Board of Education · Special Meeting · May 13, 2024

good evening we are welcoming everyone to our meeting this evening a superintendent search discussion with Alma advisory and we have one board member chair Umstead on line um joining us um virtually and then one our board member um Miss Lewis will be here just momentarily um but first of all we will begin with a moment of silence thank you

and now we will move to the agenda review and approval I apologize I call the meeting to order I'm going off script or I I don't have a don't have a script so U wandering through here okay I call the meeting to order we had our moment of silence and um now we will go to agenda review and approval mad mam Vice chair I approve I uh make a motion to approve the agenda second it has been moved by Miss Rogers seconded by Miss Valladares is there any other discussion all those in favor oh I'm sorry I apologize we'll roll call um starting with chair Umstead uh good evening everyone this is Bettina Umstead I vote I miss that

Miss caraon I M Rogers I fire hi and I vote I as well the agenda passes and now we will move to our superintendent search discussion and we have Monica Rosen online with us good evening Monica good evening um thanks so much for your time today um I will go ahead and share my screen if I'm able to uh looks like I need someone to oh okay just give me one moment thank you I'm joined this evening by my colleague Naja Thompson who was with me on the site last week um so he made chime in from time to time if if needed thank you NAA for being here uh

so we have a few important things that we want to cover this evening we want to provide an update on the status of the search and the community engagement that has taken place so far um where we are with recruitment for the role and then discuss the screening timeline and Key activities um including um uh engagement of uh that's engagement of incoming board members uh not internal candidates engagement of incoming board members the screening steps and the finalist stage sorry that's a typo on my part there um we always want to start by coming together and reviewing our shared purpose and I was wondering if a board member in the room or if the board chair would be willing to read this for us I'll read it thank you our goal is to welcome

recruit select Empower and support the next right fit superintendent of Durham Public Schools our purpose is to authentically engage and lead a search process that is transparent Guided by our community including those not typically present in the room designed to acknowledge and mitigate implicit bias is every step of the way and that ultimately yields a diverse candidate pool thank you for that so as we're discussing making decisions about the process we're always wanting to come back to our shared purpose it's the best way to guide our work we also uh try to stay grounded in the shared agreements that we've all discussed as a group this notion of staying engaged experiencing discomfort speaking your truth expecting and accepting non non-closure um and alongside of that as a board you all have discussed keeping

our students and Educators at the center of everything that we do approaching one another with curiosity seeking to understand where other people are coming from relaxing and being a Learner in this process um so want to lift that up for us as well so uh in terms of update on uh the status of the search there are a few things that we want to share uh we had our community engagement um came to its peak last week we were on site for three full days we've carried out over the course of this process uh 43 meetings those include focus groups one-on ones and Community Gatherings um met with uh 24 different Community organizations and really feel that we have heard significant and diverse uh

perspectives we're not ready to share those points of view um this evening our plan is to be able to share our full report at the March 28th meeting um but we're so grateful for the time that people spent with us last week uh sharing their lived experiences sharing their perspectives on the future of the district um at the same time Alma is uh carrying out its Recruitment and has begun first round interviews of uh of our candidates so I'll be sharing a little bit more of that our hope is that the board will be able to uh stay within its timeline of completing its decision by the end of June in order to do that um we expect the board to begin interviewing uh it begin its own first round of interview of candidates uh hopefully by the week of May 20th um the goal is uh to reach a finalist stage by the week of June 17th uh so that the

board can make their final decision um before the end of June we continue to put this July June July time frame here because this is a very tight this is a tight time frame uh not meaning that it's rushed but it does mean that if the board has scheduling issues or has any sort of logistical challenge uh they may find themselves needing to push a week or two um into the future so we had three primary activities for Community engagement we had three Community Gatherings last week um and we also carried out our interviews and focus groups we also have a staff and student community service uh that were all uh that all went out now the board did decide to extend the survey um deadline um through Wednesday of this week uh so we're very grateful for the

communications um Department uh in the district uh led by Sheena uh who is who have been working to let people know that deadline has been extended we are hoping for an increase in community parent caregiver participation over the next uh several days student engagement has been very strong um at this point in time so we're really um excited and pleased to see a very high participation rate on on behalf of the students in informing this work uh just as a reminder in our conversations last week we talked to candidate we talked to um community community members about what they love most about uh their experience in Durham Public Schools the things that they want the superintendent to Champion and protect we also ask them what they want to be true about Durham public schools

in the coming years we asked uh we asked groups to picture their ideal environment for their child and then we talked about the skills and experiences most important uh for their superintendent to bring to the role we also asked groups uh for questions they would want asked to ask potential candidates and then we also asked if there was anything we hadn't discussed that was important uh for them to share with us and for us to know so we did want to share a number of community organizations who met with us um happy to just take a minute and read these names for you book Harvest boys and girls club downtown Durham Durham advocates for exceptional children Durham Association of Educators Durham children's initiative Durham committee on the Affairs of black people Durham congregations in action Durham Council

of ptas Durham partnership for children Durham Public Schools Foundation El Central isano Emily K Center friends of Durham Isla People's Alliance rainbow Collective for change sandoes student U we are West End Community Foundation and World relief Durham um there were others who also though they didn't um uh meet with us they did share information with their constituents uh to encourage people to come out to our meeting so we really want to thank all of these organizations and others who have been interacting with us communicating with us over email uh along the way so uh this data uh here is sharing some of those numbers we uh carried out Outreach to 43 organizations 24 organizations did respond with interest

to participate um and or commit to share information with their networks and 22 uh scheduled and met with our team uh as of last week and just want to share if for if there are Community organizations out there whose names weren't read who are interested in participating we encourage you as as we have in the past to reach out to the board of education's email um we will gladly take the opportunity our doors are still open we want to hear your perspectives uh so please reach out and um the board will connect you with us so that we can arrange a time to meet uh most likely virtually I want to share a little bit about our recruitment status uh we have had a strong response so as of May 8th you have 73 applications in for this role of those 58% are identifying as male 42% are identifying as female those are those who um participated in an

optional uh EEOC uh survey um 72% of our applicants uh are identifying as black 5% are identifying as laat 18% identifying as white and 2% are identifying as multi-racial we have 11 applicants that are either current or recent superintendents and at least 15 so far with school district experience in North Carolina to date Elma has invited 30 at least to first round interviews we've completed 19 We are continuing to do the work of um discussing and screening candidates so our application window has not closed and uh we're we're continuing the work of talking to people who are considering applying um and engaging them in that process uh if there're any any pro prospective uh candidates who have not applied yet listening this evening as we

have shared in the application we encourage you to get your applications in sooner rather than later um because the board is is moving um forward um and we would want in order to have full consideration of your application would really want to have your application into US within the next couple of days certainly by the end of this week would be our recommendation all right so uh would like to take a pause there before we talk about uh the screening timeline and would love to hear from you all any thoughts that you have both about Community engagement and our recruitment uh for the role Monica it's Nat just one point of clarification I think um you've presented such such excellent data in a short amount of time I did hear you say

March 28th or something for the time you would share the um the community feedback and I think you meant the May 23rd meeting um I just wanted to sorry sorry it's May it's May uh it's our uh it's not your May 23rd it's the next meeting that's scheduled with Alma okay the 20 then which is May 28th okay may not March but the I got that date wrong and you got the Okay cool so that that we'll look forward to that thank you just board members other comments or questions um I did have one question Sher travos by Sher travos yes um Monica thank you so much for this information it's exciting to see how much engagement has happened already um as well as how many um folks are interested in the role it's great I

think it's great because durm is a wonderful place to be I'm wondering and I don't know if you can shared this piece how many of the current or like were all the current or recent superintendant invited to participate in the first round of interviews I'm really looking for a robust experience level um coming to those yeah so Alma's um screening process is really looking for requisite experience so the vast majority of any of our sitting superintendant would have been invited uh to an inperson interview with us so I don't have all like the exact data but I know that um yes I do believe most if not all of anyone who's had superintendent experience would have been invited to a first round interview with Alma thank you Miss Carda-Auten Aon thanks so much Monica this is

exciting to see that we' um have so much interest in this position and I'm thrilled to get the community engagement update soon I was wondering I saw that we decided to extend the survey and just curious to know what our response is I know we got an update some somewhat recently but if you have a informal um current update on survey responses I do so first of all your students have participated extremely well we have 838 survey responses from your students um to date um so and with many of those coming in just in the uh last few days in total we have 1384 responses total that includes though your student um numbers so we would like to see the numbers of the broader Community to go up in the coming days uh and that's why we decided to go

ahead and extend the survey um we have uh 548 survey responses to date from the broader Community which is a little lower than we would like to see right thank you so much yeah M thank you uh Monica just follow up on um Jessica's question and when it comes to staff um there's uh there's a request uh that I got from staff if it could be sent out again in terms of Staff being able to give some feedback just wondering um where we're uh at with the staff particularly teasing that out from Community um feedback and seeing if we can give some time for staff to weigh in as well on the survey Alexandra or in um on the survey yes sorry board member by is you're good thank you on the survey yes so the survey will be extended for everyone and we are hoping that staff Community caregivers will all um

participate and that's something that we are working with um your Communications Department to be able to to get that word out I know that's something that they're planning to do as well wonderful thank you so much Monica thank you Monica I had one question about the demographic data which I'm always interested in I was just wondering how if you knew um roughly how many did disclose their gender and race or ethnicity or was it the mo was it most of them most of the applicants if you have an idea I don't I don't have um the data on the I'm sorry are you asking on the applicants yeah or on the survey respondents applicants yes so on the applicants um uh so we have uh

