Work Session SOFG Progress Monitoring Training 12082021

That's a good question.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Fantastic.

Wonderful to hear your voice, AJ.

I hope you are well, man.

Yo, this is President Hersey.

I am now calling the board special meeting to order at 4.32 p.m.

Please note that this meeting is being recorded.

We would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral land of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

For the record, I will call the roll.

Director Hampson.

Here.

Director Harris will not be joining us this evening.

Director Rankin.

Here.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Here.

Thank you.

Director Sardieu.

Present.

Director Song-Moritz.

Here.

And this is Director Hersey.

We're holding today's meeting in a hybrid format with directors, staff, and members of the public here in person, with remote access also available via Microsoft Teams and phone.

Consistent with the governor's proclamation on open public meetings, the public is being provided remote access today via Microsoft Teams and phone.

Because we also have some joining us remotely, I'll remind everyone on the phone or Teams to please remain muted when you are not speaking.

There will not be a public comment opportunity.

Also, for those directors and staff in person, please mute your microphone when you are not speaking.

Please also leave microphones in their stands and speak directly into them when you are speaking to ensure those joining us remotely can hear us.

We are joined today by Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones as well as A.J.

Crable from the Council of Great City Schools who will be leading us through A training on progress monitoring.

This is the first of a series of trainings to align board practices with student outcomes focus governance.

The training will include a simulation of a progress monitoring session and review of a progress monitoring memo prepared by staff.

Please note that the student data in the materials are artificial and are for training purposes only.

Let me say that again.

The data in the materials are artificial and for training purposes only.

I will now hand it over to A.J.

Crable to begin our training.

It is a joy to be with you all.

Thank you for having me.

So first to follow up with what the board chair described why would the board do this.

And to be clear about that you have to start with what actually causes improvements in student outcomes.

And what causes that is the connection between the magic of what happens between the educator and the student.

That when those two are together that there there's something happens there that the gifts that the educator has are shared with the students and learning blossoms.

So to understand why a board would monitor you have to understand what impact could the board monitoring student performance possibly have on the quality of the interaction between the educator and the learner.

How could the board's actions possibly help teachers be more effective and help learners learn?

So the basic understanding that gets you there is that this is always a continuous improvement process.

That when teachers sit down to teach little AJ, they've got a plan, they've got a passion, and they share that with little AJ.

Sometimes it works on the first time and sometimes it doesn't.

And what the teacher does is they look at what little AJ can do and they figure out, okay, well, so that didn't quite get everything that I taught.

So I'm going to reteach these pieces.

I'm going to kind of pivot and adjust, and then I'm going to reteach again until little AJ gets it.

And if that doesn't work out, that's fine.

I'll just pivot and adjust again until little AJ gets it.

And so this is the nature of how of how children learn is that they they're served by teachers who are never going to give up on who are constantly teaching, looking at the data, figuring out what worked, what didn't work, and then making that pivot and then teaching again.

Such is the nature of educators.

They're relentless in their passion about what's possible for children, and so because of that passion they engage in this continuous improvement process.

So you try it out, you know, check the data, figure out how do we adjust and try it out again.

That is what a culture of continuous improvement looks like in practice in the classroom.

And that's why what teachers do is such a blessing to students, because they're constantly looking at the data, adapting, you know, and trying again.

What happens in the boardroom begins to create the culture of what is more likely to happen in the classroom.

The more the board behaves in a particular way, the more they silently give permission to everyone throughout the organization to behave in the same way.

If the board wants to create a culture that really nourishes and values continuous improvement, one of the board's access to that is to publicly engage in that exact same process that they would want teachers engaged in, of constantly looking, being clear about what the expectations are, that would be the goals, and then constantly looking at the data, figuring out, okay, what's working, what's not working, identifying, okay, where do we need to pivot?

We tried this strategy, And that wasn't very helpful to our teachers.

OK so let's try a different strategy instead.

What we learned is that didn't work.

So that's not a bad thing.

It just means we got to pivot and then try again and then pivot and try again.

And so the same culture of continuous improvement that the board wants to see happen in the classroom it's access to creating that as a cultural norm is to engage in that exact same behavior in the boardroom.

Thus we have the board engaged in monitoring progress you know and trying to get to a point where The board is increasingly spending half of their time each month monitoring progress relative to the goals that they've set for student outcomes.

That brings us to this evening as we deep that that being the purpose of monitoring.

We want to do three things this evening.

The first thing we're going to do is we're going to actually dive into OK what is effective monitoring look like and why would we do it.

The second thing we'll do is we'll actually do a quick role play of what does it actually feel like to monitor give board members opportunity to practice their skills.

We're going to ask Jones to role play as the superintendent for this particular activity.

I hope you can pull that off.

And then after we've done the role play then we'll take a moment to evaluate.

The board will take a moment to self-evaluate how effective were we at engaging in this monitoring work?

How effective are we engaging in behavior that's really going to create the type of cultural norms that we want to see?

How effective were we at leading by example?

So that's the agenda, those three parts, and conveniently they occur on three pages in your handout, so that you should have a handout in front of you labeled Progress Monitoring Student Outcomes.

Can I get a thumbs up if somebody has that?

Okay, excellent.

So What we'll do then is there are three sections of that first page.

The first one is what is monitoring.

Take a moment and just read that first section.

What is monitoring?

We'll come back later to how is monitoring beneficial and tips for effective monitoring.

Take just a quick moment and refresh in your mind what is monitoring.

Then we'll talk about it right quick.

So now that you have an opportunity to look over that first section, what's something about that first section, the section in what is monitoring, that most jumped out at you?

What's something in that section that most resonated for you?

Who would be the first to share?

Yeah, go for it.

Okay, one of the things that really jumped out to me was the second bullet.

If the answer to only one or two of those questions is yes, the board may ought to table the matter.

What I think is critical about that is in the past, even though we haven't gotten probably whole answers or clear understanding of where we're at, we have just moved on.

We've had the work session and we have just kept chugging along hoping that more information and clarity would come.

And so what's really exciting about this and what I think is going to be a big change for our system is the idea that we're going to either table it or, in my opinion, probably just hold off and really figure out what's going on.

Yeah, absolutely.

What you don't want to do is create a culture of where we step over things and just move on without really addressing them one way or the other.

We really want to be definitive.

Either we have something in place where we can win for our students or we are not in a position to win.

But if we're not clear which of those polls we're at then certainly the most likely appropriate thing to do is to pause and really challenge the superintendent to bring more clear information forward so the board can Clearly understand are we winning right now for students?

Are we on track or are we not?

Who else?

What's something that 1st section that jumped out at you?

I wouldn't like to actually just.

Add on to what Director Hersey said in that there is a direct corollary in the classroom when our teachers move our students forward without making sure that they've learned the materials so that they can meet the uh goal without or the um the the goal but without the outcome of the students actually knowing the information and knowing how the and having the skill and so I think that that's um particularly important as well and then the I appreciate the uh I highlighted in this uh starting paragraph this second sentence about describing when it becomes problematic versus when it becomes catastrophic.

Problematic when there is no evidence of student growth and then catastrophic if the superintendent hasn't sufficiently doesn't sufficiently have aggressive strategies in place for increasing growth.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

What jumped out at you.

Go ahead Director Rankin.

I what stood out to me was right at the beginning that progress monitoring monitoring is a conversation between the school board and superintendent.

Yes it is.

That it's it's you know I think a lot of times in the in the in the past or just anyway I'll just say a lot of times work sessions around different topics have felt kind of presentational or a little bit of what's the word I'm looking for.

Yeah one one-way presentation without really the expectation that it's a conversation.

It's either school board members kind of expounding whatever from the dais or superintendent or staff presenting a slide deck.

And then the actual digging into was that meaningful or not or how is this supporting our shared goals or not doesn't take place.

Yeah the thing that I point out about that is that monitoring in the boardroom is a form of formative evaluation of the superintendent and so What monitoring is not is an opportunity to hear what the entire staff knows as much as it is an opportunity for the board to get some clarity.

Is our chief chief executive is our chief educational officer.

Do they have a strong grasp on what is true what is happening for our students and and is able to from that grasp lead our school system or do they not have a grasp of what is going on in our school system.

But as a board you want to know that.

Because if they're not in a position if they don't understand if the superintendent doesn't understand what's happening for students then they are not really in a position to be making the types of decisions that you need a superintendent to make.

And so that's part of why it's it's a conversation and that it's not you know the dog and pony show type situation.

That's why you don't see any PowerPoints being shown.

Like it's a cover.

We're looking at the data.

We're having a conversation.

But that's also why it's strictly between the superintendent and the board.

Because this the board needs to know is our superintendent positioned to lead.

Do they do they have a basic understanding of the things they need to know about what is true for our students.

Director Sarju.

Thank you.

This is Director Sarju.

African-American.

I'm wearing all purple today for those who may not be able to see me.

From the glasses to the shoes.

What stood out to me is that this centers children and holds adults accountable.

Amen.

That's what we need to be doing.

We always need to be centering children and holding all of us adults who are responsible for these children accountable for doing our part, whatever that part is.

That's right.

I wanted to really highlight something that Director Rankin said.

around the conversation and the frequency that we have these these chats because sometimes we've been in situations because of the size of our district that before we have a work session superintendents are often briefed right and then that is the information that they know about the topic.

What I think is going to be critical here and what I really love about this structure is that this is a seems like a pretty a frequent conversation that we're having, and it demands that the system pay attention to it as a part of our everyday operation, as opposed to in the past, where we've gotten specific updates maybe once or twice a year.

By the time we've gotten the update, the information has already gone out of the other ear for directors.

There's not a really great place where it lives.

And really making this the focus of what we do, especially in the public face, is critical.

critical so I'm super excited.

One quick question that I had and maybe we'll get into this a little bit later is that I didn't really see the frequent the appropriate frequency at which we should be having these conversations with the superintendent.

Is there a best practice for that?

Yeah so ideally the board is going to be spending half of its time each month engaged in conversations where you're monitoring progress.

And then the idea being that the other half of your time you're then making decisions grounded in what you learned during this time.

Like the the board making decisions absent having a deep understanding of what is true for your students is just as foolish as a superintendent making decisions absent a deep understanding of what's true for your students.

And so the idea is that you'll spend half of your time each month really getting deep into the data about student performance relative to your goals and the other half of your time doing all the other business that a board needs to do.

And so one of the next steps that I'm engaging with your staff around now is we've got to create a calendar, a monitoring calendar.

It's the board's calendar, so it will be brought to you all for your consideration, but we generally draft it with the staff since they know when data becomes available.

And so working with your staff will We'll draft a monitoring calendar, bring that back to you, but it'll show exactly each month, which of your goals will be monitored, which slices of your goals will be monitored each month, every month, ideally for the next 36 to 48 months.

So that there's no questions.

You know exactly what's happening month to month.

There's no gotcha.

It's all out in the open.

And anyone who's curious, hey, when are we going to get on this topic?

Well, look at the calendar.

It says we're going to get on that in September.

When are we going to get in this topic?

Well, it says we're going to do that in April.

And so you will have a calendar that will drive, that will drive that behavior of exactly what will be monitored in which month.

But the idea is 12 months out of 12, we care about our children.

So 12 months out of 12, we're looking at what's real for our children.

Directors, before we move on.

All right, thank you.

Please continue, AJ.

So that's the first section.

So the next section is how is, anyone else want to be heard on this first section before we move on?

