Oakland Unified School District Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the.

Welcome to the. There's an echo. OK, welcome to the August 4th special meeting on the agenda. Oh sorry, Mr Braxton. We have a roll call to establish quorum please.

Yes, on the roll call. Does somebody beside me have their mic on? It will be green light if it does. On the roll call. Is it the podium? On the roll call for attendance, Student Director Tungum. student director block on the mic please director ladder director williams director hutchinson director barry director thompson president vice president bachelor here president burlhart here board and president thank you uh translation can we have interpretation check mr sacho

Yes, we do. Moving to interpretation announcement. For today's meeting, we have two languages for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Spanish. For in-person, we have laptops. Please come see us. There's also translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom task bar. We will start with Arabic. I will lower all tennis hands. Please don't raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Ms. Abdi, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Arabic, please.

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Great. Thank you, Ms. Abdi. Check attendees to see if the hands are raised for Arabic interpretation.

Seeing no hands raised, we will not start with Arabic interpretation. Next, we'll go to Spanish. Again, please don't raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Ms. Evando, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please.

interpreters de OSD les damos la bienvenida. Esta junta se va a interpretar simultáneamente al español y al árabe. Si necesita la interpretación al español, favor de levantar la mano para indicarlo. No se activará el servicio a menos que alguien indique la necesidad. Favor de levantar la mano en este momento para indicar la necesidad de interpretación. Gracias.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Evando. Check attendees to see if any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start with any interpretation. And that concludes interpretation announcement and we'll check in later in the meeting. I turn it back to President Burkhardt. Yes, turn back to you, President Brohard.

Thank you. On today's agenda, we have a public hearing, and we're now opening the public hearing, and we'll have public comments after the presentation. So I'm now opening the public hearing for the parcel tax election, Oakland Unified School District Teacher Retention and Education Programs Replacement Act General Election, November 3rd, 2026. I believe General Counsel has a presentation.

Thank you, Madam President. This is a replacement parcel tax that's proposed before the board for Measure G-1. And it includes, of course, the same terms in terms of program for middle schools in Oakland, and as well as some contribution to salary for employees. The parcel tax was initially passed in 2016. And we're being proactive in putting this proposal forward so that any increases to the parcel tax can be included in multi-year projections. Just want to note that we do have counsel also available for technical questions or any questions related to parcel tax passage.

public comment on this item. Do we have any public comment? Any speakers?

There are no. There is one speaker Mario Capitelli.

2 minutes please.

good morning welcome back everyone uh i am here to advocate that we uh don't have another unfunded mandate uh measure g1 requires a lot of time for my department um monthly meetings an entire two-week period of meetings to review all the annual reports um and i would ask that each one of the measures moving forward ensures there is coverage for staff that is required to keep the transparency of those meetings public. I think the board staff would agree, as my team has, we need more people. And these measures require a lot of time to prepare documents, to maintain the public record. So I would ask that we ensure if this passes, that there is language in there requiring or allowing for staff to be funded to cover the meetings. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any speakers on Zoom?

If there are any speakers who would like to speak on this item, they can raise their hand on zoom. Say one more time if there are any public members on zoom who would like to speak on this item, they can raise their hand. Madam president, there are no further speakers for this item.

Thank you other board questions or comments on this item. Director Thompson.

Yes, Mister Capitelli could you please assist me because I'm wondering about any particulars in terms of having the needed staff that you need in order to for the G one committee to actually function correctly so can you elaborate on that just a little bit.

not sure i understand the question you're asking like how much staff time is required yes that's exactly it so for an individual meeting for instance that takes place for say two hours if you sort of factor out the technology getting everything set up getting everything checked so every two hour meeting requires an additional hour um for instance if we're talking about the last um The last month of time, we just did a technological upgrade that we are potentially having some small issues with today. But that took from my staff... probably 12 days for two of us, so 24 days total, just to ensure that the technology that runs all of our meetings was upgraded and working. So you factor that out over a year for every single meeting, you factor in that Measure G holds, I think it's two weeks of hearings for their annual reports. Each one of those meetings, I believe, is four hours. All of these measures start to add up. You factor in the fact that even in this meeting right now, we're talking about a G1 issue. There's a lot of time that it takes. to ensure that there's transparency, that there's a public record. And, you know, there's G1, there's G, there's Measure H. All of these things require a lot of time from our staff and the board staff to prepare all the documents. And all we're asking is that You know, over the years, these things have been added onto our workload. You know, when I started, we had two board meetings a month run by a state administrator. So those meetings were pretty short. You know, you factored on a couple of committees, that's fine. You factor on one measure, okay. And then it's a second measure and a third measure. And my team's never had more staffing. I don't believe the board office really has either. But at some point, you know the the the stretch expectation has become the norm expectation and You know, it's just too many hours. It's too many nights. It's too many Too much time and we need more people in order to cover it So that's a bit of a breakdown but I provided this all in the past. There's documentation about the increase in meetings Presentations have been made powerpoints all those things. So it's all in the record Any further questions? No, thank you

yeah i just wanted to know if someone could walk me through process and uh rationale because i spoke to several g1 commission members and they didn't know that this was on the agenda and so just wanted to know to what extent they were called on to collaborate or partner in the process And one of the reasons why I think that's important beyond philosophically it just being, you know, good ideas, being able to set up to be great ideas when we're on a process. Beyond that, I think that I'm wondering about the viability of this being on the ballot this year particularly I don't know how many of you supported measure E but it was so unfortunate to me that it did not pass this year and so to me the what I'm seeing in polling and hearing from neighbors is that this isn't the year for something like this and so going through process to me would be one way of shoring up an effort like this for success, so just wanting to know what you learned in that process and with whom you collaborated with.

great question director barry questions and i'll start with the viability question which is one that we we can never really know um how you know um viable something is when it is placed on the ballot for sure uh but we we do know that this parcel tax includes investments for both charter schools and district schools in terms of the middle school investment and that is why it's important to be proactive now to bring this forward and if it doesn't which we're hopeful that it will. We have a high passage rate. There would be a second election that this is possible to bring forward, but to wait would mean a loss of $12 million annually. That is currently coming from Measure G-1.

Can you explain the loss, the $12 million annual loss?

Sure, because this is an existing parcel tax that passed in 2016, and there's $12 million of revenue currently that comes to the district and supports middle schools, both charter school and district. And then there's a portion that offsets salary. It's for employee retention. So because it's an existing parcel, if it is not replaced or renewed or extended, then that revenue would no longer be available to the district.

But there is an opportunity to do that in 2028.

There is an opportunity to bring this forward in 2028. yes and then on folks you collaborated on the g1 commission what did you learn there there there has not been engagement with the g1 commission at this juncture um there will be future conversations with the commission uh director i'm sorry vice president bachelor

I just wanted to follow up on something that Director Berry mentioned, and that is, and I think you responded and said, yes, it can be brought up in 2028. Am I correct in assuming that? It could. Is that what was said? I'm sorry.

It could be brought up in 2028 and at that point when the district and the charter schools are doing their multi-year projections, it would essentially be a question mark as to whether these dollars would be here by bringing it forward now. And having the election occurred in November, then the district and the charter schools can make plans based on that. And we'd also, we're also going into negotiations and a portion of this offsets salary increases.

Am I correct in assuming that we have used part of G-1 in order to help balance the budget?

No, G-1 has a specific use. A percentage, I believe it's 60, goes to middle schools. Middle school arts programs, specific elective programs, and then the other percentage goes towards salary increases. And so that salary increase portion has been offsetting since it passed in 2016 and a salary increase was given to all employees. And that the measure did originally evolve with engagement with labor partners who originally drafted this language.

So just in order to make sure that everything is plain and understandable, am I correct in assuming we have not, I mean as a board, making decisions about G-1, we have not violated any of the prescribed meanings for passing G-1?

There has not, that has not been brought forward that I'm aware of at all. Okay. They have, we have, I think you're a part of the G1 Commission. Yes, I am. I support liaison. We have a staff liaison person. They meet regularly and review school plans, all of the middle school plans and approve them.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Mm-hmm.

President Batchelor?

thank you for nearly a decade measure g1 has provided locally controlled funds that have helped oakland unified retain school site educators expand and expand programs for middle school students through arts music world languages and programs that create safer more engaging learning environments This funding is scheduled to expire in 2029. Without a replacement of the measure, Oakland students will lose, as was just stated, millions of dollars each year dedicated to local funding. Losing these resources would make it even more difficult to recruit and retain excellent educators in one of the nation's most expensive housing markets and would threaten the programs that help our middle school students succeed. This measure replaces, not overlaps, with the existing G-1 measure in July, 2029. It continues the same core investments that Oakland voters have supported in the past, educator compensation, middle school enrichment, and student success, all things I've been hearing from my community that are important. Just as importantly, every dollar raised stays local and cannot be redirected by the state or for other purposes. The measure includes strong taxpayer protections, including annual independent fiscal audits, oversight of an independent citizen's oversight commission, and exemptions for qualifying seniors and eligible SSI and SSDI recipients. Excellent schools depend on excellent educators. Students deserve access to arts, music, and world languages and safety, welcoming schools where they can thrive. This will help us continue to make those investments in our middle schools. i will also say i think it's extremely important because of the challenge that measure e had that we have this on the ballot this year so we can make sure if it's not successful we have yet another try at this i think it's also going to be really important if we do put this on the ballot that every single one of us on this dais supports this measure goes out and talks to folks about this measure because again every single one of our middle school students deserves driving schools thank you.

Yes I just want to clarify so that as we go into the vote I'm. We're on the same page so today's vote is not about whether there be as a board would agree on a renewal of g one because there is still an opportunity to do that for twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty eight correct so this is just about whether we're going to put it on the ballot for this year. Thank you. And the second question, because Director Batchelor mentioned exemptions, I noticed that the very low income Section 8 was dropped as an exemption and just wanted to know what the rationale was for that, particularly for how that would impact families in District 5.

Madam President, I see Aaron Silva is on council for the district.

Hello, thank you for the question. Thank you board members. Yeah, I'm Aaron Silva with the law firm Olsen Remshow. We assisted Ms. Lindsay with the drafting of the measure.

You lost your audio.

You're right.

We can hear you now.

Can you hear me now? Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the question. So the reason for the change in the exemptions from what was provided for energy 1 was to better align the measure with requirements under state law. So the exemptions that a school district parcel tax is allowed to provide for under state law are specified in the government code. And those exemptions apply are specific to the ones that are reflected in the measure. So a person 65 years of age or older, persons receiving SSI regardless of age, and then persons receiving SSDI whose yearly income does not exceed 250% of federal poverty guidelines. That's prescribed in the state statute. Your more recently enacted parcel tax measure H also has those same exemptions that align with state law. So that was the reason for the change.

