 Let's start with our PTA business here from our wonderful PTA president, Becky McMains. Let's give her a hand. So three things. First of all, the fun friend that we had last week, total amount raised, Ben was, Ben is our treasurer. We had a thousand dollars in expenses so that brings us pretty close to five thousand overall. Congratulations everybody, thank you so much. That money is going to field trips to make sure kids can get on buses to go to field trips. Number two, what was number two? Oh yes, elections are coming up. Elections go like this. We have to elect a nominating committee so elections can happen. Nominators can be suggested. So I might think that the PTA would be phenomenal for the nominating committee. So I say, Peter, I'm going to nominate you. I'm going to throw you under the bus because I know you're someone who has following qualities. Now we have documents that we're going to send out to all of our members for you to review. We don't have time this morning to do it. But be thinking about members of the community who are PTA members and who are already involved and have shown themselves to be good actors. And then we'll start with starting out later on this week. Thirdly, for the PTA to have a PayPal account, we need to vote and say, yes, we love PayPal. Officially we can do this. So if you're a PTA member and you approve the use of a PayPal account, please put your hand in the air. If you are a PTA member, if you signed in, Miss A, you don't pay your dues. We can talk about this later. Okay, we'll pass. Pass. Can you pass? Oh, Mrs. Sparks, is the PTA member? Very good. Emily, you're a PTA member. Okay. Okay, more than two thirds. If you have questions or concerns about that, please come and talk to them afterwards. Here's our treasure. Okay, I think that's it. Thank you very much. Add t-shirts. Fiesta t-shirts. This is really what the meeting is about. $10 per t-shirt. We've got forms here. You should get forms in a folder. You should get forms through Monday night. Adult. Child. Blue. Purple. Orange. And this is signed by one of our parents, Coral Diaz, Alan's wife. Phenomenal, right? You want to ask him? This is the last. So they just sit. Have a great time with this wonderful community. That'll be our project. That's it. I'm sitting down. Okay. We're not going to clap. Thank you. This is an extension of that. Our student ambassadors have been working on identifying a project for our campus, and they really want to work on our cafeteria and on recycling. So they are tackling a couple things. Tied to Earth Day. They talk to our district supervisor of cafeteria services to learn about portion sizes and why kids get what they get, what their nutrition facts are. They were learning about the trays. They're trying to push on different tray options for the cafeteria. So they're asking lots of great questions of our district. Aaron Stein are, I'm sure his title is, but he works on recycling and reading ideas for the district. He came and talked to our kids as well about recycling in our classrooms. So they're working on a PR campaign that will go out in our morning announcements and to our families around recycling in classrooms and then in the cafeteria sharing table information during lunch. So look for that. Talk to our kids about it. I just see them. This is your master's shirts in 4th through 6th grade that they're wearing on Sunday. So kind of look for them to ask about that. Okay. Thank you for being here. I'm really, really grateful to be here first. You know, one of the great things about our community is that people care a lot about our school. And so the idea that you care enough to be here today and that you care enough to ask, you know, can I get the notes? Can I get the PowerPoint? Can I learn more about what we're doing? It matters to help our school. And I really appreciate it. I want to introduce a couple of people, knowing that we'll spend more time later on talking to some of these individuals. I want to introduce Doug Dawson up here in the front. He'll share a little bit later on. Steve Leshlo is our board member. We'll be here in the back. We'll ask you time to ask us some questions. I also want to introduce Sonia Mora, who's one of our amazing principals in our district, works over at Gaines. And then Cameron, who's part of this initiative. So I'm really thankful that she's here this morning. And then we have Megan Adolphson, who's running our video here. She's calling me on looking at her. But she's joining our campus next year that in the master's program in teaching. So she is going to be joining our classrooms as a teacher and then hopefully in our district as a teacher and hopefully here after that. She's exceptional. A few more people. Roxanne DeBosell doing the back as our associate principal. If you don't know her, get to know her. She's been an amazing asset to our campus this year. I just want to share a little bit with you about context for today. But before I do that, I want to hear from you. So there's a speaking note on your table. There are some pins on your table as well. If you don't have those things, then we have some extra pins every time that we're going to pass out. You steal some sticky notes. All you need is one or two sticky notes. And if you could just take two minutes answering this prompt right here, what do you appreciate most about our campus as a parent of a student at our campus? What do you appreciate the most? We'll set a timer for two minutes and then I'll let you know. I'll raise my hand whenever it's time for us to come back together. And then we'll go on the next step. If you need pins or sticky notes, if you could raise your hand and we'll walk them over to you. Because of Monica Sordo and I'm totally fine with that. At your table, you don't have to get up. Find somebody else at your table and share a couple things off your list that resonate most with you and then listen to what they have on their list. So find someone else right next to you who you can share with. Thank you. Yeah. If you could finish up that last comment and we'll come back together, the whole group. We would love to hear just sort of a sampling of what's around the room from your conversation. So we're going to go around if you're okay just sharing a couple of thoughts with the group. We would appreciate it. Is there anybody from this front table that wants to share a couple of things? And I'm going to repeat it because the mics can't pick up on what you're saying. So after you share it, then I'll share it back out with the whole group. Anybody from this first table who wants to share anything about what you said they appreciate it? One or two things? He said access to me. Okay, access to me. And then our community atmosphere at the store. Okay, great. But this table right here is middle guys and ladies. If you want to share one or two things here in teacher community. Students are greeted by name at the door. That's great. That would be me. Thank you. Thank you all right here for your conversation. Social emotional aspect in part of the curriculum. Here at this table. I think we as a whole set the caring attitude of the staff and everybody, teacher, staff, everybody. Caring attitude of the staff and our teachers. In the back, in the chairs. Diversity in the school and proximity. What was the second part of what you said? Diversity in the school and proximity. What was the second part of what you said? Diversity in the school and proximity. What was the second part of what you said? Neighborhood school. That's great. Thank you. The middle table here. Smaller school that promotes assistive community. Teachers. Great teachers. Great teachers. And then the table over here. Small community also and great teachers. Small community, great teachers. Anyone who missed who wants to share anything with them over. Yes ma'am. So you appreciate that we're asking for feedback about the direction of the school. Yes sir. Just one really quick story. So in the SEL curriculum I didn't know that yellow means decided and green means calm and red means angry and blue means sad. The way I learned that is I was like rushing the family out the door one morning and my daughter was in pre-care was like, you're the yellow and you really need to get to green right. That's some good advice. Yes ma'am, good. Having a quality school. Thank you all for that. Okay, so after hearing from you we just want to give you sort of a snapshot of the journey that the school has gone through. Some of you have been here for six years. If you've been here for five or six years, can you just raise your hand? There's never been the room you've been here with. I think I should raise my hand too. If you've been here for just zero to two years, would you mind raising your hand? So a lot of it, right? So part of the introduction here is just to give some context for the journey that we've been on and the rationale for why that journey has taken place. First, in 2013, the district formed a partnership with Trinity. That partnership was originated in part by Mr. Lushlow and our superintendent at the time and the Trinity staff. For a couple of reasons. One, the school was successful. It was close to Trinity. It was small. And there were sound teaching practices here at the campus that we could build from. That's when I came to the school six years ago. That's when Pat came to the school six years ago as well. In 2014 through 2016, we took several years to vision out the charter for the campus. And that included a lot of listening at sessions like this where we're asking questions and getting feedback around tables and taking responses from both families but also teachers and community members, our district staff, and really trying to listen to figure out what are our assets in our community that we can build from? What are our student needs that we need to address? And what sort of program would adequately and exceptionally support kids through their time at the school? So we spent a lot of time doing that. And there was a year when we almost went to file our charter and we thought we didn't have enough information yet. So we went back to get more. It was important to us to make it a reflection of what people in our community wanted. In 2016, we became approved. It was December 2016. The school board approved us as an industry charter. So we had written it. We had gotten family votes. We had gotten staff votes. And then the school board approved it. We then applied for funding through the state for a two-year grant that is expiring this June. That was $800,000. So that December through March time frame in 2016 to 2017, approval, funding, and then launch in the fall of 2017. The rationale for the charter, in part, was to put in place more high-quality programming for our kids. We knew that there were some things that we could do better at the campus and it was a way for us to vision out what that would look like and sound like for our students and for our teachers. Am I going too fast? When you go back to the game, we did the last one that was so good but I didn't capture it. Yes, I guess I can't. I can try. Effectively, we knew that we needed to put better programming in front of our students and we needed to figure out how to vision out the campus. So part of the charter visioning was us saying, here's what we value. This is what we don't value. How do we build the value to create clear avenues to get to the things that will help us to reach those values in our school? And there were some things that were happening that were preventing us from reaching our goals, right? And right in the charter, we identified a number of things, a number of structures at the district level or the state level that we wanted to get waivers from. So part of our charter process was to say, we don't want to do those things anymore but we want more flexibility here. That was through the charter process. Just one sort of concrete example is, in my second year here at the school, we had a staffing issue. We were getting cut one teacher. So the way that the district policy was built was that that teacher who would be cut was the newest high-level teacher. She was one of our best teachers at the time. So because that structure was put in place, I had to then make a bunch of calls, call the superintendent, ask for some advice over here and really caption a lot of equity in order to keep that teacher on the campus. So part of our waiver system that we put in place with our charter was to say, we don't want that place anymore. We want to be able to, if someone gets to this place, I want the part time we can then select who it is because we in the office, and I think I have a good feel for which teachers are ready to take on this really challenging work. And so that leads to some really hard conversations that I have to have with teachers, but I'd much rather have that than have that decided by a Euro-crafting system that doesn't need our needs. We can't do that without the charter in place. That's why the charter is put in place in part to create a system where we had more flexibility. There's a lot of other examples. I'm not going to bore you with those in the principal talk, and I don't want to