So the next section is how is monitoring beneficial?

So take a moment and look at that section and then we'll talk about it.

Who will be the first to share.

What's one of the items around how is monitoring beneficial the most resonated for you.

Yeah.

What stood out to me is this line here.

The report should include how the superintendent will respond to the data if things are slightly off track.

What I'm kind of reflecting on is that the superintendent who owns the strategy not the board.

And it makes it really clear who owns.

Yeah.

One thing that is commonly messy about monitoring is that boards will think this is the occasion for which I can tell the superintendent which strategy we should use.

And that's actually not the case.

A similar but different mistake is people go well this is the occasion which I'll tell the superintendent whether I like or dislike the strategies that the superintendent plans to use.

And that's also not actually the point of monitoring.

It is however the point of monitoring that you should leave a monitoring conversation with crystal clarity on what the strategies are that the superintendent intends to use.

Because you have a right to know as a board does my employee have a plan for my children.

Because folks who don't have a plan have a plan to fail.

And so you want to know, does the superintendent have a plan?

And does it seem to be sufficiently aggressive to be an adequate response to whatever the reality is our students are currently facing?

Anyone else?

What jumped out at you in terms of how monitoring might be beneficial?

Yeah.

Thank you, yeah, I think following up on on.

Comment there further it says that the data says that performance is completely off track.

The superintendent strategy.

Should reflect the urgency that the current reality demands.

I think that's a very intentional wording that because when it is completely off track, clearly we are at a point where things need to be corrected urgently and we get to expect that the spring office strategy reflects that urgency.

Yeah, if where we if we expect to be at.

80% by this point in the cycle and we're at 79 percent.

And then I would expect the superintendent to have some corrective actions but you know corrections that are kind of reasonably placid.

But if we expect to be at 80 percent and we're currently at 60 percent I expect the superintendent to be talking about how we are making radical shifts in resource allocation.

The single most important resource in the school system has at its disposal is its educating force, you know, it's, you know, the talented staff.

And so that's the question is, you know, what is the plan to deploy those resources in a way that's going to bridge the massive gulf?

And so that's one of the things you are definitely looking for in the monitoring is, you know, what is the level of severity that the data suggest?

And does the superintendent reveal the strategy that seems to match that?

Anyone else?

How is monitoring beneficial?

Yeah.

Immediately after.

What I'm really finding beneficial about this whole document is that we've gotten questions about what is student focused outcomes governance.

And all I've been able to say is it's what students know and what they can do.

But in addition to articles and cartwheels, obviously, but what I really love about this document is that this is something that we can take out into community and really not sell, but educate.

our constituents about what does this look like for the board, right?

What does this look like for our system?

I think another critical piece there, and this is something that Chandra mentioned earlier, excuse me, Vice President Hampson, is that this gives us an opportunity to model what is essentially rapid cycle evaluation.

That's right.

Like for our district and how it should look as well in classrooms.

So just something to chew on for board directors as you're as you're having community conversations about how this might be useful.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Yeah concur with that for sure.

This is really helpful layout and I think it will help make clear to the community that this isn't just like a fun exercise that we're doing as a group.

It's actually critical to the work that we're doing for their students.

The bits that I sort of underlined that jumped out from the second chunk for me are board behavior sets the culture for an institution.

If board members want a culture where teachers are open and reflective in their craft, they set the stage for that by demonstrating what that looks like.

And then also, this is a powerful tool for creating organizational alignment.

I think that these things are really critical.

And when we are sitting here it feels very very far away from the classroom.

And and I know that you know there are times where I I have been frustrated that, you know, I'll hear something bubble up from a school or something and think like, well, we just talked about that last week.

How come nobody knows that we're talking about that?

Which isn't their job.

It's not their job to tune into all of these meetings and everything.

But thinking about how, rather than, I mean, thinking about for myself, rather than be frustrated that every little piece of information isn't finding its way directly directly through the whole system to think about modeling and culture and how the impact that we have from up here is maybe not that instant information granular thing but it's also not not impactful and I'm particularly reflecting about Wanting a culture where where teachers are open and reflective and I would say not not just teachers, but administrators and staff as well.

You know, we want a culture where it's okay to make mistakes and we want to demonstrate for our children that it's okay to make mistakes and that will be there to support you.

And if you don't have what you need, you know, we're going to figure that out together instead of.

Leaving you out to dry or.

Punishing you.

And and I I'm thinking about that a lot and how much.

How important that is for the work to come, even though it sounds a little.

Broad and vague that culture setting and.

And being open and reflective is is I think really, really important.

Director Sargent.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

I think it's probably intentional that the lead by example is number one.

Perhaps.

And to me, what that means is every board meeting, every conversation, wherever we're at, whether we're here on the dais, whether we're out in the community.

We're not perfect.

We're not always going to say the most perfect, polished things.

But for the record, my goal is not perfection.

My goal is the best that we can do for the children in this district.

And if we keep that in mind we're all going to make mistakes.

We need to own those mistakes.

That includes me.

That includes the superintendent.

That includes district staff.

That includes principals.

That includes building staff.

But the example we need to own our mistakes.

We need to own when we misspeak.

We need to apologize when necessary.

And then we need to bring it back.

to the center of the circle, which is the children.

And so I appreciate that lead by example is number one, because if we're if we're not doing that, we don't need to be here.

One other thing that the conversation that just transpired between Director Rankin and Director Sargiu also illuminated for me, I feel like even though I feel like I was probably in the second or third grade when No Child Left Behind was a thing.

But ever since then, the...

Some would say filthy.

It's so fun to laugh up here, right?

What I've noticed is that in the educational community in general, Data has become, and the consequences that come along with data, has induced fear in so many of our systems, right?

And accountability and consequences are two completely different things.

And I feel like in our system particularly, and somebody correct me if I'm wrong or co-sign if I'm right, is that we have such a culture of fear around data that it is impeding us from collecting good data.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm glad that we're all on the same page around that.

Can I can I co-sign to that?

He's not done yet.

Absolutely.

I just wanted to ask one really quick thing for AJ to think about is that if there's any resources that the council has specifically around changing the culture of data or any advice, that would be incredibly helpful.

Please, Director Hampson.

I believe they do.

Yeah that that was the same place that I went to in and the I had circled open and reflective and first of all just want to point out the gratitude and acknowledge the bravery that Superintendent Jones has and why I knew he was the right person to help us lead through this work because he is open and reflective.

as a professional and I appreciate about that about him every day and want to make sure that we are doing our best to model that and that this is in fact the opposite of a fear-based approach and our schools and this district have managed from a fear-based approach which is the exact opposite of what how you want to teach children And it doesn't work and we need to model that shift in behavior.

So that's that's what I appreciated about it so much.

Director Chandra.

I'm getting used to this whole director thing.

Y'all just you know just respect me by calling me by the name my mother named me.

When we are moving in fear.

we cannot make rational decisions.

I think that's really critical.

Whether it's in a crisis situation or in a situation up here on the dais, fear will almost always lead to the wrong decision.

And so if we are committed to centering children and collaborating to do what it takes to ensure that all children are successful, again, we're gonna make mistakes.

This is not about not making mistakes.

It's what we do after we make the mistake, right?

Most of the time we're going to we're going to nail it, but we cannot be afraid.

We cannot be afraid when the data shows us that the district is disproportionately punishing black and brown boys.

We cannot come back with a defense about why that's not real.

That's not, you know, it's not telling the whole story.

No, it is telling the whole story.

You may not like the story that it's telling.

We have to pause.

So I'm sitting here coloring because my nervous system, I need to regulate my nervous system.

I'm an adult on the dais that's had a hard day and I'm regulating my nervous system.

I will not operate in fear up here on the dais.

And then when we are fearful, let's pause and talk about it, right, so that we can move forward with the right decisions for our children.

Director Rivera-Smith please.

Thank you.

And yeah, in thinking about being up here on the dais, we're soon going to have students up here with us.

So if we are operating and decision-making based on fear and deficit mindset, that's teaching them to do so and teaching them in these very important years where they're going to be learning from us and we're learning from them.

And if we are operating like that, that's going to have a direct impact on people who are up here trying to make a difference with us.

Y'all, this is this is a really great session, but thank you for sharing that.

And I think that like a big part of that is also like as we're coming out of our holes that are homes after the pandemic, I think we as a board, if we're really going to because so again, I go back to my father.

My father always told me you fear what you don't understand.

And for us, if we're not doing all that we can as a body to understand where we are at, and shout out to Dr. Scarlett for putting me on the boundary spanning leadership, because that's honestly what has to happen amongst us first, especially before we bring children up here, is we need to do what needs to be done as a board, especially that we've got such fantastic new directors joining us, to gel together to build understanding of one another, because as long as we understand our differences, we don't have to agree.

But I think that that is going to be a first critical step, because fear comes from when you feel like you're out there by yourself, you're going to say something that your colleagues aren't going to agree with, and you're going to get roasted from the dais.

And nobody wants that, right?

And in order for us to avoid that, we need to get to a place where we understand each other, not necessarily that we agree, but we understand where the other is coming from.

And I think that that has got to be a critical first step for us before we push this out to the system.

I'm really appreciative of the kind of warm embrace of the board recognizing that this is not merely a cultural shift for our superintendent and staff, this is a cultural shift for us.

that I as a board member have to be willing to interrogate my own adult behavior and begin to make adjustments so that I am leading by example and creating the type of culture that our teachers need to be great and that our students need to be great.

That how I show up in the boardroom has an impact on how free my teachers feel and students feel to show up in the classroom.

So this is a critical part of the difference making that boards can engage in.

This is a critical part of why monitoring is beneficial.

And so if monitoring is beneficial, that means it's not good enough to come up here and play monitoring.

We've got to come up here and actually do monitoring.

Hence the next section, tips for effective monitoring.

Go ahead and read this section and then we'll talk about it.

AJ, it's good energy in here.

You can't.

You're not privy to this.

This is this.

This space is being held.

No, I'm I'm.

I'm catching some of that vibe, you know, from the opposite coast.

Tips for effective monitoring.

What's resonating for you?

Yes, yes.

No gotcha governance.

Man, why not?

Nonsense.

Like, and I mean, I really can't say that enough.

I can't count the amount of times that staff have had to endure gotcha moments from directors up here.

And it's just that that is unproductive.

Oh, my goodness.

Like, and what's really great about this as well that I've noticed is that it gives us Templates.

What questions should we be asking?

And now that I think about it, there's also another great document that Mary Fortakis, who for several years was the president of the Tukwila School Board.

She's got a really great document around what are the best questions and how to ask better questions as a board director.

So I really, I'm going to dig that up and send it out.

But I really feel as though combining these two premises will also give us the ability to just not ask questions for the sake of asking questions.

And that's really something that I've noticed over time, is that oftentimes in a performative way, to appear as though we are really digging in deep, folks will ask either the same question every time we get a packet, or we'll just ask the question for the sake of asking the question.

I really think that really digging into this structure gives us an opportunity not only to use our time more effectively, to utilize staff's time more effectively, and it also helps frame what the conversation is going to be like, and it keeps it off of the person and onto the data, which is critical because I think we miss that step a lot depending on what the topic is.

Director Hampson.

Sorry, AJ, were you gonna say something?

Nope, you got it.

So lots in here that I love and the don't offer advice piece is, I had another sheet of this and I had already underlined and highlighted it and I just did it again because I think it's so important.

