 I think we're here. I said no, no. Do you understand? Agreed. So I'm going to call the meeting to order at 7.04 p.m. I mean the monthly or rock's dirty public schools, board of school directors. The first item we'll get out of the way and it'll be very short is public comment. Okay, no public comment. So tonight I'm very pleased to have Mike DeWeese here, former superintendent who I believe worked with Grant previously and is now working with Vermont School Board Association to help school districts do what we need to do which is find a superintendent. So I think what we'll first do is we'll just do some quick intros. I can also tell you who's not here. And then you can introduce yourself, Mike, and then I think we're going to largely turn it over to you for Q&A and to guide us through the search process. I also do, I think an order of action related to this is I have talked to CQ Strategies over the last couple of days. And you're going to explain who CQ Strategies are? I'm going to explain who CQ Strategies are. CQ Strategies has worked with the school district and other school districts on cultural competency and diversity, equity and inclusion issues. I've explained our situation to them that we have a tight timeframe to find a superintendent but that cultural competency, casting a wide net getting a diverse pool of applicants and making sure that we find a leader who's also going to advance the district's already, I think, very admirable work, but very complete work in that field was a high priority both for the board and for the administration, the staff and certainly the community as a whole. And ask them if they could help us with the tight timeframe to give us suggestions to do as much as we can do in that timeframe. And they are excited that we're talking to them and excited to help. And they're going to give us a draft plan of some ideas on Monday and they're willing to do some contracting throughout the process and I explained to them the timeframe we're on. So it would be good to have a motion just authorizing me to work with them and to work on a contract with them for services. I'll have an estimate that I can bring back. If you want to give me a range, I don't think it's going to be terribly much, but I have a day you will want a day. So that's a quick kind of a business that we can either deal with now or later. How about if I make a motion that you work with them to develop a contract which you would bring to us at the next board meeting? Sounds good. Does that sound reasonable? The only question is, do we want to have them start doing work before May 2nd and are we going to... I would like to do that contract. Okay, so I take that motion back. I'll make another motion. Let's see. I make a motion that you just work with them and be reasonable. How about we settle in and say... Great, I don't want you spending any more money. I was going to suggest that we give you the ability to work up to a cost of $10,000 without having to come back to the board for separate approvals, something like that. I make a motion that you work with CQ strategies up to a cost of $10,000 to assist us in superintendent recruitment. Second? I'll second it. Any discussion? All those in favor? All right. So now we're going to the introduction of Blake and I have talked to the phone and e-mailed but I'm developing on the chair of the board in my real job. I'm an attorney and environmental advocate with the National Wildlife Federation when I work with the Climate Energy Issues and I've been on the board. Well, I've been on this board since it was formed in October and I'm also on the Montpelier Public School Board and I've been on that board since probably years now. Let's go this way. So I'm Lisa Frost and Roxbury resident. So I've been on the board since we organized in October and I do quite a few things for work so I'll save that for another time but I'm pretty passionate about education in general. Thank you. And I'm Becky Bowen. I was elected March 17 to the Montpelier Board and transitioned into this board. My children have come up through the Montpelier School systems and I'm the Human Resources Director up at Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice. Sorry, so we'll take a minute. I'm Ryan Zajek. I'm also a Roxbury community member. I've been on the Roxbury boards since 2013. I went through the merger process and I'm here now with the new board and moving forward. I'm Mike, I know Mike from the past life and I'm retired now and have been on the Montpelier Board now and was on the merger committee and now I'm on the Montpelier Roxbury board. My name is Peter Sterling. This is my third year of service on the Montpelier School Board. Around 2000 I also served on the Doty School Board up in Worcester at K-6, small school with 68 kids and then in my professional life I'm the Chief of Staff to the President and the Pro Tem of the Senate. Thank you. Yeah, and the three people who are not able to make it because of, I think all because of their, except for Michelle, traveling for Spring Break is Brigid AC, who's our Vice Chair, Michelle Braun, who is currently the chair of the Montpelier School Board, although she was smart enough to kick that to me for this board and Steve Henshin, who I believe is in New Mexico. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you much. I appreciate the brief introduction. Mike DeWise. I've been in Vermont since 77. My entire education career has been here in this day. I retired in 2013 after 36 years of service. 24 of those years was as a superintendent or assistant superintendent in two districts, Franklin Northeast, based out of Richford and at the time the former Chittenden Central District based out of Essex Junction and that's where Grant and I have some wonderful, warm memories of good years working together. I've done different bodies of work in retirement, all elective, all by choice, and it is rewarding for me to choose projects or decline projects based on whether or not I think I can be helpful and useful to the organization. My work is mostly in service to school boards and superintendents, so I work with both the VSA and your VSBA, and I have done other administrative and administrative searches in the past. This is the first time I've done it through VSBA, so Nicole Mace and I certainly have a close relationship and I have the official binder, the official set of guidelines here to work from. I think of the binder as perhaps being the science of the search and hopefully I'm going to bring a bit of the art and flexibility and dynamics to it, so that's my role. What I'd love to do is just talk with you tonight about a few things, but then really work with you tonight on some decisions because as you can appreciate you're about to embark on a really important decision point. I think it's especially timely for you based on the official transition of your consolidated district starting up on July 1st, so there's just rich opportunity for you to be thinking about starting officially, moving from your transition board status to your official board status on July 1st, as well as perhaps having a new chief executive slash superintendent working with you at that point in time. It is not, we have not found it to be statewide or nationally quite frankly an easy task to land and secure superintendents. Pools tend to be small and that's just the way it is. We have not seen the depth of numbers at least in pools like we did even perhaps two decades ago, so the times are changing a bit and that's just a reality of what school boards face these days in terms of going into the marketplace looking for superintendents. Your situation is compounded as you realize by where we find ourselves. It's April 19th, it's just a little later in the game than is often the case, but I don't necessarily feel it's too late in the game. I think there's still a window of time here, but that window of time is going to require a sense of decision making and I would urge you tonight to really think about the timeline and timetable and I will be detailing that more for you in terms of what that looks like, how things unfold and what their relationship looks like. I am not your headunter. I am not picking your next superintendent. That is not my role. My role is to help shepherd the process and you will have me working most directly with a screening committee that you will name, that you will appoint and that will be a group that will really run through the first level of vetting in terms of looking after the applications, looking at folks and giving them some review procedures and then recommending back to you some finalists for you then to consider. So on the front end, you will be charging that committee. You will be giving that committee some direction and guidance. You will really inform that committee about what you are looking for. You will in part from your board staff that committee so hopefully it will be a couple of you that will actually move from this board down to that screening committee as part of the process and I think of this in that is we know when you want your new superintendent in place and that is July 1st. That would be the ideal is to have your new person have him or her start on July 1st. That backs the whole timeline back up again in terms of what that then means. If he or she is currently in a position elsewhere, he or she is going to need time to transition from their current position to a new position here. You recognize you've got your high school graduation at the end of the second week of June and that is probably a logical window to think about trying to wind things down wrap things up. For you to be thinking toward potential appointment with a successful search in that second week issue or so of June that would be the end game of what this process could look like. That is going to require an expedited process. That is going to mean we are going to keep things moving in order to make that happen and I will be happy to lay that out with you in terms of what a recommended timeline can look like. So tonight I'd like to spend some time with you talking about more of the details and nuances of the search process. I'd like to talk to you about the roles, your role, my role, the role of screening committee. I'd like to have you identify a salary range that you would publish as part of your advertising recruitment materials to inform potential candidates of what the salary range could be. Thank you for your recommendations on that. The heavy bit of business tonight is going to be to approve the vacancy notice and that is really content rich, content deep and it is fundamentally your assertions of what sort of qualities you want to represent the district as possessing as an attraction for candidates as well as what the qualities of your successful candidate will hold as he or she comes to the office. We'd like you to define a couple of essay questions and the essay questions are questions that would accompany the application itself. So you get a chance to actually see some thinking in that sense, you get a chance to see some writing styles in that sense, you get a chance to appreciate the responses to a couple of key questions that you think might be really pertinent for folks to respond to through the application process. You'll help me define tonight the breadth and scope of advertising. I'll have some thoughts on that as well but I can give you some ins and outs around that. We'll want to talk about your search process budget and I hear Grant over my right shoulder saying yes we want to be sure we've got that down we definitely want to have good knowledge of front about what sort of anticipated cost could be and to have you affirm that in the front end. Should we go over that budget or we're going to want to have a process for you to be able to assemble and to be able to approve thereafter future expenditures which may go over the budget which I don't anticipate but I heard earlier certainly an action point that there may be other budget considerations that I hadn't really brought to the table tonight so we'll want to figure out a way to fold those sort of costs in. The screening committee is really owed a charge, a specific charge like know what it is they're supposed to do business on your behalf what it is that they'll be doing and how they'll be doing it and that'll be a written charge that we'd like you to approve tonight as well as you're defining the membership of that committee. The membership of that committee would be defined two ways one by the total number of seats on that committee and second how to divvy those seats up what sort of constituency groups are going to be represented through this screening committee process and I will not recommend that you do any more