Board of Education · Special Meeting · March 20, 2024

good evening everyone uh good evening 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's joining us the purpose of this meeting is to interview a selected superintendent to interview superintendent search finalist the interpreters for tonight are Martha Romo eiles and Vanessa pinet Ramirez thank you for taking the time to join us the board uh last Wednesday had an opportunity to review um proposals from multiple search firms and we able to select a set of four finalists we will hear from three of those finalists tonight this evening um and we'll be able to make a decision at our board meeting tomorrow um let's review our agenda Madame chair I would move approval of the agenda with the um deletion of summit as item d as they uh withdrew

their application Miss SP Madam chair a second been moved by Miss berer and seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion all in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign oh I'm sorry we need to Voice vote we have um one of our board members who is joining us virtually Miss Chávez Vice chair Chavez so let's do that one more time uh Miss Chavez this is em Chavez and I will I miss Rogers I Miss Valladares I Miss unknown hi Miss Carter Aon hi and Miss Lewis hi I vote I as well so it passes unanimously well before we uh get started with our actual uh interviews we do have rubrics that are in front of us as well as search from questions Miss Lewis did you have something you want to kick us off with before we got into the questions yes just briefly I did want um

for the public uh to be aware that of the the process this evening so each firm um will be escorted into the boardroom by themselves and then when they're not being interviewed while they're waiting to be interviewed they will be in a holding room so that will be the process no one none of the other firms will be present while each firm is being interviewed the plan this evening is for the interviews to be approximately 30 minutes um give or take um of each firm and as the interviews conclude with them we will then escort those firms out of the building um what we would ask and I know the board has worked um several of the board members worked with Mr Malone on the questions and I believe it is the board's plan at this time to assign each of those questions we also provide it I did work on a rubric yesterday evening for you and if it is the board's desire we can uh tweak that as well I was attempting to capture uh the areas that you had in your interview

questions so with that if you the board wants to go ahead and I believe you have nine questions um right now thank you Dr Giovani board you'll see there are nine questions in front of you are there any additions or edits to the questions okay hearing no suggestions or edits we can do want to assign folks to ask a question just to make this process um move really smoothly we okay with going down the line or do you all wanna just the question of where Miss Chavez would like to fit in I think it's a little bit I don't think that she'd necessarily want to go first from from the screen so um or that works out Miss Chavez do you have a preference on a question that you would like to ask on which number

question you would like to ask um I'm happy to go wherever wherever would be easiest um my favorite question is number three but um I could ask I could I'm happy to start or finish us up either way uh let's maybe have you start let's do that perfect right Miss Chavez will go first Miss Roger she'll have two Miss Vadar three Miss Beyer four Miss Carter Aon five Miss Lewis six I'll take seven Miss Chavez can we come back to you for eight yep and for number nine anybody want to take the second all right M Rogers right sounds good any other questions before we get

started just the the notion of um before everyone was here and we were talking about follow-up questions and and keeping on time and just wondering what advice you and um AR's from sington have about that before we get started I don't know if you would like to assign a certain amount of time for each question you certainly can do that I think each firm has 45 minutes if that's correct M with nine questions so you know that doesn't leave a whole lot of time per question so if you wanted um if you would like me to time each question I can if you would rather have me give you an update maybe when there's 10 minutes left um if we need to speed things along it's really what the board prefers can you do a 10minute uh warning time when time is left we did have an opportunity to send the questions to all the firms in advance so they might um even though we just assigned some might have a presentation that they want to do or some might be ready to have us answer question so it might be a variety tonight and we'll be able to flex with

that but the 10-minute warning will help us stay on track thank you absolutely um and the notion of follow-up questions we have had these questions written and vetted in advance so we won't ask follow-up questions today we know that'll be harder but we're going to try to stick to our script again that has been sent to folks in advance so people have had an opportunity to really look through these questions other thing I want to note just about the search from process is this is our opportunity to really understand how a firm can support the board in the work of selecting the new superintendent the board will be responsible for reading applications and making um decisions around who we want to interview and move forward in the process and our goal in this process is really to understand how the search firm can support us with the recruitment of the candidates and also helping us with the whole process all right any other questions before we get started I think we're gonna be right on time at 5:15 all right let's invite our first firm and we'll start it off maybe with a

quick round of introductions as folks come in I

we um chair I'ma just stepped out to uh get her phone which is in the car she wanted wanted us to start with introductions and um our vice chair is online so I hope that she can start with introducing herself and you can see her face but welcome hi there but I'm Emily Chávez Vice chair um and thank you for coming tonight hi good evening Jessica CA auton hi I'm Javan Lewis I'm Natalie I'm alexand uh good evening I'm ment Rogers Emily I think you have our first question what's your name yeah what's

your name that seems important thanks my name is syia flow of the name Alma is that it means to Foster in Latin and what we uh the reason that that is important is because this work with our clients is really about fostering our relationship and fostering this work together and so we believe that in capacity building at our core because we want you to leave uh knowing that you have the tools and skills to carry out um whatever work whether it's our Consulting work our search work uh on your own going forward

so thank you for having us you so much siia it's it's a little strange with our vice chair online and and um we wanted to make sure that we're timing our our attorney is timing and we'll let you know when there's a 10 minutes left but we have a little bit of overflow if needed um anything else that I forgot y'all are I'm just happen to be sitting closest to the middle so okay um Emily you comfortable getting us started yes um I am going to give the first question so this question is how does your firm's understanding of institutional race racism and Equity inform your recruitment of candidates as well as your board and Community engagement process thank you so much for that question um as you note in our proposal our results are not by accident they are by Design uh based on our team's lived experiences um our work began as I mentioned in the HR and talent space

working with organizations to help strengthen the ways that they recruit retain and staff their organizations and so we found that um in starting this starting with the agreed upon competencies for the role whatever that role is that's the first step in mitigating bias um and so when we design um the job profile it begins with ath authentic voice and transparency and communicate and Community engagement um all of the community engagement work um helps us really Define that job profile and the key competencies that will be used to shape the selection process um our search work evolved because of that Consulting work and people began to see that the tools and resources that we developed to help staff schools with teachers and leaders could also be used in um finding their next cabinet level

member or superintendent um and those uh uh what we found is when we develop a process that is grounded in those competencies women and leaders of color tend to make it through the stages of the selection process because of that work on the front line um defining those competencies and so that is um one of the ways that we mitigate bias through our search processes we also provide training to anyone who is going to be a part of the interview and selection process um and that is our sort of proprietary anti-bias training that is foundational um to our search practice sorry it's my turn um thank you um can you provide examples of how you navigate board Dynamics in a board's multiple thoughts and opinions it's a great question and we