67 applicants who completed that survey um and so the numbers that I have there represent those individuals at this time and so yeah that answers my question thank you okay thanks for all this data this is um this is exciting and I'm happy to see the range of organizations that did participate in the conversations last week on that same um data Monica um I was a little I'm I'm glad we have strong um diversity in that pool but I'm a little un underwhelmed with the 5% Latin a I don't know how that compares to other searches you've done and whether we can do additional Outreach in with candidates in that yeah the alma team is continuing to recruit every step of the way so we're definitely keeping an eye out an eye on that um um and that's definitely something that

um we're paying attention to as well again these are the individuals who filled out that survey so it doesn't represent everybody um and it's not necessarily representative of who ends up making it to the next stage either but it's definitely something we'll be looking at as we go through so I appreciate that call out all right board members any more comments questions all right Monica oh Monica were you um no okay all right um I pass it back to you then Monica for the next part thank you um okay so uh there are a few things that we wanted to share this evening we're going to be discussing the screening timeline and Key activities the engagement of incoming board members

uh screening steps and the finalist stage itself um so first wanted to discuss engagement of incoming board members um I've had the opportunity to speak with uh both of your incoming board members who have expressed uh support um for engaging in this process and seeking alignment there are several benefits of engaging incoming board members in the process the first is um is really ensuring having the benefit of the insight and input from your incoming board members to understand where there's alignment uh in terms of the things that they're thinking about and prioritizing for the next superintendent and the things that the sitting board is has prioritized um there engagement will also support a smooth transition if for any reason the search continues into the month of July uh and our goal as always

uh is to ensure support for your final selection uh in an ideal world uh you would have um both both the sitting board and incoming board members all in alignment behind your your selected superintendent our recommended approach is for Alma to meet one onone with each of those incoming board members to gather their perspectives we were actually able to do that in person when we were in Durham last week uh our recommendation is to invite uh the incoming uh board members to join uh board to join uh the board for their interviews um we believe there's a lot of support uh among board members to have them engage in your third and fourth round of your process which I'll be describing in just a moment and my understanding is that incoming board members are allowed to provide their perspective and feedback on candidates

um and so working with your Council to create uh the best method for um incoming board members to provide their feedback on candidates um that's something that seems to be desired by all sitting board members and incoming board members as well so I want to to pause there and uh have the board have the opportunity to discuss engagement of incoming board members see if there are any questions that you have about what that would look like and um and then confirm you know our our steps moving forward in terms of engaging incoming board members oh that's or chairm said if you have any

thoughts okay Miss L we'll start with Miss Lewis hey Monica how are you good how are you Miss Le good I'm good um in your recommendations I just want to make sure that we are clear and transparent um with the public that they will also sign a confidentiality I know that we know this already after having um gotten legal device but that they will sign a confidentiality um to be able to attend those meetings yes U that would be our expectation for sure okay it just wasn't in the recommendation I we make sure it's on the record and then the other thing um I remember the board attorney saying about their their ability to give perspective and feedback for candidates is uh threading treading a thin line U making sure they're not acting as a the role of a board member before they've been sworn in in but you had already said um in your presentation just now that you um have gotten feedback or you've already worked with our attorneys I just want to confirm that you worked with our attorneys um and they have a

way forward for that to happen well I think I saw Mr Malone here and I have been in some conversations but frankly not in all so I'm not sure what the latest guidance is uh my understanding was that incoming board members were able to provide feedback but we're not uh able to engage in discussion with the sitting board um but Mr Malone you might be able to confirm that you're exactly right um that is that's definitely the advice that we've given the board is that the incoming board members can um obviously with the the signed um confidentiality agreements but yes they can sit in on interviews and they can provide their insights into the various candidates interviewed with the board either through a written document or a presentation to the board in close session um but you know they're not

allowed to deliberate and participate in the board actual discussion over who they might hire um because that would be U acting more as a board member and that they're not allowed to do until they're sworn in so that yeah but we think there's a a wide range of ways for them to participate and share their information with the board thank you for that that answers my questions I am happy to move forward thanks thank you Miss Lewis um chair Umstead any comments otherwise can continue okay great um so just want to confirm we have consensus to move forward with this approach with incoming board members Vice chair yeah we will do a a little motion for consensus but I just want to check are we this is

something we're not we're not voting on we're just doing kind of consensus and then moving forward our perspective is you don't need to vote on this item um voting uh could be helpful if you just want to confirm where everybody stands on a particular issue um we typically don't vote on this particular issue but it's up to you as a board Vice chair or I don't know if um Mr Malone would recommend that you do a vote just to confirm this decision so it's really up to you all okay thank you Miss Chavez can I ask who's taking responsibility for ensuring the confidentiality waivers are signed Agreements are signed is that something Alma's going to take care care of or is that something the attorneys are going to do on our behalf I can speak to a little bit of that if you want me to

sure so um we do recommend that the board vote to authoriz the incoming board members to participate in the process we have four Ed to the board um samples of the documents that were used previously um for the incoming board members to sign and we if the board votes in that manner we can certainly update those documents um for use here and I think that the you know one document gets signed by the applicants um which we would presume that Alma would take of getting those signed um the ones to be signed by the incoming board members um you know we can obviously work with the board Clerk or um or the board chair um to get those signed by

the incoming board members but Monica I'm assuming you would not have a problem if we got you documents having the applicants execute those uh I would need more information about what you're asking applicants to sign well I'll forward you the documents that were used previously um after this meeting okay I I couldn't offer perspective on that I've never had candidates uh to sign I so I'm not sure what what it is you're asking them to sign so I would just need to know and then I can uh I can advise the board on what it might mean for their applicant pool if if we would anticipate any concern on the part of of candidates so I I would just need to see what exactly you have in mind there um in terms of confidentiality um of boards incoming

board members that's something we're very used to Alma has provided that in the past I think it makes all the sense in the world that um darington Smith would provide that uh facilitate that we would just need to make sure that it's done in in keeping with the board's uh timeline so that they can participate in Theo in the appropriate interviews yeah thank you so I offer a motion uh for darington Smith to execute confidentiality agreements with the incoming board members so that they may participate in our superintendent search process second the motion has been um made by Miss Rogers and seconded by Miss Beyer is there any other discussion all right we'll do a Voice vote chair Umstead this is batina Umstead I vote I miss

vtis I miss CA aten i Lewis I M Rogers I miss berer I I it passes unanimously all okay Monica I pass it back to you for the next portion thank you so the next thing that we want to talk about is the screening steps and that will be followed by a discussion on the finalist stage and so um what I wanted to share was the proposed stages of the screening process along Ong with the timelines uh that that we uh think will work with um the board's uh desire to complete the search by the end of June Alma right now is in the midst of our resumé screening and virtual interviews uh as I mentioned earlier Alma continues recruiting and screening

candidates throughout the entire search process so our application window stays open we will continue looking uh for strong applicants throughout the search however our Peak window for interviews uh began last week and will continue at least through May 24th um however we're also working very speedily uh to be able to uh present candidates uh to the board uh the week of May 20th uh we're proposing that you interview anywhere from nine I know the slide says 12 applicants I'm going to say it can be as many as 15 applicants uh this is a process that Alma has done many different times many different context in organizations um and in every single one of our superintendent searches and the

challenge is always time and it's it's enabling the full board to part participate and so our proposal is that the board should split into teams of two to three and each team would be able to complete three to four interviews um those interviews would be identical meaning board members are posing the same questions uh and those interviews would be recorded for the board so that board members can review any interviews that they did not part participate in the board would have the opportunity to debrief and discuss uh and decide who would move forward to the third round the third round of the process is led by the board um we would have all board members meet all candidates we would uh propose two different performance-based interviews one that is focusing in on two to three

competencies and another one that's focusing in on a different two to three competencies it allows the board to go deeper dive into specific areas of the job profile so for example you might have one interview that's very deep on um finance and operations and you might have another one that's very deep on instructional leadership student achievement and um Community uh engagement Coalition building as an example uh so uh we would have the board meet with approximately five to seven applicants over the course of two half days um and then uh and then from there the board would be able to determine its finalist we are assuming two to three applicants would make it to the finalist round um we need to discuss what the finalist round looks like but I wanted to pause there first uh to see if there

