##VIDEO ID:bZlAT6BQXVg## this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers we're going to call to order a regular session meeting of the eastampton school committee uh we're going to roll call in Ben beny here Eric Eric here Megan Harvey here Laura Scott present Sam Sam Hunter here Linda Linda Mark here mayor mayor here thank you just admitting can ding-dongs do you mind letting folks in not at all thank you so much okay good evening everybody um we're going to have a little bit of uh regular business to take care of which is why we're starting tonight at 5:30 we anticipate that by 6:00 we're going to be moving into the main focus for tonight's meeting which would be uh the discussion of our three finalists candidates for the superintendent position and um depending on how that discussion goes a potential vote this evening so just to give people a bit of the lay of the land um we are going to run through many of the items on our agenda and then around 6:00 uh we're going to start with statements from three folks who attended the site visits to the candidates three home districts uh we will also have public speak and I'll give you more guidelines for that as we get closer to 6:00 uh we also have received a few letters from the public that we will also add to public comment we'll read those in as well and around 6:45 we anticipate moving into the school committee discussion of the candidates uh so with that in mind uh do we have any correspondence Megan aside from comment about the superintendent okay great um public comment is listed next but as I said we're going to scooch that a bit in the schedule um to accomodate our guests starting around 6:00 um so the next item we had originally intended to discuss the school bus electrification rebate update but it's my understanding that we've had some new information unfold in the past week and we have decided to uh table that for now because it's an additional cost to the district so we are going to look at that again in the coming year as far as some other revenue streams correct so we're moving on to the business update uh from Nick Bernier good evening Nick good evening everyone I promise to be brief I know that my report is certainly not the center piece of tonight's meeting um I'll start with our fy2 uh local appropriation report uh at this time 44.4% of the local appropriation has either been spent or is encumbered it's important to note that some expenses currently in the general fund will uh be reclassified to other funding sources toward the end of the year um I'm as always continuing to monitor the FY 25 budget for areas to watch uh the areas of most concern currently are out of District special ed tuition special education Transportation uh as well as mckenny vento Transportation um those areas uh are are definitely overspent uh at this point um the finance subcommittee and I will be having a meeting in a couple of weeks where we'll go more in depth with this but um for now just know that a little under half of the appropriation at this point has been spent or encumbered uh the FY 26 budget process uh is certainly you know in full swing at this point um at this time I've met with all the principles and directors to you know talk about and determine their needs for next year um I have I will have all their budget requests due to me by January 3rd and you know I use that information as well as things that I do on my own and things that take place up here to uh build the first draft of the FY 26 proposed operating budget um I'm currently in the process of calculating district-wide costs uh which at this point are pretty much done um while principes and directors prepare their their budget requests so that's pretty much Where We Are our for next year's budget process uh and then if anybody or nobody has any questions I'll move on to the November Personnel report all right not much action in November here we had one new hire uh a technology technician um that had been vacant for quite some time I believe this may be the first time Our IT department has been fully staffed since I've been here so that's good and I know that's certainly going to you know just help them and and and just take a lot of weight off of their backs cuz they've been under staff for a long time uh we had two separations as well we had one substitute teacher separate from the district as well as one substitute lunch supervisor uh which brings us to current vacancies there's a special education teacher uh at Mountain View that's vacant although I do believe there's somebody in mind uh for that so that should be filled very soon um same thing with the reading interventionist position that you know will be filled very shortly as well uh which brings us to still a lunch supervisor uh vacancy at Mountain View which I've asked to be advertised in several different areas such as uh School spring indeed um as well as our district website and our social media Outlets so we trying to get the word out there to fill that um does anybody have any questions it appears not thank you so much I love your tie um all right that is it for our business update U we're going to move to schools school committee discussion um do we have a policy subcommittee update I um a brief one we did meet um a couple of weeks ago we're working on a couple of policies but I am um just waiting to get a little bit more feedback before moving those forward great uh Finance the finance subcommittee um has just agreed on the date to meet on January 7th um the agenda is nearly perfected thank you Nick for those additions um so we get that to Sue and goog meets but no update that's a 10: a.m. meeting it is great 10: a.m. yep great um do we have a CES updates um I missed the last meeting because we were doing superintendent interviews that night wow priorities priorities um but I'll be uh going to the next one great um next on our list is superintendent search update we're just going to put a pin in that for about five minutes and then we'll we'll get right back to you on that um and the masc resolutions that we had listed um we as Sam has alluded to um we have been very busy in the past month we working on a couple of things right now we've been working on some things um so we have decided to set aside um the update on the masc resolutions I think we want to take some time just to kind of discuss what was proposed at the convention that was just held in November um have an opportunity for members to talk about potential implications here and how to set priorities for next year so we are going to set that for our January or February school committee meeting so that takes us to action items all right a motion to approve the school payroll dated 1127 2024 in the amount of payment dated 1127 2024 in the amount of $232,900 62 May second second thank you Sam all those in favor I post abstentions abstain thank you Eric motion carries motion to approve the school payroll dated 11:14 2024 in the amount of $ 63,360 the second second thank you Sam all those in favor I I opposed extensions stain thank you Eric motion carries motion to approve the accounts payable authorization for payment dated 11:14 2024 in the amount of $773,000 3 can I get a second second thank you Sam all those in favor I opposed abstentions abstain thank you Eric motion carries motion to approve the school payroll dated 1031 2024 in the amount of $626 785 29 second thank you Sam all those in favor I I opposed extensions obain thank you Eric motion carries motion to approve the accounts payable authorization for payment dated 10:31 2024 in the amount of $ 38,3 5453 second thank you Sam all those in favor I opposed extensions abstain thank you Eric motion carries um we're going to scooch up the approval of the 2025 school committee meeting schedule all of you should have a copy of that in front of you if there are any questions we certainly can make revisions later but we do need to get something on the books so we have January and February Lo looks good to me I have quick quick question sure sure sure how is it decided which meetings which months we'll have two meetings and which we'll have one um Sue K's enormous uh brain and institutional experience perfect just wanted to as it as it aligns with like business makes sense yes kudos to Su brain um all right can I get a motion uh sorry you go I'm going to um uh motion to approve the school committee meeting calendar for uh 2020 thank you so much can I get a second second thank you Megan all those in favor I I I opposed exstension motion passes thank you sue for that okay perfect so we are now sitting at 5:45 p.m. all right so we are going to take a brief 5 minute recess most of the public is under the impression that this superintendent portion of this meeting will begin at 6 we weren't entirely sure how long it would take us to get through our regular business everybody was a great team player we moved through it very efficiently so we are going to take uh 5 minutes just to allow the public time to tune in and I don't want them to miss anything we will reconvene in 5 minutes we'll just stand in the back so that it's not super weird for everybody who's sitting here in the room all right okay Sor I'm okay thank you everyone we are going to reconvene pick up where we left off it is now promptly 5:58 so everyone was expecting at 600 p.m. start time so we right on schedule um I'll keep this brief just going to share with the public kind of what has happened and what has gone into the process thus far that has brought us to tonight and what we expect to happen tonight um we began this process in earnest in the spring and summer we contracted the assistance of the Massachusetts Association of school committees they sent us a professional consultant our field director Liz leond who has been invaluable in her guidance and professional understanding of how best to handle situations like this um Liz we can share with the public how many applications we received do you remember I do yes okay so we uh the district received a total of 10 applicants and the way we chose to um roll out the process in this district for this position was to uh request nominees and applicants for resarch committee we then um reviewed those and we compiled a search committee so there was a parent representative from every grade level the elementary middle and high school similarly a staff representative from each of those grade levels and some representation from our central office um um Dr Lively our special ed director so we want to first thank that work and that of their student representative I apologize the ding-dong is very distracting um and the student representative Walter Baker who's here with us tonight they it was a very very intense two weeks where they met nearly every day uh they reviewed all of those applications they interviewed candidates um they had long discussions and they chose to send forward three three finalists so those are the three whom we have been working closely with over the past few weeks we began with site visits where representatives from East Hampton visited each of these candidates in the districts they're currently employed in that took place the week before last last week we hosted each of the three candidates here in District where they visited throughout the day they were accompanied all day long by our interim superintendent Moren Benda who took them to all the school buildings from PRK through high school they met with students staff they came to central office and met with that Administration team then in the evening they met for a 90minut interview with the school committee some of you may have seen the video or attended those in person and after that they had a 45 minute meet and greet with the public in the high school so each of these candidates needless to say has put forward a really admirable effort and put their best foot forward every step of the way we were so appreciative and pressed a for their desire to work in the district um and B for just the constant professionalism I feel like I as a former educator and a school Committee Member learned so much about what they are doing in their districts their pedagogy their perspectives on public education at the end of the day you know we are all working collaboratively to preserve and improve public education and each of those three women would be outstanding Partners in that work so that brings us to tonight um um the public has had every chance to get to know these three candidates we have looked at their resumes we have met with their districts we have called their references we' have spoken to them personally now tonight the public will get a chance to share their thoughts as I mentioned before we're going to begin tonight with um three brief statements um I attended all three site visits but I had a different companion at each of the three um we were going to go try to keep a consistent order uh so the public can follow along with the three candidates for discussing so the order will begin with Dr Cynthia Kennedy who is currently working in AOL royalston Regional School District we'll then be discussing Mary Jane rickon who is currently working in Grandy public schools and we'll conclude the conversation by talking about Dr Michelle balsh who is currently at Springfield Public Schools so those three site visits will begin the discussion we'll then move into public speak and then the committee themselves will have an opportunity to discuss each of the three candidates and we'll see where we stand and um so let's begin so our first of the three site visit synopsis is going to be delivered by the search committee chairperson Hannah Sullivan who was a parent of one middle schooler and one high schooler and who attended the Athol site visit with me so thank you so much Hannah I appreciate you speaking tonight absolutely so on December 5th Laura Scott and I had the pleasure of remotely meeting with different staff members of the AAL royalston Regional School School District um the school had a snow day so that's why we met with them remotely we had separate meetings with the AOL High School staff instructional coaching staff Elementary administrators athal teacher Association leadership and the executive team the groups have positive insights to share about Dr Kennedy and her leadership style and also expressed a lot of remorse at losing her which speaks to her ability to lead her community thank yes that a we were called thieves quite often and during our week of site visits fair fair um so next our next visit was U Mary Jane Ron and grany and Sam Hunter accompanied to that s yeah um and I I have to say like it was a really interesting um visit I um Gran B is a similar District to ours in that it's very small and there's only two schools um and everybody really like knows each other very well there uh you can tell there's a really strong sense of community and I was just really impressed by how every single person that we spoke to um really had a lot of respect for um Miss RX and um her tenure there has