Seattle Schools Board Special Meeting April 18, 2025

Test, test.

A few minutes.

All right.

This is President Topp.

I am now calling the board special meeting to order at 4 31 p.m.

Please note that this meeting is being recorded.

Hang on just a second.

Sorry, everyone.

I'd like to acknowledge that we are on ancestral lands and the traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

For the record, I will call the roll.

Vice President Briggs.

Director Clark.

Present.

Director Hersey.

Here.

Director Mizrahi.

here uh director rankin is out of town and will not be joining this meeting director sarju don't see director sarju um and this is president top okay before we get started um i want to quickly note that there are three board engagement sessions coming up April 24th at Aki Kuroso Middle School, April 30th at Denny International Middle School, and May 7th at Daniel Bagley Elementary.

Please see our website for more information.

This special meeting tonight, though, is to conduct interviews of three executive search firms.

These three firms were selected at our April 9th special meeting based on their proposals.

to conduct something that is very important to us our superintendent search tonight's meeting should last roughly three hours so I want to thank directors staff and the search firms for being here on a Friday night.

Each firm will have 40 minutes for their interview.

The firms were provided with the questions in advance that directors had and have prepared presentations in response to our questions director.

will have the opportunity to ask follow-up questions of the firms following their presentation.

There's roughly a 10-minute break between each interview to allow for sort of the shuffle between the firms.

And we will just kind of systematically go through it.

We will hear from Ray and Associates, followed by McPherson and Jacobson, and we will close with HYA.

I will provide a time check roughly when there's 10 minutes left in each interview.

Directors should have in their inboxes scoring sheets for each interview.

Procurement staff are here online as well.

If directors have any questions, allow, want questions, please raise your hand before we start the presentations, but also we can take some questions after.

Brandon has a quick question Brandon.

We just wanted to see what is going to be the utilization for the scoring sheets after do we need to make sure that we send those in are they just for our personal use.

Perfect question so we're going to submit scores the board office by April 22nd for tabulation so fill it fill it out send it into the board office at our April 23rd meeting we will review.

who the the tabulation of scores and select a firm for board action during our regular board meeting on the 23rd does that make sense just yeah absolutely i would just say if it's possible to you know flash the um like the scoring curricula just for the public so they can see what we're um uh judging this on that might be helpful but other than that i'm ready to go thank you

I agree.

I'm wondering if we can get that looking to support staff here, seeing if we can get that on, on the screen.

We will, we will work.

We'll work on pulling that up.

Thank you so much.

Um, any other questions?

Okay.

So we will work on getting the director Clark.

Yeah, I might be a little ahead, but are we going to go around, Rob, like in any particular order for asking questions or?

We will just raise our hands post interview.

So interview once the presentation is done by each firm.

Mm hmm.

our follow-up questions directors should just use the raise the hand function and we will just go in order of those who hands there is a little bit of wiggle room in our in our schedule if we go over but we're going to try to keep us on time tonight all right thanks president talk thank you director clark others all right um so again i will provide a time check when there's 10 minutes left in the interview, but I will now hand it over to Ray and Associates for our first interview.

Can you hear me now?

We can hear you now.

Yes.

Oh, good.

OK.

Well, it's a pleasure to be here this evening.

Good evening, president, top members of the board.

Our team is very pleased to be able to present to you our plan for finding the next superintendent for Seattle Public Schools.

We understand how important superintendent leadership is, and we are very passionate about assisting school boards to find that to fill that crucial leadership role.

You sent us about 15 questions and we will attempt to answer all of them in the next 40 minutes.

We have our work cut out for us.

I would like to share my screen, but it looks like somebody else is sharing right now.

Can I share my screen?

Press the share button here, see what happens.

During our 10-minute breaks and transitions, we will go back to that rubric for the public.

Very good.

Can you see my screen?

Yes, we can.

OK, that's good.

Technology is working and that's a relief.

So I'm going to keep rolling along here.

My name is Steve Chestnut.

I was an educator in Washington State for 35 years, including 21 years as a superintendent.

Next, I was a superintendent in Arizona for six years, and my last two years of full-time work was an executive director and associate superintendent in the Scottsdale Unified School District, and we continue to live in Scottsdale.

For the past five years, I've been working part-time for Arane Associates.

It's work that I greatly enjoy and just pleased to be here tonight, and I'll let Dr. Richard Bride introduce himself.

I'm sure Rich is muted or what?

It appears that Richard is unmuted, but maybe frozen.

Well, in that case, I will just keep rolling along.

If Rich can join us, that would be great.

Dr. Rich McBride has extensive experience in Washington State.

He's been a superintendent in the state of Washington for over 30 years and was superintendent of the North Central Educational Service District, I believe, for 15 years.

He's currently an assistant professor at Washington State University in the superintendent preparation program, and it's a pleasure to have Dr. Rich McBride with us.

I know he's there, and hopefully we'll get to hear from him soon.

My next colleague is Ms. Libra Ford, and Libra is traveling.

She told me that she would be in the hotel lobby where she's checking in on time, and I think she hopefully will join us any moment.

But in the meantime, I will continue.

So Libra Ford has been an educational advocate for over 25 years, which included the founding of a charter school in Hawaii.

She's the former board president of the North Clackamas School Board, and currently serves on the Oregon State Board of Education.

She is currently the executive director of the Women's Foundation of Oregon, and she lives in Damascus, Oregon.

Next member of our team is unable to be here tonight, Mr. Richard Lasso.

He is the assistant superintendent of equity and instructional leadership for the Puyallup School District.

He's also a native Spanish speaker, and he lives in Puyallup.

And the final member of our team, Dr. David Faltese, is also not able to be with us this evening.

He is our managing director.

He served as a superintendent in Texas for 18 years and retired from the Carroll Independent School District in South Lake, Texas in 2020. So that is our team.

We'd like to start with your highlights and we are very aware of your mission, your vision and your belief that your students come first.

We very much enjoyed.

I very much enjoyed reacquainting myself with Seattle School District, having been a longtime Washington State educator and getting up to speed on your current initiatives and the different issues you are facing this year.

Not an easy list of things that you're facing, but no school district has an easy task ahead of them.

So we're very impressed with your district and very much looking forward to working with you.

And is that microphone back?

Yes, it is.

Go ahead, Rich.

Yeah, very good.

Yeah, my apologies for sure why it looked OK on the screen there.

But Steve, if you want to move to the next slide real quick.

I think it's a pleasure being with you tonight.

I apologize for the technical issues there.

You know, I think it's fair on this slide to just share with you when you look at .

And I'll run through these five boxes on the top of the screen.

I'll do a counter.

And as you can see, you'd be hiring a firm that actually has been at this work of executive in 1975. Our associate team and our consultants, we value diversity.

In fact, our leadership team and our consultant team, our leadership team is comprised of women and people of color.

As you can see, we pride ourselves on recruiting from just some of the largest national pools of candidates, a perfect fit for the Seattle School District.

We, of course, have a highly trained full-time staff behind us helping to do a lot of the important support work as we go forward.

The lockbox, I think, is truly probably the most important.

At the end of the day, this is your search.

We call alongside.

We try to bring important tools and processes to help you.

But it's really important for a search firm just simply be reminded that this is your search.

And our job, really, at the end of the day, is to not bring you necessarily the most number of candidates.

Sometimes it's easy to get focused on that.

Steve and I are working on it with another currently.

And one of the early questions was, how many candidates can you bring?

And our response back was probably the real question that we want to ask is, we want to bring you the best at the end of the day.

And so when we think about the executive search process, this is about bringing to Seattle School District not just the superintendent that you hire, but more importantly, to bring you the superintendent that you deserve.

The students of Seattle School District, your staff, your community, we want to bring you the we possibly can.

Steve, next slide, please.

And then lastly, when you look at bringing Ray & Associates alongside to assist you, it's clear we are deeply committed to an inclusive process to bringing you a diverse and high candidate pool.

uh work together with you we'll ask questions one of the things i think that you will appreciate the most is that we listen deeply we listen deeply to your stakeholders which includes staff and students and members of the community and in the you know i would just say this in short i think a huge difference for us is that at the end of the day we don't do this for you with you.

And I think that as a search firm, we want to make sure that not be reminded this is your search and we're here to assist and to help you.

Steve?

We want to start with our suggested timeline and Libra Ford has sent me a text message.

She is logged on.

She says that her microphone is muted and I'm not sure if that's something you can fix on your end or not.

Libra, are you on?

Can you hear me?

She's getting a message that her microphone is disabled and I don't know exactly what that means.

