Seattle Schools Board Special Meeting Nov. 13, 2024

The Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

And for the record I will call the roll.

Director Briggs.

Here.

All right.

Oh I was notified that she would be joining remotely tonight.

So when she joins we will note it for the record.

Director Hersey.

Here.

Oh goodness.

Yes there's a reason he's remote he's not feeling well and we don't want that.

Director Mizrahi.

Present.

Vice President Sarju.

Present.

Director Top.

Here.

And this is President Rankin.

So our first work session this evening is on policy governance.

We are very lucky to be joined by Dr. Rick Maloney from the University Place School District tonight.

Also a colleague of mine on the WASDA board of directors.

Dr. Maloney will be providing us with insights from University Places long and successful history with policy governance in Washington state.

Please take it away Rick.

Thank you Liza.

I hope that people online can hear.

Thank you.

Good.

OK.

So I have a pretty long title to this but I just want to say that there are a lot of similarities between what you do and what we do and I hope to illustrate those.

I've got a background as as an army officer but I also got into teaching in my second career and then moved into administration.

But early on where I lived I joined our local school board in 1995 and I had one break in that.

But that's the perspective from which I will speak today.

But a couple of slides I want to show first.

This is a slide from 2017 in California showing high and low test.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but you're breaking up really badly on my end.

I'm wondering if anybody else is experiencing that.

If so, maybe turning off your camera would help.

My camera?

Is it just me?

I saw somebody else's hand go up.

Is that better?

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Clearly?

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

A little better.

Thank you.

So just a couple of slides first.

This is from 2017 in California.

And it shows school districts with both low test scores and high test scores for their white student population and their African-American and Latino student population.

And it shows a distribution of many different school districts.

But where we all want to be.

is in the upper right-hand quadrant because those are mutually high test scores for those districts.

And so the question for school boards, how do we get there?

And there are many different answers to that, but I just want to just lay out a goal for all districts.

This is a...

a graph showing distribution of school test scores in Washington State a little more than 10 years ago.

A friend of mine graphed this for us.

And what you see is a general trend that the lower the poverty rate, the higher the test score.

And that sounds like a pretty predictable kind of thing.

But what's interesting is that half of those schools are able to score above the line, so.

Sorry, it needs to be.

Even closer, okay.

So half of those schools can score above the predicted score and our goal is to be part of that group.

And I think what would be really interesting would be to study those schools that score at least 10% above the predicted score.

And it's possible to look at those schools and then learn lessons from them.

And many researchers have done that kind of thing.

BUT I JUST WANTED TO START BY SHOWING WHAT WE ALL ASPIRE TO.

MY PURPOSE TODAY IS TO DISCUSS THE QUESTION, WHY DO WE USE A GOVERNANCE, WHY WOULD WE USE A GOVERNANCE MODEL?

AND TO REVIEW THE FEATURES OF POLICY GOVERNANCE, WHICH HAPPENS TO BE A MODEL THAT OUR DISTRICT USES AND HAS USED SINCE 2003. AND DESCRIBE THE MINDSET THAT THE BOARD HAS CHOSEN TO ADOPT AND THE APPROACH THAT IT USES TOWARD ITS GOVERNANCE RESPONSIBILITIES.

AND I WANT TO REFLECT ON HOW THEY WOULD RELATE TO STUDENT OUTCOMES FOCUSED GOVERNANCE AS I UNDERSTAND IT.

AND THAT'S SOMETHING THAT I'M NOT AN EXPERT AT, BUT I'VE READ EXTENSIVELY SINCE I WAS FIRST INTRODUCED TO IT.

And I hope to link theory with practice.

That emphasizes two things that all boards, by law and by expectation, must have as really high values.

Transparency to the public and accountability on behalf of the public.

And I'd like to draw a link between the idea of effective governance and student test scores or student outcomes.

Correction.

So why use a model?

A governance model, given that all of us start a school board service from individual perspectives, but a governance model offers the opportunity for a shared mindset that is enduring about our job in governance.

It offers clarity about the roles that are involved, both board and administrator.

AND IT HELPS US FOCUS OUR TIME AND EFFORT ON WHAT WE HAVE DECIDED, WHAT WE CHOOSE TO DECIDE AS OUR GOALS.

MODEL ALSO OFFERS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A DISCIPLINED APPROACH TO DOING THAT JOB.

IT'S NOT A GUARANTEE, BUT IT'S AN OPPORTUNITY BECAUSE THERE'S A ROAD MAP.

I THINK IT'S GOT FOUR CHARACTERISTICS.

SYSTEMIC, MEANING WHEN WE MAKE DECISIONS IN ONE AREA, WE'RE AWARE OF THEIR POSSIBLE IMPACT ON OTHER AREAS OF OUR ENTIRE SYSTEM.

IT IS SYSTEMATIC BECAUSE IT OFFERS THAT ROAD MAP WITH PREDICTABLE AND RELIABLE ROUTINES IF WE FOLLOW IT.

IT'S DISCIPLINED APPROACH IN THE USE OF POLICIES AS A WAY OF PRIORITIZING OUR STRATEGIC POLICIES, OUR STRATEGIC PRIORITIES, OUR STRATEGIC VALUES.

AND THEN THE USE OF MEETINGS WHICH ARE STRUCTURED FOR THE BOARD'S STRATEGIC ROLE.

THEY'RE NOT NECESSARILY STRUCTURED FOR THAT STRATEGIC ROLE, BUT A MODEL HELPS US define what that role is, and when we design meetings to meet that definition, we are much more powerful.

These are some references, and a shameless plug, I've got a document in the middle that I wrote, but on the left is John Carver's Boards That Make a Difference, and then on the right is A.J.

Crable's Great on Their Behalf.

AND I HAVE READ BOTH OF THOSE EXTENSIVE BOOKS AND HAVE FOUND THEM QUITE VALUABLE.

WE WERE FIRST INTRODUCED TO THE IDEA OF POLICY GOVERNANCE WITH A SHORTER AND FRANKLY SIMPLER TO READ BOOK CALLED SCHOOL BOARD LEADERSHIP 2000. IT'S OUT OF PRINT BUT THERE ARE COPIES AVAILABLE ON AMAZON STILL.

THAT PROVED TO BE VERY USABLE FOR US WHEN WE GOT STARTED IN ORIENTING ONE ANOTHER TO THIS WAY OF THINKING ABOUT OUR JOB.

THESE ARE DISTRICTS THROUGHOUT THE STATE.

I'M SORRY FOR THE SMALL PRINT.

BUT SINCE 2003 WHEN OUR DISTRICT AND LAKE WASHINGTON STARTED, THESE ARE DISTRICTS THAT HAVE ADOPTED EITHER POLICY GOVERNANCE OR A NEWER MODEL CALLED COHERENT GOVERNANCE AND AN EVEN NEWER MODEL, OF COURSE, THAT YOU HAVE ADOPTED, STUDENT OUTCOMES FOCUSED GOVERNANCE.

HERE'S A QUESTION FOR THE BOARD.

IN YOUR LEADERSHIP ROLE, ARE YOU A LUMBERJACK OR A GARDENER?

NOW, A LUMBERJACK IS SOMEBODY WHO IS FORCEFUL.

takes big strokes, does them right now in order to accomplish the task of taking down that tree.

A gardener has to think in terms of time.

Plant in the spring, prune and shape, and take the time to encourage growth.

But each of these has dispositions, knowledge, and skills that enables them to do that job.

OUR DISTRICT'S EXPERIENCE, AS I MENTIONED, STARTED WITH, I HAPPENED UPON THE NATIONAL SCHOOL BOARD CONFERENCE LIBRARY THAT HAD SCHOOL BOARD LEADERSHIP 2000. IT GAVE A REALLY SIMPLE BUT POWERFULLY ELEGANT DESCRIPTION OF SOME ISSUES THAT WE HAD BEEN DEALING WITH IN OUR LOCAL BOARD, AND I READ IT ON THE WAY HOME, SHARED IT WITH FELLOW BOARD MEMBERS, AND DURING THE PERIOD 2001 AND 2002, WE STARTED TALKING BY SAYING, YOU KNOW, IF WE WERE DOING THINGS THIS WAY, HERE'S HOW WE'D BE DEALING WITH ISSUES THAT CAME UP FROM DAY TO DAY.

SO IT TOOK US A WHILE BUT WE KIND OF GOT AN IDEA OF THE NEED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS BECAUSE WE WERE NOT SATISFIED WITH OUR TRADITIONAL WAY OF DOING BUSINESS.

WE KNEW THAT WE WANTED STUDENT RESULTS BUT WE DIDN'T REALLY KNOW WHAT BOARDS SHOULD BE DOING TO GET THAT.

WE HAD STAFF THAT BROUGHT QUESTIONS TO US, DECISION, POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS, ET CETERA, BUT WE DIDN'T REALLY HAVE A WAY TO TIE IT ALL TOGETHER.

SO WE DID SOME READING.

WE ATTENDED TRAINING AS A BOARD AND A SUPERINTENDENT TEAM And in 2002, we made a resolution to adopt this model, this way of doing business.

We launched in 2003. In that first year, 2003 to 2004, we launched a series of monitoring sessions such as you'll be doing later on today.

WE HAVING DEVELOPED POLICIES THAT WE CONSIDERED STRATEGIC, NOT THE ROUTINE POLICIES THAT SAY HERE'S HOW YOU APPLY FOR LEAVE IN THIS DISTRICT OR HERE'S WHAT STUDENT DISCIPLINE LOOKS LIKE, BUT STRATEGIC POLICIES THAT DIRECTED THE BOARD AND THAT DIRECTED THE SUPERINTENDENT.

AND THEN WE STARTED MONITORING THEM.

AND WE'VE BEEN DOING SO FOR 21 YEARS NOW.

The things that I think we have experienced in that period of time is a greater clarity of roles for both for the superintendent and the board, but also for individual board members as they contribute to what the board is doing.