tonight than a couple of things around that one I would hope that you can set the charge tonight for that committee I would hope that you could set the number total number of seats in that committee I would hope that you could figure out tonight with me how to divide up those number of seats when the constituency groups but it's premature tonight I think for you to actually name names I think that you want to think about a process through which you can solicit interest around that the last thing you want to do tonight is name names of folks who may not want to be there you don't want to leave out folks who might be really valuable to the process and I think that's a conversation point for this board after I leave tonight and after you leave tonight to think about how you want to tackle that task and that doesn't have to be done by the weekend like I'm going to encourage some of these things do need to be done by the weekend but that's one of the things that actually could wait a little bit as well as adopting the search process calendar so the calendar really will be the driver in this conversation and I'll have some thoughts about the calendar as well so that's like a fun night good time said by all about ready to jump in any questions on where I think we might take this meeting and what sort of things we all want to be tackling good so far nobody has grabbed their car keys yet that's a good sign I like that what I want to start with is a thanks Graeme I do thank you this first handout is an overview of both the roles of the various parties in the process as well as a high order sequence of what the responsibilities would be among those parties so as I mentioned you're in charge you're driving this bus, you should drive this bus it's your job by law to drive this bus you're in charge of the decision about owning the process as well as the decision point at the end think of me as your guide on the side I'll be working with you at times I'll be working with your screening committee at times so I'll be the one most connected to the various elements and aspects of the process and that's really my job is to help just shepherd the process along as you've prescribed it then the screening committee is a formal committee of the board and I'm sure you've got other committees that you work with now that you charge as part of your district work that you're coming up on but this would be a defined formal committee it'll be representative of various stakeholders and their job is to satisfy the charge that you're going to lay out for them they're going to do the job that you ask them to do fundamentally and their job is not to decide on who they like best that's not their job their job is not to vote on their favorite candidate that is not their job the job of the committee is to through criteria that you've laid out which candidates best match that criteria they're going to do it through a paper screen of the applications they're going to do it through selecting some of those folks for first round interview they're going to undertake those interviews they'll do reference checks on those folks and from all of that information their job would then be to remand to the board hopefully up to three find less for you to consider so that's the objective the body of applicants and from that body get in their mind through your charge through the expectations you've outlined the three best they think would fit your charge they're not going to rank them they're not going to say here's our number one, here's our two, here's our three here are the three here's what we can tell you about the three here's what we think the collective best three are and then it'll be your turn to then receive those three and to then go through the process so the board's job is to identify the desired qualities the next superintendent and I'll have some draft thoughts for you to just react to tonight again you're going to set the charge for the screening committee you're going to identify the budget tonight and at some point in the near future you're going to name members to the screening committee itself as well so schools on vacation this week is that right? yes so clearly next week at the earliest is when you probably want to start to get after promotion of this opportunity again the screening committee is going to pay for screen all the applicants they're going to select some semifinalists to be interviewed by them and following the reference checks and the evaluation of the semifinalists they're going to get to you a list of ideally three folks for you to consider and three is ideal three is probably enough for you to manage and hopefully we can have up to three that would be great then it comes back to the board again so the screening committee has been doing its work you now receive these three finalists your job is then to organize the big day and the big day typically for finalists means coming for a visit to your district getting a chance to visit your schools getting a chance to talk to personnel making themselves available for a public forum so that parents and citizens can come out and say hi and meet them and just hear a few things maybe even give you a little feedback around their impressions of those folks we probably ought to feed and water those folks they'd probably be a good idea if we did the X it's going to be a full day for them and then they'd be interviewed by you likely in the evening one by one by one so you'd see all three in the same evening and that would be a perfect schedule for that that day and once you've interviewed all three you then deliberate over what you've seen if you think you need to further vet and then you make a decision but again I'd be working with you with that step of the process as well and clearly it has worked afterwards too I mean as you know there's a whole future work for a school board but after you've hired your superintendent there's other decision points I mean part of the hiring process certainly is the contract details with that superintendent part of it is to affirm that superintendent's entry plan and I'm a big fan of the entry plan so that the incoming superintendent clearly understands expectations of him or her they understand expectations of you as well and it sort of becomes a compact of what that entry relationship is between the superintendent and the board to really get things off on that perfect right step and in the most ideal of worlds that then leads itself directly into the evaluation of the superintendent in his or her first year in terms of the delivery and execution and performance of that entry plan so he or she will have notions of how they want to start you'll have notions of how you think he or she maybe ought to start what some low hanging fruit is what some of the stretches might be what some of the initiatives and priorities could be and those are sort of things that get married and embedded into an entry plan so that's work that would occur after all this and then VSBA does offer some joint training so that the board and superintendent relationship is off to the very best start it can be and that's a shared training that comes at no charge to you through your membership with VSBA so those are sort of down the road things after the fact but we need to get there first that's our jobs to get there first so is the process at the high order here make some sense Peggy? The process makes sense I just have some housekeeping questions after you How effective do you think it is to go beyond just doing a Vermont or Northern New England search is that an effective should we if we decide to do that should is that something we need to do from the get go we want to go outside of the area or hear my thoughts on that my thoughts are that the required process through a VSBA search means a defined application approach and the defined application approach is called school spring electronic platform by which folks submit their applications electronically it enables the screening committee and the board to review things electronically of these candidates submittals and the cost for doing school spring is the same cost whether you're thinking locally or nationally so it is a national platform sounds like you're familiar with and because of that that is the single best way to draw a candidate pool is through school spring now there are other national opportunities as well many of them at no cost to you many of them come by way of the national school board association through the association American association school administrators in which they have classified ads of swords typically online that typically come without cost so there are ways otherwise to get the word out beyond the state I don't see a good reason to narrow your search to an in-state search only we might as well cast the net and you can structure your mission and vision statement within the search documentation to encourage people to apply that might not otherwise be just within Vermont exactly yeah precisely right and certainly in state we've got other vehicles other means of communication to sort of get the word out as well there are other networks certainly in state within the region that we tap into so that would be sort of taking care of both needs both the in-state as well as national need through the use of school spring that's going to cost you about grant don't quote me $350 that's it yeah that is $350 would get you about one line one column engine bossing loop right it's far in Boston but it's yeah you can certainly do New York Times you can do Boston Globe you can spend the big bucks if you choose to with their classified ads we just haven't seen return on investment with that we just haven't seen that to be a really smart way of trying to you know get the pool broaden now there may be other venues through your other consultancy that you're considering that there might be other pipelines of the venues other avenues other approaches other connections of the networks and so forth that we could also expand it to I I'm anxious to learn more about that myself so that'll be interesting but Becky my advice to you would not be to just think not to close out any options I guess I agree I agree I agree already there and there are a number of successful Vermont superintendents who have come here from out of state it's a unique state the laws are specific to Vermont the culture is specific to Vermont but it's not un-learnable it's absolutely achievable and doable and it's not unheard of for out of state candidates to be successful with in-state positions so that ought not be something to worry about at this stage my hope for you my hope for you is to really get as broad a pool as we can with hopefully some depth in that pool as well so breath in depth of a pool would be just the perfect match for a search absolutely absolutely I'm sorry another housekeeping so the behind the scenes work the reference checking the travel arrangements the bringing people on site and all of that who does who does that I only ask because the people that work within the district office already have full-time jobs and this is going to take a lot of hands on work to conduct these background checks and to do a very thorough reference checking on it to set something that we should look outside of the district office or how does that work I've begun a conversation with Tracy and Heather and the grant and my purpose in those conversations was to learn your landscape a little bit to see what level of support exists within your central office to see what the expertise is typically central offices have somebody who plays point with school spring and you do and Heather's ready to talk with me about the work hopefully that we accomplished tonight ready to get that school spring had posted and once she does that I'll need one other favor from Heather and that is to give the keys to school spring to the members of the screening committee once they're named by you and at that point Heather's pretty much hands off of the school spring responsibility that becomes then your job and the screening committee's job first your job second to then make use of those materials so that's one example the screening committee I'm going to recommend within your charge that they be responsible for the primary reference checks that that be part of what they do and that we give them adequate time to do that as well within committee so it's all going to be part of this timeline that I'll lay out for you tonight the copies you're holding right now were compliments of work that Tracy took care of for me today so I think there are ways for us to figure this out and my I've worked in a couple of central offices I understand exactly what you're asking about the concern and interest you have about not