I'm not an expert on Microsoft Teams.

We are moving her from a...

I'm good now.

Thank you for moving me over from the visual.

Thank you.

Okay, Libra, it's yours.

Excellent.

Hello, everyone.

I apologize for my tardiness.

I actually drove to California today, so came just on time.

Excited to be here with you guys.

My name is Lieber Ford, and I know that I was introduced earlier.

But as you also may or may not know, I've been in your seat in your shoes.

I was a school board member who had to select a firm and we selected Ray and Associates and we got a wonderful superintendent out of it.

Not only am I in your shoes as a former board member, I currently sit on the state board, but I'm also in your shoes Joe because I'm a Brandeis graduate.

Hello to my alma mater.

Suggested timeline for this is based on five stages.

For us, we want to start somewhere in May and make sure you have someone in mid-July, which would give some time for them to settle in.

If they're moving, move and also get acclimated into the system.

Some key things is, of course, making sure we plan with the board and discuss the end with individual boards the interviews that's the first step of each stage we don't do anything without consulting with you midway through of course we're building that profile with you to make sure that you're clear on what we're looking for and the public is clear on what we look for everybody has input in that and then our top candidates we hope to choose um in june and then of course the final meeting and selecting the last person uh in that last interview process for mid-july next slide In stage one, the main thing that we focus on is board input.

I know that one of your questions really focuses on how do you get input?

How do you figure out what people in your community want?

It begins with us first talking with each board member.

Part of that is our 31 Quality Assessment, where we go through an online and an in-person process, In our interviews with you as a board member individually, we're going to be asking who are the stakeholders that you want us to talk to, and then we're going to meet with them individually and make sure that we listen to them.

We will transcribe what they say into an anonymous and neutral wording because we don't want to elevate any particular sound bite, but we want you to hear voices and what they're looking for.

It starts off with the board input.

In that board input in the one-on-ones, we also ask you things like, do you have anyone that you want to recommend?

If you do suggest someone, we'll keep those names.

Later on in the process, I'll share how we use that.

The focus here is to really get down and dirty with you, understand where your heart is at, and combine all of those hard-set comments into a mindset piece of paper transactional list that will go into stage two.

Next slide.

The second slide, which basically is our community engagement and profile development.

Here's where we take the stakeholder list that you suggested, and we meet with those stakeholders as the community engagement.

That can include your staff, your teachers, families, community municipalities, everybody that you feel will be good to hear from, we will listen to them in person.

And then we also have an online survey, which they then can go through the 31 quality assessment and basically rank them.

And we will develop that data for you and prepare for our stage three.

Next slide.

And in stage three, we begin recruitment while also collecting that data and being prepared to share with you what we see.

So recruitment includes where we're posting it, which we will go into detail based on your questions in a second, where we're posting it and all of the folks that have been suggested to us, whether it's through the individual board meetings or the stakeholder meetings, we also ask them if they have anybody that they'd like to include.

And we begin to aggressively recruit top candidates nationally to make sure that we get a good list in front of you.

Next slide for stage four.

This is where we will develop the candidate pool.

Once we go through that stakeholder list and the 31 qualities and we develop a process with you where we will come up with 10 to 12 qualities that you agree with through your board interviews and also the stakeholders comments, We'll guide you through that and that becomes a profile.

Then from there, as people will apply, they will see that.

They'll see what you're looking for, see who you're looking for and how they should have expertise.

Then that candidate pool will be put in front of you where we will do a semi-background check before we get to that finalist list.

When we get to the finals, we do a deep background check.

and make sure that that is done on everyone, and that is of no charge.

But in the candidate pool, what's really, really important, and one of your questions is about the tools that we use, we use a matrix to make sure that you're judging people against each other in a way that's really objective, and then we get to that finalist list from there.

Next slide.

Last but not least is the candidate selection.

This is the fun part.

As a board member, your key objective is picking the candidates.

Once we go through the matrix and get to your top candidates, and we use different tools in there, which again, I'm going to go through your questions and make sure we answer them.

But as we use our tools to identify the candidates and then help you with our matrix tools to then get to the finalists, we then will help you select that final three or four.

It's really up to you.

We try to aim for what is best for you.

It's a consensus building matrix.

And then you get to pick them.

The finalists will then come to your district and meet everyone.

That similar stakeholder list that we start with, they will come in and meet them in person and kind of do the dog and pony show.

And so everyone will have an input opportunity there too.

Next slide.

So additional things, I just wanna go through quickly your questions to make sure that we don't miss anything.

So how do we ensure we're hearing from diverse groups?

I talked about our 31 quality assessment.

This is done in person and also online.

We know that some people are more comfortable online whether it's just the environment or time, people have both options.

Even the folks that come in person for community engagement meetings with us, we have a set of questions that they will see.

We are taking those notes, but we also remind them that they can still go home and take that online survey because sometimes you're processing questions in front of us and you don't always get all the answers out that you really want.

Another thing that's important to us to make sure it's a diverse school is listening to you as a board, as representatives of your constituents, who do you want us to talk to?

We will find those people, we will reach out to them.

Maybe they don't come to the advertised virtual or the advertised in-person engagement, we'll call them directly and make sure their voice is in that data that we're collecting.

Your next question was how do you approach community and stakeholder forums and listening sessions?

Going back to that, we approach them with standard questions.

We are facilitators in those meetings, making sure that everyone is heard, making sure the environment feels comfortable and welcome.

We also make sure that we do not translate or transcribe anyone's feedback verbatim.

We want everyone to feel comfortable that what they're saying will not come back to them.

And so we make sure that that's really important too.

And at the end of it, we make sure we describe to them the interview process and what we've been working with you on in terms of the timeline.

So everyone walks away from those very clear on what's next.

If you use a tool, how is it advertised?

We use the district regular communication tools.

We work with your district, whether it's your board secretary or communications department.

We don't want to deviate from how people are using communication or used to getting communication.

So we make sure that we use the same structure.

We're also open to new ways if you're looking to do that.

Our survey process has been excellent.

Recently, we just did North Shore School surveys.

In-person and online, we had over 2,000 responses, and this included over 1,100 responses from families in the community.

We're super proud of that.

Our process works in terms of how we communicate, and it's really relation-focused.

How we process and analyze the reports in the second meeting with the board after we've done the one-on-ones and some of the engagement group stuff.

We basically take all that information and we have that 31 assessment tool.

People are able to rank them, including the board, including staff, and everyone gets to rank them.

and we tell you the top 10 and 12. We give you the raw data of how people ranked all 31, and then we also give you data how we feel that information can dovetail into a really succinct 10 to 12 list of what you're looking for in terms of the top characteristics of the best candidate.

So candidate profile, can you give us details about how the final profile developed after we interview you and we take the survey data raw and disaggregated?

We disaggregate it based on communities and we make sure you see all of that.

And we take that and we have a board meeting with you and we have just pure discussion with you.

It is up to you what characteristics you want to put in that profile but we will always come with recommendations you're never in this process by yourself you're always in this process with us we're here to make sure you feel comfortable and clear on what is next So what is the process for board members, staff and proposing candidates to get us more recruits?

Like we said earlier, like I said earlier, every meeting we have with you or stakeholders, the question that we always ask is, is there someone in the community that you would like to recommend that we should recruit?

But in addition to that, we have other methods to make sure that we're doing.

So that's kind of like the internal direct intentional approach of finding recruits.

But then we also have an external direct intentional way of doing recruits.

And I'm going to pass it to Steve to talk about the methods that we use for finding diverse candidates with some of the advertising boards that we use.

Steve, you want to talk about that?

Certainly work you to select national advertisers American Association of school administrators, for example, education week and others, but we also encourage and recommend that you advertise with the National Alliance of black school educators with the Association of Latino administrators and superintendents.

And.

You know, the question was, what kind of results do we get from that?

We get good results.

We have, as Rich mentioned, 40% of our national consultants are women and are people of color, and they do an excellent job of reaching out to good candidates.

And then, of course, as she mentioned, the five consultants on this team will also reach out to diverse candidates and encourage them to apply.

Yeah.

Part of that too is we are really intentional about saying to you, this is what your pool looks like and is that diverse?

We're not going to tell you who to pick.

We're not going to tell you how to pick them, but we will elevate things like, is this the diversity that you're looking to have even from just the pool?