We've increased the time that we spend in meetings on accountability, which the public expects of us.

They just didn't know we weren't spending that much time beforehand.

BEFORE THAT.

AND WE ALSO LOOK AT ACCOUNTABILITY FOR BOTH THE DISTRICT IN THE PERSON OF THE SUPERINTENDENT, BUT ALSO FOR THE BOARD'S PERFORMANCE AND EVEN INDIVIDUAL BOARD MEMBER BOARDSMANSHIP BEHAVIORS.

WE'VE INCREASED SPECIFICITY AND OUR OWN STABILITY OF EXPECTATIONS.

WE KNOW FROM YEAR IN AND YEAR OUT the broad expectations that we have for students.

And so that trickles down because the district staff, the school staff, the classroom teachers, they have a really stable idea of what the board wants.

And we've increased wait time OF OUR OWN INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS FOR EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS AS A BOARD SO THAT WE MAKE A DECISION BUT WE REALLY DON'T EXPECT THE BOARD'S DECISIONS TO HAVE IMPACT FOR MAYBE FOUR TO FIVE YEARS.

Some of our results include stability and leadership.

We've enjoyed only two superintendents in 26 years.

Now, one of those was in place for five years before we switched, but...

STUDENT OUTCOMES HAVE INCREASED WITH REGARD TO MANDATED TESTING, STATE LEVEL TESTS AT ALL LEVELS, BUT ALSO, MOST IMPORTANTLY, ESPECIALLY SINCE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND FORCED US TO LOOK AT THE RESULTS OF OUR STUDENT SUBGROUPS, WE'VE HAD AN INCREASE IN POVERTY OVER THAT PERIOD FROM 24 TO 36% AND DIVERSITY FROM 31 TO 52% DURING THAT PERIOD.

BUT WE'VE STILL HAD THOSE OUTCOMES INCREASE.

And then we've also been able to spend time on other than academic outcomes that we desire for our students.

Those are just harder to measure than student test scores.

And again, back to that kind of graph that shows low poverty, high test scores, and then all the way down, we've been able to be above that line.

Here's from a couple of years ago.

In our county, there are 13 school districts and the average for English language arts and for math at the...

REALLY, AT SEVERAL LEVELS IN THE DISTRICT, WE HAVE BEEN CONSISTENTLY FIRST OUT OF THE 13. THAT'S NOT WHAT WAS THE CASE WHEN I FIRST JOINED THE BOARD.

WE WERE WHAT I WOULD CALL A LAKE WOBEGONE DISTRICT.

WE WERE ABOVE AVERAGE.

SOMETIMES WE WERE AT THE TOP.

SOMETIMES WE WERE SECOND, THIRD.

YOU COULDN'T PREDICT.

BUT WE WEREN'T AS CONSISTENT AS WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO BECOME.

THERE'S TWO RATING SYSTEMS THAT LOOK AT SCHOOLS THAT RATE, NICHE.COM RATES 238 OF OUR 295 DISTRICTS.

WE HAVE BEEN RATED EIGHTH IN THE MOST RECENT YEAR.

BUT WE ARE DOUBLE, NO, WE ARE ALMOST TRIPLE THE POVERTY RATE FOR THOSE THAT ARE RANKED NUMBERS ONE THROUGH SEVEN.

SO AGAIN, THAT'S ABOVE THAT LINE.

AND THEN SCHOOL DIGGER IS SIMILAR.

WE'RE RATED 14TH OUT OF 247. AND WE ARE ABOUT DOUBLE THE POVERTY RATE OF THOSE RANKED ABOVE US.

SO I'M SORRY ABOUT THE BRAGGING, BUT I JUST WANTED TO GET THAT OVER WITH FIRST.

So one of the simplistic ways of looking at what I think our governance model offers us is we first learn what not to do.

First, do no harm.

Charlie Munger is one of the principles of, or I think he has passed away, but he and Warren Buffett ran their investment firm.

One of his tricks that he happened to learn when he was in World War II as a navigator, he decided that the best thing he could do for pilots was to chart courses that wouldn't kill them.

He said, he averted the problem.

I imagined ways to kill the pilots.

And then I tried to avoid that.

And so I think that goes along with the Hippocratic Oath.

So the first priority in a board is to avoid those things that boards, by research, have been shown to do that harms student learning.

And we know, certainly, if we do a casual search of YouTube, we could find plenty of bad examples.

But if we can learn from research to find the things not to do, that's like step one.

We've got research.

We've got the Lighthouse Study from the late 1990s and the next decade.

And we've also got a study by Lee and Edens, one of the handouts that I've got for you, describes a study of behaviors in boards that relate to high achieving and low achieving school districts.

And there are correlations.

So again, what can go wrong?

And then avoid doing that.

Don't do that.

It's kind of like the physician when you go in for your annual physical.

Are you doing these things?

Don't do that.

So the next step is to go from what I call basic to proficiency, which is also let's learn the things that are good to do, that boards actually can impact student learning.

Not notions about that, but research supported.

BOARD BEHAVIORS THAT ACTUALLY SUPPORT STUDENT LEARNING.

AND SO THERE ARE COLLECTIONS OF RESEARCH IN THE CPE REPORT.

THAT'S ANOTHER HANDOUT.

AND THERE'S A RESEARCH BY A COUPLE OF DOCTORAL RESEARCH STUDENTS THAT that looked at the board standards that Washington State uses.

They were actually from in Montana, but they used our test scores to study the differences between districts where things are going well and things are not going well.

And are they following the Washington State standards?

So what can boards do to improve student outcomes?

And let's systematically try to do those things.

AGAIN, THAT'S A SIMPLISTIC WAY OF SAYING A MODEL DONE WELL CAN HELP US DO THAT KIND OF STRATEGY.

And then the last step, step three, is to get to what I call distinguished, is not only to do those things that are good to do, avoid those things that are bad, but assure that we're going to do those things in the future.

So let's build up resilience.

Let's build up a sustainment capability so that when we are replaced as board members, as we inevitably will, And when the superintendent is replaced, when that team rotates, we still are maintaining the kind of things that we have learned are good to do.

And we're avoiding those things that are bad.

So again, shameless plug, one of my items.

But becoming a better board member, a very long running document of the National School Board Association has got lots of good information in that.

Carver's is a little bit thick.

It's probably written at a graduate school level.

And then Great on Their Behalf, which is much, much more clearly written in my view.

And then also, one of those ways of institutionalizing is not only those documents to the left, but building our own document.

I went to a NSBA conference in 2014 and a Connecticut school director was describing a school board handbook.

TO HELP PROFESSIONALIZE THEIR BOARD BEHAVIORS.

THEY WERE NOT A POLICY GOVERNANCE BOARD, BUT IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA.

SO I WENT HOME, AND WE STARTED WRITING UP A BOARD HANDBOOK FOR US, AND I PRESENTED AT THE NEXT WASDA CONFERENCE, AND BELLINGHAM PICKED UP THE TORCH, AND THEY PREPARED A HANDBOOK.

THAT'S ANOTHER ONE OF THE REFERENCES I'VE GOT FOR READING.

I THINK THESE ARE THE KINDS OF THINGS THAT HELP US TO SYSTEMATIZE AND INSTITUTIONALIZE THOSE GOOD BEHAVIORS THAT WE CAN LEARN AND WE CAN ADOPT.

BECAUSE WHEN YOU GET A NEW BOARD MEMBER, PART OF THE ONBOARDING IS GIVING THEM SOMETHING TO READ.

GIVE THEM SOMETHING THAT IN ONE PACKET TELLS YOU HERE'S HOW THIS BOARD DOES BUSINESS.

And that kind of onboarding is really helpful.

I want to talk about five areas.

Mindset, approach, a little bit about the two models that I'm discussing, and policy governance, which I claim to understand even better.

And then a little bit of comparison and contrast from my perspective, and then a little bit of a summary.

So again, that model allows us to define a certain mindset that we want to adopt that is about our board role.

What do we do that makes a difference?

So how do we approach our job?

It is influenced by how we view that role.

It also is influenced by, especially by tradition, by others, how others see our role.

So the community, voters give us, when we go knocking on doors, voters tell us their expectations.

Legislators give us plenty of examples of direction of telling us what to do.

They inevitably tell us what to do in great detail.

And then superintendents and staff, in the absence of the board having a set of expectations about what their role is, believe me, the superintendent and the staff will pick up the slack and will create their expectation.

And that's not a bad thing, but it's inevitable.

When we drop the ball, it falls on the superintendent.

And I think of the board agenda, for example, as setting the table.

NOW, ONE THING, I THINK THAT GOVERNANCE IS A TOUGH JOB.

BOARDSMANSHIP, AS IT'S BEEN EXPLAINED TO US IN WASDA AND IN NSBA CONFERENCE, ET CETERA, IS VERY, VERY CLEAR.

THESE ARE GOOD BOARD MEMBER BEHAVIORS, AND HERE'S WHAT OUR EXPECTATIONS.

SO THOSE WASDA BOARD STANDARDS, FOR EXAMPLE, FOR BOARD MEMBERS, REALLY A GOOD GUIDE.

What's not so clear is...

I'm so sorry.

Can we go back and can you read those out loud?

Because I can't actually read them on the screen.

They're too small for me.

Didn't intend them to be read, but I'll...

They are.

The first two standards, values and ethical behavior and leadership.

And so, for example, under values and ethical behavior, places student needs first...

DEMONSTRATES COMMITMENT TO EQUITY AND HIGH STANDARDS OF ACHIEVEMENT FOR EACH STUDENT.

AND THERE'S A NUMBER OF STANDARDS THAT I'M NOT EVEN ILLUSTRATING.

OKAY.

YOU WANT TO READ THE REST?

YEAH.

OH.