know uh we have had uh numerous um engagements with school boards that have been in a variety of states and we know that um you all are facing a board transition you'll have two new board members joining your organ your team in July um we had a situation in Cincinnati public schools where there was an election happening in the middle of the the superintendent search process um attracting a strong superintendent who's going to be committed to your your city and County um starts with having that align alignment at the board level um so what we want to do first is have individual interviews with every board member and we would want to also include your incoming board members as well to get them engaged in the process before they um assume office because they will be then working with your next selected leader um help that really helps us identify any risks and plan for for um

plan for the selection process going forward it also helps us align on those key competencies as I mentioned um at the beginning so that we're clear on what uh what the board is looking for in addition to what the community is looking for um I'll share another example uh where we worked in unknown public uh unknown Township High School District um they hired us um and unknown is just nor of Chicago where Northwestern University is they had an outgoing superintendent who had had many years of service and they thought they had an internal candidate for the role and we worked with the board to decide whether or not they wanted to conduct a a nationwide search or if they wanted to really engage first and align on the competencies and then align uh then evaluate that incoming uh the internal candidate against those competen icies um and what was great about that is

after doing the community engagement work developing the job profile um and evaluating the internal candidate the board um selected the internal candidate they all had these t-shirts on that said like I forget the I forget exactly what it said but like team of eight so the seven board members and eight and they had these t-shirts on when they um announced that he would be the next superintendent really to show that alignment and that commitment to to this internal person stepping into the role so again I think it goes back to the clarifi clarification of those competencies at the very beginning and then having everything come back to that um and working with the board to to stay focused and aligned I have the next question and you've answered part of it but um can you provide examples of how you work with boards to identify their specific needs for their next superintendent

since you've already talked a little bit about this I mean you have just a few more minutes um to just expand on on what you were sharing yeah I mean again first we want to meet with you individually and then of course we want to meet with you collectively as we go through this process I think it's really um it would be really important for us to have and I don't know if you all have thought about this already one or two members who are working closely with the Alma team going forward um so that we're planning every step of the process together and then those one or two designes are are then making sure that the full board is aware of the work that we're doing in between those times where we come back together um as I mentioned we'll want to do anti-bias training with you all together to really talk about what's important what are some of the ways that we want to um help each other stay grounded in those competencies recognizing that we all have biases but how do we mitigate and

control for those and help pressure test one another and stay focused on the evidence that we'll be gathering throughout the throughout the selection process thank you so much um what is your communication protocol throughout the process you talked about this a little bit but with the board the community and the candidates and how do you handle confidentiality so as I mentioned that authentic voice and transparency will be important uh in this process we want to make sure that the community knows what's happening with the search um we will want to work with your um designes at the district level hopefully to create a landing page for the superintendent search so that people can access and find out where we are at each step of the process um so we'll help uh craft out a communication plan that um

identifies when we're reporting back to the community and sharing updates about the superintendent search in terms of working with the board we'll want to again have one or two points of contact who are our sort of project team working alongside of us and then we'll want to come back and meet with the board at regular intervals um typically that's every other week with the project team and can be at least monthly with the full board um to keep um to keep the information flow and to get their input um on the process in terms of candidate confidentiality this is of utmost importance to us um our recruiting team is going to be looking for candidates that align with your values and align with the job profile that we create based on our community engagement work and so we're we're looking for active job Seekers but we're also looking for people who may not know what a great

City what a great County this is and what a great opportunity it'll be so in those cases when you have passive job Seekers candidate confidentiality is really important to them as well um because we know that um you know if someone finds out they're looking sometimes it could create uh a difficult situation for those those candidates so um we believe in candidate commun candidate confidentiality we will definitely want to get clear on the um the rules and regulations in North Carolina um so that we can understand if there any constraints we have with sharing applicant materials either um for those being foyer or um for others having access outside of the board we have used confidentiality agreements um in certain uh situations where we've introduced other interviewers into the

process at various stages so that's certainly something we'll want to discuss with your board attorney um as well and again we have worked in States like Ohio that have very generous open records requests where um appli the list of applicants can be requested and shared um almost immediately um and then we've worked in States like Wisconsin where candidates can request confidentiality um in advance but they're not guaranteed confidentiality at the finalist stage so we'll just want to understand what how things work in North Carolina and make sure that we are planning for that and being clear upfront with candidates about what they can expect thank you I apologize for my tardiness coming in my name is batina Umstead chair of the board thank you for being here today oh actually it's not even my question that's question I

apologize what do you believe should be the role of community stakeholders and how do you ensure the engagement of under represented Community communities that's a great question I think stakeholder and Community engagement is the most important part of this process um so we will thoughtfully Design um our our community engagement process upfront we will want to work very closely with you to identify um individuals that will either need to be interviewed oneon-one that could be invited to focus groups and then we would also want to work with you to design um Community forums and other um ways to engage the broader community in the early part of the select of the search process that intentional Outreach of historically underrepresented groups will be really important and we'll want to lean on um your connections um

hopefully your family and Community engagement team can help us identify the ways that we want to intentionally reach out to um all members of your community we are obviously we're now living in a virtual world so we can conduct a lot of things virtually and then when we're here on site we'll want to go to the places where the community members are um and we'll of course want your input on how to best do that we have also um used a community survey as well um there are several members of our team who are bilingual in Spanish and so we can do our own um translation we can also hold uh monolingual Spanish sessions in your community as well um we would need support for any other languages that um are pro prevalent in your community but we'd want to make sure that we are um going to the community as opposed to making it difficult for them to come to

us so we want to leverage as many Avenues as possible to get to the community that's the beginning that starts the process that helps us understand what's most important to the community we would also want to through the communications um updates make sure that we're getting that information out to the community on the search process at every at at Key milestones and then in the finalist stage we want to come back to the community and invite them to be a part of the finalist interview process um we have designed an finalist interview rounds that include up to nine different um stakeholder groups all of those interviewers um are trained in our anti-bias training and are able to really design and craft questions from their point of view what is most important to them and so that on the back end the community has an opportunity to participate in the in the

finalist interview stage and we also want the broader Community to be able to either view interviews and give feedback and we synthesize that feedback and provide it to the board um to use in their final deliberation you um and how do you address unconscious bias in the Recruitment and selection process so I talked a little bit about that at the beginning which is really it starts with those competencies first getting clear on what you're looking for is the foundation of this work um we spend you know th those initial weeks is really about understanding what's most important and how does that come alive in the job description for your role we don't have a cookie cutter superintendent job description we really want the values the um the skills the