And there's so much good with respect to following up on what President Hersey said.

I want to formally to Director Sarge's point apologize to staff.

For any for all the times that I have done this over the last couple of years for prior board members who've done that on and from from my position and for future times when I may do it and hope to be able to catch myself and invite staff.

I know we have some staff in the room that that I've are picking up on a lot of this stuff and have been throwing some of it back at me during our conversations.

And I want to say, I appreciate it.

It's important.

I'm looking at you, Concie.

And we need to do more of it.

That's what we need to hold each other accountable to knowing our roles and getting out of the, like, yeah, it's so easy.

We got, when we get emails all day long about all this stuff, but that's not our job.

And it makes us, unclear, unfocused, busy bodies, and we never get time to actually focus on the students.

And I think we're all done with that.

And so, yeah, I just wanted to apologize.

Wow.

And I think one of the things that's really coming to light for me is that because, I mean, and it's no secret that we have a history in this city of families, community members who have had traditionally a ton of access and advocate in very specific ways.

It's almost like dividing and conquering, right?

Like if we keep board directors busy with all X, Y, and Z, then the status quo persists.

And so we really have to make the commitment as a team to keep the focus as Michelle so thoughtfully is on the students.

And it's really not take that opportunity to exemplify what good board directors we are.

That's a real temptation.

It's a real one.

And I've been there and I've messed that up plenty of times trying to save somebody or their situation.

And that's not to say that we should not be engaging with community, but at the end of the day, the focus, as it's laid out in these best practices, again, from the Council of Great City Schools, this is not just something that we're making up.

We really have to be focused on our students and less about being pulled in each which way in the appearance of good governance and being an effective board director.

Any other questions before we move on.

Sorry.

Go ahead Director Rankin.

I am thinking a lot about comments earlier about fear.

And then I'm also thinking back to a previous conversation about pretending.

And I think that they're from a place of fear to avoid looking foolish or to avoid looking unprepared or or to align with loud community members or whatever, that pretending is really tempting.

And that what I really like about progress monitoring and focusing on student outcomes is it doesn't, there's not really room for pretending.

And I think some of the the previous the various annual reporting to the board that we recently eliminated as a as a bar not not eliminated that people are monitoring themselves and creating reports but that it's a presentation and also the style of work session that was sort of a like a Socratic method cold call kind of kind of philosophy that, you know, the idea that everyone would be accountable because they might get called up for a work session, and so they better be ready.

And the idea that that would lead to good operational workings, that was perpetuating fear.

That was putting into everybody the fear that they would be the ones called up to put themselves out in front of everybody with a little warning, have to drop the work they were doing for students to Europe, you're going to have to do this thing and then create this report that wasn't necessarily tied to a broader goal and sort of pretend.

out of fear that everything was fine.

And it hasn't served our students.

That's the bottom line, really, is it hasn't served our students.

And so I think getting away from the pretending, and there is fear in getting away from pretending, because you can't pretend anymore.

It's going to be you.

But I think that's kind of what we're going for is it's not going to be one person's butt on the line, and we're not trying to put somebody out in front to take the fall or take the blame or have that gotcha moment.

We're all coming together around kids, which is literally what our job is.

I just Director Rankin reminded me that the kind of my first reaction that I think is incredibly important.

We hear from our students all the time that what we talk about and discuss here does not reflect their reality.

And we experience that as parents.

We experience that as school board directors.

We experience that as community members.

It's a sobering moment to recognize the importance of having the bravery to acknowledge the reality of what our students are dealing with right now.

Whether it's the fault of the system or not, they need for us to be brave enough to acknowledge where they are.

I remember trying to explain that to my own mom who would expressed to me how much I love my mom.

She would tell me that I had it so good compared to terrible things in her upbringing.

And as a result I didn't feel seen in my own suffering and difficult times.

And we do that in this district to our kids.

all the time.

And it doesn't matter what our opinions are about it.

We need to hear what they're saying.

And that is then reflected in how they're doing in our schools.

So I think understanding reality is a really profound piece of this for me in terms of being just a tip.

I want to add to that reality for teachers too because I think we'll say or hear or think one thing and then hear from a teacher that's like actually that is not how it's working.

Thank you AJ.

Now that we've had an opportunity to dig in a little bit and think through kind of what is monitoring you know why is it beneficial and how are we effective at it.

I want to slip now to the second part of our agenda which is the role play.

Now for this role play I will role play the chair of the board for Seattle Public Schools.

Hello I'm your newest elected official.

Board members you'll role play board members.

You'll role play superintendent.

Apparently superintendents don't wear jackets in role plays.

And what we'll do is we'll just go through this like normal.

Now, the main reason I'm playing as the board chair is so that Brandon actually gets some learning yourself.

The problem is whoever's facilitating doesn't really get the same reflective ability as everybody else, because you're spending so much of your brain trying to keep things going.

And so I'll offload that.

And we may do a second practice where that's the case.

but by the time we get to the third practice, it will make most sense to punt that back to you or you even pass it around the table and get other various people opportunity to practice facilitating and see kind of what it's like to keep a monitoring conversation on track.

So we'll dive in, we'll stay in the role play for a little bit.

Whatever happens, happens, who knows?

We'll see, we'll all find out together.

And then after we've role played a little bit, Then we'll go to the third part of our agenda for the evening which is to evaluate how we did and just really talk through and process through it.

So that being said all right board members we have just completed that item of business.

On to the next.

So the next item of business is monitoring.

This evening we will be monitoring our goal about our Black boys and teens in cohorts and classes who graduate and also successfully complete at least one advanced course.

Our expectation and goal is that that will increase from 52 percent in June 2019 to 62 percent in June 2024. As part of our monitoring work board we always start first by making sure that we have the information we need.

And so the first thing we should be looking for is what's being monitored.

Which policy.

I just read which policy.

The second thing we look for is, is there data that clearly shows the three previous reporting periods, the current reporting period, and the target reporting periods.

Board members, do you see that data provided to us by the superintendent's monitoring report?

Oh, You saw it.

What page is that on.

I believe it's on the second page.

On the second page of the memo.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's where I saw it as well.

Okay.

Then the next thing we have to be certain of is that the monitoring report clearly shows the superintendent's evaluation of performance.

What the superintendent is saying is the current level of performance relative to the board's goal.

Does the monitoring report include the superintendent's evaluation of performance.

Yes it's here on page 2. superintendent statement on progress of this goal.

I think that's it.

That sounds like a question.

Is that a question or a statement.

Yes if it's there and I believe it is here.

I believe it is entitled Superintendent Statement on Progress on this goal.

Anybody else.

Do people agree disagree.

I see people still kind of flipping around.

My teacher senses are tingling.

Let's take a moment and clarify where we're at.

And so AJ, could you back up just a little bit and reposition us for the task.

Oh no, folks are perfectly on task.

What's happening is that as board members are looking at the document, it's simply not immediately clear to them what is the current status of performance.

It is reference on the document but the fact the thing of Mr. Superintendent for you to be clear about the fact that your board members are looking for it means it ain't clear.

And so all that means is there's opportunity for a process improvement.

And so yes it is provided but the fact that you have to hunt for it largely defeats the purpose of this monitoring report.

And so as a process improvement the next version of it just find a way to make it more just direct clear obvious maybe even make sure it's on the front first page so the board members don't have to look for it.

And then finally the fourth thing we look for is does it clearly show supporting documentation that evidences the superintendent's evaluation and that provides information about any needed next steps.

Is that included in the monitoring report?

Yes, on the second to last page.

Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing all those things.

All right, well, since we have the things necessary for monitoring report, we can proceed with monitoring.

What's always important to just stay present to is if the critical things you need to engage in monitoring aren't present, then we should not proceed with monitoring.

Instead, we need to hand it back to the superintendent and say, hey, do your homework and we'll pick this up at the next meeting.

But fortunately, we've got the things we need.

And so the floor is open.

I want to bifurcate our inquiry into two different chunks of backward looking and forward looking.

And so first, we'll start with Uh, questions that are really reflecting on trying to understand how we got here.

Where are we and how we got here?

And so these all questions are backwards looking.

They're really about, you know, who questions, which students are we talking about?

What questions, which circumstances, you know, surround all of this.

Why questions kind of which phenomenon help describe what happened.

So that's what we're going to focus on 1st, much later in the conversation.

I'll invite folks into really future facing questions like which are large about how are we going to respond to all of this.

Like what's going to happen next.

But before we talk about what happens next first we need to be crystal clear about what has happened to date.

What has brought us here.

So that we're not just kind of blindly careening forward but that we're doing so grounded in what's true for our students today.

So the floor is open.

Board members what questions do you have about this monitoring report.

I have a just a technical question.

The it states that we are supposed to see these things represented in yellow slash red or yellow is the color actually like sienna and that's why I'm confused.

So in the interim progress data on the second page, in theory, we would have the colors on there, but the colors are only representative of status.

And so to make it clearer, I think we would we would include just highlighted yellow and highlighted red, but it's not on the graphs on the bar graphs themselves.

Can I offer something kind of like outside of the scope here really quickly?

I think A.J.

really raised a good point about board directors being able to understand it.

When I was with the feds, we had a rule that everything was written on a sixth grade reading level so that it would be accessible.

And oftentimes, when folks ask us for transparency, we say, oh, well, that document's on the website.

They have to first be able to find it, second, be able to interpret what it says.

And then if I'm looking at this and immediately I can't tell what the 18 double hockey sticks this is trying to communicate to me, I fear for what parents who are actually interested in the progress of their children, what they're finding online as well.

And so before we embark on these progress monitorings, really, I don't know what the solution is, but making these things as simple to digest as possible.

That's that's that actually is the solution.

So, the expectation for the staff with monitoring reports.

Is whatever level your communication department has determined the communication from the district should be provided in.

That's the language that's the level that this document should be providing as well.

So some districts.

But whatever your communication department says, this is, this is how we should, this is should be our style of writing when we are sending things out to the public that whatever that style guide says that should apply to monitoring reports as well.

And so, again, that's just a process improvement for the superintendent's team to be reflective on is if it takes anybody a lot of work to digest to understand these.

Whether because of linguistics or because of design or coloration or layout, then that just means all there is to do is for us to iterate and take that next step.

It's just one more area where we have an opportunity to improve.

Not that something was done wrong, just that something could be done better.

What other questions do you have, board members?

Just just a training for training purposes.

The line graph in the bar charts are supposed to be simplified.

Is that correct that by design?

And if there is a if there's a simpler way to do that, very open to it, but I'm just I'm going off kind of script here, but I wanted to just make sure that we were following the protocol for how we represent this so.

Do we have the authority, so to speak, to change this to a simpler looking graph, AJ?

So certainly, whatever works for you.

I tend to find that a line graph is about the easiest way to represent this data often because what you're trying to get is trajectory.

And so if you can find another way, a simpler way than a line graph to communicate trajectory, let me know.

I doubt you'll find that.

But I think what is creating some confusion is, you know, what do the colors mean?

You know, and so maybe some type of legend or something, you know, to go along with it might be helpful.

But certainly, anything that the administration, you know, thinks better matches The intention of having this fit the district's larger style guide for public communication.

Absolutely that makes the most sense.

And and I think it does make I think the the graph itself makes sense.

I just got thrown off by the colors and now understand that they would have been somehow highlighted.

Obviously if if it were exceeding expectations maybe it would be green or something and that's where the the key would would come in.