overburdening folks and the interest as well the the volunteer work of your screening committee that's heavy lifting those are folks who are going to want to be at every meeting those are folks who are going to want to be ready to do their homework offline those are folks who want to be committed to this interest so I know you'll be intentional and thoughtful about who would you name eventually name to the committee but those are the folks that will be doing a lot of the work yeah looking down the road maybe you were thinking about that as well Becky like the final day site visit day often that's a divided responsibility typically a principal will sort of play a point with one of the candidates another principal with another candidate and just sort of be their shepherd for the day set up the schedule certainly I'll be communicating with correspondence and so forth with the applicants and the finalists and the finalists will do on your behalf so that won't fall to you that will fall to your central office that'll be work that I'll be just tending to that's part of what you're paying for me to do frankly and last but not least community involvement and the screening process at what point do you see community involvement is it from the very beginning or at the final interview where do you see that coming in I see it as mission critical I also see it with respect to limitations of the timeline so places where I see community slash parent involvement would be with membership on the screening committee with well informed opportunities to meet the finalists and to have a chance to visit with them to have a chance to provide you with some of their feedback about them and those are some key opportunities I would thank for folks okay thank you hi we use a policy governance model here on this board how critical is it do you think we hire someone who's got experience with policy government hold on we actually haven't formally adopted this board has not formally adopted policy governance and I know that we are going to formally adopt it and we're going to do a governance by policy model okay never mind okay I have a question over it doesn't say here which doesn't mean it's not being done either the screening committee or the board how often does somebody from this district go to the other person's district for an interview in other words for a visit at their oh where they are now yeah in a process where you've got months and months and months of time you can go visit as often as you want to we'll look at the calendar tonight and see how feasible that might be it may be possible it may not be practical it's one of those sort of conversations it depends on where they are it depends on where they are and what you need to know and what you need to hear and what the best ways to get that information but not impossible nothing's impossible nothing's impossible right so general question this is my first superintendent search keep being told that no this is so different it's so different you guys are in a unique position right now and not having gone through this before how is it that unique I don't have a personal comparison so can you give me kind of like the ideal world like if we were doing a superintendent search in the ideal world you know what would the time frame be in terms of when we were applying how is it going to be that different obviously we have a tight timeline there's no denying that but overall like what are the big things are going to be unique and challenging for us to address it is I'm going to talk about the audience of administrators in general as I start my answer thinking principals thinking central office folks thinking already sitting superintendent elsewhere those folks at this date would already be under contract if they're working next year already somewhere searches ideally it would start middle to late winter and that would capture that window before they're perhaps coming back under contract it could be released easily from contract so we're a few months behind what I would consider to be the ideal ideal window that's part of the answer I'm not sure I'm fully answering your questions just nudging me again is it really the time frame that is our biggest challenge I mean are we really putting ourselves in no your biggest challenge is the pool in general of superintendent candidates is the challenge you and every other board faces yours is just the wrinkly you've got is the timeline and we might as well talk straight up that this may not yield a satisfactory result you may not be okay with where this ends in June and if that's the case you might have a sense of that before then and if not you'll be making decisions in June about what that all means it's not the worst thing to think about other opportunities whether it be short term term, longer term in terms that's a fall back position I certainly don't advise you to start there I think that's potential opportunity lost by starting there so there's that I'm aware of another district in the state this year in which I believe three individuals set aside the board's interest one by one we're off with the job and one by one turned it down it's painful so there's that which is why we want to be earnest and straightforward and honest about representing who you are what you want what you're looking for and what a match would look like this is a marriage of sorts that you're talking about the nature of the board superintendent relationship again from a superintendent bias I've never done what you've done I've never sat on the school board but I have sat in superintendent's chair for more than a little bit it is absolutely mission critical that that be a strong solid relationship for the health and well-being of the district and that's responsibility of both parties but it's all about the match and I'll give you my little my little spiel I guess can I keep talking is it okay if I'm doing this? go for it as you're getting to know my talker I guess the there's an old body of research that is as ancient as a day as long that talks about person environment fit and the whole research is about skilled people can be very successful in some environments and the same person can fail in a different environment and it's all about matching that person with that particular environment and is there a dovetail of skills and experiences and opportunities and entrepreneurship and all those sort of good things there are sitting superintendents that may be interested in this position and I would not offhand discount their candidacy it may simply be that matter of person environment fit and this may look to them to be a better fit than perhaps where they are now so I wouldn't discard that as a potential sub audience of your candidate pool I would encourage you to be open to those potential candidates I also direct the Vermont superintendents leadership academy and it's in its fifth year right now and that's an academy where we invite aspiring superintendents into a year long academy and we expose them, introduce them to the world of the superintendency and what we found now in our fifth year with the academy is that it has become something of a pipeline for the superintendent theater system if you will a bunch of those folks who have been through the program have continued to aspire to a superintendency and it actually landed an in-state superintendency that has become another venue if you will through which folks are approaching the superintendency what's kind of nice about that is they get a chance for a year to meet superintendents, talk about superintendents think like superintendents, experience superintendencies and decide whether or not they're really in the game or not the last thing you want is to hire a rookie superintendent and find out that it's really isn't a game for them it's a good job, it's a lose-lose situation for everybody that pipeline does exist and I'm hopeful that we can exploit that opportunity as well to think about first timers that might be applicable to your situation as well that was actually my question how is the evaluation process different for someone who's coming into the superintendent experience first is someone who maybe is the principal or curriculum director or assistant superintendent and this is their next step are there different things we should assume there are different things we should be looking for but what are those different things are you referring to the evaluation of their candidacy yeah clearly they need to command talking superintendent speak whether they've done it or not you need to have confidence that they are ready to assume this level of their career evolution so I would not necessarily modify the questions that you might ask of them but we're going to have to appreciate the experience differences that perhaps they bring to the table I mean it's no different any sort of industry as you're looking at experienced folks or inexperienced folks to that industry it's a niche of the industry there's no job quite like the superintendency and the principal shift isn't the superintendency but a whole lot of superintendents have been principals it's a very natural pathway for career growth Lisa how we doing you've been question free so far looking at your list here I have more lists there will be more lists coming okay to move on what I think we need to establish next is how you want to advertise for your salary range and I've compiled some data for you on superintendent salaries and if you're want to cheat you can go down the bottom of the page you can see the bottom of my recommendation but going through the chart these are all current year data and as we look at all superintendents across the state there are 60 of them that were surveyed the average salary this year for those superintendents is 124.7 and the asterisk refers to that's inclusive of Montpere school district superintendent salary so that's in there as well in that average the average years in position in that position current position for all superintendents number four the average total years that person's been a superintendent is a little over five so that's the mix that statewide you find superintendents in right now now you can shred that in two different ways and shred that into two kinds of districts once a supervisory union district once a supervisory district yours has been a supervisory district in Montpere yours has been a supervisory union in Roxbury you are becoming a supervisory district on July 1st so we've got that technicality down so this next one perhaps is more relevant to that audience of districts if you will so the Vermont supervisory districts there are 18 of those this year average salary there is 128,000 a little higher average years in position 4.83 and a little higher years of total superintendency at 6.67 then you look at the supervisory union folks a bit lower there 121 again an end of 37 a little fewer years of experience I guess when issues find superintendents they like they want to keep them I guess but my recommendation to you based on those data is that you set a $10,000 range from a low of 120,000 to a high of 130,000 and that you think about that range a couple of ways you think about that range based on qualifications you think about that range based on experience and that those are reasonable attributes to attach to a salary range for applicants thinking about whether this job fits their needs that's exclusive of your benefits back as you traditionally offer that would be salary only great generous Becky you know I'm going to ask this question yeah is it too tight and is it too low well you've got a budget for next year we do I see grand I know for what it is that we want to attract you know so I'm asking will it limit potential candidates I will tell you that that's in my mind low average it is not below average but low average so it's average just maybe a little low average it doesn't preclude somebody coming that for some reason we think has experience or something of being at the upper end of that or even but is that candidate going to apply with this limitation to be honest in this in this superintendency I don't think that money is going to be exactly the top but if they're relocating with the family it will be maybe people don't come to Vermont for the money well that individual coming in at a salary of low of 120 is right in the ballpark of where you superintendents are this year on average that person at 130 they're very close to the average for SD superintendents so I think it's legitimate I don't think it's unreasonable and perhaps relocation is carved out as a separate benefit or something and that's a conversation point and Becky maybe a way to couch that as you represent the position is to say anticipated salary range of 