experiences the core work to come alive and how we tell the story about Durham Public Schools um from there I mentioned our anti-bias training is foundational to our work um we want to be able to acknowledge that biases exist and then be a able to set those aside and focus on the evidence against the count the competencies that candidates demonstrate at each stage of the process we believe in um designing those interview activities to really get at what are the skills and experiences that candidates have demonstrated that show the alignment there and we find that when you focus on those that evidence and Gathering that evidence and when you have multiple interview interiew viewers who are evaluating candidates from their point of view um you tend to again have women of color women and people of color make it through the the selection process at higher rates um the the

second part of that is Alma does provide uh facilitation at each step of the decision-making process so our team does um all of our debrief sessions with you and with interviewers are um facilitated so that we are focused on evidence that we're challenging one another when we see or hear things that may sound like bias and not evidence-based to really get at what what it is we're looking for what it is we're hearing um and again making sure that we can come to agreement on who's advancing through each step of the process hello again what are the um my question is what are the expected fees and expenses um including an explanation of any additional cost that may be incurred so thank you for that question and we definitely want to take a moment to talk about our pricing and how our

approach is different um our proposal does include an all-inclusive uh pricing structure um we base our pricing on 32% of the estim ated base salary and for those of you um who have been involved in executive searches outside of this this setting you would you may know that the typical search firm charges 34% of total compensation so we're a little less than a traditional executive Search firm um as I mentioned our pricing is reflective of the time and effort that we that our team will dedicate to this process um that includes all of the training for interviewers this facilitation of your board um and board debrief times um we of course can translate and facilitate in Spanish so that would be included um all of the community engagement work is a part of that and um you know the level of work

is very is extensive in the way that we design and co-create a process that fits Durham Public Schools um and I will say that you know board members who have participated in multiple superintendent searches over the course of their uh board service will tell you that there is a difference in the level of service that we that we provide and the value of that service and I'll certainly you all have our references in your in our proposal but would definitely point to um board chair Eve Bolton in Cincinnati public schools who is a long serving board member who will Who is our reference for us and she can tell you about um the level of service that we provide also we just wrapped up Madison public schools in Wisconsin and uh former board chair Al Ali mro and others can tell you the differences between uh an alma search and and other firms um the last thing I'll say is that um we

would dedicate about five people to supporting your search a couple of those folks you won't see on a day today basis they will be behind the scenes either doing recruiting and sourcing work some of our data analytics work um and then there'll be one or two uh project team members who will be working closely with you all um on a weekly basis here patina we are at 10 minutes thank you that's perfect because we have two more questions left Miss Travis so um you touched upon this a little bit but could you explain how you would comply with North Carolina's open meetings public records and Personnel confidentiality laws so again we would of course want to meet with the board attorney or outside counsel to make sure that we understand what's required in the state of North Carolina and any potential constraints

that we have um we just want to make sure that we are uh complying with any open meetings public records and confidentiality laws that exist we've worked in in again states that are very generous where we have to let candidates know upfront it is possible that your name and application materials will be released to the public uh before finalist stage and so we'll want to be really honest with candidates about uh the expectations here and then we've worked in places where the search can be confidential up until the finalist round typically at the finalist stage we will want to announce those finalists so that the community again when we come back they have the opportunity to meet finalist candidates um in terms of working with the board specifically on what has to be a public meeting versus an executive session or trainings um we found that the laws vary in every state and so we'll want to help your attorney

understand what is happening in in each of the meetings where we're all together and um plan thoughtfully for what needs to be uh done in public versus what needs to be done or what can be done in private thank you um and you've already address some of this but what assistance does your firm provide with scheduling board meetings preparing meeting minutes and handling other logistics yeah so we'll definitely want to get clear on the expectations for that um we we have typically had one or two points of contact within the district who are working alongside of us as well that could either be from uh the board office specifically or your Communications team um to help to help us with Logistics and uh meeting materials at every step of the process um we have found that uh we have found great success when we have that Clarity up front and we are identifying those trusted folks that

that we can work with alongside at every step of the process um because we do want to name that this is a Time intensive process not only for you all as board members and there will be times where staff are needed to help with scheduling a community meeting at a school for example or helping us identify locations for um any meetings where we want to engage with um key stakeholders so that's definitely a partnership that we would want to establish up front front and we would want to be clear on um what you all need from us in order to support um support you and to support the staff you I'm GNA look at Miss merchon here just to see if we could ask if there's anything else she would like to share that maybe wasn't covered already is that right I don't have anything to add all right thank you is there anything else you would like to add that hasn't been covered already let me see

um so I would just close by saying I think the difference in our approach is really around the customization that we provide at every step of the process um and our foundation in developing an anti-bias process that um that helps to mitigate bias and I think lastly the transparent inclusive community engagement is really important to us us because we have a philosophy that those who are um closest to the issue should have a stake in designing and co-creating a solution so it's really important for us that we are able to get to know and engage this community uh parents students staff as closely as possible thank you thank you so much for coming um and speaking with us and answering some of our questions this afternoon we really appreciate it the opportunity to get to know you and the work your firm does a little better thank you thank

you we will take a quick like 10 minute recess in between I think we have 15 minute recess in between firm so for those who might be viewing we're going to go to a recess and then come back for our next firm I'm at 6:00

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I don't know what for is on but just make sure you're speaking into it as need yes

ma'am all right we're back from our brief recess we're going to do some introductions I want to say thank you all for being here with us we do have one board member member who is joining us online our vice chair so we'll start with her and then do introductions for the rest of the board Miss Chavez hi nice to meet you I'm Emily Chavez hi thanks for being here this evening Jessica CA auton hey I'm javanna Lewis I I'm Natalie Beyer I am Alexandra VES and I'm ment Rogers and my name is

