Bo Board of Education to order Mr Burnside can you please take the roll call Board member nuia Deval Wilson here board member Regine AER here board member bill gford here board member Alysa malespina board member Coe telesford here board member run vad lamani here board member Courtney Winfield board president Caitlyn letter here I'm sorry did I hear is a board member winkfield virtual virtual I heard here you heard something too I heard here yeah yeah maybe okay sorry board member Johanna Wright thank you thank you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance please take note that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in the following manner a written notice was sent from the office of the secretary of the board at 9:30 a.m. on November 13th 2023 that said notice was sent via email to maplehood and South Orange Township clerks and the editors of the news record Star Ledger tap into Soma and the Village Green tonight's board will treat will feature a presentation from the New Jersey School Board Association on how to conduct a successful superintendent search after the presentation from njsba the board will begin a working session away at a family style table as part of our board retreat we welcome all community members in the audience to gather around the table to be an active listener during the board retreat please note no action will be taken this evening we also have have a few special guests with us this evening I'd like to First congratulate and thank our newly elected Board of Education members Shane aak Gable Liz Callahan and will Meyer our three new board members will take office in January um they will be allowed to participate in our working session this evening um which we're all really excited about and without further Ado I'd like to introduce Charlene Peterson who is the New Jersey State Board Association field representative for the South Orange mwood School District we are grateful to have her here with us this evening to share best practices on conducting a superintendent search thank you Charlene thank you it is my pleasure to be here um the last time we were together was at an earlier board retreat okay and at that time the board had made a commitment to take the time to train together more often so as a result we you know committed to doing this quarterly so um this is then kind of that next quarter of Us coming together and really find finding the benefit you know we say that as a board we don't often take the time to focus on our work and have conversations about our work so appreciate the fact that we are coming here together to to spend some time just to talk about the board's work so um said we're going to just go through a presentation about you know just the the steps and all the the different choices that a board might have in a superintendent search I'm not necessarily advocating for you know any particular um you know company or anything just more kind of in general what one goes through in conducting a superintendent search um so having said that if you want to go ahead and flip the slide um so we know from a board's perspective that we only have one employee right and and that's the superintendent so when the board um goes through this process you know we always say that because of the obviously the huge impact that the superintendent has on your District how important this process is is um and you know it it just drives success throughout the district so we recognize like I said this is the board's only employe and then all the other District staff report to the superintendent so the important part is getting ready right people sometimes think when it's time to go through a superintendent search that it's somewhat of a daunting process so just want to say that um as long as you are supported and helped throughout the way it actually is um a process that more often than not helps Sports come together because you have to work together and focus together and you really have you know so many great conversations together as a group that it really helps bring you together so okay um so just some of the steps we're going to go through tonight just talking about the vacancy what it looks like the a pro search process and then transition okay um so in terms of vacancies what your options are for a board um when you do have a vacancy in the superintendent position that you essentially have um three options and it kind of depends on what your situation is um in the first situation for an Acting Superintendent a board would have an Acting Superintendent if their current superintendent is still under contract but unable to fulfill the responsibilities due to an absence disability or disqualification so essentially you know what that means is that for a district you can only have one superintendent on the books so if your current superintendent is still under contract by the district but is not able to sit in the seat then the board you know will can fill that seat then by someone who is acting in that role um an interim superintendent by definition is a retired administrator so that essentially is a another superintendent so you would you know so you would only have an interim superintendent if you don't have another superintendent on the books so um so when the seat is completely vacant um so because the um interims are retired um it's the pension system that restricts how long they're able to stay in your District so they are able to initially be approved to can be you know as short as the Board needs them um to initially one year um and can be approved to stay a second year um so that's um like I said so they are retired um and then the next one would be you know to to hire a permanent superintendent and that is a contractual relationship they're you know their contract is essentially their 10e in your District um the minimum contract a board can offer a superintendent is three years and the maximum is 5 years and the you know the contract has to end on June 30th so you know so you have to even stay within that so like for boards that say you know if the superintendent starting in January you still have to stay within that June 30th um you know within that three to five years recognizing that the contract is to end on June 30th um so in terms of what the requirements are then for a permanent superintendent so the the um certification that the state requires is that they have to have a School administrator certificate so either holding the certificate or a Certificate of Eligibility which means that they have fulfilled all the requirements for that seat but have not yet sat in it so they have the needed certificate but we'll need some mentoring then um as of right now you know New Jersey SCH still requires that you would have to be a resident so if you're currently not a resident the state gives you one year to move um we just talked about that that three to fiveyear contract the contract has to be approved by the executive County Superintendent before the board can make the appointment so the board would enter into negotiations prepare a contract submit it to the county superintendent and then upon approval from the county superintendent then would the hiring appear as a resolution you know before the board um and then when intendant they changed the language and said that um compensation is subject to comparability requ requirements so if we switch to to the next one here the way the state defines comparability requirements is essentially saying that the the salary has to be comparable to similarly credentialed and experienced administrators in the