been really brief she's only been their interim for this school year and um Everybody kind of spoke to um appreciating what she's brought to the district so far and kind of wishing that they were going to have her longer um I was really impressed also just by how connected she was to the students um and I know it can be you know one of the one of the things I was thinking about recently is like we've we've had an interim superintendent for a year and a half now now and for a lot of our students like this is who they're going to remember as their superintendent so what feels like a small amount of time to us is much longer for our students and I was really huh good point thank you um I was just really impressed by how like she knew the students at the school as we were walking around the schools she was um talking with them knew them by name um the student representative on the school committee uh shout outed hire her at us as we walked into the building which was great um so it was just great to see kind of everybody um uh how how connected they were and how connected she was to their Community um and also the administration um really seemed to appreciate um the way that she uh leads the district as well so it was just a lovely visit um really great experience and I was very glad to get to do it great thank you Sam um the final uh Sue Wilson the assistant principal at the high school joined me for the site visit to Springfield Public Schools thank you so much Sue thank you um and mine's just a little bit longer so apologize um it's the teacher and me I guess um so good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight about the visit to Springfield Public Schools to meet in um with people in support of Dr Balch as part of the superintendent search committee I was happy to attend and represent the other search committee members along with chairperson Scott there were 19 people that we met with over the course of almost three hours that was divided into three panels the first was school administrators and school administrator supervisors the second panel was supervisors co-workers and Chiefs and the third panel was academic team or direct reports of note there were at least three PE people who came back to the district that were no longer employed um by there to speak with us including a current superintendent in a neighboring District they had all stories to share of working with and for Dr bch and the results um that were transformative there were many things of note um uh that Dr bch uh that they spoke of um concerning Dr bch and the in the 3 hours however a couple of stood out a couple of them stood out excuse me first her commitment to hearing all voices there were many examples shared about her going to where parents caregivers and students meet in the community and listening to concerns to positive interactions to frustrations and to creative ideas the point was to connect and listen not to come in with an agenda or decision already made or thinking she has the answer at the start she values the encourages the perspective of all and um then takes that with her team to develop recommendations and plans then she goes back to the community to gather feedback people spoke about the efforts she makes to hear all voices through a variety of means and the personal work that she has done on equity and inclusion then developing ways to improve practices and understanding for all staff her efforts to working together to make things better for students in the community is Paramount second her professional development expertise Dr Balch is committed to improving to un her under her personal understanding of educational practices curriculum evaluation and then coaching best practices she developed and led professional development for administrators leaders and parent Educators this resulted in better understanding and consistency across schools especially for the evaluation systems and Improvement in the work with students they talked about her finding joy in coaching people and helping them Reach New Heights in their work with students her personal commitment to growth is evident and her desire to help colleagues to move to the next level is clear third her Joy of working with students working as a special education teacher um the people on the panel spoke about her desire to connect with each student and then in leadership roles to pave the path for all students to feel confident and to grow and lastly the fit for East Hampton people spoke about her positive comments about her deep dive into East Hampton and what East Hampton is all about then after the search committee interview her joy and expressions and feelings about East Hampton and that was the perfect or that was a great fit thank you to the East Hampton school committee for providing a thorough and thoughtful process your commitment to finding the right superintendent after having an excellent superintendent as an interim superintendent is clear thank you thank you thank you Miss wison okay we would love to open public speak at this time we're going to begin with those who have joined us in person and also you can signal if you're joining us remotely and would like to share your thoughts please raise your little remote hand uh and we will get to everybody I don't know that's real that's real thing you're regular size remote regular size remote hand a thousand years old hi go thank you for this opportunity and thank you for the work that you do on behalf of the stampton Public School District my name is Drea Marx I am a technology educator and a parent of a Mountain View School sixth grader and I had the honor to sit on the superintendent search committee tonight I speak for myself when I say that Dr balsh blows the other candidates out of the water and they were each commendable in their own right Dr balsh is the real deal East Hampton Public School District would be lucky to have Dr balsh as c as superintendent based on her interviews and speaking with her at the meet and greet it is clear to me that Dr balsh is authentic passionate transparent principled incredibly thoughtful highly skilled with proven success in a district that dwarfs ours through meaningful collaboration and courageous conflict resolution she has a nuanced understanding of data yes we are more than data and technology and education she had me at Cs forall and sammer model as a parent I'd like to go out on a limb and speak for the larger parent body and say we want our children to be seen known and valued and as parents we seek to be engaged partners with School administration Dr Balch is not afraid of parent engagement or AI yes our children are amazing and we want want that phone call from the school because our student did something to be proud of Dr bal's why centers our children which has a domino effect it improves our school culture which in turn benefits our school community and the Greater eastampton Community in summation Dr balsh is a transformative candidate and it is my hope that school committee members see this and make a transformative decision thank you thank you thank you Drea for your efforts on the search committee we appreciate it my pleasure go ahead Master Baker what did you just call me Masters and Mis Walter Baker oh also of the search committee good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight my name is Walter Baker I'm a sophomore at East ampton High School and I had the honor of being selected to serve on the superintendent preliminary search committee as the student representative along with some of East Hampton's most passionate Educators parents and administrators it was a privilege to be a part of this important step in finding the right leader for our district and I can assure everyone that our work was thorough and driven with the sole purpose of finding the leader who will best serve the needs of our district community and the students while I cannot share specifics of discussions with the candidates due to the confidentiality of this process I am here today to share my very strong support for Dr Michelle Bush after thoroughly reviewing the qualifications and experience of many exceptional candidates I can say with complete unwavering confidence that Dr balsh is the right choice to lead our district first Dr Balch brings unparalleled experience and expertise to the table her career is marked by measurable achievements in improving student outcomes with programs such as portrait of a graduate as well as fostering collaborative Innovations by implementing the primary person model as well as organizing student summits Dr balsh began her career in Springfield as a teacher and worked her way up to Chief instructional officer having been in a multitude of different positions in the district Dr balsh has been able to approach issues from various Dynamics within the school system second Dr balsh is deeply committed to upholding the values that our district strives for she is passionate about educational equity and cultivating a strong sense of belonging for students in the classroom Dr balsh is a strong advocate for student centered decision making and is constantly taking feedback and building trusting relationships with all of the district stakeholders third the search process itself gives me high confidence in this recommendation the superintendent preliminary search committee worked diligently to evaluate each candidate based on their qualifications leadership qualities and alignment with our District's needs and Mission throughout this process Dr balsh continuously stood out as someone who not only meets but exceeds these criteria I wholeheartedly believe that Dr balsh is the Right leader for our district with challenges like navigating budgets and enhancing student outcomes to Opportunities such as strengthening Community Partnerships Dr Balch has the ability to build on our District's past successes as well as address areas for growth and continuous Improvement to end my remarks I'd like to restate that while I cannot share specifics of deliberations I can assure you that the process was rigorous thoughtful and focused on solely what's going to be best and benefit all stakeholders of the district Dr balsh is a proven leader with the vision expertise and commitment that will further make our district a great place to learn and grow I respectfully urged the school committee to appoint Dr Michelle Balch as our District's next superintendent dr's Dr bal's leadership will be transformative to education and I'm fully confident that she will make a lasting positive impact thank you for your time and consideration thank you Walter and thank you for your service on the search committee as well again a lot of work that went into that anyone else in the room tonight that would like to share thoughts [Music] Jennifer yeah I don't have anything to prepar do you have anything to say um sure excellent so I don't know how anyone could follow Walter so I'm not going to make a that's fair um I just want to say that um do you want to pause very quickly to tell the public who you are sure I'm Jennifer Cameron uh do I need to say also served on our search committee I did yes yes and that was such a honor and a pleasure um the three candidates I think all would do a fine job any of them would do a fine job and and I love that um that we have three good candidates to choose from I agree with Walter that I believe that Michelle Balch is a very good fit for our district and um I enjoyed her her uh her interview and I just I sorry I wasn't prepared to no that's I put I put Jennifer on the spot everybody um but no I I love that she uh expressed wanting to stay someplace for a long time um and I just I I loved her answer uh when you asked her Laura um why East Hampton I thought that she gave a wonderful answer from coming from Springfield to East Hampton um to really know the students so I also want to um support her as the choice for our next superintendent thank you for sharing and thank you again for your service on the search committee everybody keep your eye on Jennifer Cameron I think she is school committee material everybody just saying um any anyone else from the public here to share thoughts tonight we're going to move do we have remote hands lots of dinging there's one Dr I see yep great yes hi um thank you for giving us the chance to comment here um I just also wanted to uh lend my voice here to support Dr Balch I was really impressed with her interview um I particularly was impressed with her response to the question about how she handles conflict um and I think you know she had a really constructive approach to that and um when we think about conflict it's not necessarily just confrontation but it's all the sorts of challenges and problems that a school district has to face and so I thought that the way that she approaches that um was really constructive and um I also thought that she seemed like she was very open to um hearing from all the stakeholders parents included and um taking that feedback and incorporating it into her work with the district um so I'm I would encourage the school committee to um select her for our superintendent and I also just want to say thank you to all the people who served on the search committee that was a lot of work and we really appreciate it thank you Megan anyone else joining us remotely here to sh sh their thoughts before we close public speak we did receive three different letters um so I'm just going to read these quickly into the record uh the first was from Alice Barber yes I'm sorry I printed out too many pages the first was from Alice Barber and I assume Bonnie Atkins as well uh sign they both yes thank you I only printed the first page dear East Hampton school committee we are writing to you with deep support for Dr Michelle B as superintendent of East Hampton Public Schools while we can recognize many strengths in Miss Mary Jane rickon and Dr Cynthia Kennedy we feel that Dr bal's commitment to belonging her own connection to her child self and her unwavering and many-year commitment to her current School District particularly in this time of high educator turnover are stunning examples of what we as parents of a high school student are wanting in leadership Dr balch's energy and passion for this work was palpable in fact we left the interview believing that that this work is her vocation she clearly has the credentials necessary for the wide range of Demands of this job but it was her commentary about her own experience of having been an average student that really Drew Us in she knows what it is like to not be seen this seems to have driven her to see all children and understand the power of responsibility of all adults in our community to recognize and Elevate the inherent gifts children bring to all of us even and especially if the children cannot see their own worth she understands that relationship and a sense of belonging above all else are what's important we were standing with Dr Balch and several other adults following her interview as we were talking