Betina I'm said I'm chair of the board thank y'all again for being here we have I know you all prepared a PowerPoint presentation so we'll bring that up the board also has a set of questions that are in front of us um we're going to be tracking your presentation and make sure the questions are answered each one of us has been assigned a question so we'll be looking for our question um at the end we'll give an opportunity for if anything wasn't answered for us to come back and ask that question all right and with that we'll pass it along to you all Mr C if you could just turn hit that button there perfect there you go yep no it's okay you might have to bring it close to you so that the streaming will pick up pick up voice I'm Kevin kassner this is my colleague Percy Mack and this is his wife an important part of our group too Carolyn Mack um you'll see us with we go through the PowerPoint we have tried to

embed the questions however our very last slide has all nine questions and if we have missed something we hopefully we can get through to that our goal is to try to get through the PowerPoint in about 20 minutes or so so that we have plenty of time to try to address your question first we're delighted to be here and U you've all had an opportunity to look at our proposal which we feel is pretty comprehensive and a lot of the stuff will follow the details of what we're trying to prevent present the next slide please the things that's important how many of you have been through a superintendent search process one of you have been here since 2010 I don't know so the fact that some of this is new to you one of the things that happens during a superintendent search is it does bring a community together and hopefully it brings a board together even a board that sometimes goes through split votes because you have a common

Mission trying to pick the best person you can to lead your system and in doing that there's a lot of Goodwill that occurs but also you're on stage too people will start watching your meetings more they'll be paying attention to everything and the idea is how you want to um relate this in a transparent way to your community and the process that we have which will allow that to happen you're putting the trust for a group to come in and have access to your community and also report back to you whatever we're hearing now you're the experts of your system you're going to be able to have that as a check and balance as you're trying to come in and develop your decisions in the process that you're going to have but it usually is is a very positive process and again as we come in here we're aware of your school board we come into situation sometimes where things aren't always going well so

a lot of times this is still going to build on this in whatever situation so again uh it's a team effort and a lot of this and the people that you're going to be talking to tonight that would represent you as your search team it's development of a relationship same type of relationship you want to have in trust as you're trying to find your new superintendent and uh and that's something that you're going to deliberate on and it's very important next slide please I'm going to start having Percy introduce himself and also one of our colleagues is not here Deborah Hill Percy if you would please again hello to everyone and uh I'm uh Dr Percy Mack uh former uh teacher assistant principal principal uh executive director Deputy superintendent super intendent in two districts Dayton Ohio and Columbia South

Carolina uh worked there about 40 years uh in all of that uh uh retired and now I am the uh chair of the Ed leadership department at South Carolina State University uh we trained School administrators uh from assistant principls all the way up to superintendent uh as uh superintendent in Dayton Ohio I was selected as intendent of year uh by nabsi uh in '06 and uh uh was advocate of the year in South Carolina as advocating for students as the school superintendent at in that particular District it have an opportunity and Dayton to uh run a levy to build all new schools Dayton Ohio has all new schools today uh because we were able to do that and we could only do it if we uh increased student achievement uh when I took over super intendent we were last in the state of Ohio we were 614 out of 614 school districts in

academic achievement and we were able to increase to continuous Improvement in a period of four years uh but we had to have everybody on board parents uh Community uh the judges we did a thing with the judges where if parents didn't send their kids to school they would provide uh the the the court system would deal with the parents because we have a situation where where parents weren't sending kids to school and so we had to move to that and you know because you have to have them present in order to learn and uh once we got that across to parents then they did uh what they needed to do uh but all of that was a team effort and I had a great team in both places and uh uh really enjoyed that time and now enjoy uh working with uh students uh at South Carolina state who are training as assistant princip PR principles and superintendents and we have several superintendents from our school who represent the state of South

Carolina uh Deborah Hill uh Dr Hill is uh former School administrator she's our managing partner uh at bwp she was former president of ASC which was Association of supervision of curriculum development she has really focused on curriculum development during her career and uh is a great managing partner for bwp she keeps us on our toes and uh uh she uh you know uh her favorite her favorite word sometimes is no no without explanation so uh uh we all understand uh the marching orders as as we go forward but uh really looking forward to having an opportunity to present to you today and to work with you if you see fit okay first last I'd like to introduce car I'd like to introduce Carolyn Ma and Carolyn has been an educator all her career she uh was in essence uh a uh

Chief academic officer in the Dayton area and she also has helped us with communication as it turns out she started coming with Percy to some of the meetings and we found out that she's a valuable member of our team she owns a company now called Elevate which is in professional development and has a lot of the technology skills that we can use with her when we're getting into the zoom and the ways that we can create access that if anything was uh was enhanced as we went through covid so that we're getting greater access than we've ever had before and I'll talk about that in a minute in regard to myself I'm a former superintendent from Alor County in Charlottesville Virginia so I've worked in a university town I know what that's like but I also uh spent 25 years in Maryland in Prince George's County which is 100,000 Frederick County which is 40,000 and Charles County which was 25 so we've had experiences in a lot of the larger districts which we seem to be working with more and more in our process I also was a peer reviewer for race to the top

and helped give North Carolina $600 million and got to know Bill Harrison and a lot of your people the booklet was about this unknown and so I did learn a lot about North Carolina and actually was very impressed at that time with the quality of work that we had there I also own Cambridge strategic services and do strategic planning and I've done over 50 plans all across the country in addition to over the 50 superintendent searches you have in front of you a booklet that I should have told you about and in the booklet you've got a brochure that describes the history of bwp you also because of Carolyn you have a Nifty PowerPoint in a different way than we normally have had it and this is another example of trying to customize our work on the right hand side you have key decisions that if we would have another meeting if we were selected we would want to go through and get direction from you as a board and you're going to see details that go into specifics about how you need to help us

in community engagement and how important that is and what it looks like in order to have creating access and a transparency throughout your division we also have a sample survey which in some cases we've had several several thousand people fill out in addition it turns out there's an article that I wrote in for the national Schoolboard Journal which talks about the importance of stakeholder environment particularly when you're getting into multiple opinions and how you're trying to bring all voices into the tent to try to re uh have consensus it's necessary but it's hard and that's the type of thing that you want to try to do when we go through this process so that's some back ground information that you can have here and uh I can just tell you uh bwp if we go to our next slide uh our our strength is we've got superintendents all across the country

but the fact that we have over 35 years superintendent experience in urban Metropolitan and Suburban areas that experience is most valuable when we're working with the public and we know how to work with the public as a superintendent should in order to be able to receive information and not try to be judgmental but to hear people's voices and it's important that people have an opportunity to be heard so when we get in front of a group we know how to navigate those type of things it's not always easy but it's very important that we do it the right way and I think you'll find if you talk to any of our rences they'll tell us that we do it the right way so we have a support system we have the experience which we think separates us from many places and we also have the track record as we go to our next slide please our next slide I'm going to have Dr Matt go into it because I think our important portfolio is important because