So that would be an improvement.

If I may read just some talking points for some clarity here.

While the data in this memo illustrates SPS is making progress in helping students earn their credits, we are not currently on an upward trajectory.

So we are making progress on the top line measure but the progress is not consistently upward hence the yellow red rating.

That's the that's the expanded definition of the yellow and the red.

And that is a wonderful distinction for the superintendent to make because that that is really helpful.

And so now the process improvement is just to figure out how to more clearly articulate that in the document so that people will get that.

Because that's a really what you just said is a really valuable thing to communicate.

And so now figuring out.

Great.

So next time we'll figure out how to tweak it up so that anybody can grab that with or without the superintendent sharing.

Yeah.

Who else.

What questions do you have.

I was wondering and maybe this is the best one to use but with PDS we often want to make sure they're ADA accessible too.

So whatever graph or chart would be most would be most appropriate for that use.

That's probably what they should be in.

Because this is all I assume this is all going to end up on the website and somehow communicate with families.

So what can be most appropriate there.

Other questions comments.

By the way, it's perfectly normal.

The first time we do this, there's a lot of reflection on the document itself rather than the content of the document.

That's normal.

So if you have other things like that, feel free to share those.

But also looking to use this time to ask questions of the superintendent about the content of the document as well.

Who else?

Questions?

Comments?

A content question on the the bar graph the disaggregated results.

We have the top line measure the interim measure for 10th grade and the interim measure for 9th grade.

And so what I am wondering is if this is one group of students in 9th grade, that same group of students in 10th grade, and then today, or if this is this year's 9th grade students, this year's 10th grade students, and top line is all high school students this year.

One more time, I just want to make sure I answer your question.

You're trying to determine specifically we're talking about at what time?

Yeah, so my question about the disaggregated results, there's for each group, there's first generation African American male born outside of the US, second or more generation, yeah, US born non-English home.

There's multi-generational African American male students with IEPs, African American students served by ELL program and African American students in the Highly Capable program.

And then for each of those groups, we're seeing The top line measure, the 10th grade measure, and the 9th grade measure.

So my question is, is this all for the same year, this year's 9th graders, this year's 10th graders, and then high school students total?

Or is it two years ago 9th graders, last year's 10th graders, who are the same students and then those students this year whether they are 11th and 12th grade.

Does that make sense?

It's the former.

Okay.

And so the.

So we're looking at this year's students.

Yes.

The top line is. all African-American males in high school.

The 10th grade measure is this year's 10th graders and the 9th grade measure is this year's 9th graders.

That is correct.

Thank you.

And what this blue bar chart represents is disaggregated African-American males, but the ninth graders are represented in this blue bar and the 10th graders are represented in this blue bar.

And those are two different groups of students because those are this year's ninth graders and this year's 10th graders.

We're not following one cohort through their years.

Yes, so if you look at the For those of you that can see it, the medium blue, it's a little less than royal blue, is 10th grade and the light light blue is 9th grade.

And so it's for this for 21-22.

So what we should expect to see or what I would expect to see is that three years from now we could look at this disaggregated graph with the one for next year and the one for three years from now and hopefully see the top line measure at least increase.

That is correct.

Yes.

And then, you know, some of the disaggregated results taken by themselves meet or exceed the goal for the top line goal.

Like the African-American students in highly capable, second or more generation African-American male, that group exceeds multi-generational, that group exceeds the expectation taken by itself.

That is correct.

But students served In the ELL program, students with IEPs are where it looks like we need to focus on support to bring.

I want to add to that really quickly.

I am with you 100%, but what's missing here for me is to know what proportion does each of these group make up in the whole, right?

Because we could be focusing on a really small subset of students where the real need, depending on how many students are in that category, might be in a different place.

Do you, President Hersey, do you mean as compared with the rest of the district population as a whole or as represented within the African-American male student?

Yeah, so it could be both, right?

I think for the sake of this exercise specifically, so for example, if we've only got, and this is true for a lot of the times we've been presented this data, African-American male students in the Highly Capable program.

We're looking at that.

They're doing great, right?

It could only be 10 of them.

Whereas in the first generation African-American born outside of the U.S., it could be 200. Or even on the flip side, if we take a look at students with IEPs, they could be underrepresented as compared or overrepresented as compared to other groups, right?

And so where we focus our attention and where we're asking our questions, not to say that we need to like go with the majority, but in terms of as we're thinking about how we're going to prepare this data, having the exact population of those students worked into those lines for me would be helpful.

Yeah and I think that's the the context right because this is exactly a really good demonstration of I mean I remember four years ago maybe under Superintendent Nyland attending a presentation about the school climate data.

And there was a part of that presentation was about overall how much some of those things had improved.

But what wasn't part of that presentation was that it was mostly affluent white parents who had responded to the survey, and that while those scores may have improved, then if you also, you know, if you looked at like a couple of individual schools, there were a couple of individual school, and this is again, several years ago, but a couple of individual schools where two years consistently, their positive feelings and approval ratings had gone down and half of their teaching staff had left.

And that wasn't present at all in the, hey, hey, look, we're really making improvements in school climate.

And so, yeah, I guess that's a long way of saying totally agree the context is really important because, yeah, this bottom one looks great.

But of course, that's students and highly capable.

The assumption is those students are, of course, taking one or more advanced courses and like you said that could be a really small number.

Sure yeah please.

If I might I might add back then four years ago we spent much time examining the gaps between different racial groups.

Now we we talk about achievement that we think that's not productive.

Instead, we believe it's important to focus intensively on progress we are making or not making in providing equitable learning experiences, improving outcomes for Black male students.

So we need, we're trying to look within Black male students and not necessarily comparative to other people in the gap.

So that's the context, but not.

Comparing that's correct experience.

Yeah, that's right.

So we have to talk about the nuanced experiences of African American male students.

And that's that's why we broke out this data this way.

I just can't say how much I appreciate that.

And I mean, if we're really going to be serious about targeted universalism, this is what this looks like, right?

And the intersectionality, because oftentimes when we hear from community, it's like you say you're focusing on Black boys, but my Black boy in special education or my Black boy who receives ELL services, those two experiences, especially depending on if you're going to school in the north end of the city versus in my district, are completely different.

Yet often, based on how we have presented data in the past, those two individuals would be lumped into the same data set.

And if we're utilizing resources trying to, without this type of differentiation, I worry that we're not effectively using taxpayer dollars.

So really excited to see that this is a priority for us.

Director Hampson.

If I may just add one other point to just extend on that.

these groupings are informed by the listen and learn sessions from our AAMA work.

And so if we did that work in February, that's informing how we've disaggregated.

So not only we have literature behind that, but we also have our families telling us this is the way we want to be represented and seen.

So just wanted to extend that.

Thank you.

Yeah, and a huge shout out to Dr. Williams, I'm sure, for leading that work.

I had two questions.

The first is related to the clarification you provided about the coloring that we're not seeing the yellow red where you said that the reason why it's only partially on track is because it's not consistent in the trajectory.

Yes, if we saw an incline consistently going up we'd be on yellow, but since we went yellow, so we went up and then down and back up, thus yellow and red.

And was there any context for that or any sense of why that dip occurred at that time?

Any other circumstances or shifts that might have

I believe this is from 1920 to 2021. Let me get back to you on that.

I do have some notes in here.

I'm going to find an answer for you.

The second question is whether or not in the disaggregation income was something that was also considered.

in an attempt to remove the pieces over which we don't have control as a district.

Yes we can add income but income was not considered in this disaggregation but I think that's one of the one of the key factor that we should we should look at.

Open for.

Questions about who is the data talking about of what?

Circumstances are phenomenon of influence data.

Why?

Why are we here?

Other questions that help us better understand the data presented anyone else?

Hello, OK.

I wanted to respond to Director Hampson's comment.

Absolutely when we think about when we disaggregate all of the data we see different things and I want to caution us to not not busy up, I can't think of the exact word, but not busy up our report.

Not that we don't want to know that information.

I think one of the things we're trying to do is make this simple so we can understand it.

And so that, you know, our families, our parents, and even our students.

The students can, if we give them the chance, they can read and interpret this data.

We sell them short so often by assuming they can't understand this data.

And so I just, you know, maybe what we need are multiple reports, but I just don't want to busy up one report that people are looking at it and there's so much data.

And it's so overwhelming that people can't make sense of the.

that just people can't make sense of it.

I mean, all of it's important.

I don't want to say some things are more important than others, because that may be true, but I'm not trying to decide that right now.

So I just want to caution us on ensuring that whatever report we're looking at, if a parent who doesn't have an advanced degree, like many of us sitting on the dais, If we can't read it we can't expect them to be able to read it and understand it and we surely can't expect particularly our our middle schoolers and our high schoolers to be able to understand it.

Absolutely.

One of the expectations of the monitoring report is one to three at max one to five page document.

The intention being that instead of having this really broad view that we're going deeper and trying to have a much deeper understanding of fewer things rather than a more shallow understanding of many things.

What that does, however, to your point, it puts a premium on are we looking at the things that have the biggest impact, the biggest leverage on the topic at hand?

And so that is a hard task, especially since, again, the intention to keep this fully legible and useful is to have it be no more than one to three, maybe one to five pages max.

And so, yeah, it does not benefit folks to try to overload people with a ton of data.

Instead, what is the deep understanding of a few things?

So if I may go back to Director Hampson's question around the year-over-year comparisons, while this is not actual data, but if we were to talk about a year-to-year comparison, we did have changes in our grading policy.

So we had, we went from A's and incompletes to A, B, and C's and incompletes.

So that might be a reason why we see a dip in terms of grades, credit earnings.

I had one more quick question about about the same paragraph is the students who are represented by more than one of these categories, say a student with an IEP who also is served in the ELL program.

Are they represented individually twice?

Like so there that student would be represented as with an IEP and then separately.

As receiving ELL services.

Yes, OK, so if we were to take.

Like the P22 or whatever that enrollment report, if we were to have to have numbers.

Attached to each of these, it would be more than the total number of students because some some students fall into two categories.

OK, thank you.

How do you control for that?

Or is that something that we even need to control for?

Probably not, no.

Well, I wonder if if there's anything different that we if there's different approach needed for students who do fall into more than one category.

Yeah, or take all the students that fit into more than one category and

Yeah, so I guess, yeah, my wonder is, and I'm thinking about a very particular real student.

Now that's twice exceptional.

Right?

So I'm thinking about how we would best serve and give access to, or how a school would, a student with a parent who's learning English as a second language and has a disability and has an IEP and even if, which was not the case with the student, but even if The IEP support was completely there and the EL support was completely there.

Those two things don't often intersect within the building.

A student goes to one place for EL support and a student either goes to another place or is restricted to another place or pulled out or whatever for special education.

So where, this is maybe getting into a whole other conversation, but is it useful to represent the overlaps in this data or is it more useful to isolate the different categories and talk about the intersections in a different context?

So if we do have intersections, there's opportunities to provide specific supports.

So for example, with our students with IEPs, there's a number of steps that we're taking for to support them.

Students that are EL in our ID programs, we're recognizing their multilingual abilities.

And so I think there's some combinations of treatments or support, so to speak, that we can provide.

So I think it would be useful to look at the combinations whether it's two or three or even four on here that they would they would have a specialized support program.

Can I just say I was worried that Director Rankin was going to start giving advice and then she followed she she came back around with a question and I was like oh thank goodness.

I'm I'm looking for.