We'll make sure we put them in front of you, but we'll also make sure as you're going through the process that you're aware of what you're picking and how you're picking it.

uh next question is what methods do we use to engage candidates who historically have been underrepresented um in our last few searches we definitely had a lot of underrepresented um groups uh for me personally and i know with my team they know we are intentional about making sure that those don't normally are that aren't normally seen in these leadership roles are elevated to these pools and then it's up to you to decide if they are who will represent the school district well.

We all know that the more diversity you have, it influences everyone.

It's not just one group.

Diversity helps everyone.

When one diverse group rises, we all rise.

And so we want to make sure that we help you with that equity look, but it is still up to you what is best for you and what is best for this district beyond all of our existence in this role.

Seattle Public Schools experienced significant challenges, including structural budget challenges.

How do you plan to address these issues?

So we're well aware of your 100 plus million dollar deficit that's coming.

It is definitely a national issue as a state board member in Oregon.

We are constantly dealing with this.

Also, it is terrifying and very unclear what is next.

There's two things I want to say on how we will approach that.

One, we want to make sure that in our questions, so when the candidate fills out the information, there's also a Spark Hire video that you will get.

We want to make sure that in those questions that we're asking them, that they are being asked about how they will approach these things.

The beautiful thing about the Spark Hire video is that it's a one and done.

They're going to be asked the question and then they have to answer it.

You're going to see those responses and see if it's what you're looking for because we all know with these types of deficits, they're going to be in front of media, they're going to be in front of parents, they're going to be in front of families, leaders in your municipalities that you serve, and they need to be able to be clear and effective on what these deficits will do and what is the plan.

So our approach to this will be making sure you see it from the very beginning in that Spark video.

How will they approach this?

Because it is very important that they're walking into this role ready to tackle this issue and not afraid.

Candidate placement, what would you, What would your approach and recommendation be if you don't find a suitable one?

I love this question because, of course, there's always fear that with all of our skills and all the years that Ray & Associates have been doing this, there is a possibility that you don't get a candidate pool that you're happy with, right?

So there's kind of three steps that we would recommend to you.

The first would be if we go through this process through July and we don't find someone that's satisfactory to you, which is not our goal.

Our goal is to bring you enough people to make the decision hard.

But if we get to that point and it isn't working out for you, we would then recommend an interim that you should appoint an interim.

And then we reset for the fall to make sure in the fall you have a nice candidate pool ready to apply.

And then we would do the same assessment process, the five-stage process with you at no additional cost.

So you are not going to be left alone.

This process will definitely be, we will walk through it with you from the beginning to the end.

And if it's not successful, we will make sure that we restart it with you and get to the end.

What is the average rate of retention?

So before the pandemic, retention for superintendents was over seven years, seven and a half years.

After the pandemic, we're about 3.5, 3.6 years that superintendents will remain in a position.

Please know that our goal is to have enough questions for you to know what kind of stake this candidate has in your community?

Are they interested in building roots in your community?

We will make sure that we elevate those questions so you can hear that in the process and really see what people are thinking.

In addition to that, remember that we have a two-year guarantee.

Any superintendent that we place for two years, we will not poach them.

If they're in your school district and we place them, we're not going to come after them because there's a bigger or better job somewhere.

Instead, we're going to support them staying where they are.

Have you worked with a board torn between two highly qualified candidates?

This is a great question because Steve just experienced that.

So I'll pass it back to you, Steve.

Yes and just to clarify.

Labor's last comment we we don't do any recruiting of superintendents that we place for five years.

We also have a two year guarantee that we will come back and do the search again for free if the superintendent leaves.

Rich I think is going to talk more about that so we have a couple guarantees that we like to make.

But yes I did have a situation in a recent search in Arizona where the board was really torn we had two really great candidates and we had a difficult decision.

And so what we did during the deliberate deliberation phase is that we just encourage the board to go back to the ideal candidate profile.

Based on the survey based on the stakeholder feedback and to reflect on what were the characteristics they were looking for in the new superintendent.

There were 12 characteristics on that list, and we had to talk about most of them to really get down to the bottom of which person was best qualified to meet the criteria that we had set.

In the end, we selected the in-state candidate.

It really was an in-state, out-of-state candidate discussion, and I think the board made the right decision in that case.

Thank you, Steve.

The next question you have is the search tools.

Can you provide details on the specified tools?

I spoke a little bit about the first one, but I'll speak about three different tools and be very specific about each one.

So in the first part of the candidate recruitment, when candidates are...

when we get them down to like your top kind of 10, seven to 10 candidates, they're going to have what we call the Spark Hire video.

And this Spark Hire video is a one-way communication tool where they're going to have the one and done, like I talked about earlier, questions that will be prompted to them and they must answer them in addition to their paperwork and all those things.

We do soft background checks at that time.

But you get to watch those.

Those tools are really important because they're about 10 minutes of really seeing how people react to certain subjects, how they make comments about certain subjects.

Because part of the major thing that a superintendent should be able to do is communicate well.

This will give you that opportunity to not just see what's on paper, but see the human and how they react to questions that will require other humans to have experiences that are hopefully elevating them.

That's mostly the youth.

The second tool that we're really proud of is our matrix, which is a consensus tool.

We use this to get down to the top seven to 10 candidates when we first present a big pool to you.

Then we also use it to get down to the finalists.

And this matrix is very interesting.

It's based on you basically judging each candidate against another so that each candidate is then seen against another and in your mind, which ones stand out the most.

So at the end, using numerical numbers, we easily can kind of pinpoint with those numbers where your board sits on which candidates.

And then after that kind of list elevates into like rankings, then we have discussions about how those rankings are and are those numbers really speaking to what your heart and mind is feeling.

And so we go through that process with you, make sure you're really clear.

And it's a great way to have consensus without a lot of emotion beginning the conversation.

We go through it kind of transactionally and then we get to the kind of heart set of it.

And the last thing, of course, is our third party background check, which we do at no additional cost.

And that is when you get to the finalists, we wanna make sure that we do a deep dive on who they are and what they have done or haven't done.

And we will make sure that you get that information so that when you make a decision, you're clear on who you made a decision on and what they represent and what they bring to your school district.

Next slide, Steve, or did I leave anything out that you'd like to add?

I'm sorry.

Yeah, let's go back to that second one search experience.

The question was share with us your most recent Superintendent search you conducted for a district of similar size and with similar challenges.

The Seattle Public Schools what went well, what surprised you and what did you learn from that experience?

For me, that was the search that we did in the Anchorage School District.

The search and that was in 2022 Anchorage is a district of 44,000 students and a very complex place.

Very proud district that's doing a lot of really great work, but that was a very interesting search and the board was pleased with the candidate pool that included both in state and out of state applicants.

They were very interested in it being a national search, but there are also some certainly some good qualified candidates in the state.

In the end, an out of state applicant was hired and Doctor Jared Bryant still on the job and doing really good work.

But during that process, I learned the importance of having a weekly conversation with a board member who's designated as the contact person throughout the process.

In the case of Anchorage, it was the board president.

This is something that we always recommend and do on every search, and that is to make sure that we have good communication between our team and one member of the board that's designated to make sure that when minor issues come up, things that need to be discussed are resolved and taken care of.

And that I found that communication loop worked really very well.

David Fultes, also a member of our team, I asked him that same question.

He did the Round Rock, Texas search in 2021. That's a district of 48,000 students.

He did the Wichita, Kansas search in 2023, a district of 48,000 students.

And he said in both cases, he was surprised by the number and scope of stakeholder meetings that were necessary in a larger district.

And he was reminded of how important it is to get feedback from this from that those diverse groups of stakeholders and in both cases that feedback from stakeholders in both the survey and the stakeholder meetings was a very important part in developing the profile and helping the board determine what kind of Superintendent that they were looking for.

I've also been involved some other complex searches.

The Alaska Commissioner of Education search.

Very interesting complex search.

ESD 123 in Pasco, they serve 70,000 students and other complex search that we completed in 2022. But they're all unique, they're all different, and they all have their own challenges, and it takes a lot of good communication between the team and the board.

As you saw on that first slide that Libra started with, those yellow lines, those were the five times that we need to meet with the board.

And that's a crucial part of the process is board involvement in the search.

And those meetings can be in person.

They can be virtual.

We're flexible and we can do either way.

But that communication with the entire board at those milestone steps is very important in this process and important part of the way we work.

So I think that's all I have.

Rich, did we leave you out?

Are you going to cover anything?

I can't remember.

I think we're okay to honor the board's time.

If there are additional questions, maybe we move to that.

Okay.

Do you have any questions?

Perfect.

I just want to quickly make note that we have been joined also by Director Sarju.

