Board of Education · Special Meeting · May 28, 2024

That we add a closed session to the end end of the meeting to discuss Personnel second been moved by Miss Chávez seconded by Miss Beyer is there any other discussion all those in favor say I all opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously so for the public who are watching we will go into close session we'll come back out and we have a report from our partners at Alma Advisory Group who will share the community updates from all the engagement that they have done and then we will go back into Clos session thank you all.

I move that we go into I move that we go into close session second for personel reasons as discussed previously second yes I move that we go into close session to discuss attorney client Personnel no Personnel information as discussed second it's been moved by Miss berer and seconded by Miss Chávez so we going into close session any other discussion all those in favor say I I any oppose please use the same sign it passes unanimously we're now on closed.

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We are back in Open Session we're going to turn it over to our partners at Alma I think they are they might be coming in the zoom room so we might have a little delay before we get started and batina we're here and we can hear you can you see us now awesome I can hear you but I think we give us a minute and we'll be able to see you there you go time great and NAA and I are going to co-present portions of this so just hope that that works awesome thank you great going to go ahead and share my screen right thank you well oh I'm not able never mind I think the permissions are just updated perfect thank you so much to whoever has just granted me access and if you all will just give me a thumbs up if you can see the cover of my screen we can awesome thank you so much great oops now I'm getting ahe myself awesome okay for me to just Dive Right.

In it is if y'all want to do a quick introduction for the public who's watching tonight absolutely and first good evening to the board good evening to any other team members who are present this evening and good evening to members of the community that may be watching this presentation my name is Alana Pera and I am the chief of staff with all my Advisory Group I'm also playing the RO of supporting Community engagement efforts and U project managing on the Durham superintendent search and thrilled to be here with you all and I'm also joined by my colleague Naja who allow to introduce himself as well hello everyone my name is NAA Thompson a part of the a Advisory Group I had the sheer pleasure of being in germ onsite listening to a variety of community stakeholder groups and looking forward to sharing some of our summaries tonight great thank you so much so as we both noted we're excited to share the community engagement report that we produced H coming off the heels of our.

Site visit earlier this month which I can't believe we're already at this point in the process which is very exciting I know you've all had an opportunity to receive the report in advance so we are not going to go through each and every one of the 42 slides slides but we'll be sure to zoom in on specific parts that we think are particularly impactful that we want to highlight for you all and then certainly open to any questions at any point in the process that you all may have for us so we like to Dive Right In if it's okay and like I said we'll we'll keep moving us forward but would love to take any questions that you all have for us as we move forward okay so with that I'll share just a quick overview of our road map for this evening we'll start with just a very brief update on recruitment efforts dive into the specifics of the report and then just quickly talk about some of.

The implications for the job profile before we share next. Steps so again just as always we like to come back to our shared purpose and one of the key things to note here is that this report out is part of the example of that value right of being Guided by the community voice in this process and the transparency of sharing back here's what we heard and honoring all of the time and input that members of the community staff students and famili shared with us earlier this month briefly always want to come back to our timeline we're at this interesting kind of Midway point in the process and really our Focus as we continue to move forward is going to be recruitment interviews and then preparing for that finalist stage which we'll touch on as we close out our engagement together this evening quick recap of some of the Key activities that our team has completed to date certainly the community engagement portion has been a major part of our work today hosting all of.

The virtual and inperson sessions as well as completing the survey and then the initial recruitment that has been completed for the role as I just noted part of what comes next is continual recruitment like Sylvia says always always be recruiting and that's our motto as well as continuing with the interviews so that we can really get to that goal of moving into the end of this month hopefully finalizing our selection process so again just want to remind us about the current stages of the process that we are working towards we are in the midst and our team has really been taking the lead around reviewing the initial set of applicants screening those to make the recommendations to the board for the next round of interviews which will begin have already begun and we're very excited to be supporting this process as we continue to move forward we will continue to support you all at each stage we will debrief and make recommendations about who moves forward again as I noted just a moment ago this.