Is that to say that having the very low income Section 8 exemption is prohibited by the code?

You know, it's a little unclear under existing law the extent to which school districts are permitted to depart from what's been prescribed in the state law. I don't think there's been definitive case law on that. So I'm not going to tell you that Measure G-1 is somehow out of compliance with state law. But just in terms of better aligning The states are the districts taxing practices with state law. We just thought it was prudent for you to sort of tighten up those exemptions and just sort of track state law more closely. I think it just positions the district better in terms of the defensibility of the parcel tax.

Thank you. Just to close, I agree with everything that Vice President Batchelor said, and I think some of the questions I'm raising are around the things that would come up in detail that I think, again, if addressed, where in the process you're building buy-in would set up a measure like this for success. So I just wanted to...

i just um wanted to make sure that as the board is deliberating regarding this matter i want to make sure that we are aware of the specific achievements that our middle schoolers have made this year you will have a chance to hear that in more detail at a future board meeting but our middle schoolers have made significant growth academically and it's because of the support of past funding that has been able to enhance the opportunities for our students with specialized courses support for students who need additional support so this is something as you consider this I wanted to think about the consistency of the achievement of our students and this is what I'm very much focused on is making sure our students are on track as they articulate to high school and that's something we're monitoring very very closely So keep that in mind as you think about this opportunity to work with the community to support our students' success. The funding has been maximized by our leadership principals and our network superintendent to really along with other resources that we've been able to partner with with salesforce around counseling etc which has really made a difference and for the first time we're seeing some significant readiness of our students who are moving to high school so just wanted to make note of that and put that on the record student directors

I also support G1, and I think, again, seeing the gains that have been made in middle school, I think the importance of music and arts in our schools is critical to our students. I think we have amazing music and arts programs in our middle schools. We have some real legendary teachers, and the experiences that many of our middle school students have had as a result of this, I think, have significantly affected, impacted their moving on to high school. Agree with direct with Vice President bachelor that once that if we do pass this we really need to go out as a whole board and build for this That's phone banking knocking on doors doing whatever it takes to get this passed I agree. It's a difficult year to do this But I think again if we wait until 2028 and it doesn't pass then we lose that funding completely and I think that would be a devastating to our middle schools. Again, our middle schools have made huge growth in math and in reading and language arts. Again, this is being able to offer additional support to our students who need it. Our sports programs in middle schools have really grown as a result of G1. So again, there are many experiences, again, that keep our students in Oakland Unified School District schools for high school based on their middle school experiences. So again, I fully support this. I believe we have no other board comments. I believe Ms. Asada is online.

Yes, Madam President.

Two minutes.

Yes, I just took a little time to call the city clerk's office to inquire about the costs that would be your responsibility in putting this item on the agenda. And they told me this would be a cost that you would have to pay to Alameda County. And that's $600,000. So I came in late. Has there been a discussion on where, if it's not $600,000, what is it that you have to pay to put this item on the ballot? And what is the source of funding for that? Somebody has had to determine that. And I really regret that you voted to support Measure E. And I asked you to look into some of the misrepresentation that was going on with Measure E. And it failed because of that misrepresentation from the city and the unions. And so how are you going to justify if somebody comes to you to say you had irresponsibility in supporting Measure E, why do we think you can be responsible in bringing forth a ballot measure at this time? There are organizations who have taken it upon themselves when ballot measures comes up, they're going to thoroughly review the measures. And this constant bickering with the board, I can tell you people always talk about how you guys can't financially be effective or responsible because you can't work well with each other. And so there's a lot of challenges about people believing in the board capacity to be fiscally, to create fiscal sustainability, and that has to be dealt with as well. So, and the fact that you bring this up at this point with very little input from the public or the community or the parents, most people don't even know you're meeting today. I just, it looks like a sneak attack and it doesn't look good. I just hope that in the future we have a more open, transparent process. This is not transparency at its best level. I can't see my time, so I'm hoping my time is within your two minutes. Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Mrs. Sodom. With that, the public hearing is closed. Is there a motion to adopt? To approve, sorry.

So moved.

Seconded. We have a roll call on the vote, please. Okay.

On the roll call to adopt the resolution as specified, calling a parcel tax selection for replacement of Measure G-1 on November 3rd, 2026. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. We're pausing for the... Oh, okay. Sorry. But student directors, Tunga?

I'm still present.

You said what? Staying?

Present. I'm here.

Yes, no, or abstain.

Abstain.

Thank you. Director Block?

I vote yes.

Okay, thank you. director williams yes sir and i vote yes all right director lauder yes director hutchinson absent okay director barry abstain director thompson yes vice president bachelor yes present or yes motion to adopt a resolution to prove matter will go. For putting on the belt. 2026. That we're going to take a. 15 minute recess. Right.

Thank you.

I'm excited. I'm welcoming back the governing board this week. I've been missing their energy all summer. And we're coordinating on Friday. They told me they were available, but I'm confirming with Max and Mariana that they'll be able to meet with them on Friday to do a check-in and hand-off. They've already talked a little bit before, but as a more official, they're actually onboarded. And I'm going to set up a series of past alumni of student directors, because we still have that network, so that they can meet with them as well. Yes, I do. I do. I think Raquel and Sandra already sent it out. But if you want to send it from your part, I will send you the written one, the copy of the written typed up. And then I'll also send you the videos. Yeah, of course. after this week and after this week after orientation I'll have a bunch of pictures too and you can send that out saying that our Student Union is officially onboarded and you guys have to submit your finish your report today so I can send that in tomorrow hey um official pictures the headshots uh mario just sent me the headshots today okay so i have her headshot yes i did it was fine i think for the vote there was a mtc i'm assuming dr hudgens mr hutchinson wouldn't be here I think if Hutchinson isn't going to be here, it should be fine. But Dr. Sadler, what we had mentioned was when we checked in with you yesterday, I asked if how we usually set up the board.

Mr. Rickshaw, can we have a- Mr.

Yes, are we convening with the roll call? Are we convening with the roll call? Start with student.

Too many mics.

Too many mics.

Too many mics are on.

Check, check, okay.

To reconvene with the roll call, Student Director Tongan.

Present.

Student Director Block.

Present.

Director Lara.

Present.

Director Williams. Director Hutchinson. Director Berry.

Present.

Okay, so we have Director Thompson.

Present.

Vice President Baxter.

Here.

And President Brewhart. Here. Coral, present.

Thank you. We're now moving into the board retreat part of the agenda, and I'm gonna turn that over to Ms. Gordon.

Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody. It's really great to be back here with you all. I, again, following up on the June retreat, I am here to support you all to do some capacity building around how you work together as a board and how you function. So coming out of the June retreat, I've had the opportunity to meet with most of board members. So I have met with seven of the nine board members as well as with the senior leaders. And in those conversations were really about what do you see as the most important, most pressing work for this board this year? How do you understand that? And what are the board processes and procedures that are working well? And what is not working well to enable you and support you well to make these really complicated decisions that you need to make on behalf of the young people and the families of Oakland. One of the things that came up in many of those conversations was that you all haven't had enough time and that you often don't have the kind of time together to really make meaning of the tasks in front of you. So the work that we did in committees, I heard from a number of people that it was very, very useful to get to talk to one another and with staff about the topics and the projects that you are responsible to make policy budgetary decisions about. and that you all would really like to have better ways of relating to each other and having better communication between you all as you continue to work together. This sounds so strange to me. Does it sound really weird to you? Okay, we're just going with it, okay. So today's agenda, I believe you all should have the agenda page. And if anybody does not have that, can you let us know? You guys don't have the agendas. Are there over here? So before we get started, or as we get started, the way that I'm going to run this meeting and that we're going to engage is going to be a little bit differently from how you often do as a board. So I want to be clear about the goals for us for today that have come out of these conversations with you all. The first one is to strengthen connection to one another. and to your shared purpose on this board. The second is to engage in generative dialogue, to build shared understanding and learn together as a governance team. The third is to ground your work in the research-based traits of effective school boards. And then we'll move towards developing and thinking together about your board priorities. That is a move towards your making your board, the board work plan and the committee work plans will be taken up from the committee work that we did in June. Are there any questions about the agenda? Okay, great. So again, my facilitation style, I will move us. Sorry, I'm just figuring that out. I will move us at times. I may interrupt you and have us move on. It is not personal. It is absolutely about me trying to keep track of time and ensure that we're getting to the meat of each part of the agenda. and spending most of our time in the meaty things, okay? So forgive me ahead of time. I will appreciate very much your flexibility and working with me today. So I have a, just a little packet for each of you.

It does not have, it does not have

um like board content in it it is a basically a place for you throughout our time together to take notes do some individual reflection and support you in engaging in the activities that we're going to go through today so the very first part of that is to do a quick check-in with yourself

And coming in, you've been here for a while already.

You've done some board business. You know we have a bunch more hours. You've seen the agenda. If you could just take a minute to just kind of take a deep breath and feel your body and just notice what is true for you right now. What is true in your energy? How does your body feel? What is your emotional state? Is there any excitement? Is there trepidation? Is there openness? Are you feeling judgy? And I'm asking you to notice these things, and if you'd like to jot them down, you can. The reason why I'm asking you to notice this is because part of our working with other humans requires us to Really maintain our self-awareness to notice what's happening for ourselves so that we can attend to it in ways that help us connect and lean into the work rather than in ways that either we remove ourselves, either physically we leave the room or mentally where our body is here but our mind is somewhere else. Or we acted out in dysfunctional and unhealthy ways towards other people, right? So part of the practice always is, what is happening for me right now? How am I? And let me keep noticing and monitoring that so that I can take care of myself in ways that enable me to do this really complicated work in a really complicated context. So... We have some agreements. You guys have agreements, working agreements for sort of the expectations for how you all engage. And those are on your agenda. They're also on this packet. And I would love to have a board member read the first one and pass it on, pick a direction.

Every action by a board member should be directed toward improving the educational program

Beautiful. Pick a direction, please. Director Thompson. You guys are hilarious.

Every board member will exhibit behavior that is honorable, honest, and dedicated to the success of the students and staff of the district.

Thank you, Director Lara.

Each board member is to be treated with dignity and respect.

Thank you.

Board member commitment will include participate fully in the discussions of issues, listen respectfully to all views and opinions, respect each other's individual opinions, and accept the majority action of the board.

Thank you. So I want to invite you each to think about which of these is really easy for you. And you might just note, put a little check next to each one that you feel like is going to be easy for you today. Checkmarks next to those that are easy. I see lots of checkmarks happening, which is fantastic. And now I'd like you to put a star next to one that might be a little more challenging for you today and that you want to spend, you know, you want to kind of keep front of mind. You want to make sure you are remembering is an expectation today.