I appreciate the presentation from Ray and Associates team looking out for board directors, seeing if there are questions.

I'm not seeing any questions.

Going to give it one, for technology purposes, giving it one more second here.

I don't have any questions.

I'm listening.

Perfect.

All right.

I appreciate it.

Thank yous again to Ray & Associates team for being here on a Friday evening.

I really appreciate it.

I appreciate the presentation and you being so thoughtful and going through and addressing our questions.

Our next interview at board directors doesn't start till 535. So I'm going to do a quick.

We will now be in recess for.

Let's see, that is what time did I say?

I'm sorry.

15. We're going to be in recess for a 20 minute break.

We will reconvene at 530. So we will be back here at 530 board directors.

Thank you all for your time.

Thank you.

All right, the special meeting of the board is now reconvened at 530 p.m.

Give folks a second here.

We are going to move on to our second interview of the evening.

This will be with McPherson and Jacobson.

For the public watching the interview evaluation criteria is currently up on the screen for board directors you should have the scoring rubric in your inbox to fill out just a reminder to submit your scores to the board office by April 22nd for tabulation.

At our April 23rd board special meeting, we will review the interview scores, discuss and select a firm for board action during our regular board meeting on April 23rd.

We do have our procurement specialists online if folks have any questions this evening.

If board directors have any questions, please raise your hand.

They are here to help to support us this evening.

Waiting just for one more second here for one more board director to get back on and then we will continue on.

All right, we are all here.

Any board directors have questions?

All right.

Seeing no questions, then we're going to go on to the presentation from our next firm.

We will hear now from McPherson and Jacobson.

I will pass it over to them now.

Okay.

Let's try that again.

Do we have anyone here?

Do we have McPherson and Jacobson here yet?

I am here.

I believe my colleagues, apologies for my laryngitis, I see from the text that they are on.

There you are.

There you are.

It said we were muted and I didn't have the ability.

So now I see I can unmute.

Gustavo, you should be there as well.

You should have to go up and unmute and turn your camera on.

I apologize for that.

Dr. Herschel, thank you so much.

I know your voice is very bad tonight.

So thank you.

I have a couple of questions as far as process.

We have approximately 40 minutes.

How much time did the board request for questions and answers, please?

So I believe we submitted all our questions beforehand.

And as long as they are answered in the presentation, board directors have an opportunity for follow up questions.

But really, I leave that up to you to decide to determine how much time you want to leave.

OK, that's fine.

The second question is our presentation, is that up on the screen and do we Just ask for the next slide to move forward.

I'm looking to the board office here.

They just got off mute.

You will be able to share your presentation.

You should have sharing privileges now.

But let us know if that is not working and we can pull up your presentation on our end as well.

Yeah, that's what we had prepared for.

We thought it was going to be on your screen.

That might be the quickest way.

Tell me when the presentation's up, please.

Great, thank you.

Obviously, McPherson Jacobson, next slide, please.

And next slide.

So my name is Dr. Steven Lauder.

We'll introduce ourselves, our team members, in just a couple of slides.

But I wanted to say that some very important things We believe that it's critical to the success of your students in your community that you have strong, high-quality leadership.

And that's our mission, to provide you with the very best leadership possible.

Our search process has successfully brought high-quality leadership to many urban school districts.

To name a few, Albuquerque, Washoe County, Charlotte, Mecklenburg, Las Vegas, Fresno, I was recently on the Fresno search.

Louisville, Sarasota, and I did the Kent presentation or this search as well.

We have deep urban experience.

We're a national firm.

Next slide, please.

This is reiterating what I was saying earlier.

We're established a leading national search firm.

We have a network of over 120 consultants, like the people that are on the team tonight.

We're a national recruiter, not just local.

We're a national recruiter.

The most important thing for us is transparency with our clients and their constituents and the authenticity of engagement with the stakeholders, which include parents and students and staff, classified staff, certificated staff, elected officials, all those constituents that are part of the process and milieu of an important urban school district.

And we have a strong record of successful placements.

Next, please.

Thank you.

So I'd like to just introduce myself and also another member of the team, Dr. Joel, who is actually on a flight back from Europe now.

He wasn't able to be here with us.

But my name is Steve Lauder.

My last place, I've been a superintendent for more than 30 years.

My last placement was in Stockton Unified, highly diverse and high poverty school district of nearly 40,000 students.

For the last 10 years, I've been a search consultant for McPherson Jacobson and done multiple, multiple searches for them.

As I said, including most recently, Fresno, California School District with over 70,000 students.

Dr. Joel is the retired superintendent from Lincoln School District, Nebraska, 42,000 students.

And he has had many of the urban school searches.

He's kind of our urban specialist.

Albuquerque, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Louisville, Sarasota are his current searches.

Dr. Herschel, would you like to introduce yourself?

I know your voice is so bad.

Certainly with apologies.

I just got a very bad case of laryngitis.

So I'm Mary Alice Herschel.

I am familiar with a number of the board members.

I was previously superintendent in the Renton School District.

You have my resume.

I won't go through all of those things.

I'm a lifetime educator.

Since the superintendency has done quite a bit of work in education philanthropy with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, served as Chief of Staff for Governor Inslee to launch his administration, and most recently started my own consulting firm that I am working both with search firms that I'm honored to be part of the McPherson team.

And I do individual mentoring support for new superintendents and working with school boards.

So I do a lot of that work in Washington state and a couple outside the state.

So I think I'll turn it to.

Thank you.

So thank you.

I'm Gustavo Baderes, superintendent in Oregon, in a mid-sized district, about 40,000.

And also the current AASA president, which is the National Association for School Superintendents, about 14,000.

folks across the U.S., an immediate past president of ALAS, the Association for Latino Administrators and Superintendents.

Been a superintendent for 14 years and an educator for 35 on the West Coast, on three Western states, California, Washington State, and Oregon.

Thank you.

Dr. Herschel, we plan to have you do the next slide.

Next slide, please.

Just tell us when you can or cannot continue.

Next slide, please.

So part of our presentation today starts with your decision you've already made as a board with engaging a search firm, the structured, transparent process from the beginning to the end, ensuring that we follow the detailed timelines of the search and make sure it locks in with your schedule and your process.

and then a deep commitment to engaging stakeholders locally in the development with the search criteria that you already have set some, and then engaging stakeholders to add to what is needed in the next superintendent for Seattle.

There's template applications and forms and advertisements, but all customizable to make it unique to Seattle.

Go ahead to the next slide.

Thank you.

So one of the many things that McPherson prides itself on is the recruiting, the vetting of candidates, really digging deep into the candidate pool and who's out there that could be a best fit.

A lot of background work, verifying everything in resumes, conducting deeper than normal reference checks and background, communicating with all the candidates throughout the process so everyone's informed of where they are in the process.

And then also just navigating all of the state and legal requirements for the open meetings, what has to be taken care of, and then confidentiality of course with different candidates and the particular situations they may be in um investigating and evaluating appropriate salaries and benefits that's a an opportunity for the board to go deeper with information that mcpherson can put together for you um and i do normally do the next two slides with why choose mcpherson and it validates my um reason for joining McPherson and being part of this team to hopefully serve Seattle.

But my colleague has agreed with my voice to do my next two slides for me.

So that way you don't have to listen to this.

Thank you.

And again, so we've conducted searches all across the United States, over a thousand searches.

And really, we pride ourselves on being flexible in terms of how we customize our searches based on the board's desires, the board's needs, timelines, etc.

And we really pride ourselves in terms of the retention of candidates.

This is something I really want to highlight, where 80 percent of our candidates remain in the same position over five years, 60 percent remain in the same position over 10, and 40% of the candidates hired remain over 15 years.

That's a pride point for McPherson Jacobson, and it's something that we strive to have people that are the right fit for the right district so that there's longevity in the position, and there's a strong board superintendent relationships to be able to allow to do that.

Next slide, please.

Again, McPherson Jacobson, we don't hire the superintendents.

You do as a board.

Again, we're consultants.

We're the recruiters of talent.

We have a lot of people across the U.S., and we broadcast broadly to get the best talent pool we possibly can and that meet your criteria and bring those candidates to you in terms of the best fit, what we feel is going to be the best fit for Seattle public.

Again, we represent what you want and work directly for you.

Next slide, please.

Turn over to Steve.

So the timeline search process is established by the board.

And unfortunately, you may or may not have seen our draft calendar that just got sent to the district this afternoon.

But we have a draft proposed calendar that would come within with a superintendent selection in the last week of June 2025. So hopefully that's there.