Finalist stage will be a really critically important part as the board as well as this volunteer panel of community members will also have an opportunity to engage with your. Finalist so in terms of where we are with recruitment efforts to date again lots of interest in this role is something we continue to see and so to date and this is as of Friday numbers we've received 109 applications this is the breakdown by race and ethnicity and gender again all of this is based on self-reported data from our eeo survey which not everyone completed but about 93 applicants have completed which is how we've been able to identify this data again we're tracking recent superintendents who are applying for the role so that's a data point we continue to share with you all as well as North Carolina specific experience okay so we're GNA get into the report itself and before I dive in I just want to take a moment just to thank and appreciate all of the staff members who helped put this together.

At Sheena Cooper and her team Crystal Roberts Nicole who helped those lot of scheduling the translation team and then there other folks who I don't have names for but I do want to call out just folks who were there to welcome us at the different buildings where we hosted meetings and allowed Us in the custodial staff who continuously checked in on us and made sure we were okay we were comfortable and the tech team who was there ready and on hand to help us ensure we knew how to plug our things in and that everything was working to create a really positive experience so just thank you so much because I know that's a lot to pull off and we greatly appreciate it so a quick summary of all of the meetings and the outcomes of our engagement during that time we always want to maximize participation from the community and we do so through a variety of methods both in-person meetings that are oneto one or focus groups we hosted.

Virtual sessions and then we put out the community survey which again allows us to crash The Wider net for this engagement in particular we also did two separate service we did a community facing as well as a student survey so that we can gather input directly from your student body we'll share the insights of that in just a moment and everything we did was done in both English and Spanish to maximize participation from the community we were really happy ultimately with the outcome of the survey results as well as the number of community meetings that we hosted over the course of our time in Durham earlier this month as well as some virtual follow-up sessions we hosted.

Afterwards Your Community Partners in particular were very generous with their time and were really great at responding and providing support to us in this process of the 43 organizations that were on that partner list 24 reached out to us and either set up time to connect with us personally or shared information about the search process to their constituents and the members of the community that they serve this is a full list of the partners that ultimately we met with which span a a great variety of members of your community and services that are being provided across the Spectrum in Durham we learned a lot about this experience and again it really highlighted the incredible Partnerships available for families and for the district and the support ultimately that the community is providing the district on a continual basis so it was really wonderful to be able to hear all of these.

Perspectives this is a breakout of our community and student survey so in totality we received just over 2600 responses of which 1635 represent your community members I just want to note that if you try to add up the numbers they may not add up people were allowed to check all that applies so I could be a parent and staff member that only counts for one survey response in the account but it just means that we have U many more connections to the district defined in in this in this breakdown of the survey the students again I think this is like our highest the highest number of student responses we've received to day which is so exciting and we're just thrilled to have received just shy of a thousand responses from students we're presenting all of your schools in the.

District we are and I'm going to quickly walk through these different data points we ask people to identify race ethnicity in a moment we'll look at lgbtqia status we'll look at disability learning needs neurod Divergence as a way to understand the types of perspectives that we're getting from different parts of your community this is not a typical first survey responses where we see higher response rates from our Caucasian and white members of the community so those perspectives are over represented in the survey and because of that that Trend we've seen it's it's one of the reasons why we tend to really emphasize the need to connect with organizations that are survey black Latino Asian in your case here but other members of the GE Community they may not be showing up as strongly in the survey as a way to balance those perspectives in our.

Work so here's a quick breakdown of what the community survey respondents and again this is just for the adults for those 16 35 respondents on the community survey what the breakdown of their either identification with or being caregivers of someone who identifies as a lgbtqia they're about 15% of respondents identified with that community and then in terms of the question about are you a caregiver of or identify as a person with a disability who is neurode Divergent or receiving special Education Services we received almost 33% of your respondents agreed with that data point so we're very happy with the representation from that Community there we ask folks to share with us their income levels again we want to get a sense of the socioeconomic status of community members this was more representative of the county and so we compared this with County data and that lined up we also asked people to identify the ZIP code that they were that they live in as another way to assess where the respondents are are.