And when you have your star,

Let me see a thumbs up so I know we all have our stars. Our one that we're working on. Okay. Beautiful. Thank you. Okay. So, next step. We are going to, in the effort to build relationships and get to know each other, I'm going to ask you to turn to the next page in your packet. And on that page, we're going to do an activity now where I'm going to ask you to do some reflecting. And then you're going to do a bunch of sharing. And you're going to be moving around and sharing, OK? So have any of you done this protocol? It's called a paseo or circles of identity.

Anybody familiar with this?

Okay, so the first step, the purpose of this is really for each of you to reground in what aspects of your identity really impact your work on this body, right? What are the, and how? How does that, how do different aspects of your identity impact the ways that you show up and interact here. And the reason why we are going to share about these things is that it's really helpful to know where folks are coming from. It's really helpful to know what's really important, some of the key things about ourselves that are really important to each of us as we try to work together. The first step for you is you are going to put your name in a circle in the middle of this page. And then you're going to make a little draw these little lines out. And if you some people like to put bubbles around them, or you don't have to, I didn't put bubbles around mine. And then you're just going to list you're going to add in what are some core parts of your identity as you walk through the world? Right? So I have things like I'm Ashkenazi Jewish, white skin Jewish. I'm a New Yorker. My identity. I'm a woman. I'm a mom. I was a teacher and a principal, right? So like, I'm funny. Okay, so these are core parts of my identity. And I'm going to give you a minute to jot down yours. Are you two doing this too?

Because you should.

You are not together. We are all together. We are all.

I do appreciate the honesty. Okay. You guys need another minute? Get them all on there. Okay. Get another minute. All right. Finish up wherever you've gotten to is actually perfect. So now I'm going to have you stand up and come over here into our middle space, please, if you would be so kind.

Yes, you can bring your little paper. Yes.

So we're going to have an inside circle that faces this way, and we're going to have an outside circle that faces this way. So basically you have to have a partner. So find a partner and orient yourself in a circle.

Okay? Either inside or outside. Here you come and face. We're going to start out inside. Yes. There we go.

I want each of you guys You will, one person will have two minutes to share about the answer to the question. You will not interrupt. Okay. We're gonna do one and a half minutes each. Then we're gonna switch. The second person will share for a minute and a half. You'll thank each other and I'll tell you how to move.

How is that related to questions that are related to that? If you don't have a question, I was just looking.

All right, the first question, you're gonna have time to think so that when the other person is talking, you're not still thinking about your answer. So first question, share what you love about one or more of your identities. Share what you love All right.

Share what you love about one or more of your identities.

We are going to have an outside circle share.

All right. Keep going, outside the list, you have another minute.

All right, inside person, share what you love about one or more of your identities. Inside person, you've got a minute now. Inside person finish up. Thank your partner for their share. And we're going to have inside person rotate one to the left.

Inside folks rotate one to the left.

I did.

I did, and also, you're a really good place to be. All right, friends, I apologize.

I didn't do a good enough job ensuring most strongly? Which one of these things is the strongest for you? And why? 30 seconds. 30 seconds to think. All right, this time we are going to go with the longer hair in the partner is going to go first. You have a minute and a half to share. Go for it. Remember, this is an opportunity to get to know each other. We are going to switch to the second person. Go ahead and share. What are the descriptors that you identify with most strongly and why?

Play more.

10 seconds to finish up. All right, friends. Thank you, partner. And this time we're going to go outside circle is going to rotate. Outside circle, rotate one to the left. Your third question. Here it is. And you will again have 30 seconds to think about your answer so you can totally listen to your partner. Your third question is this. Which of these Think 30 seconds. Which do you think others identify you with most strongly? Okay, this time, partner with the smaller shoe size is going to go first. Oh, we're seven.

All right, so first person, you have one and a half minutes.

How do you feel about it?

especially those who know that, and

We're moving into the second person. You have a minute and a half. How do you feel most on this?

Identify you and how do you feel about it?

Thank you, partner. All right, let's thank our partners.

And we are going to move.

Inside circle is gonna move. One to the left. Yes. One to the left. Inside circle, rotate. One to the left.

All right, friends, here's your final question for the morning. Final question. Okay, here's the thing.

I want you to think about it, right? Okay. What? How do these identities, any of these identities, impact very specifically how you Okay, this time, we're gonna go with... Inside people are gonna go first. You got a minute and a half.

All right. Okay, um, shoot.

Okay, yeah, so I think that my organizing

about how you can think through it in that way. And the political piece that I understand as well, and I think that that helps. I will say, sometimes, And sometimes that both of those identities .

All right, friends, inside person, you made it to the finish line. Now you get to listen.

Outside friends, you have a minute and a half. How do your identities lead to how you show up All right, outside friends finish it up. Thank your partners and come on back to your seats. On page three of the packet in your hand, if you turn that right over, page three of the packet in your hand, you have three quick reflection questions. Take a moment and jot down some thoughts.

What did you learn?

Any new insights? What could be useful to your work with this board? Okay, you've had a chance to do some individual reflection. Do you need another 30 seconds or are we good? So I'd like to start with you, Director Thompson, and go around and in, you know, 30-ish seconds if you could each share something based on this experience, either what will you take from this experience into your work with this board, or what will you do differently now that you know what you know? Is there anything you'll do differently? So what will you take with you, or what will you do differently? When you're ready, yeah, that would be awesome.

i would say that um uh that i don't know that i necessarily learned anything specifically different about director thompson director barrier director bachelor it was nice to talk to you dr tongan because we haven't director tongan because we haven't released um got to know each other but i think just reinforced how um i think how important for understanding what people's backgrounds are and what they really care about are. And it was nice to take a moment to reconnect with you all.

Thank you, Director Berry.

I think the thing that I'm taking with me is that I heard a lot of commonality in each of my conversations. And so I think that is a great invitation for us to hold on to those connections so that we can also hold on to each other's humanity in this process. Like that's someone's daughter, that's someone's son. that person loves to read right and i also think one thing that i want to do differently moving forward is as i share space with other folks especially one-on-one to maybe draw on those connections a little bit more before jumping into business thank you president brohard

Yeah, I think one thing, a couple things. I noticed, as you said, respect. Is that me? Respect, respect. I also thought listen, listen, and listen. And I think sometimes we, having that time to just listen to someone speak or you can't talk or you're not thinking about your response to something i think allows you to hear that person differently i think really seeing what motivated each of us and i think there were some commonalities but also i think understanding that um and um I think all of us did really have, the people I talked to, really had a shared value of learning, of wanting to be informed and wanting to, but I also wanted to shout out Director Thompson and I think I think naming what motivated your faith, I think that each of us does have something that grounds us in our values. And I think as we make our decisions and we ask our questions and we engage with each other, I think keeping our values in mind and having those guide our decisions and making others aware of our values as well.

Thank you. Yeah, that's one thing that you're taken with you or you can do differently.

I really appreciated having the opportunity to get new members and new insights and things that... Thank you.

Great.

Director Block.

What I'll take from the concentric circles is that we're all human and we come from different backgrounds and we're different people. And so that influences our opinions. And so we could have similar opinions or different opinions, but we are all human. And at the end of the day, each opinion should be considered.

Thank you. And Director Tongan.

Yeah, I like what Director Block was saying. We're all human. And I thought it was really interesting to hear more about the other board directors personally, because we're coming on as new student directors. And I guess how we've perceived the already standing board directors as just people who make all these decisions, but getting to know them personally is interesting. It's going to be more interesting as the year goes on.

Beautiful. Thank you so much. And Director Batchelor, we were just sharing a quick thing. What from this will you take into your work or what might you do differently based on this?

Thank you so much. And I just first and foremost want to just apologize to my board colleagues. I've been a little bit distracted this morning. I left a few things in a lift and I've been trying to get those things over the last hour and a half. And so they should be here soon, which is very exciting. But I want to apologize for running around and not being as present as I'd like to be. I would highlight a few things. In some of the questions that you had asked us, the person that was in front of us was like, I know what they're gonna say, and they said something completely different. So I think asking questions, really listening, and maybe not thinking about what they may say or reacting to something that they may have said or may have thought, I think is also really helpful as we navigate really difficult conversations.

Thank you so much. So obviously this is a very intentional activity, right? This isn't the idea of how valuable it is for you all to get to understand each other a little bit more. What motivates you? Because you sit here, there's deadlines and pressure and you have to show up to issues, but each of you is a world. And knowing that and remembering that and taking just a few minutes to deeply listen and try to get underneath, why is somebody showing up the way they're showing up? Why is somebody taking that position? I have in my mind the assumptions, but what would it be like if I actually really asked and listened? So thank you all so much. for engaging in that, and I hope it boosts you into and gives you some places to continue to deepen with each other as you go forward. The next part of what we're going to do, our next activity, is looking at this article, so grounding ourselves in the research about what the traits of effective board members. So I want to first of all make sure that everybody has a copy of this in front of them because you will need oversight. How many folks need copies of this?

But this is the agenda.

Oh yeah, see? Incredible, thank you.

Okay, so I would like everybody to take one of these and to locate your four color pen. Get your four color pen in your hand, people.

Get your four color pen in your hand. Anybody not have their four-color pen?

Okay. All right, friends. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have... We're going to have... We're going to start with... five minutes and we're gonna see how where we're at okay your task right now is to I'm just gonna go ahead and say reread this short little article and here's what you're gonna do as you are reading in the traits of an effective board that you feel like oh yeah we do this you're gonna do green and And you're going to do, you can either underline that piece or circle it or put a little check next to it. Okay. So that's your green. With your black, you are going to put a little question mark. If you have a question about one of these things, what does it mean? Or, you know. So black, you can do a question mark. You could also do an exclamation point next to something that you're like, yes, this is so important. Okay. And then you're going to put little red on there for any of these things, the traits that this board, as it works together, and this is as a collective, this is no one person's responsibility. Um, you're going to put little, little, you could put little red dots or underline, however you want to do that. Okay. To indicate that, oh, actually, sorry. In the, there's the first part is the, the effective practices, right? You're going to mark up with green, anything you guys do. The second part, that's the danger zone. What do they call it? Danger zone, danger zone. Okay, danger signs. Any of the danger signs that you recognize happen on this board, you're going to underline or circle in red. Good. Effective traits that we're doing, green. Danger signs that we're doing, red. And then question marks or anything else, okay? So we got, we're going to do... There's no blue? There is blue. Oh yeah, you could use blue or black, okay. That's fine. That's okay. You do, you do. But do the red and the green, you know what I'm saying, for that. Okay, let's start with three minutes, see how far you get. Oh, yeah, I took them all here.

Are you OK?

Yeah. Let's do four. OK.