region with similar enrollment achievement challenges and grade spans um so it will be up to the board to you know present to the county superintendent that you did your due diligence you looked at you know what the the other salaries are in the area um and so you know that would support why you were providing the you know the salary that you were in the contract so it like I said it is negotiable but has to be approved by the county superintendent so one of the things that you know used to be or I guess you know when when salary caps were in place um as a way to provide um compensation to superintendence the Merit goals were allowed when the salary caps went away Merit goals did not go away per se but can say that most contracts do not have them in there anymore um because Merit goals are not pensionable so if you are able to provide salary or compensation most of the time it's prefer that the compensation be regular salary versus a miracle that's not pensionable so but I just wanted to make you aware that that option still technically exists um if that is something that would be of interest um I think when you board hires an interim superintendent It's usually the compensation is usually a daily rate you're paying them so much a day um and usually that daily rate is calculated by taking an annual salary and dividing that by 260 days um and then for an Acting Superintendent like say it's usually someone who is a current employee who already has you know a a contract with the um with the district and then you would just be um providing some additional compensation for the additional responsibilities okay so now we're going to go through the process go ahead and switch again I'm just going to take you through the steps of the process um really focusing on how important communication is okay um so and that's you know as much as we know you know the value in making sure that our public and our stakeholders are aware of what we're doing um much of this work is coming confidential but it's important that we make the public aware and make our stakeholders aware as much as we can throughout the process of what we can um most boards that go through this process will have a separate section on their website where they'll have the calendar the ad kind of you know any information that will help um your stakeholders um be part of it and just kind of understand where the board is in the process okay so again these are the steps then the the the kind of the biggest or the longest step is actually preparing for kind of you know getting ready to start receiving applications and you know actually getting ready to start meeting the candidates so there's a lot of leg work that needs to happen before then um I guess one of the things that I don't remember I don't know if do you you know once the change in the board will you have anyone who's conflicted who has a relative that works in the district because if that's the case they would not be able to participate in the sech what you they would have no more rights than any other member of the public and would not be able to participate in the search okay good so it sounds like all of the members um will be able to to fully participate okay so I'm just going to go ahead then and take you through all the the different steps of what we'd be looking at um so the first part of it I guess is deciding um if you you know want to do this yourself if you want to hire a search firm um you know and some boards will um like separate themselves and maybe have a committee kind of get started with the work um but recognize you know at the end of the day it's a full board's responsibility when it comes to the interviews and things but sometimes like just starting the the leg work of this process sometimes boards will assign an ad hoc committee to do that so either way you know works sometimes I just you know in searches I've done I will either just be given one contact person or say that that the committee is the one um that you know the contact to start the process um so you can either like I said hire an outside consultant New Jersey school boards as the State Association does assist with searches as well um you know in terms of a scope you some words will say you know can just start out and say we first we're going to look and see who our internal candidates are if we don't have anything beyond then then we'll expand to you know to open it up to everyone um some boards will just you know most boards will just open it up right away and then have the internal you know if there are an internal interests to apply um and then you can decide is the scope or where you're hoping to attract candidates from are you thinking you know more from New Jersey from the Northeast region are you interested in more seeking nationally so those would be all decisions that the board would have to make um in terms of the the scope of the search um and then in terms of a cost um you know the Consultants fees very like I said our least expensive search is for $1,000 um but that's you know for a board who does most of the work themselves um our most expensive is 12,500 um but other Consultants will you know provide different services and you know charge more for those Services um in terms of advertising so there is a lot of advertising that just comes as a result of the the consultant and the contacts that they have um but some boards you know you also have the option then to have pay for additional advertising and we'll look at that in just a minute and then typically you know could pay um for additional any additional background checks like it's it's common to ask to have a social media background checked on so perhaps different checks that you might want to consider on um your candidate okay um so in terms of a timeline um it's you know as you look at the process there's some things that really are not in the board's control like typically the application window is open for 30 days usually if you're advertising the you know you're buying advertising in a time span of 30 days it takes usually that long to have the ad open have applications coming in have people be able to hear and know about you are opening so you kind of have that span of time then there is the span of time then that the board you know will need to conduct interviews um it's typically you know if you're doing three rounds of interviews it's would be you know two to three rounds depending on how much the board would want to compress that time frame um and then you know in between all of that you know while we're advertising typically is when we're meeting with your stakeholder so those things can can overlap um and then the kind of the the end piece of it then once you've selected a finalist you know the county superintendent said that they need to give them at least two weeks to um look at the contract I've seen them do it much more quickly than that but that's what's um in the requirements um and then depending on who you hire you would have to look and see what notice does that person have to give um to the district that they're leaving so if you know the minimum is usually 60 days for someone who's not a superintendent um and if if it is a superintendent it could be longer like up to 90 days 120 days depending on what's in the contract that they have with their current District right now so those are all things that kind of need to be taken into consider so when you look at all of that really the only part the board really has control over is you know how compressed the the interview schedule is and then the rest of it is just kind of a