COMMITS TO TREATING EACH INDIVIDUAL WITH DIGNITY AND RESPECT.

MODELS HIGH ETHICAL STANDARDS.

ADVOCATES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION.

TO BE EFFECTIVE IN INDIVIDUAL DIRECTOR CONTRIBUTES TO THOUGHTFUL GOVERNANCE DISCUSSIONS AND DECISIONS BY BEING WELL INFORMED, OPEN-MINDED, AND DELIBERATIVE.

UNDERSTANDS THAT AUTHORITY REST WITH THE BOARD AS A WHOLE AND NOT WITH INDIVIDUAL DIRECTORS.

IS ABLE TO ARTICULATE AND MODEL APPROPRIATE SCHOOL DIRECTOR ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES.

ACTIVELY PARTICIPATES IN SCHOOL DIRECTOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES.

DEMONSTRATES GROUP MEMBERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP SKILLS WORKING WITHIN THE BOARD STRUCTURE AND RESPECTS THE BOARD'S ROLE IN POLICY MAKING AND SUPPORTS ALL ADOPTED BOARD POLICIES.

THIS IS NOT ALL INCLUSIVE BECAUSE THERE ARE A NUMBER OF STANDARDS THAT I DIDN'T ILLUSTRATE.

BUT THOSE ARE REALLY HIGH STANDARDS THAT IF WE MEET, WE ARE PRETTY GOOD BOARD MEMBERS.

So governance, on the other hand, if it's clear to what boardsmanship is, governance to me is very complicated.

Just two quotes that illustrate that.

Harmon Ziegler in The Future of School Board Governance talks about giving power away to the experts.

That's one of the accusations that boards are subject to, giving power away.

You're giving it too much, giving away the farm.

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, BOARD MEMBERS AND BOARDS ESPOUSE THE IDEOLOGY OF LAY CONTROL.

IT'S A POWERFUL VALUE IN THIS COUNTRY.

THOSE ARE TWO CONFLICTING KINDS OF IMPULSES.

AND CARVER SAYS VERY COMPETENT INDIVIDUALS, THAT'S A COMPLEMENT, CAN COME TOGETHER TO FORM A VERY INCOMPETENT BOARD BECAUSE COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR IS NOT EASY.

so board responsibility viewed by board members can vary from everything you know we're in charge after all to when stuff hits the fan no responsibility at all now i'm not accusing anybody in this room of being on either extreme but i think ON REFLECTION, I CAN IDENTIFY TIMES WHEN OUR BOARD BEHAVED LIKE EITHER OF THOSE TWO.

SO WE'VE GOT SOME CHALLENGES TO OUR MINDSET, AND THAT'S WHY I THINK WORKING INTENTIONALLY TO DEVELOP A MINDSET IS REALLY HELPFUL.

BUT SOME CHALLENGES ARE WE HAVE MANY, MANY LEGAL MANDATES THAT KIND OF STRESS US AWAY FROM A STRATEGIC ROLE.

We've got individual board behaviors that do not always align with the board behavior as a group.

We've got many, I'm using Crable's term here, adult interests that lead us away from thinking about student learning outcomes.

And we've got lots of time eaters.

If you think about a lengthy board meeting, so many of those items that you spend minutes on, and this is one of the reasons I admire Crable.

He focuses time, focuses on time spent in board meetings.

And then lack of focus, which probably is the impact of those first four bullets.

So state law starts out with a clear idea.

The paramount duty of the state, sorry, ample provision for the education of all children.

Then it goes on and describes school districts as subdivisions of the state.

That's pretty clear.

We take on the job of the state within our geographic area.

And then they start describing board responsibilities.

to give students the opportunity to achieve.

Where the state law starts is really good, really clear, very broad, strategic even.

But then we get into details.

And I've highlighted, I think, many, many operational details just on this page, and this is only a partial list of all the many directives that the state law gives us.

And that tends to lead us away from focusing on a strategic role.

So we know the individual board member is not the board.

And for me, after my first four years on the board, boardsmanship, which I thought I understood then, it's not enough.

CARVER, I'M GOING TO REPEAT THIS, CARVER'S STATEMENT IS A CHALLENGE.

VERY COMPETENT INDIVIDUALS CAN COME TOGETHER TO FORM AN INCOMPETENT BOARD.

IT'S JUST A CHALLENGE TO A PRACTICE EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE.

AND CRABELL, OF COURSE, STUDENT ADULT INTERESTS ARE IMPACTED WHEN ADULT BEHAVIORS NEED TO CHANGE IN ORDER TO PRODUCE STUDENT OUTCOMES THAT WE DESIRE.

and adult interests motivate those adult behaviors.

Okay, if you look at adult interests, just a partial list, a small list of examples of adult interests that are important at various points in time in our students' lives, in our students' families, and yet looking at all those adult interests, paying attention to them, tends to lead us to obscure attention on those three Rs.

Okay, time.

We are a part-time body.

That's a fact of life.

We have legal mandates that direct us to take certain actions and we've got adult interests in our community that again influence us toward what I consider a domination of our meeting agendas if we're not intentional about how we deal with those things.

And the result again is the lack of focus.

If we try to be and know and do everything then ultimately when everything is number one, nothing is important.

It reduces our ability in our board meetings, which after all is the only time we are a board.

The only evidence of us as a board between meetings is whatever we put in paper.

If we have policies, if we have strategic plans, those are real and they last between meetings, but we are not active in between board meetings.

So what if we take the time to define and take charge of that role and adopt our common mindset about governance?

That, I think, is the value that a model like policy governance or student outcomes focused governance can help us define, adopt, and sustain.

Under policy governance, I'm going to describe our experience with policy governance.

We've got three jobs as a policy governance board in University Place.

We link with owners.

We listen to the community to learn values, the values that reflect our community.

WE WRITE POLICY THAT USES THOSE VALUES AND PUTS THEM IN WRITING.

PUTS THEM IN A POSITION TO INFLUENCE EDUCATION WITHIN OUR DISTRICT.

THEN WE MONITOR.

WE MONITOR CONSISTENTLY AND ROUTINELY THROUGHOUT THE YEAR TO SEE IF THOSE POLICIES ARE BEING IMPLEMENTED WITH FIDELITY.

We monitor not only the district, but we monitor the board itself against expectations that we've taken the time to write in policy.

Superintendent's job description is even shorter, even if more difficult.

Achieve everything we said should be achieved as an outcome and stay within the limitations, the guardrails, the boundaries that are also set by the board.

So two jobs, and frankly, that greatly simplifies the board superintendent relationship if we can define those things carefully and then clearly give him a mandate that says, do these things, avoid these other things.

So approach.

having established a common mindset THEN WE WANT TO HAVE AN APPROACH THAT SAYS HERE'S HOW WE DO BUSINESS.

SO WE WANT TO FOCUS ON OUTCOMES FOR STUDENTS AND TO A SECONDARY EXTENT, HOW THOSE OUTCOMES ARE ACHIEVED.

SO THAT'S WHERE YOU WOULD CALL YOUR GUARD RAILS IS WHEN YOU GUIDE THE HOW.

BUT THE GOALS THAT YOU SET, THAT'S THE WHAT.

I would say where policy governance boards can go astray is when they overemphasize the how, and they lose sight of the importance of the outcomes, the what.

Okay, Stephen Covey talks about a circle of interest, and I relate that to Crable's adult interests.

We all have a circle of interest in areas that we are interested in.

We would like to influence, for example, many things in our lives.

But Covey challenges us to draw a circle of control.

What are the things we can actually do something about that we should take responsibility for?

It's much easier to focus on that blue area because we're not totally responsible for that.

But if we first take responsibility for the area in the white, then we can exercise, we can be successful in our personal lives, according to Covey.

I think this relates to board business.

And I've got another...

narrowing of our attention a little bit further.

There are things we can control and there are things that matter.

And where those things, where those, where that interaction is, intersection is, I think is where we can strategically work as a board.

So what are the things that we can control that CORRECTION, THE THINGS THAT MATTER.

STUDENT OUTCOMES FIRST AND FOREMOST.

WHAT DIRECTLY IMPACTS STUDENT OUTCOMES MORE THAN BOARD WORK IS TEACHING.

WHAT IS A NEXT LEVEL OF DIRECT IMPACT ON STUDENT OUTCOMES IS THE LEADERSHIP IN A SCHOOL.

AND THEN THE SUPERINTENDENT'S LEADERSHIP IN THE DISTRICT.

THOSE ARE ALL THINGS THAT MATTER, AS IS BOARD WORK.

WHAT ARE THE THINGS WE CAN CONTROL?

Paul Houston, an executive director of American Association of School Administrators about 20 some odd years ago, he talked about the killer bees, buildings, buses, books, budgets, and bonds.

And I would say those are the things that AJ would call the adult interests that can distract us.

Although they are within our control, they may not relate directly to student outcomes.

SO THE INTERSECTION IS WHERE BOARDS THAT ARE STRATEGIC FOCUS THEIR WORK, THAT INFLUENCE SUPERINTENDENT LEADERSHIP, THAT INFLUENCES PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP, THAT INFLUENCES TEACHING AND SUBSEQUENTLY INFLUENCES STUDENT OUTCOMES.

WE ARE AN INDIRECT FACTOR IN STUDENT OUTCOMES.

BUT WE DO, THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT SAYS WHAT WE DO MATTERS.

IT'S JUST THAT WE OUGHT TO BE FOCUSED IN HOW WE DO IT.

SO COMPARING WHAT WE USED TO DO IN UNIVERSITY PLACE WITH WHAT WE DO NOW, AND I ADDED THE LABEL ADULT INTEREST, WE SPENT MORE TIME ON THE MEANS AS BOARDS.

TRADITIONALLY THAT'S WHAT BOARDS DO.

THEY SPEND MUCH MORE TIME ON THE MEANS THAN ON THE ENDS.