Who I like hearing the clicks happening. We're changing colors. Green is good. What are we up to?

Red is not good. Yep. And then you can use the black or the blue for questions or exclamation points.

Red is what we do in the danger zones.

With a finger, show of fingers, how many minutes more do you need? Do you want to finish this? Two more minutes.

There were some pen malfunctions. We give you some more time.

When you've finished marking up the text, if you would go to page four in your packet, there are some questions for you. And you can start thinking about and answering, just jotting some things down on those.

All right, page four in your packet.

This is just some pre-thinking for the discussion you're about to have. Preparation for the discussion you're about to have. Page four in your packet. Okay, just about another 30 seconds to get your thoughts down. All right, so if you can make sure that you have identified one of the traits that in your experience the board is not currently demonstrating that you think would be really useful for you all to begin to demonstrate, that's the the key to getting ready to move into this discussion.

So you have a color and what you're going to do now is you're going to bring your article and your packet and your fancy pen and you are going to, if you're in the blue group, you're going to come over here. If you are in the pink group, you're going to bring your packet and your article and your fancy pen over here. If you're in the orange group, you're going to clump up over here. Okay. Let's do this in 15 seconds. Move ourselves to our next location.

Orange demo.

All right, so friends, on page five of your packet, you will see the instructions for this discussion protocol. One of the traits of effective groups, organizations, governance boards, and leadership teams is that we have kinds of processes in place to where every single person gets to speak and listen to and we can consider one another's thinking. So that's what we're going to be practicing here today.

Okay.

All right.

So here's the protocol goes like this. One of you is In the first round, in each round, the person who's going to share is going to have three minutes. And in that three minutes, they're going to read the quote from the article that is most compelling to them that they want to share about. So one of the traits that would be useful for you all to start embodying, you're going to share that. You're going to read the quote. We say go to the text. going to quickly explain basically what it means to you, how you understand that quote. You're going to share what it helps you to see about how you all are functioning currently. And then you're going to share maybe some implications that it could have for you all to do this differently and actually embody this trait of an effective voice. The purpose of this is not to come to any concrete conclusions about anything. The purpose of this protocol, the purposes are, number one, to come to deeper understanding of what this text actually says. You do that by speaking. You do that by listening.

Meaning together.

And the second purpose is to begin to develop a shared model of how you might function that would be more efficacious satisfying, and fruitful. So, after the initial person has three minutes, then the other two people, one at a time, each get one minute to respond to the quote, to what you said, I gave you some little Sentence sounds you could consider using like, this makes me think blah blah, or this reminds me of blah blah blah, or makes me wonder blah blah blah, right? So you're each going to have the other two people are going to have one minute, and then the original person gets one minute to share out, wow, now that I've said all that out loud, and I've heard what you all responded, now I'm thinking boom, or now I'm wondering boom.

This is not a time to defend or explain what you meant to say.

That's not the point of this.

The point of this is to deepen your own thinking for all three of you and your understanding of what this text is saying.

Okay, questions about our process. It's gonna be hard for some of us to stop talking when our turn is over. And we're going to have to really stick with it, okay? You're just going, okay, my time is up, thank you. Okay, then we'll go on to the next person. We do the whole thing again. All right, so we are going to have a three-minute timer and a one-minute timer. So decide in your group, or I will decide for you, who is going to share first. Each group, decide who wants to start.

Okay, three minutes on the clock, first person. Start with your quotes.

I think, I truly believe that each and every one of us, I think, so yeah, I think that's, and that's sometimes where I have, and trying to support every child.

I also think that all, about a minute left to get through these questions Yeah, I think, again, if we had some shared definitions for different things, we would be able to have.

14 seconds left.

All right.

Next person, you have one minute to respond. Remember, you have these sentence starters you can refer to. Go for it, one minute.

All right, thank you. Second person. Third person, you have one minute to share out your reflections.

Feel free to use the sentence down. Thank you, third person. Next, the second person who shared is now, or the first person who responded is now going to have three minutes to share from, oh my God, you are right. God, you see it takes a village. Sorry, final word. The original person, now that I've heard all of this, here's what I'm thinking, one minute. Next person. All right, number two. All right, thank you. Second person, we're starting the second round. We're doing the whole thing over again. Three minutes. You've got your questions. You're going to start with a quote. And away you go. Go for it. Three minutes. I'm going to take a number four. The best way for us to have a collaborative relationship.

Thank you.

And so I think partially .

I think it's because they are

All right, person sharing, thank you, and now,

This person has one minute to respond. I will remind you, you have seconds left, if that's helpful. One minute. All right, thank you, second person, third person. You have one minute to respond. One minute to respond. All right, thank you. And now we are going to back to the original person for your final word. Now that you've heard all of that, what are you thinking? One minute.

Well, maybe I'll plug it in. I can make it better. I'm thinking about my face for a while.

All right.

Thank you, thank you for those reflections.

We are entering now the third and final round of this discussion protocol. Our third person has now has how many minutes?

Three.

Three minutes. Thank you.

Three minutes to start with your quote, tell your folks what you're thinking about it, and then we'll do it all again. All right. Three minutes on the clock.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. And next person, you got one minute to respond.

Thank you.

Okay, next person, you got one minute.

all right thank you and the original sharer now has the final word now that you've heard your colleagues you got one minute what are you thinking now Take a deep breath. You did it. All right. You did a lot. You guys said we don't get to talk enough. We don't get to make enough meetings. So that's what we're doing today.

Sheesh. All right.

I'm giving you each two dimes. All right. This is not an official vote. This is not in any kind of decision-making process, let's be very clear. This is after spending that time thinking together about these eight traits. If you, in your mind right now, if there were two of them, which two of them do you think would be most useful for you all Again, not a decision, not a vote. We just want to see, like, are we all on the same page or are we not? Either way, just information. Yep, that's it. That's it. I'm forcing you to really hone in. No, no, individually, no.

No, this isn't a decision.

No, this isn't a decision. This is for us all to see, for you to see where you all are, how closely aligned or not. It's okay either way, it's information. Go up please, put your thoughts up, and then you can come back to your regular seats.

Hey, don't put your dots based on where anybody else put their dots, people.

Decide on your own where you want to put your dots. Anybody still hold down on their dots?

Don't hold out with the dots.

Don't, you know, sometimes people like to come and assess the situation and be like, now, boom, boom, boom. Okay. That is not in the interest of the whole. Okay, so really interesting.

Really interesting.

All right. So we have some interesting spread. An interesting spread. Number seven has five dots. Can we hear? Can somebody read out number seven? What is that one?

very fascinating actually working together as a team to support a particular vision okay great what about number eight can somebody read number eight for us somebody else read number eight for us team training sports that are effective take part in team development and training sometimes with their superintendents

and commitment for the district's improvement efforts. Training is formal, deliberate, and often on specific topics.

Awesome. So, so far, these two are things that I heard from people in my one-on-ones, right? And that are very, have definitely borne out in many of my conversations, right? So really interesting. And how about number four? Can somebody read number four to us?

Collaboration and communication. In fact, boards have a collaborative relationship with staff and the community. A strong communication structure is in place to inform and engage key groups, internal and external, in setting and achieving the district's goal.

Thank you. And somebody else read number three for us, please.

Focused on achievement, effective boards are accountability driven. They spend less time on operational issues and more time focused on policies to improve student achievement.

So now, on your sheet, I'm gonna just give you just a moment to think about this. On the bottom of page five, Based on your discussion, your reading, and this information, what are you thinking, wondering, or hoping now related to this? And even more importantly, what are you, you, willing to do differently, show up differently to this work based on this information?

Just another 30 seconds. So wherever you got to is perfect.

I'm going to ask you to pause wherever you are in your writing and thinking. Just write. I know it is hard to pause. So I want to name that changing the ways that we function is not easy. And what I have gotten very clearly from all of my interactions with each of you and observing you in these board meetings is that every one of you deeply and honestly Cares about young people Learning and being prepared to thrive in this world every single one of you If that is given that that is true and given that this is how The research this is a meta study of seven other studies. Okay so given that this is how districts get there. What does that mean about how you all have to show up together? The fact that TEAM was the highest rated and that that issue comes up, came up in many of my conversations with many of you, that you all are working really, really hard, but you're functioning as often as individuals, right? And sometimes like with a committee, but really you each are here often thinking about Thinking from what do I think is the best? What have I heard? And that's critical, that's part of this. But there has to be a shift to what are we going to do that requires that you listen deeply to one another If you and I disagree on something, there's something that I need to understand about what you're thinking, why you think what you think, if it's different than me. And getting into having protocols where you actually get to think together and learn about what each other thinks, this is a very simple protocol. You could do this kind of study on anything. There are many very simple protocols ways of getting into discussion that in a quick, short time period, you actually, you make meaning together. And you have such weighty decisions that you have to make that it is not fair to any of you individually and it is definitely not fair to the staff who are working day in and day out in this district, in our schools, And it's most assuredly not fair to the young people who we're here to serve and their families if we are making those decisions without having that deep, respectful understanding and being able to come together around a decision. So that is an offering to you all. This is, of course, available for you to continue to refer back to to continue in upcoming meetings I'd like to invite you us to go around and for each of you to share in we're going to do a 30 second if we could on the clock for each person what's just one thing that you want to share here with these folks who you work with about One thing that you can commit to doing differently, a way that you have been, what you either have done or you haven't done that you're going to do, or you've done in a way that you're now like, oh, I kind of want to do that differently. It might be more helpful. Is it about, could be about anything that's going to help you get to this kind of united team with strong collaboration and mutual trust. It could be, I need to have a direct conversation with somebody about something and put it to bed, right? I need to let go of something from the past. I need to do more preparation for each of these meetings. I need to ask more questions and make sure I really understand. I need to let go of my fear of being judged by somebody in the room or outside of the room, whatever it is that is getting in the way for each of you of showing up and engaging in the ways that the research says our babies need you to be able to show up and work together and create a team. So who would like to be the generous and courageous person to start us off. We have Director Tongan. Thank you.

Um, so obviously, um, we're new to the word me and director of block, but I'd say one thing that I do want to do is ask a lot of questions like coming into this role like it's new. Um, there's things that I don't know that will probably be need to put into context for me to understand. And I was always discussing with Director Berry and President real hard. We were talking and President real hard mentioned how, um, Director Berry often asks a lot of questions. I also noticed that and I think that's really admirable because like I'm in school and stuff I'm like shy like to ask questions and stuff I'm like unlearning that so I think that's one thing I really want to do in this new role. Thank you.

Director Block.

I want to second what Director Togon said, and I also want to add that I want to listen more than I talk, and I want to take in as much information as I can. I also want to do research before each and every meeting to understand thoroughly what each agenda item, what the context is, and what we're going to be voting on or discussing.

