former employees about these firms or what I I'm not sure how to sort of protect protect the integrity of the process for any firm well and you need to if you're I don't think it's fair to single out any specific search firm and and kind of throw a conspiracy theory at one and not at the ones that employ our former people or former board members so I mean.
I think the the topic needs to be addressed broadly and not at all targeted at any specific firm that at all thank you I I agree I think there were there are various associations in here so I have a a moment Personal Privilege that is a microaggression Nataly a conspiracy theory seriously conspiracy theory we're talking about associations we just came from a salary study where people said did you why did you hire a a consultant even though they disclose it there's a certain taste that the community has a concern a concern I apologize this is this is about influence and so and it's about influence in a process that is supposed to be as we can't afford the community says they've lost trust they they talk about nepotism they talk about undue influence and they talk about ways that you know networks like if if if it wasn't you in the seat and it wasn't many of you who are connected to certain people and some of the same people that.
That that kind of affects the direction that we take and so for me it's even out of protection for all of us the Integrity of this board to just put that in the conversation publicly and transparently and not say it's not a conflict I actually think that this any of these groups you know any of these groups would be great and that it's so wonderful that there have been people who have cared enough about education to be a part of these efforts and that's why I said what I said with that but the taste I apologize for anything that that was a microaggression I am concerned that we respect these people's business and that that as we try to work out issues that are amongst ourselves and we talk about who we're going to bring here for the next step as as an interview to say here's how I would do that work and it's really hard work and it has to be very confidential and it's very I mean it.
It's very secure work that we not cast any concerns on specific groups that have applied and submitted rfps that's my concern and and I apologize for any harm yes I just wanted to I do think this discussion is very important in light of where we've been and transparency is really important so I do appreciate Miss vi just bringing up the concerns and not to say there was a conspiracy but truly concerns and saying it's not a conflict but just that we all know and that we're transparent in this process I also want to appreciate Miss Rogers for saying this is my connection to Alma this is some of the training that I've done in association with it I think that conversation is is really important to be had I appreciate having it because I don't always know those nuances Jessica you brought up Summit and Ray associations and you know so just looking through there you can see who was formerly with DPS that is very important so I just I want to appreciate.
That bringing brought out I'm glad you also took a point of privilege because there was there was there's just no maliciousness of a conspiracy of any sort but I think that the conversation is good for us to have very openly and is transparent for the community so thank you for that and thank you you Natalie Beyer for apologizing and just just hearing what's being said and taking it in the intent not the the the the the reaction but what was the intent so thank you all right I I want to thank you all for sharing your comments and let's try to move forward with a a practice an agreement to a practice here I and again we do want to apply this to everybody we want to be mindful of connections there are a lot of people who you know we might know but what would make sense here can you suggest something or I mean even Beyond people who used to work there is there are there conversations.
We should or should not have in the next week some entities when they're doing an RFQ or an RFP they will prohibit the vendor interested vendors from making contact with the entity during the process other than like through a particular contact person so if you were to direct us Dr Giovani could email all of the entities but primarily the ones that you're going to interview and let them know that the board has asked that no one contact them or anybody with the school system other than whatever with questions during this process and until a selection is made and you know we could certainly do that if there's a concern in that in that area and we could expand we could actually extend that to say that they should also not ask someone and we can't control random people reaching out to you but certainly that they should not be behind someone reaching out someone else reaching out to you we can certainly do that if you'd like to do that if you think that would.
Help does can we just get a maybe a thumbs up of consensus on that point all right great awesome so we have consensus on that thank you Mr Malone that's a great suggestion and and so that will help us move forward knowing that the decisions are being made here in in this room and and just kind of keeping the process centered where it's supposed to be so all right so we have four for Alma so I'm going to ask if we can move ahead with Alma then since they are the other they're the second.