Coming from and we hit about 15 different ZIP codes in in in the Durham County area with over 300 who oped not to respond and about 37 families who noted they were in transitional housing or in the midst of moving. And then I'll yeah thank you so now we get into student voices and like El Elana mentioned this is probably one of the highlights of the survey and our time on site with 966 survey respondents which is a great number of students responding to the survey and we were also able to meet with the student advisory Council which consisted of 23 high school students students across the district and also students that completed the survey those groups also consisted of multilingual Learners students with IEPs students that are part of alternative programs and like I mentioned the student advisory coun counsil as well so this highlights the diversity of representation and lived experiences in the student survey and something your District should be proud of the student survey responses closely.

Mirrored the racial demographics of the district especially among students of color groups so although one group was over represented there was representation from every racial group identified in the survey right so that is something to applaud and we look forward to sharing what we heard from students later tonight so this chart illustrates more of the diversity and representation in the student survey around 177% of students self-identified as someone with a disability neurod urgent in special education or with a diverse learning need so in addition we had about 72% that disclosed they do not have a disability and about 12% that prefer not to.

Answer so what have we learned and what we're going to do over the course of the next few slides is synthesize what we heard during our so it's all of the qualitative input that we gather from the focus groups and the interviews conducted over the course of the last month so we'll highlight some of those and then we'll dive into how that looks from the perspectives of those who responded to the survey we'll start with strengths and certainly there were very many strengths to celebrate highlight and there was a lot of coherence in alignment around the types of experiences that that folks shared with us as key to sustain for the district so right off the bat the reputation of of Durham as as a county as a city as a very diverse inclusive and Progressive city is something that really stood out particularly its location in the Southeast stakeholder Shar just the importance of understanding the the long Legacy and history of the city as well as what's happening currently with Industries and.

Innovations and the continual growth of the city as important context that both they wanted to uplift as a strength of the community but also to share as important context that leader should know about Durham the other two bullets and I'll go through these quickly but again happy to pause for questions some of the key things that came up with regards to what's happening in the district is that the recognition of all of the work that's happening to to ensure steady academic growth for students and this came up in just about almost every conversation I know I had while we were on site people really appreciate and see that directionally the district is making the right Investments and is moving in the right direction the number of schools that are low performing is going down we're seeing steady increases in student performance closing of gaps although again that's another area that came up as a strength as an opportunity as well but that continual progress is seen and is being made and want to.

Ensure that those Investments and that that work continues with a new Administration along those same lines stakeholders and this includes students really appreciated the types of programming and resources that are being dedicated to ensure that students have access to really Innovative programs Pathways and the different services that are being provided the list here is just a small snippet of some of these specific examples that community members shared with us about the things that they really value and again want to see protected and championed by a new Administration these are kind of our last two just big highlights and headlines that came up in in conversations this value of for the equity work that is happening at the district came up from staff members we heard it from Community Partners which is a little less common in in some in some other school districts we heard this from parents we heard it from students and this seems to be a real shared value about not just the what Equity means but also the Investments.

That are being made to see that work continue that Unapologetic Focus the unapologetically there was another way that someone else frame that as I thought was really cool but I didn't include here just continue to come up and folks felt really proud of the fact that the district is really bold in its efforts to continue to push this work forward last but not least I'll share that and this one becomes important and you'll see in a moment as to why the while there are a lot of opportunities and and a lot came up around staff retention there was also a lot of input that came up about the things that the district is doing really well to retain and attract staff so competitive wages is something that came up right off the bat from across different groups as well as all of the opportunities to grow your own that are really valued particularly by members of your leadership and your principles who really called Out programs like growing together as really important for their.

Own development and Contin growth within the. District so this is a summary of the student group we were able to meet with although it was only 23 students they had a lot to share that's captured here I won't go through the laundry list but a lot of the great points that have already been mentioned was the pathway and Specialty programming right the tech CTE Early College they showed great appreciation for those programs and hoping that will continue in the years to come also the rigor in AP classes that they enjoyed and also districtwide activities such as Wellness days to support their mental health in the areas of improvement there was some overlap with the Greater Community regarding a culture of equity and care across schools students Express that some schools get greater attention and access than other schools and the and the desire to see greater Equity of access and opportunity across the district something we heard across groups and in this group was the achievement Gap noting that there's a.