Thank you. Superintendent Sadler.

I'm really excited about having the opportunity to listen to ways that we can continue to learn together. I had a chance to attend several conferences recently I love to learn. And I think learning together like we're doing today is an incredible vehicle for bringing back new ways of doing things better. Think about it.

Thank you.

Off of our discussion, I think that as the facilitator of meetings, I think to keep the discussion, to really listen to people's questions and kind of figure out where those questions, what the trend of those questions are, I think oftentimes what I really want to facilitate that we don't do, that we do less of, I think, is not listen to those of us who are kind of undecided about something, but listen to what those issues are and not kind of come at them with our own opinions, but come at them with a discussion about those concerns or questions that others might have.

Thank you. I think from this reading it reminded me to provide others with grace because I feel like the within the team building as well as training there's like a level of trust that you need there and vulnerability and so believing that all of us really want what's best for students and want every stepchild to be successful having that lens when we're having thorough discussions about things and stepping back when I need to reset.

Two things that are coming up for me. One is I feel encouraged to push harder and not be so passive about things that I think are really important. And I think I also want to take more responsibility for things that aren't happening that I believe in, sort of like how everyone is saying in this reflection exercise. And one thing in particular, because I have so many questions, I'm going to try to discover out of the abyss of nothing time that I can initiate more communication and opportunities for collaboration.

so that i feel more included and informed about beautiful thank you um i what i will do differently is um i think work to actively listen to all of my colleagues when we're having discussions on the dais or in committee meetings so that i can i think be a you know i think be a more effective collaborator and really understand how to you know kind of lean into the being a unified board and so part of that starts with me taking the time to understand where everyone's coming from. Thank you.

Like several others have already stated, for me, it's active listening. I immediately thought about one of my favorite writers, and that's Habermas. And he talks about distanciation and how you have to step back in order to hear what people say. And then you step back and you listen without judgment. One thing that I want to continue to do is actually listen to all of my colleagues and not think about what my response is going to be to them, but give them time to actually say it and then allow it to sink in me in order to actively listen to what's going on.

Thank you.

Yeah, just thinking like I need to dream more. need to really think about the vision of our district and really start to uh... dream about ways we can do all eight of these things like i think that uh... sometimes we get so grounded and rooted in the work that we forget to uh... bring clarity to look at our culture to do a real investment in how we can get better so I'll be working on dreaming bigger this year.

Thank you. So that's really deep, what you all just said. Good leaders reflect on their own, what is it that I am doing that is contributing to this outcome? Knowing that it's not just anybody. It's not any one person. No one person can control the outcome. But what you all are engaging in right now is some deep reflecting on your own leadership and reflecting on that based on comparing that to this evidence-based description. That's a powerful practice for helping you all get aligned. You talked a lot about asking questions to make sure that you really understand you talked about preparing ahead of time so that you come in ready to ask the questions that you haven't already gotten answered right you talked about listening deeply to one another what would it be like what might you hear what might you learn what might you feel if you actually listen to one another without judgment And you talked about, President Brohard, you talked about welcoming the questions and recognizing that it's in each other's questions that you have an opportunity to actually make meaning together about this really important and incredibly complicated content that you're responsible to make all kinds of decisions about. That you can't actually make the wisest decisions Without hearing and considering and digging into the questions that each of you brings, you will be missing something really important. And so it's a different stance and an opportunity to relate to those things differently as you move forward as a group. Thank you all so much for your deep engagement and thoughtfulness in all of this. We are going to have a lunch break now. Your lunch has arrived and it's in the little room behind you. How long do we want to take for this lunch break? Shout out, shout out. Can we come back at 1.30? That's 22 minutes. It's going to depend on how long the next part takes, y'all. We'll be done at 3. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. 1.30.

129. 129, yeah.

Let's, you know, round it out. Let's round it out. Okay, good work. Strong work, friends.

There's flow water in there.

Water?

Is that your water? It's our water. We're good to go. It's our water.

OK, Madam President.

Now I'll turn it on. Mr. Rickstart, can we have a roll call to establish quorum, please?

Yes. On the roll call to establish quorum, Student Director Tungen.

Present.

Student Director Block. Present. Director Lotta.

Present.

Director Williams. present sir director hudgenson director bill present director thompson president vice president bachelor here and president brohard here quorum president do we need an interpretation check mr secha

Moving to interpretation announcement. For today's meeting, we have two languages for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Spanish. We will start with Arabic. Please raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Mr. Turek, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Arabic, please.

Thank you. If you want to watch us in person, follow us to get the best employees with devices and headphones. Interpretation. Language interpretation. Done. Arabic interpretation announcement is done.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Turek. Check, attendees, if any hands are raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we'll now start with Arabic interpretation. We'll next go to Spanish. Again, please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Ms. Fergus, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please.

Of course. Buenas tardes, le damos la bienvenida. Esta reunión cuenta con intérpretes al español, ofreciendo interpretación simultánea al español en vivo. Así que el servicio solo será provisto si es solicitado, por lo que necesitamos que levante su mano si necesita el servicio, ya sea en persona en el recinto o de forma virtual a través de Zoom, utilizando el ícono de Raise Hand, que es el ícono de una mani. Recuerde otra vez, el servicio solo es solicitado si usted levanta su mano y lo solicita. Si está usted en persona en el recinto, se le proveerá de un dispositivo, de una computadora, para que usted pueda acceder a Zoom. Una vez más, levante su mano si necesita servicio de interpretación en vivo al español. Gracias. Thank you. The Spanish announcement is done.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Vargas. I check attendees to see if any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start with any, start with any interpretation, and that include interpretation announcement. Turn it back to you, President Burkhardt.

Thank you. And I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Gordon.

Welcome back, everybody. Thank you so much to our technical assistants who keep everything running very smoothly here. It's deeply appreciated. So we are getting into the final portion of our agenda. And if you look at your agenda, that is the considering our work plan. looking at an approach to managing your collective work this year. So coming out of, in the June retreat, you all listed out and discussed some of the big, right at the end of that meeting, some of the big, important, required activities that's on the plate of this board this school year. And then in my individual meetings with you all, I reaffirmed those things. And so in your packet on page six, I want to share with you, and you can jot it down in there if you want, the things that came up as must-dos for this board, right? So we're trying to ground ourselves in this as we move towards then you all in your board plan figuring out how are we going to actually get to all of the things that we are required to get to this year and make the decisions that we need to make wisely. So budget stabilization is the first one. These are in no particular order but they are the things that came up over and over. Teaching and learning, attending to the academic growth and development of young people in Oakland Unified. Facilities and any related facilities votes updates looking at any connections to budget so facilities the superintendent search and or superintendent evaluation the i believe it is eight charter reauthorizations that are in front of you all this year and then any emergent policy needs that show up due to changes to local, state, or federal law that then suddenly you guys have to deal with. Looking at this list, are there any things that you think are missing from this list? Yeah. Vice President Batchelor.

Thank you. Especially one thing that I think is missing is the ongoing safety work that we need to do in the school district. I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the incident that happened on Friday at Roots Community Resource Center and instances that have happened over the years at different school sites. And so I think we need to be thinking about both that goes into I think the budget stabilization work and the academic growth, but specifically making sure that our school campuses can be safe places for our students to be. But I do think it needs to be its own specific category because we do We did have Department of Violence Prevention funding for our high school sites to do some of that work that is no longer a source Some of our school sites have similar smaller of those programs but Again, thinking of the violent instance that happened on Friday, I think it's going to be really important for us to not only double down and making sure that our high schools get those programs, but now I'm thinking about, again, like the adult school program, making sure that they have the resources that they need, thinking about our continuation schools, thinking about how can we do restorative justice and some of the other practices that we have done as a district in middle and in elementary so that our students are able to have the tough conversations and it doesn't lead to potential violence in our community okay i i um

I have a wondering about that. So that every what you just what I heard just heard you say really does belong in there's clearly budget implications to all of that. There's there are some connections to facilities. And then, of course, in teaching and learning and what how we're dealing with restorative practices and all of the other climate and culture and social-emotional learning work that we've been doing that, you know, the funding is shifting for. So I guess I'm wondering, as you think about planning out the work of the board, because what we're going towards right now is getting you all in committees thinking about how are the committees, what are the committees working on that then is going to come to the board? And how, right, like the part of what we're gonna be talking about is what goes in committees, what goes in board, what goes in ad hoc committee. So just to say as you guys are thinking about that, there are going to be other, I'm sure, things like this where it's like, well, it actually could go here or there or there. Yeah.

I guess my concern with not having it in its own or assigned to a committee is that it becomes one of those things that will get to it. Somebody will get to it, somebody in teaching and learning will get, it's not, it doesn't have a home. And I think that if we're gonna put that in something, then I think you would have to prioritize Your facilities work as safety at this time or. I understand is that there's a loose fit with teaching and learning to me. I mean, I feel like. Yes, it could go in there, but it probably wouldn't be. Agenda is as much as essential as it needs to be right now. I think kind of the same thing with budget stabilization as you're dealing with your budget. Yes, it is a budget considerate. It just feels like the stepchild of a number of committees. So it's not its own committee. And maybe that's something the board takes up as an ad hoc committee on safety. But I do feel, given the violence that's happened over the number of, and the concern. I think in the community, there's the concern that This is happening all over, which it isn't, but I think it has to get named.

Yes, Superintendent.

I want to offer. I've just been thinking about this a lot. There's so many pieces to our work. It's like one of those thousand piece puzzles that you want to get it completed and you don't know where to start and start around the edges. And often you don't, you just put it aside and you can't get it done. I think that it's important for us to think of what are some of our overarching focus areas that inform our investments, that inform how we work with students. I think teaching and learning is absolutely powerful around getting to the issue of nonviolence. interacting, how do you interact, how do you solve a problem? That's a part of learning. We just talked about team building, trust, all those things. It's not, you know, so there are all these other pieces. So I think I just want us to think about what are the overarching principles that we want to reinforce and what does that look like and how do we use our structure to get, operationalize it? You have a formal structure of committees to help operationalize your vision and your policy and mission. And so I do, I feel very strongly about that's how safety happens by people knowing how to react or resources to deal with their needs. um people are engaged in school engaged in their learning engaged in keeping their community safe and clean and you know kindness and all of those things so that's something i just wanted us to think about as we prioritize our time and operationalize how we get there.