take you there, but this job's really hard, and we need more flexibility, I think, as the bottom line. We then went through the launching of our charter, and then in 2018, sort of fast-forwarding to the summer and the beginning of this school year, there's a Replicating Great Options initiative that will start at that TDA, and that's tied to the Network Principal Initiative, where I'm sharing some time between here and then over at Vowell. The idea being that what's working here, how can we scale it out towards other campuses, and how do we offer a support system at Lamar to make sure that we don't lose volume programming? It's been a significant learning year, certainly for me, I think for the district and I think for our support system. And we're still learning, right? We're in the midst of that. But I just want to give you some context for where the anchorage for then the next piece of our conversation goes into part of that RGO partnership in the Network Initiative was to think about we need additional funding to support programming in our schools. We need partners to help engage the taught partnership with us. And there is a structure for us to actually get access to that information and those resources that was developed. In part with Mr. Dawson support at DEA. So the search began late last fall to look for a non-profit partner that was vision aligned with our vision of teaching and learning here at the school. Because the charter was already voted on. Many of you voted on the charter. Many of our teachers who are here now voted on the charter. So the idea being that we didn't want to bring in a partner that would then push us off from what we had already agreed to. Because many of you had already agreed to it. And our teachers had certainly already agreed to it and done a lot of work around it. So if we had a non-profit partner who was going to have their own idea of what they think teaching and learning should look like then it would then feel like they were sort of trumping what we would be doing. And we didn't want to go there. So in looking at partners there were a number of partners through late fall and early spring that were not the right fits for us. So I had to really dig in to say we are not willing to waver on this set of beliefs. I feel for what we believe in. I want to say I do. And there was a partner that was being pushed really, really hard. And it wasn't the right fit for us. So I had to have a lot of really hard conversations to get us off that partner. It took us a long time to identify a partner. Other networks identified their partner earlier in the fall or in December or January. And they were able to bring that partner in front of families and say this is the partner that we have identified. How do you feel about this partner? We didn't have that opportunity because it got so late in the game. And so we had a choice to make. Do we go with a vision aligned partner who will help enhance the program for our kids and for our teachers? And I really believe that. Or do we not go with any partner who will use the resources that would come with it and the thought partners that would come with it? No, we need that here. We need that everywhere in public schools. So Doug is going to come on and share a little bit about context with the organization. And at the end, we'll have time for questions. I really want just to make this point clear that there was not vision alignment with a partner that moved forward. This would not have moved forward. So if the programming was going to be changed or if they were going to shift our belief system here at the campus, we would not have gone with that partner. It's too much of a compromise of the work that we've done over the last five plus years to go with a partner who's going to push us off what we believe in. And it would sort of be like, what's the point? What was the point in all of that work to really get clear on what we believed in if we're going to let some other organization come and then tell us what to do? That's not what this is. I've had a chance to meet and talk to Doug and get to know him through the RGO partnership. I'll give you some context for that. But I'm really excited for you guys to meet him. I think often the unknown is harder than the known sometimes and I'm excited to get to know Doug today. So welcome to our crew, Doug. And come ahead just for a second because I think this is really important. If somebody can write that, this is what a vision collaborative commission here is. It's empowering great leaders to design or launch partner networks to help do more great things. I think there's a really critical piece in here. It's the great leaders piece. And I just want to thank Brian right now. And I think I would appreciate it if we all just gave him a round of applause. Everything I've seen this week has reinforced that even more so. And so I'm just, thank you, Brian. I mean, I have been more than appreciative of the way that you're supporting this process on your campus. So a little bit about me. As you can see up here, I'm from Burnham, Texas. Google Ice Cream. Typically I say I'm from Houston, but for those of you in Texas that know who you are, you need to know Burnham. The other is there's a math equation up here. I was a former math teacher. So I started off actually graduating in rice doing accounting. Realized that I was not interested in going the accounting route. I did an internship. And realized I was passionate about working with kids. So I was trying to find a path to get into education. So I found that I'm a teacher of America, which gives me a sense of honor to try to be a teacher. As part of that, I got put in place in Dallas teaching seventh grade math, probably the hardest thing in my life. So I walked in as a teacher in all boys, seventh grade classroom, in all girls, seventh grade classroom, very little training of an accountant but not necessarily a competent educator. So with the boys, I grew up with our brothers in a small country town. I knew how to get those boys motivated and how to go cultured. I walked into the girls' class and was humbled in my first six weeks. I walked into things like that for a teacher to just like, please give me the turkey because I need to take a break and I need to reset this classroom. The harder part was getting updated at the end of spring hard at the end of Thanksgiving. That six weeks cost the students time because I couldn't get the kids. And the reason I tell you this story is because it was so important to me that the value of the editing of those closest to kids that can make the impact is what we need. We need to empower them and we need to get them flexibility and they're supported by great school leaders that do the same thing. So this is six weeks of my education and I'm fully committed to this idea and I spent my entire career since then trying to create systems that empower those closest to kids. And I want you to take anything away from today. That is the most important thing that this is about empowering those closest to kids. So after doing this action with the TA project, I'm going to keep it pretty short because I know you want to get to questions, but I want you to... Yeah, thank you. I'm actually fairly quiet on this. So if you hear me just kind of like yell at me giving me kind of the hands up and I will allow us to speak out. So thank you guys. So at the Texas Education Agency I started a project called Replicate Great Fellowship. So this idea of empowering those closest to kids they allowed me to start a program to give us empowering principles to launch their own networks, design learning environments that were better for students. Ultimately, around the week of the year great principles to design networks to hit multiple campuses. Brian helping multiple campuses is amazing for kids. So I walk into it with three fellows. The commission said, find the best principles across the state. We want them to expand their impact. We found three principles. Brian was one of them. Deli also in San Antonio. And then another principle out of Boston. So six months later or a year later when this opportunity came along I already knew Brian. I knew the humble leader that he was. It's the only reason that I took this opportunity was because of that interaction with someone that I had a long time ago. And quite frankly, I was really proud to be a part of it. Had I not had that relationship I don't think that vision-aligned network would have been really good. So I think there's a lot of questions like what is the role of the sick? And then I'm also going to get like not the role of the sick. I think that's really important in providing clarity. I think there's been a lot of questions to this and given how fast we've been moving it's been hard to get this information out as clearly as possible. So the role of the sick is to co-create a learning community for network principles. So you have Brian and you also have Sonia here who has her own amazing story. And so part of this organization is how you'll create that professional learning community both have amazing things about their campus both also have things that they can look for each other. So this is going to be a great opportunity for them to create professional development opportunities that are meaningful to them. I don't know what those are going to look for. They are the great leaders. My job is to create this space for them to design learning opportunities that are beneficial to them to help them with their students and their staff. Another problem is to liaison with the district staff and leadership to enhance autonomy or flexibility for these school leaders. So a lot of what I've heard great leaders talk about even Brian talk about is every time I need something from the central office I have to take my time to go to the district office to get this done. And that takes time away from my campus that I can be spending executing the plan that we created together. So a lot of my things are actually going to be framed up this time by liaison with the district to create that additional flexibility. It's also going to be to support the campus teams with the implementation of the charter. So this organization is here designed in the contract to support the charter that they all have. So a lot of my role is coming up with Brian. How do we actually keep the things in the contract? How do we meet the performance standards? The other is highlighting the importance of empowering great leaders. And I've told, it's the first day that I've met with Brian and Sonya, I think. One of the things that inspired me most is like we as a state and as a country need to share the idea that I like great people like Brian and Sonya. Otherwise the education system isn't going to attract the greatest people to serve the goals and that's critically important. So part of my role is actually just to be humble and share our story. Things to clarify. Staff and students will always remain just experienced students. I think this has been a big issue part of my role with the agency was working with partnerships and I think it's a common one across the state. All of the students, the staff are a partnership that remain part of the district. And a caliber will take the school board. I'm very excited to do so. School leaders are always going to manage their day-to-day operations on the campus and they're going to manage their staff. Ultimately we're accountable to the school board. There's no scenario in which we are not accountable to your local and graduate school board. We can also not change your chart without following your process. So the same process that you all follow has the only process to change the pattern. We don't intend to do that. But we're actually really excited about helping you implement the charter plan that you created. I went for being... So the other one, I'm going to talk a little bit about the network. So you have the Lamar Balm network and the Gates camera network. So these are two very distinct networks. It does not mean that they are going to merge together and change plans and become the exact same school. What it means is that Brian has a vision behind this charter for a young community. He's also helping the Balm community develop that and that's part of his network. That's going to be very different from the way that Sonia operates her campus and the network that she developed between Gates and Cameroon. What we're going to do is create that flexibility to allow them to do that for their network Share best practices. This is another unique opportunity that the staff is really excited about. How do we get to learn from other great campuses across the district in a way that's normal and is for students? Like we as the network, as principals, get the opportunity to create that, not necessarily being told we have to come up with a universal event and share best practices. The others provide campuses with additional resources. So part of this structure is actually to allow for additional funding and resources to allow you to implement all the things in your charter. So one of the big things is what would change for my students day to day? Not much. What would you should