a middle school student joined the group and said to her ST math is a problem and it is limiting my creativity we've heard that before truly it was as though the adults in the circle melted away and that student became the only person in the room Dr bch immediately moved through the middle of our Circle and engaged in conversation with this child validating and listening her commitment to child voices is clear this is the kind of leader we want our own child seeing and learning from in her several years remaining at East Hampton High School and for all the other children learning in our community thank you for all the work you do and your dedication to the children and teachers of our city sincerely Alice Barber and Bonnie Atkins so thank you for that letter also Alice should write a book beautiful Pros uh the next letter was from Ben and Leah Ying hi school committee we wanted to reach out out and voice our support for the candidacy of Michelle Balch for the position of superintendent we felt that she demonstrated excellent leadership qualities and we were very impressed by her plans for addressing the challenges that our district faces thank you all for your work in this demanding and time intensive process on behalf of the students of East Hampton Ben and Leah Ying I'm going to note that at the bottom of each one of these emails that I have printed out is a note that says please consider the environment before printing this email and I need to do better I need to put it on a pack okay the final letter we received is from Amanda Jud who works in the district and yes she gets to this okay dear members of the school committee I am reaching out in support of superintendent candidate Dr Michelle Balch I have watched all three recorded interviews as well as met Dr Balch and Mary Jane rickon in person I the parent of three children at MBS as well as a staff member at EHS and I feel Dr Balch would be the best fit for our school district I feel Dr B will be interacted with the staff students family and community members something that we have become used to this past year and a half with interim superintendent Benda and a quality that has been much appreciated Dr Bal describes in her interview values and goals to help us move in a positive direction in addition she provides possible solutions to weaknesses and shortcomings I feel currently in the district I was very impressed and delighted with her professionalism and knowledge during the interview a couple of points she mentioned in her interview I would like to address further first her commitment to making sure all students have a trusted adult in the building I know that this is something we strive for at EHS and Bill Evans and Sue Wilson work with the staff frequently to help accomplish this I feel it is so important for all students to feel like they have a staff member that they can seek out for support because not all students have great adult supports outside of the school to build a positive relationship with a staff member is vitally important for a Student Success in school and in life a second specific point I would like to highlight is Dr balch's mention of supporting students with an IEP Within the mainstream classes not always removing students from their class for extra help as a parent I have two children with IEPs for reading each day they are removed from their classes for 45 minutes for extra reading support that is support they very much need but it also creates a hardship as my children have the fear of missing out from the content they're missing in the mainstream class I am very interested in Dr bal's suggestion of instead of removing students from the class for extra support to instead bring a specialed teacher into the class I know my fifth grader would very much prefer having extra support in his class instead of leaving his class every day these are just some points that stuck out to me while watching her interview I was very pleased by her entire interview and again I think she would be the best fit for our district thank you for your consideration and your time so if there is anyone else we're going to last call for those who are joining us in public or remotely if you would care to share your thoughts we're going to give that just like 30 seconds to take down in case someone is stealing themselves at all home maybe not okay so we're going to conclude public speak many thanks to those who came out tonight to join us and those who are joining us remotely as I'd mentioned before we're going to move into the school committee discussion portion of the evening um so uh I decided to structure this to address each of the candidates individually one at a time we are going to take them again in that same order the order that they were interviewed in which means that we're going to begin with a discussion of Dr Cynthia Kennedy Who currently hails from the AAL royon Regional School District if members want to grab their requisite notes sorry so what I would like to do Ben is start with you any thoughts that you'd like to share about Dr Kennedy we will move on down the line and then we'll reverse that order for the next candidate discussion go ahead Ben good um thank you uh lots to say lots to take in it's been a really phenomenal experience to watch these three fantastic candidates come forth and um shared their expertise with us uh as far as uh Dr Cynthia Kennedy goes two things really stood out to me um one was that she has a lifelong commitment to learning um I was really impressed by one one one of the things she said about um wanting to upgrade or enhance her understanding of the budget and how budgets work and um applied with dy I think it was to become a school budget officer and she felt like she had a weakness there and she was determined to improve that and I think that kind of uh action speaks loudly uh of her character the kind of leader she is I think the idea that um the person in charge is also a student sorts really does matter and it's it's valuable um I also was really impressed by a continued reference to the Arts in schools and that the Arts really matter and how we do things and how we build curriculums and how we build communities um and really connecting the school to eastampton um and East Hampton's very rich Arts uh community that was great um I felt like she articulated East Hampton in a way that uh showcase that we are a place that values high standards um she talked about the curriculum she talked about uh making sure that every student is included she talked about the importance of having parents in the building which is something that I I've often felt is strangely missing and I think it's incredible resource we have all these fantastic parents um she she's talked about how she sees herself as always a teacher um which is a fun contrast to the idea of her always as a student she's also thinking of things from the perspective of what's it like in a classroom and that is also an invaluable resource from that um position uh she mentioned things like having parents and students on hiring committees which felt radical and fascinating and I was very curious about that kind of thing um and then there was this idea of the courageous conversation which is seems uh incredibly important and necessary and valuable to um the work of being an effective superintendent you have to be willing to talk to all stakeholders and to face the difficult conversations that come probably every day um and I felt like she was deeply committed to that work um she ended in a way that I thought was powerful and it showcased her uh authenticity and true uh a true self a true human person you know not just a professional kind of CEO type like she was a human being like us who really does want to um be part of the community and wants to really you help us grow um I felt she said something like she loves the people in her life and you could kind of feel that come from her so it was great to hear her and um I really enjoyed myself listening to her what she had to say thank you Ben Eric so I went through my notes for everybody and kind of summarize so I don't want to harp on too many rep repetitions but um definitely grateful for the three candidates that came in this was my first experience being any part of a superintendent search and it takes a tremendous amount of courage to step into this role and to sit there at that table and just really have to answer a question after question from top to bottom um and um starting with Cynthia she was incredibly prepared um which was really nice to see she had a tremendous amount of notes um we had anticipated follow-up questions with each candidate and really there was no room for it because of of the thoroughness of making sure she answered every question um to piggy back on on what Ben had said her mentioning that she went back to taking courses on school finances and and mentioned she has no interest in becoming a school business manager but she wanted to have that insight and that tool in her toolkit um and uh and she also mentioned um when we asked about special Edge she mentioned about her work in creating safe spaces in classrooms for students with trauma induced stress and trying to look at different ways and avenues to to keep students in the classroom uh where they can access the most learning possible um so those were two of my main takeaways um from Dr Kennedy it was uh it was a pleasure to hear her speak on her experiences and what she could bring to our district and um yeah that's what I have great thank you ER Megan um I could go on for a long time talking about um Dr Kennedy in addition to all of our other candidates I was wildly impressed by um her preparation um both in the her application materials um and in her interview um and in her responses to the questions that we asked her um I'm going to highlight a couple of things that um my colleagues have already mentioned that I also indicated as sort of my um things that stood out for me um and one of those was um her reference frequently back to her values and how those align with the values of our district and how carefully she had sort of thought about how those values might U match up um I really appreciated her conversation and discussion of problems best being solved at the point of origin um and how that as a superintendent she can um support that in happening um but make sure that there's sort of um for lack of better term a a chain of command that allows for these problems to not keep repeating themselves and I thought that was really insightful she also spoke to um curriculum review Cycles um and sort of the consistency and transparency and sort of how that plays into assessment and um mcast scores and sort of all that kind of uh decision making um I really appreciated when she said sometimes um there is no right answer and we are all desperate for a right answer and for a superintendent to make that choice that right answer um and really spoke to the nuances of of what happens when there isn't one um and the priority is to protect first and foremost and always students and then also faculty and staff in the district I thought that spoke volumes about her priorities um I also really appreciated at one point I wrote this quote down in my notes um that a question she asks herself every week is how are we going to do better next week um and I just thought that was um speaks a lot to her dedication um to constant Improvement and sort of something she said about the budget later which is that you just don't give up you don't just say well that's that um when you reach a challenge you you think about ways to improve or to figure out a problem um she also spoke very highly of the students in our district um and the questions that they asked her um and I was pleased to see that she saw our students for who they are which is amazing students um so I was I was pleased to see that great um I'm going to take this time to share we also um I mentioned that when the candidates visit our district they visited with students so we have some feedback from those students um they were given um little surveys with a rubric where they could you know they were assessing the they were writing down comments and then assessing the three candidates on um five different criteria um understanding the role of the superintendent ability to relate personally is aligned with the district's core values use communication skills and ability to inspire others won get into the road details but I will say that out of a out of on average uh Dr Kennedy scored a 17.75 or like a 17 and 3/4 Star Star Search any anyway so and there were a few comments in here that I thought were worth repeating um and these are from East 20 I'm sorry did you say that out of 20 points 17.75 out of 20 which would be a perfect score uh standup person speaks the truth even if you don't want to hear it our kids don't mess around either so I'm sure they appreciated that prioritizes working in the service of students truly invested in students lives compassionate empathetic objective Outlook um so I'm going to share that for now and move on to Sam um yeah I one of the things that I really enjoyed about this uh this interview was the way that she um really kind of came alive when we were talking about assessments like you could tell I really like I really like it when people kind of uh info dump um their favorite subjects at me and you could tell that was exactly what was happening but it was in such a a way that was so accessible as well so as she was listing off all of these assessments I felt like I could really follow along with what she was saying and that's um that's a really big deal and not everybody can do that especially people who are really into Data um and being able to uh kind of share that passion with other people who might not come to it uh in the in the same organic way is really important in this job so I thought that was great um I also was just really impressed by how prepared she was um and how much time she had evidently put I mean we some of these questions were really hard um we added a lot of Clauses and there were like a lot of things to fill out in them we expected everybody was going to spend the weekend preparing and and she clearly had spent the weekend preparing she had lots of notes um she had a lot of depth to all of her answers and she really like covered every single aspect we were looking for one thing that really stood out to me as well was when we were we I did ask a follow-up question um about AI um technology um and she told a really good story about um a conference she had gone to where she had seen AI uh being used to help students um write so they would um describe something and and it would show a picture of what they just described and they would say well no but I I wanted the water to be blue and then they would say it again and but they would add the word blue and then the water would be blue and I think that is so cool um that's kind of exactly the way I I want us to be thinking about technology kind of how