Right. And I want to offer, going back to the effective traits of school boards, that one of the things that came up is moving steadily towards a shared vision around student achievement, right? And there are so always going to be pieces that impact that, that flare up in different moments, whether it is a horrendous thing like what happened on Friday, or it is, it could be anything, but there are moments when something becomes very loud in the ether. And if we, turn and chase that as a board, I wonder how that fits with the effective traits. And so, none of the, it's not that that is not a super important thing that we are dealing with, but I also, I wonder about this the training and the clarity about how does the board best support the staff in the district to address all of the various needs that there are. So as you guys are prioritizing, my fear, I'll just say, is that there will be more and more and more things that will could shift your very, very precious, the resource of your time together. And so setting a course of an arc for a year that comes from the vision that we have for student achievement is going to, in the long haul, I think, be more effective than the board shifting gears as things arise. Yeah.

I was just going to offer, and I don't know what I think about what I'm offering, I'm just going to offer it because it occurred to me that if I read this focused on achievement number three and what makes a board effective, it says effective boards are accountability driven, they spend less time on operational issues and more time focused on policies to improve student achievement. And so what I think about the safety stuff, it's not that it isn't important and we don't talk about is the conversation we have about safety so not getting caught up in the operational aspects of safety but how we can redesign the system or what policy solution we can introduce to address the safety issues such that in response to the conversation we're having it still feels like we should decide where that would live but it might be for the solution we might imagine for the issue that emerges.

Yes.

Yes, I agree with Director Berry as well as Superintendent Sadler. And I share your concerns, Director Batchelor. I think that is the conversation we do need to have. And I don't want to leave out the student directors. Last year we had, at the end of the year, a presentation by our student directors and our student safety group as well. I think there were two different groups that were talking about the presentation. I think we want to continue to keep our eyes on our young folks. Have their participation, they get a good opportunity to survey students and how they're feeling. Or we can incorporate or reach out to the safety group as well to do some of that work. But what I would say for us as directors is we have a director of public safety. And their job is to reassure us that they're doing the job. right and so that individual should be coming up at the beginning of the year to say these are the assessments that we have done these are the checks that we've done this is what our plans are not divulging all of our plans but a good summary in regards to letting the community know that we've taken that serious but that's a building block that's the first step We take that information, we take what the student's information is, and then we really start to continue to go a little deeper in that diligence. But I think it would be great to have the director, public safety, come reassure parents Directors and community members that we have somebody who is watching all the various elements as well as their relationship with the city of Oakland. As we know, funding is changing with some of their investments as we talk. And so what. What is our director doing with the fact that funding is changing? How have we supplemented that? Or what our relationship is with Alameda County to probably provide supplemental support. So I would love to hear that at the beginning of the year. It would reassure all of us that we are putting students and the families first. And that we do have a plan moving forward throughout the year and then we can come back. and target that in whatever subcommittee to really dig deeper to bring something back to our particular board. So I just want to share that.

Yeah, thank you. So here's what's real, right? There are more things to do than you all can possibly do, right? And one of the things we've been talking about all day is how we need to be able to go deeper on the things that we have to make decisions about we need to know more we need to develop our our understandings and make meaning together on those things and so there's always going to be this pull and this challenge in the work of a board right there will be same as if you're the head of an organization or you're running a school or whatever, there are more things that need to be done than is possible to do. And that's where the prioritization comes from. And that's where the strategy comes from, right? Is that if we go deep and we look and really develop our understanding of a few things, going back to our meeting in June, right, thinking about each committee, what are, you know, three metrics that that committee is going to watch, right, and get engaged with the stakeholders and the staff and all these people so that we understand, so that we can bring things back to this board. It's all about, it's like how much capacity, given your capacity to make meaning of information and to think together, you're going to have to make some tough decisions. And you won't be able to address everything. And that's part of what we're getting to, right? It's like, what are the, how are you going to hold that? Because all of these things are important. So if we, so in the next part, what I want to, We're going to go into, so first of all, is there anything else in addition to the safety work that's a proposed also really important thing for this board this year? Is there anything else that any of you think needs to be taken up by the whole board this year or decided upon or any of those things?

Okay.

So, if we want to move, we want to move in some of this work in ways that also builds your capacity and this board's infrastructure to do this work well together, How you guys are gonna parse out the work that you're taking on, what you're gonna do as a whole board, what you're gonna do in committee, what you might do on an ad hoc temporary committee. The goals are to enable you all together to make wise decisions that you can all support, whatever the decisions are. To make efficient and effective use of these board meetings. and to build your capacity to work together effectively on the things that you absolutely must get done this year. So on this page six, I would like to invite you now to take, let's take, let's start with four minutes on the clock. And this is for each of you. I'd like to ask you to fill in this table to the best of your understanding. What is the whole board time most important to use? What needs to happen with this whole board in these meetings? What is best done by committees? And you're thinking about these know big areas of work and then what is best if any of these things what might best be done by an ad hoc or short-term committee right and then what are the drawbacks to each of those we're going to do four minutes to think and write

Thank you.

All right. So let's come back together and talk about this a little bit. Let's get into good governance structures. So what do we think the whole board is best used for? What do we want to have whole board meetings? What do we want to have happen in whole board meetings? Why would we do something in a whole board meeting?

Yeah, Director Lara.

Well, because we have to, based on statutory reasons.

Like, there's, like, that's the most... Yeah, so things that you have to do all together, right? policy adoption, LCAP approval, superintendent evaluation, high-stakes votes, right, charter, right? So statutory things that the whole board has to vote on have to happen here. Great. Anything else? Yes.

I also said just any final decisions because committees can only make recommendations. Same with our citizen oversight bodies, but the board has a fiduciary responsibility to the district, and so we make full board decisions at board meetings.

Yes. So similar to the statutory responsibility, right, We have the fiduciary again. Things that you all are required to vote on. Things that you are required to vote on. Yes.

Just to call out the reason why. There's a statutory obligation to facilitate these conversations in public because it's part of the democratic process, right? It's to ensure communication, clarity, transparency, which is also why there's so many rules governing how we do business in that space. So I think that's important to call out.

Very, very important, yeah. So the benefits of the full board, doing things in the full board, is there's full transparency, there's shared ownership and accountability. with all of you and transparency for the community. What else needs to happen in the full board or is a benefit of doing things in a full board?

I think there's also kind of. I cannot wordsmith it, but like information gather reports back. So if we're monitoring certain things, reports back from Dr Aguilera there reports back on our El cap progress reports back on our. on our budget, you know, so I think around the first, you know, there are certain times where we need a whole board information report.

So let's dig into that. What is it, why is it important, why might it be important for the whole board to get those reports on certain big items that, you know, the big work?

You know, I was thinking about, I'm sorry, was someone else going to talk?

Go for it.

I was thinking about a common understanding, because if you have disparate understanding about a certain particular item, then someone might approach it from a different, whether it's right or wrong, perspective.

Yes, so developing shared understanding of things. But let's think about your experience In these meetings developing a shared understanding. Of the work in front of you. How's that been working?

Can I just say one thing? Sure. To go back, because I think prior to our understanding or having that shared common knowledge is the idea of trust. I think that's been an elephant in the room all morning long. And I just want to throw it out there because I think... Some of us might have less trust when certain individuals bring up certain ideas or have a conversation. And as a result of it, we proverbially cross our hands, our arms. just maybe sit back and not respond or somehow conjure up an idea in our mind. And then, of course, we start thinking about that instead of giving ourselves 100% to what's going on in the room. So I think trust, T-R-U-S-T, is a big factor that perhaps we've kind of overlooked this morning.

Oh, I think it's been here all throughout, yes. I think that is the bedrock of what we've been talking about. So here's the conundrum, right? Somehow you have to discern, make a discernment, you have to make a decision about what we are going to spend our time in this, as a full board on, right, considering The things that you need to vote on, you need to understand them enough to feel like you can stand by a vote and stand by the decision of the board, regardless of how you voted on that item. You also can't be in every, right, if we, you can't all develop deep understanding of all of the components. So if you don't, if you're not willing, I'm gonna put it this way, if you're not willing to trust the committee that is working on a thing working with staff going deep with things and then bringing a recommendation if you're not willing to trust that work then we're back at square zero where we don't know what we're voting on and we vote or don't vote and we don't stand by what other people voted because we don't really understand it or whatever or we cross our arms because So and so is speaking and we're not hearing that, right? Somehow you have to make this decision because if you don't make a really, if you don't have criteria and the process to allow you all to do this work, you know, some of the deep understanding work that then you come back and you're the representatives to this body and say, here's the basics, but Yes, this is real. Then you end up trying to do everything together, and what that leads to is an insane hodgepodge, overwhelming, not strategic, like what's just an agenda pact, because all these things, right? And then you're all... frustrated. I mean, I can't say all of you because I didn't speak to absolutely every one of you, but everyone that I did speak to experiences some sense of frustration and a desire, deep desire, to work actually more productively and effectively together to make this stuff happen. And it's not just you together, it's you with staff. So herein lies, so when we go back to what is, what is When we think about what needs to happen, right? What is the whole group, the whole board meeting useful for? It's definitely all those, the statutory things, the votes, anything you all have to prove, right? Those things are important. There needs to be some level of you also getting the monitoring information about all those things that you vote on, right? And you can't do it all here together. So what are the, when we go down here, so we have the whole board is best for, and the drawbacks of doing work in the whole, in the whole board. Is there anything that anybody came up with that we haven't already named as a drawback of attempting to do all of the work in the full board?

I think it's kind of what you just said I think when the board does it all his whole group we don't have a deep understanding of the issue. So if budget and finance is reporting back on the discussion on the first interim, then we have the benefit in our own governance of listening to the place where it was discussed and questioned. So I think it allows us then to ask for our own questions. What things do we need to be able to vote in an informed way i think that having all of these one i think it really lends to our lengthy board meetings um that i think you know oftentimes are i'm gonna say performative on parts i think the other piece that it it leads to is when i see a report from a committee and i read that and study it And I go back to the staff person or the committee person and say, hey, I have another question about something, then I'm getting the information I need to vote. I think what often has happened in our meetings is we've asked questions, kind of gotcha questions. And I think those don't necessarily those don't help us make informed decisions.

Thank you. Other thoughts? Yeah, Vice President Batchelor.

I think one thing I've constantly been trying to navigate as we both have this discussion and in the four years I've been on the board is, like it or not, these are political positions. And we represent constituents, we represent folks in the community, and we have our own politics to grapple with. And so I think that I have seen us at times speak over each other disregard um and quite honestly some folks have even said you know this is a reality tv show more than it is a governing body and um you know i often come back with saying like no i actually think that there are moments and times and specific areas where we do align um but i think it's it's hard for me to sometimes move past some of that politics that is in this space And I've seen other folks struggle with that as well. Yeah.