If not, you may be able to look at it later.

Usually it takes 8 to 12 weeks.

We can do it faster.

It can be also much quicker if it's a completely confidential search, if that's the desire of the forward.

If we go, Gus, did you want to go to the next slide, about five phases?

Please.

So thank you.

So we're going to spend some time here in the five phases in terms of how we process.

First, we're going to meet with the school board to identify your characteristics.

What are you looking for in the next superintendent in Seattle?

And then which groups of folks do you want us to connect with?

Which stakeholder groups?

Which affinity spaces do you want us to connect with?

Students, parents, specific languages, examples?

And then we establish a timeline, as Steve just mentioned, and the critical dates that you want to hit to make sure we meet those benchmarks.

And we advertise.

We ask you, where do you want us to advertise?

We'll give you some examples of where we typically advertise, and maybe, again, you want somewhere specific, and we can work with you on those.

And, of course, the salary range, because that's something that's asked often by candidates that we contact in terms of what is the salary range.

And then craft the job posting and vacancy announcement based on the desired characteristics that we have for folks in terms of what the board's looking for, what the community's looking for.

That's phase one.

Phase two, we will then meet with those stakeholders that you have identified and also distribute our surveys that are co-created with the school board in terms of what you want to look for and develop promotional materials, again, to advertise the vacancy and spread those, again, across the United States.

And then we start to, again, get our application materials and actively recruit.

This is where we really utilize our network of superintendents from across the country to really get the word out there and make sure that people, again, understand the positions open and everything that the board is looking for, the characteristics, and trying to identify the best fit and the broadest range of candidates that we can.

Phase three.

we would then read and evaluate the application files and really trim down to a certain select group of candidates that don't meet the criteria to those who do meet their criteria.

And that's where we also start reference checking.

And with reference checking, we go more than just what's on the candidate's applications.

We go three deep.

So we go deeper.

We make sure that we hit as many people as we can, even those, again, that are not on the reference sheet.

We make sure that we hit...

references that are past employers other people that are on there and again we have a white network so we go pretty deep in terms of where where we want uh to make sure we have contact to ensure that we have the right references so there's no surprises phase four again we go back to meet with the board and we'll review the short list of candidates with you to see this is the group that we have and and and work with the board to make sure that it's the candidate pull is acceptable And then we work with you on choosing which candidates to interview and prepare the board, prepare work with you in terms of the process and coordinate interviews with you and your staff, with your staff, typically a board secretary or others, HR department.

And during that time, we keep the candidates informed of the status of their application.

Then phase five, again, once the board does select a candidate, We work with you to establish performance objectives and measures.

And this is also something that we want to highlight.

We provide a two-year McPherson Jacobson guarantee saying that we would guarantee that the superintendent stays in Seattle for two years.

And if not, and Steve can speak to this, and if not, we'll come back and conduct the search again because we would have expenses, but the core search would be done again.

Steve, can you weigh in a little bit more on that?

Yeah, I think you've done a very good job of describing it.

If the person that you select leads for any purpose or reason within the first two years, we come back and do the search for just any expenses that we have.

The only exception to that, if there's a major political change in the board and that's the reason for the moving on to the board, we'll go.

I think discuss that with the board before we automatically go into a full guarantee mode.

But normally that doesn't happen.

And if the person leaves because of family issues or some other things, then we'll come back and honor that guarantee.

Gus, I'd like Dr. Herschel to talk about the phase five and beyond.

I know your throat is bad, but if you could say just a few things about that program.

Sure, I'd be happy to.

So phase five and beyond is an optional support for ensuring the success in the first year or two of the superintendent's experience.

Again, working with the superintendent and with the board, the five-year plan, the strategic plan, all of the things that need to happen.

And in a large district like Seattle, What's the current plan?

Where are you in your strategic plan years?

And then just being a mentor, help to a new superintendent and even an experienced superintendent, but new to Seattle.

And so the experiences with providing that kind of phase five support has really helped with ensuring

the longevity of a superintendent, especially in those first couple of years.

So it's a high support option and direct involvement with both the board and the superintendent.

Thank you, Dr. Michelle.

We also provide as an option a psychological profile of your selected superintendent candidate that will give you insights into their thinking patterns, how they work with other people, boards around the country have found it to be very insightful to help them understand each other and how people and the new superintendent works.

So that's also another option.

Let's see.

I think we're going to have to say next slide a couple of times because this slide was animated.

So try next slide, please.

Oh, no.

Oh, it's fine.

It wasn't.

That's fine.

So the investment, the search for your district is not to exceed 45,500.

That's all inclusive of the things that are listed.

That's phases one through five, not the optional beyond phase five.

30 days on the American Association of School Administrators, 30 days on top jobs, 30 days in NASB, six weeks in OS, one posting in Washington State, sorry, the School Directors Association website, one posting on the Washington Association of School Administrators, up to three consecutive days of in-person stakeholder needs.

And I think an important thing to say here is that Our team will meet with each board member individually to discuss their hopes and desires about the search.

That helps us also in the vetting process so we have a deeper understanding of the needs and criteria of all the board members collectively and individually.

Online stakeholder surveys, we use K-12 Insight.

Some districts prefer to use their own mechanism, but that's the one we use.

What we'll do is we'll post same questions that we use, or we can modify it at the board's desire to ask specific questions that they have deep interest in.

But all of those questions, all those responses, albeit any individual's name or any profanity, will be a bulk download data dump to the board, so it'll be useful to their decision-making process.

We will, at the end of an extensive community stakeholder meeting process, be it Zoom, telephone calls, personal calls to certain individuals, personal meetings, in-person meetings.

All of that information will be developed into an executive profile summary report, and that information will be given to the board again for their deliberation process.

We also provide an opportunity for all of those finalists candidates to create a video that the board will be able to see and ask specific questions, we're able to do that as well.

We're able to put these questions that we ask the community up in multiple languages and get their translations and get them back to you as well.

We will do a criminal financial and degree verification background check for those chosen by the board for interviews.

Travel expenses for consultants and scheduled trips, that's included.

And office expenses are all included in the $45,500.

Let's see, I think that's it on the investment side of the coin.

Next slide, please.

I think some key takeaways are transparency.

We believe in transparency.

We will do the search that the board wishes.

They wish a confidential search.

We will do that.

But we believe in as much transparency with the community and your of your students as possible.

We have high sustainability of leadership.

Once you've selected the person that we find the best fit, they come and stay.

In fact, if the board can't see supporting their finalists for five years, I'm not sure that we're the right company for you because you can no longer have sustainable change and sustained, positive, strong leadership If you don't give that individual whoever it is, five years is strong support from the board.

We also believe in high, very high involvement of stakeholders, your stakeholders.

Next slide.

There's other questions, but I have a couple things I need to say.

Again, we're extremely experienced in urban school searches.

I'll say again, Albuquerque, 83,000.

Washoe County, 64,000.

Charlotte, Mecklenburg, 147,000.

Las Vegas, very large, 300,000.

Fresno, 70,000.

Louisville, almost 100,000.

Sarasota, 45,000 students.

I wanted to speak to one of the questions, and I know I probably haven't answered them all, but I think we have time to answer the questions the board may have.

Over the past five years, this is about diversity of applicants.

Over the past five years, approximately one-third of our applications, our applicants have been female, and a quarter of our applicants have been ethnically diverse.

And over the past 10 years, one-third of the organizations we've represented have placed women or ethnically diverse candidates.

While it's not our job to select candidates, we do provide highly diverse field of candidates for the board's review.

Let's see.

I'm not sure that you've had a chance to look at the timelines, but hopefully you'll get a chance to do that.

Anything else from Dr. Herschel or Dr. Palderas?

No?

No.

So just with our range of network, again, we're very closely associated with the Association for Latino Ministries and Superintendent, as well as NAPSE, our African American group.

and their members.

And we try just to make sure that we have an incredibly diverse group of candidates that's brought forward toward you, as well as a lot of West Coast connections with specific state affinity groups, such as WALAS in Washington State, AWALA here, the Oregon Association for Latino Administrators, or CALSA, the California Association.

But we do go nationwide to make sure we have the most diverse qualified pool we possibly can to present to our school board.

So there's also a couple of other things I've taken notes here, and the board, I'm sure, will have some other follow-up questions for us.

But how do we ensure that we provide you with the skill set, the applicants with the skill set you need?

Clearly, you need somebody who's going to be able to handle controversy.

You've got budget problems, significant serious budget issues.