And now we spend much more time on the ends, focused on ends, getting monitoring reports on ends, discussing them, setting policy, adjusting policy, and less, although not no emphasis on the means, but a reduced amount.

Our conversations used to be between board and staff And now we have to intentionally think of conversation, board and community, and not during election time, but between elections.

That's where we have changed our emphasis.

And then policy used to be, and still is, a couple of large, if they were in paper form, they're large three ring binders.

THOSE WERE THE ONLY POLICIES THAT THE BOARD HAD AND ACKNOWLEDGED.

BUT AFTER WE CONVERTED TO POLICY GOVERNANCE, WE DECIDED WHICH POLICIES ARE TRULY STRATEGIC THAT DIRECT THE BOARD ITSELF AND THE SUPERINTENDENT.

AND WE TELL THE SUPERINTENDENT, MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAW WITH REGARD TO THOSE MANY OTHER OPERATIONAL POLICIES.

And when we received reports before we went to policy governance, we basically were curious what's going on.

Now it's much more focused, are we meeting expectations that we have spent time to write into policy?

So we established in our model, we established an approach with an operating system.

There's a management theorist that talks about the engine of a good corporation that builds on their business model and has kind of an engine of progress.

WHERE THEY MAKE A PROFIT.

THEY PRODUCE THEIR PRODUCTS.

WE HAVE AN ENGINE OR AN OPERATING SYSTEM IN OUR GOVERNANCE MODEL BECAUSE WE LISTEN TO THE COMMUNITY TO LEARN THEIR VALUES.

WE PUT THOSE VALUES INTO POLICY.

WE DELEGATE AUTHORITY TO THE SUPERINTENDENT, BUT IT'S LIMITED AUTHORITY BECAUSE THE SUPERINTENDENT KNOWS WE'RE GOING TO MONITOR THE EXERCISE OF THAT AUTHORITY.

WE'RE GOING TO MAKE JUDGMENTS ABOUT THAT.

in a very comprehensive 12 months a year way where we used to evaluate the superintendent in a closed door session for about an hour at the end of the year when nobody in the public was listening.

We have hours and hours of conversation that accumulates to become the superintendent's evaluation at the end of the year.

And we add the self-assessment of the board's performance.

So what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

That's our operating system.

So we listen to learn the values.

I wanted to emphasize this.

This is what we think of as community engagement.

AT ONE MEETING, WHICH WE CALL LINKAGE MEETINGS, BUT YOU COULD CALL A LISTENING SESSION, WE REVIEW ONE PARTICULAR END POLICY AND WE ASK MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC WHO ARE PRESENT, ARE OUR DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOMES IN THIS POLICY WHAT THE COMMUNITY WANTS?

WHY?

WHY NOT?

What adjustments do we need to make?

What are your expectations for student outcomes?

And the board's job is not to speak.

That's hard for board members.

But our job is to listen.

And it sounds like we're not listening if we don't respond.

SO IT TAKES A DISCIPLINE TO DO THAT.

BUT WE FOLLOW UP THAT DISCIPLINE BY RESPONDING.

AT THE NEXT BOARD MEETING, WE THINK ABOUT WHAT WE HEARD AND THEN WE DISCUSS IT.

AND THEN WE DECIDE, WELL, BASED ON WHAT WE HEARD, ARE THERE ANY IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR POLICY THAT WAS THE FOCUS OF THAT LINKAGE SESSION?

So this is a targeting of our community engagement around specific policies.

And we do that throughout the year.

Frankly, this is the most challenging part from my perspective about our board model.

It's hard work is my point.

I'm not saying we do it poorly, but it is the most challenging.

WE SET POLICIES THAT ARE STRATEGIC.

WE CALL THEM ENDS, YOU CALL THEM GOALS OR THE OUTCOMES FOR STUDENTS.

WE CALL EXECUTIVE LIMITATIONS AND GUARDRAILS.

THAT'S HOW WE ACHIEVE THOSE GOALS.

THOSE FINAL TWO SETS OF POLICY ARE ABOUT THE BOARD'S OWN PERFORMANCE.

OUR POLICY FOCUS BEFORE AND AFTER, AGAIN, THOSE TWO, THREE RING BINDERS, MAYBE EVEN THREE, HUNDREDS OF PAGES, WE NOW FOCUS OUR ATTENTION ON MAYBE 30 PAGES OF POLICY.

AND WE HAVE NOT GOTTEN RID OF THOSE OTHER OPERATIONAL POLICIES, BUT WE'VE CLEARLY LABELED THEM AS OPERATIONAL.

AND WE'VE TOLD THE SUPERINTENDENT, KEEP US STRAIGHT.

KEEP US IN COMPLIANCE.

AND TRUTHFULLY, BEFORE THAT, BEFORE WE MADE THAT SWITCH, THAT'S ESSENTIALLY WHAT THE SUPERINTENDENT DID TO BEGIN WITH.

THEY BROUGHT US NEW POLICIES, THEY BROUGHT US REVISIONS FOR APPROVAL, BUT NOW WE ACTUALLY TAKE CHARGE, WE OWN THOSE STRATEGIC POLICIES.

So we make our meetings strategic by structuring them to meet the role that we have defined for the board.

The board meetings are for the board's role.

The superintendent and the staff have got all week long to do the staff job.

Our meetings are for the board's job.

And so we don't let the superintendent set the table for us based on their own concept of what's important.

We've already defined that when we set those policies.

So the way we run those meetings is part of our job in those meetings is to create a public image that describes what we're doing in the district to make a difference.

That's what the public expects and that's what they care about.

But schools do tend to reflect the board's behavior in meetings.

And we want that behavior to be positive and constructive.

We don't allow the traditional agenda to be an obstacle to doing that strategic role.

So we focus how we structure our meetings.

And again, we respect two things that are very traditional, and we have not gone away from them.

One is transparency.

The public has a right to know what we're doing.

And the other is accountability.

The public expects that they've elected us to hold the system accountable.

So how do we do that?

We basically have five parts to our board meeting.

The opening sequence, we have a flag salute, we welcome guests, we deal with the consent agenda at the beginning of the meeting.

Then we focus on three board jobs, board learning, Part of that might be, at that part of the meeting, might be if we have a linkage session, that's when we'll do listening to the public.

But other board development activities might be a short briefing on what the advocacy goals are for WASDA, does the board agree with these, et cetera.

This is all part of developing the board.

THEN THERE'S MONITORING.

WE ARE LOOKING AT ONE OR TWO POLICIES, MAYBE THREE POLICIES IN A GIVEN MEETING, AND WE RECEIVE DATA THAT HELPS US MAKE JUDGMENTS.

AND THEN POLICY REVIEW.

IF WE LOOKED AT A SUBJECT LAST MONTH, THEN WE CONSIDER THOSE SAME POLICIES THIS MONTH, DO THEY NEED TO BE UPDATED?

We want to give the superintendent the courtesy of knowing what our expectations are for the next year.

What used to happen when we did superintendent evaluation in June, we may have been marching through March, I'm sorry, April or May, WITHOUT ANY KNOWLEDGE ON THE SUPERINTENDENT'S PART OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN AN EXPECTATION AT THE END OF MAY OR BEGINNING OF JUNE.

THAT'S NOT FAIR.

AND IT'S ALSO NOT VERY CONSTRUCTIVE.

AND THEN WE HAVE THE CLOSING PART OF THE, NOW, BOTH THE OPENING AND CLOSING ARE STILL IMPORTANT functions that go on there.

For example, we have a board assessment of our meeting.

We judge, we give ourselves a grade at the end of the meeting based on expectations we've decided about how the meeting should be run.

So all of this approach to governance leads to stability that's very constructive.

It helps us control the inevitable tendency toward micromanagement by having a disciplined approach that says, our expectations have to be written in policy.

We're not going to just come up with them on the fly.

Just one example.

WHEN WE DEPEND ON THE SUPERINTENDENT AND THE STAFF TO SET THE TABLE FOR US, WE BECOME VERY PASSIVE.

WE SHOW UP AT BOARD MEETINGS AND WHAT I CALL PRESIDE.

OKAY, ENTERTAIN ME.

THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING.

IT MAY BE TEMPORARILY ADVANTAGEOUS FOR A SUPERINTENDENT WHO WANTS INDEPENDENCE.

But the problem is, is you rebound when things go bad into a reactive board and an unstable situation.

So board instability, that certainly research shows that it increases superintendent turnover, it increases board turnover too.

and other research shows the superintendent tenure is positively correlated with student results and uh...

and i've got a couple references that talk about that kind of research that's a great simplification of some of that research because there's always exceptions to every rule but in general this this research holds okay the two models I WANT TO GO QUICKLY THROUGH THE 10 PRINCIPLES OF POLICY GOVERNANCE.

THERE'S BASICALLY THREE GROUPS OF THOSE 10 PRINCIPLES.

AND THEY RELATE TO THE NATURE OF BOARDS.

BOARDS ARE THERE TO EXERCISE WHAT CARVER CALLS OWNER AUTHORITY.

THE COMMUNITY OWNS THE SCHOOLS WITHIN THAT REGION.

AND SO WE'RE THERE TO EXERCISE THAT AUTHORITY.

we do so by setting policy that is the voice of that authority.

And then we delegate, we have the nature of delegation.

We've got policies that relate to the use of authority.

So the nature of boards.

Ownership, we act on behalf of an ownership.

And that's just another word for the community that we represent.

Board holism, we only act as a whole board.

When we take a vote, that's the board whole operating.

Individual board members, zero authority.

The board position, instead of being part of the, let's call it the good old boy network of the district, WHEN WE GET ELECTED, WE DON'T JUST BECOME PART OF THE DISTRICT.

WE ARE STILL OUTSIDE THE ORGANIZATION BETWEEN THE BOARD, BETWEEN THE DISTRICT AND THE COMMUNITY WE REPRESENT.