That is absolutely a very real weight for all of you at different moments, right? And for all of you all the time. This is, right, that's an added, that doesn't help you be completely regulated and able to think clearly and really listen well when you're having all of that external pressure. So that is a condition of this work. And so the questions that you get to answer together are how do we mitigate the negative impacts of those external conditions as well as internal conditions. So are there

other thinking about the drawbacks of doing things in the with the whole board are there additional anything additional that hasn't been said yet that anybody wants to share yes yeah I think one of the things that we have a challenge with is really implementing our board protocols how we engage one another because when those are violated then there is no opportunity to have a cohesive discussion that benefits the community. I think it has been a challenge to be consistent on holding those as a standard of engagement. And I think it impacts conversation on the board and it impacts decision making. And I think it, as Director Batchelor says, from a public viewpoint, it appears that there is this chaos and disorganization. when actually there are board protocols in place. I don't think the community sees that or understand, or I'm sure they understand it, but I think we have a very hard, challenging time to really hold those items that will give every board member an opportunity to do the discussion that is necessary.

Yeah, so I think that is a well-established fact. I have definitely, you know, I've heard this from, from all of you. Right. Um, absolutely. That is, thank you. That is, that is part of your challenge. Right. And the, and the piece that I'm going to keep bringing to you is it's not for somebody else to fix. It's for you guys to fix. And that means each of you, like, again, how are we shifting the pieces that we are identifying are standing in the way of us doing this work well together? You can each only control your own self. And you have to work together as a body. And then you have to work together with the staff. Because they're the people who actually are doing the work, right? So yes, making the board meetings follow the protocols that you have all agreed to, beefing up your processes around that and your practices around respectful communication, but also really having the kind of conversation where you can make meaning together is going to be important going forward, and that is, I would say, on you all as a collective. What kinds of work is most effectively done in a standing committee? What would we use, what should we, for effective governance, use a standing committee for?

Yes.

Vice President Batchelor.

Taking a deep dive into very specific issues. And from that deep dive, making a recommendation that can then be sent to the .

Great. Anything else? Other thoughts? Deep dive into an issue. Yeah.

i put meaning making and context building which i think is connected to that calling it out because i think that in the my experience of standing committee work as different from the regular board meeting work is that there is more spaciousness for discussion and the engagement obviously for so many reasons don't have that spaciousness or can't enjoy that in our regular board meeting spaces. I also think because the conversations seem or we experience them as more intimate similar to this retreat experience the way people show up and experience one another is also different i see and experience a lot more grace and presumption of positive intent in the standing committee space i do not see us treat each other or engage each other with that those same kinds of behaviors in the regular board.

So two really important points. Let me see if I got this right. The first is that the format of the committee work allows you to do that really important meaning-making learning together, right? And that it, because it's smaller and it's, even though it is public, but it's less eyes usually in the room or on the room than the full board meetings. You all, you each show up differently, right? And so there's this piece where, again, it's like, what is gonna be our strategy going forward for helping groups of us become more expert in particular areas and then be able to come back to the whole and share that out? And what is the work of each of you to show up here the way that you know you need to show up, regardless of how anybody else shows up? And then what are the processes that you could put in place for these board meetings so that you can create the supporting conditions to be more human together? right it's all it all connects right because it's like that strategy having a clear arc for the year and having people doing this deep dive and knowing ahead of time okay we're bringing this to the board this is how everybody will find out about it this is right all having a clear plan and following that plan and process will give a tiny bit more spaciousness in the board meetings rather than it's that last minute everybody's throwing everything in because we need to do this we need to do that we need to do the other what was that oh okay um responses thoughts you know i i guess

I'm just going to say, as the person who facilitates meetings, it is really hard when it goes off the rails. And I want to think about how can we all help do that. I mean, help get, help get us back into focus, but get us back in a tone that's civil. I mean, when it happens, I feel like, you know.

It feels terrible to all of you.

Yeah, it does.

And I'm going to suggest that now is not the moment to make the procedural plan for that. There are ways. This goes back to the training and, right, strategic support for you all in terms of putting into place and holding, developing those, the procedural ways that we're going to respond to that, right? I want to get back to, for now, to the benefits and drawbacks of doing work in a standing committee. So we already named that it allows deeper sustained focus on a particular topic, right? It builds expertise within the full board. It allows more efficient use of full board meeting time if we actually trust the people on the committee, right, when they come to us. What are some of the drawbacks to doing work or the potential drawbacks or the live drawbacks of doing work in the committees?

I agree with Director Berry in which we're able to have kind of more discussions and conversations. But because we don't all sit on all committees, we're not able to know what maybe is happening in other committees and what discussions have occurred. And I think when there is an item that comes back to the full board, it's often a short blurb from the chair and a presentation from staff. which again I think can capture it if done well, but depending on the issue it still seems potentially not enough information to sometimes be able to make a decision.

Real loss of information, people being out of the loop and then not being, not having the opportunity to actually be well enough informed about a topic that does come to you all and require your vote.

I was going to say, because there is lower attendance, actual impact of transparency in the process. Similar to this, it's not just about board members not having the privilege of being involved in the conversation. The public also doesn't have the greatest visibility into those discussions, too, and so we're asking them to show up in a lot of spaces in order to maintain a pulse on what's going on in the district, so I think there is some strain there.

So are you saying communication and engagement with the community.

Yeah, because we have created, in order for someone to maintain involvement or information, that they have to show up in all these spaces.

Yeah. So... So...

There's benefits and drawbacks to each of these, right? And what's going to be important is that as you identify the drawbacks, that you create ways to mitigate those drawbacks. Right? So, and that could be a million different things. It depends on you all and the community and what's in place already, right? But for instance, if a committee were meeting on a thing, right, and coming up with, Well, we're going to talk about in a minute. If each of these committees, you guys make your, you draft out your plan, your work plan for the year, right? And you share that out. You have a constant, as you were talking about, Director Williams, about having protocols, right, and processes in place so that everybody knows after each board meeting, we're going to get, this is what we're going to get. I'm going to get this. and I'm going to get this, I'm going to have this number of, you know, this time to send in, to respond, to send in my questions, my comments, right? And then that commit, right? And so if there is an ongoing way that you guys could create, you have to create it because it has to work for you, right? It doesn't work when you come up against the other, the flip side of all of this wanting to know and needing to know about all this thing is, Do we have the time to read all the things we're getting and we have access to, right? Did we show up here having read through the agenda and the article that was attached to it ahead of time? Did we, right? So all of these are like practices and I'm not, is no shade to whether you did or you didn't. It's like you guys get to develop what are your agreed processes and procedures and then How are you each showing up to those? Whatever it is, right? What are... Let's... I'm looking at the time. I'm thinking that... I'm thinking, President Brohard, that we can go through the example and get to the mitigations so that we can have that conversation kind of quickly. Okay. So, friends, we're going to do quick, quick, quick, quick, quick thinking about an example. So on page seven in your packet, we're going to Just run through a quick example of, are you okay? We didn't, I know. We should, okay. I'm scared about the time, but that's okay. I think we should do, let's do, could we do it really quickly? What is, from the crowd? Yeah, so ad hoc, short-term committees are best for what kinds of things? Are the best for? Anybody we haven't heard from yet or recently?

Her mic's already on.

I know. It's cool. She's got great things to say, but it is helpful to hear from more people since we're co-constructing knowledge. What do we use ad hoc committee for? Temporary committee.

you wanted to say something oh i'll go first and then you can go well so i think the superintendent search is a good example of an ad hoc committee it's something that is a signi too much work to do in a full board doesn't fit in a committee area um but it's clearly time limited because we don't do it okay

What else? What she said. What else? What else could happen in ad hoc? What else have you seen? Those of you who have been sitting on this board, what else have you seen happen through an ad hoc short-term committee?

The ad hoc committee on the contracts. The what? Say it again.

Yeah, an ad hoc committee on outsourcing contracts, which was a particular issue we had to do some research on. It also required community input, labor input, district staff input, and board input. And it was a chance to bring people together again to be able to do that work and not have a necessarily round-acted committee. Okay. But where they could actually, I think for me it was more engaging, a broader range of people in that act.

Okay, short-term specific work. Director Thompson, did you have anything to add to this?

No, I don't. I was just thinking of short-term specific, to be very honest.

Yeah. Okay, drawbacks of doing work in an ad hoc committee?

I think since they're not televised or they're not, there's not like specific information that is provided to the full board at times around those committees, I think what Director Thompson was saying about trust can be, the lack of trust can be like kind of embedded within the committee and the committee makeup. But yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Right, transparency is different there. Yep. Okay. So, I want to actually, because of the time, I want to go to what are some of the, how do we mitigate? Let's stay where we were and with these, the challenges, the drawbacks How do we mitigate those?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.

So you named for the full board, right, some of the challenges are there's not enough time to get into everything deeply. It's very political and therefore not conducive to deep open-minded, open-hearted meeting making. How do we, were you going to say something, Dr. Sadler?

Just kind of add to the thinking about that, just the staff time around the regular compliance processes that we have. running the district along with staffing the committees as well as making sure that board members get their questions answered i think that we need to really think about our process we have a two by two process we have individual meetings we have you know people send emails we comments on documents you know there are a lot of different inputs and as I've been looking over those items and talking with staff about the amount of time they spend on different issues and what is expected of them and everybody is on overload in terms of staff and at the same time we've had to make some different investments in terms of staff And so I think we need to be realistic and think about that this year, is that we do not have the same central office staff that we had last year. And so that's going to impact time. So prioritizing that we need to prioritize leverage, meetings, et cetera. It's something to be considered.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, really interesting, yes.

Just on mitigating drawbacks, I think particularly in light of what Dr. Sadler just shared, everyone's going to be, needs to be responsible for something. So those responsible for agendas are responsible for timely preparation so that board members can get materials with enough time to engage in the necessary conversation. And I do think that that process will also help us streamline more so that staff aren't burdened with five different streams of communication because someone missed a 5 p.m. deadline after receiving only 24 hours to review materials, right? So my responsibility is to review the materials and to proactively engage and to respect and be mindful that I'm not the only board member with questions. And so what would facilitate that for me is a system that governs the process by which we engage with the materials and present questions to staff. And currently we have this by 5 p.m. deadline on Mondays. It has never, I think it has worked for me a handful of times. because of the time between when we get materials and when that stuff is. So I think what Dr. Sadler just flagged is something we have to take seriously. The central office is very different than it did last year. And so if there's even more strain, how can we get our questions answered in a timely fashion? Yeah.

And I just want to flag this. The corollary is this is what's happening at school sites too, right? There's still the same amount of work to do. And often we have fewer people, right? Central office has fewer supports. It's happening. You all, this is a shared experience. And so thinking together about how we're going to navigate this and what we are not going to attempt to do so that we can do the required most high leverage things we have to do well. That's what we're up against. That's what folks in school sites are up against, too.