are any questions about this style of process and about the four rounds that we are proposing board members Miss buyer Monica um can you be explicit about which are virtual and which are inperson interviews just to for the public because I know we've talked about this in different conversations but I wanted to be clear and let me ask ask Miss Valladares are you asking which ones the in the candidates are virtual for or in person or both candidates and board members I guess candidates when yes is the is the finalist round the only one that is an in-person event and all others are virtual so that that's a clarifying question so uh our design is presuming

that rounds one two and three are done virtually and that the finalist round we would recommend is done in person um we have asked board members for their availability for virtual interviews so we have that availability um so you know my most recent understanding when we moved forward uh with asking board members for their schedules was that uh round two at minimum could be be done virtually by the board um both and all rounds 1 2 and three right now we presume are done virtually by the candidates for that um I think um we may need to um uh just share updated um

information um from Mr Malone about the um the noticing of the second round interviews and the ability of the board to be virtual or not Mr Malone could you share um the a legal perspective on the our participation in those interviews please so your policy so to the extent that the candidate is virtual but the board members are present in person at the central office or wherever you're going to meet um you can you can conduct you can have the candidate participate virtually but the board according to its policy is unable to actually hold a purely virtual meeting so like this meeting you're in person um but you've got members who are participating or or the chair for

instance is participating virtually so you can you can have an in-person meeting in which you would go in close session um and then the candidate can participate virtually but you're not able to have a wholly virtual meeting in which um the board members are not actually in the central office wherever you might be convening the meeting does that make sense thank you yes it does and um given given that we um right now well Monica Monica has our availability for virtual meetings and they by policy need to be done in person um I I want to ask you about the um the possibility of of voting the two-thirds um of the board being able to vote on allowing for virtual meetings or virtual participation is that an option in this case or yes yes um yes the

board um Can Vote the wave its policy in accordance with the um the portion in your policy that allows you to wave your policy so you could vote to wave the virtual the restriction on a virtual meeting um portion of the policy to cover interviews that may need to take place during the superintendent search you could do that okay thank you um I wonder if we want to consider that um and in that case then the we would be in Open Session briefly in order to go into closed but in a virtual setting entirely virtual setting is that correct Mr Malone yes if you were to wave the policy then like during Co you would be able to meet entirely virtually um and then you would um go into open and open session like this and then go into close session and just have

board members and the applicant participate okay thank you um Beyond this moment we may want to look at this policy and see if we want to update it but um board members thoughts Miss berer well I was just wondering to to also clarify if Alma is going to be helping facilitate and set up these virtual meetings so that our staff is not involved and not aware of candidate names candidate information is that possible Monica that's already happening and has already been committed to so yes Alma is coordinating all of the um planning of interviews for every stage of the process um up until the finalist uh stage and so Mr Malone there's no need to open any session of these in in Open Session and then close them I mean there's no re reason we need to stream

the open portion yeah you would stream the Open Session portion of the meeting or have it available for people to log into um and view the Open Session and then when you adjourn and close session yes but the Open Session would not include the candidate is that correct no it would not no it would just be a a simple motion to go in the closed session for confidential Personnel matters you'd vote on that motion you go in the closed um and then you would introduce the candidates or candidate it will require coordination between Our IT staff and Alma's folks to stream if we chose to stream because we don't have to stream he just told us we had well if it's if it's virtual only you do have to provide the public a way to view the Open Session portion of the meeting it's if you're meeting in person then streaming is optional

because the public can show up at the central office and and view the meeting in person but if you're only virtual then you do have to provide the public a way to see the Open Session portions of the meeting right which leads me to my followup question which was if the board chose not to um do it virtually only came and met in person then we wouldn't necessarily have to stream that we just have to have space to be in and then that is correct corre a candidate virtually that is correct and one of the other things that we'll have to work through if the board chooses this option is um you know you're going to end up with less than a quorum in these smaller groups so we're to to make it a public meeting given that you will be doing the board's business in these small

groups um we're going to have to probably designate those groups as actually committees and notice those individual committee meetings kind of ad hoc Personnel interview committee committees a separate kind of M like three separate board meetings um and we can we can coordinate that with Nicole and Monica once we figure out exactly what the plan is in the time but that's just something else to keep in mind I'm not making an opinion about what we should do one way or the other I'm just asking so that we have all the options because I don't have an opinion yet is leis all right um I'm trying to keep up with the different rounds of interviews so the questions you were asking Emily have to

do with round three when we're down to five or seven round two so round two is when we're in groups groups of two or three and Mr Malone is saying we'll publicly notice them is that the one he was talking about going in the open session then closed yes well all of your meetings will start in Open Session I mean you you don't have any meeting that doesn't start and end an open session so whatever round whenever you guys get together as a board you will open the meeting an open session be it virtual or in person and then you'll get a motion to go in the close session for confidential Personnel reasons and then you'll conduct the business of a superintendent search en Clos session at that point Mi Mr Malone can you please explain why these meetings are considered um the board doing the board's business because the

board is not making any decisions in these interviews so can you just explain why they're considered meetings and why they're considered the board doing board business that's that's what the term I heard you use earlier the board will be interviewing candidat to fill its superintendency that is the work of the board of education but they're not making any decisions in those small groups so they're carrying out the interviews but they're not determining who moves forward in those small groups so I'm a little confused about why that would be considered a committee so those interviews are all recorded and the full board will meet and they're not going to make any decisions about any candidates until they meet as a full board so each of these smaller teams are not making any policy decisions or

making any recommendations about candidates they're meeting as a full board and sharing your perspectives as a large group when when that is scheduled Monica it's they're doing the business of the board when they are interviewing those candidates so I'm not really sure how else to explain it other than that is the business of the board when they're interviewing candidates to fill their superintendency Miss Carter auton has a question I was just wondering um um Mr Malone could you clarify the implications of um these needing to be committees so I mean we maybe are getting so the the answer is you you can do this exactly like you want to do it you would have the small groups meet you would post those meetings you would convene in

Open Session and then you would go into this the small groups within going to Clos session and you would interview confidentially in Clos session and then when you're done interviewing you would exit close session so I I don't see that this process prevents you from confidentially convening and interviewing these candidates you just need to host it like a a board meeting or committee meeting um prior to doing that and if we didn't break it into small groups and need to have call them committees then we would still need to notice the meeting correct and we would still need to go into close session correct doesn't feel like there's much of a difference well right correct I mean it's you are you're meeting to do the business of the

board um and those meetings interviewing of candidates um for the superintendency um is certainly the business of the board and those are all interviewing candidates in the history of um your work interviewing candidates for superintendent positions have always been noticed meetings that are closed and considered to be doing the business of the board so yes yes I mean the the board will some boards um do not necessarily meet in the central office when they interview candidates they may um interview cand in a in a hotel in a in within the county or in an adjacent County um but they would you know convene the meeting um get a motion to go into close session and then while in Clos session

they confidentially interview the candidates during the day and then they adjourn the meeting at end at the end of the day okay um any other questions just to clarify we just need to decide if we are wanting to do these virtually or in person is that the [Music] main yes wave the policy to do them virtually or just do them in person yes that is the primary decision Point here um I think um a further conversation and something that has been brought up here is what does it mean to be a committee and all of that so I think as an offshoot the board can discuss that more um but that is the main question at this moment but I I mean I don't want so this

I mean the chair has the ability to appoint committees so once you know when you're going to interview I mean I think that the process of the chair placing you in whichever committees you were planning to otherwise interview in those groups is a simple task you notice it like you do your student appeal hearings and then you go in the Clos session and you know be virtual or in person and it's you know the the public is not able to know who you're interviewing or or you know any of that so it's it's the same basic process we're just complying with the open meetings law so miss miss sper asked a question earlier so Alma would not be able to handle live streaming and all of the technical aspects that the district normally manages around noticing a meeting opening the meeting live streaming the meeting T you know so I just want to make sure that that was clear miss sper that that's you know

what I was responding to earlier was not that aspect of the meeting but rather all of the logistics in coordination of scheduling the interviews and um arranging which candidates are being interviewed uh for during those windows and making sure they know where to go and where to be definitely Monica and I I saw that you've s started sending invitations um I was just trying to note that we'll need to coordinate with our it folks to make sure that we stream the portion at the beginning and the end that we need to stream um yeah thank you thank you okay Miss Rogers I appreciate this um conversation and clarification um I know that being a board member comes with us having to do lots of homework to prepare for what we're going

to do and say and how we're going to act in this space and so I'd like to kind of put on record a frustration that we've known for quite some time that we wanted to do small group um interviews that were recorded and are just now being presented with the fact that this is um this would be a committee of the board and that we would have to go through these different processes to make that happen if I had to choose it all over again I probably would have taken a couple of days off and spent my days doing superintendent search as opposed to offering availability scattered in the ways that we have and I think Alma could have tried to accommodate some of that request as well if they had known that we would have to