121.30 perhaps as a signal there's a way to you might be a little flexible about that what would be the disadvantage of just advertising it as 120 to 160 this way we don't have to pay anything I mean true if there was a fantastic candidate who was meeting all of our dreams and could solve all our problems you know for this kind of district we have money and for the dream candidate we could pay more I mean we'd have to meet the criteria I'm just saying I don't know what the downside of advertising that there's a bigger range I think to 140 I mean pick a number that would attract someone who's truly exceptional because really in my mind in a 23 million dollar budget whether you pay someone 130 or 140 to get the right person would mean the world to us to get a really great candidate so why not advertise and have more people coming in by having a bigger range and then you know winnow it down from there I like the word anticipated in front of the range you've given I don't think it will limit the number of people we get I actually in my experience have to respectfully disagree I know when we're recruiting people do look at the upper limit and see it as the maximum in their heads okay for five years I'm going to be under this max whether that's legit or not and they're moving with a family I don't see there's harm done in popping that 130 up to 140 a little bit higher my reaction to it is sort of like Wolfagon effect and the candidates tend not to look at the low number they tend to look at the high number because they know they're exceptional they know they're special they know they're above average and therefore might expect that higher number and it can make negotiation over final contract salary just a little more awkward for the board if not sometimes impossible for the board based on expectations in the front end that's legit how would it obligate? it might also signal it might sort of do a candidate that like while we put the 160 out there for the star candidate and you're not at which is why we're offering you 1.6 no you're right now there is that that's what I mean about if somebody has outstanding qualifications for some reason then you could up your 130 but this way you're in the range and I think it's a reasonable range I have a question about the range how Chittenden County is a different animal how much does it skew is 120 to 130 different if you kind of take Chittenden County out of the equation rather than putting it in the equation is 120 to 130 that's great for us out of Chittenden County or is that still Essex Westford in my opinion perhaps the most complex district in Chittenden County is paying this year 130 Burlington this year is paying 154 Champlain Valley whose superintendent has been there a long time yes 173 Colchester 136 my pillar this year 127 South Burlington 159 so yes 138 Milton 129 Springfield 134 so those are the Chittenden County numbers except for Springfield which is not Chittenden County I mean the other consideration with that is if there is a superintendent who feels this district might be a better fit but is already in the awkward position of having to get out of a contract and say they're making 137 and see this 130 number they're going to say am I going to get out of my awkward contract and take a pick up well certainly in your negotiation with an individual like that you would at least meet their 137 if you want because that's just the reality but if you put it in here where they even apply if you don't even get that person so is there other wording with room for negotiation because you said anticipated as one but are there other ways of wording it where it's seen as more flexible to candidates would you be careful please please do first off if I'm applying and it just says 120 to 130 I would apply if I'm it's worth what I could afford I would not take the job if it was offered to me for less than 130 because I know you can afford it because you said you could and to me that would be my starting position so I appreciate the anticipated language and I think that is probably enough gray language that people would understand that it might be a little less might be a little more I would urge you to stick with 10,000 and a range of 10,000 otherwise it just gets too ambiguous I do want you to bear in mind realize we had zero dollars budgeted for this zero so in that first year I get $23 million budget but it's not $23 million we have requirements it's already spoken for I wouldn't use this at all I would say maybe you could consider 125 to 135 which would put you I think maybe it's not so much lower average but maybe it's more average but other than shifting it maybe $5,000 I would either go with this or shift it by $5,000 but I wouldn't change it other than that can I do something competitive salary and benefit package commiserative move experience and leave it at that or is there an expectation that there's a salary range the numerical salary range I would say because you're casting a wide net that people might not know what that means in Vermont so if I'm in California and I see commiserative work I wouldn't know if that means $100,000 in Vermont but could 5 seconds on Google give you at least an estimate I think it would be better to put in a number because out of state has exceedingly what I said in the beginning people don't talk to Vermont for the money they're coming here if they were a superintendent in Massachusetts they're gonna come here probably with a pay cut but they'd like to know the range of what that is there's also a candidate pool not just from Massachusetts but elsewhere that could be at a transition point in their career where they might be eligible for a pension in that state and ready to leave that state and continue work elsewhere and the salary becomes a different conversation for those individuals it's $160,000 for them enjoy your pension elsewhere and enjoy $125,000 here you come to Vermont besides the money so we've probably got to figure out what to put in the I'm sorry to put my word in the head I like the shifting of the 5 to go from 125 to 135 you like the 5s? let the minutes reflect Becky's a fan of 5s shift it and including the anticipated adding the word anticipated oh yes do you have to approve these tell you what, why don't you hold on to that for a second and you can approve that with the whole next approval okay okay sir this is great grant so what we need is we need some standard notice that can be used umpteen different ways can be used in school spring can be used on double SA job boards can be used something to pass out at state meetings can be used through multiple purposes that is what this intends to do the look of this is pretty traditional in terms of how things look the depth of it is pretty traditional you already know the edit on the last paragraph of the last page which will now say salary range anticipated 25135 why don't you take a minute just to read through this on your own and we'll talk about it in two minutes I was actually thinking you could put a sentence in here about Vermont consistently being ranked one or two best places to live in the country or something like that Becky if you've got the language just put it right in there okay I'll send that to you yeah I should have brought my business cards do you have my email address there it is okay I'll send that to you so I now know you're hyphen free so I can lose the hyphens that's right and that paragraph about my pillar it was borrowed liberally from your municipal website it was well written I just took it quite frankly this has been informed a bit by I think your administrative team some of this has come from their input which I greatly appreciate but it's an important document and I want you to feel like your peace with it and go with it and edit it as you need to another example of where you're in charge I think it sounds great yeah it sounds great for the Roxbury folks we've talked a lot about Montpelier and have one line on Roxbury should we maybe add another line or two describing that community a little more Wikipedia was a little light on Roxbury we're a small rural community without going into the cliches of small town life we're not going to say a lot more than what's already there so I don't think it's totally necessary to I don't feel like we're being diminished by any stretch by having less attention devoted to us word-wise I did I kind of wondered what local faith and wisdom community you know like sure the first thing that comes to mind is like a Christian church but was that something that you found right off the website it caught my attention too no I'm sorry Montpelier website oh it's on the Montpelier municipal website yep home page but we can we can lose that yeah I'm just this is your document I don't really know the church has a very small congregation single community would faith communities do it even that I think lose it I think Montpelier has a more active like faith community that wasn't intended for Roxbury it was intended for the district I think of you as one district oh residents of the district oh okay but if that's not clear let's make it clear for some reason I didn't catch that that next sentence after the 700 residents was not about Roxbury new paragraph or should we be more explicit about district or what do you think then you know what you could do is you had the first sentence then you say Roxbury is a town with about 700 residents and then your next sentence starts with Montpelier is a small town with big city amenities or the capital district has big city amenities or something like that so move Roxbury up to after 8000 people yep yep contextually that makes sense yep then Montpelier is a small town with big city give us enough time and we'll just just crunch this it's good it's alright this is more for us so not lost to anybody we were the first school in the country to have a Black Lives Matter flag yes we were I personally wear that as I'm proud of what we did and I think somehow reflecting the fact that this board this community is willing to embrace leadership of really stepping ahead and you know we want candidates to apply who are ready to do something big and bold and exciting not necessarily as far as racial issues but anything so I think there's we could maybe get a theme of telling candidates that we are very open people have exceptional ideas and you may want to consider that the concluding sentence the very first paragraph the Montpelier Roxbury school district is a newly consolidated school district I feel like that needs to be expanded upon and the theme that you're going with new ideas and new leadership and let's do big new things and by even mentioning the Black Lives Matter that's an example of like we're open to really interesting ideas that help an educational experience that is exceptional that's what we're that's what this is really about we're want to hire someone who's going to give kids an exceptional education experience at that price and so then but somewhere also in here I wonder given some of the emails we've got from parents if we should say we would we want applicants who value diversity and I don't know if we can be as bold to say this but just maybe be blunt we are a pretty dominant white community and we need what? we're too white okay we could say that too but by saying something about because we're a dominant predominantly white community we really would value applicants who understand the importance of bringing diversity to all aspects of the educational experience like we you know I'm not going to fall in my sword over this but somehow mentioning an applicant would really understand the need to bring lessons about diversity so we do have number two that says has sensitivity to issues of diversity equity inclusion and cultural competence this means a little briefing up I was going to relate about it sensitivity but it's kind of sensitivity means you've got a problem there's a problem in the school oh I understand that's what it means to me there's is committed to that's what I'm saying leadership is what we want sensitivity is more reactive to me and I think we've heard from constituent people about that this is important yeah I'm not saying it a line while you're maybe explaining on it and saying this the district has been it's committed to but also to say other things too I mean we've been out front in personalized learning we've been out front in proficiency based learning and we're the first district in the country to fly the Black Lives Matter flying maybe throw a sentence like that in so it kind of gives a little energy that we're we're on the cutting edge of some things and really we want a leader who's going to help develop those ideas which we didn't always have like some of the environmental