Distinct and large gap and something they hope the district will address they also mentioned hopes for greater diversity of students and teachers in those higher level courses in regards to students with disabilities students Express the need for greater inclusion of students with disabilities given that they've witnessed students being othered in school activities which was quite a concern for them and also improve Building Maintenance and Facilities to make it more accessible for students with disabilities students share their experience of when a teacher or staff member resigns in the middle of the school year and how that has an effect on their learning so greater staff retention and continuity across the school year and other comments from our conversation included timely and transparent communication from Administration regarding school safety sometimes they felt as if when school events happened that were unfortunate they were left in the dark and just wanting to be more informed as to what's happening so last you was a joy to witness the pride students have and the last bullet there one student.

Mentioned that they have a banner in one of their schools is being named one of the best high schools in the state and wanting to get their school back on top right and Achieve that recognition again sorry about that no you're good I'm going to go through these slides a little more quickly but essentially what we do is we look at the qualitative data and then we take a look at what we pulled from the input collected through the survey again as is a way to like validate some of what we heard as we move forward so in terms of the priorities and again this is zooming in on the community survey in particular so the priorities that are most important for the next leader to to to bring in as they step into this role there was alignment around some of these and with a key Focus around rebuilding trust with the community was an area of focus across the different roles so this is inclusive and I'm sorry let me give you.

A little orientation around all the color codes here in the bars where that teal color represents all survey respondents and then we're looking at this Breakout by role so the blue represents parents and caregivers or family members the two purples represent staff and we did a Breakout by teachers and certified versus classified in some instances you might see some differences between more of your operational than support versus your instructional facing Educators although there was some alignment for the most part with the data that we saw but the key things that were most important from these groups as we looked at them was attracting retaining and supporting leaders Educators and staff as a top priority across groups no matter how you cut it strengthening District finances which is not a surprise and then like I said rebuilding trust in the community we looked at this data also by demographic information and that's where it the the spread of those priorities so there were about 13 priorities that we listed in the.

Survey of those these six came up as the top priorities and of these six there was real Focus across the different demographic groups in these two areas and that's again attracting retaining and supporting staff as a top priority no matter what demographic group you look at and then rebuilding trust I do want to point out there's some variation here and some key things which will be important as we look at the opportunities to address so for example if we're looking on the priority area for C value and listen to our families and community the dark blue band at 4.78 represents the responses from your Hispanic and Lao population and we'll see that coming up as a specific opportunity area in just a moment but that was a real key need or priority for that Community when we look at increasing student achievement and preparedness for future endeavors the 4.8 that's third color if you're reading from the left to the right was a top priority for africanamerican and black community members in particular second Latino.

Community members as well which is not a big surprise again given some of the info we heard about continuing to address achievement gaps between students so those were some just key things to know as we were looking at this data. Just something quickly to lift up from this slide there were some variation from the community survey respondents versus a student survey but one thing that was clearly lifted up was School Safety and Security right so that rising to the top of importance for students as something to be addressed and it wasn't an area that came up even in that top six priority area for the CommunityWide survey which we thought was really interesting so in terms of opportunities and there are about I think we landed on about six key opportunities that are important to to lift up through this effort so again that need to rebuild trust which we also saw come up in the survey data but to rebuild trust within the district and the community it really came up loud.

Clear across conversations we had the effects of of the salary study continue to be felt across the community and and both staff and community members mention the need to ensure that there's just greater accountability needed but also the the idea of promoting a culture that welcomes more questioning so that people feel safe asking the tough questions that would make you know something like this happening again more difficult or impossible it was just something again that came up more pronounced it seemed more pronounced for staff members but it's something definitely that is continuing to Ripple across the community and given its recency that is no surprise the other area that came up as an area of opportunity and NAA also noted this through the student input is the exceptional Children's Services staff parents also students share challenges with the program issues that come from a lack of Staffing to appropriately support or me student needs not staff not appropriately leveraging systems like mtss or PBIS programs and and families also share.