notice it in this way and try to get a bunch of candidates back to back to back so that we wouldn't have to do this multiple times so I'm frustrated that we are not giving ourselves as individuals and not giving Alma the ability to make the best choices for us and putting people to extra work in order to get this process carried out um yeah I I don't know if it um it makes sense to be virtual because of the work that it's putting on DPS staff to do that to accommodate our schedules and I'm not I'm open to whatever the board wants to decide but I'm I'm just frustrated in this moment about why we're just now finding out that this is

a midi thank you for sharing those sentiments Miss Lewis so you might I had clarifying questions about um round one y'all are doing round two we're doing in small groups we talked about that two weeks ago when we met with Alma on small groups and the third round I just want to be clear that is with all of us with the 5 to7 in the third round is that accurate all board members okay um so it's all board members participating but we would be recommending two different interview activities so you would be interviewing at the same time but you might be into two different interview teams at that time with each team going having a deep

dive into specific areas of the competencies so you might have one team focused on finance and operations as an example uh and you might have another team focused on uh student achievement instruction Community engagement as an example um and so then each of those teams would have a deep dive in those areas those interviews would also be uh recorded So that one is then separated it's not all seven of us in round three it would take place at the same time most likely um but you would be in two different teams at the same time okay and we're not considering doing those virtual are we ourselves are us seven we haven't discussed that well I assume we'd all be find a date together I the main was about round two being virtual okay yes that was my

clarifying question and than thanks thanks board members any other thoughts or a motion for um the interviews way we can do them we can meet in person or we can um propose a virtual option well I do think it's important to say that part of the reason for virtual is for saving money on travel expenses and saving and respect in the time of candidates as well um that that use of technology I think is appropriate in a lot of situations um it's not just for convenience um do we need to wave policy today or is that something that we will consider we would I believe we would need to do it today because we do not have another board meeting before May

23rd have the right policy number pulled up so so we can can you point me to the policy on waving policy I believe I believe it's 2450 also just to clarify we're just talking about round two and just whether we are virtual or not either way the candidate will be virtual the candidates will be virtual for round two and if we have 9 to 15 applicants or explain the small groups of two to three we're talking about three interviews or just to try to give us a sense for what how many we were thinking about doing either in person or virtual motion

[Music] in what's the meeting policy number that we do need to wave because I think it would be good to wave it if needed policy 245 no that's the one about right 232 waving policy it's what 2302 remote participation correct it's 2320 there's a 2320 I believe that says that the board cannot have fully remote wholly remote meetings is 20 is it in two places it's in 232 it might be in two places okay um so 2302 section um B two says meetings not during during a

declared emergency and it says the board will not hold a wholly remote meetings in the absence of a state or locally declared emergency so you need to wave that if it I did if it also appears in 2320 let me look at that one while you're doing that Mr Malone I just want to name that one concern I have with not doing these virtually is the we gave our availability for virtual meetings and I I don't know what it will look like if we have to be in person um and what that will mean for the schedule of interviews and I don't want to see this this whole process pushed out um so long and I'm not sure what the what we gain from from being in person where the candidate

is not um when the effect is then that we sort of delay the process and you know look at going into July um I know that some of us will travel um here and there in the next few weeks and so I do have a concern about about that well n none of this I mean so if you wave the policy then you can have the holy virtual meeting and and then it's just providing the notice so it's I mean again nothing prevents your schedule nothing prevents you from proceeding as you've been discussing um you just will have to notice those meetings and we'll just have to figure out a way for the public to have access to the Open Session portion of the zoom or however these meetings are set up and I

m. windows okay and 2: to 5:00 pm okay thank you so

I would move that we wave policy 2302 remote participation in board meetings all sections that apply to wholly remote meeting in order to conduct interviews of superintendent candidates second it's been moved by Miss buer seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion all right we'll do a Voice vote chair Umstead patina Umstead I vote i m v I vote I miss Cardon I miss Lewis I M Rogers I miss Byer I and I vote I it passes unanimously so we will hold our our um the that motion was for um interviews by the board and so that includes round two and um I just want to clarify that could

mean round three I think the motion was broad enough to cover any interviews during this this superintendent search okay all right thank you all um thank you Monica and we'll pass it back to you thank you so the other thing that we wanted to confirm is that the board is good with the four rounds of screening process uh as we discussed as as I presented um so that's another decision point we wanted to confirm this evening right board conversation questions or a motion or a thumbs up I think the Miss Carda-Auten I the proposed stages of

screening as outlined on slide 14 um look good to me thank you any other thoughts all right um do we I don't know if we need to if we can just do thumbs up on on this one okay Miss Rogers you have a comment I'm seeing some thumbs up I'm comfortable with it okay great I is there a reason not to vote on it if we voted on I don't think there's a reason not to vote on it like to make a

motion um yes i' like to make a motion that we follow the proposed stages of screening the four rounds outlined in slide 14 or meeting packet this evening second okay it's been moved by Miss Carter auton seconded by Miss Rogers any other discussion a point of clarification is does this include a vote on participation of community members Beyond board members no it does not that's our next conversation oh well might confirming so I was thinking that that that was bundled okay thank you we're confirming how many stages of screening first and then uh we need to discuss what the finalist round looks like as our last topic of the evening thank you so also my point of

clarification we've already agreed that Mr Tab and Miss harell are coming in at which Round Here round three by the board June 3rd through 7th yes round three and the finalist round is what has been discussed at this point in time okay thank [Music] you all right if there is no other discussion then we'll do a Voice vote chair Umstead this is Bettina Umstead I vote I miss that is I miss caon I miss Lewis I M Rogers I miss berer I and I vote I it passes unanimously so we have our established our four stages of screening I'm sorry yeah of screening

um Monica I'll pass it back to you okay thank you everyone um so the final decision before the board related to the process is around around Community engagement or not at the finalist stage so I just want to lay out for you the kind of um two positions here and provide Alma's recommendation and then open it up to the board for group discussion um so uh very it's very common around the country for boards to choose to have a screening process that is closed all the way through the selection of the final sole finalist um so typically what that looks like is the board completes all their rounds of screening they come to the determination of who their final selected um superintendent will be and they announce uh that individual um at the end of their process um another path that many boards

take is to announce their top two to three finalists um and to offer some opportunity for the community to know who those candidates are now there are varing degrees I've been watching some of the recent um searches going on around the country just recently saw a district in Florida that announced their semi-finalists and then announced their finalists but the community did not interview their candidates at any time um we've also seen uh districts that will have Town forums where they introduce the finalists and have sort of an open kind of town hall Town Hall kind of a setting uh for community members to ask questions of the community um so when boards are weighing the decision of whether to have a closed process versus an open finalist stage process a lot of times they're weighing um the importance of confidentiality to your candidates um

you know the majority of your applicants are gainfully employed somewhere and having their name um announced as a finalist for a process uh brings with it potential political risk to them and so there are candidates out there that will say I really can't participate in a process if I'm one of two to three that's named I really can only participate if if we've got some Assurance of confidentiality all the way to the end and if if I'm selected um and uh so there's there's often a position the board has to take as to how big of a risk it is to them to lose candidates uh at that uh because they they can't be one of two or three that are announced as a finalist now Alma is very experienced at leading processes that engage community at the finalist stage and so I want to talk a little bit about what our experience has been uh you know what we

find is that communities really appreciate having the opportunity to meet your finalists what we find is that the vast majority of candidates um uh uh are Will Follow the board's desire and if the board wants to have a process where finalists are able uh to meet uh with uh with community members the majority of of our finalists uh and the majority of our candidates are willing to participate in a in a process like that so uh it's very common for an alma search but it's also very common around the country to have a process where your finalists are introduced and given the opportunity to interact um with your community uh we have been asking our candidates in the first round of the process also those candidate also those individuals who are considering applying who have connected

with all we've been engaging individuals interest on this the vast majority of your applicants have stated that they're okay with being announced as one of three finalists what I want to share is that it's really important to Alma to protect the confidentiality of your candidate all the way to that point um and the reason is there are the you know when you're putting your name out there as one of three candidates it's very different than when you're putting your then your name getting out there is one of 12 or 15 or more candidates now there's some states where you can't control that so we work with the candidates to understand that that's the case and work with them around around those decisions um you know uh our uh point of view is that there's a lot of benefit to having Community engagement at the finalist stage um you are able to see how your

candidates interact with members of the community and you're able to get the insights and input from your community as to how uh they what they saw when they met with your finalist candidates um it also really honors the commitment that the board has stated in terms of wanting to have a process that's Guided by the input of the community um I think there's a way in which you do that when it's just the board making the dec decision so it doesn't mean that if you decide to keep this closed that that you're not guided in any way by the input of the community but there is less information that you have about your candidates um when it's only the board interacting uh we have a process that's very well-managed where we enable members of the community to nominate themselves or others to participate on a panel uh we ensure that those panels well represent the student community and