OUR JOB IS TO REPRESENT THE COMMUNITY AND NEVER FORGET WHERE WE CAME FROM.

AND THE CEO OPERATES UNDER OUR AUTHORITY.

THE BOARD SPEAKS, OR POLICY SPEAKS FOR US.

IN POLICY GOVERNANCE, WE SAY IF WE HAVEN'T PUT IT IN WRITING, IT HAS NO AUTHORITY.

THERE'S NO VERBAL COMMENT AT A BOARD TABLE THAT HAS ANY POWER OVER THE SUPERINTENDENT UNTIL THAT VERBAL COMMENT BECOMES A MOTION THAT THREE, IN YOUR CASE, FOUR OUT OF SEVEN MEMBERS VOTE FOR.

Then it gets put in writing, and it's crystal clear what that expectation is.

Instead of after the meeting, the superintendent saying, now so-and-so said this, and so-and-so said that.

What should I do?

No.

If it's not in writing, it's nothing.

So we've got policy that describes the results we want.

We've got policies that describe how the board operates and how it relates to the superintendent.

and then we've got staff means policies which for your guardrails for us are limitations and then we've got principle of policy size we start writing every policy at the broadest possible level do this and then because it's not quite clear what our expectation, we get a little more detailed in the subsequent paragraphs.

If that subsequent paragraph is not clear yet, we go into more detail, subset A, B, C, et cetera.

But then Carver's guidance, go no further.

Be as brief as possible because for one thing, nobody remembers your priorities unless you're clear about them and brief.

So again, the group of nature of delegation is we've got to delegate to management.

We do not exist between board meetings.

The staff do.

So we have to delegate in order to get things done.

We can't choose to delegate, we have to delegate.

We can do it precisely or we can do it informally and nobody really takes responsibility for having done it.

That's what happened before we were clear about it.

Any reasonable interpretation.

This is a principle that says once we've defined what the policies are, it's the superintendent's job to interpret our words.

And any reasonable interpretation, we will accept.

Now, if we don't like that interpretation, then it's our obligation to be more clear the next go around with our expectations.

I'm sorry, this is slow to react.

Monitoring.

The board monitors performance rigorously against the criteria written in policy.

And that's the 10th principle of policy governance.

Just one example of the impact of using policy governance is what used to be a strategic plan that the board owned every bit of it.

The vision, the mission, the goals, the outcomes, the key strategies, even the action plans that implemented key strategies, the board owned everything.

That caused that document to sit on a shelf and gather dust.

Right now, under policy governance, the board owns the outcomes.

But we've delegated, the superintendent owns the strategies.

The superintendent is on the hook to keep those strategies current.

Those are living strategies.

They are not a document that sits on the shelf.

So in Bellingham, I'm using another district's example, that strategic plan looks similar to what it might have looked like in 30 years ago, but the way we think about it is way different under policy governance.

AGAIN, HERE'S THAT OPERATING CYCLE.

WE SET POLICY.

WE LET THE SUPERINTENDENT LEAD THE WORK.

THAT'S LIKE 11 AND A HALF MONTHS OF THE YEAR.

THEN IN THIS PARTICULAR POLICY IN DECEMBER WE MONITOR THAT GIVEN POLICY.

And then we get data, we get a report, we judge results, and then we review the policy to see what needs to be updated for next year.

And then we set the policy and we go through that cycle.

Every single one of our policies, we go through this cycle.

And that's why we monitor something all year long, every month of the year.

Here's an example.

I don't intend anybody to read it, but we set a policy.

Oh, I'm sorry.

This is an illustration of how the board sets policy.

This is very slow to respond.

Sorry.

We are stuck.

OK.

Anyway, we have a number, about 17 policies that guide the board itself.

It's not moving.

You recognize these.

These are the...

AREAS THAT CRABELL OFFERS IN STUDENT OUTCOMES FOCUSED GOVERNANCE WHERE THE QUARTERLY SELF-ASSESSMENT, THE ADDITIONAL PRACTICES, THESE ARE GUIDES THAT ARE, I DON'T NEED TO TELL YOU ABOUT THESE.

OKAY, COMPARISON AND CONTRAST.

There is a very much a common mindset in my view between policy governance and student outcomes focused governance.

The board and superintendent roles have been clarified.

There is a strong emphasis on focusing on outcomes that describe students, not just outcomes that are goals in a traditional strategic plan.

A goal might be something having to do with the academic work being done in the classroom.

No, it's the results of that academic work.

that we're talking about the board focusing on.

So relating to students and relating to a long-term desired outcome.

Our approach is very similar in terms of setting expectations in policy and then monitoring them.

There is research that supports these models, although that research also supports good governance in other uh...

approaches to i'm sure in other approaches to the board's job it's just i haven't found any that are that clear uh...

in in relating them but but the center for public education uh...

document that is provided as a resource is is chock full of good recommendations for boards but i just emphasize three characteristics attitudes knowledge and approaches what we be, what we know, and what we do.

Okay, Iowa studies that I mentioned earlier, one of the quotes is, boards that are doing better with regard to student learning have an elevating view of students, very much related to a growth mindset.

If you think better, whether you're a teacher or a board, if you think that students can, you're well on the way to actually helping them enable to do it.

Publicly adopting this is from Marzano and Waters work on looking they were looking at Superintendent leadership, but I think you've got lessons for boards from that Publicly adopting broad five-year goals for achievement and instruction and consistently supporting them and then also another finding that the superintendent tenure is significantly related to student achievement and So who does what in our mindset?

For board business, the board's in charge, but we got to do the work.

We don't just show up and preside.

We have to do the work.

But for all the business that we haven't defined as board work, the superintendent's in charge, runs the show, but is accountable for the same.

I wrote and, but I'll just emphasize but.

Okay, so those four sets of policies, two sets guide the superintendent, other two sets guide the board.

And I put the word chair there because the board's president, the board chair is responsible during meetings to make sure that the board's work is done.

And then in student outcomes focused governance, goals and guardrails are the responsibility that guide the superintendent.

Governance and delegation are the policies that guide the board.

So here's an application of the concepts of these two models.

The coach says get to the goal line and stay in bounds.

The board's job is to identify the desired ends and set the limits in place.

And then provide a playing field.

Allow the team, the superintendent and staff, the freedom to respond to the situations on the field.

Give them the ball and expect the result.

Don't go out of bounds.

So I'm a military guy.

Patton actually said this.

He's not the micromanager that films make us believe.

Never tell people how to do things.

Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

So what does the board do?

Set the objective, set the limits, and then minimize direction of operational details, the plan of action, because the first try might not work.

You might need to go around the hill to capture the objective.

OK, again, the operating system has a cycle of cycles throughout the year.

We look at one policy at a time.

In our district, this is an example of a spread of all of those executive limitations policies.

And this is an example of the spread of our ends policies and when we monitor them throughout the year.

Monitoring.

Once we have an operating system up and running, monitoring is the bulk of our work.

Is the interpretation that the superintendent has described reasonable?

Now part of that interpretation is identifying the data that staff will be gathering to convince the board that we're making progress.

Are the outcomes achieved or at least reasonable progress?

Hopefully the outcomes are a very high standard and the objective is reasonable progress toward those goals.

Are the guardrails not violated, the limits?

And again, it's a reasonableness standard.

Is there reasonable compliance with these very high standard policies?

And then for the future, do we need to make any adjustments for the future?

Okay, here are the examples of how our district describes the policy at the top.

The superintendent's report starts out with a reiteration of policy provisions, one at a time, with an interpretation statement that says, here's how I interpret your words.

And therefore, part of that is, here's the data I'm gonna bring to you.

And then we look at the data, again, one provision in policy at a time, and we decide whether we're in compliance with a means type of policy or if we are making reasonable progress toward an ends type of policy.

And then the board responds.

We put in writing what we think about the progress or the compliance, depending on the type of policy.

And then we make remarks which communicate what we mean by compliance, what we mean by progress, based on the report that we've been given.

And that's the board's obligation.

That's the board doing its work rather than just presiding, showing up, taking a vote.

Now we follow that up by if we need to revising the policy for next year.

Now, on the far left here, I've got what our board uses for our self-assessment at the end of every meeting.

So, instead of having a big debate at the end of the meeting, or having some secret vote, what we do is we delegate to one board member the responsibility of reviewing that list at the end of the meeting.

No debate.

That's their opinion.

Okay?

If their opinion is not my opinion, okay, I get my turn next time.

BUT THE TWO DOCUMENTS ON THE RIGHT ARE YOUR STUDENT OUTCOMES FOCUSED GOVERNANCE MEANS OF SELF-ASSESSING.

AND AGAIN, THIS IS A SELF-DISCIPLINE THAT VERY FEW BOARDS ENGAGE IN.

ESPECIALLY POWERFUL IS THAT THE TRANSPARENCY OF DOING THIS IN PUBLIC, IN FRONT OF THE PUBLIC.

OKAY, SUMMARY.

WHERE ARE WE ON TIME?

OH, WE'RE CLOSE.

The differences of the two, there's some terminology differences, but philosophically I think very similar.

The staff means probably there's a difference in we have more extensive executive limitations, more wording in ours, and probably more pieces of paper than your guardrails.

Some advantages that are common to both models, in my view, student outcomes is the focus.

You can't beat that.

Roles are clear and distinct and become a foundation for accountability.

If we know that this is your job and this is my job, there's no fumbling of the ball, to use the ball metaphor.

They're small and a strategic and manageable set of expectations because the board is responsible for managing that set of expectations.

We can't handle 300 pages of board expectations.

But that's what our traditional sense of what boards do.

That's what we pretend to do with the old fashioned two, three ring binders.

We have an ongoing evaluation of performance, much better than traditional superintendent evaluation.

It's done in public, it's done in great comprehensive detail, and it's fair because the expectations are already written.