time frame like I said that is dependent on the uh the person's notice and making sure that we leave the application window open for that month's period of time uhhuh you mentioned the application stays open only for 30 days or 31 days or whatever it is I mean is that a stipulation or is that just a norm it's just the norm just because most of the time if you pay for advertising like it's usually in amount for 30 days so if your advertising is out there for 30 days then your application should be open during that time that um search is being advertised but there's nothing stopping us from having longer a quarter what no absolutely no y no I mean that's seen boards do it 45 days 60 days especially if it's around the holidays or other things that that would just be the M I would say that would be the minimum so this is kind of a sample of you know what a calendar might look like so it's just kind of taking taking those steps and just kind of laying it out of saying like the first steps the meeting with the board you know to kind of get the board's thoughts on what's its vision is what you're looking for what the calendar would look like to you um you know just kind of what are things that are important to you in the advertisement so just kind of going through all of that um then like I say then then that next month or so is set up um doing the advertising meeting with the with the various stakeholders um then that and then you would sit down with the board like once you've got all the applications in um to go through the application select who you'd want for the interviews scheduled time for the interviews um then once a finalist is selected beginning the you know the um the reference checking and the betting and then starting the contract negotiations and then submitting the contract to the county superintendent and then approving the new person and then them started so just kind of laid that out on just a sample timeline of what that could look like okay uhu this timeline seems extremely aggressive right I mean because if you want if you you know assume that you are going to hire a superintendent who's currently working as a superintendent they would need to give 3 months notice at least or whatever what 20 days that's 4 months notice it depends what's in there it could be anywhere from 60 to like 120 depending on what's in their let's say three months which is normally you know 90 days so that basically means if you want them to start working July 1 they need to give notice backwards build it backwards into whatever April April yeah May June July right that basically means everything we need to finish by April and the offer letter need should be out there in April so this this this this is fine if we wanted to do it for if you were ready to get started right right because if you get say July 1 then it's like September one is when they will join as opposed to July 1 correct it's I mean this is set up I think there's 90 I think I have the board in this sample that this board was starting um and would be done by looks like April 1 with the appointment and then the person would you know this was based on a 90 days so but you're right I mean it's making sure that everything is at about the minimum allow allowable amount of time so yeah um if the target superintendent whatever person we look we're interested in has a contract that ends July 1 just like our current superintendent does right can we can this is a I mean again maybe I know it's a legal question can they give notice to renew like whatever in one month before or do they need to stay for 3 months I mean how does that work how do the contracts work because because the actually doesn't matter sorry that's okay okay that's fine okay okay um so that you know I'd mentioned that usually the first step is sitting down with the board because it really is important that the board you know and again that's some of those things that sometimes we don't even like have conversations about well what is our vision like where do we see the district wanting to go from in five years from now what are things that we think are important in terms of leadership qualities um what background what you know job what skills should the person come to the table with so those are all conversations the board should have um you know and also an understanding like it's you know it's common for um candidates to even say to the board like you know why should I come here what's good about like why is this a good place to to live and work and so the board should have already had conversations about things like that or you know if they're going to say well like what are some things that you see coming down the road in the next you know in the next year or in the next three to five years that I'm going to have to be prepared to address so that's why it's important that the board has those conversations ahead of time I have a question um are we and this could be a legal question are we allowed to um administer personality tests at during the interview process like like establish not like a random one but I don't know the answer to that to tell you the TR do do you know right you would do it to all that's great thank you okay okay go ahead um so in terms of the the process here you know obviously we want to make sure that we are going to attract the very best candidates that we possibly can for our students that's got to be our number one priority right so one of the the the things that really drives this process or is really critical to the process is confidentiality you know I had mentioned that um you know with with this being the board's only employee the board is the only group that's legally bound to confidentiality through the code of Ethics you are the only ones who there is some repercussion for um not adhering to confidentiality so when this when these processes come to be typically candidates the very first thing they want to know is there's not going to be anyone involved other than the board right um because I need to make sure that you know if I'm a current superintendent my board doesn't find out my community doesn't find out you know they're like I have a family to feed I'm you know I can't I can't put myself in a situation where I'm risking my current job to apply for another job so I need to be sure that if I am applying for this job that the this everything is being done to um to to salvage the confidentiality of the process and so from that perspective as much as we recognize the importance of knowing what are what um this means to our stakeholders and what's important to them and their voice and them being heard how can we do that at the same time not doing anything to um jeopardize the confidentiality and jeopardize our ability to attract the very best possible candidates so we have to look at this from the process of saying from the board's perspective I mean the relationship that we have with the superintendent the way we interact with the superintendent is completely different than the way that parents do staff members do students do community members so if we are the ones that have to hire the person we can only hire the right person if we have a really truly clear understanding of what's important to all of these other stakeholders so we have to make sure then that they have a voice in this process otherwise we're not going to find the person that's right for South Orange Maplewood because it needs to be the person that meets the needs of all of the different stakeholders so it's critical part of the process then of recognizing if they can't be at the table