we uh meet with your panels twice we carry out antibi training We Carry Out facilitated work around choosing the questions to ensure that they align with your job profile and what the competencies required for the role and then those panels carry out their own interviews and they let you know what they thought um so there's a fair amount of trust in the process that needs to occur um but we have universally been well received by communities when we've carried out processes like this um so we wanted to give you all the opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of each option um we know there is a concern about candidates dropping out uh it's not without Merit um we've met with in the first um 13 or 14 candidates we interviewed two

of them did have concerns about a process where they might be named as one of two or three finalists but all other applicants have been comfortable with this approach um at our stage in the process and based on what Alma's seeing in terms of the caliber of your applicant pool we do not think that if you have a process that engages community at the final stage we do not think you will uh end up without strong candidates um and because I'm I'm sharing that a couple candidates have been uncomfortable I'm also sharing that a couple of candidates have said they would welcome that opportunity and would want to have that opportunity um so you're really seeing both both sides and then you're seeing some applicants who say you know it's easier for me um in my place of work if I'm not announced until I get the job um but I understand this is kind of the way a lot of superintendent searches go and so you

know comfortable with moving forward with whatever Direction the board wants so wanted to lay that out as best as I could this evening for you Elma does have a point of view on this we do have a recommendation it is a trademark of an alma search it doesn't mean you have to follow this approach uh so obviously we honor and respect whatever decision the board makes um but uh needed the board to come to a decision around this issue so I'm happy to answer any questions you have about this about how this works and then um you know open it up to you all to be able to discuss what you would like to do thank you Monica for that um explanation of the process board members questions

comments okay I'll go Rogers um it sounds like there no comments not many discussion not much discussion but we can have it after a motion I guess um one of the reasons that I really liked Alma was the ability to have a finalist round that engages the community on some level so I'd like to see us move forward with that and trust that process [Music] um so I offer a motion that the finalist round include Community engagement activities with Alma handling that portion of that engagement process

second moved by Miss Rogers seconded by myself miss travez any other discussion Monica can you take a minute to um talk about the second option that you had that you described in some of our small groups that hasn't been brought into this space and into this discussion um I would appreciate that which second option when we met in small groups there were three options on a slide one and and I think in conversations that some of us have had this has felt um very polarizing to our board Bo um and it that makes me sad because you everyone here has such sh strong shared values and so there was a a option that was in the middle that had us bring community members in similar to the way that we're

bringing in our incoming board members had them sign confidentiality agreements and it was still able to preserve the confidentiality of every applicant and not risk losing any applicant over this process so can you walk us through that option because it wasn't described today sure um so that option would be limited Community engagement and that's an option where uh we would uh establish a small group of community members um who could participate I think the board would have to determine um who would play that role uh in the process and I didn't present it this evening because in our discussions uh in small groups uh most people didn't think that was a viable option because it would be difficult to limit or try to determine who gets to be a part of that process uh but that is another option

the way that it looks is that the board um uh would come to some determination on on a limited group of individuals who could uh participate in an interview uh with candidates uh we've seen that happen um in one or two small groups um and we have in fact asked those individuals to sign confidentiality statements uh and meet with uh meet with candidates and offer their perspective to the board and a follow up on that Monica with that process I what I've assumed I don't think I've directly asked this can students participate I would assume not because I I don't think we would ask students to sign that kind of confidential confidentiality agreement but I just want to clarify um it's really up to the board

and what's appropriate within the district around how you engage students in a process like this and and what that would look like okay thank you um I have okay I have comments um chair Umstead has some comments before we um move on the motion um so I just wanted to say until I met with um with Alma about this I was I understood that a closed process would be the way to go to um ensure that we didn't that we um maintained confidentiality of who those candidates were um all through the the entire process and I also had an initial

concern about about um Community uh divisiveness around candidates um and I think that after hearing more about the process um and how structured it is um that is the uh well both processes option two that you just described but um the one I'm most interested in the full open um process um I think that I think that that would be um the way I'd like to see us go I think it's in line with our desire to be um transparent um and that's something that we have committed to as a board and a district particularly since um since the salary crisis of the last few months um and I I think that um although I understand that there maybe a few candidates that we would that would not stay with through

the end I am very encouraged that we have um so many candidates and um I do think what I just keep thinking is that the right candidate um would really um enjoy be energized by the process and I real I realize that it could be a sacrifice um for them um revealing their identity to the community at that stage I ideally I do think um and I expect that we will have two extremely strong candidates or three um at the finalist stage and um that I expect that we will be choosing between very strong candidates and it may be a hard Choice um and so I would expect that um and and be optimistic that the um those other candidates who we did not choose would still um have a positive overall

experience um in that finalist stage and um so those are some of the considerations I have um I I really want to engage our community in new and different ways um from now going forward um I think that's really critical and something that we've heard a lot um I think that some of the ways that we have to engage with Community or hear from Community um at this point in time aren't sufficient overall and so I see this as a way for us to to build more Community engagement overall as a board um so I'm excited about the process I'm not sure which way our decision will go but um I would look forward to to engaging with this chair

Umstead yes hi everyone um thank you Monica for this information about the process I had a couple of questions that would help me in my decision making um I wanted to know how many we had 11 current or recent superintendent and let me phrase this before I jump into my questions I want us to have um a really diverse pool of applicants so I'm looking to see current superintendant or recent superintendant I'm looking to see folks who maybe have not been in the superintendent role yet but might be at a chief or a a deputy superintendent level in larger districts I would like to see people that have North Carolina experience as well as from people all around the country like that diversity of experience and maybe even someone who isn't a traditional um like principal the superintendent role I'm looking for that breath and I think my concern um is that if we make a

decision that might leave out even to applicants that we may not get the breath of of of the candidates and applicants that we're looking for and that's just my question so I wanted to know you know out of the candidates that we have so far you said we have 11 who are sitting superintendents or current or recent 15 with experience in North Carolina are any of those people part of the folks who said they weren't feeling comfortable um with the decision to be a potential open finalist search so we've had two individuals who expressed discomfort with that kind of a process uh both of them I believe are sitting superintendents um we're halfway through our interviews so we don't have all of the data however you know what I've shared is that the majority of your applicants and throughout our process very consistently we've been looking for this because we understood that it was a concern of

yours we have been asking all potential so this is people who haven't applied yet as well as people who have applied and up until now we do have three indiv uals um who've expressed discomfort to who have applied and one who has not yet applied um at the end of the day it's our charge to bring you a strong applicant pool as you described and we're seeing a very strong applicant pool as you've described uh so I think it's you know it's it's up to you if you feel that losing those two wouldn't would be too big of a risk to um to open up your process for Community input at the finalist stage but at this point in time uh you know our our uh engagement with the applicants has been very strong and that we have a very strong applicant pool overall uh in this

process thank you that's really helpful for me I um I think like this we we know this decision will impact our pool the question is you know how much of an impact are we okay with the impact knowing that there's a couple people who may not go forward with it and I um I'm not I want I would like to have a little additional information before making the decision I understand that is that can be complicated but I would just personally would be interested to hear from all of those applicants to know you know with this decision who are we also saying no to um I think the context of public education is really tricky and it can has become more challenging and so I want to I understand the concerns that some applicants may have around having their name be the finalist also hear the faith um that my colleagues have in the process and the desire that the right candidate um will be in the right in the finalist um position so I hold those

tensions together I think I'm just Desiring a little more information as I'm making that decision because I'm really am thinking how do I have as many as possible um so we'll want a little additional information and also just know a little bit about the profile of the folks who may say no so that's just where I'm personally at yeah so so the only real um question is the comfort with moving the process to uh into July uh by our timing if you want Community to engage in a process that's called culminating mid June you really have to let them know this week and that's kind of the the time pressure that you're up against um so that people can fully participate uh in that process uh and that's that's if you're going with the broader Community engagement approach um that that the motion is on

the floor for um so that's that's really the key point of tension there um if you want to more time to make the decision um you would just need to extend the timeline for when your finalist interviews would take place so that you can have whatever feels like the most comprehensive information um before you can make that decision and allow the time for Community to to nominate themselves and others to make their interest known um to make themselves available to particip in a process like this I do have one follow-up question Monica how is if the the community nominates themselves for to be a part of this and then how are the folks chosen for those finalist uh panels like who makes the decisions around who would be in those different groups so the board really determines the representation that they would like to have so that

might be race and ethnicity it might be focus on special education versus or exceptional children right versus um it could be type of school uh and communities represented these are all different things that the board has identif boards in the past have identified um we actually go through the pool of those who have been nominated and we ensure uh usually by random algorithm and our spreadsheet uh who makes up each of those groups um to ensure that it meets what the board is looking like in terms of sorry what the board would like to see in terms of representation of each of those panels so you all would have to decide which panels you would want and then we would typically work with the Liaisons who are the chair and vice chair uh to confirm the makeup of those panels in terms of uh