I'm trying to look at this data and then go back to the page.

Back to the progress monitoring center outcomes sheet that gives the during monitoring all those questions, the who, what, why and how.

And I'm not really seeing maybe I'm missing it.

I'm not seeing many why answers to the why questions.

Why is it working.

Why is it not working.

Like for example why are students with IEP's not such a lower progress than the other groups.

Things like that.

Like I'm not seeing much why in here.

I think the only line that really maybe was a why was their claim to that more recent efforts to strategically build.

So I want to I want to clarify.

The administration was explicitly instructed not to try to answer all the questions because the point of having the conversation one that would have taken a lot more than five pages and two the point of having the conversation is to have the conversation.

So don't ever look at the monitoring report and expect that it's going to answer all the questions.

The point of those is not for the administration.

The point of those is for the board.

Say again.

This is a guide for us questions that to guide us to ask these questions.

Yes.

About the data.

So OK, so the to inquire and response to the data should should those be questions that the superintendent sets out to answer for us.

No.

She's he doesn't know he says yes, he said no.

Yeah, he should.

But I wanted, but I do want to do is capture the questions that you all have so that we can get back to you.

If they're not, if they're if I'm not able to talk about him here here right now.

Yeah, but the in the.

In the project, the progress monitoring document.

It's laying out sample questions for board members to ask so you should you should not look in the monitoring report and expect that all those questions are going to be answered because then there's no point in having a conversation.

And so the, the intention here is that you all will have a conversation about these things.

Even if the superintendent wanted to answer all those questions, there's no scenario where he's going to be able to do that in five pages.

And so this is this is for you all to ask.

So the invitation is what is the question that you have and go ahead and ask it.

Okay so yeah so then okay so then the question again is why.

So why is there such a lower worth of graph time?

Why are AAM students with IEPs, why are their results so much lower than the other groups?

So in part, we haven't taken the number of steps necessary to provide them tangible and meaningful supports.

We prospectively have some things that we're doing, but right now we haven't provided the strategies that are going to have them progress.

And I suppose that the follow up would be of those questions.

How can this happen.

How and I guess like how can the board help especially like what how can we help you achieve that and make that happen for them.

And we will come to future facing questions in a little bit.

We're still giving the board time to finish up any past facing questions.

The intention being first have a deep understanding before trying to go of the past before trying to.

And by the way we're in that point where we'll be making that transition shortly.

But before we do any other questions that board members have about who why what.

Yeah go for it.

I have another one.

Yeah.

Kind of going along with Director Rivera-Smith's question.

I believe I have a pretty good idea of why the students with IEPs would be below the measure that we're looking for as compared to the other students, because in a lot of cases they've been removed from the general education environment since they were in kindergarten over and over and over again or permanently.

So my question is, That the next.

Kind of closest aligned.

Category is students in the EL program.

Um?

And so.

I guess as same as the Y program or the Y question with students with IEPs.

You know, I personally don't know as much about how EL services are administered.

Is it a similar situation where the students are missing educational opportunity because they are receiving language services outside of the classroom and missing instructional time.

Is is it that language is so deeply ingrained in even math and.

Other topics that that's a barrier or is there something else going on and?

Yeah, I guess I'm actually I know these are not.

These are for training purposes.

Only these numbers, but I assume that they're not completely made out of thin air.

And so I guess I'm a little surprised actually to see.

The EL.

Group.

It's kind of so disparate from some of the other groups.

I know this these data are not actual data and in the next session when we talk about future focus, I could talk about what we're going to do, but I don't have a good answer as to why EL is lagging behind the target number.

Oh go ahead Vivian.

Yeah one more question before we add in future focus.

I have a question about the I have a question about the what the circumstances that surround this data.

I don't necessarily want to add more to this report but I am kind of curious about the experiences on a granular level from building to building.

So I'm wondering if it would be possible to see the data But the high school is one way of disaggregating it so we can kind of understand the circumstance.

Certainly, and there are things that we're doing across high schools, but there's certainly dynamics within each high school.

For example, high schools are using the ninth grade success tracker.

And so there's standardization that we're using across all of our comprehensive high schools and those are yielding some results.

However, we haven't represented this in high school by high school, but we definitely have those data.

I have a quick operational question.

When we have these monitoring sessions meetings will it be up to will it be up to the superintendent alone to answer them or will staff be there to also have to all be you.

You can't you can't like point to Caleb and be like Dr. Perkins you answer that.

So today I'm phoning a friend and Dr. Perkins.

Yeah.

But for future it's all it's all on superintendent the way the design is.

Is that correct AJ.

Absolutely.

So remember, part of the intention of monitoring is this essentially a formative evaluation.

Basically, you are doing a formative evaluation of your superintendent 12 times per year, 12 times per year, figuring out, you know, is my superintendent really on track with the things that we need to do?

Because the belief here is that student performance is indistinguishable from superintendent performance.

They're the same thing.

So if student performance is trending upward that means the superintendent is doing what needs to be done.

If student performance is trending down or even staying flat then that gives us some insight that superintendent performance is not where it needs to be.

And so because they're indistinguishable this is essentially a formative evaluation for the superintendent.

So instead of just doing one annual evaluation of the superintendent you're really doing 12 formative evaluations.

of the superintendent or 11 formative each year and then one annual that's the amalgam of all of them.

And so for that reason it's designed to be a conversation between the board and the superintendent.

You're not trying to figure out what all of your non-employees know.

You're trying to figure out what your employee knows.

So then in that in that in that in that situation then say we have a meeting where you can't answer 8 out of 10 of our questions would that be an instance where we would table the report or would we still perhaps accept the report but expect those answers to come back later.

So that kind of depends.

And hold on to that question because we'll actually circle back into that when we're doing an evaluation.

The short version, and again, we'll dive into this when we get into the evaluation of your performance, is think of it as three different types of questions.

There are questions about strategy, questions about tactics, and technical questions.

Technical questions are the details, you know, what exactly is this data referring to?

You know, what type of assessment is this?

You know, technical questions.

The next is tactical questions.

Well, what are we doing in that school?

And who's actually going to do this?

And what time will that intervention begin?

Those are tactical questions.

And then there are strategic questions.

What is our big picture approach to resolving this thing?

Monitoring conversations should be about strategy, not about tactics and not about technical issues.

So right now we're sorting through some technical issues.

just as we're learning the process.

But in practice monitoring reports should be clear enough that there shouldn't be a bunch of technical questions.

It should be fairly apparent what the data is describing.

And if board members are curious about tactical things make time to visit with your superintendent or email those in.

But monitoring conversations should be about strategic questions.

And so if your superintendent doesn't know what the big picture strategy for addressing major issues in the district is That's a problem and it will be helpful to you to to have ferreted out that that's a problem.

But again, we'll dive into that more deeply in the in the self eval here in a little bit.

Yes.

Thank you for that perfect example of what a strategy question that monitoring is a strategy question.

Did I miss your examples of tactical and technical?

And if I didn't miss it, can you please give an example like you did for the monitoring?

Yeah, so.

Example of a strategic question is so strategic questions are trying to understand and what is our big picture approach to something.

So maybe you look at the data and say, you know, I noticed that our multi generational students seem to be performing.

At a lower rate than our second generation students.

We earlier we asked why that is.

Now can you give us a sense of what is your approach to address.

And you said that the why behind that is because there are supports that second generational students are provided that multi-generational students aren't provided.

So what is your approach to resolving this issue so that we see improvements in multi-generational.

That fills that fills as close to the line as you can on the strategy.

And so anything that is even higher level than that definitely feels more strategic.

If you go lower than that, though, it starts to feel tactical.

Like, so which specific schools, you know, are going to get these additional supports?

Or, you know, how many teachers are going to be providing these supports?

Or what time during the day will these supports be provided?

Those start to feel tactical.

They're really, they're not really about what is our overall plan.

They're about how are we going to implement the plan?

And then there are technical, you know, questions.

Technical questions are really just trying to understand the mechanics that are in front of us.

You know I see the you know I see this as 9th and 10th grade.

Is that this year's 9th and 10th graders or last year's 9th graders and this year's 10th graders.

That's more of a technical question.

When monitoring is at its best it's really when it's focused on strategic questions.

Generally speaking if you ask a lot of technical or tactical questions as board chair what I should do is invite the superintendent to write those down and email us the answer on Friday or something like that.

Or maybe the superintendent say I don't have I don't have those tactical answers or tactical questions today but I'll make sure we get that together.

We'll get that to you on Friday.

But what you should always expect is your superintendent can answer strategy level questions since that is very much center field for their job description.

a couple of observations before we move forward.

First off, tactical, technical, strategic, like gold.

I really think that that sums up a lot of time that we as a board have spent in the tactical and technical aspects of how we do our work without really being strategic, right?

I also think that it's like mind numbingly obvious that we have, in my recollection, never tied a superintendent's evaluation to the actual performance of students.

Can somebody correct me if I'm wrong?

I don't remember that being a part of former Superintendent Juneau's evaluation directly.

Supposed to, but like when I'm really where this gets into it, is that like.

the more I read, the more I spend time out in community, folks ask us the question, like, why are you not focused on the learning?

And oftentimes, we are just simply not focused on the learning.

You know what I'm saying?

And so For us, this type of shift allows us to do both.

It allows us to focus on the changes that we need to make in the classroom in terms of making sure that our students are coming into safe and welcoming environments because those impact what our students know and are able to do, which directly impacts the superintendent's evaluation.

I think the other piece of that is really thinking about when we're receiving these reports, how do we as a board pull ourselves out of the technical and the technical and really focus on the strategic?

And that's where my head is sitting at this point.

Yeah, just an observation.

And as we move forward, how do we communicate that out to, and really, now it's coming back to me, I think it's also a sign that if we are in a position to where we're asking a bunch of technical questions, that to me says that there is an issue with how the data has been presented.

Right?

It's also part of pretending.

If we go down and talk about all the doors being replaced in all of our high schools, we don't have to talk about not serving students with disabilities.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

We've we've asked a lot of questions that are looking backward to help us understand the data.

Let's roll into it.

You can still ask more of those questions but feel free to layer in some of the how questions.

I know a couple of you had some how questions earlier.

If those are still relevant you want to dive in this is your time.

We've got a few more minutes in our monitoring session.

Feel free.

What questions do you have either looking backwards or looking forward.

The floor is open.

So seeing that we've missed or the targets for interim measures one and two are each off by three or four and three percentage points respectively.

Can you give me some assessment of why you believe that's the case?

If you have any understanding at this time and then what the going forward the approach will be to either did we set the metric was the metric too high or do we need to adjust some of the strategies to reaching those targets?

So going forward I think there's strategies that we will use and you'll see this in the monitoring report we're talking about strategies under credit earning regarding how are we going to How are we going to provide more credit earning opportunities?

How are we going to make more awareness available to students and families so that they know how to access these credit opportunities?

And so going forward, we'll also talk about relationship building.

What are the key things that we're going to do, for example, with mentoring?

And then just access to advanced coursework.

What are we doing from a policy perspective?

for creating more, again, access to advanced course taking.

So I think the difference in the gap that we're in right now is we haven't been intentional on these previous steps, these previous strategies that I'm trying to articulate right now.

Other questions?

Back to my other one is how being as some groups are not achieving towards goal.

How can the board support you in reaching these goals.

Well, I'm not being flippant when I say this, but your discussion that we started out with this around having grace and not pretending and being honest and being collaborative is huge.