can we use technology to build on what students are already doing or like kind of bring things out um of students that would be hard to um hard for them to access otherwise so I thought that was really cool and she also said I wrote this down exactly uh towards the end she said um we have to do better than we are doing as a nation and I just thought that was like just such a um it was the last thing I wrote down uh it really has stuck with me and I've really thought about it a lot and in terms of like somebody who would be in a in the position to be a leader uh at a time like this I think that she um she was very qualified and I really appreciated hearing from her and there are some things that she said that have kind of stuck with me so thank you thanks Sam minda um I was um first of all this is my first time going through this process also and it was a um very informative and interesting process to go through with Dr Kennedy I was very struck by the amount of homework that she did how prepared she was she clearly clearly wants this job and she made that very clear for the moment she sat down through every single word that she spoke she had done a lot of work on what East Hampton is as a town where where what our values are what we look forward to in a leader and what how she would best fit into that and she really had pages of notes that she had gone through that were all wonderfully prepared you know AC um had every question she had a lot of interesting comments I also um and her passion to be here it was very clear that she would like to be a part of these tampon be the um School Community I like my other colleagues were impressed with the fact that she wanted to go back to school um that she wanted to learn about budget processing that she wanted to fill in where she saw that she had weaknesses as a superintendent as administrator and that she really wanted to key into those um I had a follow-up question to her and it was hard to get one because she really took up that time um and told us a lot about her and it was about conflict because I really you know was interested in handling conflict she gave us a very good answer when she discussed that she discussed again um a lot of really great points like Sam I enjoyed Sam's follow-up question because I too am very interested in how we are going to use AI I believe AI is a is going to be a valuable tool it doesn't have to be a scary tool it's here how do we use it I thought it was a really interesting ways that we could be using that looking forward and I agree we are not in uh a time now where we're at a time that we are needing transformation and education it that that's that's the facts and having somebody with do like Dr Kennedy I I that we would be well served as a community if she became the superintendent thank you Linda mayor D any thoughts um yeah so I me looking at the the resumes or actually winding back first of all um the I think the quality of the search and and also what we've heard from people who are part of the search committee and parents and whatnot really goes to this committee's just structure of the search um I thought was just amazing and getting the the step byep from Laura when I wasn't here how it was going to go um and I I really do I'm I'm really grateful of just how this committee members of the public really went all hands um on Deck to really pull together a great group of candidates but these finalists in particular um I don't envy those who are on the search committee whittling it down uh Dr Kennedy the first thing that stood up with uh for me with Dr Kennedy was where she was coming from AAL royalston I spent a lot of time working in that area it has some some real challenges um geographically resources I mean finding a a primary care doctor up there and and to look at her body of work in that area and really being able to know it I was was kind of like a um a great indicator to me that you've got somebody who's very dedicated and who wants to do the Deep dive the fact that she then came to East Hampton with the research uh clear from the letters in her packet and then what we've heard tonight and what you you guys saw that um that was not her work is not exclusive to a point on the maap but she really understood what eastampton was looking um for what it needed what we had for resources where we had been and where we wanted to go and I think um that was just very remarkable um you know really a top-notch educator um but clearly an Innovative uh thinker so that's strong K yeah well said okay I'm going to I'm going to wrap this one up I um I was very taken with Dr Kennedy I think she first first of all her her accolades are very impressive she looks great on paper that is all wonderful and then as I got to have some personal interactions with her through the site visit and then her interview she is an incredibly authentic warm welcoming person um I found her you know she there was no pretense at all with Dr Kennedy she was very honest she had she was Fearless in that way to say you know this is what has led me to make these decisions in my career this is what I value in my life um and and this and I want to be you know she she very clearly communicated that she had identified East Hampton as a place where she believed she could serve very well and fit fit very comfortably and I don't think she was incorrect in that um she had a clear commitment she was incredibly well prepared which is like manga for me um this woman had 39 pages of notes that she referenced she referenced our strategic plan she referenced our data she referenced our student populations she I mean she I can't imagine how many hours she spent preparing um and it it just speaks to her you know and this was also clear from many of her colleagues that we spoke with at the site visit that um there is no halfway with Dr Kennedy she is Allin incredibly dedicated incredibly committed and just I can't say enough about just her warmth and honesty and there were a few things that I just want to highlight for the public too you know she she had talked about we were talking a lot about tech and how to integrate things and how how we handle this in 21st Century Learning she had said you know everything everything should be viewed as a tool to read write speak and listen which made my soul sing I thought this is a person who gets it who you know you there is a lot that can go on top of that and layer that and bring it out but what a beautiful message at its heart and um several of her colleagues refer to her as a reflective practitioner and she used those words herself and I think that that is that was a really lovely and authentic way to describe her um and somebody who just seeks deeper connections deeper connections with students with families with her colleagues um and I just I just appreciate it I think she's a a wonderful person and an incredibly impressive professional um and you'll probably hear this a lot tonight I think we felt flattered that someone of her caliber applied here and was just so clearly interested in working with us um it was I was flattered anybody have any other thoughts before we move on to the next candidate no um all right so we're going to put a pin Dr Kennedy for the moment and we are going to move on to a discussion of Mary Jane Ron who I'll remind the public currently is working as the interim Superintendent at gry public schools and we'll reverse this may do you mind kicking us off no not at all um again the um you know when I was looking through the resumés and and listening a little bit to the interview and reading um I was really grateful to hear such depth knowledge and commitment to education um from a woman coming from a a town very similar than you know to ours it's Grand be um which kind of gets you know sandwich in between larger communities communities with more resources and her ability to find the strengths and pull that out and also apply um Concepts that are very fresh and new and and and have that moving into her position in a community that you know has been there for a while I feel like ramby has a a history and a story very similar to E camp her ability to kind of pull that all together and get um you know the the resources she did and does to the students to the families and you know what it comes down to the the data points of in gry are very strong um so it it was uh flattering that she had identified eastan uh Public School District as a place that she would want to go to next um and I think you know she really pulled it together in in the interview and looking at some of the from the Arles um of why how that all came together for her as an educator and how it would come all together for us as a as a community ofs thank you Linda yeah um this was our second um night interview and I would say that I was very impressed with this uh candidate I thought that she was really really strong and that she's spoke um she spoke not from notes but from here I mean and different people have different styles and she really had a lot to say about Community she mentioned Community I looked at my nose over their questions that we asked and she mentioned community in I believe every single one of her answers she talked about being a part of these tampon Community she talked about going out into the community she talked about attending different EV it she wanted to be here she wanted to be there she wanted to be everywhere she saw that as where um she needed to be I um she talked about being a mediation coordinator I think it's really important when people have the opportunity to listen to sides when she talked about um mediation there was something she said that when you have conflict you need to get to the root of it because everyone has a different life experience and the and so they come in with a different place and you need to find that place with them in order to start building the solutions she had strong student Advocacy she talked about that they needed to be people need to be heard respected and then you can build rapport with them heard respected Bel report she was very good at uh telling us this you do this this and this and it leads to this and it all made sense to me when she was saying these things um I she said you reach and you find people at where they are you you go to where they are to find them where they are um and I really liked it when she said she talked about data and she said well where does your what does your data tell you learn from your data but don't over assess students students are more than data they need to be assessed but she really was looking for ways to be able to gather information that wasn't just in a test based um thing so you know there were I took a lot of good notes on that uh she very strong on budgets had worked hard on several bges and she again a very impressive candidate for superintendent of schools mhm thank you Anda Sam um I really appreciated um kind of seeing East samton through Miss rickman's eyes um which um this was when I I this is the the second interview that we did and this was the site visit that I did as well and this is when I started to realize like you know I was on school committee 10 years ago is and like this district has changed since then and that was when like it was during her interview when I realized I'm like oh no like we really have changed it was really cool actually so first of all I think she um she did the best job uh of explaining like what wind blocks are of um basically anybody I've ever heard and that the win is is this uh period during the day called what I need kind of started just around the time of the pandemic in a lot of our schools but the idea is that that's time for kids to get kind of extra support or enrichment or services that they need um it can it it can be uh very challenging to schedule um but it's also um great because it does kind of reduce the pullout times for kids with disabilities I thought she did a really good job kind of explaining what it actually looks like to coordinate um win time and um I that was very helpful to me personally in terms of like thinking about it I also really liked um how she identified kind of building on our preschool as something that um would be uh something she'd be interested in doing and i' I've always thought that building out our preschool a little bit and kind of um making that kind of a more um you know that's thinking about that as like the first impression that families have of our district um is through preschool and kind of really giving that program the support that it deserves um so it was exciting to me to hear her talking about about that um she pointed out that we have not we we have not had a lot of turnover in our district uh in terms of Administrators or um teachers uh when compared to other districts especially during the pandemic and I hadn't and she talked about that as a strength of our district and I really hadn't noticed that before so that was one of those things that she like she kind of changed the way that I was thinking about that in in a way that I think is really positive um and also just I I think that she's clearly um a strong leader she's got like really firm values she kind of has a really good understanding um that not all approaches work for all teams and um I really liked kind of hearing her um kind of the way that she approaches decision-making and and leading in general and I think she would be a good a good fit uh for those reasons for sure thank you Sam I'm going to stand in quickly to give you the student evaluations of M Ron M rickon was the leader on the road with a 19.25 average congratulations Miss brixon and some of the comments I mean it was close three-way but still she pulled it out uh some of their comments values transparency in communication I'm talking about building trust was a theme we heard a lot from her values kindness which several of these students said values kindness looks for kindness cares about kindness Equity diversity wants everyone's voices to be heard wants everyone to be involved in the community looks for kindness so those were their impressions of her she um she appears to have had the best bit Breakthrough by a few points with those students go ahead Megan um another fantastic interview another fantastic candidate um just like we talked about before I'm just was so pleased to be coming into interviews where the candidates are so prepared their resumés their background materials their application package is flawless they just are the highest caliber um and M Rick had an excellent interview some things that stuck out that I think make an excellent um fit for our community um is one is that right away um she noted that we are a community that clearly values maintaining services at minimum but also growth um and whereas lots of districts have made other choices um this district has been really thoughtful in the past couple of years especially but over time that we are not cutting programs we're not cutting Arts um that we are really focused on maintaining those services and looking for