representation we uh the board has full uh access to everyone that was nominated or nominated themselves and um the board board members are able to uh review those panels um before they're finalized thank you Monica that's helpful I do I just also want to note I'm not completely close to idea I think it is like this could be different and new and I think new in some ways for some many of the large districts in North Carolina and so I don't I'm not opposed I would like to know though and I'm just want to phrase this for everyone who's listening kind of who are the applicants that we're talking about um before I were to make this decision because I would want to make sure that we're able to have really great folks um in the pool I think our students and our Educators deserve a really great applicant so I'm holding both of those tensions together and know that this is

a really it's a difficult decision um to make so Miss Lewis hey Monica I have a couple of questions about the um self- nominating that you were just touching on um and then the process that board member Beyer brought up the middle portion how are those two the same and different because it sounds like you're saying we still make up we decide who is on the panels and both of them is that what's the same in both of them or is it that anyone can self-nominate yeah I'm just confused about the difference between the two if you can explain that thanks so in broader Community engagement uh anybody has the opportunity to participate so anyone can nominate themselves or others because you have lots of you you you you'll have somewhere between five and seven

different panels that are getting the interview uh with the with the candidates potentially um in the smaller um hypothetical it's a much smaller group so you're probably talking one group of maybe 10 to 12 people so there it's a lot harder to open up to the whole Community you certainly could do that but narrowing that group then to a really limited number becomes a lot harder uh to do um you know ultimately it's the board's decision how you want to carry this out but th that's the challenge if if you're only having say one group of individuals um and you're trying to Encompass in that group community members caregivers students teachers principles then how you arrive at that group is much more constrained um so it's just up to you how how you would

want to go about determining who's part of that group just for a point of clarification though I'm sorry m i my understanding in that second scenario was that their names are still protected and kept confidential their confidentiality is protected until they're a finalist that's the difference that I was understanding and if I if I'm misunderstanding please clarify that for me I'd appreciate it I think that that you could potentially do that yes so those individuals who are participating on a panel could sign confidentiality agreements okay uh so then coming back to the questions that I was thinking about with the self- nominating um known that we have 80% students of color and um majority minority District ultimately and thinking about

the superintendent Community conversations engagements that you recently had I know you're going to probably tell us on the May 28th meeting um exactly how many people were engaged at the different sessions um and even the demographics of those who chose to be there in the sense of self- nominating um but off the top of your head would you say that those who were engaged at the superintendent search represented the diversity of our community in those that Monday Tuesday Wednesday when you all were here in person I don't have that data with me at this time we're still pulling together the full report of all of the discussions that we had to be able to provide that um the survey at this point is uh is not matching your student um population we are understanding that may be common um but we we don't know yet for

certain yeah that's not uncommon for us for the surveys is not to match our population but even with the engagement um that would be concerning I don't want to delay a decision being made as I hear you say it will extend the timeline um but having that information of those that were self selected engaging could possibly batch the self- selecting engagement for this process um that would be my concern and then the other thing I'm thinking about is with the full um engagement that that we're talking about with the self- nominating what would that take um as far as Manpower from our side regarding marketing Communications and forms what does that look like is it one day of these four or five different forums uh I'm I'm I'm picturing like a Saturday and all the community members are able to come together and we're in the mini for Brown Center so just trying to picture what does that day look like and what ises the lift

inel and the interviews usually take place over a day and a half uh and they're usually uh on District property so they are coordinated by um staff in terms of the space uh and the time the the communication with panelists uh it's really just the same as it was similar to what it was for our site visit it's letting people know about the opportunity um so uh you know letting the community know that they can do this we would probably communicate back out to the community organizations and then we would have the district use their normal channels for communicating um uh with different um with parents caregivers students Schools staff about this opportunity we would keep the window open for two weeks and Alma would really be um managing uh those responses

from there um in terms of the interviews themselves we do them in a day and a half it is um it is not uh like an easy process there's some organizing of meeting rooms and you know making sure that the panelists know where they need to go when they get there um so districts usually have two staff on hand to just support the people that are participating in those panels interviews thank you for that and then also you mentioned that the self- nominating community members would also have anti-bias training when would that happen and how's that coordinated that happens in their preparation for the interviews so panelists participate in two interviews uh I'm sorry panelists participate in two preparation meetings and that's when they receive that information um and so those would happen in the one to

two weeks before the interview them the interview itself thank you and I just wanted to ask a follow-up question based on what Miss Lewis was asking earlier Monica you had said that we could um select the the panels um based on different factors that were important to us and you mentioned race and ethnicity in that case we could do is it true that we could do a demographic survey or that this is how you all do it and make sure that the representation of those participating absolutely does match um and you know also I guess give more time if we need to to you know ask ask people to send this out again to encourage people to self-nominate if

needed is that could you just speak to that part of the process that's correct so the nomination form would include whatever information the board wants to know about individuals who are being nominated and all all of that information is then reviewed as we create each of the panels we we can't guarantee for sure that it will turn out exactly that we want but we will be monitoring what's coming in and continuing the community outreach and um doing our best to have groupings that really do represent um the community um as as the board you know lays out that that criteria okay thank you yeah and just that bill what you saying you know it can't be guaranteed because it's volunteer people self- selecting self- nominating and it is a time commitment is also what I'm hearing it's time commitment one to two weeks prior to prepare for the bias training and then getting on the different panels in a day

and a half of work um and conducting the interview so I just I do think that um we need to be realistic about who we're engaging um and looking at what we've already done with our engagement and how this will be done differently so that we don't have just our usual suspects but those who have um sometimes are harder to reach and I don't know that I know that we we just Tri that with this superintendent um Community engagement and again doing something in June after school has let out for those families that are hard to reach I don't know that we will have a diverse input and impact that we might be looking for at this route so I did want to clarify we're not asking each panel to dedicate a day and a half all of the interviews take part over the day and a half and so we ask for um you know essentially a window of community time usually the parent caregiver group will meet after work hours um and so we work as best as we

can to identify the times that that people are able to participate and so for the interview panels it's typically um three uh to four hours max of their time to carry out those interviews and so you know what I can say Miss Lewis is we let the community know what the parameters are and we have them let us know if they think they can do it and if they can participate um and so that's been our approach uh in the past no I understand I was just saying it's just not guarantee that's all Miss Carda-Auten aen um I similar to board member shavez I went into this um I think our small groups a couple of weeks ago now not thinking that this was the approach I wanted to take but after learning more about your process I am in favor of an open finalist round and I think that's

for it was a couple reasons but now a third too and I think one um it helps us learn more about candidates in a way that we would not otherwise be able to do and that for me as I was like searching around um today trying to find examples of this like one that I found was the um Lawrence Massachusetts group that you've worked with and just watching the way that those students ask the questions and engage and how the candidates for superintendent engage engaged with them just felt very different to me than like that's different than Community engagement sessions where we're asking we are asking or you're asking questions of students or families it's watching a superintendent and how they engage with the students not just board members so to me that just feels really unique and something that again it's information that will help guide our search that

we're not otherwise going to have um I also like that this really makes the process transparent in a at a time when we need that and and the more that I searched online the more not like it feels like this process is unique to Alma of having the different panels with the students in one and the parents and and that but having the finalist round be open and having candidates names out there I saw that in tiny school districts in rural areas I saw that in big like Duval County Florida is meeting right now and revealing their finalist two candidates for a meet and greet where families get to go like shake hands and get to know them um it just feels like this is more Comm than um it might not be new it might be new to Durham but um I'm interested in us doing things in a new way um and then

last is uh the other reason that this interests me is that it feels like it's a process and I don't Monica you haven't really spoken to this so I'm curious to know if you see this but it feels like it also gives candidates a chance to get to know and understand our community in a way that they wouldn't otherwise have a chance to do I mean it's possible they'll sit there and decide they don't want to be part of this community but um to see you know what they're stepping into and start engaging and um give them a glimpse um that they're they wouldn't otherwise have a chance to have before this so I don't know if you wanted to if you if you have anything that you would want to share about that if not it's okay too absolutely I mean it's it is a lot and the superintendency is a lot it's a big job and it's challenging it's politically complex and that's what you all are asking asking for and so giving the candidates the opportunity to meet your community is is very beneficial to them and to the board and to the

community and the input that you get helps inform not just your decision but also the support that individual might need once they're in the job how best to introduce your person uh to the community I uh absolutely agree with Vice chair Chavez you will have two to three phenomenal candidates our goal is to get you to the point where you have candidates that any one of them could be your superintendent and it's it is possible that aspects of the community might get behind one candidate over the other but it's the board's job to look at all of that information and then to determine um what makes the most sense you will have had two interactions with them before they get to the finalist stage so you have a whole body of information to base your decision on and uh this Insight from the community is is just