But more specifically, I think there's some policy implications.

For example, policy 21 94. We need to get that on track to to go forward.

And our new directors don't know what 2194 is.

Sorry, it's the rigorous course policy.

Improve the rigorous course policy and that's the policy to improve access to advanced coursework.

That's one way.

Continue funding initiatives going forward that are supporting these.

The other piece is really continuing to champion targeted universalism and focus on advanced coursework at the same time.

We've talked about just meeting a minimal standard for African-American males, for example, over time.

Now we're talking about actually African-American males participating and advancing and matriculating through advanced coursework.

So from a policy perspective and using your voice to make sure that that's emphasized as a value and important, I think those will be three ideas that will be really important for us moving forward.

I just had a follow up question to that if Director Rivera-Smith doesn't.

I'm trying to be careful about how I ask this so I stay on track.

Is do you have a sense of the extent to which the ways in which we model appropriate behavior as adults and focus on these things for students.

And then the specifically around the championing of targeted universalism.

How much of what we're seeing is part of the belief gap amongst.

Individuals and build teachers and administrators around our black male students.

Did I stay on track with that question?

I hope I did.

Oh, that's a tremendous question.

I think if we're, we board, being disciplined to the community values and representing that first and foremost, as we set out to do in the spirit of student outcome focused governance, if we can keep it at that strategic level, policy level, that's helpful to us as staff to develop the means to go forward.

So I think this type of conversation, having this and then sticking to what we've said over this last 90 minutes or so, I think if we can continue to exhibit that, that's going to be helpful for staff to go back and articulate the means to get to the ends that you all said.

So behaviorally, Moving forward, this is the place where we start and I think if we can sit, if we can, if we continue in this vein, I think we're all good.

I think we have time for one more question.

Anyone have a question?

We're good.

Then as, you know, board chair, I always like to end out with you know with just having a curiosity about what is you mentioned we can champion you know target target universalism.

Are there any other particular ways here whether you know budgetary or just out in the community that you see that we as a board can help lift up our Black poets.

Is that a question for me.

For the superintendent yeah.

I'm sorry.

I thought you were talking to President Hersey.

Can you ask that question one more time please.

Yeah.

Appreciate your answers to these questions.

My last question is is there anything else that you see that we as a board can do whether it relates to future budgetary items or as it relates to championing The work that's going to lift up our black boys.

Yes, I think it's.

really having a, having, I said it, I kind of said this earlier, but it's really having clarity around what we believe are the key components of advanced coursework.

Is it IB?

Is it, are they, is it AP?

Is it college in high school, what are the key components that you all see from a policy perspective around advanced course taking?

And if it's all three, that's fine, but I think some clarity around that would be helpful.

Got it.

Thank you.

And so let's take a pause out of the role play.

What I want each of you on the days to do now is to scroll to the last page of the progress monitoring document.

which is labeled evaluating the quality of monitoring.

There are five domains.

Preparation, dated opinions, questions, statements, past and future, progress monitoring and project management.

And for each of these five domains, go ahead and identify how did the board perform.

Was the board ineffective, approaching effectiveness, effective or highly effective?

Go ahead and evaluate your performance as a board now.

Superintendents cheating off.

We're being collaborative over on the side of the diet.

I think we're ready, AJ.

So preparation, how did you rate the board?

Anybody hop on in.

Approaching.

Why approaching?

Not applicable because we didn't have the data.

Yeah, we got it on Friday.

Oh, dang.

supposed to actually look at that.

I thought it was because we were doing it here.

Yes, I know.

That's why I said some.

All right.

Well, so now what's your rating?

Oh, I was grading myself.

And quite honestly, I'm approaching, I did a little, can you see this?

I don't know where the camera is.

Where is the camera?

Pretty far back.

Yeah so I have a red arrow going between approaching effective monitoring and effective monitoring because I think any one of these on any given day may be different but we're definitely not I'm not at highly effective because this is my second board meeting.

I know, but I'm just saying in general, in general, like my comfort level with engaging with this, but I'm also not an ineffective monitoring.

Like I come to this board with some knowledge and skills that will lead, that will provide me with some skill to be able to understand the task at hand.

And so I don't know.

For me, I feel like I'm approaching effective monitoring to effective monitoring.

But it's variable depending on whether it's preparation, data and opinions, questions and statements, that kind of thing.

Sometimes I have a hard time articulating exactly what I'm saying, particularly when I'm hungry.

There is a domain of knowledge that you have the best access to, which is what was your performance like, and that definitely needs to be part of this monitoring conversation.

However, the overall activity that that needs to inform is identify the column that most describes the completed monitoring session.

And so you are evaluating the monitoring session as a whole, not just your participation in it.

So, with that piece of clarification, anyone else, how would you rate?

I think we, I have us as approaching effective monitoring.

I now know that not everybody read it, I guess, but.

I read it and but I still had I still didn't understand it.

I still this is but either way I think it says that some board members have read parts of the monitoring report prior to the meeting and have begun developing potential questions.

So I felt like we were all there at least there I don't know I wouldn't I wouldn't put as an ineffective which is any board members have not read them.

I don't know maybe we're ineffective.

But yeah we're getting there.

I think this was a really strong exercise.

OK so board members quick question.

Do you want your teachers to tell the truth about student performance or do you want your teachers to pretend about student performance.

OK.

So guess guess what you can do to create a safe space for truth telling in student performance.

Tell us.

engage in truth telling about board performance.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Exactly.

Okay.

So we literally heard one board member say what?

I did not read it.

Okay.

He literally said that he did not read it.

He said that out loud like five minutes ago.

Yeah.

So board members, how do you rate yourself for preparation?

Ineffective.

Because it's any.

Oh I misunderstood that.

OK.

So we're ineffective.

Yeah.

Any.

Any.

Oh I see.

OK.

My bad.

So what's what's critical here is it's going to be super easy.

You all will be highly effective with monitor with preparation.

I have no doubt.

But what's critical is you have to joyfully lean in.

to the most brutal version of reality.

Because any moment that you shy away from it or kind of get iffy about it, you invite into your schools a culture of being iffy about, are we going to tell the truth what's happening with our students?

You must lead by example and monitoring.

The stakes are very high because you are the culture setters for the organization at the highest level.

And so as you engage in self-evaluation publicly, know that you are creating the norm for all self-evaluation that happens throughout the organization.

And so your way of creating a safe space for just truth-telling about what's happening is to engage in truth-telling about what we're doing.

And this is not articulated to make you look good.

Like that is not the intention of this activity.

It is articulated, however, in such a way to help you lead in a way that will inspire others in your organization to feel comfortable and safe.

Just tell them the truth about, hey, you know what?

In my heart of hearts, I want all the Black boys in my class to succeed.

But when I looked at my data, I left half of them behind last month.

And I need some support in figuring out what am I going to do this month to make a difference for that.

You want that to be a safe thing for people like, oh, absolutely.

I look at my data.

I clearly didn't get there.

Not if, not maybe.

I clearly didn't get there.

And I just need some help.

What can I do?

So a powerful thing for you all to do is be like, hey, we're at ineffective monitoring when it comes to preparation.

What's something that I could do as an individual board member to support us as a team of board members of being highly effective next month?

Anybody want to take a stab at that?

What's something I could do as an individual board member that could support our team of being highly effective next month?

As a board chair, I could literally call everybody the week before or when it goes out and alert them, hey, there is something that you need to read before we come to the next board meeting.

Yeah, well, one of the things highly effective says is, you know, board members have so many questions.

So as a board member, what's something that you could easily do?

track submitting questions.

Yeah.

Call the superintendent.

Hey have you received questions from everybody.

Everybody.

Like well all except for this one board member.

Great.

I'm going to give that board member a call and I'm going to encourage him and see if they need any support.

Awesome.

This is the same way you want your teachers to behave and in their learning communities you want them to really take a rigorous look at performance and then you know think of what are ways that I can be supportive to help The teachers on my team win.

You all do the same thing.

What are things I could do to be supportive to help the board members on my team win.

Any other questions or comments about preparation.

So I feel like and I think what tripped me up too is that some I feel like these can coexist like the approaching effective monitoring and ineffective but they can both be true and I think they were tonight.

So there was some board members who hadn't read and some who had read and prepared.

Oh yeah yeah.

Thank you for that.

So I should clarify.

I should clarify this thing goes from left to right.

I should clarify this self-evaluation just like the other ones that I've walked you through and will walk you through always go from left to right.

So if something about the far left one is true you don't go any further to the right.

You are at the far left one.

If the far left wasn't true you know but the next three are well no you were approaching.

And so this works from left to right.

So thank thank you for pushing for that clarification.

Anything else on preparation?

Alright, data and opinions.

How did you self evaluate?

I said effective monitoring conversation was focused on understanding the data presented in the monitoring report.

Anybody else?

I also selected that option.

Effective monitoring.

Anyone have something other than effective?

I drew arrows between, this is what I do, you don't have to guess.

You do your thing, do your thing.

You get to know me.

Approaching effective and effective.

Because I think sometimes one of us can say something that represents effective and then someone else may dip back over into approaching effective.

And so that's just that's how I operate.

That's how I do my own performance evaluation at work.

It's like, yeah, I'm I'm kind of in between here.

But I'm always working towards moving to the right.

I think that's that my mindset is moving more and more to the right.

Gotcha.

Anyone else on data and opinions?

Alright, I had you all down as ineffective.

So the question is as you reflect on the conversation were there any moments when you heard board members opining on school system performance or saying anything that could be interpreted by your staff as blatant.

Can you give me an example of when that happened.

It did.

Yes.

Yes.

Somebody want to share.

Go ahead.

I did it.

I did it when I talked about students about IEPs.

And I said I know why that's that.

Yeah absolutely.

Other people did this stuff.

Don't go past go.

Don't collect $200.

OK.

Yeah.

And so again what's really critical here is you do not want to create a culture of fear.

And so you're inserting your opinions about what isn't happening absent having any data about that.

And you're offering up comments that from your staff might be interpreted as blame.

Those actually contribute to the culture of fear that you all actively want to undermine.

This is a very difficult standard to get highly effective at because so often like the The habit what's habituated is to engage in my opinions about reality and my opinions about who's to blame and conveniently those opinions never highlight my role.

My complicit behavior in co-creating a culture of fear.

This is a tough one.

This data and opinions, but it's one that I have every confidence you all can become highly effective at very quickly.

I have a question.

Yeah.

What if there's data that supports my opinion.

So but the problem is you're not the purpose of monitoring isn't for you to opine.

The purpose of monitoring is for you to understand what you're you want to understand what your superintendent's opinion is.

And I'm not saying that your opinions and your advice don't matter.

I'm just saying they're not part of this specific activity.

That's all.

Yep.

Other questions about data and opinions?

We're having fun tonight, people.

We're having fun tonight.

All right, let's go to questions and statements.

How did you rate yourself for questions and statements?

First this time, somebody else.

I did it twice.

Somebody else got to go first.

I'll take a risk.

Yeah.

I said effective.

I need to go back and re-read out all these now.

But I said effective.

Why effective.

Because okay so I'll start from the left.

I don't believe there was a conversation that was focused on board member opinions and recommendations for what the system should do.

So I don't believe that happened.

I don't believe that the conversation was largely statements of opinion, but included some questions about the data presented in the report.

I do believe.

The conversation was mostly focused on questions about the data.

Presented in the monitoring report.