our portfolio and the examples we've used are customized to examples that fit into your school district one of the things as you look at that uh that page it it identifies diversity and placement and uh one of the things we do uh in in uh ref reflection to your question one uh we look at districts if a district is not willing to show diversity and Equity we don't take the search we don't take every search we evaluate the district before we decide if we're going to take that search not and uh as I said if they don't uh indicate uh diversity and Equity then we will not take that District you know no matter you know you know we will you know if we've already applied we'll withdraw you know we have no problem doing that because you know we want our

record to speak for itself because we want the best possible person for your District our goal upon uh getting the folks for your district is for you to have a hard time deciding which one of them you want you know we want you to have to stay up at night we want you to have to fuss at each other a little bit uh about you know the individuals involved and so that's why we we work at this and you can see our placement uh uh 37 minorities uh and this is just recent uh and 52 women uh the ladies are really stepping it up in the superintendent category uh today uh because they make up the most of the workforce within the schools uh and uh they have moved into principal ships Deputy superintendent superintendents and that's a good thing because uh I have one of those ladies who is one of my daughters who's a school principal and uh I have three other daughters so you know I'm I'm glad things are are really doing well at that period of time and if you look at those

schools minute if you look at those schools you'll see the breakdown the large medium you know uh uh small uh and uh all those schools uh have uh great superintendents and they they're still holding on the point I want to make we don't select the superintendent we try to give the board six candidates usually that we feel are a match and fit based on your leadership profile we do have when we work with urban districts Cosmopolitan districts we have the ability to attract a very a very good camp cidate pool in that candidate pool it always has diversity in it and in doing that then it becomes the choice of the board but it just so happens as you look in the southeastern region which we have specialized particularly in the last few years with Savannah and charlott Mech and and a lot of the places you can see uh we have in

essence developed a great reputation in this area and people look to us more in the Southeast than if we were going to do one in the Midwest so with Percy and I in this area I'm in Virginia he he's in South Carolina the southeast has been somewhat of our specialty uh but of that group right there uh 11 out of 12 do have diversity whether it's been Hispanic black or or uh women so this is a reflection of our work all right the next slide please uh we want to we want to let you know that we personalize your search your search church will be like none other uh in other words uh you know what your community says they need what you said you need you know is not a match uh you know a lot of time people talking about say You Know A District similar to yours there's no District similar to yours every district has its own unique uh uh uh individuals our content our

needs of the community uh and so if we designed it for everybody the same it wouldn't work so we talk with you first and then we make a move on that next slide please all right there are several phases to our to our work uh we establish a process that supports and helps the Board to find that candidate uh we create community and staff support we aggressively recruit uh highly qualified candidates for your position and upon the SE uh uh successful completion of your search within your timeline your budget and your expectations so let's look at specification one okay the next one please all right first specification uh we will coordinate the community engagement process uh we will

create a draft leadership profile uh of experience qualities and skills needed in the next superintendent and then we will look for board to approve that leadership profile once we establish it it's your approval and uh then we will post and announce the vacancy now here's what we do to get that profile next slide please we interview each board member we interview each board member we meet with representatives of various groups and you give us those groups we have opened forum for employees and community and we also include students in our interview process because students know more than you think they know about what they want for the next superintendent and we have a online survey uh posted on the district's website in multiple languages whatever language you tell us that it needs to be posted in we'll post it in

that language and that has been great for us and it's it is brought about great results because a lot of times folks don't want to come out and but they will handle this and I want um Kevin to talk a little bit about uh the place where he went when we were in Charlotte so Charlotte mecklinburg we rely on staff and board members and so I didn't know where I was going but I went to a Hindu temple and found out there were 100 people there had to take my shoes off and it turns out that 20% of the Charlotte Mech population is Hindu we allow we want to go the places that need to be gone to so in Prince William County as we're getting into Co and we're trying to get access to the meeting we're having a community forum and on the screen are translators for nine different languages that go into chat rooms simultaneously translate get the information back to us so how do you get

into those div diverse groups how do you get into areas of key Hispanic uh communities all of this you can help us do that but it's important that there's a partnership we'll go where we need to go and we need to be able to do this in such a transparent way that we don't leave somebody out that's a recognized member and that accountability is something we have to work at a team so we think that's very important and we agree with this and I also you know when we look at your work the questions you've asked and the types of things that we're trying to present all are driven by your core beliefs and your uh five priorities and so the leadership is there what we're trying to do now is you're modeling it and and doing that we're going to help you continue that one of the things you'll be presented after that uh Community um input is you will be provided a document similar to this it will have have in it

everything people said we'll not cut anything we'll say it the way they said it we won't Jazz it up we won't correct the grammar or whatever however they say it it'll be in this booklet and each one of you will get a copy of this and you will see what the individuals had in mind or what they had to say uh doing that particular for and uh and we tell them up front you know we want you to be honest say what you want to say say and we will record it and at the end we go back over what they said and say have we missed anything because we want them to understand we were listening and that we feel that they are a great part of this process to find the next superintendent so like I said each one of you will get this document that will be divided and separated out but it will also have people saying what they actually said nothing made up all right we're going on

to recruitment on the next slide please all right under recruitment we advize advertise in National Publications and websites and we seek nominations from an extensive network we have uh directors all over the country and if someone comes from California we have contacts in California to let us know if that person is the right person uh for this particular position and people are very very very clear on what they need to do and then we initiate contact and let them know that they need to apply on our website five minutes so we have time okay all right good enough so I'll keep moving uh next slide all right the the assessment we assess everybody we we we work with them and uh then we we come up with our group who we say now these are the ones we want to present to the board we'll present you

six or seven candidates and from that group you may choose maybe three or four uh or may say hey we want to bring all six in an interview that's again your call uh uh and that kind of thing and we will only bring you the top candidates ones that we have done formal and informal reviews on we will check their Google searches we will know if they have any hidden agendas uh we have uh our individuals go deep they will tell you if they walked across the street the wrong way and uh and then we will let you know and then uh uh uh but you know once we get everything lined up then you will get this document this document has everything in it about the six or seven people we'll give you everything all of their articles everything you will get this book and in this book also so you will have the protocols of how the selection

process should be what questions you should ask what questions you should not ask because sometime you ask the wrong question it ends up being a lawsuit and uh you know we don't want that to happen we want you to be fine and we'll do a training with the board before this process takes place so we can we can make that happen first I want I want to add one thing uh we encourage you because the state of s it to have a confidential pool we think it's very important to be transparent on the front end but in order to attract the strongest pool possible we find that by having it confidential if we go to South Carolina we have smaller pools it's a balancing act that you're going to have to decide as a board we can tell you the pros and cons But ultimately that's your position but to attract the maximum pool of sitting superintendent that's the best way to do