Challenges just getting staff to meet requirements for mandates for students with IPS in particular as areas of concern in terms of this last bullet the improved and expanded mental health and and social support services came up as another area of need and what we heard frequently was that for social workers and counselors there seem to be really large case loads so they're not always able to respond to needs of students particularly when there is a crisis happening so we heard example from students and families who share very just difficult examples of them having to navigate a serious issue or circumstance and having to wait long period of time or navigating some confusing scheduling requests in order to make that availability happen for their students.

On this next slide and I've hinted to this one but it's important to call out the experiences of your Latina community and particular we heard this in both focus groups and as I noted in the survey this idea of not feeling seen valued or listened to is something that came up consistently Community Partners shared examples of how they've stepped in to help meet some of those gaps and would like to better coordinating effort with the district in order to help meet those needs whether it be to support newcomers into the district and enrolling for schools securing Services we also heard examples of just not feeling welcomed when they're going to schools or not having someone available to welcome them at the front desk for example as they're trying to navigate the various different systems of the school district the next bullet again around the Staffing we heard a lot of great things but we've also heard that there's a real need to focus on a recruiting and retaining staff with a real emphasis on.

Staff that match the student demographics that the district is now serving and I know the focus have been greatly on teachers but also came up in the context of leadership retention in the district as well our last two points are about implementation of specific processes so we sort of practices is something that came up as something that people really valued and wanted to see more resources training and support to ensure that these are appropriately implemented there was a small group of stakeholders that highlighted that the current state of RJ in the district has LED some schools to really see confusion about how to really address disciplinary matters and so additional support and Clarity would be needed there and then lastly was overall and this we heard more so from staff but the need to really strengthen the operational processes in the district there's places where there are some lacking processes or where current and existing processes may not be fully understood so additional training may be required just to ensure implementation.

With Fidelity and part of it came up in the context of so much of the disruption that was caused by covid and so not yet feeling like they're fully back to where they were before the pandemic I'm not going to spend too much time on this one we ask kind of the same set of questions a few different ways to help us validate the input and insights from the community this was part of an open text response in the survey and the question is during Public Schools will be successful if we accomplish these three things in the next 5 years and again some of the key things to know up top is the community survey responses so again that's from your adults students are at the bottom in purple of those who opted to respond these were kind of their big big three if you will in the next five years which again really align with what we saw in the data previously this is the last question we.

Have in the survey and again it's just an open question asking people to share anything else that they want us to know about this process in the community survey about 571 people opted to share an answer and just some of the key things that I thought were really interesting was really wanting an experience superintendent with a Tracker of success and someone who will be able to work well so really a leader that's focused in on culture and climate from the students perspective to on 4 took the time to answer that and again what came up for them was a student who will care about and support students as well as being a really good listener in in conversations there were a few key things that kept coming up we've hinted at some of these so I won't go through but just really understanding the context the place and space that Durham is in at this point in time will be really important for an incoming super intending to know about.

These are also some key things we're sharing as we're having conversations with people interested in the role we want to make sure that people have the right information that they have really good information about what's happening in the district both the opportunities the exciting things that are happening as well as where there's places where it will be important to really support and strengthen these areas of of opportunity but just wanted to call out some of the ones that came up for us in conversations with members of your community we've talked a lot about the very engaged Community Partners and members of your community so thinking about a leader who can really build strong Partnerships and coalitions is something that also came up in conversations again we've talked about the context of the city in the in relation to a more conservative State and how your state legislature at times is working in opposition to some of the stated values of your community is something that's important to know and for a leader to be.

Able to navigate skillfully we've touched on the effects of the of the pay issue and study so I won't get into that one I do want to call out that while there is strong alignment around the values for Equity what that means and what that looks like for different pockets of your community is very different particularly when we get into the context and conversations about resource allocation and programming and so again how this showed up in conversations was around the need for a courageous leader is is the term that people use most frequently in wanting someone who can really again build a coalition to really get stakeholders to move in that shared around the shared vision for what this means for the district and then last but not least ensuring that there is a leader who really understands the value that so many of the community and Durham place on the partnership and relationship with the da with the.