So we're going to provide you with individuals who have successful experience, going through these budgeting school closing issues, if you will, reducing their budgets, people who know how to handle these very controversial and very hot topics.

They're out there.

We have access to them, and we will provide them for you.

So we will use those kinds of criteria and the criteria that you have developed to screen and sort the applicants that apply for your position.

let's see what else do we have here just key things we talked about um being able to modify our search tools and our tools to get information back from uh your constituents your stakeholders um again let me just reiterate we're a national organization with deep urban experience and i guess at that i would turn it over to the board for follow-up questions that we haven't come

Thank you.

Directors, any follow-up questions?

None from me.

None from me.

Sorry, none from me.

All right.

Sarge, you're checking in.

She's on mute.

All right.

Well, I appreciate you all making time on a Friday evening.

We appreciate hearing from you.

Thank you so much.

And we appreciate the presentation and trying to answer some of the questions we sent beforehand.

Thank you.

No questions.

My mic was disabled, but somebody just enabled me.

Thank you, Director Sarju.

I would just like to say in closing that we appreciate the opportunity and we would love to serve your community and your school district and we will provide whatever services are necessary to ensure that you receive the most important, highest qualified candidate for your next superintendent.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Board directors, we do not have our next presentation till 630. So we will take a recess now until 627 roughly.

So we will reconvene at 627 for our next presentation.

All right, it is 626. The special board meeting is now reconvened at 627 PM.

Our final interview for the evening will be with HYA.

It's going to start here at 630. So we've got three minutes, but just a few quick reminders again.

The firm will have 40 minutes to present, followed by director questions, or if there are any follow-up director questions, we submitted our questions to them up front to use in their interview this evening.

The score sheet, which board staff will put up here on the screen again, is in your inbox.

Please review and fill out.

and send to the board office by April 22nd for tabulation.

At our April 23rd special meeting, we will review the interview scores, discuss, select a firm, and then at our regular board meeting on that same day, we will take board action on the firm selection.

It looks like...

I will say we also have procurement staff available if any board directors have questions for them through this process.

Otherwise, it looks like we do have HYA present now, and so we will pass it over to them for their interview and presentation now.

This will be the last presentation this evening.

So handing it over to HYA.

Board staff, do we have HYA on the line?

Yes, we have one member of the HYA team here.

Nancy, are you able to hear us?

You should be able to unmute.

is she aware that her microphone we can't hear her can you hear me yes we can hear you we can hear you not her yeah yeah nancy are you able to hear us in the meeting

Julia, do you have a number to reach out to her or send her a message maybe in the chat?

Yes, we will try to get a hold of her.

Just to give a quick update, folks, we are working to try to get HYA online here.

Board staff is working on that now.

It would just hopefully be a few minutes.

Nancy or Micah, are you able to hear us?

We're unable to hear you.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, I was just waiting for it to start.

I saw nobody else's pictures up, so I thought we were waiting to start, but yeah, I'll unmute now.

Okay, I'll be here.

And will you be sharing your own slides or would you like us to share them?

Either way, you can share them.

That's fine.

We have a slide deck in front of us, but if you have it, that'd be fine for you to share it.

Welcome, HYA.

We will get your slides on the screen here, and you have the floor.

Can you guys all still hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

I cannot hear you guys.

Are you speaking?

Can you hear us now?

Test, test.

Can other board directors hear?

Can any other board directors or anyone else hear me?

I can hear you.

I can hear you.

I can hear everybody.

Yep.

Yep.

Great.

Awesome.

Makai, are you ready to go?

I am ready to go.

So are you?

All right.

Good evening.

Good folks there in beautiful Seattle.

My name is Makai Ali and I'd like to introduce my co-pilot here.

Hi, my name is Nancy Perez and I'm thrilled to be here tonight on behalf of HYA and as one of the team members that would be working with your school system.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

And who do we have from the Seattle team?

This evening, we have our board directors.

We have Director Mizrahi, Director Clark, Director Hersey, Director Sarju, and myself, Director Top.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very kindly.

So I will not belabor.

I will most certainly jump right into it.

I'd like to talk about the board's leadership responsibility.

The next slide underscores the significance to understand diverse communities and the importance of finding the next leader in your district that's the board's most significant role as we all are keenly aware it's not just about undertaking a headhunting expedition but the work of the board throughout this process is to understand what the stakeholders want and the next leader and match the wishes of the community, which is why we're going to focus heavy on community engagement to ensure that we capture all of the diverse voices within your exceptional school community.

Selecting a leader who meets the leadership profile, but also understands what it takes in order to drive a very diverse school district.

Next slide.

So slide number three underscores HYA as a trusted partner.

Superintendent searches garner a tremendous amount of interest from the community as well as the media, and it takes a search firm with a tremendous amount of extensive expertise in large urban, very complex, politically charged environments.

And so when a district undergoes a superintendent search process, the board will be in the spotlight.

on the local and sometimes even the national level.

And whether you like it or not, even with the most pristine processes, there are gonna be individuals who like and individuals who do not like the decisions.

There'll be a tremendous amount of public scrutiny.

And so tonight, I want you guys to walk away knowing we understand the challenges because we've been in many of your very high profile searches throughout the country.

And so picking the right partner to stand with you and to defend the process, again, to defend the process, is extremely important in moving through this very delicate and nuanced activity.

Slide four.

So when you're looking at the trusted relationship between the board and HYA, it's extremely important and significant to underscore our relationship with each and every board member it's very important to understand your visions your aspirations for your community it helps us to work very collaboratively and to work very well with the board by having a relationship with each and every board member we don't want any surprises we don't want you to have any surprises and we want to make certain that we bring our proven techniques to help move the process along, but also understand that you know the community very well.

Again, the emphasis on working with consensus as well as building a very collective force multiplier to help the board move forward with respect to obtaining and exceeding the objective, which is to hire a superintendent.

I go back to the need to work with the board intricately around community engagement, as well as ensuring that the diverse folk within your community are very well represented.

And so let's look at slide five.

This is our team.

Our team consists of myself serving as executive lead, the chief operating officer, Dr. Perez.

And then, of course, we have our support staff, Ms. Vinson, Ms. Martell, Ms. Mellon, project manager, associate support, client support.

And so the five of us will work very collaboratively and collegially to ensure that we meet each and every need of your community.

It's very important to understand we've put together an all-star cast of folk who represent the diversity of our country.

These individuals live East, West, as well as in the Midwest.

And so they have a tremendous amount of expertise, managing very complex searches, utilizing, research as well as partnering with the board to understand and utilize all of the search processes that we can bring or that we shall bring to bear again this team has been responsible for helping boards play superintendents throughout the country our job is simply to vet and collect to make sure that we provide comprehensive background checks to make certain that we ensure that the community profile is representative of that which your community feels is the most important element of the search process, which is ensuring that pedagogical needs are met, operational needs are met, and someone who is fiscally austere.

Slide six.

So this is a little bit about the firm.

Thirty-five years.

conducting executive searches, over 2,000 searches done, 80 plus searches per year, 130 plus nationwide associates.

That's our network, ensuring that we can touch each and every corner of this country.

If you look at our client satisfaction rating, 9.4 out of 10, not too bad.

We pride ourselves on research and analytics.

We have a full-time back office as well as IT support staff, which is referenced to slide number five.

Those individuals will be there to help you 24 hours a day.

If there's an email, rest assured our response time will be within five to eight hours.

You will hear right back from us.

We partner with national as well as state universities.

meaning local universities, some of your leading national state universities.

But that partnership helps us to work with superintendents, to develop superintendents, as well as school boards.

We have a phenomenal partnership with Howard University and the National School Board Association around a cohort helping school boards understand best practices in order to govern their local LEA.

The next slide.

So slide number seven simply underscores HYA's experience.

And this is just a sampling of clients over the past five years.

We did a phenomenal job managing the superintendent search in Atlanta, Phoenix.

We're currently working in Jefferson County, which is Louisville.

doing the search in Montgomery, Clark County, a very large, the fourth largest school system in the country, a very complex search, Clark County was.

Los Angeles Unified, Loudoun County, and the list goes on and on.

And so again, we have a tremendous depth and breadth of experience working in school districts that are similar in size as well as complexity as Seattle and bringing to bear candidates who are representative of not just that community, but also this country.

Let's drop down to slide number eight.

Slide number eight simply highlights the why.

And when you're looking at an Apollo root cause analysis, it always talks about the five whys.

And so when you look at at HYA, the question would be why?

Well, it's important for students and staff within your system to understand and to know that we've been around long enough.

We see continually how others use our work and document it as their own work.