expect? Are additional opportunities and learning experiences in the extra resources? I'm going to skip this. This is about the learning opportunities for the principals. I think given the time I want to make sure that you have time to get to the questions. But the one thing I will highlight is that Brian has gone through his move into operating multiple campuses. He mentioned the type of professional development that you want. So part of what this network is going to do is add a little more flexibility. Let's give you learning opportunities on how you execute the budget behind the charter. So you know you're allocating resources in a way that's going to get your community the things that they need in the charter application. How do you do more effective communications? So that as you're leading two communities, how do we increase efficiency in communication channels so that we can be more proactive about getting information to U.S. families that are comfortable? The other is I think just in part of the learning process and beginning to build deeper relationships with you and let you understand who I am. I just want to offer more opportunities for you to sit down and get to know me. So here are three opportunities. April 10th, April 12th, April 15th. If you signed up I would like to email these days out. And please feel free to come to the Gates Copy Chat and come see what another campus in the district looks like. So I would invite you to come and join one of these additional Copy Chats and I will show you the information. All right, so I'd like to open it up for questions. Brian, Steve, I think are going to join me. And allow you guys to have a question. As you have questions if you could just raise your hand and we'll call up you. We're just going to first of all have a circadian right here. Just to clarify, is this that SIC day is it just you as a one person? Is it a war? What's the structure of it? Yeah, so that's a really good question. Yeah, so the question is kind of who is the SIC? Is it just you? Is it always intended to be you? Probably a little bit of kind of like how it started. So the SIC right now is actually just me and an initial set of founding board of directors. We were working with Brian and Sonia trying to get this up and running with Mission Align. We have focused very, very intently on making sure that we are Mission Vision Align. This organization is going to stay strong because a lot of it is is empowering your principles. So I don't imagine that this is you will see any more than just me and maybe potentially one other support staff supporting the community campuses or the network principles. Doug, how do you understand the Lamar mission? So how do I understand the Lamar mission? That's another question. So part of actually the reason that we actually have to be at the beginning was indirectly to help me better understand your mission and vision as a community. My writer, Charlie, also, you know, in talking to somebody it's been a long time I think since we visited the charter plan. So I think today this is actually one of the first tips in me understanding the mission and vision of you as a community. A lot of it is also just relying on Brian. Like, I trust Brian and I'm here to empower Brian. Brian's the one who is the representative of your mission and your vision. So he very much owns that. So the question is effectively when did SIC get introduced into the conversation? Was it always part of the plan or was it introduced at a later point? When we wrote our charter we knew that we needed funding. We wrote the DEA grant and got funded at $800,000. At that point in time there was no plans to partner with a non-profit or a non-profit or a non-profit or a non-profit or a non-profit or a non-profit or a non-profit to partner with a non-profit to explore this. I had never heard of it before at that one time and I don't think any people here had probably. So it was introduced when the RGO when the RGO work started in 2018 that's when it was first introduced and it's sort of like as this first it was understanding what this network initiative was and what the implications were for me certainly both campuses and then in working through the associate principles and thinking about what are role specific differences that I have to engage in. That was the first bulk of the work is better understanding the role and then how to support both campuses while visioning out the charter at Dalton but also supporting Lamar through a good implementation of our charter. At the same time as the RGO partnership it was introduced. So it wasn't really until the fall of 2018 that it was even on anyone's radar and even then it was sort of like what is this, how does it look like, how does it sound like and we really have to do some work to figure out as a new initiative like how we play out on our campus. So it wasn't part of the original charter it does certainly fill some needs to help support us through the next couple of years as we grow together. Is it true? So your question is having a non-profit partner is there a direct line from that to the RGO partnership and this is where I may not have dug a little bit as well is to say that it's not a requirement. We didn't need to find a non-profit partner necessarily although when you look at the benefits and drawbacks you can then make a decision about whether it makes sense or not but the expectation was at some point we would identify a non-profit partner to help support our campus work. From the TDA and RGO perspective was it the expectation that we would that every RGO partner find a non-profit partner immediately? That was actually somewhat flexible but I want to differentiate two things one of the things that when we empower principals to go through this design process and think about how they might manage a network was do you then look at some of the policy levers to pull additional resources to your campus? And that's actually where the partnership initiative around Senate Bill 1882 and that is a requirement to have a partner so I just want to make sure it is a requirement to have a partner to pull those additional resources not necessarily for the RGO fellows but one of the things we did ask them to explore is as you develop this network you need additional resources you also need additional flexibility to do that so I hope that clarifies your answer to your question. I think this is a good time for me to jump in. So my name is Steve Pleischer, I am your elected school board member I represent LAMAR and many of the surrounding adjacent neighborhoods so I've been on the board for six years now was first elected in 2013 and I was really proud that the very first vote that I took on the school board was the partnership between this campus which had a different leader at the time, Trinity University LAMAR as all of us know and all of us who love this school know it has been a hidden gem in this city for many many years now just like every public school especially in a big bureaucracy like SAISD it always hasn't been empowered and so this jewel maybe got a little dusty partnership with Trinity was intended to do originally was to clean that jewel up to provide it the extra resources that we know our schools need in order to take a good school to a great school Brian was hired shortly after that and many of you have been involved in the upward trajectory of LAMAR from that good place it was back in 2013 to the excellent place that it is now so is that our public schools across the board not just LAMAR but everywhere are under funding there's a big fight going on at the state in Austin right now about school finance we are effectively asking we as a state we are asking our principals and teachers to do amazing work and part of what we have been advocating for in this state is increasing the funding that's coming for schools now two years ago in the last legislative session there was this great opportunity that was given to the schools and this is what you may have heard until 1882 right now what this legislation provides is if schools or districts partner with nonprofits, with universities or with charter groups then the state is going to give us an extra $1200 per student per year specifically to reinvest into the campus now this is a whole lot of money right we get from the state about $6500 per year per kid and so think about an extra $1200 per kid that's a lot of money but it requires now what issue the SAISD has had for years and years and years is that you have a great principal come in they have this vision for the school maybe they create a charter they don't but everything that's happening in the school is predicated on the great leader in our district historically it's just not good at keeping our people or empowering them you can imagine in a $7500 employee organization that bureaucracy takes hold and it becomes really frustrating and we have a lot of great leaders historically who've chosen to take a job in other school districts where maybe those burdens are less overwhelming and what happens when that happens is that the vision of the principal the great things that were happening leave with him or leave with her this has happened a good example is at Hopper which is kind of right down the road and in 2004 a fellow partner with Trinity University they created this amazing what they call a core knowledge school it was the best school in SAISD right then what principal left and then the staff at Trinity changed and what you had after that was a charter that was a core knowledge charter but it really existed and it wasn't being implemented at all and so the community had gotten together the community had said this is what we want then the leader leaves and what the community wanted just kind of an attitude it just totally went away and so one of the really great opportunities that these partnerships have is a guaranteed fidelity to the charter of the community so I was part of this Brian mentioned a few years ago I see some faces who were part of this whole charter visioning process this was not a quick snap your fingers and go process this was a deep conversation with the community with stakeholders, with parents with kids to figure out exactly what it is that we wanted in our school then Brian and the staff wrote this document we got buy in from our staff over 80% of the staff members agreed over 90% of the families, the parents agreed that this is what we want for our community right and for the last two years Brian as the leader here has done a really great job using that that community charter to grow this school to improve this school there's a huge risk there's a huge risk that if something were to happen that a new leader comes in and they have a different vision for this school and so we start going a different path and all of the input and all of the investment that you guys made in the community effectively becomes a rear view mirror material so partnerships like this like what we're engaging with with the collaborative exists partly to ensure that that doesn't happen the partnership is creating what we're calling kind of an advisory right the partnership has an executive director and the role partly of the advisory board and the executive director is to make sure that no matter what this community's voice this community's voice that was reflected in the charter remains implemented it remains a priority right this prevents the possibility of someone else a new leader coming in who has a different idea about how things are going and just totally ignoring what the community told us is important in the school is important for Lamar because truly Lamar is a reflection and the charter is a reflection of you guys right is a reflection of what you wanted in our school so the partnership is not intended to come in and tell you guys what you should want you've already told us what you want and that is a codified document that we're calling right the purpose of the partnership is to enhance that charter it's to enhance the efforts that Brian is doing at this school and Sonia is doing at Nateson campus right specifically what we saw as a district we had two I think we will all agree is exceptional Sonia you don't know her but what she has been able to do on historically ignored and neglected beside with our babies over there is truly amazing we have these two amazing leaders who are doing amazing things at their schools but what they would say is that it's incredibly frustrating to deal with this bureaucracy this district that has all of these entrenched systems and structures and requirements they're having to fight those fights all day every day to make sure what Lamar about again is is what our school needs like Doug mentioned earlier now with this partnership he's able to to be that bulldozer who genuinely interacts with the district the gentle woman who interacts with the district to remove that burden from these amazing principals so the principals can focus truly on being in schools and in classrooms and helping develop these amazing students and these amazing schools right like Ryan said we would never ever have partnered with a group that it was going to be in the best interest of our leaders in