DEA so that's the the report in its totality I'm going to take a pause and see if there's any initial questions I can respond to otherwise we can dive into the last few slides which really just get to the implications for the job profile I will preview for you that ultimately we saw a lot of alignment between the current job profile and what we heard from the community so we're not really recommending any changes any of the questions that came up in conversations we actually noted that there are sub bullets within the current set of competencies and responsibilities that address that so I'm happy to keep going and close us out unless you all have any questions before I move forward let me pause and see if we have any questions Elana board members any questions around the report what we've heard so.

Far g a pause I'm seeing.

Okay no questions Elana we can keep moving no problem I hope that means you know this we've answered your question so far know yeah I was gonna say it's a very thorough report and I think you can't see but a lot of like heads nodding here as Rel listening and processing all the information I really appreciate the way y'all have gathered it and and made it into a digestible report for us I appreciate that and any feedback for us would always be greatly appreciated I know a lot of information to process and so appreciate you all reviewing this with us so this last piece really is about what are the implications from what we learned for the job profile and again we typically will do the engagement first and then create the profile because of our timing we we swap things out and and it's it's okay it's worked out in our favor I mean the job profile is a living document and that's always the stance that Alma takes so we are able to.

Make refinement ments to that at any point in time but we were actually excited to see the amount of alignment that existed around the skills that are most important for a leader as as we continue through this process across members of the community so again we looked at the data and this is again from the community survey we looked at the data by role so the light blue represents all survey the blue is parents and the two purples represent staff the four these are five actually five typ areas really aligned across different groups clear communicator and collaborator which is already reflected in the job profile excellent organization and project management is one of those sub bullets under one of the responsibility areas and I'll share that in just a moment understanding District finances Innovative Problem Solver and a reflective leader that is a continual learner are the top five skills that emerge from the survey when we look said the data by demographic group again the top a is clear Communicator understanding.

Finances Innovative Problem Solver and then reflective leader and continuous Improvement TI for five I would say is probably the excellent organization and project management as well as a supporter and developer of leaders in the district also ask students which we do not want to forget about but also still some alignment there. And I would just note in the next slide from the focus group many of the students lifted up a lot of the concerns that were addressed in the student survey as well some of those being fiscal responsibility someone with a strong background in finance and budgeting someone that is a clear Communicator empathetic genuine and visible in the community and not just a superintendent that's able to work well with adults but someone that's able to connect with people of all ages right and consistently seeks Insight from students and their lived experiences thanks MAA so the implications for the job profile and I do want to call this out because they came up in conversations we.

Had while we were on site and I want to be responsive to the feedback where you receed there were some stakeholders who felt that they wanted greater emphasis on like operational Effectiveness and efficiency and didn't quite see it in the headlines for the job profile but as we dug into the different bullet points for this particular responsibility area highlighted in purple and even within the systems perspective competency area we do find specific bullets that tie into the areas that were more concerned to the community and the specific one to call out is the bullet around Steward the success sustainability and Equity of the district's finances and operations which we thought was covered there the other one to note was that again the responsibility area around ensuring success and Equitable experiences of our students was a top Factor and then the strong racial Equity competency area is one that came up as a real top priority for students and it's already reflected in our competencies for this next leader so our recommendation at.

This point is to to keep the job profile as he is because we feel it's encompassing of the the feedback we heard from the community and there's a great deal of alignment between what we heard in the early stages of community engagement which included conversations with members of the board there's just a lot of alignment and so the totality of everything we heard continues to affirm the direction that we're moving in so to wrap up I just want to highlight and I know we're still working through some of our scheduling but some of our upcoming meetings scheduled we're still working on some timing for a few and thank you all so much for all of the time and commitment that you are making in this process we know it's a a great deal of of time and effort on your part as well and just appreciate your partnership and the generosity of your time as we continue to move forward on our end we're excited to be supporting this next stage of the.