how we can grow um she also had some um I thought really helpful thoughts around Budget Building and relying on the community and um what sort of what resources we have in the community um maybe sharing services with other other districts as needed but also coming back again and again to this idea of you know we had this sort of couple year period of time where we used grants um as we needed to um but grants go away and so if we're thinking about sustainable growth in the district we need to be thinking about something Beyond just a grant um or if we get a grant you know how you build into the budget I really appreciate that as someone who's worked closely with our director of Business Services like that is something that we can't Overlook right it doesn't help us to just get grants and then to lose a program after we put it in um and I also noted that the focus over and over and over again on building community and building relationships that was a strong part of her answer um to a bunch of the questions um including how she deals with conflict uh and resolving conflict um and I wrote down and noted that um resentment is toxic um and that seems like such a obvious statement but also I think very wise coming from a potential leader of a district to have an eye on sort of what are the things that can sort of percolate underneath everything um and destroy a positive culture um so I was really glad to um hear that um she talked about and talking with our community really focusing on what our parents and what our families and our caregivers in the community need and want for communication and I noted that and um that really stood out to me because we've had that conversation over and over about how do people in this District want to feel engaged and how how can we reach out to them so I thought that was really notable um I appreciated um and this actually was true of um the prior for Dr Kennedy as well but a focus um in special education on you know not just answering our questions about special education in terms of the classroom and the academic experience but unified activities that are related to academics and not so you know things like school dances or sports or whatever um other activities are going on like how how do we incorporate everybody in a school district so everybody is involved in a school district I appreciate that from both of the candidates um I also as a data nerd loved her discussion of a a data team um immediately was like that's I want to be on the data team I'm not I'm not going to be on the data team but um and the last thing that really stuck with me um sort of one of those eye- opening pieces is I had not heard somebody say it this way before about technology and Co um you know we did what we had to do during Co we shifted in what 2 weeks to everyone has a laptop um and we did what we had to do but it meant that we put the cart before the horse and so now we are untangling unraveling figuring out being planful I was like yeah yeah that's how we ended up here I didn't so I I appreciate that Insight okay so um again just to put out there to the public the courage of these candidates I know it's nothing unique when they have these interview process but to just understand also when we met with these three candidates um they spend the whole day in the district meeting with students meeting with staff meeting with Administration the um the superintendent takes them all over and then they meet with us and then they meet with the public afterwards and it is it's an intense um experience I can imagine for them uh and again thank you to this the search committee who helped um find these three top quality people so for Mary Jane I did like um one of her opening statements she said that the number one asset in a school is Staff um often times people will say the number one is students and that's certainly true but I think I like the Nuance approach of saying staff because when you when you put your staff as an important member and and the staff knows that then they fight harder for the kids and it's it's really just it works out um she saw the positive in our in our nude building especially our elementary and middle school and she know noted how that really makes such a smooth transition for students going from elementary to to Middle School um she mentioned being Solutions based um but also what I thought was was nice was when Solutions are made the understanding that somebody's probably made more compromise in someone else um so she said that it's important to follow up with those who made the largest compromise making sure that they're still on board with the decisions that were made um I like that she mentioned you know as the leader of the district um she was a full advocate for teaching students to self advocate for themselves so not just being the the leader of a district who makes the decisions but teaching kids how to solve problems theirself and hopefully allowing them to do that more and more um leading to less issues um again piggybacking on the Wind Block um I like that there was flexibility in her answer and putting it in places that benefit the most and using it as an asset not just something that's just added into the schedule um in talking about data she mentioned um teaching staff how to use data I think often times teachers are given data and it's it's like a a flash of here's all this information and then go back to the class and teach and a lot of times Things fall through the cracks so really um educating the staff on how to use the data properly so that it is is more efficient um and then finally um I appreciated her referencing you know representative Gomez and um former almost former representative krie and realizing that you do need to seek out people in the community that can help um us achieve what we're looking for when often times things are tight budget wise and um situations are are challenging so I like that that that approach of understanding that we need to seek out help not just from the community but from those who represent our community so that's great thank you benen um one of the things that I really love about this process and I love this just in general but I love hearing people talk about the way they Envision a school district should work um and it I also noted that she said that the greatest asset is Staff which was a a perspective that was different I felt like everybody wants to say students and it was nice to kind of hear her talk about that at the same time she did talk extensively about students and the importance of students and I thought it was almost just like two major components for her um the what what staff's need and what what kids need in in school buildings um stood out to me I I noted too probably this is a repetitive but um she talked about being a solutions-based person um and that she's committed to an active engagement with schools daily like I've sort of learned from maren that it's uh invaluable to be ever present if you can and to really get in there um and to see what's going on in the halls in the classrooms um as much as you possibly can uh she talked about the understanding the value of relationships between all stakeholders and you know continuously building connections uh for everybody involved in the schools and in the district um I also was kind of compelled by her data discussion um she talked about uh let's see I a couple notes she talked about how a classroom well data is important but people afraid of it and we need to kind of humanize it and bring it into a more common understanding and and things like teachers learning how to use that and actually use what the information says is very important um and she you know she moved from like talking about data to talking about things like what goes on in classrooms and how uh you know we need to be flexible about what curriculum looks like and we can't just have you know kids learning from the same book all year long we need to be fluid about how we do um learning in classrooms uh share with student advisory councils which I thought was really something I'm a big proponent of bringing kids in to be part of decision- making um at different levels um we digital literacy came up in in a productive way she talked about um you can kind of bring it into each classroom I I was interested in the ways in which um I feel like a daily schedule for students is pretty packed and it's hard to introduced digital literacy and um she had some good ideas about implementing it as part of daily classroom activities um also very skilled with budgets uh she talked about how a budget is tricky but she loves to advocate for students and I think connecting the decisions you make at the budget level with student lives is really important um she had a a good sentence which I liked which was when you say you're going to do something it has to happen um and I think a lot of least from the parent level you can sometimes feel like okay people talk a good talk but you don't always walk the walk and it's nice to hear if someone commit to that big focus on students she used words like restorative justice which is a huge term an important term another one of these really complicated ideas but it's really good to hear someone speak about you know just to say those words and make it seem like that might be part of their Vision as well um families she mentioned she wants them to know the doors always open um a real beautiful sense of like we're in this together um made me feel pretty hopeful about what she would bring to a district um yet again another fantastic candidate and um a real pleasure to sit and listen and learn from her thank you Ben yeah every everyone hits all the hype you guys are too good you leave me nothing there's no meat on the bone um I will say this and I think I mentioned it that night Mary Jane is incredibly skilled at not not only so she starts off with having this incredible knowledge a very comp complex things budgeting is one restorative justice is another communic you know the way data should communicate with curricula Etc so she understands all of this as many of us do but her incredible skill is processing all of that in her brain and communicating it in the most effective way I have ever seen a public educator do it was incredible somebody should go back and watch that interview and take some clips because it was um sh was like four TED Talks in the space of one interview on special education inclusion on data on Budget Building um Mary Jane was another that I Sam and I spent a lot of time with her at her district and I almost had the sense like she didn't want us to go she wanted to take us to see more you know there's a couple there's a couple she had a half day that day and she was almost distraught because it was like you're not going to be able to meet this set of kindergarteners and oh my goodness and and these two or three teachers in particular do these like again like it gives me hope for the future um a that these three candidates were all attracted to our district B that like no matter where these three women work there are benefits being reaped by their incredible expertise and their commitment to public education that makes me feel like this might all be okay the end it she was just she was a pleasure to be around a pleasure to talk to incredibly impressive um it leads to a difficult night for us any other thoughts someone would like to share about Mary Jane Ron we are going to move on to the third and final candidate which is Dr Michelle balsh Ben are you ready you want to te us off for Dr balsh yeah um so yeah uh again it felt like three Superstars coming in and and showing us what they can do um uh she began by telling a story that I thought was important and was mentioned by someone in the public speak about um feeling like a a she was in college and and feeling like a kind of unseen and not that impressive and a a educator there kind of saw what she was capable of and helped awaken her a deep passion for Learning and as it turns out that similar thing happened for me and uh it was you know striking is this idea that um kids can go 12 years through public education and really just not be seen and uh to start with that felt eye opening for me it really uh ex it was exciting to to sort of understand that there is someone who actually is thinking about students from the perspective of being seen as simple as that um she talked about identifying your why which I thought was like a gigantic question and one that I you could build the whole theme on or you know like a whole curriculum on or anything like a district theme um big emphasis on collaboration uh just a sense that this is a person who could juggle 42 balls at the same time and not lose one um from whether it be students she talked about wanting to really know students by name um she you know talk about families and the importance of increasing information and making sure that all students have all families have as much information as possible making sure that information goes out in as diverse a way as possible um she talk about the need to make sure that we're not losing kids which seems obvious but again I think kids do slip through the cracks in lots of ways and there was a sense from her that that is unacceptable and it felt like this is a person who will you know catch all the kids um you again with data she seemed very fluent with it but also said that there are students behind it um there are human lives behind data and we can get caught up in percentages and numbers but there are real people heartbeats behind those numbers um she used the she said she wants to see people experiencing Joy um which you know I I think it's important to have people who are very flexible and intelligent and and Brilliant in the nuances of how to run a district but I also think like a superintendent is an outward facing position and you if you can still joy in the in in education you are doing something profound um if that is something she can do I am very interested to see that I think that's a really important quality um a she talked about a culture of comfort around reaching out to families um certainly we have we have that to some extent but I I always feel like talk about people slipping through the cracks I think families sometimes feel lost in the shuffle and I think that the city culture of comfort is a fantastic concept that uh would greatly benefit from um she was talking about a lot about transparency and it felt like there was a real focus on opening it up like let's put it on the website let's put out newsletters let's um have forums let's have Public public conversations Ben tweak your mic hello hello hello check check check um uh a sense that she is uh deeply invested in uh deeply invested in um making sure that uh we are loud and also compassionate and that we're making sure that all the people who were involved in our schools feel at home here um and I think that was great she talked about uh the power of Leaning into student voice which is something that I am