Highest going ahead and and inviting four groups if rather than three since there is this concern that has been raised about them and I'm also a little unsure about how we move forward that chair Umstead has four votes on that board that is throwing the math a little bit mathematically do we all go ahead and put our fourth or how are you thinking that that it would be helpful to proceed okay all right at this point maybe should rate to remove onea the simplest way yes all right chair onstead we will gently nudge you to please take one off your.
List I would take off off my okay all right thank you all right so so again are we it does if you're going to interview for yeah because then you have two with the read all right so let's make a couple of decisions perhaps can we one say we will agree to interview Alma with four votes or do we need more conversation about that we did that I just didn't see thumbs up but is there okay all right all right I saw half a thumb over here so I did that okay all right so we have two now we have a Miss Beyer suggestion to interview four do you all want to move forward with just saying we'll try to we'll do four rather than three right knowing that we like choic yeah p and Summit okay all right and yeah bwp and Summit have have three and the rest of them have two one or zero so.
Great that is complete then well amazing good job board now we I guess I'm I'll make some comments again about just the interview questions we want to keep in mind that we we want to send any any revisions of the questions are suggested questions to chair Umstead by today if you haven't already and and then we will again interview our candidates on next Wednesday March 20th and then we will choose a search firm on March 21st and then we will get rolling with them many of the proposals include timelines and so we will try to jump on that and look forward to to hiring our next superintendent within the next few months and let's see is there anything else you would like to say yeah go ahead Mr so two questions one do you have thoughts on the length of these interviews Dr gani and I had thrown around 30 minutes with maybe a 15 minute break in between each one U but that's just us sitting around and then the other question to think.
About is do you want do you have a particular order you want to take them alphabetically you want to put them in some other order as it relates to scheduling them are they in person or are they virtual for them are they they are coming in person that's what we had assumed that's what we had assumed that if they were interested in doing this work which is going to occur here in Durham that they will be here that's best making sure all right that's great that we clarified that so 30 minutes are people okay with 30 minute interviews 15 minutes I think 10 or 15 between is so important because they run long I.
Think you know to come and go yeah yeah based that's what we were thinking okay based on previous experience doing this to those for those who've been involved in this the past is 30 minutes enough time feels like a very big decision I would say with 30 minutes we might not have that many questions that are GNA so we have to probably narrow our questions down I might say 45 but anything longer than that feels like it might be too long so that's just one thing to consider and I will say that part of the idea of having 15 minutes in between was that it gave you that little buffer I mean some of the questions may end up being kind of a yes no answer so anyway but whatever you choose is fine we can certainly make them 45 minutes with 15 minutes in between each one if you prefer or we can make them 40 minutes I mean there's no magic to this whatever you whatever you.
Want and I can add I'm okay with 30 I just wanted to name that it would narrow we need to be really specific about the questions that we're going to ask ask and have a you know smaller set that's all thanks jermad I have a related question which is what about references are we doing references reference checks for all of these search firms or what were your thoughts and what has been done in the past with ref looks like that's included in most of the our like in their applications they that they're going to be doing the reference checks for no she's talking about sorry I think yeah yeah yeah yeah correct I believe some of them sent references right the RFQ did require them to provide some references if I guess the the thought I guess let's think this through do you want.
To I guess one option is that you could you make a selection subject to reference checks that we could do afterwards or which is probably better than us trying to do references on four firms I think it's probably better to pick a pick your chosen firm and then actually spend time on that one instead of trying to do four but whatever you like to do and and we will help or Tanya will whatever you like to have us do we'll we'll be happy happy to help in any way how do how do people feel about doing reference checks for the final candidate that we select or do you all feel that it's not necessary some of them do I mean some of them do have letters and also some of them have contacts in their materials so I would say this unlike hiring an employee that you are somewhat saddled with indefinitely I mean if you hire someone and it's not going well I mean you can move on to another search firm.