the best interest of our school or most importantly in the best interest of our kids right this community told us in 2016 what it is committed to what its dreams are for this campus and for their kids and what it wants Doug is here and this organization his partner is here to enhance what you told us right with regard to to this this idea that we're flippantly partnering with some of these existing principals right Doug did a good job explaining this idea of the collaborative has existed for well over Doug has been working to form this thing and the idea that a nonprofit was incorporated two weeks ago does not mean that it was some idea that was thrown together at the last minute that we as a district are irresponsible relationships these ideas have been germinating for this process of finding a partner so that we can get the extra money from this summit it took us Sonia and Brian a little bit longer because we wanted to be sure they wanted to be sure alignment is critical and if Brian and Sonia told us last week on Monday we were strong armed in this right we do not believe that there's alignment then we would have never as a board member we would have never moved we would never force something on them or on y'all or on the school or on the kids that wasn't something that before the considerations from the 30,000 foot view of the district we thought about and considered everything that this community had told us about how important this school was Brian in his blood in his bones he knows what the priorities of this campus are and what we were able to do was find a partner that is going to be able to magnify the good work that they're doing this is kind of not an indirect answer maybe to the gentleman's question but I really think this is kind of important for you guys as we're going through this process to understand where our mind is where the district's heading is right and to truly know that our with this partnership is to increase the effectiveness of these two amazing partners right we want Brian and Sonya to have every resource available possibly available to them to help these students and the students at all three of the schools to do great things right that's why we pursue a partnership yes ma'am? yes, hi I'm Habiba I'm with the PTA here I have a bunch of questions to say that I came here in 2015 um I was really happy I gave some background in the charter process I was I came in kindergarten and I think a lot of us spoke that way I do not have like I was also a parent of the kindergartener so at that time I had a vision but then as my kids grow up like my knowledge about what I want kind of changes a little bit so that's just I think that is important so since I've been here there's been a multiple of reform efforts right we're going from approving a charter which I was like go for it do what you want after that there's the network principal which again I'm like ooh that sounds hard on a principal I'm managing two schools whatever go for it we want to keep you here and so you know now this past year we've been um experiencing what it's like to have a shared principal and my question is really about what has been the evaluation of the reports because we have these big reports but I don't see I don't know if anybody here has actually read the charter in detail to really understand what it means and what the charter is and I don't believe that the charter needs to think about like a formal evaluation before running to the sort of entire structural change around management agreements there's a lot of assumptions about that this is great and this is working you know because we feel good but in terms of the not sure goals I don't know if we've had an official evaluation of the charter and so we have a management agreement that is seeking to implement the charter that has not been evaluated and so this is my concern that along the way there have been a lot of reports that have not been formally evaluated and a lot of assumptions about what parents want and assuming that because certain parents about like handful of parents that are here that voted on the charter that becomes the mandate to then vote on this SB 1882 which I was at the board meeting and I think there was a discussion this was all done with parent approval and I'm on the PTA I was involved right here every day we did not know anything about this and so Monday morning we find out who sent us audio to press news and this is happening so so the questions that I have are number one about what is the evaluation process because I think that yes we all respect Brian we're really happy that he's our principal but haven't had a chance to evaluate this network model and what this SB 1882 is doing is without the evaluation putting it into the district structure now at this point it's too late to not approve it because you haven't approved it but without proper evaluation right your evaluation is Brian's doing a great job but without hearing from the leader so my other question about number one is what has been the evaluation process of all of the reform which are major reform it's all major reform what has been the evaluation is it just the anecdotal based on what you're hearing from people number two how do you see like my understanding is that you are our elected president right so we are our so what is the relationship that I think I'm wrong I'm thinking maybe that's not the trustee trustee maybe trustee is just supposed to listen to the principals I don't know I don't understand can you help me understand what is the relationship between the elected board member and the next agent in terms of information that is coming through because I don't understand that that seems unclear to me because if I had an issue with something I would think that I would go to a board member the board member would at least do a job for some effect because this is the one decision about any decision that's from the board my assumption is a public decision but this didn't seem to be a public decision for in terms of constituents it seemed to be like sort of a board member decision so evaluation and your role as a board member thank you so two very different questions so with regard to evaluation the charter went live in 2017 that's a year and a half the charter truly I forget what you said you were there there were some people here who were present and it was a really in-depth effort to figure out what the community was what the parents want what everyone who is involved or invested in Lamar believes this school should be and should look like it's only been a year now robust team and effort that does the data analysis and the analytics we're always evaluating from a quantitative perspective how schools are doing the principles are always given so there's ongoing evaluation perspective but what you know and what I know is that test scores aren't the only thing that's important in our schools so what we also have are community conversations about the SCL program the social emotional learning which is a big part of the charter that Brian implemented now we evaluate those differently there are quantitative metrics that we use reliably to figure out whether the SCL is super effective or not the evaluations are ongoing they are happening all the time but we also know with any school implementing something new and this charter was something new is that it's not often happening at once and the results aren't going to immediately show and so this is why when we're creating new charters there's a three year runway that we provide we provide all new charters to actually show results this is part of why we're making the writing the papering of the charter so serious because this is a three year commitment that we are making that the community is making into the processes that the community agrees with that's the evaluation so it's ongoing this is the big thing if you think that any of the pillars of this charter are not like you would like I think Brian would welcome that conversation I know as a district we would welcome that conversation so please this is a living document as far as making and I have to you guys to do us in the best interest of every single student in this school district my fiduciary is a school board member are the kids which is totally a unique thing about electing all of us like my congressman I am his fiduciary but in school districts it's just a little bit different because you elect me to govern the school district's priority is to make sure that every single student becomes a valuable member whatever our mission is well educated everything that we want our kids to right but I'm also responsible to you to communicate, to reach out and as part of the charter process I think those of you who are involved saw that right you know I yeah and so the day to day communications are with parents are principal, parent best questions what I will say to you guys always and a few of you I see faces in here that know this is if you ever have a policy issue and you come to me I am super responsive and I am admitted to be we think Brian has done a great job we walked around six years ago when we started on this charter a couple things of when we were working on this there were things like well things personally I'm not to expand up because I don't think it's implemented here on campus what do you think Brian made here maybe that's a couple it didn't have to be supposed to be across the board it didn't have to be one or two classes one of us can we respond as we go can you can you I know that my first person we were all in the back we were all in the back from the beginning I guess did I make it wrong because we have been here since like six years ago when we helped being a huge partner oh I said we love Brian I said we love Brian the number one is we love Brian here we support Brian that's what we like but the charter turned into something that wasn't everything that we had talked about six years ago and it was things that districts had made changes to that were kind of like again like well we trust Brian that's fine some of them being the SDL and the dual language not being across the board the question I have is one with the charter like you said we didn't get there specifically right because I was like sign the paper let's go and be a charter and I remember you were saying to me like not that quick Chris got the cap right so we halted because not everybody had the information we hadn't done enough studying didn't get the word out why can't that happen here why can't we halt this and really figure out who Doug is and or Doug's program and what you're going to do when you come in because there's a lot of talk about how you're going to have everything as far as control over the school but like in this contract it's like it says that they'll have full authority to change the briefing or the vision it says that he has vision to do all the hiring like so it says in the contract that that's not true so can we alter the contract then to have a little side note that says in this one no they don't have that control I guess question Steve because we work together a lot and I do respect what you do however the showing up the document the $1,200 document to read that in one weekend and the whole board to come in and vote on that I just don't see how that's possible I don't see how it was able to go through and I know I trust that you have the good intentions but I feel like we don't have all the information yet we have already lost Brian that wasn't part of the charter that we were going to lose Brian have a week like Brian made this a good school because Brian was here every day and because classes teachers and parents were here every day and then it said let's have Brian and go put him over in another school because they come too Brian didn't build this school Brian built this with teachers staff, community, trinity like they're not going to get that we got to the point so my question I don't know do you want to make any point if you have any questions I do feel like I think we could have done better and I think that needs to be said Steve I'm really sorry I think that ties us all together there are things that Chris says here and I think we should have done better we should have communicated better I think we can agree to that that's sort of the quality and say how do we do that better and I'm looking at you three guys saying help us do that better and we'll help you do that better too as a community we'll do that because I believe that with Brian's leadership and Doug's guidance and with Steve's policy support we can become an age school but we're only going to become an age school if we do this together and it feels I just want to make sure that that is said today because I'm not hearing that and I really want to make sure I'm not going to back down from that I'm not wrong I'm not going to be made feel like I'm wrong does that make sense I really want to make sure that we say that that asking you guys to communicate with us is fair and right and I'm going to show because this is my summer school yeah I just want to say that I appreciate that I think this is a district level problem that happens other schools have had similar issues