initiatives we had talked about on the Montpelier board never came to fruition like moving to non diesel buses like we were you know we would do that in a second if we could make that happen and the community would love it so anyway thoughts back to Michael so those are great ideas and I want to incorporate them I don't know how we're at this second would this be a good time for a flying board work session to just punch this up and mark it up and edit it would you want me to sort of take your remarks and try to fold them in here you've got the language down better than I do around this important stuff to you so I don't want to compromise in any way what you want let's take five minutes and put because I really think even though we talked a lot I think it's like a sentence or two one page document do you while you're thinking about a sentence do you think it makes sense to have four schools with the discussion about Montpelier Roxbury do you think it's worth saying something like the district encompasses the city of Montpelier in town of Roxbury and has four schools just to kind of make it obvious that we are talking about two sure it's a hard thing I was thinking as I read this that's a hard thing to explain so if you to me if you are in Vermont you'll get it if you're out of state it's an anomaly Vermont is in general and this is another anomaly you're going to have to do some work to figure that out because you won't get Roxbury in Montpelier right I mean I was trying to figure out how to say that I'm not sure how you do but maybe that's a good thought consider includes the town of Montpelier and the city of Montpelier what are we outside the city is this and the town is this my assumption would be the town is part of the city and Google map shows them here and there that's what I'm saying so this is five minutes of board right time is that where we are? yeah I've got wonderful whatever you've got I trust you it seems going to be great do it verbally now do you want to try to capture I don't know what to do do you've got if it's legible we're working document Jim the point of the activity is to have the board actually adopt that so yeah there's no doubt there's no doubt about mine to include information about Roxbury in the town website probably appropriate for that before I leave tonight I can send it to you right now that works how would you would you like a summary of what we're changing and a motion to accept if there's another copy of this I might be able to write it out more cleanly because I think mine is a bit of a mess would every board member benefit from a copy of that right now just to work for them or how do you do a clean copy I can write it it works there perfect it's contagious I wish you luck it says cover Tina is like Typhoid Mary oh no back up the changes that the board is making is first removing the hybrids secondly in the second paragraph explaining that the district encompasses the city of Montpelier and the town of Roxbury and has the four schools after Montpelier High School they're going to put a hyphen and state that is the first school in the nation in that following paragraph we're just going to strike the local faith and wisdom communities and then the successful candidate number two instead of saying sensitivity to they want to change that to committed to advancing the issues and then on the back page where you have information about the district and the town here about Montpelier and the town here there will also be information about Roxbury here with a limited to Roxbury next slide that sounds great I need your copy of this I need this back to you do you want me to see the copy before you approve it no we're done I want to make a mention to approve the vacancy announcement vacancy announcement so I'll make a motion to approve the vacancy announcement vacancy announcement as modified by the board second all those in favor how many folks have had the opportunity to work with the school spring platform anyone of course it's really quite an impressive platform and it was actually developed here in the state by a former school superintendent and it's now the national standard quite frankly for school vacancies it is it's absolutely reasonable to work with when you're receiving the information we're only going to be dealing with complete applications and on school spring complete applications means the following submissions it means resume it means cover letter it means the opportunity for transcript background review as well as to two essay questions that they would respond to of your choice so that's what I like to do next is to talk with you about what those questions might look like what sort of information you want the screening committee to consume and obviously once you get the applications of the finalist you'll also get a chance to see the finalist answers to those questions as well so whole bunch of other questions could ask of the candidates there'll be 15 questions during the first level of interviews by the screen there'll be probably the same number by you of the candidates when you see them as well but these will be a chance to have them commit in writing their answers to a couple of essay questions so let me just pass out some examples and just see if any of these tickle your fancy with the exception of the last one number 18 I guess it is these are all ones that have been used by other boards so just to reinvent their will necessarily what other boards they have trust out there I'll give you two minutes to read this as well and see how these fit your needs now tonight I mean the general assembly not anytime soon yeah but I would say the snow stops although definitely maybe okay so has anyone added a question excuse me no can you work with what's there can you say two is that what you're aiming for two questions you're allowed up to two you can choose zero one or two that's the range of essay questions that schools can't allow school oh I just thought of something oh no oh no well actually we could put it in the question if we wanted to to make a note that unlike most communities in Vermont our school population is growing oh that's something that would be a nice thing although that's something you could tell candidate we don't need to I think that we can't control it we can't control that five years from now that may not be okay never mind I just thought of it well just just so we could start the discussion I love 16 and 18 we'll tell you what, the way to approach it why don't right now you circle three alike okay and we'll see if we can find two that seem to jump out of this let's run the table shall we who's a fan of number one how many number ones do we have out there okay who likes number two okay who likes three alright who likes four who hates five how about six I like six I got one for six, good who likes seven how about eight one down for eight nine it's a good out of state question but I don't like it eleven twelve one, two, three three it is thirteen I said thirteen but changing the small, crossing off the small one just unique so we got three for that okay fourteen fifteen you're good to vote I like sixteen seventeen seventeen eighteen almost a home run there four of course the bunch four of you at eighteen we just use eighteen for sure as one of them okay I want to say that I'm thinking about this as a general as I think about general assessments since it's a general question you want it to be open enough that you can see how somebody's going to answer it in other words open enough so that you find out what they're really thinking so enough open-ended opportunities to learn so we're lobbying for one over another as you said that were you pushing for no I'm just saying that as I looked at the questions that's what I wanted on any very specific I might ask those if I was on the steering committee but for an essay I want to leave it open so that you can either wow me or hang yourself tell you what we're going to focus right now on twelve thirteen and sixteen okay twelve thirteen sixteen pick the two you like the most twelve thirteen sixteen and for thirteen we're open to maybe striking everything out of challenging I would say unique should stay but small and rural maybe change maybe leave out and do we just does that convey we're challenging I think what they attract to our job is comparatively we're not challenging I don't like thirteen so I can't speak to it I read that as how do you create a community of learners that is both education inclusive education so the small I agree small don't you want to say because then it just makes it sound like it's challenging that's true so no comments in their grant inclusive and challenging that's the end yes let's make that how thirteen reads you vote for two of these twelve thirteen and sixteen good to go how many like twelve one two three four you like thirteen we're going to twice you tell me who to vote three four thirteen and sixteen one two three so have we settled then on question twelve question eighteen twelve is nice to open any edits to those two questions okay I was hoping to get a question that has a word leadership and so I was trying to think say well I'm wondering if here's my thought on that but that's a good question I'm okay with that but that's what I'm looking for and maybe I wait and see if that's what I get that's kind of my thought too I think both these questions invite someone to talk about their leadership if they don't that should tell us something yep got it okay so I'm going to embed these two questions I'm going to read the process great feel we need to approve those it's up to you whether you want to formally let's do it just no reason not to motion to approve those two questions we approve question thirteen and sixteen sorry twelve and eighteen I'm sorry I can't even read twelve and eighteen in our first discussion all is in favor I suppose twelve and thirteen or twelve and eighteen I did I did well so let's have a conversation now about your budget for this body of work and budgets for this stuff are just you know challenging because the budget is different some searches you've got a linseed candidate some searches you don't and that affects cost some boards like to just you know shoot for the moon with all kinds of advertising some like to sort of make it a bit more narrow and a bit more cost efficient what I've captured here are just costs that I think frankly is a responsible budget with the exception of I just don't know is it Q and R CQ CQ CQ strategies so that would be a cost that would either be separate from this budget or you'd want to fold into this budget I think it's the two ways to approach it I think it ought to be separate the DSBA contract is a fixed cost mileage is an estimate office expenses would be reimbursement to your central office if there was a need to reimburse for these kinds of expenses advertising this is a big number and if you don't care to go hog wild with major city newspapers it won't cost as much this is a rough back of the envelope estimate of a whole lot of in my mind excess advertising you're going to want some food probably for the community form when your citizens come out you're going to want to pay for your finalist dinners and so forth when they're here that final day perhaps travel support for finalists that's you know maybe transition costs if there's time ideally for there to be transition between your outgoing superintendent incoming superintendent July 1st and then some miscellaneous costs for to round it up to 13-5 so I think it's a responsible number Frankie I don't think you're going to spend this much on these expenses but I think instead of having to come back to you for repeated dips in the bucket I wanted to give you a responsible number to work with so that is my recommendation and I would also just tag in here that this is a superintendent search for the new district the new merged district in my mind this seems like an appropriate use of the merger grant money to find a superintendent for the new merged district so my intention would be to use that grant for these costs and potentially seek these values so you don't need to make a version on that I just wanted to make sure that I was seeing the head shakes so it's okay when I use that bucket that you're fine with it that's very sensible and I think this budget makes a lot of sense as well that is probably something you might want to make a motion on yeah I think so so I move we approve 13-5 expenses for the search process and I'll second that discussion all in favor? opposed so let's play the contingency game here if I'm wrong if somehow expenses look like they're going to exceed 13-5 is it reasonable to ask the board to reassemble in order to further approve as explained thank you