We see our work out there from other firms.

Can you believe it?

And so people shamelessly borrow or lift because they understand that we perfected working with boards working with stakeholders working with communities candidates students working in districts we've been trusted for over 35 years validated client testimonials and we're aggressive with respect to our recruitment efforts sure there's a little passive recruitment where individuals might apply off the street based upon reviewing our websites.

But again, our objective is to touch each and every single community within this country where there's a superintendent who match your leadership profile report.

I continue to go back to that, which we'll talk about in subsequent slides.

But the significance and the importance of ensuring that we utilize this leadership profile report as the fulcrum of the search And that folk will help us to bring to bear an exceptional leader.

Slide number nine simply talks about the recruitment, first and foremost, recruiting locally, the Northwest, the West Coast, throughout the country, seeking great candidates to ensure that we bring forth a phenomenal slate, again, that is diverse, but also a slate that has demonstrated an ability, not just pedagogically, but also a slate that has demonstrated their ability in order to drive systemic change within school systems, raising student achievement, addressing operational issues, school bus, construction, facilities, et cetera.

Slide number 10, the HYA signature search process.

We do understand that your superintendent's last day is September 1st, And so we would curate an experience that would involve community engagement for a minimum of two months on the ground, engaging your community for two months, in addition to surveys, as well as online engagement.

We don't want anyone to feel that we're not avail ourselves to them irrespective of work schedule and or language barrier.

We want to make sure we hear from your community.

That will be done in May as well as June.

Then the recruitment phase, that's looking far and wide for talented candidates.

Those candidates must meet the leadership profile, that it will be derived from the engagement activities.

That'll be ongoing.

Then we'll move to the selection phase in August.

Transition in August will facilitate a process after we've arrived to the best match.

And then, of course, support the board as well as superintendent in August to ensure there's a mid-August start where there's a little overlap between the arrival of the new superintendent and the departure of the outgoing superintendent to ensure that there's just a good handoff and there's continuity therein.

And so, in looking at the engage phase, let's talk about the difference, slide number 12. Successful and deep, intrinsic community engagement, developing a strat plan for the board.

We're interviewing the board.

Next slide, please.

Slide number 12. Thank you.

Successful and deep community engagement, as I articulated, intrinsic.

When looking at the board's strat plan, we're providing board interviews, we're doing individual interviews, focus groups, community forums, stakeholder survey.

You as board members and the district will provide us with a list of the various communities and individuals you'd want us to engage.

So for example, immigrant rights groups, student groups, individuals who may be a part of your black parent unions, Latino, Asian, et cetera.

We want to engage everyone.

Leave no stone unturned.

If you look at that little arrow that says HYA, that arrow then points to all of that work and the collection of that data.

qualitative and quantitative then leads and informs the development of the leadership profile report, summary surveys, selection criteria, characteristics, which will help to determine the best match for your next superintendent.

So again, we would need all of the data points in order to develop the profile report, to be able to share that profile report with aspirants as well as your community as a whole, and then we'll be in a phenomenal position to move forward and ensure that there's a match.

Again, we're not hiring your superintendent.

We're facilitating a process so that what your community states is in the profile report.

That profile report is then shared among the nation.

If individuals do not meet elements of the leadership profile report, then it'll be hard for them to manage this system if their vision is not congruent with that of your community.

Slide 13. So as stated, were your partner, were your ambassadors, were there to listen and validate constituent voices.

So how do we facilitate focus groups?

And I've spent a tremendous amount of time talking about community engagement, focus groups, and the diversity that we bring to bear.

Versatile meetings, face-to-face, Zoom, we'll meet in various locations.

It does not matter.

Churches, synagogues, it matters not.

Email feedback, we're meeting flexible times, morning, afternoon, evening, weekends.

Weekdays, again, it does not matter.

Our objective is to be where the community is.

When I'm making the community drive downtown and fight traffic, we're going to come out into the streets and engage focus groups like your high school students, your parents, your various union organizations, whether they be certificated or classified, administrators, your business community, the ecumenical community.

the civic community, the mayor, the city council, the county leadership, et cetera, the folks over at Silent Transit.

We want to hear from every single individual.

We want to make sure that we seek and reach all community members and we want to coordinate working with your staff to ensure that we meet the linguistic needs of your very diverse and voluminous community.

And so looking at the research base, I'm going to turn this over to my good friend, Dr. Perez, and she's going to really talk about what we've been able to manage by way of research-based stakeholder surveys and statistical analysis in case they're in.

So thank you very much.

So the biggest broadest net that you immediately get feedback on is the survey, and we work with the board to make sure that that is appropriate.

really disseminated through all of the channels that you already have, of course, through social media, through listservs, et cetera.

And the survey is developed with a corresponding white paper that shows you how leaders perform in different areas.

And the great thing about the survey is not only do you get responses back that aggregate information, but also show you like the upper left-hand corner based on different constituent groups.

and where they're clustering together or not.

We also have information on different programming to kind of validate where some of the focus group information is coming back and where those are able to be synthesized into what is the leadership profile.

I know one of the questions that you posed and that many of our clients pose is about survey research, right?

And like how many responses do we need to get?

What's typical?

And I will tell you that there really isn't a specific answer that one can provide in terms of, you know, what different communities will, how they will respond to the survey.

I'll tell you in Clark County, for example, we had over 15,000 responses and they were happening simultaneously on the same day where we were able to handle that and it never crashed.

Our servers were up and running.

Our IT staff was working all weekend to make sure that that didn't happen.

But really the question of margin of error depends on numerous factors.

And our experience about surveys shows that we can achieve a margin of error of plus or minus 4% with roughly about 500 responses.

And when you think about all the surveys that we hear about nationally, right?

Oh, there's about 2,000 respondents and those are making inferences on 300 million Americans.

And so we help you understand the complexity of survey, we have survey researchers in our firm, and we really understand that if we can get to that 500 response level, And particularly knowing that it isn't necessarily just about the response rate, but about the total number of responses and the representative nature of those responses, we feel really, really good about making inferences.

And I'll tell you one last thing about community engagement that I have learned over all of my experiences working with really every one of those school districts that was on that first slide.

When you provide the community with a voice, both within the survey and through focus groups and opportunities, and then they see their voice reflected in this official document called the leadership profile, the board has provided and has taken advantage of what an awesome opportunity is to hear from their diverse constituent base.

And I have found in my experience that when that happens, And when people see their voice reflected in that report, they are engaged and they feel that they can trust the process and trust the board.

And so that is really at the focus of that engage phase.

Back to you, Makai, in the next slide.

I can go on with this one too.

You want to take this one?

Just as another example of some of the ways that we get feedback, whether it be from community forums during the select phase, whether it be from feedback as a result of participating in a focus group, whether it is about giving feedback and how the different candidates align to the leadership profile.

We've provided QR codes.

If you're going to have it live streamed on cable, the QR code is in the corner.

We can provide little cards when they walk in all to get this kind of real time feedback and make sure that people understand that we absolutely want to capture their voice.

Next slide.

So before we jump to the recruit advantage, I just want to I want to go back and I want to underscore where the folks are in Beacon Hill University District downtown Seattle, whether they're in Queen Anne, doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter what part of Seattle they're in.

We wanna make certain that they understand and they know we're gonna be there.

And we're gonna count on you as board members to ensure that you provide us with all of the community-based organizations so that we can tie into those focal points or those points of contact, as it were, to be able to move very quickly to establish meetings on the ground.

So I just want to make sure that that's clear and we're all on one accord.

Next slide.

So slide 16, the recruitment phase.

And so the advantage within the recruitment phase, let's just talk about our national recruiting infrastructure apparatus, as it were.

We've excelled at navigating the needs of it.

confidentiality, as well as attracting top candidates.

Again, these searches are very complex.

They're very dynamic.

They're very politically charged.

You're working through board dynamics.

You're working through the potential of elections, whether they be local or national.

And so it's very important that the search firm has a level of expertise as well as understand the nature of diplomacy.

Next slide, which is slide 18. So, when you look at slide 18, back to the Y factor associated with HYA, 95 percent of, excuse me, 94 percent of our superintendents stay the full term of the first contract.

75 percent of superintendents recruited by HYA associates.

Again, that's active recruitment, not just passive.

Our relationships exist far beyond a search, given our active work with respect to the development of strategic planning, executive coaching, and general engagement around literacy, numeracy, and the community impact work done throughout school districts.

Our reach is vast as well as wide.

And so if you look at the recruiting advantage, you'll see that we promulgate A 30,000 plus email subscriber database goes out each and every month.