where like within a couple days parents find out information about youths or they get a letter from their teachers about what's going on without being a real concrete input from the community without shopping what's going to be done without being able to ask questions about what's going to happen for our children if you've said this before it could have been done better from this school is it going to be or staff or superintendent we are committed to improving communications across the board we know that we don't do no job right it is it is something that all of us talk about all the time right we're committed to doing better and you have that first to admit that the process wasn't perfect including the communications with you guys but please note that what we have is going to benefit the students both things can be true an imperfect process leading to a result that is going to be incredibly beneficial to the school and this community and this and most importantly our students I just want to respond to a couple of things about our portfolio just a couple of clarifying pieces about the visiting process for the charter we were never going to be a full dual language school our numbers don't support that on our Spanish dominant side the only way for us to go towards a full dual language school is to draw more Spanish dominant kids into school which was never on the table for discussion and so just to clarify that piece one of the reasons why we went towards a dual language model is because a decision was being made to move our Spanish dominant kids towards a different school that was not my decision that was a district level decision that they made for all sorts of different reasons that make sense in a district level but we didn't want to lose those kids to a class for a grade level it was only going to be one class it was never going to be a full dual language we don't have enough numbers to support that it's on our website on the homepage click on it or we can make copies here if you want a hard copy the second thing that I want to say is that as far as ESL curriculum we heard a lot from our community and from our teachers because they are part of our community to say it's not just about the academic core it is about the dispositional behavioral social emotional skills that kids need to be successful in the classroom and the more we get into this they are a lot of the same so as we teach about academic skills we are integrating social emotional skills into good instruction so we heard a lot of that from you and not everyone here in the room so as you think about that process we ask a lot of questions to flesh out what value in our school but teachers are part of that conversation too it's not just about families it's about teachers and our staff the third thing I'll say and then I'll get off the mic is to say that if we ever want to revisit our charter as a community we can do that that's not off the table but we also have to give it time to implement to see if it's working or not we can go back to the drawing board to see how we treat that charter but secondly it can be something where if it doesn't align with your vision and mission for what a school should be doing or if we're not living up to what's in that charter then let's go back and either implement better or revisit the principles of the charter to figure out how to better align having said that that would be a robust, long process and still to give it time to implement so I would just say that there was a question up here first can we get this question first and then we'll go to that again the question is about on a concrete level what are the commitments that we're willing to make as a district to improve communication for issues like this well I think just for myself on the campus level we were waiting so long to get a partner to bring in front of families that we should have clarified the process like if there's a process is one piece like how and what are we doing and then even without a partner we could have brought that in front of families and had a conversation about what you want to see in that partner that's on me that's not on C, that's on me and in waiting I wanted to bring information to you that was concrete so you could actually wrestle with who the partner is and how it feels to you what are the pros, what are the cons and in waiting for that it got too late and so that's on me, if I could play it back we would have conversations with that in October and November or December through the early spring so you would have clarification at least on process you would know who the partner is you would know we're actively seeking one but at least you'd have some understanding of what the partner is and what they would function on the campus and with that information we're putting you in a really bad spot so for me personally thinking about process orientation like what is happening and giving you access to information in forums like this but also writing as well to make sure it gets to everyone it's something that I think we can easily commit to and just you know I think one of the conflicting things for me is that I feel like that we have strong relationships here we're a strong community and we value the voices in the room families, teachers, community and that was not in alignment with this process and part of that's on me so it feels like a strong sense of conflict for me personally just because I feel like it's not in alignment with our belief system here and I think that's why it feels I think worse than it would have been if it were a place where it's like the leader which is not part of our value system but part of our vice system here to recognize and honor the voices in the room even if we don't agree and we're not always going to agree but it is important for us to hear each other out and to see where we stand and we didn't even have access to that conversation this time that's not fair so back to Ed's question though but what are we going to do to look forward as far as campus it's face to face conversations in forums like this on the front end and it's written communication to give access to everyone what 40 people in the room and we serve 385 kids here so you know over 5,600 parents so like there's a lot of people who aren't in this room who have feelings about this or who have no clue about it they gotta let are they heard on the news that's not fair to them so back to SIC if we and the parents and the school we all got together that we wanted to change the chart would SIC support that? so yeah so we have a process all of our schools all of our charters they're community driven they're school driven we have a policy in place we have a process where if a school community decides that they want to change or they want something different absolutely the community can vote decide what we want it to be and SIC can support us if that's what we want it to be so it's more nuanced a vote is part of the process right of course the community this is your story our main concern is what worry autonomy that we experience is going to have because the way we went through this and had to say what worry about what way in the future are we going to have to say it and the contract is written like that that he has full authority at the end of the day worst case scenario he has full of comment decisions so can we change can we alter the contract am I reading the contract wrong can we go over it like I think that's the leader you may be the best that's ever happened to us aside from Brian you may not so how do we protect ourselves ultimately I'm accountable for everything that happens so what I would say the contract is written in in a way let me give you an example the school district could say tomorrow right he's gone all the teachers are gone we're starting over with everything you don't have a voice by law we could do things we could start believing things have been done how schools operate now we don't do it right we value your the contract is written so that the partner has certain abilities certain responsibilities that the school district would otherwise have the staff the principal just because the words are on the paper that doesn't mean that that's what's actually going to happen and that's why and most often in the case it does can I just clarify something here I never had complete control over staffing in the first place that was the district they were the ones who were approving I would recommend somebody for hire I would recommend somebody for termination but I don't actually get to terminate them that's the district who does that so the responsibility that was previously with the district as far as the approval for that process is just transferring over to this organization I'm still making all the decisions as far as recommendations go just like I was before the process for HR is still the same as before so when I write somebody up that's the same process as before it still goes through the same office over there as far as approval to make sure that my language is correct but the end process of approving that is the same as before the process for approval for the organization instead of through our school board so in that way I never had complete control in the first place I have more control now with this organization than I've ever had before and I can't go back I can't go back towards a place where there are decisions being made that are for 50,000 students that are in our staff we're getting the way of us getting where we need to go we have to improve instructional programming here especially for our highest achievement students we have to improve reading instruction here and getting results from our K through 2 kids and with all these structures that are in place they don't always help us do that so if for me I never had control in the first place I would say it's just transferred and I understand and I hear you Brian and I think we all do we all just want to be sure that the language is in place I guess nice nice nice I don't know you were listening I was talking and you cut me off and had a different conversation that's nice can you ask the question or you had to name it for one I think we have a process so I'm going to talk about three things board governance the charter and the vetting of does okay so you guys are great I mean I have to say this is the most amazing campus and it's because of the parents I mean this is a testament to all of you you know listening to all of this so the charter so I read the charter I've been here three years I never I was you know my kids I adopted two kids this is a great place my kids like it they're I did not read the charter I have now read the charter the charter and I'm not you to hear this because the charter is not being the charter is being implemented correctly the charter has something called the PDD do any of you know about the PDD you're on it she was on it a couple of years ago but I haven't gotten to the list I requested the list it's called the PDS so okay that was the first thing so I'm reading the charter and I'm like it's a wrong advisory board it has a affinity it has one parent it's again Brian I know that it was the initial charter but you know it's a living document it should have been so that was one thing I don't know that there's no transparency on how the charter is being implemented so we have no transparency no the charter mentioned both and that was the other problem here and here I did not know about this but I want you to hear this because I think it goes to larger discussions we have a charter we're accepting Brian's right, we love Brian whatever it is that comes out of this charter it's not I have not seen a quarterly report has anybody seen a quarterly report from the PDP so that's your voice everyone's voice here you'll be part of that process overall it's board of governance so you mentioned he's your representative and Garza is your representative I know he's like because I live right across but Garza is my representative now you can go to any school voice so you used to be in the district school and so there's accountability now Habiba is trying to get hold of Garza because he he doesn't even know what's going on so I demand, I think we should demand a meeting with all of the effective board members so that they can tell us what went on what went on with his vote and I think it's vetting all vacations so this has been going on for months right they've been talking and figuring out who that's in the law you're not aware I take away that I want to I have a meeting at work and I want to answer any questions that you have so the nonprofit that he is part of our state last Thursday and we're officially a nonprofit with the board it's not even like a ski because now with Garza all these people your board members are all learning so how did they go of the school invasion collaborative did they have a track harder than education who are they I mean you guys know but it's an insider deal behind closed doors that we're trying to work with that all of our staff all of our staff we have two parents on the campus leadership team and then Danny Mendoza's mom I adore Mendoza and so I should just share a couple things one is