it we've done it both ways again we've done it in South Carolina that way we've done it in minap that way we did it in Columbus that way so we know how to go both ways but that's going to end up being a community decision and that's something that you as a board when you would have that interview with whoever you select you would have to give us direction for that ask uh uh Slide the next slide please uh it it's just what I spoke about you guys will set up interviews we will work with one member that you determine oh I'm sorry thank you we will work with one member that you determine who we will schedule with and then we will schedule these interviews based on what that person tells us your schedules allow for because and let me say this when you interview everybody needs to be present do not set it up if three people can't come if two people can't come and one per please don't do that because what we

understand is this these candidates are interviewing you as well and they want to see that you're interested these people are going to be moving their families they're going to be leaving positions and usually the people we have are in positions and they're doing pretty good already but an opportunity to move here with you will allow for that opport opportunity so please uh uh when you set up your interviews make sure everyone can be can be present all right Kevin you want to go over the timeline right quick and then we'll give them time for questions next slide please if you want to have someone on board by July one it's going to be tough but we've worked with that timeline the problem is when you're negotiating when a candidate is going to be available because you don't want them to do wrong to their previous system so you have an inum that's the type of thing that is going to have to happen when you get involved with who you want to pick and you get into that type of negotiation

it's very clear that what the option is if you want to expedite it and go 30 days sooner I think it'll make your pool a little bit smaller but this is a timeline that we worked with in Charlotte Mech and actually we were doing Charlotte Mech and then a month or so later uh Savannah so we know that it can work another thing you need to understand you're an attractive area of the country that people want to come to so a lot of things that you're working towards is because you have things going in a very positive way you're in a unique place that's very special to people okay um now I'd like to get to the questions because I want to add a few things if I may uh if you could put the nine questions up please next slide find out if the board let's find out if the board has questions that we may not have answered yeah let let me stop for a minute before you get to that go ahead first thing is as far as pricing uh pricing our base is 34,000 we

think that we're going to have uh we are going to be able to drive we don't have to get in a plane so we think we can keep it around 40,000 but one of the things that you can't determine you we believe you should bring candidates in you should not do Zoom interviews so the expense for candidate travel you know that's something we think is worth the money the other thing is on Advertising whether you go 30 days or 60 days if you can do 60 days you'll have a larger pool but that's 3,000 or you can go to, 1500 so ballpark uh we think that our price is competitive but we also know that uh that's the type of thing we could talk about more because some of that's going to be related to your decisions uh the other thing on confid confidentiality we believe in confidentiality throughout the search we even have had boards choose to sign a confidentiality agreement um that's your call uh if a board thinks that's what they want to do that's important

unfortunately we've had that happen and we've had it not work complete um now everything else on there uh we have familiarity with North Carolina we have worked in school system Charlotte Mech was a good one and I I guarantee you they were on top of everything and and as you would expect so we we do know the nuances that you have in your state and I know several people through the state your superintendents that we work with um I would like to stop there if we missed something we'd ha be happy to entertain any questions thank y'all so much for the presentation and I do think you covered a lot I'm going to look at my board members to see if there was a question that we felt like needed to be covered Miss Lewis thank you for your presentation and the diversity and placement that you shared to us the question number six is specifically how do you address unconscious bias in the Recruitment and selection process we haven't had that as an issue

um we try to follow what is the best match and fit to your leadership profile and there's no bias to that the issue is a candidate that can show a body of work that relates to the expectations and the what this this school board is looking for so it doesn't and we don't the gender issue the equity issue has not ever come up that way I I also think as professional Educators we want to guard ourselves against it and it it just has never been an issue um we have seen places where people say take the name off the top we haven't seen that improve a search One Way or Another when it comes to a board although there are options if a board would choose to do that um so we're very we're very sensitive to that but I also think that it goes with our experience in professional training not to let that happen one of the things we look at as well is we listen to what the candidates say when we're interviewing them we

listen at what they're saying we we look at the district they're coming from we've looked at their the their their body of work in that District have they really worked with you know everybody have they worked with the the the individuals in that District who were in poverty areas you know have they provided education for all for all students in that District because every student deserves the right to Quality education and so you know we we look to make sure that we don't have people who have bias to low income or you know it's not just racial bias you know it's other biases as well that people have and that's why we have to do a close look at what they say and we have to do a close look of references check to make sure that we don't run into that situation one of the things that counters bias is when we're looking for datadriven examples of student achievement you can't hide that where are your achievement gaps are you going the right way or the wrong way so those type of

issues the data needs to follow that and when we talk with members of that Community or even the board or other people in the community U one of the things superintendent can't hide they're an off fishable and these things would come up also the fact that we give you no surprises when we go through some Google searches sometimes there's some things there that you want to know about sometimes they aren't exactly as accurate as they should be so we try to eliminate some of that uh because our goal and your goal no surprises and we've been fortunate that that has not occurred and we asked the question you know is there anything that we need to know that would cause embarrassment to the sport and uh then we do our check and if you didn't tell us the truth we'll know it because we want to put you on the spot we want to say you know because some people say well you know I had a speeding ticket or I had this or that uh but uh you know didn't tell you that they uh took took money uh for gambling

and tried to put the money back before it was time for the the budget to be reviewed and couldn't make it and and that type thing so those are things that you find out as you go deep we go deep into background checks on individuals thank you all so much we have concluded our time I'm just going to look to see if there's any other questions I was going to ask Miss Chavez do you have um a question you feel like we need need to make sure we get answered from our our questions no I don't have any additional questions at this time thank you thank you all so much for coming um and have an opportunity to share with us we did ask our other uh group is there anything you needed to share that you felt like was not covered already but no you know and we've researched your District you know we kind of know what goes on the other thing is now is this being tell is this

being recorded yes so as we observe and we've been in a lot of board meetings just the way you've reacted to us the fact that you have engaged with us you've asked the good questions uh you've been true to what you have in your core values so all of these things give us every reason to really have the opportunity we'd like to work with you and we'd like to thank you thank you all so much thank you for coming lady right here thank you all we are going to take again another recess before our next group comes in five