with us because of the the the importance of confidentiality then we they can be at the table with us in a different way of saying I'm going to hear what they have to say it's important I'm going to put out surveys I'm going to make sure they understand the process I'm going to you know schedule input sessions and then essentially when the board looks at applications you look at them through the lens of not only what's important to you but what did you see in terms of the rest of the stakeholders through this process of what's important to them so then that's the lens that you should be looking at um as you are considering the applications so uhhuh I just wanted to um note that I really love the idea of input sessions and you kind of walked us through that this week on a call and I think that's really important for the community to have an opportunity to engage in this dialogue and one of the things you had mentioned is it could be facilitated in an auditorium or you know whatever the location is but as a board we wouldn't be there it's more the the engagement with a neutral party to just have open dialogue I think that is I think that's a exciting and I would love for us to be able to do something like that yeah absolutely I mean this is the the chance for the community to say what they have to say and and sometimes I mean more often than not the the board is not there like typically you'll just come say or you know perhaps the board presidents and say thank you for coming we value your input um we're going to leave now because we don't want to impede what you have to say we don't want you to think that you can't say whatever you want I mean I I've done it both ways where the board is there but I've also done it you know usually more often than not they're they're not there but you know your community like you know what would work best for your community um and and ra and and to me you know different from even just taking their input I also think it's important to explain the process to everybody and let them know the steps the board is going to let them understand why this is happening the way it is how they're going to be kept updated what they can be told so making sure that everyone understands the process and then take their input as well and then it like said can be like in larger groups in smaller groups it can be in person it can be virtual it's always also via a survey um and then you know and that's another way that um you know for the board to kind of be involved in terms of identifying who those groups are or you know that need to be um you know part of this process and we try and make it as convenient you know we try and make it as convenient for the staff as possible recognizing for those teachers that are in the classrooms or you know any staff that's in the classrooms like right when their school day is over like to try and make it as convenient as possible for people to provide their input and to give them different options to do it okay um so this is just kind of a a sample ad and I really am just here to kind of point out as the bo as from the board's perspective when you start talking about criteria and identifying criteria I just wanted to highlight the difference between the words required and the words preferred when it's part of qualifications so if the board has identified a qualification as being required then that means that you in order to have legally defensible search would not be able to interview or hire someone who did not meet a qualification that you said people must have if you say that something is preferred then that means if you have it and I don't then you are a better you know a better match for the position than I am but it doesn't disqualify me from being considered so if you think about the more things that we make required we're kind of tightening that net right right from the beginning of you know who can apply and who can be considered and then kind of the more things that are preferred um it's like a wider net saying okay we'll give more people a chance and then like through the interview process perhaps tighten that net so you know you'll see obviously the state has identified that school administrator certificate that has to be required um and then you would talk about like what levels of administrative you know like I have done some searches where the board said the person had to be a sitting superint like had to be a superintendent and they made that required and I said well are you aware that's going to disqualify all your other staff and you know a lot of other and they're like yes but we just think that you know someone couldn't be successful here without that I mean in other cases there are you know a superintendent a smaller District versus an assistant superintendent a much larger District may have a bigger and broader depth of experience so you kind of have to consider all of those factors um when you're putting the qualifications together um but again just that distinction between required and preferred okay so um from the advertising perspective you know we're you know seeing that you know it used to be that the the Sunday section of the Star Ledger right was where you saw all the educational ads and that's almost no longer the case anymore right or at least not anywhere near what it used to look like um so there you know most Consultants will have um different ways that they advertise your search just in general that you don't have to pay anything additional for be it on different websites be it um you know different databases that they may have um and then from the board's perspective then you will always have the the choice to expand that and especially if you would choose to do either a regional or a national search um then you usually will advertise in like say education week or like a publication that's a national publication um and then there are also Publications you know there's um if the board was interested in in wanting to advertise your search um to diverse candidates there are also different Publications in area is to do that as well um so those would be options do you have examples of um or suggested Publications from a national perspective that would be good to advertise in is there is there like a resource list on njsba I only ask because knowing that we have the the one-year minimum for being in New Jersey I just wonder the the ROI of doing National versus keeping a local but obviously if there are Publications that have a history of being able to pull the talent then it would be worth it so I mean education week is usually the main one that most boards that do um want to look nationally that's usually a publication that they would [Music] advertise um so in terms of looking at you know material that you might expect through the application process you know we want to make sure from the board's perspective that you have the information you need right to make an informed decision so that would be one of the things that you might want to ask is that what kind of information does the consultant ask for um and what do you have access to because in some like I'm aware of some Consultants where they just hand the board the top eight names they suggest for them and the board doesn't even get to see the rest of the people that apply so you need to kind of make sure that you're asking you know am I do I have access to the full information on every candidate and what does that information look like um you know not everyone also has an application that the person has to fill out and you know from our perspective you know we say that