a gigantic proponent of and feel like you know we're maybe missing something sometimes when we just think of students as just another student like these students have invaluable ideas incredible perspectives on what they're experiencing in their classrooms um and making a point to listen to the student feels just incredibly necessary um she said we have to hear from everyone we have to increase ways to communicate um she talked about kids moving fluently throughout a day um and I think it was in reference to special education but also just like sometimes kids can do different things focus on different things that that they need I think like for instance in the Wind Block which was Mary Jane brion's sort of specialty but um I think that was an example of of how kids can be a little bit more active and autonomous perhaps in their days um let's see here uh data you can use it for incremental changes um sweeping changes don't land well and I I I tend to get real excited about the idea of sweeping changes and it was nice to kind of be grounded a little bit and let's let's cool it and calm it and realize like we can get very far you got she said you got to go slow to go fast and I think that's a a smart and kind of wise um idea uh when when it came to Tech she talked about balance um which is exactly right um things are changing so fast and are it's almost like a a breaking wave and it it was really useful to just think like we can U she said kids need to know the parameters basically when to use Tech um that is not just a fix a fix it sort of method uh very comfortable with big budget I felt like another public speaker mentioned like that her District kind of dwarfs ours and it felt uh encouraging to to think like these are Big Numbers she's working with and she's very well versed in that um she's talked about how uh things in the district this it can't just be an attitude of this is how we've always done it um which I think is important in a future that is incredibly complicated and is changing and transforming all the time um she talked about wanting to see the fruits of her labor and that really showed in the preparation she she came in with we got a we got a folder with a 30 60 90day entry plan um and I thought that was great really nice to see um lots to say and uh it was the word transformative was used a few times and I felt like um there was like a transformative potential in her candidacy really great to be there for that thank you Ben thanks Eric you ready I can go to Megan next you good all right go ahead thank you all right so this was night three of interviews um so uh I was the opening question on each night and my question was what our strengths and what our challenges in our district and what stuck out to me was um in Dr balch's response kind of she mentioned many things that she found were our strengths but when she talked about challenges she phrased it as opportunities um which I think allowed us at least allowed me to kind of hone in more on what she was saying and it allowed her instead of saying challenges to opportunities to kind of start stating things that we can improve on without looking at it as a negative but looking at it as an area for growth so she understood um from diving into our district that um literacy data showed that we we need had room to grow there she connected it to postco which I thought was important because Co seems like a long time ago but the effects are very prevalent still um areas we can grow she mentioned science especially at the middle school which I thought kind of tuned into what I've heard from folks in the community in general before she even showed up um she also mentioned leveraging teachers strengths when talking about technology um technology I know can be daunting and as an educator I see people who are all in and all out um so she mentioned finding those people who are all in and that's their strengths and leveraging that make them your Champions she mentioned um which I think is great for supporting staff um her plan for conflict was was very um proficient it sounded um she mentioned she would start with listening with just starting with listening creating Solutions being transparent and following through with whatever decision you make and what I really liked was and she uh connected this to her Springfield decision making is that when conflicts come you remain true to your vision you remain true to the values of your district and your goals um and I thought that was important because I think that you can use that as a tool when when when encountering conflict is where are we trying to go and how are we going to get there and that kind of can draw you towards your your solution easier um I really appreciate her concrete examples when talking about listening to the community folks in the school out of the school I think that's often stated which is is definitely necessary but then she followed up with a couple of really solid examples she mentioned portrait of a graduate which I had some time to look into and it's in Springfield quite a massive undertaking of of getting involved in the community going out to all stakeholders she mentioned not just talking about people in the school but talking to people in their faith-based communities areas talking to people in sporting event like getting connected all over all over the City of Springfield and trying to find out what the pulse is and using that to then create your goals and your vision um and then she talked about student Summits where she created um in her District student focus groups where students would speak and administrators just sort of listened um and then she even gave an example of kids kind of scratching their heads and saying so you're going to do these things and her saying yeah this is what we're going to do cuz we we want to do what's best for you and you know what's you have great ideas um so I thought that was really encouraging um she mentioned being rich in data and poor in action which I thought was helpful that kind of hones back to what I mentioned with with Mary Jane rickon kind of both them but um mentioning that we have a lot of data there's no doubt about that I mean almost too much data You could argue but kind of adding to what Ben said she mentioned focusing on incremental changes and building careful growth um that's sustainable and and Lasting instead of just trying to change a lot of things so I thought that was really important um she also mentioned when you find gaps that it usually means there's inequity somewhere and I think that's really helpful because often times when we find gaps we look at how can we get the kids up here when sometimes we have to say how can we get to not down but meet the kids where they're needed um I think that that connected with me um understanding that kids interact with the world in a very different way than than we do than we did when we were kids um and then she also mentioned when talking about special ed looking at the whole student um tapping into their abilities and and allowing them to succeed and and then when they succeed we all succeed um and so those were just some of the the standout points for me great thank you Eric than I'm going to try not to repeat um too many of the things that my colleague said those are things that really stuck out to me um as well um my first impression you know looking at her resume and her materials and her application package and and sort of all of the preparation is again it's an incredibly qualified candidate um and I'll say this again at the end but you know arriving tonight I both dread having to make this decision and I'm so excited and thrilled and honored and proud of this District well said Megan well said so you know I'll s go back to I'll say it again you know but I just this last night of interviews this candidate um was just an unbelievable ending to that part of the process um and some things that I really wanted to highlight that stuck with me from uh this interview we the Focus right off the bat on um belonging and using this word belonging over and over again um throughout this sort of consistent thread throughout the interview um and we talk a lot about different ways of you know Equity or diversity Equity inclusion but belonging really has this um encompass in meaning where and and she described this as well um you get to show up as your whole authentic self um and just right off the bat this was we we could tell from you know the first five minutes this is going to be a human based human centered relationship based approach to all of this everything that was going to come after this um and I just she told personal stories about her why and sort of what happened to her and um just helping and and being driven by wanting students to know that they have value and not just for their them their own selves which of course we want them to know that for their ownselves but also that other people believe in them from an early age and every every student having a champion I just was so um as a parent I want that for my child all of them so very very badly so that um really stuck with me um when she was talking about all the things that sort of um answering our questions over the series of seven questions managed to hit upon everything I think that's come up either in other discussion or on one of our agendas in the past three years as things that are you know coming a public speaker that parents have written emails about Middle School curriculum um curriculum in general Sciences I mean just all of these sort of things like she just had her finger on the pulse of what this community is really concerned with and I thought that that was uh an excellent sign um but then again things like the humanizing of this um she talked about our graduation rate um which you know is wonderful we have you know 88% of students graduating and she said every single one of those number that statistic is a person and that 12% not graduating those are people and she's happy with nothing less than 100% um and I kind of got chills as she was talking about those statistics as people um see what else I want to not um repeat too many of the things my colleague said um I've really appreciated her um plan for communication and engagement with families particularly reaching out to families in the community both when something maybe has gone off the rails a little bit and there needs something needs to be addressed but also to celebrate things that are going really well and to talk about how great Someone's Child is doing or something really amazing that happened at school and I just again as a parent if I get a phone call um and it's the school and I pick it up and it's someone telling me um something really about my child and I first I'll probably cry um but just it's whole you know and then I'll second thing is I'll cry too um it just is this whole culture of positivity and growth and just sets what's most important I think right in the Forefront um of sort of what's going on um I appreciated all of her comments about engagement student Summits focus groups of parents stakeholders um all of that she talked several times about um making tough decisions and keeping our values and her values at the Forefront of those um and doing things like taking just complying to standards that we need um and really you know setting that as the lowest minimum bar so like being compliant with special ed standards is kind of okay yes of course but how do we move to an asset based into a support driven um model how we think about special education which includes some of these like fluid classrooms and she said this about um students with different abilities she said it's about diversity and belonging just every single time we make a a um a decision like this everybody wins not just the group that now is more access or something it really makes everybody win um okay I'll try to wrap it up um I also I know this is repetitive but I just cannot emphasize enough how much it struck me this small steps um we don't need um for a whole bunch of reasons that are specific to our city and just going on in our country we do not need destabilizing um not knowing what's happening next like this idea of a long-term plan and then little small steps that get us there I just think is so good for our kids and our faculty and staff and for the families um great answer about technology I won't get into it for um time but um yeah I just and I appreciate um her ending with just again that human value based approach that her purpose and coming to this District in particular is that it feels like she can be her authentic self and that she wants that for all of our students um and so fit is most important for her and I felt like um the entire several week process demonstrated incredible fit um so thank you again yeah there will be time to talk more later don't worry I'm going to briefly share these comments from our illustrious EPS students um Dr Balch came in with an 18 average out of 20 uh loves the culture of eastampton has great skills with understanding and perspective a cheerleader on the sideline empathizes with the struggles that kids experience seems conscientious about connections with others how she communicates for others every kid needs a cheerleader they were very impressed by her talking about student Summits yeah put that on the horizon consistently checking in with students to assure they feel safe are doing well and are loved are just some of the comments Sam yeah um I I was also very impressed by um Dr bal's interview um I I found one of the first things she said after her statement and one of the one of the first answers to one of our questions was about how she's really invested in the prek to8 model and that was was the first time anybody has said that I just think in general in in years here I feel like when we were um come when we were talking about the new school building when we were talking about building Mountain View we did a lot of like visioning as a community and we talked a lot about the K to8 model then and then we always uh one of my friends and I would always say it's actually prek to8 um you know because we don't want to forget about the prechool so um and and then since the building has been built and the school has opened and happened I really feel like Co kind of changed a lot of the ways we talk about education generally I feel like a lot of the discussion about the intention behind the prek TOA model has just kind of it's it's just not the most important thing anymore I really like the idea that that was kind of the first thing that she honed in on uh was the importance of that model and she said specifically um that it was important to her that kids see the same faces as they grow up um and I I had kind of I I hate to say it but I had kind of forgotten about that part of our vision and so it was really nice to be remind of that and to um to to hear from somebody who was excited about that opportunity in particular because like a a long time ago that was like an opportunity