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e right we are are back we are now getting ready to interview our last firm North Carolina School boards Association thank y'all for being here we're going to do a quick round of introductions and then we will pass it over to you all one of our board members our vice chair is joining us online so we'll start with her good evening this is Emily Chávez I'm the vice chair thank you for being here hi good evening thanks for being here I'm Jessica CA auton

and I'm javanna Lewis batina Umstead I'm Natalie berer I'm Alexandra VES Millis Rogers all right uh we understand that you all have a presentation so we're gonna let you all go through that PowerPoint presentation the board has copies of the questions that we sent along and if there are any that we feel like we didn't quite get the answer to we'll Circle back at the end of the presentation all right good thank you I'll pass it over to you okay um first of all I just want to say thank you so much for inviting us to interview with you tonight and considering ncsba as a finalist um for your superintendent search uh we really appreciate uh this opportunity uh very briefly just to introduce ourselves uh my name is Sam Sam Thorp and I'm an attorney at the North Carolina School boards Association uh where I currently head up our association superintendent search uh Service uh two of my colleagues who work with me on superintendent searches are here with me tonight and I'll give them

a brief moment to introduce themselves to as well thank and push the button to make it sure it's green thank you thank you good evening my name is Caitlyn ay and I'm also an attorney at ncsba I'm a colleague of Mr thorps and I've been in csba for about two years now and help out with the superintendent search thank you for letting us be here this evening um our team prepared a PowerPoint oh I'm so sorry um hi my name is Maddie gden I am the editorial coordinator here at ncsba and we'll be assisting Sam and Caitlyn um I am also a proud DPS parent I apologize again Madison please forgive that um our team prepared a PowerPoint Point as Dr Giovani said uh

in response to the questions that she shared with us yesterday afternoon and I would like to walk through that PowerPoint um I'm not sure where um that's being shown at um and answer the questions one through nine as um Madam chair mentioned um hopefully leaving as much time as possible at the end for any follow-up or additional questions um I know this goes without saying but please by all means feel free to interrupt me um as I'm going through the PowerPoint with any question clarification um that you need I want your board to have as clear and accurate a picture as possible of our search process what it might look like if we were to facilitate another search um for your board um beginning with uh question one on the next slide um in responding to your RFP and even in preparing for this interview um it became very very evident quickly um in researching your board and in researching your District that each of

you have a very very deep and sincere commitment to equity and social justice combating institutional racism uh that appears to be true in both your personal and professional lives outside outside um rather of your your role as board members as well as in your role um as board members and we have experience our team has experience especially in the past few years in working with boards who have a similarly deep and sincere commitment um to equity and social justice um and I know that no two board boards are exactly alike um but what those boards found very helpful and what I if you were to hire our search firm to facilitate your next search we would really encourage you to lean into that commitment to equity and social justice and to make that a central guiding tenant that informs your superintendent process throughout the entire uh search

beginning with the vacancy announcement where we could work with you to include language that explains your board's um understanding of and commitment to equity emphasizes its importance in terms of your board's decision about the district's next superintendent um crafting application questions that require candidates to explain their understanding of and commitment um to equity work um including questions about this in the public input portion of your superintendent search process um really making sure um and we would work with you to make sure that you're having those open and Frank conversations about institutional racism and about Equity not just with each other as a board and with your staff and your community but also with the candidates that you are interviewing um and assessing in terms of being the best fit and we found that by in working with these other boards we have found that by making Equity combating Institution racism a central tenant and undering tenant so to speak

of the superintendent search process that boards find themselves really well situated at the conclusion of the search to make sure that they're finding the candidate that's going to be the best fit um in terms of those very very important issues and cohering with your very established commitment um to equity and social justice um we have a lot of experience uh working with boards that have sometimes very tricky Dynamics and uh differing opinions especially over the past few years when as you know the temperature's really been turned up on local Boards of education and and the issues that you deal with um and what we have found to be the most effective tool in navigating those sometimes tricky Dynamics differing opinions is communication um sort of creating an environment and a culture where there's consistent open and honest communication between board members um and without going into detail

uh about any of the boards that I've worked with what I have found is that even when a board has a really really sharply divided vote even if it's a seven member board and it's a 4-3 vote the boards that have committed to communicating with one another before during and after that vote they can move forward in a fairly unified healthy and productive way um assuming they really have meaningfully participated in that communication with one another I've also worked with boards that have had unanimous votes or um nearly unanimous votes who haven't been able to move forward in nearly as cohesive and unified a way as those boards with the four3 votes and that's because what I found to be most important is that all board members are heard and that all board members have a full and fair opportunity to share their views and perspectives um and opinions um the main way that we work with boards to identify the specific needs um for their superintendent I

don't know if we're we're this would be question three so um I apologize I can't drive the PowerPoint if you just next slide we'll make sure it goes whenever you're ready um main way that we help you identify specific needs is by drafting what we refer to as a custom leadership profile which is informed by two things um first it's informed by your community and staff um public input that they provide through um during the public input portion of the superintendent search process which we solicit through online surveys where we ask respondents to identify the characteristics traits and types of experience that are most important to them uh in a new superintendent we also provide um a comment section where um community members staff members can discuss in detail issues that are really important to them that they really want you the board to take into consideration during your search process we take the top

characteristics traits and experience that are identified by your staff and community and include that in a draft custom leadership profile we share all of the results of the um public input portion online surveys um that we facilitated with you and give you as much time as possible to review that feedback and then we would meet with you the board in Open session at a regularly scheduled meeting where we would facilitate a discussion with you and give each of you the opportunity to share with the staff and public what's most important to you and a new superintendent which we would of course include in that leadership profile we would then use that profile to inform all of the remaining steps in your search process reviewing the applications deciding who to interview um crafting interview questions uh interviewing the actual candidates and then of course ultimately deciding who the district's next superintendent is going to be um our policy protocol when it comes to communicating with the board is to always be as prompt responsive and

professional as possible and most importantly we always always always communicate with the full board if you were to hire us to facilitate your search number one it's your search um number two we work for the full board and so any communication that we have includes all board members and anytime a decision needs to be made about the search it is at a meeting a regular or special call beating with the full board present or certainly the full board with the opportunity to be present perhaps even remotely I apologize um and and a full and fair opportunity to be heard and weigh in and we would of course move forward based on what the full board's decision is with whatever issue um we are addressing in terms of confidentiality um we work with boards to strike a balance between making sure that the public is aware of where the board at within reason that the the public is aware of where the board is at during the superintendent search process but we help the board balance that with

the obligation that the board has um in terms of confidentiality under North Carolina personnel laws I'm sure you already know this but all applicants to your school system including superintendent applicants are entitled to complete confidentiality and so it is extremely important vitally important that you guard and maintain that confidentiality two ways that we found that are really effective at doing that uh one is anytime we share confidential information with boards uh we do it electronically via secure online uh platform it's called symbl each of you would have a unique login ID and password for accessing um that information we also as a search team handle all of the uh exclusively handle all of the communication with the candidates beginning with the very start of the superintendent search process in terms of Recruitment and applications following up to the board's ultimate decision about who to offer and negotiate a contract with um it's really really important I'm sure