We don't show up in June and discover something that one board member got their nose bent out of joint without having said a thing ahead of time, and then they get three other board members to vote for it, and boom, you're gone, or at least your ego is damaged.

So all year long, the focus is on the organization.

This is why we do it in public.

We are talking about the district.

Now the superintendent knows and we know that we're talking about superintendent evaluation, but we don't emphasize that in our conversation.

The conversation is about district progress.

And we also have the self-discipline to assess ourselves.

Again, in public, and if anything builds confidence in the public, it's seeing us have the gumption to critique ourselves.

Okay, I'm real close and I think we're going to make it.

I read an article once that became a book by Richard Elmore who was a professor at Harvard, may still be there, I don't know.

He had a thinking exercise.

He used, I used to think this and now I think that.

I think he was talking about education policy and he greatly revised his thinking over the years with that.

But he ended up writing a book or editing a book where other contributors added some I used to think and now I think.

It was pretty good.

Here's an exercise that I used thinking about delegation.

We used to think on our board that policy governance allows us to hand over management and focus only on governance.

And now we think after multiple years of adjustment and then that thinking, policy governance allows us or shows us how to oversee management as the community of owners rather than as another hands-on manager.

So yes, we don't micromanage, but we don't just hand it over.

We hand over the doing, but we keep the seeing that it is done.

Reflection on innovation.

We used to think and we have an impulse to think that anything new, any change is good.

And many people, myself included, got elected to the board and had some ideas, things I can change.

Now we think that one new thing after another new thing after another thing adds up to what Rick Hess, education, really a critiquer of education in this country, he calls it churn.

If you have churn, you have an unstable operation going on, you might have unstable leadership, and churn leads to lower student outcomes.

And again, there's research that supports that.

We need to have persistence to make something stick.

If it's valuable, if policy governance, if the model is good, Have the persistence to make it stick, but don't be stubborn in applying it.

Think every step of the way.

Make adjustments in your policy expectations as you go, but persist in if it makes sense to do these things of having a systematic approach to doing board work, then by all means persist in that.

One of my pet peeves in annual conferences is we get presentation after presentation where somebody made a decision last year, they made a big change, they instituted some innovation, and then they declared success.

And what do they do?

They brag about it to everybody else, okay?

Not what I consider...

Anyway, that's what I used to think and now I think.

A board self-discipline.

I used to think that the board president enforces that.

That's their role.

And it is their role to make decisions during the meeting.

But now our board thinks it's everybody's responsibility.

If we see something, we say something.

If we object, we speak to the board chair.

That's Robert's rules.

But we take responsibility.

We don't stay silent and we say, hey, board chair, you didn't take care of that.

AND THEN EXAMPLE OF THAT IS WE ROTATE THAT ASSESSMENT THAT WE DO AT THE END OF EVERY MEETING.

WE CALL THIS PERSON THE CARVER COP.

IT USED TO BE THAT THE BOARD PRESIDENT WAS THE CARVER COP.

AND BECAUSE I WAS PRESIDENT WHEN WE ADOPTED THIS, IT WAS KIND OF LIKE MY, I OWN THIS.

NO.

ONLY WHEN THE WHOLE BOARD OWNED THIS DID IT BECOME EFFECTIVE.

OK, and then I mentioned the idea of a board handbook.

Let's see, Berlin, Connecticut was the board chair that gave this pitch in 2014. I took it back.

We worked on it as a board.

The nice thing about this is it's one document that, I don't know, maybe 15 to 20 pages long.

it tells in brief how this board operates.

Here's how we do things around here.

And there's something comforting to a new member to actually read an explanation of how we do business, why we do business, And reading 300 pages of policy, or even now reading 30 pages of policy, isn't quite the same as reading something like this.

So that's just a recommendation I have.

It helps for onboarding new members.

And again, it does that third step of institutionalizing the good, in my view.

Oh, there's that third step.

And again, if we can sustain those things that we've decided are good, then that's the long-term thing.

That's our legacy with future board members and future superintendents if we do this thing right.

That is a slow reaction.

Okay, here we go.

A board can go from this, that quote from John Carver.

to, with the right mindset and approach, five, or in your case seven, normal, less than perfect citizens can come together and form a very competent board.

SO I'VE GOT SOME READINGS.

I APOLOGIZE.

THE FIRST ONE IS MY OWN ARTICLE.

OH, THE SECOND AND THE THIRD ONE, TOO.

YOU ALREADY RECEIVED THE FIRST TWO.

BUT THE THIRD ONE, IT DESCRIBES THE EVALUATION PROCESS.

IT WAS THE COVER ARTICLE FOR THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR MAGAZINE IN ABOUT 2012. 15 maybe and um but all the others are are really smart people other than yours truly that uh that i just offer those as readings for further backup so that some of the declarations i've met made hopefully have some evidence behind them We've got about five minutes before AJ.

Does anybody have any questions?

You're full of baloney, Maloney.

Well, I just thank you for taking the time and for providing us with your time and insight.

And I will open it up to anyone that may have a question.

Director Briggs.

I have a couple questions.

This is a kind of, well, this is the simplest one.

How would you define the difference between a responsive board and a reactive board?

I think a reactive board, on my slide I describe, I think I use the word reactive.

If it if you if a board is complacent or compliant and submissive to the superintendent they set themselves up they are set up to be reactive because when something comes along that's a crisis or something comes along that causes emotion on a board member that tends to instigate a reaction on the part of the board and and proactive again thinking about monitoring if something goes wrong in in student discipline some bad event at the schools YOU'VE GOT A GUARD RAIL OR YOU'VE GOT A GOAL, YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING THAT YOU'VE ESTABLISHED AS YOUR EXPECTATIONS IN WRITING THAT YOU CAN WORK WITH.

AND TOO MANY TIMES BOARD MEMBERS FORGET ABOUT WHAT THEY'VE ALREADY WRITTEN DOWN AND THEY GIVE NEW DIRECTION.

And maybe they replace people.

But if they take the time, the discipline, to look at what they've already written, then they're not going to be reactive.

I guess that's probably my example.

Can I ask a second question?

OK, well, that kind of segues actually into my second question, which was at one point you said that every direction to the superintendent needs to be written down, and it doesn't count until it's written down.

And I am still unclear in what form that should take.

So we have policy, obviously, but then specific things are going to come up that are not delineated in policy.

So is resolutions the way to do that?

Traditionally, that's so.

I think if Carver were here, I'm talking policy governance, if Carver were here, I think he would not say that resolutions are a good idea.

Frankly, we have adopted multiple resolutions over the last 30 years that I don't think I could put my hands on them.

But our policy set, I can reach out and touch those.

So I think the thing that Carver would emphasize is you should have ongoing guidance and if you take the time to put it in writing like a resolution, then what you want to do is frequently refer back to that same document when you're monitoring to see if the resolution was carried out.

And Carver would call that policy.

So I think a resolution can deflect our attention and we think we've solved it when in fact it's not an ongoing focus and therefore it can be forgotten.

I'm not entirely clear on this.

So you're saying if a resolution is...

Okay, so can I give a concrete example?

Because that might help.

Like for our recent attempt to consolidate schools, we...

What was the right way for the board to give direction to the superintendent around that?

Because that's kind of like a one-time situation.

So it's not necessarily going to be written into policy.

You know what I mean?

It's a tough one.

And I don't want to be black and white about this is the way to do it and this is not the way to do it.

I think that, in fact, we have adopted resolutions over the course of the last 21 years.

I would just be cautious about that unless it's something that you can revisit or you intend to revisit.

You just want to be cautious that when you do a one time action that you don't forget it.

So in the case of something like here's another thing even when you have even if opening and closing schools were considered devoid of present circumstances, if you considered it an operational kind of decision, then you delegate that.

But sometimes the superintendent's judgment and your judgment may be, you know, we need to make that strategic.

BECAUSE OF WHATEVER REASONS YOU DECIDE ARE IMPORTANT ENOUGH.

SO WE HAVE OCCASIONALLY STUFF THAT BELONGS IN THE CONSENT AGENDA BECAUSE IT'S OPERATIONAL.

THE SUPERINTENDENT WILL DELIBERATELY PUT IT ON THE AGENDA OR RECOMMEND OR A BOARD MEMBER WILL ASK THAT IT BE PULLED OFF THE CONSENT AGENDA AND PUT ON THE AGENDA FOR BOARD ACTION BECAUSE IT'S OF SUCH IMPORTANCE TO THE COMMUNITY that it's worth doing.

So even if routinely something might be operational, if you've decided that this is board business, that's board business.

It's just that if you're going to be true to a model, you want to make sure that every decision you make, you're going to revisit THAT'S WHY THE VALUE OF PUTTING IT IN WRITING IS.

IF YOU DO A RESOLUTION, IF YOU DO SOME OTHER STRATEGIC PLAN THAT'S NOT A POLICY, THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT YOU'RE GOING TO GO BACK AND MONITOR WHAT YOU DID LATER BECAUSE IT MAY PROVIDE BETTER GUIDANCE FOR THE FUTURE.

I wanted to add to that a couple years ago we had a conversation I don't know Fred maybe you can remember it doesn't really matter specifically but we had a conversation around since like the 90s there's like four different resolutions that the Seattle School Board has passed that have to do with like climate and energy and AND THEY KIND OF ALIGN, BUT, YOU KNOW, OVER 40 OR 50 YEARS, YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT THE CONTEXT HAS CHANGED AND WHATNOT, AND WHAT SOMEBODY WHO CAME HERE TO DO THAT WORK SESSION WITH US, I THINK IT WAS FOR LEVY PLANNING, I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER, BUT SHE SAID, YOU KNOW, IF THIS IS SOMETHING THAT IS A VALUE THAT'S IMPORTANT TO THE BOARD NOW, IT SHOULD BE IN POLICY.

YEAH, SO YOU MAY HAVE A NEED FOR A RESOLUTION FOR A MOMENT.