you know if you think about a resume mine could be one page yours could be four pages long you know so we want to trying to find a way for you to get the same information on every candidate right and so that's kind of the benefit of of having an application um asking them you know to provide that school administrator certificate um references um from New Jersey school board's perspective we asked for their last performance evaluation and then also you know part of the requirement of that school administrator certificate is they have to have a master's degree so then we ask for any transcripts beyond that master's degree just again is additional information for the board and then of starting to see a little bit too like board's asking like just for like a two-minute video or something for the candidate kind of introducing themselves to the board so those you know so those might be all possible materials that you might want to consider um so then if we kind of recognize then that we're kind of at that step in the process now we've advertised we're collecting applications um so now then it's um you know time for the board to come then decide who the board wants to bring in for first round interviews with the board so again kind of that um you know we would you know at this point we've developed or you know all kinds of criteria we've gotten all kind we've gotten all kinds of feedback back from all of our stakeholders so typically there's some kind of a candidate profile that's put together or like a criteria based kind Pro profile based on all the information that has been received um so the board would look and consider that uh we would look at the the qualifications that were in the ad that we asked for um in many cases you know you would have the um ask for that the consultant to do kind of preliminary interviews some people call them screening interviews to me it's just kind of more finding out more information for the board um to consider so you would you would look at that and kind of take all of those things into consideration then all the information that you would find yourself based on you know the the resumés and all the application material you have of the board you know being able to come prepared to have your own discussions about you know what struck you you know I sometimes have have a board say you know like that they like the fact that they could have all the information so that they could kind of find that diamond in the rough and said sometimes somebody might not look that great on you know or might not look like they're the best candidate on paper but something you might see in them that a consultant or someone else else might not pick up and then you know this you know giving you the option to kind of find that diamond in the rough and make sure that you have the information you need to do that okay so this is kind of kind of a a usually like what interview rounds look like for the board so it's usually important that that the first round is very structured so that every candidate is treated exactly the same so that say if you move forward and I don't it can't I can't come back and say that I was treated differently or I wasn't asked the same questions that you were so it's important usually in that first round that we all have the the the same chance to move forward so that's why it's usually structured and at this point you're just trying to answer the question like did I show you enough that you want to learn more about me like you don't really know enough yet about me to know whether I might be your next superintendent or not but did you learn enough to decide if you want to have me come back again or not um so that's usually what the first round is um and then the second round then and then like so the first round is usually about 8 to 10 people and the second round you cut it in half and then the second round is usually at least twice as long it's more flexible um you may have you may ask some questions of everyone but there may be questions based on what you heard in the first round you know maybe I have a strong K to8 background but maybe not a strong High School background so you might want to ask me more questions about that that you that you might not need to ask somebody else so the board would you know have the flexibility now in this round to do that um it's also one of the things that we've been starting to do more too is having the candidates um like Identify some documents you would like to see like I I want to see a sample of a a letter you wrote to a parent a letter you wrote when you were in a you know in a difficult situation or something that would demonstrate how you handled a crisis or kind of different forms of evidence um that would help again inform the board about you as as a leader um so those and then you know perhaps different scenarios that you might want them to come back and either prepare a short presentation for the board about um so those are all you know so the that second round is usually much more flexible in terms of you know the board being able to really dig and find the information that it needs and sometimes even finding out more about them as a person I mean I was with a board where they asked them what book they were reading just to kind of get a sense of you know I'll just kind of a little bit more get to know them a little bit so um then ideally now after uhuh so so do these meetings happen in cies of exec sessions is that how it is so there would be one per candidate and there would be as many as required yes yep so you would schedule them with enough time in between the candidates and we usually have a process where this one's coming in this door this one that one's exiting out another door and sometimes even do not even do them in the in the school district like find uh even a neutral site I mean I've had instances where people would say there's like people waiting in the parking lot to see who pulls in and you know so I've done them like at NJIT and other PL like other places that are not in the district so like really taking the steps necessary to preserve that confidentiality so um so ideally then after the second round then hopefully then you you could see me as you know if I'm if the board's considering me moving me forward that you could see me as your superintendent maybe there's still more things you need to find out and there's a couple of us that you feel that way about so now to bring us back then um to again trying to narrow it down so that ideally we're narrowing it down to that final one um so then in this case it would be kind of a more in-depth you know based on what we've done in one and two this could be conversations this could be like you know share your 90-day entry plan with with me it could be you know what whatever based on where the board's at and what they've seen um just some flexibility and what that could look like so that recognizing ideal like if everything goes perfectly that at the end we say that we you know we don't have your next superintendent yet we have the finalist that we're moving forward with so that um you know ideally that's the process that we would end up with and if we're not there then we say that you should not settle like tell the board if you are not unanimously and enthusiastically excited about moving forward with someone then we start over and you should go back to you know opening up applications again like don't settle don't let the calendar Drive the process what your main focus should be is finding the right person finding the best person and take whatever steps are