So I don't know that you have to do a reference check but you know you certainly can do that if if that's what You' like to have us do you know I again unlike an employee I mean I guess we would reach out to some of the clients and recent clients and find out what their experiences were like and we can certainly do that if you like I mean is there any back any precedent for the board chair and vice chair to make calls specifically to three recent districts that they've worked with or something prior to selection so I would say this not many of our clients do this version of selecting a search firm most of them just choose a search firm and so this is not normal I would say that like when you hire Architects which is a similar RFQ kinds of process you know I don't know how much school systems actually call around to former clients to find out their experiences with those vendors you know vendors are.
A little different than employees but I mean we certainly can or again if you want to say that and you'd have some time between when Wednesday and Thursday to make some calls that and I'm happy and I'm sure Tanya Dr Giovani would be happy to to call and and and do some reference checking on the selected firm and that wouldn't be that complicated happy to do that thank you I'm not seeing enthusiastic responses necessarily from people so yeah we don't need to do it if if people don't feel it's necessary go ahead I wonder if we wait to see whether it feels necessary or not sometimes it sometimes you do reference checks with the idea that like you have St the questions you want answered or like concerns you want address in those and we don't know yet if that will be the case so maybe we know that there are options and we hold off for now since we have letters of recommendation for folks that's my suggestion but open to others okay and.
Also I want to remind the board of the document that I sent around from other board members Nationwide that have worked with so many of these firms that submitted their documentation so I encourage you to look at that and I know that it's public record now that I sent it to all you guys so I want to make clear that I have some relationship with some of those people others I don't and so take what you want and leave what you don't thank you but one thing you could do is we could add into our questions maybe make your last question list the last three or four searches that they did I know it was in the in the RFQ I'm not sure how how everybody responded but if we got everybody to give the last three or four school system clients then we can I mean there's no reason we can't make some calls Thursday morning particularly the the team that they assign would assign to J specifically and then we can easily I.
Mean there's I mean we have all day Thursday to make some call so I I I can't imagine we couldn't get that done between the two of us okay great well let's formally cross that bridge when we come to it on next Wednesday and we'll see if we're feeling like that's absolutely something we want to do and appreciate you all's willingness to to make those calls and with that no sorry I was going to say with that I will suggest that we do 30 minute interviews but if if folks are okay with that and leave 15 minutes we can go over five minutes if we need to yeah how do is there a consensus about that okay all right and I'll just I mean if you if you think that's not enough time I mean we can do 40 minutes and 10 minutes in between or something like that I mean it's I mean you shouldn't feel rushed and if 30 minutes doesn't seem like enough time then let's.
I mean that's especially if some of these people are coming in from out of town or whatever let's make sure that you I think if we're well if we're okay with 30 minutes we can keep it at that we also kind of maybe want to be at our best by the time we get to the last firm but what what do folks think I'll no I just trying to remember the last time we did this it's and I think having read their materials ahead of time freshly I think you'll be familiar with which is which and who's on what team and stuff and that's super helpful and I just thought it was most helpful to just get a feel for the team that might come and work in Durham and and how they answer some of the equity questions right and the and the focus and whether they'd be a good fit that's kind of what I felt like I was evaluating for so I think that can be done.
In 30ish I do think they'll run over five or 10 so I mean it's however you want to schedule out a a series that's I'm just gonna say that I'm fine with 30 and I think that our ability to do that will depend on how tight we can get the interview questions and the rubric beforehand to make sure that we're as focused as possible some of the current interview questions are already answered in the application so we could go ahead and potentially remove those unless there's an issue with doing that but relatedly I wanted to know what our process would be at this point for refining our list of interview questions has that been determined or what are the thoughts on that thank you for bringing that up so that was what I was making sure you weren a journey on it so obviously won't have another Open Session before then and so I would ask if the board would be comfortable with sending kind of those questions to me.
And Mr Malone and allowing us to go through kind of the applications and hone those down and then we could come in a little you know right at the beginning of the meeting and make sure that y'all were kind of happy with them but both of us have done this you know kind of process and we know you know like I know you know and Mr Malone kind of have an idea of what's important in Durham further question so we had just initially sent just kind of blanket questions to give you something to react to right and y'all have reacted so which is you know the dur way right and so I guess what I'm just asking is if we can maybe get consensus to trust me and Mr Malone to get your feedback and then craft questions that will fit in a 30ish time span so that you don't feel rushed and the firms who've come you know this far feel like they've had an opportunity to really show you and.