I think one other thing, too, is in our presentations, like when we're asked to take action on something, I think oftentimes the presentations are very broad, and they take a lot of time to do. I mean, there are a ton of slides in those things. Asworth, and I think this can happen in the committee discussions as well, is what is the essential question? as we think about the board needs to act on this the recommendation from the committees can also be these are the this is the essential question we need to answer in this in this presentation and i think that does help in um in in central office time as well because you're not you don't need to cover everything but here's what i think the board needs to know to make this decision um and i think again committee guidance we can do that too

yes mr rickstrong what i haven't heard in this discussion so far is the board has responsibilities and the board is supposed to make policy that governs what goes on to in this district uh pursuant to a number of factors what i have not heard is How do you do that and give direction to the staff that affects the overall educational program? I'm hearing a lot about mechanics and whether or not it should be an ad hoc or a standing or a committee at all or the work of the board as a whole, but this is a policymaking body. or it's supposed to be, and you're supposed to give direction. And we, as staff, are supposed to be able to follow that direction. And you get input from the public, you bring your own ideas, and you conform to also state law, or federal law, or whatever you're affected by. So I haven't heard that discussion yet as to What it is that you do as a board and what direction do you need to be giving to get an outcome that is desired by the community?

So one of the conundrums that is here with us is that the you are trying to do this work as the conditions are shifting have shifted tremendously and there's been a lack of and so the some of the processes that had been in place or maybe they weren't in place and it was But the idea of doing strategic planning, right, that includes everybody, and then moving, everything should be moving from that, right? And then the board, your board plan comes out of that, and then the committee's work supports the board plan, all of that. That is how this should work, and we're a little bit, we're off kilter because of, in part, the multiple systems, internal and external, I would say, of how this all has been working. And so there is this question that you guys keep wrestling with, which is, what are the big, the things that you have to make decisions about, monitor for the year? How do you How are you going to get to those? Right, which is part of what, there's an ongoing wrestling with that. Did you want to say something? Do you want to speak or are you good?

Yeah, I just want to ask or say that I agree with what everybody is saying. Sometimes it feels as if information requests are getting lost or they're not as timely in a response or very vague in a response. I think the real question is what does an updated information or organizational chart look like? Who's actually doing these particular jobs now since we've made a series of reductions? What does that look like? Who do we tap into at that particular time? So I think that that would be really helpful for us as a district to really understand what our organizational chart looks like. I think it works well with school site administrators as well to know who they're reaching out to at particular times that will be very helpful that they can get the response. And I think that, you know, what we're really talking about is the organization of our district and then what the structure looks like, right? And if the board members don't clearly know what that structure looks like, then it's really, it becomes a challenge in getting timely information or engaging in those who are actually doing the work. So I think that that would be great. We do have a chart. Question is, you know, maybe at the beginning of the year, we review it with the board to say, hey, this is what the chart looks like. These are the folks that will be providing information to your questions. It might be helpful to. Be able to find that level of. I think that level of workflow and how things are moving throughout the district.

Thank you. So friends, we are coming up on our on our time. And we were hoping to be able to get. A little further in terms of. moving towards that prioritizing and think that like what do you have to do this year and how how are the committee's gonna what are the committee is going to do and what's going to come back to the board so I'm wondering at this point would it make sense can you put this up there Yeah. So would it make sense as a next step? Clearly you need to have more, there's going to be work around the procedures and how you're doing your work. But in terms of defining the work for the board, this is on Oh, it's not in your packet, sorry. It's not there, I'm sorry. So does it make sense as a next step to have committees do some work with their appropriate staff and folks to map out what the most important required responsibility are for, you know, in each of those areas for this year. And then to bring that, to share that, get feedback on that, so that you could create a calendar for the board that is based on what actually you guys in the committees who are working closest to these different pieces of the work think is most important based on continuing the work that we did at the June retreat. Does anybody wanna say what you think I'm saying? Or yes, go.

I would suggest to build on that, yes and, that I think it would help if one, two, or three people were to put together what they think based on the priorities every committee should focus on so that someone at the beginning of this process is holding cohesion across all the things so that each committee isn't going off and then coming up with their own thing and then we try to create cohesion hold cohesion at the beginning and then allow every committee to react respond and build slash refine from there

Yes, Dr. Seidler.

I think that's really critical to build coherence across committees. As you know, committees recommend to the full board. And so this work is really very critical. And then there's always the staff work behind it. And it's the thing that I want everybody to understand that it takes, you know, often weeks to do the research for writing these reports. And then we have to get them in in a timely way to Edgar. And I've also shared with my team that I actually want to see their drafts a week before they're due to Edgar. So that is a very, very tight process.

Those are the board's rules.

But those I'm just saying it has to be it's been being implemented that way and we're working on it as a staff But I want the board to understand the amount of work it is just for the preparation of items for one meeting and we're also working on staff our master calendar around the regular compliance Work that must go to board and must be processed by committee And so we're trying to get all that together so that everybody can be on the same page around what is expected in a year. And this is why you'll hear me advancing a four-year plan, some of the things that we're doing. It's unrealistic to think that everything can be done in one year. And so we need to prioritize our focus annually, just as we do at the school sites, which are learning processes. We have set specific goals annually. What are our goals to complete annually for the board's work, for its policy work? What are the goals specifically? So I really want everybody to understand what it takes to even get the reports. for you to review, and it takes a significant amount of time. We have not, because we've had so much, we have not done a good job of being able to be extremely timely about that because of the amount of time that it takes to produce. So that's why I wanted to be really clear about what the requests are so that we can be timely so that you can go deeper.

deliberating over so following up on these two these two points technically in terms of brown act can a group it sounds like like if the chairs or a representative of each committee met and it sounds like It would need to also be with you, Dr. Sadler, right, to have that conversation, to do exactly what you said, which would be mapping out across the whole what are the things that we have to be focused on this year. Is that, what would need, in terms of Brown Act and transparency and all of that, how can we operationalize that?

I don't disagree with the superintendent in terms of saying that it requires a certain level of staff to do a certain level of work. What I don't want to be left with the impression of, and maybe it's my own view based on what's said, is the question is what does the board need to do what are your responsibilities and what do you need to do when do you need to do them and how do you need what does the board need to do what are your responsibilities so that's what we're talking about them coming up with that and so so whatever it is and however limiting so to speak, are prioritizing that you need to do. We need to do it well. And the superintendent has to, in my opinion, give those resources. And you as a board has to get those resources. based on the priorities you determine within the overall scope of what needs and can be done within the district. So that's all I'm saying. We've got to do it well because what I feel and have watched and observed in this district is there are a lot of challenges and we have done some things Well, and we haven't done some things well. And so I would rather err on the wellness side than otherwise.

So to operationalize this suggestion from Director Berry and that was, I think, in many ways supported by Dr. Sadler, how do we operationalize a small group of you working together with the superintendent to come with a proposal for what that is, what each committee is going to work on and what the key things are.

I think the committee chairs need to get together and I think the board president has to be a part of that, which means I shouldn't be on any committees. That's too many. Well, it's really only four. Do we have 3 committees.

so so there would be a challenge as you know with the committee chairs getting together as we try to map out our groups um in planning for this because of the committee makeup and the brown egg what i think could work um with the superintendent is if we schedule you remember how we scheduled sort of one-to-ones instead of two by twos um if we schedule one-to-ones with the specific topic of the committee work and then have that funneled back to the full board, that I think would be the best way to go about it.

Okay. Could we, I'm just looking at the time, and I'm wondering, this is, we need a, there needs to be, we need to figure this out, and I'm here, I've heard that the importance of folks talking at the same time and then we have that fact. So I'm wondering if... um maybe if president brohard you could work with the superintendent and checking in with the other um folks the board um sorry the committee chairs um and of course um miss lindsey to to figure out what is the process for that to happen because it does seem like the actual conversation between you all at the same time is really critical to come up with that. So is that possible? Okay.

With that, yes, I really think it's important. I appreciate the facilitation you have done today and in the past. I think this conversation is something that needs to continue. So I will share with the board president that. it would be great for us to put it on the calendar to have regular engagements to help us figure this out because right now it is good for us kind of sharing the ideas but implementing the ideas finding time to do it This today forced us to come together to have these conversations. So hopefully we'll be able to move this forward on the calendar and come back to continue to work in discussions as necessary for the board to gain some strength in decision making and leadership. Thank you.

I just want to do like a quick pulse check repeat I personally think it would be good to have future meetings and we should calendar them. Thumbs up. People are interested in that.

Yeah just naming Mario's public comment. About staff capacity.

Yeah, so that is a leadership, you know, there needs to be some strategic figuring this out that is with you guys and the key staff people to figure out what is possible and what's going to be, how to mitigate the downsides the best we can because we're, you're right, but good point. Point taken.

I'm going to honor the time and adjourn. I want to thank you all.

You guys spent your whole day here. Oh, my goodness. I know you have full lives. Thank you for letting me be here with you all. And it's an honor. And I can't wait to see what happens next. If you want to keep... Oh, what?

Is there any public comment on this item?

Yes, Madam President. There are two, Sara Olagbala and Mario Capitelli.

Two minutes each.

All right, I see Sara Olagbala online. I will allow her to speak first.

First I want to thank you all for taking the time to I wish I could see the time because I don't know I want to honor your two minutes, but I can't see the clock But anyway, thank you for taking the time to find ways to collaborate better to work better Identifying the issues. This is a concern I have I've seen a pattern in board meetings that I don't particularly care for and I see when it's time for you to vote on an issue, there are four people who always vote together. No matter what the issue is, very seldom do those four people deviate from voting together. And I would like to see, rather than the collaboration issue being the only thing, that each individual board member be able to take a position independent of themselves. It is very disappointing when you have four people who always stick together. Then we have people who have comments that are very relevant, but they continue to vote with these four people. I just think it's so important that we break this cycle of we stick together you you do need to stick together but you need to have the ability to think for yourself you need to do something to end this uh this uh opinion that this is a dysfunctional board you're very functional you just haven't been able to work in a collaborative way and you will not be able to until you stop this bickering Lastly, I'm concerned about issues, and I don't want to bring the issues up, but I was over at McClymonds, I have to say this, I saw they're only working from 6 to 2. There's a lot of equipment all over the place, dirt all over the place. I don't know, has somebody established how Teaching and learning is going to be capable of happening with all of this going on. Do we have background checks on all these people coming into the building? And the last thing is, the background checks, are you ignoring background checks for volunteers in your school? That's a very dangerous position to take when you don't allow for background checks. And thank you so much for always giving me the time. I want to respect the time. I don't see the clock. I'll continue to be as available as I can.

uh even though y'all ignore a lot of what i say i'll be there thank you thank you mrs sana next speaker please um mario capitelli uh will not speak on this item and that concludes uh public commenters for this item that we are adjourned i mean oh my goodness you're so welcome