there is a PDS advisory board written into the charter they report to the CLT makes decisions so the PDS advisory board just serves in an advisory capacity they're not making any decisions for the campus the original reason why they were formed is to create a liaison group between Trinity and the campus to make sure that Trinity knew about campus appearances and that the campus staff knew what was happening with Trinity and kind of updates with the program that was the original reason and then once the charter was established and then we had this group and then also had CLT CLT was always going to stay the decision making committee so just a couple things there you're asking for transparency I totally agree whatever CLT means are happening we need to post those minutes and we haven't been you should be able to have access to those minutes one of one of the struggles that we experience is finding families to sit on that CLT board and some of you know about that so if you don't and that's a problem you aren't even aware not aware of the board but if you're willing to serve on CLT this year and have a seat at the table we need people to be on that board and to serve it's a once a month meeting about an hour and a half please let me know because I want people to really be in that conversation so you can have access I'm still willing to be on that well we already had parents this year but the previous year it's been a big challenge and even when people commit to coming then they stop coming this is not yours at all but if you feel this passion to be in a decision making capacity that's the best place to do it within our campus structure but the PDS advisory board doesn't make any decisions for our campus all they do is report back to our CLT it won't be neighborhood students will always receive priority anyone who lives in this neighborhood who moves into the neighborhood can show up the day and come to school here that will not change that there is a choice component if there are open seats we do allow students outside of the neighborhood to come here we do allow students outside of the neighborhood to come here we'll never take away from the zone students being able to attend so like if our enrollment we're to start to grow from our neighborhood kids as we do projections and we get people to say I guess I'm going to come back for the following year we would just reduce the number of spots that can go to choice kids so it would just be like a we would just use the information we have from this group going to next year to then for how many spots that are open yes ma'am I just want to know why do we have to make this decision at this school that's my question why do we push this back to the next one I should have been very clear right so the application in order for us to qualify for the funding for next school year the application had to be submitted to TDA by April 1 which means we had to vote on it at the last board meeting in order for the thing to be finalized and executed and the lawyers to do what they do and get it up to TDA so if we would have waited then what that means is that for next year we don't get the extra funding partnership that Doug's organization is going to provide so effectively we're pressing pause on the progress of the school really conveying and for us like the calculation that us as a board whether that would work you know what the balance is and ultimately those resources and just the thought partnership so it's all state money right it's money that comes from the state no idea beyond that and then how does the non-profits funding like where is your funding coming from and me are you giving money to the state or how is that working how are we getting extra money to start partnering with you so the extra money from partnering with campus coming from the state there is a percentage written into the contract I forget it is 500% or whatever whatever it is that helps to fund the non-profit so there are administrative requirements that the non-profit is going to have to do and have to pay them salary because that is that TTA and these are really good questions and they're like very personal sorry I think like so yeah they are accurate the additional funding this is about 1200 dollars sorry yay I died 1200 so a tenth of the funding goes to support the non-profit quite frankly probably barely enough for me to get by but what it does do is actually add more resources so you benefit from 90% of it we only take 10% my experience part of it is like how does I get it I support these across the state before I get here 10% is a very very small percentage for a district and quite frankly like props to your district staff making sure that those resources are reinvested in your district and your campus so there's no scenario in which I am pulling funding from the campus that would be available otherwise also in the performance contract it is very clear that it has to be sustainable public funds otherwise that's in the contract so I just want to make those two things clear just to give you comfort there that there is no scenario in which this is pulling funding from your campus that would otherwise be there so I hope that's helpful so it's all a comfort city it's what it's giving to you to run however you need to sustain your non-profit right it's not additional yeah if you run the numbers this works no no I know you're not against and it's not like just to make sure that it's not like well you're basically but you also get like oh no no no no you also get a salary you also get an assistant that's all right thank you so look guys I really appreciate I'm sorry I really appreciate you being here we are committed I am committed to answering every question that you have to having another one of these if you think it's necessary to continue to listen to continue to talk to enforce to you my belief that number one there were flaws in the process that could have been improved that were committed to improving right and number two what we have created here is absolutely 100% in the best interest of your students and the students at the school so again my name is Steve my phone number is 210-289-3303 so that's what I want to do 210-289 I mean you can ask folks in here that I'm pretty darn responsive my email address is steveforeducation that's F-O-R com please feel free to be in touch I want nothing more than to answer your questions and to help you understand why it is that we believe so strongly that this is going to help this community I'm not necessarily saying it's the end this is just the end for me I have to run but again thank you very much for being here thank you Steve there is a couple questions yes sir so kind of moving away from all this I'm also curious about two things one your everyday or the principles your networked principles everyday routine you can practice your comments as I said this new arrangement wins you something it sounded like it was your time it obviously wins you resources but it wins you a certain kind of time and I'm wondering how are we supposed to weigh that from our point of view you've got a principal who is now working sensitively with two schools that's part of a bargain that frees up their time to manage two schools whereas we're still under a very heavy and cumbersome bureaucracy but in our amateurish skills we're trying to understand we all work, we know when you get a sign especially if you're the good guy who is good at his job you get a lot more work and that's just the truth so help us navigate what is the integral difference between you being a networked principal and you no longer having this supposedly and I would emphasize we don't know how cumbersome your bureaucracy is how much it slows you down so can you tell us is it that you are now you get to focus exclusively on learning, curriculum and evaluation as opposed to what how do we change this for us so that we can get away from this bogeyman of the network principal you can frame it for us so that we can see how it actually is open for us because frankly I think people are sold I'll say a couple of things one is that anytime something is new to an organization it brings about a sense of understanding what it is understanding the change process grieving the old even if the old was just so-so you're still grieving that old like normal or me as a principal is experiencing or teachers are experiencing that you have this connection to what was before so I think part of this year just to be transparent with me has been I do have less time getting to know students in a really deep and meaningful level across the board I knew every kid's name last year every kid from 1 through 3 70 really hard especially over at Bowdoin you know there's only so many times you can ask a kid's name and then it looks a little bit disconnected like you just can't remember things so that's been hard it has been hard to feel like you know that feeling of depth that you get from being in a place full time and there are a lot of benefits to this model that I'll talk through one is that it allows to get people who we couldn't otherwise get to our campuses like Roxanna is amazing she really is amazing we can walk into a place where there's been like a visioning process established and there's this path that's been set and then to have to jump into a role where you're leading the campus it's a really tough spot to walk into and we couldn't have gotten her without this situation in place we would have had an assistant principal who's maybe here for a year or two and then they're going to bounce somewhere else because it's either me here full time and an assistant principal or we get Roxanna here and then me here and then next year because of network money we'll be able to hire another half-time assistant principal for our campus so it allows us to get to draw talent that we couldn't otherwise get access to is one thing I would say the second thing about the organization part of the network initiative is to think about what are the barriers that are getting in the way of me doing my job at our school running as well as it can and getting the students what they need and then what are the structures that can be codified at the district level and through this partnership that will create insulation so we don't have to go back to the way it was four years ago because I cannot go back I will not go back so if it ever goes back I'm going to leave and that's not like a threat to anybody it's just like we can't go back to the way it was it wasn't working for kids and teachers so why would we I can't support that there are too many robots at the district level and I would say that in front of Steve too that we're getting in the way of us doing what we need to do for our kids so one thing that's been put in place through Mr. Chojri's office he's a lot of really good work to clear the way for us but part of the problem is whenever you're attached to one individual person there's not enough systems set up right now yet because there's a lot of work to do where if he leaves tomorrow we're going to go backwards and this creates a level of insulation from that where we don't have to go backwards it is codified through our agreement that those autonomies stay in place even if Muhammad leaves even if my boss leaves those autonomies are still in place even if Doug leaves it creates a systems approach towards getting these things in place that we know are good for kids and in that way are there drawbacks to well and then the last thing I would say is that it gives us access to Doug but also Doug knows a lot of people and a lot of schools around the city I just don't know I don't know who's working in Dallas I'm busy here working all the time to try to help us so Doug is really really well connected in a way that will give us access to information that we don't otherwise have and then just the last thing I'll say is that we know that we know what our pieces are that we're really trying to work on I mentioned earlier it's reading and writing and K-2 and it's pushing our highest achieving kids at our school Sonya does that really really well and I see Sonya at meetings and she's a wonderful leader she's really well respected and I haven't ever talked to her in specifics about what are the fine-grained things she's doing to move the needle instructionally and this will give me an automatic line to her to say what are you doing Sonya like what are you doing for a third grade reading that's helping you move the needle and this sort of partnership facilitates that to occur in a way that when I go to a district meeting and I sit in there with 20 other principals in here macro level stuff that I'd like to make my own sense of and there's no time to workshop any of our plans like that's not a bad mouth on the district that's just big systems like it's hard to customize support for campuses and for leaders this is going to allow us to customize support for us so in that way like yes there's pros and cons to every single setup I wish I was full time at going places I really do because those are the sort of relationships I want to have with people and I love working with Roxanne and I would never have had the chance to get this wasn't