and may I ask you because I think the advertising number is high and that's okay to put it in this budget but besides school spring I'm not sure I agree with you advertising in papers has not gotten good results in searches I know of is there any place else you would recommend putting an ad? at cost I have a number of places at no cost yeah I know I'm saying at cost but at cost I do not I agree yeah I think especially today I think most people go to free or low cost I think the days are coming to the nearer times on Sunday if I need a job yesterday's news yeah and I'm approaching this budget by the way with the total budget in mind I know you're not expecting me to hold to each individual line item but the first one's fixed for certain but you know mileage might be 651 for all I know I mean it may be that okay next I think the process will be the formal charge that you want to set for the screenings meeting and within that charge you want to talk about the mission your expectations of the mission the nature of the membership as well as the process that you want the committee to work through so let's let's go there next thank you sir good call you're paying attention and you're doing fine you're holding up over there thanks for being here so just to prove that I am flexible and that I am a learner and that I can't adapt I'm going to lose the hyphen in the head or there I can do that for you that's gone just like that out of here that mistake is going to be something that yeah never so I'm not going to insult you but it might be helpful if I just maybe read with you on this I'm Tony Roxbury board of school directors charges a superintendent candidate screening committee with the express authority to guide the initial superintendent screening process screening process will begin as defined by the board search process calendar it will conclude upon its recommending finalist candidates to the board parenthetically or concluding that none shall be as part of this screening process screening committee shall work with the VSBA consultant to consult to complete the screening process screening committee shall strive to present up to three licensed or licensed poll candidates to the board whoops let's lose that meet the search criteria established by the board screening committee shall provide information on the finalist candidates experience specific skills and related background details to the board following that's redundant too isn't it not sorry to the board finds completion the initial screening process which will add vote on or otherwise rank the finalist the board retains authority to hire the new superintendent so it's meant to give clarity to the members of your screening committee in terms of what their job is what their job isn't and what the goal of their work is keep going it is customary not to have umpteen thousand people on a screening committee because it just doesn't work well with too many people but it does work better if you can have a cross section of the organization in school community we'll select it back on the committee so this is negotiable but my suggestion too is dividing up perhaps a ten member screening committee would be a couple of board members one of whom gets named by you as the chair one of the two board members gets named by you as the chair of the screening committee and the other board member gets named by you as the secretary to the screening committee so there's a direct link back to the board for reporting updates whatever communication you're expecting to hear back from the committee there's a direct pipeline of communication that way two slots are office administrators because those are the cats that work most directly most frequently most you know daily with your superintendent one building administrator two teachers one support staff member and two individuals from the parent community stakeholder group so how does ten feel let's start there it feels viscerally good that I Mike McCraith walked through this we may want to output a few for I think generally the purposes of inclusion I think we have at least for instance I think we have at least two building administrators in fact I think we've got maybe five volunteers who might be at the committee but I think we can narrow it down to two I think getting it down to one would be hard in fact getting it down to two might even be difficult I know I think we can do two I think there are I think it would be difficult with one just give us two central office administrators and a building administrator that I who was in central office no I was following those two yep I think that's good Mary okay Mary right the one who still left is Mary right that's what I thought we were that's the other one vacant okay then erase that I think it would be grand Mary essentially yeah I mean grand Mary and then one at a principle yeah I think that's that's plenty and to be honest if there was a struggle that both principles felt so strongly then there's four of us and this is actually five right so there's five and this is giving three seats as long as three is good I think we can okay sorry I was mistreating I think we're fine there I do think we probably want three parents community members both for inclusion and also I was thinking one from Roxbury and two from Maltillera I was having a hard time thinking about the small numbers and like where we're going to fit in we're a small percentage but you want this and that it would make sense I think to have three parent community members to allow some presence for sure may I suggest this I think three is a fine number go with it I don't know that I preclude here what that distribution needs to be I think that when you make the decisions down the road about who these individuals are going to be you're going to figure out those weights and what makes the most sense one thing that's kind of a this group is still yet to be determined in collective bargaining units but if Montpelier obviously is the larger group Montpelier has three bargaining units a teacher an IA specific and an AFSCME which is 10 custodians so I know a lot of times we have one for each one of the bargaining units this we have teachers and support staff which typically supports that it's for other contract which includes everybody but we have two support staff in essence we have instructional assistants and we have AFSCME so I don't know if it's worth saying one teacher rep one IA rep one AFSCME rep I'm okay with it like this but I don't know if that creates any problems I'm not on a lot of the committees so I don't know how they've been specifically running what approach could be that I suspect each of those three labor groups has some sort of leadership structure it might as the board reaches out to various, I guess these are groups principals, teachers maybe reach out to the three union leaders and just say you know can you recommend representative, representing labor I would say that those two other I wouldn't want to do less than two teachers so I would say use that approach to the two other bargaining units and ask them to provide one person do you think that would well and really it's not actually two bargaining two support staff got it got it got it maybe you would be three because there's a one teachers well I was debating the issue of two teachers it's just a hard when you have so few people it's hard to figure out what to do with Roxbury to be honest and I didn't necessarily mean that there would be a Roxbury representative I just meant that there's still those bargaining units involved and Roxbury is one of those because part of the Washington South only have two bargaining units so you could do two teacher reps and one support staff rep to be determined by the leadership of AFSME slash that's what I do the other do we want a student on the committee I would say yes I would say yes too but it does add another person I would be a round up to 12 I was thinking of setting a limit of 12 I think we need a limit I think we need a limit yeah definitely then we can maybe we can call these numbers guidelines 12 and absolute if both Mary and Grant decide they don't need to do it we can add another teacher or you know there might be some people that wear two hats too I also think it will be very important to have established the calendar and publish it so if you're going to be on this committee you have to be able to show up and that won't be easy on this timeline so that's a good point I think you know there could be some self elimination interest on that so are we at 12 we're at 12 thank you for not going beyond 12 I really appreciate that because it just even 12 is going to be unwieldy yep okay and if we move off that section as a board you'll figure out which two members make the most sense to crossover onto the screening committee and those two folks will be assigned these two roles I'm game I said I'm game great thank you for that process screening committee is authorized to work within the committee what what's up with that to work within the board I'll check that in a second with the advice and direction of the consultant to receive, prepare, distribute and review materials use electronic resources and to conduct first round semi-finals candidate interviews screening committee members shall agree to keep all applicant information confidential the board will be responsible to identify finalists it will interview so that becomes your ball to call when you want to call that ball and I'll talk to you down the road about that but the big idea here is that this stays where it needs to and the reason that's important is that this can be premature disclosure of folks before they reach the final stage can be really career debilitating events for folks so it's just respectful professional gesture screening committee chair is liaison between screening committee and the board screening committee members shall be, meeting shall be warned and open to the public however the screening committee shall review candidate materials and deliver an executive session compliant from out open meeting law requirements screening committee secretary shall keep meeting minutes and send a copy to the board clerk within five days on each screening committee meeting I will clamp the language on that but do you think the breadth of this is sufficient to inform the committee and is translatable to them about your interest and how it is that they'll be doing business obviously I'll be there for one of those sessions I'll be working hand in hand with the committee chair in terms of facilitating the meetings and keeping things on track but in terms of the charge, the charge is an important charge because as we said earlier this is where a lot of heavy lifting gets done early on your behalf and since it's being done on your behalf you get to decide how it's being done Becky how do you feel about it? You've got to make sure our background here is a sort of field I think this is good, this is a good structure Yeah I think so too Can I just ask how with who being warned in open meetings but yet being, everything being confidential, I mean just How is that, yeah what's your name? I guess it's probably like the process we're meeting on this day we're going in There'll be different functions for the different meetings, for example the first meeting is going to have nothing whatsoever to do with the applicants the person is going to be getting organized getting the ground rules down, making sure folks don't understand how to do school spring going through confidentiality requirements understanding state law the second meeting will be an open meeting which questions, interview questions get defined and so forth I imagine the third meeting will start in open session and pretty quickly move into the next session as that will be when we get after the screening of the paper people start to make some evaluations, assessments decisions about who to interview those interviews for the next session would be in executive session the reference checks is in executive session activity so those are examples of how we would differentiate the activities of the meetings about what falls under the open meeting law requirements for executive session or open session That's good How we doing? Good so far? Do me a favor set that aside for now I'm going to come back and visit this again in a second but before you adopt that let's talk about exactly what Tina was talking about and that is the calendar because it's all tied into this and now you can pass this one This is where the rubber hits the road This is where it gets real This is where there is not a whole lot of flex My experience is that screening committees feel abused if you work them on Saturdays and Sundays so we're going to try to avoid Saturdays and