Mostly multiple choice or open ended inquiry.

So definitely one thing that you ought to be applauded The the the inquiry was really quite open-ended.

So instead of saying so Superintendent did this happen because of A or B.

Or even better Superintendent this happened because of A right.

So those are classic examples of yes no inquiry or multiple choice.

But really, this is an area where I feel like you all did were particularly strong is asking, you know, open ended questions.

So Bravo on that.

Anyone else?

How do you rate yourself for questions and statements?

He hasn't told us yet.

Anybody?

Did you rate yourselves?

I also said effective.

It sounds somewhat tentative.

Fear.

We are still very much so in a culture of fear.

I also said effective.

Why effective?

Why'd you say you said you also said effective.

Yeah, I agree.

I don't feel that we were talking about.

We're pretty focused.

I can barely hear you.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I said that I gave us effective because I don't know that we.

Got it.

Anybody have anything other than effective?

OK, so.

I think it's hard to be ineffective for data and opinions without being ineffective for questions and statements.

That is really hard.

If you discounted any.

conversation that was focused on opinions.

I didn't hear a lot of recommend.

I didn't I don't remember hearing recommendations what to do.

I certainly certainly heard board member opinions but I didn't hear any recommendations for what to do.

And so if we're going to be generous you know with opinions I would I would join you all.

and effective, largely because your style of inquiry was so just on point, like it actually unusually so.

And so, you know, bravo on that.

That takes us to past and future.

How did you rate yourself for past and future?

I said effective except for now I'm thinking about specifically my own comments that may have been about.

Yeah.

Who else.

Never mind.

I had it backwards.

Sorry.

Yeah I said effective.

Who else.

How'd you rate yourselves.

I had us as approaching.

Why approaching.

It says the plurality of the monitoring conversation is focused on future action rather than reflection on past action.

I think the I think it was not that it wasn't effective because I don't feel like the majority of our conversation was focused on past.

I think it was it was if anything maybe 50-50.

So I went towards approaching.

Anybody else.

I put effective.

Yeah, so left to your own devices, you definitely would have been approaching.

Fortunately, you had me to interrupt some of your tendencies and that helped push you up to effective.

So it's just know that it's helpful to have a someone facilitating the conversation.

You know who will kind of nudge things around.

But yeah, I think.

Left to your own devices you have slid back, but no, I think you all demonstrated effective monitoring on this in this role play.

That brings us to progress monitoring and project management.

How did you rate yourselves?

I said effective, but I can't say with certainty that there wasn't any advice offered.

I might have just.

I think we're so used to it at this point that we.

Maybe turn it out.

Yeah.

I I said approaching.

Just because.

So many ideas for how.

We can utilize this system for me for recommendations.

Well, it wasn't recommendations of data, but.

Recommendations about how we could use this going forward.

Yeah, and recommendations about how to make improvements in the monitoring process are totally fair game in terms of so hey, I don't understand this.

Could you help?

Could you add a legend so I can understand the colors like that is fair game.

What this is specifically talking about is the content of the monitoring report.

You know, was that did I engage in offering advice?

You're going to programmatic discussion rather than strategic discussion.

Those are really the questions of this particular evaluation.

Anybody else.

How do you how do you self-evaluate on progress monitoring and project management.

I actually have a question for you.

Yeah.

I think as a new school board director I have this temptation to really want to understand the programs before I'm asking questions.

But are you saying in theory I don't need to worry about what the programs are.

Yes so in monitoring the intention is for this to be a strategic level conversation and so understanding what the superintendent's strategy for ameliorating circumstances is is completely center-filled for this activity.

Understand you know understanding how specific programs are being implemented is very much at the tactical level for the purpose of this conversation.

And so again the thing to be clear about is having tactical level questions or technical questions or offering advice or opinions, I'm not suggesting those are out of bounds as a school board member.

I'm saying they definitely are not part of effective monitoring.

And so if you want to do those, you know, have a one-on-one with your superintendent and talk it out.

Like, hey, I think all the pencils should be blue instead of red, you know, have the conversation, but just know that that is not a part of effective monitoring.

That won't, inform your understanding of what is a reality for students and it definitely won't inform your understanding of the superintendent's grasp on what strategy is necessary to serve students.

That's why those things are out of bounds for monitoring.

And if I can just add to that that including the last the annual reporting that we did a little cleansing on this board historically has monitored effectively.

Not we haven't done it effectively.

We've effectively attempted to monitor programs and adults in the system as opposed to monitoring outcomes for students.

Yeah.

And that's unfortunately it's fairly normal.

Partially because it's just it's more fun to sit around and tell the superintendent what to do programmatically and tactically.

Strategy is You know it was less exciting.

You know.

But it's it's the job you literally applied for as board members and that nobody else can actually do.

Like nobody else represents the vision of the community.

So nobody else is in a position to to really ensure that there are strategies in place to accomplish the vision of the community.

Like only you can do that.

And so when you abdicate that role by jumping straight into, oh, I think we should be doing this, doing that, or doing that, you know, all these tactics.

Then what you do is you leave the administration to setting the vision and to, without observation, setting the strategies themselves, only for you to come back later and be dissatisfied with both.

But the real problem was never the administration.

The problem is that you didn't do your job because you were busy doing their job.

Unfortunately this is a common dysfunction of boards.

You represent the vision and values of the community.

Nobody else can do that.

The superintendent is not the community's representative.

Nice guy.

Like him.

Hey buddy.

He is not the community's representative.

Only the board is.

Which is why this type of strategic level oversight has to be done by the board or just effectively doesn't get done at all.

Other questions about progress monitoring and project management before I transition.

Did you give us our grade?

I would join you at approaching.

Approaching.

So, all in all, this is actually a pretty decent round for your first practice and hopefully gives you some insights.

into how to strengthen your monitoring, specifically in the context of how do we create the culture of continuous improvement, of safety to be engaged in the learning?

How do we continue to create that through our actions right here at the dais?

So now that we've gone through, we talked about what monitoring is.

We did a practice monitoring session that we self-evaluated.

What did you learn?

What will you take away from our time together in this first Of several rounds of monitoring practice, what did you learn and what will you take away?

Who will be the 1st to share?

Yeah, I'll just dive in.

I learned the parameters in which we need to have conversation, which I think is going to be critical for this board.

And also what types of questions and how we should be thinking about developing those questions.

I think gives us a lot of.

Well, at least gives me a really, really good starting place to to really see functionally.

How are we going to monitor student focused outcomes?

Yeah.

Sergeant here, you know, I was brother Crabill.

You were talking about, you know, our assessment of where we're at on the scale.

And I appreciated Director Vivian's question, because in leadership, there's this leadership principle about being on the balcony versus being on the dance floor.

We need to be on the balcony, because you actually can't see everything that's going on when you're on the dance floor.

That's right.

So when we think about the role of a school board director, it's nose in, fingers out.

Well, the fingers in is when we're on the dance floor.

We're like, you know, I'm talking to you and it's all about the policy or I'm talking to you and it's all about the program.

But I actually can't see what's going on in the whole system.

And so I don't know if that's a visual to help people understand that we need to mostly be on the balcony.

Sometimes we need to come down and dance.

Right?

Because we need to build relationships with the people who are on the dance floor, but mostly we need to be on the balcony.

Yeah, the problem is.

You all are accountable for the overall performance of the organization, and so you've got to be constantly looking at the overall performance of the organization and the more time you spend on the dance floor, which is a really awesome place to be like.

Be clear, the dance floor is a more fun place to hang out to the balcony.

Uh, that, that this is, this is just the experience.

And so there's a temptation to spend all your time on the dance floor, but just know that inside of doing so you're abdicating your role of representing the vision and values of the community.

The community members are counting on you to be their representative.

And unfortunately you have to be willing to let go of the, the fun and the joy and the relationality of being on the dance floor and actually do your jobs.

which does require you to be in the balcony so that you can see, are we providing justice overall?

It's not enough to know, does the person next to me on the dance floor have justice?

It's where on the dance floor is justice not reigning supreme right now.

And you will not observe that from the dance floor.

You'll best observe that from the balcony.

I appreciate that as a metaphor.

Who else?

What did you learn?

What do you take away from this first round of monitoring practice?

I think, and I'm not trying to be devil's advocate here, but I'm trying to give this great analogy of the dance floor and the balcony.

And while I see what you mean about seeing the whole scene, and when you're in it, but I think of something that I don't teach your mind to say, is like, I see you on the shore, and you see me, and you think I'm waving, but I'm drowning.

And the idea is that from far away, you see something, but you don't really understand it or even know what you're seeing unless you go in there.

So, you know, sometimes I do think, you know, like I'm not trying to say, oh, we're going to be in the dance floor.

It's fun, yes, but I think there is value in once in a while stepping out there to see that.

Because, you know, we think they're waving, but they're drowning.

So sometimes you've got to be down there.

Yeah.

So let me be clear.

Absolutely not.

If the only...

If the only way your children avoid drowning is because you come down to save them, that means your system is broken and there are actually more children drowning than you will possibly ever save.

Like you literally are paying people all day every day to be lifeguards out here.

And if the only way they prevent drowning is prevented, you've got much larger problems than your single trip out into the waters will ever possibly solve.

Like what you want to know is like, hey, wait a minute, how many children are drowning and how are we reallocating resources to get there?

But if the wellbeing of your children is contingent on individual board members ferreting out what is happening in the school system and then solving it, your children are in worse condition than you can possibly fathom.

Other who else would you learn?

Will you take away?

Anyone else before we wrap up?

So thank thank you for that.

Continuation of that.

Analogy.

The temptation.

Is always there.

And.

And it's a it's a temptation coming from a really, really good place.

And we all fall to that.

I think we really need to support one another in maintaining that broader vision and not getting so far into the, whether it's the water, the weeds, or the dance floor.

But that's not to say one of the things that I know that is true about this as well is that we have to take this work, and one of the things that we all saw when we did our mindfulness work together, we have to take that work as well and those concepts to our community.

So we do have a role to play out there with community.

But we have teachers in classrooms.

We have principals in schools.

We have people that work with, you know, people that that's not our job and making sure the I'm stuck now on the folding in the careful folding in of the of the um egg whites or whatever the chocolate or whatever you want to put into the batter you fold it in you fold it in but you've got to do it carefully and it's not to create an amalgamation it's to enhance the overall texture and uh and so so it's it's It's not letting go of connectivity.

It's shifting the focus of what it is that we're connecting to people about and that it has to be that holistic picture.

And this for me I just want to say that having done this through the the cohort theoretically and then doing it here in person with my fellow board members oh my goodness what a gift and what a huge The concepts that I had experienced before but then having them the opportunity to work through it with my fellow board members was really impactful to me and and helps me get better grounded in these principles.

I'm thinking about something that you said to us AJ maybe one of our first meetings I don't know I wrote it on a piece of paper I stuck it on the bulletin board right in front of where I work when I'm at home.

That is every I can't remember exactly what it is but the general gist is that time that board that an individual board member takes to address an individual student or family situation is perpetuating all the inequities in the system.

And creating a structure where.

Instead of being accountable to students and families and meeting their needs as a system.

Things only operate at the whim of.

7 people who are sitting up here.

And I really appreciate that because I know I mean, I, I kind of have.

You know, when someone individually emails me about, like, their specific thing.

Um, uh, the.

impulse is like, oh, I know how to fix that.

I know what to do about that.