in place and I love working with Yvonne who is a former principal who's now at Wilson in the associate principal role and she's amazing and it doesn't like we're pooling people who are highly talented at campuses through this work in a way that could otherwise have done and I know change is hard and I mean I like for the first couple months out of the year like I was grieving you know like this old role and the people who were facilitating our workshops were like this is what you're going to feel and I'm like I don't feel it yet and the next week I was like I was feeling it like I really feel sad that things are changing and I do think it's better for the campus and it's better to move an evil instruction to support our kids if we go this way and I don't because I felt that way back in October This is not the normative model that most schools and most districts have had years but this is not what this is tied to our inner city status experimental modes that were caught up I I really question the rate of innovation that's taking place in certain schools in certain parts of the state and this is just a large example of that timeline let's see where we are in 2021 I don't know what will happen next with the money in the certain programs meanwhile in certain districts the biggest decisions that we have are number two these are the things that we have this is an experiment this is great I see the benefits of it but there's always a challenge why is it that we were losing a fully dedicated principle and we're just like okay I guess that's something that works this is not on you this is just a structure you can say stuff about me you can say stuff about me we'll talk to my wife can you mind if I answer yeah let me so let me try to get to all three and I'll start here but one of the things I think you mentioned is really important is like there is a tension here one of the things I want to articulate to you is my belief that the best person to evaluate that tension is Brian I bet a lot of respect because he's under a lot of pressure from a lot of different people that are telling him how to spend his time what this is going to be is allowing Brian to tell me there's the most knowledgeable person on the best place to spend his time and I think that's very important and that may mean that he's taking input for you I think Brian's one of those people that genuinely takes feedback from the community has been very thoughtful and I can't imagine a world in which when he has that freedom he's not going to take that and think thoughtfully about exactly how he spends it and that may come to really hard decisions that people in the community don't like or maybe it's people in the district and Brian has that freedom to do that and I think that's really important and that's a freedom that he now has to be able to have before and that is why I believe in this and it's also why I think when we did it all we were excited about this sorry I wanted to share that there was something else he said but I've already forgotten unfortunately you mentioned you repeat your question what does this look like a 10 year journey school partner what is the limit on your partnership that you drew with you on board that also meant because it actually I think brings back to a question she's talking about this evaluation process right if you have to evaluate initiatives before you know the moment this codifies that evaluation it is written in public for everybody to see in that management that every year we are going to be reviewed against the guardrails if it is not working your board members are going to come in that steps in place every third year there's a high stage review that's never been in place because I frankly the evaluation is hard until it's written down you have so many things going on in education system you're educating kids, your principal's evaluation now it's formalized but it's actually in there codified it has to happen, it can't just slide down so I think that's actually another powerful value out of this like it may not not believe me just yet but I think that is actually a system that's in place I want you to trust that and to feel that and to know and feel sure that that's there just to clarify so every year because the contract has a 10 year agreement but in that period every year would be in evaluation so at the end of each year there's what's called an informal review of the academic evaluation every third year there's a formal third year if we haven't looked up to the academic measures which I think Brian actually most particularly put in that board meeting like if we're not looking up to what we promised you and your kids like take action and it can echo beyond 10 years if we don't meet the promises of your major kids because you don't want to test in three years like what's the process of getting rid of it if it doesn't work out we're not seeing how we're now so at the end of the third year if we don't meet the performance so actually we have to which have us going up to like a B plus by the end of the third year if that doesn't happen so 10 points of growth that will happen in the next three years like the district will put us on probation or a focus I mean you will be part of that process and it's something that the district is building and also going around but yeah that's absolutely in place there's also safety there's also safety like at the campus scaffold so if we drop the safety it automatically there's the financial sustainability so there's a safeguard there so I think one of the hard purposes I think it would be great we can talk about the next piece to engage like sit down and have equal communication about what these elements are and if you need to tend to a step like create a safe space to do that because it's important that I think talking through them actually gets into the why and I think the why is critically important I just think we wish that we had time to articulate that why for Monday we had to be like where is this going like long term you know there was a moment like last fall or is this early fall or is this really something that I wanted to do and I had to make a decision about whether I'm on this for the long term or if it's just a one year thing and then it's not going to be a good fit and I'm all in I'm not going anywhere and that might scare some of y'all off hopefully not too many but I'm here and I mean Doug he had a good job at TEA and a really fun job at TEA at least on paper it looked like and like he's putting it should I tend for that like he's put himself out there and I like the process, hate the process like there's not a partner I could be more excited about than this organization because it resonates with the idea that we grow the work from here out and it doesn't come from outside like this this school is about this is a teacher's school this is a place where a teacher wants to come teach hopefully because you get to do really really cool engaging things with kids and your voice matters and if we had a partner where our voice didn't matter that would have been a huge problem for us so there isn't a better partner from my perspective then you might see that you might not see that so I'm really excited about it in the end but it did take me some time to like get comfort with it and get excited about it too yes or no? some of these things go up in the name of things they be overly skeptical sometimes but I think as parents we still want you guys to appreciate you behind the scenes looking for the best systems the best things is and it would be unrealistic to think as parents that as a public school that there's going to be some 100% democracy and everybody's going to get a vote because if that's how it works nothing will actually be done so I just want from your standpoint that we're being realistic but we're just trying to be transparent society but we all understand too it's not realistic but as far as I've said behind the scenes I'm going to call every parent in the whole school and they're going to say yes or no they will make a decision because that doesn't work and to be honest well thank you honestly the idea of like posting CLT minutes like no one's ever asked me that before and I should have been posting them all along but the fact that it matters to you we'll have a tab on our website you can go click on it and they'll be posted in the English and Spanish that's a pretty easy thing to do and sometimes when you're overwhelmed with a bunch of stuff to do it doesn't go to the very top of the list because it doesn't directly impact kids and you're like I have to prioritize those first but if you guys matter if it's important to you then we'll post them as one detail it's important to you by the PDS advisory board the governance piece to do if we're not doing it I just also want to say wake up call for us as parents to sort of this wasn't our decision and so when all the students are at the school board and so I feel like as far as our PTA is concerned I want to take more action in terms of making it to PTA or somehow be communicating with the community what's happening at a different level because there's a bigger agenda that's taking place within this district around innovation which I actually question a lot of the innovation our country is starting to including Ronald Manuel who used to be Pedro Martinez's boss who wrote an op-ed in the Atlantic where he's like I did all this reform now we're ready again so we need to kind of be aware about the public the board as well so that's a wake up call for us to learn I think we can use up our time better I don't need the school teaching my kids teaching rock rock reading lighting science just because they instituted a new shiny object that's necessarily good for my kids so yeah the other one I think you mentioned is this idea that's kind of seen in here a lot it's Brian's staff we kind of mentioned bureaucracy and time like we had this really beautiful conversation yesterday around like what are some of those areas that you can get that back with this formal art what if there is a training whether it's GTEs or something like it doesn't apply to me and we want to differentiate that you now have that formal choice I think like that voice I encourage you guys to talk to the staff here and see what they feel about this because they're an important voice and you're not going to get everybody but I think you deserve the chance to hear what they have to say our school day is longer to make for the SEL curriculum so you're not losing any academic core curriculum our day is longer than other schools to make room for it so like the first year we did it we were sacrificing academic curriculum to make room for it so our teachers make more money for working here because of their longer school day and you're not losing any of the academic core so we really don't believe in it then there's no loss of value and I would just say that our teachers I think it's things like I really have my kids have more instructor free time outside they make the building for 8 hours all day and I think replacing that 30 minutes of whatever this emotional learning thing is I think they'll get more benefit being on the playground for those 30 minutes and being in the classroom talking about their feelings so I get what you're saying you're not losing any academic side I'm just saying that just because there's a new training implemented that's the latest saying doesn't necessarily mean that it's better for my kid that's the point of making the general point she was making just because there's a new training coming on and now it doesn't necessarily mean that it's actually doing anything for my kid or it can't be replaced by something that's a lot simpler that's more constructive in terms of thank you I think keeping track of what you were saying before we started talking about ruler and letter is that what we're asking as parents is how can we do better to participate in the process and how can we do better to communicate to us that's what we're asking that's why we're all here is how can you do better apologize and how can you do better and we can say we want to be part of the process more give us opportunities to be there give us opportunities to participate because we are participating we're all here so going forward what's the plan not everything needs to go from old parents that's obvious there's a lot that goes on day to day but big decisions like this this was a big decision and it happened without parents now I won't depend personally that feels rushed and upsetting to everybody that's here that's participating what we are about it now but we need to process the fact that we weren't participating that's a great question but they're just not opinioning you can we take the one at a time just so we don't okay so the first I just want to thank you for inviting me so I can hear everything you don't know a lot about me this is my I hate the microphone this is my 19th year in the district so I taught for 10 years at storm JT Bradford Ridge we'll add gates for four years what I like about the network in particular is just that what you guys have here is what I need to do on my other campus so we don't have high parent