necessary to make that happen okay and then assuming that um we did reach a point where we did have a final um one so then um you know we would notify typically notify the candidate then um that that they are the board's finalist so then at that time and again this still comes down to confidentiality I mean in some cases the person feels comfortable enough to say okay like you can I give given you some references but you can you know call whoever you want and others will say you know what I'm still not willing to take that chance yet um so you'll kind of have to feel that out once you're once you're there um but so kind usually once we go through the reference checks and that All Passes then a couple options could be like for either to um go spend a day in that person's district and also have that person come and spend a St in your District um meeting with different stakeholder groups throughout the day so again good you know everything's dependent on that whole confidentiality thing so then but at least if that is able to happen then that gives your stakeholders a chance to lay eyes lay eyes on the person before you're um actually negotiating contracts and kind of you know going to that next step yet um and then it would be then know the next step is contract negotiations and it's typically the board's attorney working with the the the candidates attorney and more often than not they use their Association and jasa to to assist them in the process um and then once you come to terms that you agree you know it's it's reached the point that there's really not as many things to negotiate anymore like it used to be that New Jersey school boards we put together a model contract for boards and said here like you know use this and then nja say the superintendent Association put together a model contract for the superintendent saying we'll try and get the board to use this then when the state kind of took away a lot of the things that you could negotiate the two of us got together and New Jersey school boards and ASA and we developed one model contract um you know recognizing that it's pretty much just down to the length of the contract salary you know like there's just not that many things um you know professional associations they belong to there's not that many things that are really left to to NE you know to negotiate um and then ideally and then once you came to a contract you'd agreed upon you send it to the county superintendent for approval and then assuming it's approved then the board is you know tries to see it does you obviously you want to get the person appointed as quickly as possible so how close is it to our next board meeting May determine whether you you know want to call a special meeting or if you're able to wait until the next board meeting um and then as we said we would have to wait then for the person um to start based on what they're and then they would typically resign like after you appoint them then then they would then resign from whatever their current position is and then whatever that wait time is and sometimes you know the the whatever you know in their current District sometimes the boards will release them sooner depending on their situation so it's um you know we have to plan for whatever their notification Clause is but sometimes you do look out sooner okay um and then you know saying okay you know it really doesn't stop here that we know that once we have a new person we really need to do everything we can to help them be successful so it's important to have those conversations of saying okay like you know these are what our expectations are um the when we communicate these are the things we like to hear these are the things that we want you you know you to know about us that we like what what can we do to help you and just kind of have like a a really like a sit down like this almost as a transition and kind of have have that conversation recognizing that we do whatever we can to help them be successful help them you know set up some kind of a welcome to introduce them to the different stakeholders in the community and um really just do whatever the board can to help that person be successful I think that was it right is there any SL after no that was it so um so that was kind of a a a search process in a nutshell kind of starting from the the very beginning of how do we want to start versus then a person's here and helping them be successful so any questions from board members well first thank you so much for the presentation thank you any and then not to put he3 on the spot but did you have any questions for well follow was asking here with regard to the vacancy option say that this was a process that took you know eight or nine months we buing the position until September or October what oh I'm sorry uh if this was a process that took us until say September or October to find the right person but our options for having our Acting Superintendent expire the end of June what options does the board have during that interim period I assume we have to hire and um and I guess an interim but a short-term person and could it be an IND District person versus out of district and all that stuff so the the definition of an interim is a retired administrator okay but sometimes the county superintendent will approve the acting super if if it's if the board can prove that it's only going to be a month or two months or a short period of time you know because every time you put a a new superintendent in the seat it's another transition for the district another transition for the staff and everyone recognizes that we would like to try and minimize those those transitions so if it's clear that this is going to be very short term and you have been working with an acting you may be able to get approval for that acting to continue in that role versus um you know having to transition again for a short time got it and I guess just on that same topic um I think there was a note about maybe something that you were going to find out about um does the acting role we have right now uh have to be someone in District I mean versus like what are the options available is there an option to hire as well or does it have to be someone who is currently employed or do you know so I think that you know the the option or what was asked or you know considered was could there be an interim now while you have this vacancy and so it and I did talk to the Essex County County Superintendent today and he did um confirm that you can only have one superintendent on the book so while you have a superintendent on the books um you you know your option at this point isn't is an Acting Superintendent as long as that is the case along the same lines of Will's first question um do you ever see cases where a district starts out looking for a superintendent and maybe the applicant pool just isn't garnering the results the board wants and then sort of pivot and switch to having an interim fill the role instead yes I mean sometimes it um may be that like you say that they're just the board's just not finding what it's looking for and to me it goes back to that um you know not settling so if you've not found at the end of the day your responsibility hopefully is to pick the the best person that you possibly can so recognizing that you have you know up to two years for an indrum to serve in your District um I've had boards that have gone out and like you said the first time they just didn't find they were looking for way waited a couple months and then you know went out again and that time we're successful so um you know this is