incredibly helpful no matter what um so I would agree with you uh Miss carda aen and I would say um it's very eye openening for the candidates and it's very eye openening for the board as well thank you Miss Beyer oh I'm sorry so I appreciate um this discussion I appreciate all the um voices in this space and the um the need for us to figure this out this fig this I don't think we actually need to figure this out today I disagree with that need and that need for a vote today I think that it is important for us to see every single candidate who has submitted their name for part for consideration by this board I think we owe them at least that

consideration I think we live in a very divisive state right now where um candidates that are working and doing Equity work in red districts are heroes and they deserve our consideration um amongst all the other candidates I don't want to lose a single one and I'm trying to consider them as professionals and the risk that they take by applying even to Durham if they're North Carolina or Southern sitting superintendents because we are different than most districts in this state I say this as someone that along with chair Umstead LED what I considered to be a successful but closed search for Dr MinGa that resulted in a long tenure in this community [Music] um I love our community I will continue to listen to our community all the way

through this process um we always do but this board either June 30th if we can get it done before then is the board that makes this vote we will have information through reference checks through background checks through questions that we ask in ways that we deliberate amongst ourselves that will not ever become public I want us to be nimble because we are limited by the time of year and and the number of candidates that are are also being recruited by other districts and I want us to be able to accelerate our process if we and timeline if we need to I want us to listen to our incoming board members who were just elected by this community our community did not have an open search for the county manager did not have an open search for the city manager for the chancellor at

nccu for the county attorney these are these are serious somber decisions that this board is elected to make with full information I am concerned about candidates that do well in public settings and are gregarious and how they are uh preferred over someone that might be an introvert I think um some people do well at those those kind of tasks and those kind of interactions and that doesn't necessarily mean they are the Right leader for this District in this community at this moment um and I'm really really concerned and I've talked with um colleagues about this before about our job is to set this superintendent up for success in a really challenging time in a challenging state in a beautiful Beloved Community and so as part of that I think we we owe them protecting their

confidentiality as we make this deliberation and this decision and I'm concerned about our community um getting behind them and being excited about them but it it's a it's essentially still a a decision that this board will make and so if you for if if if this is forced to a vote tonight I will have to vote it down um and I don't I that doesn't mean that I'm not open to the second option or ways to consider this as we move along the process if if our finalists are three candidates that are comfortable with their identity being shared that's that's a different decision point to me but throwing people out at at the ear EST stage does not send the message that I want to to these candidates that are risking joining this conversation with us thank you that is just a point of clarification a motion on the table we

do and it's motion for option one not option two right option the Open final open completely open yeah not sorry not completely open it's structured but without the confidentiality agreements so no confidentiality agreement and so but we did put or discuss a second option which would be confidentiality agreements selected community members a panel right panel of 10 to 12 yeah and the other one has I forget the number but more yeah um so one of the concerns uh in speaking to community members about this and in speaking to folks who might be interested um in recommending their friends or something you know might might might say um might have applied is this notion of popularity and I think that um board member Beyer is kind of hinting at that in terms of Engagement names being put out um and some of the implications of anybody who

is a sitting superintendent applying and especially if they share any intersectional identities um there's a pattern folks are tracking the number of people who lose their job jobs um after applying not directly but there's ways that things just become a little different I mean the tone and and the Hue if they're not chosen as the person for our district once they um continue their their work within a matter of time and this happens not only for superintendents but also chancellors especially if they're women um somebody's looking at that data as well about um women presidents or chancellors uh women superintendents um some of those implications and so so I think that you know the conversation that we had it kind of shows the pros of both options uh one because we do want to have Community engagement we we have it ongoing right now um it's very important to have and we also talked about the fact that um you know we we want to

include Community Voices as much as possible but I guess the question is do we want to do that to candidates that are coming to apply and um if if there are already people saying that this makes them uncomfortable or that they wouldn't want to I I just wonder if if if we're going to continue to lose candidates the more that time progresses and you know if they make it to that finalist round are are are we going to uh are there going to be any any implications for strong candidates that may have concerns about what would happen if they don't get chosen and what will happen to their jobs and so I I think this question is polarizing in some ways not totally but polarizing in the sense that we want to do right by the candidates we want to do right by the community they're not mutually exclusive and for me option b seems to provide a way to do both uh a way to include Community Voices uh a

panel of folks from a cross-section of of identities like whether they are staff students Community leaders we can figure that one out and also have on non-disclosure agreements confidentiality agreements that would protect candidates who [Music] um who would feel most comfortable with that um and so I I think that that is more of a compromise and option b but there's a motion on the floor right now and so I um am going to defer to let this process play out and I I do think that uh option b is also an option that we we can consider Miss Rogers um couple things our students deserve for us to be courageous

leaders and make hard choices and we have an opportunity to demonstrate if I were a candidate I'd be watching this and making sure that they understood what our board wants and um if they're watching this I hope that they know that they can tell we want true Community engagement when they come to our district and that we are demonstrating that by allowing true Community engagement um throughout this process um I also think that it's time that we as a board start having convers Sation um that align with our values and our ideals even when they're people at the podium and in community that we traditionally disagree with agreeing with what we want to see going forward and we have to start doing that work we

have to really start listening and hearing and accepting that feedback um and so when I made my motion it was not to exclude the process of having um non-disclosure agreements signed and doing a panel so I'm happy to amend the motion that includes a panel um of participants that sign ndas and come in and have conversations with our candidates because ultimately we're the ones that are making the decisions based on all the information that we know and based on the interactions that they have with the members of our community that have elected to be a part of this process with us would you be open to that Amendment Miss Travis I'm open to it I have some questions if we're doing that

um with the with the ndas then are they um are they indefinite they can or is there a time at which they can speak on on the interviews who are you posing the question to oh I I think I'm posing it to you Monica okay I'm not familiar very familiar with NDA um sort of guidelines so we so we typically have a confidentiality agreement um when we issue these but I know Mr Malone was offering some others that he's used or that the district has used in the past um the confidentiality agreements we have used have typically been related to the process itself typically once the information is public meaning once the

uh candidate is announced um information about that candidate is not um is not shared uh is is known and it's in the it's in the public Arena I I think you're asking about let's say they meet three finalists and so two are not selected um then the request would be that they hold their candidacy confidential as well beyond the selection so you know that they wouldn't come out later and say this is who these were the people that we interviewed um is that that's what you're asking yes yeah so my response but I think it would I I'm comfortable with Mr Malone if he wants to um weigh on this is that you would have to establish an agreement that it has the terms you would like to set and to Define what confidentiality means as concretely as possible yeah I would agree I would

assume that the um the agreement would be that information about the candidates who are not selected would remain confidential and and theoretically not much of what was discussed in the confidential interview would would be released either but certainly not the names of the individuals that were not selected thank you for that and then I do have this question about students engaging I because I just wonder about having students um sign an a confidentiality confidentiality agreement um where we're asking them to to hold something and not tell other people and I understand we might have older students who are like 16 and 17 years old and um able to process that um but I am just a little

conc concerned about how that limits us with students and um so how I guess how common is that that you would have students sign a confidentiality agreement in this process that would be uncom less common for us um you know some boards have like a representative student member of the board um who participates in this um you know if we go with the more limited route we're probably thinking I'm sorry to excuse me sorry it would have to be um you know it's it's more likely a group of 10 to 12 individuals um in a in a single group so more likely than not you're talking about one to two students um so thinking about you know what your criteria would be for them would be important what I

would say is there's a lot of Precedence in um in school systems around the country of having students sit with the board advise the board Weighing on board matters even um um or serve on in some sort of advisory capacity so I think we've seen enough sort of comparable types of responsibilities that that I think it would be great to have um students uh represented um in this kind of process okay thank you Miss Carda-Auten Aon um and I just wanted to clarify too if we do this other option where there's um one panel that signs a confidentiality agreement um that panel cons will end up being 10 to 12 individuals which will include if we'd like it to include parents or caregivers

students and staff so all we'd have to select yeah School leader would will have to select just 10 to 12 um from our whole District to do that and uh but we would be able to maintain the confidentiality or the names of the finalists so anybody that's not selected to be our superintendent's name ideally or the plan would be for that those names to never be released and in contrast the other the motion that's on the floor would be to have six or seven panels maybe two for students two for parents caregivers one for you know maybe two for staff one for school leadership things like that right and those I'm so sorry to interrupt it would typically be like one panel per rle so one for students one for parents caregivers School leaders would have their own panel so on and so forth so

the board would have to decide which panels we have a recommendation for you all to start with um but um it it would be like one panel of each of those groups and each of those groups would have up to 12 to 15 participants in each one okay thank you and then [Music] um and is it I I don't think we've talked about this tonight but is it typical that the student and the parent caregiver panels are live streamed or how do you all do that or in in an alma search we usually would live stream the student panel and the parent panel um so that the community can see both of those interviews um you asked about Lawrence Massachusetts and um I would have to see but I'm I'm fairly certain they followed a similar kind of thing we were they were taking place while we were uh in dur last