30,000 plus.

46,000 unique users on our website.

So we're showcasing every superintendency search irrespective of the fact we're doing it or not.

Because our objective is to help school systems.

And so we want to make sure that we showcase all opportunities that then helps to drive traffic to our websites and so again we work with superintendents as a part of our coaching and collaborative efforts our associates lead superintendent academies those academies partner with universities like the university of southern california as well as howard university and so again Superintendents know us.

Executive Cabinet officials know us.

And if you look to that slide, excuse me, the little small graph, as it were, that's embedded in the slide, it underscores a number of superintendent searches.

And look at the year.

H.Y.A. Farmwide has outpaced the competitors, each and every single competitor.

and urban superintendent search work because of that which I've just articulated, which is our recruiting advantage and the fact that we're in every single state providing a measure of work, whether it be superintendent search work, working around equity, strategic planning, executive coaching, or other aspects within an LEA.

And in fact, one of the questions that was proposed to us was about How do you seek a diverse pool of candidates?

What methods do you use to recruit candidates that have historically been not represented in positions like the superintendent?

It's the network.

We know all the sitting superintendents.

We know the cabinet level superintendents.

They trust us.

They pick up our phone calls.

were able to explain what the challenges are in the district and how their skill set may be a match to those challenges, providing an awesome opportunity to get on the ground in a district and move a system for the sake of students.

And so when that question was asked, it is about that fourth bullet point as much as it is any of the other ones.

You have to actually know the people.

And that's how you bring diverse recruitment to the table.

So let's look at slide 19. I want to highlight exactly what Dr. Perez was articulating.

So if you look at this slide, it talks about a Canada recruitment tool.

It is a Canada profile system that we use.

Leaders from across the country log on and they develop a profile.

During a given year, they upload different types of queries, they can look for searches, they can match their experience with the size of a district, a particular state.

We have access to applicants from every search.

We conduct behavioral assessments and all of this information is within a candidate's profile.

Perhaps you might not be interested in seeking a superintendency, but you'll build that profile as a candidate and then you'll work on that profile

as years progress so again we're providing candidates with an opportunity to develop profiles within a database but we also are able to access any applicant throughout the country and what's great about that too is that we can query so let's say you decide in your leadership profile that you want an experienced superintendent that has a doctorate that's been in a system of at least 30 000 students we can put all those variables in All of those individuals that match that leadership profile will be brought to us.

And we literally start by emailing every single one of them.

Do you know about Seattle?

The leadership profile has been posted.

We would like to talk to you.

And so that's just another way that we're able to really make sure that the net is out and that everybody knows about this position.

So look at slide 20.

So I talked about the leadership profile being the fulcrum of the search.

I'll give you an example, and it's articulated here.

So secret that Seattle has had challenges with respect to your budget, and kudos to you as board members for passing that historic levy several weeks past.

Hats off to you for that.

The leadership profile will underscore that perhaps If it emerges, you may want somebody whose fiscal acumen might emerge as a desired characteristic and then will recruit to match that individual with the profile.

Any candidates that are suggested to H-Way from any stakeholder They'll be evaluated through the leadership profile, again, that serves as the fulcrums.

And we always can point back to, well, I didn't get an interview because you do not match the leadership profile.

This is what the communities that they wanted.

And this is exactly what we use as the recruitment tool.

As a firm, we're confident that we'll recruit candidates that match exactly what your community articulated.

will bring forth an excellent pool for you to interview and to select from and make certain that we're able to capture all voices in that process.

And I will tell you this, if in fact there's an issue or a challenge with the timeline, we can deal with a strategy therein.

But if we follow the prescriptive plan that we're laying out tonight, If this is the plan that we're going to follow, we will have your superintendent in seat mid-August.

Let's look at recruitment considerations, slide 21 for Washington.

This process will be fully confidential.

It's very important for us to balance the confidentiality as well as the public's right to know.

We must also align accordingly with respect to the law.

Candidates will remain confidential.

Only those candidates at the board is selected to be interviewed should be made public for the best applicant pool.

Recruitment will be active.

What does that mean?

We're not just going to float a job and sit back and watch people passively apply.

This is a very active recruitment effort, which means we will be on the phone utilizing that national network to recruit for your superintendent.

Again, passive recruitment will indeed occur, as always.

But our objective here is to curate an experience for you as the board, as well as the community and for the aspirant.

We want to make sure that we are passive, be recruiting via website and social media, but we're actively and aggressively recruiting in order to align with our schedule.

And most certainly, we certainly shall.

Drop down to slide 22, focusing on transition.

So what does this look like?

This is the superintendent developing the 100-day transition plan, which focuses on development of the board as well as the superintendent.

Now we do understand that you guys are doing some work with the council, the great city schools.

And so of course we will make certain that we are very conscious and we're very sensitive to ensure that we envelop elements of your soft G student, not come focused governance training, as well as that, which you've already employed within this overall transition plan.

making certain that that is part and parcel to a superintendent's executive coaching journey, documenting what was learned through the process, mapping out activities for the transition phase, communicating accountably with the community as well as the board, looking at the priorities of the board as well as the community stakeholders.

Much of that will be captured in the leadership profile for an individual to be able to walk in utilize the leadership profile report to connect and communicate with respect to the school community, as well as utilizing the HYA dashboard, for which we will present to you during a subsequent moment in time.

The dashboard will provide transparent and ongoing monitoring to ensure that the board can see exactly what's going on, again, real time.

And this is a PDF that we provided you.

We do have examples to the 100-day plan.

That one links in the live version to the Atlanta superintendent's 100-day plan that we worked on with that.

That can just be found via the Atlanta public schools webpage, 100-day plan.

Or you can Google any of those from HYA and see the kind of work that we do in the transition phase.

Perfect.

We have about three more minutes for the presentation, and then we have to move.

We'll see if any directors have any follow-up questions.

Okay.

We're right on schedule.

Go ahead and close it all out with the analytics, if you will.

Okay, great.

So we're just closing this out here.

We just put some additional slides in here about some of the other technology and analytics that we do provide.

Next slide, slide 25, please.

Thank you.

As part of the PDF, I'm sorry, when we printed a PDF, it doesn't look exactly like mine does.

This is an example of the kind of advertising analytics that we provide.

We're able to show the board how many people from what states have clicked on the official posting.

Have they read the leadership profile?

How much time have they spent on the website?

Where do they come from?

And that really helps us and the board to understand the amount of interest in the position.

Officially, is more outreach needed?

Is the salary and benefits competitive?

gives us a lot of great information.

Next slide.

Should the board wish an online delivery system?

We utilize a board portal.

It's like a confidential website that is password protected, where we are able to put all the information from a search on the board portal.

That way, all the board members have access to the right version.

It's not floating around through emails, to all the information, to the candidates' bios and backgrounds, to meeting dates, everything.

can be delivered through the online HYA portal system.

If the board doesn't want that, we're happy to also do it a more traditional route.

But many of our clients love the website and love that it's password protected and that they know everything that they need to know is in one place accessible to them 24-7.

Next page.

We've gone through the timeline, but again, working on May and June in the engage phase, working.

We all know as educators, we know as search firm that July is a bad month.

It's bad for families.

It's bad for the board.

It's bad for administrators.

And so trying to stay away from that July month, working it to August into that select phase, and then mid-August to where the superintendent begins, allowing for that overlap with the current superintendent.

Final slide is the pricing structure that was also in your proposal, which is 30 percent of the superintendent's compensation.

And then the reimbursables for any other services that are selected, such as third party advertising, third party investigative background checks, et cetera.

And so I think we're right on target.

The last slide is just the question slide.

Wanted to be mindful of the time that we were allotted.

And we really look forward now to answering any other specific questions.

Thank you so much to the HYA team for being here on a Friday evening.

Board directors, do you have any questions?

None for me.

No questions from me.

None from me.

From Sarju, that is.

Perfect.

We might hear from Brandon.

Brandon going once, twice, three times.

All right.

Thank you so much, HYA, for being here.

No questions from us.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate you giving up a little bit of your time on Friday night.

Thank you.

You guys have a phenomenal evening.

Thanks so much.

Thank you for the time.

Perfect.

I also want to thank staff for being here Friday evening, as well as board directors.

Thank you.

I know this was a long, oh, and we get a treat at the end.

Hi, little one.

Hi.

A long three-hour meeting, but as there's no further business on the agenda, the meeting stands adjourned at 7.11 p.m.

Thank you, everyone.

Good night.