Process so while we're moving into the round two we're also preparing for the finalist stage and so we want to continue to push out information about that volunteer community panel that can participate in the interview process and we'll be excited to share that with our partners as well so they can also help get the word out to their constituents to get that information out to additional families and members of the community and they want participate at that stage and lastly just ensuring that we've got all of our time slated moving forward so we can continue to support this process and this work and that's what we got we so appreciate you all thank you for sticking with us I know it's a lot to to walk through and just really appreciate the thoughtfulness of what you bring to this process thank you so much Elana and NAA for the presentation and the walkthrough it's good to see the alignment and also see the areas where we got some work to.

Do that we where our community is asking for the emphasis so that's really appreciated board members questions or comments Miss travez yeah I just wanted to say thank you so much this is so rich I appreciate the way you gave us the breakdown of of who said what really love the insights from our students and you can see that they have Keen obviously day-to-day Insight on what are some challenges or needs of our district but also that they're paying attention to sort of larger structural issues and so really yeah just really appreciate that I have just one scheduling question with June 3 I think I want to confirm that we we said 4:30 to 8:30 for that meeting and just put that out there so everybody can block up that time it it's hard to find time that works for everyone I know yes 4:30 to 8:30 I'll update that right now and we'll add that to her confirm slate thank you for that thank.

You sorry Miss Carda-Auten I also want to Express gratitude and really do appreciate all of this data being fed back to us in a manageable way so and collected so thoughtfully and I also had a question about the Cal the schedule of upcoming meetings do we also have interviews wait is there something also on June 22 this is not including interviews like this is just media that's the big one yes so the 22nd is what we currently confirmed for finalist day and because there were still sessions and interviews being confirmed even as of Friday there might have been some additional decisions that were made that are not reflective here so yes June 22nd will will be a very important date so yes that needs to be a big hold on our calendar if's not already thank you thank you for.

That any other questions Miss buer no I just want to Express gratitude to you all for all your work kind of engaging in our community in so many different ways in ways that people were able to to reach you and and use the survey I want our classified staff to know that we see you we see you as most concerned about almost every aspect of leadership right now because we are working to repair your trust we see you and we hear you as we work forward I think you are top of our hearts and Minds especially during this budget cycle and then you know it's it's it's disheartening to to for you all to share that a whole segment of our students and families don't see see feel seen and heard and that is explicitly calling us to that to that work so I appreciate all the the truth that is in here and the and the challenge in our community holding us accountable as as we come together in this work but it's.

Important to see it and name it and I appreciate y'all's help anything else Ms I also want to Express gratitude for just the thoroughness of this presentation I wanted to hear a little bit more about the there's a part at which the district is grappling with capacity for language and especially folks that speak multiple languages and when it comes to the demographics there's always that question as to you know what who who who's being represented right like for example what languages what cultures and and all that and so just wanted to provide a little bit of time for you all to kind of think about ways that this kind of meets representation but ways that we can also continue to keep that in mind for the leader that we choose to continue to engage further because this is not an end all Beall like engagement has to continue to happen what are some opportunities just giving you all a little bit of space to talk about that Nuance of representation with.

Languages I appreciate that and I think that you know and I want to put this in context of the time of year in which we're doing the engagement right as we're moving into the end of the school year but it was just interesting to note that although we prioritized Spanish as the language in which all of our Communications and even the facilitation needed to happen there there there wasn't space to also integrate other languages that are a part of of the community and so that I think created barriers right off the bat for other members of your community there's a large portion of refugees and recent immigrants that are coming into your community that we weren't able to directly engage and connect with and so just and I'll just share through our own experience having worked through the preparations for the communications and the surveying the facilitation for the meetings that was not something that was set up and we asked about it and and I just wasn't sure the structures are there to.

Be able to support that so it raises a question about how that's happening right now across schools and across the system and and again we prioritized organizations that are primarily serving you know portions of your community that may not be often represented through something like a large survey because that's just not not a way that many communities feel comfortable or are able to access right it requires a device it requires internet connectivity and so you know I think it would have been awesome to be able to maybe set up kiosks at the schools or at community centers and I think had we had a longer Runway we could have been more thoughtful about how to establish those or handing out pray surveys I think that's been another effective way to hit on different portions of your community that we weren't able to given the the the type of Engagement that we set up but I think there's a real opportunity there to really dig in two other ways to connect.