always a game where you hope you're doing the best and you know hope everything will go the way you want it to but whenever we're working with people anything can happen right so um yeah I guess connected to that I had a question um you kind of laid out three different like phases and you said in the first phase typically you get about 8 to 10 candidates we know that hiring across sectors including education has been really challenging lately how would you say those numbers look kind of current day is it typical in that first round to still have 8 to 10 candidates or we're looking at slightly less so so typically in terms so when I said the 8 to 10 that's usually selecting from a pool of about 30 to 40 candidates who will have applied for the Sur and so that's about what we're still seeing that per superintendent okay and then I just had one more question connected to to when you talked a little bit about um garnering stakeholder feedback across the community but that typically that wasn't I agree with with the board president I think that's a fantastic idea I would love to see us be able to execute on that um can you talk a little bit more about what that typically looks like knowing that the board is not the folks who are kind of in charge or kind of facilitating those conversations who does typically kind of take ownership of that um any best practices you could kind of share with us would be really helpful so that usually is the role of the consultant so um you know like I said the board would be helping to identify groups that they think should be spoken to um usually you will work with someone in in the district to help set up those times help set up those locations make sure we're getting the word out to the staff we're getting the word out to the community it's it's advertised everywhere um and then it would then like I said then usually the consultant is the one that you know would go through the process with the group take their input then kind of you know type up and then then give all that input back to the board Dr teser yes thank you for the presentation um I guess my question is when we look at our community we have a reputation of being um very difficult that's what I've heard from community members and also past board members um and one of the things that you mentioned throughout the whole process is you're looking for someone with certain leadership qualities and how you interact between the board and the superintendent and I was just curious about what are we planning on doing during our breakout session because I think one of the things that and I'm really glad that we have our three um board member elects here is that idea of what are what are what are our roles as board members I wonder if we can really reinfor force that because it's kind of like riding a bike you have to keep doing it keep that keep that exercise going I feel as though that should be a regular part of our Retreats that we're going to do these quarterly so we should probably just had that review every single time because I think you had this one like um example of you're at a party and you're watching people dancing and our road as a Bo board is just to say okay is the party going well and then that's to make sure the party is well run as opposed to going to the DJ and say what's your set look um I want you to play this track um this couple they're not dancing right can you fix their steps um I think that is some of the difficulty that we have in our own district and I want to know if we can really I guess have that reinforcement of constant training about what are our roles as board members yeah and I think this exercise in and of itself I mean you said it first thing I think it was slide three that this exercise of of going on superintendent search it's impact to a board is actually bringing a board together and being able to have dialogue I know there's several goals for the um working session unfortunately I was going to put up on my email but my email is not working right now um but just for us to have like what is our vision as board members and have some vulnerable conversations so that as a board we can you know make some decisions about how we want to move forward and I think as a board hiring a super attendant is the most important thing that we will ever do and not all boards have this opportunity to do it so I think this is a great step um and that was the reason why I chose the board retreat to be about this topic because we need to inform ourselves on the process and some of these timelines are are short and so um anyway I just I appreciate you making the time I know at one point you had three different dates selected that um so thanks for making it work for us and um so with that we'll move to the working session but first I have to apologize because Dr Gilbert I completely forgot to acknowledge that Dr Gilbert's at the Horseshoe thank you so much for joining our board retreat I was so focused on board retreat um so thank you so much for joining us this evening and it's good to see you up here and we'll be seeing obviously more of you so thank you Dr gilber um so with that we'll move to the working session then we'll come back we'll do um hearing of individuals and delegates so folks who have come to speak this evening will do it at that time and we have a heart stop at 8:30 because Charlene has another meeting to get to so um we will see you in a few Okie doie we're now returning and we will begin our hearing of individuals and delegates we are um thank you to the folks in the community who have joined us this evening the board has time limits by policy so each individual will be given three minutes to speak please do your best uh to stay within the time afforded to you and if you could um state your name and your location that that would be great I just have to pull up the Google spreadsheet oh okay so well we have no in-person public speaks we have a few virtual so we'll start with Jennifer Paganini that Community member is not online thank you David kman there we go hi I'm David kman I'm from Maplewood my son is a freshman at CHS and I'm here to talk about ninth period And how that negatively affects athletes U my son's a two sport athlete wrestling in the winter baseball in the spring and just this past week we receive schedules for both seasons and we're pretty horrified to discover just how many times he'll be expected to miss ninth period period for away competitions um that take place early on weekday afternoons from the way it looks by the end of May my son will have missed somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 classes for his period N9 honors biology that's 20 classes in five months and that's assuming he never misses a single day for illness or anything else it's the most demanding subject he has by far one that he's already finding challenging um and which uh in which class participation is essential we got that CHS attendance handout last month that cited nine days or 10% is the Tipping Point where academics begin to suffer and that this is going to be more than twice that number as you know if a student missed 20 classes unexcused in a whole year they'd fail the class now we've been told that there's conference periods but there's no way that that's going to make up the difference for what these kids are missing in the class teachers aren't always able to be there when they are they're pulled in all kinds of different directions they're not there to teach someone who's absent for over 20% of the of the lessons now obviously switch ing um ninth period and first