that I was really excited about too and I just haven't not to say I'm not excited I just haven't heard about that aspect of it so I thought that was really cool um that she kind of brought brought that back um I really liked the example that she gave about a partnership with an organization who she felt like the the principal had given them feedback that this organization was no longer that partn ship was no longer working in the school and so they decided to part ways and she said that was because the organization um the principal the feedback from the principal was just that the organization did not align to the vision the mission or the priorities of the school and it involved too much assessment of kids um and that it was just was kind of like not not doing what it had been doing before and I actually feel like this is an example of something that comes up in a small community a lot where it's like well we've done it like this every year we have a partnership from this guy he's been helping us with this forever he does it half the price as he does in other districts like you know we have to keep this going because otherwise he's going to show up to every school committee meeting and be really annoying um and it's nice to have somebody who can just who feels confident just saying you know what it's not working for us anymore nothing personal um we got to think about the kids we got to go with what's going to work better for for the kids you know and I think that is that's great um it's really important to have somebody in a leadership role who feels like they can do that without feeling like they have to go in and blow everything thing up all the time um so I thought that was a good um example for our community in particular um and I just uh I I like the way that she um T talk I also highlighted the sweeping changes remark so obviously that really speaks to us where we're at right now um when we were talking with her about AI I had really felt like by that point in the interview I I think we were all really blown away she made a very positive initial impression and what we had um what we had heard from the site visit as well and and what we had heard from the search committee like you know we we understood that she was really a um a strong candidate um and so towards the end of the interview I really wanted to just um I just wanted to like I I wanted to like push back a little bit just to kind of see so when we were talking about AI she's she starts into her answer well I'm not afraid of AI and I was like well well I am you know and it's not really it's not S I mean I'm afraid of everything a little bit um but mainly I just wanted to see like if like what how she would address that and she did a really good job of like she kind of immediately like she paused and she laughed a little bit like in kind of an kind of acknowledging that I kind of made a joke and then she kind of like reoriented her answer and kind of started over again and I really appreciated that because it's not like um it's not all about like what speaks to me personally or what speaks to anybody up here personally or any one person in the community you need somebody who's going to be able to like really listen and hear from everybody and then and be able to adjust their approach um in a way so that everybody feels listened to and heard and then is also everybody's willing to try to do something a little different than maybe what they're completely comfortable with because that's kind of what being in a community is we all have to like do little things that make us uncomfortable um because we all have to actually like keep working together so um I appreciated that um that ability of hers and um yeah it was it was a lovely interview I would I'd be very happy working with her as superintendent and I think she said you know she would would like to stay here um she's drawn to East Hampton specifically and that was when I that another moment when I was like wow like people really want to come here and work here and that was just like so exciting to me um so great great experience all around thank you Sam Linda so I'm going to just start where Sam ended with um Dr balsh told us that we were the first interview that she has ever had outside of her disc District first time she wanted to go outside of her District I that was a wow moment for me when I thought she is in she also and I want to make sure that the public is aware of this when she came to the table to greet each one of us we were handed a packet with a thorough 30 60 and 90day implementation plan she she had done her homework she knew what she wanted to do and she's ready to hit the ground running she's ready to walk into the building and do the job I found that very impressive I also um I am a very People based authentic person she is a very People based authentic person with a lot of real world experiences every my only follow-ups in the other two interviews were wanting real world examples I sat here and I am a new school Committee Member and I heard a lot of jarg in the first couple or three months that I was little going and Googling it and trying to figure it out and I think in any field when you're in that field for a long time you speak and you kind of speak in a way that other people kind of can't quite grasp it with Dr Balch she I did not need to do a follow-up question because in every question she answered from a very professional and then she went into her personal so it was like this is what I believe and this is why I believe it this is what I do and this is wife I did every single solitary question that she was asked she had those I had no need to to say well tell me more about that because she had already told me more about that I'm just again all of my other colleagues in here I it's been a long night for all of you that are here but I the passion and the joy I believe that public education is one of the most important things we have in our society I believe that we need to have a student centered education and I believe that we need to bring passion and joy into the lives of our teachers and our students and everybody's working in our community she also the portrait of a graduate all of these programs that she's worked with are very based in go out we are a community we are Community we're a community we're not just walls that they walk in and out of we are a community her Solutions are very based in being Community Based um Solutions and all of us working together and the other other thing that I wanted to mention here was that she has such a strong commitment to training and coaching staff and colleagues I was very impressed that with her taking per par professionals become Educators become a full-fledged move on you're you're here in the school system you want this I will help you I will help you find the ways to get there she spoke very eloquently to her belief in that but also gave us real examples of how she had that she was an extremely impressive candidate and um it was a pleasure to meet all of the candidates they are all strong Dr bch really spoke to me thank you Linda mayor would you like to share your thoughts on Dr Bosch um yeah I mean the to I think that the thing that brought Dr ball kind of to the front of my mind was just some work we've been doing in the city and not doing a great job and some of it others this whole concept of Dei and and what that means what that doesn't mean what doesn't mean when your your city is 90% white um and in her materials in the conversation um the one thing that came up over and over again that I have heard as a key success kind of pivot in in this kind of work is the sense of belonging and she really went she wo she zoomed in she zoomed out but she talked about her job really is to figure out what is going to make every student and staff person and member of our community feel like they belong and the tool she has in those tool box to do that is it's impressive and the fact that she had been doing it for so long in Springfield is more than impressive it's the third largest school um district and I thought that was so the fact that she could be in that kind of environment for so long and to be zooming into you know whatever program that um she was presenting but it all came down when I read it to this idea of belonging like how or where she was going to find a way and work with people to make sure everyone had a space for a place where they felt they could belong that they felt safe um and I I think that that's um something every district and community and whatnot needs um but I think that the way she expressed it and what she's actually done and how she understands East Hampton um it really checked a lot of boxes uh to me and she was very authentic in in the presentation and uh um of what she would do and how she would do it um I don't know the 3090 60-day plan like number one reason why I last as a teacher less than that's I mean I that that blew me away too I was like wow um yeah but belonging really kind of she just just wonderful job with that thank you okay again yall haven't left much meat on the bunk but I'm going to I want to tell my my portion is going to be to tell a little story about how the vibe of this whole thing shook out for me this was a journey come along with me on this journey so we've spoken about how all of these three candidates very impressive so this all starts on paper right you read their resume you start to call their references and something starts to happen for me first of all Dr balch's references are numerous and good luck once you get these folks on the phone and they understand that they're being asked to talk about Michelle good luck getting off the phone with these individuals because they have a lot to say um and these common themes of what they would say about her started to emerge hardest worker I've ever met one of the most brilliant people I've ever known incred you know so so caring so thoughtful and at this point I had yet to see this woman in real life so it was it was weird it was weird very impressive we went to the site visit there are people coming from all over the state to talk about this woman again the same themes emerge incredibly smart Has This brilliant ingenuity so dedicated and what kept living in the back of my brain is if I am this gal why E's tton and it sat there as the weeks unfolded and then we go to the interviews and Cindy and Mary Jane were Knights one and two wow right like every every time they just up the bar up the bar and then we' roll into night three I have yet to see Dr Bosch in the flesh and I'm going to tell you there was a vibe in the room that night that started kind of small she walked down the table she gave us each a folder I open the maroon folder our school color and there is printed on card stock a 30 60 90day entry plan okay so I was like this can't be real life she began to talk and this electric buzz starts in the room and I was watching my members as she was speaking and I took a lot of notes on Dr Balch and not as many as the first two because a lot of what I was seeing was reflected in the faces of my members like we found it I think it's here like and I I still in the back of my head was like but why East Hampton right and so we asked her at the end why East Hampton and that was the moment where it jelled for me where it was like I think the universe has OD tamped in a favor for a minute and she's come to town to pay it up um Dr balls talked about how she had built her skill set in this incredibly demanding District the third largest in the Commonwealth as the mayor mentioned and that what was really missing for her at this point in her career was that reconnection back to every single student every single parent every single teacher I just gave myself chills that is possible in a district of our size and I thought yeah good answer good answer I'm a fan of Dr balsh I'm a fan of all three of these women I'm incred I I feel so much gratitude um and very flattered and grateful for their time and their interest and um and I think Dr ball struck me as being spectacularly special and a and a really interesting fit for this district and where we are and where we all talk about where we want to go um I would like to take our next phase as maybe a show of hands to say if the question is asked of you do you have a clear front runner in your mind yes or no if you raise your hand that is a yes just to gauge for how we should handle this next portion of the meeting um and so if the question is posed to you do you have a clear front runner in your mind yes or no please raise your hand okay so that's going to move us to a straw pole um so I'm going to going to reverse the order we're going to start um with Dr ball ship Dr balsh is your front runner please raise your hand okay um well that is interesting so I guess what the public might want to know they heard me with my big feelings Ben would you like to start and just kind of explain and then maybe we can talk about a motion for a vote explain my my feelings here big feelings no we heard about my big feelings he has normal feelings he's fine I enjoyed the journey that we went on good story um I I think I guess I I think I said most of what uh struck me about Dr balsh um there was a feeling that this is a person who is brilliant and can kind of do everything that the that's required of a very very challenging job um but uh the why you ton question was in my mind too uh throughout like there was a point where I thought what is going on here this person is very very uh professional and skilled this is a little town like it it just seemed like a interesting combination um and I was grateful for the question because the things she said struck me as uh like a new challenge like a a fresh challenge she said she wanted to be in a place where everyone knows her um I imagine that the other two candidates also feel that way but this was a person who who seemed truly dedicated to a deep connection building connections with people um she wants to be her authentic self she can be herself she this thing about her never having interviewed before I thought was also really important to consider because I know that there are many superintendent jobs I think every year there's a lot of opportunities for people and to have been in one place for a long time says a lot about who she is um she said she wanted to engage in work that it fulfills her that brings her joy that and that she takes her commitment seriously she said she feels like she can spend a long time here I turnover is in incredible when in this job and I I I would love a deep commitment uh I felt convinced by what she had to say about that um she wants to bring skills her gifts and talents to this district and those gifts and talents felt profound and abundant um and her she felt like her values align with this District's values there's just a lot of reasons why I felt like this is a a really good fit again I the um it's not easy to talk all the time especially in this in this in this interview as you