you've heard this as well that board members not engage in any independent and we would of course educate you about this and and impress this upon you but it's really really important that board members not do any independent contacting of researching of um superintendent applicants we've worked with boards who I think very inadvertently and innocently have done some IND dependent researching and contacting not necessarily of candidates but folks who know the candidates used to work with the candidates and in my experience the fastest and most destructive way to damage a search usually irreparably is to breach confidentiality uh from a legal standpoint it's a crime from a practical standpoint it ends the search um the candidate usually withdraws all of the other candidates most if not all of the other candidates withdraw it is very very bad for the searching board and for the the search firm that's working with that board um and looking for a superintendent and so we would work with you to guard and maintain confidentiality and we feel like we do a really good job of striking a balance between helping you keep the public informed but also maintaining your

obligations in terms of North Carolina personnel laws and those confidentiality requirements um we believe that the role of the community stakeholders is to give you the board as much meaningful feedback as possible as much substantive meaningful feedback as possible to inform your superintendent search process we have found and we've tried a number of different things but we have found that the best way to get the most feedback in terms of the number of responses and the content uh of the responses in terms of candid responses is through online surveys that folks can respond to anonymously that's the most important part but also on their own time and in the privacy of their own home um we have worked with boards and would work with your board if hired to do your search to reach out to and try to engage under represented segments of your community um that's really really hard work but also really really extremely important

work um and we found that the best way to do that um or the best way to have some success at that is by building upon whatever existing relationships your board and your District already has in place in terms of reaching out to those uh segments of the community and trying to find creative and thoughtful ways to use those relationships use those mechanisms to engage those folks in trying to inform your superintendent search process and we would of course work with you in trying to strategize uh toward that end um one of the ways that we're really different from many other search firms not all but many um and it's not necessarily in a good or bad way but it is in a really really sign significant way is that we in csba do not screen applicants we never filter application materials we are never going to tell you if you hired us to do your search we would never tell you which application to look at or not look at who to hire or

not hire who to interview or not interview we believe in giving you as much information as possible and as good of information as possible and helping you process that information in a really thoughtful and deliberate way but when it comes to deciding who to interview and who to hire that is exclusively within the province of the board North Carolina law makes abundantly clear that it is locally elected Boards of Education who hire superintendents and we do not get in the way of that we believe in providing you with a process that empowers you the locally elected board to make as fully informed and unified decision as possible in terms of who your next superintendent um is going to be um and by not screening any of the applicants and not withholding any information or filtering any information we feel like that goes a long way toward mitigating uh unconscious bias uh

in our search process to the extent your board might be interested in any sort of continuing education training on unconscious bias uh Ramona Miller um um who handles board velopment at ncsba I spoke to her earlier today and she would be open to finding a third party provider who might could come in and do that if that's something your board um would be interested in doing um the expected fees um for our um superintendent search I've shared with you a cost estimate in response to our RFP I've also brought handouts tonight that include that cost estimate bottom line is our search fee is a flat fee of 21,000 $500 plus any additional board approved expenses examples of those include uh background checking we use a third-party provider to do that um for your finalists um advertising um we cast as

wide a net as possible but would take direction from you in terms of whether or not you want to spend any money on advertising and where you want to Target those dollars um and some boards choose to cover lodging Andor travel expens of their first Andor second round interviewees and that's entirely up to you the the main thing for you to keep in mind is that all of those additional expenses will be presented to you the board to decide whether or not you want to incur those additional costs in our cost estimate we I think the the final total was $2,799 what I would say is that historically our searches end up being with additional board approved costs in the neighborhood of 225 $5,000 sometimes it's a little less $500 or $1,000 less sometimes it's a little bit more $500 $1,000 more um as I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation and as Caitlyn mentioned um we have numerous attorneys that work on bar licensed attorneys that

are part of our superintendent search team and work on superintendent searches we are very very familiar with um open meetings Law Public Records law um compet it laws or confidentiality obligations under NC Personnel laws um and we have a lot of experience in working with boards and making sure that boards have legally compliant um searches throughout the entirety um of the search process um and then finally um the short answer is that we try to handle all of the logistics uh and administrative details of all of the meetings that we attend the one caveat to that is sometimes especially early in our search process we are meeting with boards at your regularly your existing regularly schedule meetings or or work sessions and so we obviously for obvious reasons would not handle the logistics of your regularly scheduled meetings and work sessions but to the extent we're responsible and there will be several

special call meetings that we're entirely responsible for we would handle all of the logistics administrative details of those searches including keeping records of the open and closed session minutes uh we really try to do everything we can to make sure that you don't have to worry about whether or not you're having a legally compliant search or whether or not any of the administrative details are taken care of so that you can focus on what's most important which is assessing the candidates and their fit with your board um and your District um that concludes my responses um to to your questions our responses to your to your questions I'm certainly happy to to answer any any followup questions that you might have Madam chair we are at 11 and a half minutes to go awesome thank you um you did cover all of our questions I don't the one question we've asked everyone is there anything else you would like to share sorry to put you back on the spot that you didn't share about your

work any any closing remarks or any additional information um I I would just say I would take off my ncsba hat my superintendent Searcher hat um um I'm a dad I have a um four and a halfy old son I call him King James he kind of runs the house uh he's starting kindergarten uh in August and um we're really really excited about it my wife's really really scared I'm kind of a little more scared for the teachers uh that I am for us um but just I feel like boards have gotten so much scrutiny and criticism and I don't think there have been enough thank yous um and I know that in August I don't know the exact date um but um I'm GNA be taking my kid down to the public school uh near our house and I'm going to be in trusting him to teachers but I I have tons of faith in that decision and I can't wait to do that because they are

board members like y'all um I was really heartened and um thrilled to read your bios and to to know that there's folks like you on Boards of Education who are doing everything you can for kids like mine um and so if I could say anything additional I would just say thank you I think you get enough criticism um and thank you really and truly for your service thank you that was that was really kind I appreciate it thank you uh with that you all are dismissed thank you so much for coming thank you thank you the board members we have now spoken with all of the different firms we will have an opportunity at the board meeting tomorrow to make a selection on the firm that we would like uh to choose and to move forward with this process there any questions before we dismiss us miss Chavez also anything additional from you nothing additional from me thank

you uh with that we are adjourned thank you all