involvement we don't do a lot of events that we should do because when I got gates we were improvement required is the worst school in the district and so now we're the number one school in the district we're the only eighth in the district I hate to speak about microphones it's just not my cup of tea with parents I'll talk to them just not on the microphone so what's great about it the partnership is the academic so my student is curriculum instruction academics that's my lane so when I hear data from there I'm like we can relate that to me all day and so we're looking at what we can do as far as our different things that we have going on in our district to make sure that we have our leaders in places that we can make an impact for all of our kids in SAIC so I know you're concerned about your kids at Lamar kids like everywhere, now on the east side I was on the west side and I'm on the east side I'll slow down because I talk super fast and parts of the network are really just good, vast parts about being able to have these relationships so that we're able to make an impact at the campus so here I love that the parents here really love my parents to give me some push back, I mean I like that those are my best parents at pushy and I'm able to look at how these things up and how everyone talks to parents and how he has these open forums so that we can make sure we're doing that at Gates and my other school like Cameron but both of our schools are my schools are academic issues so now that we've turned one school around now we're starting to look at how to develop the whole child because now we have the academics 100% in place now we just have to look at other parts and Cameron we're just starting all over again and trying to work on academic social, you name it, we're doing it hard work, I do more being at one school because your parents do love you you're there for four years that's all they know but the other part that's great about it is that we're building the leadership capacity so our schools but it's very shallow in our district of great leaders and so what we're trying to do is that we're able to build capacity so yes I'm really good I'm a great leader and I got all this energy it's fun but I also need other people to have this great energy so that we can start moving all of our campus in our district so that we would be in a district just based on everything academic, social, and emotional and everything so I thank you thank you for having me here, I gotta go take a chair right now if you have needs to work like I want to say survey money to do even for yourself but like about the team because I feel like there's a lot of like here's what we're doing, is anybody at home who's like, that looks great wonderful but you don't approve a lot of problems, I can find somebody who does and turns me over here so is there any way to get that across the board that we talk to staff that they can really speak if they agree or what changes they would like to see including yourself that can go to some outside person that can give us the results we don't have to worry about seeing that would be one, that's possible that's the question one is that there's an insight survey that the district puts out that asks for the sort of feedback that you're referencing and I don't see that feedback it goes to our district so some of our staff completed that it was really hard to get them to complete the survey just to be fully transparent with you I sent about four email reminders and a couple face to face like we don't get the report if they don't hit I think 40% of a return rate in the survey and it was so so maybe you can help with that and also when the times when if I really have things to say and this is like an anonymous source to tell it to like I would return that survey so I don't know why the return rate was low like it was really really hard to get responses to the survey but you'd be able to do that we used to have something just as a footnote like an organizational health survey in Northeast I see that was actually really helpful we would see the results as administrators and it would show you where your top third middle third bottom third of the staff answered as far as how they scored and it was a great feedback point for me to say like man like they like I think that they're here with this response about culture and they're storing down here like there's a disconnect there like I don't really know what's going on here you would see the results but like you would go to the side and say it was fine sure the only reason why I would be okay with the survey is if it took a bunch of time and it was given a time of year that was stressful and then it sent us over the edge and we lose our mind so like if it's just like a thoughtful administration and it's the right survey sure so my second question is do we still have a partner with Trinity and it's still where are we going to teach or like you know the teacher in almost every class but like we've had that before that was a very limited intern we our numbers of interns have actually never been over like five I think five was our max and I think Pat's gone so Pat's like the best source for this but like we've always we've never been over half our teachers having interns on the campus because the program only enrolls 10 to 12 teaching interns per year at the elementary level so I can I just kind of you just got one so we have three to five teaching interns per year on our campus we usually try to cluster them in the same grade level so they have thought partnership on the grade level we are slated to have four to five next year and then we have three to four undergrad classes we may have undergrad students in your child's class a number of times learning how to teach and watching but also doing small groups and one-on-one conferencing with kids so you may be hearing about some of those I don't remember who are if we ever had a pre-k intern I'm sure we did it's been I'm forgetting things now but like so I think the answer question is yes we have a partnership we are rewriting agreement right now up for another five years where we're locked in there they have no desire to leave we're a good source of close all the same things apply as far as why we make sense the other thing is that we get administrative intern every single year that we didn't used to get as part of the MED program through Trinity that's also value add and all that's staying and I don't want to speak for Pat you can ask Pat about how she deals she's the main point person of the university but we want to get the agreement reauthorized with the university by the end of this spring because they're going through a new department chair search and they're going to have someone new in place and they're going to be supportive of it there's no reason not to but we just want to have it already in place and in my last question there's something in the contract it talks about your company having like a governing board that oversees to make sure you're doing your job and that everything's kind of working out but if I read it correctly it says that it's appointed and not like elected so like do we have any say of like who's going to be in the board that oversees if you're doing your job or not but that makes sense yeah there should be so that's a big question so like one I think there's been probably like I think I've gotten a lot of questions around like the timing of it and feeling brand new and like who are the board members and I think like one of the things that I I like wanted to very clearly address is you know a lot of the vetting processes around me and my expertise creating systems that empower other people and the other one is you know I guess the mistakes that some of these organizations make is they aren't or the board members too quickly some of the things that we did that I just made sure I was going to compare with the district that the different schools was we're going to take our time we're going to find people that absolutely live and breathe this mission vision and we're not just going to find people to make everybody else happy that doesn't extend right now but it will pay off later ultimately those people are going to hold me home for creating a pathway for Brian so they are not to like they're not making decisions about the mar not making decisions about gays they're saying Doug are you actually creating space and if Brian wants to stay it feels like he's affected part of that that government board is going to have a representative from Brian and from Sonya they're kind of our flagship leaders stories we want to tell I mean I think you got a chance here Sonya I'm like her story is absolutely amazing so those two representatives represent Doug and they help us amplify their voice that decision I have left and really trust Brian I think what we talked about today is we are going to email out that board form to everybody today and if you're interested in being at this you know email us and let us know I think the one thing I just want to make really clear it is not about the mar it's about evaluating the need for creating that space and if it's an advocacy advisory board that is formalized in contract that will likely we're talking about consolidating these other two advisory boards into something that we can get a consistent review and get more effective and in the contract it has to meet at certain times that is something that I think we're thinking about the process of how does that get put in place because it is providing for more insight about the school and their community and in large part doing that to Brian because this is a really about my ability and so I don't know I hope that answers your question but the difference between I think the two board is really important so I don't think that you actually want to be honest I think everybody wants to be on something about their community you don't want to be about something that is actually creating space for the community so I hope that's helpful just a little bit of worry like you want to make sure who is appointed to like oversee you like just that that I guess it's kind of nice when it's like it's elected like appreciate like it's nominated and these people are elected by the communities and feel like they'll be maybe not I think having to be all in what's going on but not all in like working and thinking that and I think that comes from the fear like the school board that didn't read the document and it's all in and just not seeing that I think the one thing that's really critical here is that it now formally gets reviewed and that's public there is nobody on this that can ever hide from this so like you will see it it will be it's in the contract so like that is the one thing if you agree to do something like this and you agree to own this mission vision and help create space and work strongly it's like you're going to be relieved I think it's sometimes very but it's also something like I feel very strongly about this and this is a critical piece and part of the reason like I absolutely have this is not negotiable but I think like reach out to Brian about like that representation on that board and I think we have more information about how to consolidate and create the board that's mentioned in the contract about the advisory board I think just you know we are trying to really figure about that how do they communicate like all the board meetings are you're free to come to most of them probably campuses so we want to make sure that that piece one of the things we're asking board members to commit to is long-start governance so actually going to the state training around what are the student outcomes the organization is trying to hit in focusing ever-eating on the progress of kids and I think that's really important that's what governing board should do and so we'll see that in the final it's a non-individual and quite frankly a best practice what are the concerns about the large of what the board is becoming or the charter school how would that prevent whether or not all teachers and the TAs are hiring or certifying and I'm also concerned about the teacher ratio pay benefits and reimbursement for the college board because I'm a former TA quite bad experience we follow all the district protocols it's the same process we're on the same pay scale as the district all the financial services will go through our district it's the same structure as before all the teachers have to be certified all the IAs have to follow the same protocol it's like associate's degree or you pass a test or the compilation of college hours which would be certified in BIA it's all the exact same as other district schools this is not independently operated outside the district school where we're doing all that stuff on our own it's still embedded all the HR services as far as risk management that's all through the district we're happy to stay and talk more informally there's one more question I think from Morgan for the whole group this recording will be posted on the website soon soon and we'll also get a Spanish translation up there as quickly as possible we're going to stay and hang out if you guys want to talk more informally