With the community I think your partners are a really great entry point into that they have access they know the community members and those relationships really matter when establishing those those relation ship and those connections with these communities did that answer your question I think yes I think that it this is definitely a need that requires resources and for example one of the the the points of I would say like grief to some degree is just the ways that the district has been limited by state funds but also like in the ways that we have structured supports so for example we'd love to hire an inhouse house you know full-time you know interpreter for all the languages that are representing in the district and that has to follow like the representation the percentage of families and how to how to continue to not rely on on some of these vendors or contractors which is what a lot of districts have to do especially with limited FTE right like it's a.

Full-time position and and it's one of the points of grief I think that we hold as a district in terms of investment funding that is actually about language access and our federal government to also realize that this is a this is a national need right for for schools to have representation and so we continue to Grapple with that in terms of diversity linguistic diversity in our district but I I will also say there was something else about families navigating the system and how complex it is and having and and that I I really loved how that was captured in terms of families that have shared this with us many times that they feel like they're going from one point to another point and it's it's not navigating the system is already complex and so you're talking about these partners that sometimes they do elucidate or they do kind of do the educational things but for the groups that they engage and that's not like a general thing and so there is another request like that.

Families have kind of said like for there to be more videos out there that kind of show how to navigate the system many many folks have asked for these things and and again these are points that the new leader kind of has to continue to to hear the these requests about families that want to be engaged want educational opportunities to figure out where to go and there was something else in there that talked about quality and I guess for me the Nuance of quality and quantity because they're related you will probably say the quality of something is not as great if the capacity is not there and again this is one of those things where it's like we can say that in the district quality the quality of language access and interpretation is very much connected to the quantity and the resources and how available they are so I I think that that's also another thing to kind of keep in mind how quantity and quality are intertwined in.

That way thank you and and I think the the other piece to add to that is the that understanding the the complexity of some of the systems right that families often you know identifying where are those pain points in the conversations we heard many pain points around navigating special education services in particular and I mean for any of us I've been through many an IP meeting and as a well educated a first gen American I really struggled to get through that process for my son when it came time for that and I was in education so I always think about families who are coming from another country that have very different systems or have not navigated systems within their respective home countries to then come into this country to navigate what is a very complex and unfortunately at times combative process and and how to set that up in a way that then also add the additional layer of language access and so an example that came up.

Was you know it's not enough to have someone who speaks Spanish but you have to have someone who understands the special education terminology and parental rights in that so that they can appropriately support a parent in advocating for their child in that space and so thinking about the balance of power in that Dynamic I think is really critically important and this is not just unique to durum this is across the country what we're seeing but it's certainly an area where you know there's there's huge opportunity some of your groups and partners that are doing this and supporting parents and advocating and training them to go through this process we really great examples of how this can happen and where some strong Partnerships can can occur but again you know understanding the the resources required of that is is going to be important to to fully actualize what I think the district would want to see as far as those services for for all kids but again thinking through that additional layer of anyone needing.

Language services or any newcomer to the country as well how do you set that up in a way that balances that that power Dynamic to ensure that kids are ultimately getting what they. Need thank you all any other questions or comments from board member thank you Eliana and NAA for being here presenting the report this evening we look forward to having this and using it as a guide as we continue our process board I'll take a motion to go on a close session move that we go on close session for personnel related reasons second move by Miss Rogers seconded by Miss vadz is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I any oppose use the same sign passes unanimously we are now J excuse me we are not a j we're now moving to close.

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We are back in Open Session board is there any other business right with that we are adjourned oh yes we're the board is adding additional excuse me I was getting ready to dismiss us the board is going to add additional interview time so they will be meetings on Saturday what time would work for you all. 9 to 12 Aspire yeah all right we'll do 9:00 am to 12 all right with that I think we are adjourned thank you all.