But I'm starting to think of it as actually like having that on my bulletin board is helping me remember that fixing it for that one person is just going to fix it for that one person.

And then I'm actually taking the opportunity away from building capacity in the system to address it for that child and others.

And what I think is what I'm so I'm thinking about that and also with progress monitoring something that I'm thinking about too is that.

We're not talking about.

Our approach, like you said earlier, we're not talking about how board directors operate as a whole, like nobody's saying we're never allowed to have an opinion about things.

But this is specifically what's helpful for me and what I'm going to try to remember is that when we're talking about progress monitoring in terms of our goals, that's what we're talking about.

And we have so many other opportunities in policy work, in conversations with community, in other work sessions that are about other initiatives or state laws where our opinions and individual voices and other things will come through.

So I just kind of wanted to say that out loud that the purpose of this is very specific and very clear.

And I think that is very, very helpful and will only reminding ourselves of that to keep that clear is going to serve us much better than allowing it to muddy with, well, but we can also talk about this and I have an opinion about that and this other thing.

If we're really focusing on modeling, what we want to see but also on not letting ourselves get back into the Seattle way of admiring the problem from all directions and and not actually taking action.

I think this really helps us focus on the system-wide action.

The the cultural impacts of what you describe are really huge.

Let me address both points that you made.

So first.

If you think about it again, you all are trying to create cultural norms for your organization, so sometimes it's helpful to think about how would I want the interaction between a principal and a teacher to be?

So if a if something isn't working in the teacher's classroom.

Do I want the principal to say, well, you need to do this, this and this?

Or do I want the teacher, you know, principal to first ask, hey, how do you?

How do you think you should resolve this?

And then, you know, if if the teacher asked for help, certainly I want to lean in and try to provide it, but.

But really, like if we're trying to build the capacity of our teachers like we don't treat him like they're idiots and incompetence like we help him identify.

Hey look, here's what the data says.

Got it.

So you know you're you're the expert.

You know little AJ better than anybody else does.

What do you think needs to happen here?

You know to support this and then as a principal, you know my role is to support at implementing the strategies they've come up with.

But to try to just override and tell the principal walking down the hall shouting orders at teachers, like that's not what we want.

Your way of creating that more healthy version of that interaction between principals and teachers is the model.

Here's what as supervisors, here's how we interact with our superintendent.

You don't sit here and tell him, hey, all your ideas are bad.

You should use this idea instead.

Like that just models things you don't want to model, and so that's an important point.

But the other point you made is huge, so it's worth noting.

If you all hated children, this particular aspect of your job would be easier.

I mean the the the challenges.

Inside of your love for children.

You'll unintentionally behave in ways that are, you know, helpful for that one child in the moment.

harmful for the larger set of children with less access to privilege in the long run.

And so if you just hated kids, like I'm not helping any of these kids, you actually avoid stepping on this particular landmine.

The reality is you love children so much, it's hard to pull back and look at what is the big picture what is the thing that I can do in my unique role that can do the most good for for all kids not just for this one kid who's in a privileged position because their parent happens to know a school board member.

I mean think of how few of your students are in that privileged position.

And so you don't want to feed into a system that rewards privilege.

That that harms the larger set of students and at the benefit of you as individual elected officials setting you up for your reelection bid.

But the Tim Tate, but it doesn't come from a nasty place.

It comes from a place of really love and want to do right by that one individual child.

But your role as board members will never be divorced from the reality that you all create culture with every action.

And if you want to have a school system that honors all children, not just the one children with the greatest access to privilege, then you're gonna have to manage yourself and figure out what is the way in this moment to serve all children, not just the one directly in front of me.

And that's a hard calling.

I mean, I'm not suggesting it's easy.

It's a really tough calling because it goes against how I feel in the moment.

But that's what you signed up for.

You literally raised your hand and said, community, I'm willing to master my emotional response in favor of the cultural response that our school children that all of our children require.

That's what you raised your hand to do.

And this just gives you opportunity to practice.

That's all.

This is just practice practice practice.

It's about continuous improvement.

Anyone else before we before we call this quits.

Aja could you just say that again.

Mastering my emotional response.

In pursuit of kind of the culture of continuous improvement that I'm going to create for all of my students.

Thank you.

I just want to thank you all for participating in the conversation the way that y'all did.

And I think what was really critical in the last five minutes, for me at least, was thinking about in moments like AJ was describing, we feel like superheroes, but we're actually vigilantes.

Seriously, because it's like, I feel like I'm saving this kid But then that puts us in an awkward juxtaposition to the system of being combative.

You see, for me at least, or the way that I'm thinking about it, because like Liza said, it's not allowing the educator, the principal, the system that we put in place to do its job.

And instead of highlighting the inadequacy in the system and bringing it back so that it gets fixed for more children, it's actually doing the opposite and the fact that we, because of our love for children, and because we feel like that would make us effective, solve the problem for individuals.

I know that I've been there more times than I can count.

It's incredibly difficult to look back, even just on my leadership, and my presence, and what I brought to this space, and thinking there have been countless times where because of what I have heard out in the community that a problem is not getting solved, that the hubris it must have taken for me to think that I can solve it.

Like, Brandon has got this.

I am the champion of District 7. You know what I'm saying?

And in order for us to be effective for this system, we have to be the champion for the entire system and not just the people who happen to have our cell phone number.

Like, that is really difficult for me to wrap my mind around in this moment, and it's going to take practice.

But I really am struggling with the idea of not being a vigilante in our own system, not going out and taking the law into our own hands and trying to fix things, as opposed to really looking at the system and seeing why is this problem occurring and why hasn't it been addressed in the channels that we've set up?

Yeah, the idea of, are we going to we can be downstream trying to pull kids out of the water.

We can.

The people have the unique task of going upstream and figuring out how our kids fall into the water in the first place like that.

That falls to y'all.

It's it's a tough job.

It is a really.

It's a really, really tough job.

And for me, eight years of it was emotionally brutal.

But also proud of what we got done for kids inside of you know that the board that I served on your.

our team really buckled in and did the work, and our children benefited from it.

I want to just conclude by just expressing gratitude.

Because this is so hard work, the easy thing to do is just kind of lean back, lean away from it, kind of block it out.

But that's not what you all have done.

Over the past several months, you all have put in the work to bring us to this point.

Now, you started by going through training, and then you did the arduous work of identifying a set of goals, a set of guardrails, really pushing back on your administration to try to identify some interim goals, interim guardrails that you could use to monitor.

You adopted those and said, this is what we're going to focus on.

You've begun to redesign your board meetings, and now you're building the skill necessary to actively monitor progress to really be clear about what is the reality for our students and how do we hold our superintendent accountable.

for having strategies in place that are sufficiently aggressive to meet the needs of our students who we've allowed to be left behind.

Many boards have given up at this point in the journey.

You all have not.

And for that, on behalf of the tens of thousands of students that you serve, many of whom look like me, thank you for your service.

Mr. Chair, back to you.

Thank you very much.

What a fruitful conversation.

I mean, I just don't have words.

One thing before we get out of here that I want, and please don't cut the recording yet because I want to make sure that the public can see this.

If everybody would take out their phones and take a look at their calendars for a second.

One of the things as president that I would like us to do is spend some time together and we will notice it, but I have a field trip suggestion for us.

And I've talked to most of you about this, but Brother Delbert Richardson has an exhibit that is on display at this moment.

We had originally talked about going on a Monday, but it's not open on Monday.

And so what I would like folks to do is just take a look at your calendar for next week.

And the exhibit, I think it's open.

Let me see.

I've got it right here.

The exhibit hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.

to six.

So I'm open to a Saturday, but I know folks have lives and I don't want to take too much from them.

But I would like us to really consider what days would work for us to get over there and for it to be a meaningful experience.

I think we would need at least an hour, so maybe five with the closing at six, and we would notice it.

So anybody from the public is welcome to come walk around the exhibit with us.

But if we could take a look at the 14th, 15th, I am personally not available on the 16th, but even the 17th and the 18th are open for me.

Of this month, and it's open till January the 15th, but I would like to probably get it done before we get out of here for the holidays.

So, a little description of it, I mean, you probably know it better than I do, but it's.

a collection of various art pieces.

And for those of you who don't know, Delbert Richardson helped, well, not helped, essentially designed along with Jesse Hagopian, our Black Studies program with Dr. Scarlett.

And together they formed the Africana Institute.

And he's done this a few times before.

He's getting a lot of notoriety for it.

But it is a collection of stories, lineage, understanding of history of African-American culture, And I think specifically as we're heading into Black History Month, in a short while here, yeah, in a short while here, I think it'll be critical for us to attend and get some of that.

And I think it would be a great way for us to end the year, if we could get out there before we jet for the holiday.

So any preferences, any days that absolutely don't work?

The weekend.

The weekend will not work.

the 14th or the 15th works?

Does the 14th or 15th not work for someone?

We have a board meeting on the 15th.

On the 14th?

They just changed the time too, didn't they?

4.30 to 7.30.

Okay, maybe it does make more sense to look into, don't worry about it.

It's the transition team for Mayor Harrell's, that's on the 14th.

So let's go ahead and look into January.

Let's see.

Can't do Friday.

I could do Friday, but some folks can't.

The 16th, that's a Thursday.

I am not available on the 16th, that's my issue.

Actually, actually, actually, actually, actually, my thing doesn't start till six on the 16th and it closes at six.

We could definitely the 16th.

That's 530.

That's 530. Okay.

Okay.

Let's let's look into January.

No worries at all.

I mean, I'm here the 20th through the 24th.

No, not the 20th.

Not available.

Okay.

That's fine.

Let's look at January.

What does let's give people some time to get back.

So What does the 10th look like?

January 10th?

We have a isolation policy discussion on the 10th.

What about the 11th?

Right, it wouldn't be.

Yeah, so it would be the 11th.

Do we have anything on?

You can do the 11th?

11th?

We have a levy meeting with South Fork, but I can miss that.

11th?

January 11th?

Yeah, look at God.

OK, so January 11th.

How does 430 sound to meet there?

Is that too early for folks?

All right, January 11th at 430, it is done.

Thank you so much.

That was so easy.

And hopefully what I would like to do is do these like somewhat monthly.

if it doesn't work one month.

But there's just so many opportunities as things start to open back up especially for our students and for us as a board like as again as we're coming out of our holes.

I think that is going to be critical for us to spend time outside of this building together to build that understanding and reduce that fear.

So thank you for humoring me.

I will see y'all obviously before this but January the 11th at 430. Please mark that.

Okay.

Cool.

Adjourn.

Say again.

You need to adjourn.

Yeah, I'm about to do that.

Trust me, I'm trying to get out of here just as quickly as you.

All right, I want to say thank you.

It was a transformative experience.

I saw you all come together.

I feel absolutely inspired to be able to support you in ways that are tangible so that you can be assured that the people on the shore are fine.

You could be assured that It's fun to actually be in the balcony and watch us dance because we're doing such a good job.

So I really want to make sure that you all understand that this was fantastic and you all made it comfortable for me.

And I think anybody watching knows that we're on point.

So I just wanted to say that.

Thank you.

I just can't remember the last time I laughed so much up here, especially with all of y'all.

So let's continue this camaraderie, because I think that this is going to be critical for the massive amount of work we got coming at us.

So without further ado, if there is no further business or anything else that would be good for the order, remember, stay focused on children, and this meeting is adjourned at 7.12 p.m.