guys have talked about it's like very hard to do this to get prepared for this and I I feel great admiration and respect for the people who have put in the work to get to get here um but it felt like this is somebody who can really transform uh our district and can help us meet the dizzying challenges that we are going to be faced with perhaps in the coming year you know it's not we don't know what what's coming and I think it's someone like Dr Michelle Bal uh would be an enormous resource and there's been a lot of positive energy from pretty much everyone and I'm I'm just in line with that so I'm excited by the possibility Eric so my adequate or big feelings um I think I think they they don't take away from what what Dr Kennedy and and M rickon brought it's not it's not that they didn't have something it's that I saw something that Dr Bulch had um you talk about belonging you talk about wanting to see the fruits of her labor she has what seems to be honing her skills in this massive district and now wants to take those skills and and apply it to a location where she can say I can see and she gave examples when we asked why East Hampton and she said she said Springfield is massive and she has been in buildings where she authentically genuinely wish she could say some child's name in the hallway when they were walking by I wish I could say your I but I don't know your name um so I felt that when she said it and then what made it come even more real was which is wild that someone sent that email because someone sent in an email talking about standing in the circle I was in that Circle too so I don't know know who else was in that Circle but after our after our interview we were walking around I had gotten a cup of coffee to make it to the end and I just walked over to where Dr bch was and there was several other people were standing I wasn't just listening they were having a conversation so in walks a parent with a student then the student very uh confidently just started talking about ST Math and um it was a sixth grade student and almost just watching just she stepped through the circle to the side of him forcing him to turn his body away from us and towards her and then I just left and I went over and I just realized I'm I'm not a part of this conversation but she's made this student know I could just picture a lot of people and I myself might even just entertaining that child's question listening just giving a response but maintaining your connection to this adult Circle but just the way that she moved herself out of that it just sent this message that was so genuine that I'm here to listen to you now what what what you want to ask about and let me give you an answer that's not for the circle either this answer is for you cuz you're asking it it's about your sixth grade um experience so I thought that was um really profound um and then also just that energy that people are talking about you felt it in that room but you also saw it I felt like um it's a challenge to ask families community members to come to the high school during the week on a week night at 7:00 for a meet and greet but you saw people showing up on that third night and it just made me stand there and go she's already bringing people together and we're just doing the interview um and also just the notion that these people want to be around her so that speaks volumes of what she brings without even maybe even even thinking about it's just her natural just way about her um that really drew me to just watching the room and just experiencing okay so this this is something that on paper they all three are fantastic experiences but then when you take the paper away and you just look around your surroundings that was um there was a major difference that I noticed with Dr Bulch that um was profound and and I think really meaningful that could what made me have those feelings yeah I'll leave it at that Megan I've got big feelings I've got big feelings that's will shock you get bumper stickers um okay so if I'm I've already said so much about this individual um so I just want to focus on a couple of like last sort of lingering thoughts I have in my mind that sort of set that have me raising my hand in a straw hole without any doubt um first of all the overwhelming community support we've have unanimous uh input from community members um including students that this person is a good fit for our district and I don't I don't take that lightly I think that's important um the qu as we said all night the quality of these three candidates they are all outstanding I am incredibly proud um I feel privileged and honored but I also have a deep Pride that these are the folks who want to apply to be the superintendent of our district um I have always thought that our district is fantastic and you know this is and our city is fantastic and clearly other people think that as well 10 applicants who knows how many of them were Allstars but we get three All Stars delivered to us now we have this night where we have I think said before I both dread making this decision but also I am so proud so grateful so excited for what um I think our next decade plus could look like here um I'm just so hopeful and that is a really great feeling to have at the end of an interview um so sort of the last thing I I'll leave with is that I think it was clear that this candidate um fits with our values as a district all the candidates did including this um this candidate um but as this candidate was talking I over and over again thought that this is the school this is the environment that I want my kids in um and I felt multiple times during the conversation that um if this environment is really you know if if we can bring this here and have everybody kids staff faculty feeling like they belong I think we'll be okay and I that like little kernel of I think we might be okay is a great feeling to have in this climate and that is the first time that I have so wholeheartedly felt that way um as a school Committee Member about um you know what the next like couple decades look like for our district I just I can't say enough thank you but I will stop I will say enough good thank you yeah yeah I um I I am also very excited I also have that same feeling of like I think we're going to be all right um which is um you know exactly like you never know but I think um I I think of myself as like kind of an etal pessimist and so it's um it's a nice like um it's a nice feeling to have to just kind of know that we're headed into good hands um and I I look forward to working together um with Dr bch and um I did I do also really um appreciate all of the community input um we did get um like it's rare that we get unanimous um uh opinions about anything and um so I think that that really says something um I'm I'm really excited by how involved the community has been in this search in a way that I think has been really positive and really kind of like strength oriented as well um I really feel like we've been working together um it's been a real uh honor to be involved uh in that and um it's it's um it's nice to kind of uh get to know us all better through this whole process as well pa side you got two well saids tonight it's like a Paul Hollywood handshake there you go exactly Linda remember this for the rest of my life I think that uh I think educators are called I think I think it's one of those professions that either you're one or you're not Michelle told us in her first sentences why because she had experienced the transformative power of having a teacher believe in her that lifechanging experience was clear to me that that is what she wants to share with every single human she comes across that's just what she wants to do that's just who she is and that's what she wants to do and so for me she knows where she belongs and I think that for whatever reason and may some of them may be because we as East Hampton public schools have gone through what we've gone through in the past little time she decided she wanted to come here that this is where she belongs and I'm going to believe her and that's I'm going to say I could to say a lot more but I'll stop there thank you Linda mayor I I honestly can't get over the statement from our chair I think the universe SK in a minute um and maybe that's case I think I think that's true with with all three candidates the finalist um really strong and the the vibe part that other members have spoken about is not something that I experienced um but the consistency of what she has put forward in her career the fact that the Springfield school committee selected her to step up in the middle of a mess to kind of hold it all down um speaks uh volumes and I do I I agree with my my uh my adjacent seatmate here that um she saw a place in East stampton that she felt she could belong and and make those choices and and reach into her many talents um and dedication as an educator and pull it together in a different way Moren I'm curious if you have anything you want to share oh well well well I want to share that I do think eastampton is is is a fantastic District that I have you know thank you very much for my opportunity to be here um I I've thoroughly enjoyed uh the students here and and the staff and I I think you know if I had had a choice that she would have been my choice also just because of her dedication uh to students that sense of belonging is so important that a superintendent um lets everyone know that they they do belong that we need to we sometimes have to make some decisions that people may not like but it's how you make that decision how you related to people that you still respect them as a person but some difficult decisions have to be made you know coming from the second L School District in Massachusetts I think that was a question about about me too coming here like how can someone from you know a large District um be effective in a small District but what when you come from a large District you have so many different experiences because every day there is something going on that needs your intervention and if you can bring those skills to a small District um it it's advantageous so I I I do think that you you've all made a great choice I think the other two were great candidates I enjoyed talking to them taking them through um I also recognize that they're very skilled uh leaders also and I hope that they do find you know District where that also recognizes that as they continue their search but I I I do agree with your decision from Michelle and I want to thank you all we can't I can't you're you're still working for a while thank you for for your time yeah we become the lunch attendant yes but if I just add one quick little um interim superintendent Benda did not need to spend the amount of time that she spent with these candidates and in this process and we are grateful and it is all part of as many people talked about this whole process beginning to end is just that's my next point Thank you thank you for that and thank you to the search committee so I'm about to call for no no no Megan is a beautiful Segway we're going to call for a motion for this official vote in a minute but I want to take a minute because this um it takes a village for sure we have been through it as some have alluded to and this school committee made a conscious effort that we're not just going to do this better we're going to do this perfect and we have worked gotten gotten close for a long time um to get as close to Perfection as possible because we felt that's what this District deserved and that this district has had some hard knocks that it didn't deserve and we were going to we were going to set that record straight as much as was within our power to do so so these members you've heard them tonight these are incredibly articulate thoughtful dedicated people that the city should have a higher level of gratitude for um because they're really incredible um and they make this work very easy um this is a mayor who has been staunchly in support of public education with whom we could not do this work because we couldn't pay the bills and Moren Benda is an inspiration that paved the way for this so talk about trans formative those were the first bricks and there you know there's a place in that Legacy our search committee people from who who did not know each other before they met and we heard reports from masc about they were so thoughtful and kind and took so seriously the task we had asked of them and I was a little surprised with some of those results and it was we gave it to the universe we trusted you and look how this unfolded well done and thank you um yeah I can me little yeah um yeah and then and Liz leant who is our North Star and just so smart and kind and [Applause] patient really incredible I have prepared the legal language for a motion I'm going to write a name on here that I could not write before now I'll leave here who would like to read this motion I would love to read it okay thank you there you are that's so we don't get it wrong for legal reasons y'all go ahead um I is my great honor to make a motion to offer the position of superintendent of East Hampton Public School to Dr Michelle balsh pending successful contract negotiations can I get a second second I heard three voices Sue who did you pick full circle I like that feels right yes Ben second uh all those in favor please raise your hands I all those opposed extensions motion passes unanimously so to the public okay you want to it's been a long road so to the public here's what happens now uh we are going to um adjourn into an executive session we are going to make phone calls to all three of these candidates um for whom we have a lot of gratitude we are probably going to have an initial conversation briefly about a contract and then we are going to adjourn from that executive session so you will not be hearing anything more of us tonight however myself and Moren and probably Liz will work on a press release tomorrow to keep everybody updated and can I get a motion to move into can I just ask so we have a meeting schedule for tomorrow you're anticipating that is still tentative because of the contract negotiations there will not be a public facing portion of the meeting night but we may Reserve that space okay so we'll keep that in the calendar but we may end up not meeting it correct excent for our member well I'll tell you it's downstairs tomorrow just we'll deal with that later okay um motion to uh where's my language okay so pursuant to Mass General law C30 a S21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel the superintendent or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non nonunion Personnel the superintendent we are going to move into executive session we roll call out soon just roll call just roll call in all right good night East Hampton you have the roll call go good night thanks Maas Matias you got it buddy you got it tell Mama good night East Hampton take his rules yeah oh my goodness well there that that was fantastic in the back e for