Yes.

During the summer of 2020, we had a resolution that was instigated by the George Floyd situation.

If it's an important item that was important then, we ought to try to absorb that into our policies going forward.

I think in this case, that's probably similar.

Yeah.

Basically, yeah, what I heard you saying was if you do end up with a resolution, the probably best practice is to migrate it into a policy eventually.

Yeah, okay.

Because then it guarantees you're going to revisit the important values that are in that for future guidance.

Right.

I think it's 6 o'clock.

Anybody else have any?

We also in order to find we can email if anybody comes up with anything else.

I'm going to volunteer Rick to.

Thank you.

I took the second reference on the table I'm going to steal this and bring it back to my board.

I really admire what AJ has done.

He tackles the toughest school district problems around the country because these are the large urban districts.

AND SEATTLE IS A MINOR DISTRICT COMPARED WITH SOME OF THOSE BACK EAST.

AND SO I REALLY ADMIRE WHAT COUNCIL OF GREAT CITY SCHOOLS IS DOING BECAUSE THAT'S THE WORK OF THIS COUNTRY.

THAT'S WHERE THE MAJORITY OF STUDENTS WHO LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES ATTEND SCHOOLS IN OUR URBAN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS.

Can I say this?

God bless you.

Well, thanks again for coming.

And I hope that folks found stuff to think about.

Why I asked Rick to join us tonight was to just help us all have a kind of similar conversation with different terminology and also just to grow our understanding as a board OF, YOU KNOW, THEY'VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR 20 YEARS, AND IT'S STUDENT OUTCOMES FOCUSED GOVERNANCE IS VERY HEAVILY BASED ON AND REFERS TO POLICY GOVERNANCE.

THE CARVER MODEL OF POLICY GOVERNANCE, IT'S FREE FOR ANYONE TO USE, BUT HE SAYS YOU CAN ONLY SAY POLICY GOVERNANCE with the copyright if you're adhering to every principle of it.

So lots of people have different versions of policy governance that they may not call that because it's trademarked.

So coherent governance is also a version, and policy governance was created just for any kind of board.

COHERENT GOVERNANCE IS ANOTHER ONE WHERE SOME FOLKS STARTED TO IMPLEMENT POLICY GOVERNANCE FOR A SCHOOL BOARD AND THEN REALIZED WE NEED TO KIND OF TAILOR THIS SPECIFICALLY FOR SCHOOL BOARD GOVERNANCE AND THEN WE CAN'T CALL IT POLICY GOVERNANCE ANYMORE ACCORDING TO CARVER.

And so they called it coherent governance.

And student outcomes-focused governance came out of a very similar desire to how do we take this research-backed, long-established practice of effective boards and make it directly applicable to school boards.

And so, yes.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And, oh, do we need a five, let's take a five minute stretch.

And then we will nicely segue us into monitoring, which Rick also talked about as being a key part of our obligation as board.

So we'll come back at, well, I'll say 6-10.

All right.

Sorry.

I let us go.

I let us go on.

Side conversation.

Thank you.

What's that?

OK, perfect.

Well, let's go ahead and get started or restarted.

Where's my?

Okay, we're now going to transition to our second work session, which is a training on progress monitoring.

We are joined by AJ Cravel from the Council of Great City Schools.

We have, or remotely, we have had a few progress monitoring sessions this year, but we haven't had an opportunity yet for a training as a full board.

So for some folks tonight, this is a refresher.

For some, this is new.

Either way, it's...

Why not go over it again?

Yeah.

So practice makes perfect.

So AJ, I will pass it over to you.

And thank you for your patience as we had side conversations and a little break.

Thank you for having me.

Always a joy to get to spend time with you all.

This evening's conversation is about why and how do we monitor progress.

What you've done, a previous incarnation on the board has done, is go out and listen to the community and from that listening write down that board's understanding of the community's vision for what it wants students to know and be able to do and the community's values the non-negotiables that must be honored by this school system as it is in pursuit of the community's vision The board took that vision and codified it into a set of goals and took those values from the community and codified those into a set of guardrails.

And it's the goals and the guardrails that serve as the focusing lens for the board's efforts and through the board for the superintendent and the organization's efforts.

Why then do we take time to monitor?

Why does monitoring matter?

We've already said what the vision and values are.

Why bother monitoring?

Go ahead, director Briggs.

I saw your hand reach for your.

So we can keep track of progress.

So we can know how we're doing.

So we still have an opportunity to adjust before the end of the year.

If we're not moving in the right direction, I don't know.

That's my best guess.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Who else?

Why do we bother monitoring?

We've already said what the community's vision and values are.

You've already listened to that and written it down.

Why do you bother to then monitor it after the fact?

Anyone else?

So that we know whether or not we're actually getting closer to achieving the community's vision within their values?

Should I just go ahead and speak rather than raising my hand?

Go ahead, Sarah.

Thanks.

Can you guys hear me?

Yeah, please jump in.

I guess so that we can tell if what we're doing is having a positive or increasing student outcomes or not.

Yeah.

It's not appropriate to simply blindly trust the superintendent that the work is getting done.

You actually need to do something to verify that what our students deserve is actually happening in reality.

Anyone else?

Why bother to monitor?

Anyone else have thoughts that haven't been shared before we move on?

Why bother to monitor?

Well, it's also a micro assessment of the superintendent's performance.

Correct.

One of the things that is important to note about monitoring is it is a public miniature evaluation of superintendent performance.

What a lot of organizations do, which does not seem to have a lot of support in the literature as of late, is they'll do a once per year evaluation, superintendent.

What that means is if our students who most need what the school system has to offer, have not received educational justice for the last year.

We may not know about it until that evaluation occurs.

Instead, doing a micro-evaluation of the superintendent every single month gives the board much clearer insight into, are our children getting what they deserve or not?

What's working?

How do we make sure to support that?

What's not working and how do we pivot?

Any other reflections on why we monitor before we transition?

Any other reflections on why we monitor?

Then what there is to do is to get more and more effective at monitoring over time.

And so what we offer is a or how to think about the quality of the questions i ask when i'm monitoring and so what we want to do is we uh you all actually had a and so i want to put that screen um and what i want you all to do uh is first of all this is liza interrupting you um i And remember, what we'll do is we'll dig in and practice some questions.

AJ, I'm not sure if there's...

Uh-oh.

I'm sorry, did you say something?

Yes, I was just going to say I'm not sure if there's anything you can do about it on your end, but you are cutting in and out, so we missed some of what you just said.

I don't know if turning off your camera would make a difference, but we lost your audio for a minute there.

OK.

I will seek an alternative while we keep moving.

OK.

Should be able to see the monitoring report from last month of your most recent board meeting, the third grade reading monitoring report?

Yes, it is on the screen.

And so if you could just take a moment to read through the first two pages of that.

And what I'm going to have you do is we're going to actually practice writing an effective question and an ineffective question.

And so I want you to have this monitoring report in mind, and we're going to walk through the criteria for effective and ineffective questions.

So, AJ, we are...

AJ, I'm not sure if you can hear us, but we are...

Staff is...

I'm trying to...

While you're getting your connection figured out.

All right.

Are you able to hear me better now?

Yes.

Is that any better?

Marginally.

We'll try it out.

Okay.

And we are.

Different Wi-Fi's, but apparently neither is working here.

Well, while you're, I don't know, turning it off and turning it on again or something, Julia is working on printing us out this progress monitoring memo.

And Julia, can you also email it to Director Clark, who is remote?

Thank you.

And so with that monitor port in mind, if you could to the monitoring to the packet for this meeting that has the monitoring conversation evaluation rubric in it.

I want to walk through these five different ideas about what makes an effective monitoring question.

If we suggest the conversation we started with, then the next question is a quality conversation on monitoring.

Number five indicators.

AJ, is there any way you can call in by phone?

We're still losing.

Strategy focused or not.

AJ, is there any way you can call in on the phone?

We're still losing.

We're still getting every third or fourth word.

OK.

Just so you know, online, we

We can hear him online.

Oh, interesting.

OK, that's good to know.

Yeah, so I don't know if it's an in the room problem.

It doesn't help us solve the problem, but it is interesting.

OK, so Sarah, you can actually hear him consistently.

That's wild.

Julia, what do we do?

Yeah, I can.

Okay.

I can hear him consistently.

You guys in the room, cut in and out.

Oh.

Okay.

What do we...

Is there a...

OK, let's let's we're going to troubleshoot for a moment here.

Yes, do do do do do do do hold music.

While you all are sorting through technical difficulties.

You all can get a jump start on what?

we're going to do and then hopefully when you get the text sorted out, we'll be able to more effectively do it.

The idea is to take the monitoring report from the last meeting and using these five indicators, strategy focused, measure focused, asked oriented, results focused and time bound, write an ineffective question and write an effective question.

And so what I'm asking each board member to do is based on that, the last monitoring report you all received, write one question that is ineffective based on these five criteria and write one question that is effective based on these five criteria.

There it is.

Well, we could hear you just then.

Julia left the room to get print stuff for us.

So maybe it's Julia.

You guys in the room just cut out again.

What about now, Sarah?

Is that coming through?

Yeah, I can hear you now.

OK.

Well, we're all going to go silent for just a couple of minutes because we're looking at the rubric.

Hopefully that's not a continued tech issue, but it's just because we're reading.

So what you are trying to do in this activity is look at the monitoring report and try to come up with a question that's ineffective, that is not strategy-focused, that is not measure-focused, that is not task-oriented, that is not results-focused, and that is not time-bound.

You want to try to come up with a question that is as ineffective as it could possibly be.

Then you want to try to come up with another question from this monitoring report that is effective, that is strategy-focused, is measure-focused, is ask-oriented, is results-focused, and is time-bound.

And then in a few more minutes, once folks have had an opportunity to devise some questions, then we'll share and dissect them a little bit to figure out what makes them effective or ineffective.