Respond to questions that you have so if that's okay we can we can do that like that if the board's okay with that since you won't have another open meeting and you can't kind of have a you can't have a meeting by email right with all of you so yeah I I would say that thank you for doing that that sounds good and could we see a draft of that yes by by when would that maybe be ready so do have y'all all reacted and giv feedback not everyone has done that so today is Wednesday so if everyone can get feedback by tomorrow Mr Malone and I can have a draft back to y'all what you say Monday R Monday at noon okay Monday what I don't know March I don't know what the day is but March whatever Monday thank you March 18th by noon we'll get you the draft and then we would need back probably give you 24 hours to react to that on Tuesday at.
Noon and then we'll because we have to print them for y'all to come so you can have them so that leave us one question a piece probably if we were assigning them out probably so you depending on the question on average you expect two to three minutes for an answer right on average for these types of questions so I think can it let us play with it 10 questions or so and then yeah it it's seven of y'all and so it depends on you know we try to keep give everybody the same number of questions you don't so that's I think where we were at 14 right I think the last time we started at 14 yes yeah so you know these are a little different than like interviews of individuals right I mean this is like a search firm so I don't I think you'll be find even with the 14 questions that you ask I I think depending on the questions but you know we have to kind of react to them.
And it could be some questions are really two-part questions I see that a lot I've seen that a lot from boards where the questions are like a paragraph so it may be that some of those we have to kind of hone down or split between two board members but I think that the Equitable way for me and what I'm most comfortable with is having every board member ask the same number of questions which would be 14 and then if we go five minutes over right but everybody's had those two questions and feels like they've asked and had a chance to hear answers to what is important to that board member I think you feel better that's my recommendation the only thing I'd add is if if you believe that a question is already been adequately answered in the materials then let us know that because we definitely don't need to waste time asking a question that you already feel like it's been covered in the materials and that may help too so let us know.
That well and I I was going to say I'm comfortable asking one question and I mean I just listen to the answers and I think we all have the same concern so I don't think that you know I'd rather 10 good answers than top short answers which is why I'm saying if they if you feel like a question's been answered then let's just cut that out and then we can play with the other questions and and make sure people have time and I think that the person when we send it on Monday right by noon for example Mrs buer like if there's two questions that are in there for you and you're like you know that question I don't feel like is that important like each board member is able to say you know the question you've assigned to me is not something that I'm interested in and then the other board members can maybe say you know well I would still like that answer and we have a few.
Minutes right before we start the interviews you know an open session for any for that feedback and kind of tweak it like you'll have it printed out and if we need to make notes and tweak it and move it around because I do agree with you I think that it is you know you only get one shot right and you want to make sure that you're getting the answers that you need not in a performative way so that's kind of where I would live with I'm not comfortable taking a question from Miss Beyer but miss buer I'm just using you because you is can say no I don't want this question or Miss Chavez can say well I don't like my question but I do want to ask that question that Miss was assigned him as buyer and you know we can we'll take just a few minutes at the beginning and we can kind of make those notes and you're only doing four right I mean that's not and once we do that we'll.
Be here right and so if we need to go print anything else out you know or anything we you know we have access to that all right does that sound okay with everybody the one more one more thing then if we're going to start at 5 do you want to start the interviews at 5:15 so that you guys can get here get set up I mean because if you don't want to start late because then you'll be running late the whole time and then that also will time to get the questions straight make sure everybody's comfortable before we get started does that make sense yes I've done some with this before believe it or not okay great sounds good all right so we'll start at at five start interviews at 5:15 30 minutes 15 minutes in between all right last question sorry yeah do you just want to take them alphabetically is that easiest I think that sounds fine Fair yeah okay okay yes all right I think that's it any other.
Discussion right and with that we are.
Adjourned.