periods back to the way they were would solve this problem for my son and others in this similar situation but I know that that's a big ask with a lot of factors involved so as an immediate stop Gap we're asking that the administration and guidance Department allow students to change out of their ninth period core classes and into available classes earlier in the school day uh I've had experience in the past where there have been strict rules about how and why kids are able to switch out of classes and guidance has historically not been flexible at all uh but if the schedule remains as it is it's essential that the department be open to all reasonable requests to change out of 9th period core class so that either PE or an elective can be put in that place missing 20 classes of an elective certainly isn't ideal but it's much less harmful than missing a course subject for that much the attendance flyer that went out last month talked about how much absenteeism negatively affects academic performance and we've heard anecdotally of kids who uh played a fall sport who have already experienced this we want to give our students every opportunity to succeed and also to pursue their extracurricular interests without having to choose one or the other the current system is setting up a good number of our students to fail so I'm asking you please do what you can to help fix this situation thank you thank you Dave next up we have Melanie hurg H is my volume on we can hear you now great thank you Melanie Hopper Gyer Maplewood I'm here to talk about the detrimental schedule we have created for our high school athletes student athletes are required to miss an exorbitant amount of class to attend games I have a baseball player and he's expected to miss 10 classes of geometry to attend games last year there were 53 baseball players with this this roster that is 530 class periods or 23,800 minutes of instruction that students are required to miss because of the school schedule and then is just one sport there are 25 sports teams at CHS state law establishes that students who Miss five classes or more in a class that meets for one quarter will not receive credit for the class the baseball students will be required to miss six classes during the fourth quarter if I were to remove my student from a class six times during quarter 4 for sports training he would be in Jeopardy of not receiving credit for that class but the school does it and it's okay we heard that a two- sport athlete is required to miss 20 classes if a parent was to remove that child from the classroom themselves for 20 times that child would be in Jeopardy of not receiving credit for an entire year class the law is there to protect the student and Safeguard their right to education the way the CHS schedule has established its schedule flies in the face of state law requirements I encourage Ur CHS to revert to period 9 being the conference period classes currently being held period 1 should be taught period 9 and vice versa for the second semester it may seem extreme to make such a shift during the school year but the high school announced it was switching periods one and nine for the school year about a month before the school year started so we have shown that we can make this type of pivot in a condensed time frame we have seen what the current schedule has done to our fall athletes there are students whose grades have suffered who have dropped out of honors or AP classes because it's too much to keep up with missing so much class and some students have dropped their sport my student loves baseball and I've witnessed him gain all the benefits of teen Sports work ethic sportsmanship physical activity pursuing a shared goal with a diverse group of peers pride in representing his school but like his coach I stress the importance of academic achievement as well my student athlete like many is a dedicated student that benefits from in-class teaching missing 10 class classes of geometry is going to affect his learning and performance in the class it is going to be really painful to him if he struggles to achieve in his class despite working hard because he has to miss significant in-class instruction time and it's going to be crushing for me to watch as a parent knowing that it is the school charged with providing him with an education that is interfering with his learning and success not sure what we're doing here we should set up the system so kids can go to class we look at graphs of student performance over time statistics and how many kids enroll in AP classes we talk about supports and what kids need to excel let's start with the foundation design the schedule so kids can attend class thank you thank you Melanie the last uh virtual public speaks is Victoria rivkin hello can you hear me yes we can oh great thanks um just I want to just reiterate everything the Melanie and Dave said I am in South Orange I have a sophomore who's also a student athlete and a a good student and um I just want to say that the ninth period situation is a real problem missing 10 classes of the same course in one uh marking period is a lot and that's again assuming that the child is not going to be sick or have to miss it for a doctor's appointment or anything like that and making it up in first period is unrealistic my son has already gone a couple times to first period and the teachers were either not there or had told him that they are now administering a test and cannot help him and that wasn't even because of an athletic conflict so I shudder to think what would happen if he had to make up 10 classes in in just one markeing period with those type of realities um so I just want to again just reiterate that the way the schedule is now is setting up our students to really fail um and and if we as a district talk about success for all students this is a simple thing that can be fixed to create success for everybody particularly if they're taking a core course that they need to do well in in order to have a successful future go to college or or whatever they may want to do with it as opposed to failing a class that is important for their entire life thank you very much thank you Vicki that concludes public speaks for this evening and for those who reached out uh we do have your email address so as needed the district um can reach out to you individually for response so with that we'll move on to new business um is there any new business for this evening okay so with that I'd like to make the following motion the Board of Education will hold a virtual public Fergus implementation committee meeting on Monday November 27th at 6:30 p.m. we will then have a meeting of the board of school estimate held on Tuesday November 28th at 6 PM that'll be here at 5:25 and that will be for the purpose of discussing funding for the remaining projects in the district's long range facility plan and lastly for the month of November we will have another public board meeting on Thursday November 30th starting at 6:30 pm. um and we will at 5:25 uh may I have a second thank you board member eer all in favor that appears to be unanimous so now I'd like to make a motion to adjourn into executive session at 8:55 p.m. to discuss matter matters of attorney client privilege and Personnel the length of the executive session is estimated to be about 5 minutes um after which the public meeting of the board shall adjourn for the evening so thank you thanks guys do I have a second I forgot all right thank you board member eer all in favor all right that appears to be unanimous we will now adjourn thank you so much