Sunday meetings with the screening committee and try to confide it to the work week but some noteworthy dates are some board meetings that we want to avoid those nights because you've got some membership on your boards that are serving on the screening committee so that would be as I understand it, May 2nd, May 16th and June 6th Sounds familiar? There's upcoming meeting dates? You got Memorial Day as a holiday on the 28th of May and you've got your graduation on Friday, June 16th or 15th, rather My interest for you on your behalf is to get this done before graduation That's really where my head is on this So again, it's a matter of reverse engineering working backwards from that sort of end date and then rolling things forward So here's the timeline as I would see it tomorrow based on what you've done tonight and thank you for what you've done tonight We'll be in advertising tomorrow We get the recruitment activity started and we work between Heather and the VSBA office to just hit the ground running with materials tomorrow I would hope that by May 4th not later than May 4th you would be able to convene It would be a special meeting I imagine unless you could do it on May 2nd working into your agenda the night or not and name names to the screening committee So that means you've got to have some way of doing that and we want to talk about what that looks like You want to have some process by which you're putting the word out that by the way we've got this thing called the screening committee by the way it's going to meet on these days by the way we'd love to have you consider sitting on it and by the way, here's how you let us know you're interested in doing just that So that would be May 4th operational deadline for you naming the committee The committee would be named by then and the first meeting would be on Monday, May 7th I would imagine well I would I would prefer and I think a lot of folks might prefer this to be a late afternoon meeting I don't know what time school will get out 3 o'clock, 3.30 What time is your 3 o'clock So trial from Roxbury we've got parents, we've got working folks we've got a whole bunch of folks maybe start like at 4 o'clock 4 o'clock meetings Roxbury ends at 2.30 2.30 So maybe even 3.30 could work then So late afternoon is what I'm thinking for most screening committee meetings and that ought to be clear too Tina, in terms of what folks check their calendars and availability not just for days but for times as well Thursday May 10th screening committee would meet a second time that week and that's the meeting at which they develop interview questions and talk with the interview protocols and just get their ducks in a row because at the end of that next weekend May 13th which is 3 weekends from now is when the applications would close I'd love to give you 4 weeks but frankly I can't, we're going to work with 3 and that's what we've got to work with and folks know it what's most important, I'll bet Becky can back this up is for working folks out there it's like the file applications on the weekends for the most part, that's when they can get after that's a lot of work that's when they can organize their thinking and organize their time and I like the fact that we can get 3 weekends in before May 13th on the 14th, the day after is when the screening committee meets the third time and they're going to be screening the completed applications start to make some assessments determine what semi-finalists they want to meet not just paper people but flesh and blood real people we then get those folks in here the following week for interviews before the screening committee screening committee is going to take roughly a week until about May 29th to do its due diligence on reference checks with those folks and make the final decision on the 29th who they're going to be forwarding to you you come out of temporary hibernation on this project and you plug right back in again and it's going to be your time then to deal with the finalists that are remanded to you by the screening committee what that means is you'd want to have a meeting probably the week of the 28th the holiday week in which you're doing your final planning around your big night with the finalists we'll you and I would sit down we'll figure out a schedule we'll figure out a protocol, we'll figure out how you want the committee forums run you're going to figure out who's going to play host and hostess to the various finalists as we're showing them the district how we're getting dinner reservations made all those little details we'll be taking care of that night so that the following week we get after your interviews of the finalists not a whole lot of time for a wiggle room here but we can do it if you can get it advertised tomorrow I think that's a key part of it it takes no time to put it up on the school screen exactly we have our application deadline of May 13th is there anything happening in essentially New England school-wise, are there any VSBA meetings are there any superintendent meetings is there anything brewing in the education calendar? on that weekend? no, just between now and the 13th that we should target to get our vacancy announcement too yes, and the VSA office has that calendar the VSBA office has that calendar and yeah so they're not on here right now so we'll have our announcement at for example I have an academy date with a handful of aspiring superintendents meeting the first week of May good so that's an example one of many examples in which we will absolutely have this out there in front of people yeah frankly they'll have it before then so it's tight it's tighty, it's real we're moving we're not going to spend a lot of time in between we're going to be moving along pretty quickly here what would be wicked helpful is if we could at least pinpoint what date during the week of June 4th or June 11th you want to do this a special board meeting there are two special board meetings one is the organizational meeting for the big night and the other is the big night less important to me at this minute is the special board meeting the week of the 28th but if you're ready to decide both dates that's great what's far more important to me is that I'd be ready to communicate with applicants clear your calendar on this date in case you're a finalist because that's the night you're going to have a chance and the sooner I can put that information into folks hands the happier everybody is and the more smoothly it works so we have a school board meeting scheduled for June 6th correct and I assume you've got a regular agenda that night and don't need to double up I wouldn't recommend I'd recommend dedicating your attention just to this for whatever date you set so 10 to 6 is out is what I'm here to say I think I'm out of town the first half of June well in the week of the 11th you want to be making up your mind then if we have it like as late as the June 13th that's really to turn that right maybe we will have the perfect candidate by then I don't know maybe we will so so on that day when all three candidates come it's a big day and in the evening we'll do more of a formal interview yep one at a time we'll be scheduled for 60 to 75 minutes each we'll have some time in between each one to sort of process what you just learned and heard and thought and so forth and you'll see number two and you'll see number three and then you'll be spending some time deliberating about all of that so the idea is at the end of that night we've picked or ranked our candidates unless you have good reasons not to yes unless you need more information unless you want to vet something unless you just need more time to sleep on something then yes that would be a decision point time well Jim if you were going to be here in the 6th suppose we did two deadly nights in a row and did the 7th Thursday the 7th I think the 6th I'm actually going to the 6th so 4th, 5th or any day of the 11th I prefer the 4th I just soon get it down on the 4th honestly just keep just marching it forward if we have people traveling well if they're traveling too that's a good point they're missing one long day from work rather than in the middle of the week yeah and you're going to 6th through the 8th okay I can be available I thought I'm quite able to switch my flight from the 6th now that's our annual meeting sounds like the 4th I'm here in the 4th that works for me what's also even though it's early in that window it's fine it's actually good for a couple reasons should you be able to make a decision early on like that it just gives your choice that much more time to figure out transition and separate it from contract and get into your contract and all those good things but secondly the fact that you've declared that date of the 4th you can do some advanced promotion of it even if you don't yet know who those finalists are you can certainly get the word out that there will be forums at such locations it's time to meet the candidates and so forth so that's really good news so the 4th bingo very nice I would assume you're going to want the board to meet to go over the logistics early the week of 28th then as opposed to late the week of 28th because that's not getting much time between planning the logistics and being honest it's time to meet the 28th well that's Memorial Day how about the 30th which is a Wednesday yeah because the 29th is when the screening committee likely will make their last right so do the 30th and you don't have to wait for the screening committee I mean frankly you can meet earlier the week of 28th you want to meet the week of the 8th the week of the 21st is even possible the logistics wouldn't necessarily change based on the candidates we're sort of in the Wednesday run that's why I was I mean we have a board meeting on Wednesday that's why I was thinking maybe the 30th well I'm gone again what about the 23rd but I'm there the whole week of the 21st the I'm afraid I'm jammed up 23rd, 24th I do apologize those are nights that I couldn't help you 22nd I could help you that night you wanna do that I was gonna go home and put this on I was gonna try to negotiate him to change that meeting on the 21st to the 22nd if I'm going to do this the screening committee screening committee meeting because I'm in a wedding on that weekend is there this is borders on irrational but I'll go there anyway on that meeting you have scheduled Monday for the 21st is there any chance of doing it Tuesday the 22nd or Wednesday the 23rd no yes yes I could do the 22nd with you that one that you've already got scheduled the one that you've got scheduled on the 21st can you do it the 22nd is what I'm saying and potentially we could double up on meetings that day just do the logistic planning I mean the screening committee would meet at 4 and then the board meet at 7 so let's just that's a really important question whatever date we pick whether we stick with the 21st or move to the 22nd it will depend on how many folks the screening committee chooses to interview about how long that meeting is and what time it needs to start so if you still want to hold a board meeting or what's going on that night it's a well we were thinking of scheduling our logistics meeting logistics meeting yeah thank you let's just pretend that they had 5 folks to interview that's going to easily be a 5-hour committee meeting so it just means it starts early in the day that's all we need for that group so as I'm going to want to modify this a little bit for your clarity as you figure out how you want to get the word out about screening committee opportunities about not just the days but the windows of time in which they might likely meet I think that might be further useful to focus consideration so let's brief us what we just talked about definitely June 4th is when you're senior finalists you're taking the week of the 28th off as a board and that activity about the logistics for hosting finalists and so forth is going to occur on the evening of the 22nd am I correct about that? that's the target so that would mean if the other screening committee's meeting is just starting earlier in the day and it won't start any earlier than it has to but it's going to have started as early as it needs to yeah thank you for doing that I'm happy to do it I'm happy I can do it so May 14th is the meeting and instead of May 21st we're definitely saying it's May 22nd that is correct instead of week of June 4th or June 11th it is June 4th and the 7 o'clock meeting is an organizational meeting of the board what is that meeting again? remind me the meeting in advance of when you see the finalists yeah you're going to get to that night you're going to check in on your school spring savvy skills you're going to figure out what the detailed schedule