So I'll give you a few more minutes to go ahead and write down an example of an ineffective question for a monitoring conversation and an effective question for a monitoring conversation.

Amen.

All right.

Who will be the first to share a few examples of ineffective monitoring questions and examples of effective monitoring questions, and then we'll walk through them.

So who has the first example of a potentially ineffective monitoring question?

I'll go.

Superintendent, can you adopt the program Bellevue is using?

It seems to be super successful.

Can you repeat that one more time for me?

Can can you Superintendent adopt the reading program Bellevue is using?

It seems to be super successful.

We can't really hear you guys in the room.

We might need to call this.

I know this is such a bummer.

So can you try one more time?

I think he's the superintendent.

Can you adopt the reading program that Bellevue uses?

Did I hear that correctly?

Yes.

And I guess for those listening, we are working trying to work on our tech issues.

And they keep freezing in the room.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, they are.

I can read my question.

All right, sir.

I can definitely hear you.

What's your ineffective question?

I said, based on this report, what are we going to do differently next year to make sure students are more proficient in literacy?

And Sarah, was that an example of an effective or ineffective question?

Ineffective.

All right.

Anyone else have an example of an ineffective monitoring question that we can play with?

This is Liza.

Superintendent, I think you should increase attendance.

When are you going to do that?

Got it.

And Julia, I am typing these into a workshop notes document that I emailed to you.

If it's possible to share that on the screen, that might make it easier for folks since my Zoom keeps cutting in and out.

All right.

And now I've got three examples that have been offered up as monitoring questions.

Do I have some folks who will offer examples of effective monitoring questions?

And then we'll get into dissecting them.

I can try.

What specific strategies were used at the 13 priority schools and how are these being replicated district-wide?

All right.

Does somebody have another one?

This is Evan.

Mine's actually quite similar to Joe's, a slightly different angle.

What do we know about which targeted strategies were most effective, and how can we best allocate resources to support these strategies district-wide?

And does anyone else have a third one?

Anyone who haven't heard from you want to offer another example of an effective monitoring question?

Yes, I have one.

What do you believe is the reason for the increase in two percentage points from 36.8 to 38.7 for students with IEPs?

What do you believe is the reason for the increase what?

In the percentage points for students with IEPs.

Alright, so let's start with the our candidate ineffective monitoring questions.

So we have five criteria.

They're listed right above and we're going to just walk through these and figure out To what extent do these questions fail all five criteria?

So, the first question is, is it strategy-focused?

And when we ask, is something strategy-focused, what we're really asking is, is this focused on a strategic issue or is it focused on a technical or tactical issue?

So, would you all say that this first question that I've highlighted is focused on a strategic issue or would you say it's focused on a technical or tactical issue?

What do you think?

I think it's technical because the reading program is a specific input.

All right.

The reading program is a specific input, so that feels more tactical.

Anyone else?

Is this specific reading program referenced in the monitoring report?

No.

No.

And so the fact that it is not actually referenced in the monitoring report makes it really challenging for this to be strategy focused.

in that typically when we're talking about is the question about strategic issues, we're typically trying to reference something that's actually in the monitoring report.

And so, if something doesn't actually show up in the monitoring report at all, it's really hard for it to meet the level of strategy focused, only in that it's hard to know is this actually about the topic that we're discussing.

um and so i would join you all for that basis and saying now it doesn't feel strategy focused it could if this was a strategy that the superintendent was is working or not working then i think it starts to get there but because it's not even mentioned in the monitoring report it's hard for it to reach the level of being a strategic question rather than a technical or tactical one how about measure focused does the question reference specific metrics or data in the monitoring report

No.

No.

Yeah, it fells pretty quickly on that point.

What you'd be hoping is that the question would ask, would point to on page three where you have this specific strategy that you're lifting up, superintendent, or on page two of this particular table, the data that you're referencing.

That level of specificity of referencing something that's specifically in the monitoring report is what would be necessary for this to be measure-focused.

But because it's not, this certainly fails that indicator as well.

Is it ask-oriented?

Is the question open-ended rather than a yes, no, or multiple choice?

Yes or no.

It's definitely a yes-no question.

Out of curiosity, why do you think it is?

I suspect you all can, it makes a lot of sense to folks pretty much automatically why you would want to have a strategic conversation or why you would want to measure folks' conversation.

Why does it matter if it's a yes-no question versus open-ended?

What does that matter regarding the effectiveness of a monitoring conversation?

I believe it doesn't provide enough context or depth of understanding of the issue.

Can you repeat the question, AJ?

Why does it matter if it's ask oriented or not?

Why does it matter to the effectiveness of the monitoring conversation if the question is open ended versus yes, no?

Well, it's a lot harder.

We're trying to learn from.

I mean, I don't I'm not going to articulate this well, but it's much harder to learn and get information that can help us understand how we're doing as a, you know, how our interventions are working if we're just asking yes or no questions.

Like, I don't, yeah, I'm not articulating that well.

No, actually, I think your intuition on this is spot on.

I think in the same way that folks commonly think of a constructed response quiz being a more effective strategy for understanding what students know than a multiple choice quiz.

I think in the same way, a more powerful way for the board to understand what's really going on is through a constructed response question rather than a multiple choice question.

And so it can be challenging to do at times.

It helps to sometimes write your questions out in advance.

But you do tend to get more clarity about what's going on when you can ask open-ended questions that try to probe for what is true in your school system rather than yes-no questions that tend to shut off a deeper understanding.

How about results focused?

Is this question results focused?

Does it focus on understanding the data or does it focus on sharing opinions?

Is it focused more on understanding the data or is it focused more on sharing opinions?

Is it results focused?

Opinions.

Why do you say opinions?

Because Director Topp's opinion is that the Bellevue School District is doing a great job with their reading program and thinks we should do it too.

But not really, not really.

Did he hear it?

It also, it's not focused on anything that was presented in the report and it's based on an assumption or an opinion that the reading program that Bellevue uses is really great.

We should do it too and not data that we were presented by staff about what is happening.

Yeah, the dead giveaway that this is about opinion sharing is that it's referencing something that is not at all mentioned in the report.

If the superintendent said, hey, we've tried Bellevue's strategy at these three schools and it's really working, we're thinking about using it elsewhere, then this question feels less about opinion sharing.

But since that is not the case, that's probably a dead giveaway that this is not a results-focused question.

uh and then finally is the time bound is the question focus on past and present actions and performance or does it focus on future actions and performance future it's asking the superintendent to do something new that hasn't already taken place For the purpose of effective monitoring, why do you all think that matters?

Why do we insist on having more of the conversation be about past and present actions rather than the entire conversation being about future actions?

Why does that matter for effective goal monitoring?

Because we don't have data for the future.

We only have data for what's already happened.

Right.

And this is monitoring.

It's not planning.

We're monitoring the past.

Yeah.

Need to look at what has been doing.

You cannot discern that based on what the superintendent thinks will happen next week.

It can best be discerned based on looking at and understanding what has happened.

And so, yes, I can't remember who wrote this first question, but it successfully fails all five indicators.

So congratulations on being proficient at ineffectiveness.

Let's switch gears and grab one of the effective questions.

And so the first question I have is what specific strategies at the 13 Priority School program What are the specific strategies at the 13 priority schools and how are these being replicated district wide?

So the first question is, is the question about strategic issues rather than technical or tactical issues?

Is this is this question strategy focused?

Anyone?

What do you think?

Is the question strategy focused?

Is it focused on strategic issues rather than technical or tactical issues?

Yes, it is.

Why do you say yes?

because it is specifically referencing strategies that are being implemented already at 13 of our schools.

And then, well, it's a two-part question, which I don't like two-part questions in one question, but anyway.

I think it's strategy-focused.

Because it's talking about how essentially how, how would, how, what are, how we're replicating specific strategies that we have for our priority schools across the district.

So we're talking about our goal.

Got it.

Thank you, Sarah.

Michelle, did you have

I think Sarah is absorbing by osmosis everything that I said because she basically just repeated it.

So I'm not sure if Sarah can hear us here.

AJ, can you hear me?

No, it keeps cutting out.

Okay, never mind.

But yes, it sounded like you two were largely saying the same thing.

All right.

So that gives some insight into why it might be a strategy-focused question.

Is it measure-focused?

Does the question reference specific metrics or data that is in the monitoring report?

Is this question measure-focused?

President Reagan, would it be possible maybe AJ could send us a worksheet or something we could work through because the tech issues are...

Making this a little bit difficult, yes.

Julia, any indication?

I tend to agree.

This does not seem to be incredibly valuable for you all because of how disjointed it is.

Hopefully, maybe next time, if the Wi-Fi issues in the room aren't working well, maybe have a phone line or something and do speakerphone.

We can take it old school.

And I think this seems to be a common theme in some of our online meetings here.

So maybe work on the tech here a little bit and figure out what some of the issues are so we can properly communicate with our community and with folks who we want to speak with.

And I think part of adding to that is that there's us in the room and the people online and then SPS TV is broadcasting it for members of the public.

So if we were to switch to a different laptop or something, it doesn't...

Go to SPS TV.

We've got to be able to fix this problem.

It's 2024. We live in a tech hub of the world, so I'm sure we can figure this out.

But not tonight, apparently.

I mean, maybe if the technology and capital levy passes, we can fix it.

But that's not for several months.

So yes, I'm sadly going to concur.

And thank you, AJ, for joining us.

And we'll try to either reschedule, or perhaps this is something that uh we can figure out a way for directors to access in another way that doesn't anyway but also we have a meeting in here in this room in a week that um uh hopefully we will be able to figure this out before then so thank you thank you aj aj and and sarah hopefully you can hear us saying saying good night have a good evening and uh There being no further business on the agenda, I will adjourn this meeting at 7.02 p.m.

Thank you, everybody.

And next week's meeting is on Tuesday.