week about that thank you um and then and then in that scenario the final two to three finalists would be public information with their you know names out there bios Etc but that information would be communicated like we would if we were to decide that this week then all applicants for this position would be notified of that now so they would know early though most applicants already know this is something the board is considering so we would be confirming with them what what you all decide one more um point of clarification you said that two or three have indicated that they um would not be comfortable with this and that was out of how many that were asked that was out of I think we're up to 12 or 13 that have been interviewed so far and it was two applicants and one who has not applied yet and

that's in our data set those are the candidates we've spoken the individuals we've spoken with but Monica they don't prefer their information being out I mean I don't know how you're asking the question but I don't I can't imagine unless it's a state requirement for it to be out that they prefer it actually we've had several applicants specifically say I would prefer to meet with members of your community so yes there are people who would prefer it uh and there are people who would prefer not to be but are willing to do it and then there are two who've said you know it would be I'd really have to think about that and we'd want to continue to talk to them and see if we could still have them continue through the process even even with those um conditions but that also matches our experience in every other search I mean we just completed the Madison superintendent search and you had a sitting superintendent of the

year uh from nearby uh St Paul Minnesota who was selected for that for that role who was willing to go through that process um so we've had we've we're very experienced at this and very experienced in the sort of um the care and facilitation of the process and the care and support for the candidates uh in that as as well um two more follow-ups um do you know you had mentioned and um board member Byer just referenced this that there were some states that required that candidates um so we have we yes so we have states that are governed by the sunshine laws so Ohio and Florida are two in particular where applicant names can be made public at any point in time um so we've we've LED three searches in the state of Ohio that are governed by those rules the state of Wisconsin um allowed for basically um boards are

required in the state of Wisconsin to share the names of finalists so the rules are a little bit different there um so it's it's a little different and every state has its rules that they're governed by there so my understanding is North Carolina uh obviously is is able to only announce your sole finalists and able to protect the confident potentiality of all applicants along the way okay thank you I just wanted to get a sense like when I saw this happening in um Michigan and Massachusetts and Wyoming if they were included in that Massachusetts is interesting um there are different rules in Massachusetts even about what the board's deliberation looks like um so every state has different uh rules uh that we're Bound by as we go through uh this search process thank you and I guess one final note um when I was looking around I saw that other can other districts also once they

o open those names up to the public can then do different um School tours and meet and greets and meet like it just feels like it's allowing again not just through the interview process but there could be other avenues for those individuals to get to know folks in the community and be out in our schools yes we just completed Dayton Ohio where our three finalists did engage in School tours uh that were determined by the board um but as as you said board member CA Aon we definitely there are all sorts of ways that you can engage with your finalists um so uh agree that there are lots of opportunities for candidates to engage with the community and it's really just about again continuing to try to manage and mitigate bias as best as you can um and really having the board be the

primary sort of stewards of that um and uh and as well um you know wanting the process to set the candidate up to demonstrate their best sells to put their best foot forward so we like structure um to be part part of it so you know there's not like a gacha element of the process it's very planful and aligned with the job profile that the board has established all right there is there has been a motion on the floor and Miss Rogers amended the motion and I will accept the amendment um as I think it is in line with um with where our board is at and um we'll do a voice Vote or is there any further discussion just ask Mr Malone to kind of

highlight kind of some from searches what information might the board have that the public wouldn't see in either of these scenarios just so we have kind of in the in this processes the the other things that we'll be doing in the background on these candidates that don't become public like references references criminal background checks um you know informations from information from the actual interviews that the board um conducts the application materials or the resumés and the the letters of interest um all of that information would be maintained confidentially you know by the board and then sometimes you get into conversations about salary you could sometimes back and forth with folks like there's sometimes like reasons that that first candidates don't

come forward or you know like there's I was just talking about some of the complications that so that our community could have some more sense of how some of these things go no that is certainly true I mean there have been a handful of searches that our firm has come in the end to handle the contract negotiations um when um the selected candidate for whatever reason and the board were unable to reach terms on a contract um and that candidate was not selected and the board would go to you know a different candidate um and then negotiate a contract with one of their other finalists so that certainly does happen in the process where someone that would have been the first choice is not actually hired it's rare but it does happen you can can we just restate this motion for clarity and if if you all don't

mind sure motion the amended motion that I've I've offered is to move forward with almost process of conducting the superintendent search that includes a finalist round with panelists that sign confidentiality agreements to engage with the three or two final candidates whatever we decide at that juncture and then the board is able to deliberate and come to a selection of a superintendent candidate which would not would or would not include releasing finalist names to the community would not that's correct thank you I appreciate the clarification chair Amstead has a question yeah just one question on

practice um Monica do you all typically inform applicants in option b that this is how the interview process will proceed as well yes we've already been discussing with them what is going what is being considered so it's part of our role to make sure that candidates know what to expect every step of the way okay and what they need to I guess this is feels similar to the incoming board members we want to make sure candidates are okay consent to having additional folks in their interview is that how that works I'm not sure how it works exactly yeah we've never had to have candidates sign consent forms it's typically the board's decision who is involved in the process our role is to notify the candidates about what the process is so that candidates know what to expect and we are we're in communication with our candidates every step of the way so they

know what's happening they know what the timeline is they know what the steps are that the board is considering um so there should be no surprises to the board we also provide we also provide for them the schedule of the interviews and um we also typically will provide bios or information about each of the individuals that are participating as interviewers in their process if they're members outside of the board yeah that's helpful I just I think it's really as we talked so much about candidates who are putting themselves forward how do we make sure they are informed about every step of the process and who might be in the room like um so that won't be a surprise and I would just like to stay a breast of who what candidates are saying throughout the process if they learn about this and that may make them feel uncomfortable or whatnot I'm just curious to to know or if they're really excited about it I um I think even I was just listening to

our numbers of having three that weren't sure about the open finalist process I hope those people feel really good about where we might land I'm not sure pending where this vote might be um because I again I just want to have as many applicants as possible in the process and acknowledging many of the comments that my um previous board members made around um things can get tricky When people's names are are out there in some of the context so thank you for answering those questions that was really helpful for me any further discussion all right we'll do a Voice vote starting with chair Umstead um this is B up I vot I missis I miss caen I Lewis I miss Rogers I miss Byer I and I vote I it passes

unanimously Monica thank you very much for leading us through this process and and um I pass it back to you for maybe closing us out sure thank you for that um I appreciate the the work that youall are putting in to create a thoughtful process um for Alma we are your partners and your advisers in this process we bring a lot of experience and um hope that is beneficial to you all as you're making your decision we're also really happy and have offered to connect you with other leaders who have carried out similar processes so want to extend that option again especially for anybody who is feeling like this is a really unique or um process uh if it would be assuring to you to speak with others who've been through a similar process we would really welcome the opportunity to connect you uh with those with those individuals we don't know how your two

or three candidates that are con concerned if they will feel more comforted I think it is more comforting than a wide open process but to board chair Umstead um comments we have to check with them as well let them know this is where things are and see if they're comfortable with this kind of approach instead so we'll be following up um with the board um along those lines there are still some additional decisions that need to be made about this in terms of who would be on the panel and how those individuals would be selected so um I'll be looking to meet with the chair and vice chair as soon as possible to try to work through those details um and to move forward as quickly as possible with that as always I'm always available to the board for any questions happy to talk any time um uh as we continue down this path thank you very much for your work this evening thank you so much and thank you

you for making yourself available um and um just answering all of our questions so um thanks everyone and with that we are Vice chair sorry Vice chair Chavez I do have one question just Monica timeline wise can you let us know when the board will be making a decision around that first round or that second round of applicants who we would be interviewing and then yeah when does that come what when do we make that decision and sorry and when can we expect to see applications and material as well um well our current timeline is that we are expecting to see um applicant materials the week of May 20th for the first time so that's our current timeline right now I what was the what was the initial part of your question um when the board would be making a decision around who's going to be in the first round of interviews so Alma is presenting the

candidates that are in your you mean in your first round of interviews Yeah in our first round of interviews so I know Elma does the the very first round maybe I call it the second round then when will the board be making the decision around who we talk to in the second round so the timeline we've discussed is that Alma is presenting candidates the week of May 20th our request is that you interview all of the candidates that we recommend the board has access to all applications so board members want to go through all of the applications and if there's someone else that you want to add to the mix we're comfortable doing that but our request is that you interview all of the candidates that we recommend to move forward and not ask because I was wondering if we needed to schedule a meeting to review those applicants but we can talk more offline around what the right way to do that is so okay yeah okay thank you everybody any other

questions looks like there are no more questions so thank you and with that we are adjourned all right thank you