looks like for yourselves and for the candidates that day who's going to play host and host this as candidates are for June 4th for June 4th yeah it's the organization for June 4th yep we're on the same page how are we doing sports fans? we're doing good this has been very helpful I'm glad Lisa you're signed heavily over there I'm just looking at your calendar the list and define the breadth of the advertisement we basically decided school spring and some of the other free that's checked off I'm seeing strategies but I think that would be not I think most people in this public school community are familiar with school springing just as an indicator I lived in Massachusetts when I applied to the job Dr. Duice hired me for 12 years you know so I was definitely out of state when I went through that so I think school spring does a great job it was wonderful being James Fitzpatrick isn't it though? he did write by himself see Adam I'm sorry I'm not clear when they might be the community meeting so see the calendar so it'll be the same day as the interviews on vision 4 how it tends to look that day if you choose to sort of do it the traditional way is that we try to have the finalists sort of passing the night a bit so that they're not in the same place at the same time so somebody's visiting one school someone's visiting a different school restaurants or different times are staggered obviously for the interviews that night it's it's separate opportunities you're right you know community comes out and knows where to meet the candidate it tends to be rather informal it tends to be a chance to greet me and hear a few words and ask a few questions to sort of get impressions of the folks it'll be an opportunity for folks who attend the forums to just leave you some feedback for you to consider that evening when you do meet the finalists yourselves so they'll and oftentimes we got work on I was going to say often during the day there's a time that each candidate during the day community members could come in and meet the candidates too but we just haven't decided the time yet so it could happen during the day as well as the meeting at night and you know if it's three that's one set of scheduling dynamics it's two is a different set of scheduling dynamics so it's it's dependent on what sort of emerges through the process that we will work with do you need to go back to the the charge? yeah I do, thanks so the reason I just paused in the charge was for that conversation screening committees dates and times and efforts and so forth so I wouldn't mind drafting some content for you to share you'll know your pipeline you'll know how to reach your administrative group you'll know how to reach your teacher group you'll know how to reach your union you'll know how to reach your families and parents and community and so forth but what I can do is I can give you the gist of what the screening committee is all about what it is they'll be doing roughly what time of day it is they'll be meeting so that you can then fold that into your outreach to those groups is that reasonable? you know we talked about the time for all of these and you said 3.30 and I'm thinking 4 o'clock allows somebody who might work to take just a little bit of time on and come to a meeting so 4 o'clock I think is better I was saying to Mike that we I thought we had a good process for the merger committee for people that wanted to be on the merger committee you remember they wrote a letter and came to the board so I think if we open it up and there's some process like that to write a letter or something for the community for the community folks for the staff side of things of that kind of procedure needed I think we're going to have to coordinate with the various union reps and the administrative team and the administrative team and you know and hopefully CQ will help us with this I think we want to make sure that it's not just two different folks that they get a representative group on and we are in a tight timeline so we need to make sure that we're getting somebody who can commit more than just the dates but who's willing to spend the time with the outside time to get involved and to go with us through this you know fast fast process so with vacation ending tomorrow probably logical that you'd be able to sort of ramp up and get this sort of news and invitations out maybe early next week and then you're deciding on this one again is it the second either the second or we'll do this special meeting but I'm hoping we can squeeze it on the second let's just put it on the agenda and do it make ourselves do it I think people would rather stay extra time on the second I agree so if you can pump this out to your different constituents Monday-ish the 23rd that'll give folks a week plus a few days to get back to you with their letter's intent or interest or however you want to cast that I'll just throw out a little problem and that is the meeting on the second is due to be in Roxbury I don't know whether you're going to ask community to respond and the board's going to talk to them or not but we need to think about that okay we do maybe we switch maybe we go to Roxbury on the 16th or something how does Roxbury feel about that I don't think it's going to make a difference in terms of audience one way or the other so I think no one in Roxbury would feel slighted if we switch the date but we would anticipate we'd have more superior folks present on the second so it probably makes sense are you expecting to interview folks or are you expecting to make decisions based on their paper response? I don't know that's what I was asking I guess my sense is we probably want to have well I was going to say we might want to have a lot of the pre-work kind of done but the opportunity for people to come if we do if we are in a situation where we've got a bunch of letters we might want to just have 15-20 minutes to come up and introduce themselves and kind of expand on the other committees which is what we did for the merger committee not that only I'd say very limited you have 2 minutes but you know it gives you the opportunity to say something and then we would decide an open meeting not an executive session an executive session we did it fairly efficiently last time that's the only reason I'm thinking we can do it this time don't you think especially if we give it some thought beforehand right so you'd need to think if that's right what's the deadline for getting your paperwork in where they send it to where does it go what's expected within that letter is it a paragraph is it a 27 what do you want from them I think we can even start getting stuff out now just done some of the I'll give some content to draw from and you can punch it up beyond that as you need to or want to if I got that to you by Saturday morning is that reasonable Saturday morning is 11.59 a.m. is that right Saturday then we can get it out you know maybe ask people to get us something about the 27 that's quick but that'll give us a little time to review it before the meeting on the second 29 well I was going to say or the 30th so that you have it on you've given them the week I got it to you well let's say the 29 so that way by midnight that way that gives us Monday to review it so we're not because we say the 30th we'll get some folks in right I don't know what week I was in the 30th so when we committed to a 12 person screening committee but we didn't commit to the distribution so we'll decide that on the second also right I thought we decided we roughly decided but let's not we didn't commit to how many community etc I think Jim's request was three community yeah I think we do want three the question was about the teachers do we want any students it seemed like 12 is going to cover I think one student would be lovely so we said 29 is the deadline for community members to respond as well as the student the teacher representative and the support staff representative that's the deadline for well I'm assuming that the maybe this is incorrect but I'm assuming that the boards not going to decide on from a whole list of teachers that that could be an administrative team decision for the teachers and we're asking the two support staffs to give us somebody I was thinking it would be the same approach that perhaps it's an email from Jim that Heather can forward to the MEA saying would you forward two names to start on this committee oh perfect yeah I just meant we aren't spending time at the board asking the board to measure that's a good idea and the same thing with student council is it I didn't think about I would ask Mike I think we're going to customize the student council for instance we might want some of the original justice alliance and I don't know if there's overlap in the student council so some sort of I would probably work in with Mike I was going to say I'd ask Mike to do this so Mike can measure a different mic than me right we have a lot of like draft some kind of an email that Heather can send out that would address the teacher rep the support staff rep we can talk to Mike McRae about the student rep the central office and building administrators can discuss amongst themselves and then you'll decide board members so really the only thing you're going to have to sort through is getting this a bit from the community and just to leverage the opportunity is an article or story coming out at tonight's meeting is there a place that the article can direct people to learn about this where would a central repository this information to be I hesitantly say that of course could be on the website but we have a six a history of problems with that so what do we want to say do I hear facebook do I hear front porch forum actually honestly I should say that we should be able to get this up on the website this is a pretty important thing for the district in a pinch I have taken some notes on how to post stuff onto the website so if you're talking about perhaps with some version of what Mike sent you on Saturday morning and tweaking it to put it onto a document that explains what we're looking for if you once that's a final product if you send it to me I can get it posted on the school on the MPSBT website under or the school directors even though it's not really intuitive to look there it's probably the best we can do but if you're directed there would Monday be a reasonable time for folks to look for that is that what you're saying it's by Monday I think so maybe I can get it posted we can also at the same time send a notice to the Times Argus the action on the charger with do we need to approve it should we approve it I think we should we have to do that so with appropriate edits is this the charge that we're formalizing yeah we need a motion I move we adopt the charge as presented and edited with 12 being the magic number yep second by Lisa all is in favor I'm opposed and did that include the schedule or do we have to separately include the schedule it includes the schedule I will amend the schedule as well just for your consumption thank you it's a lot of work Mike I'm thrilled we're at the point we are right now because it matters I think you really did a good work tonight and I appreciate it very much there's nothing else that I think I need from you at this point I will not be a part of your process and membership to the committee but obviously I'll need to know who you've assigned to the committee and we'll figure out a way to communicate that just find a home working with when we do sit down with the screening committee for the first time so for the I'd like to clarify for the board members particularly that are not here yes you said that the representatives from the board will be on the screening committee will the board see you again yes I'll be back with you for those last two meetings okay I'll help you get organized in terms of ramping up for that night and I'll be with you that night yep I'll be a bit invisible unless you're on the screening committee but trust that I'll be working on your behalf to get her done and the board is comfortable naming two of your own to this committee as well yes okay the long story yeah I know the only one who has firmly expressed she does not want to be on it is Bridget she didn't want to I scared her off Bridget's been waiting through plenty so she decided that she could balance well folks this is exciting we're shooting for the best here I know you understand that there's no guarantees and what we're about to do we're going to give the college try and get you that next superintendent that's the grand plan here yeah now I'm excited about this process and I appreciate this great work I speak for others and I say we I don't think we'd be able to do this without this help so thank you see you