##VIDEO ID:CkldJT9eggw## good evening welcome to the special public meeting of the Princeton Board of Education the board is an elected unpaid group of 10 citizens who set policy and make decisions on educational financial and personel matters for the Princeton public schools on behalf of all residents we are always pleased when members of the community attend our meetings the board and the school district operate under applicable New Jersey laws and under regulations of the New Jersey State Board of Education each meeting includes an opport Unity for those attending to comment on items on the published agenda or other matters of interest to them the board reserves a right to limit the time allotted to public participation law limits discussion of individual personnel and confidential matters we hope our meetings provide useful opportunities for communication between the board and the community thank you for attending as required under the open public meeting act njsa 1046 at sequentia adequate notice was given for calling this meeting it was authorized by the Board of Education and Ed to the municipal clerk Princeton packet and the Trenton Times on September 26th and re-advertised on October 3rd 2024 it was also distributed to the schools and others on the standard distribution list the board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education board policy 168 recording devices requires that we inform those attending this in-person meeting that proceedings are being recorded this meeting is being live streamed the representative the sending district is authorized to vote on such matters that affect sending District students or affect the governance of the princial public schools as more specifically designated in njsa 188 38.1 sending District votes pertaining to Personnel actions refer to high school Central administrative and districtwide staff only votes otherwise are considered abstentions in the event this statute is amended the wall should take presidence over this precedence over this by wall thank you Mr Balden would you please call the RO sure daon Kendall here Betsy Bago here Beth Baron here Debbie bronfeld here Mara franceski here Elanor hubard here Susan uh Brian McDonald president Rob Christopher here we have a quorum thank you Mr Balden um so good evening everyone um this is a special meeting tonight to um share with you um the uh results from our uh with our search firm uh School leadership LLC um and their um focus groups and other Communications with um a wide cross-section of our community including parents community members staff administrators and students um and so with that I'm going to turn over to the board's ad hoc uh superintendent search chair Betsy bavo thank you so much uh without further Ado I think we will bring in our Consultants who have a presentation for the community and then we'll follow up with questions from the board and a few other a few other pieces related to the search thank you hi everybody can you hear me yes you can hear me okay great um is my screen coming through clearly yes terrific uh so we check both of those boxes first of all uh my name is Reena beer uh and I'm here with Dr Marty Brooks and we are the Consultants that have been working with the Board of Education and the broader community in developing the specifications that we are going to lead you through tonight and I do want to thank um everyone in the district who assisted us um in arranging for all of these meetings it was a big task uh we were in the district uh for now I have to advance the slide excuse me uh we were in the district on it September 30th through 2nd and October 9th uh want to thank everybody who parti ipated it was robust participation we had 235 individuals we held 18 in-person forums and six virtual and the Board of Education um and um Board of Education was really vital in be in identifying all of the key groups and individuals uh who they thought that we should speak with so I do want to I do want to thank thank them for all their work in putting that together um together with Kathy Foster who identified various staff members that we should be speaking with and administrators um the surveys that you will see we got 512 responses it was a very strong and robust response so we want to thank the community uh for everyone who responded so I'm not going to go through and read this entire list but we conducted a combination of interviews Focus groups and forums that were that were open to both the broader community and to um broader community and to uh parents and this is a list of individuals that we spoke to uh within the district and this list represents the focus group specific groups and also forums uh that we had the opportunity to speak with I also want to say that the the Board of Education um was not present at any of these forums or focus groups because uh the board really wanted everyone to be able to speak openly and freely and share their thoughts uh so no board current sitting board members were present for any of these uh forums or interviews so for during these uh forums we ask the same questions to each group and you could see those questions listed here so um in addition to all of that um there were 512 people who responded to the Ser survey um and the results were interesting um to the first question which is in the following list of Prior experiences for a superintendent please check uh two that you think matter most the two that emerged well actually there were three the one that emerged most was leader in an impr in improving and already high performing School dis district there were two that were very very close classroom experience and building leadership experience um interestingly experience as a prior superintendent was not seen as critical as those three at least not in this Quest question in the next question this was in the following list of skills please check three that you believe are most CR critical to be successful the three that were pardon me the the two that that emerged um I think most were curriculum and instructional knowledge and Leadership including current research and best practices and the second one was um collaborative and successful at building highly productive teams there were three that were very close um which we're next having to do with knowledge of budgeting finance and facility planning short and long range strategic planning and Community engagement including public speaking and written communication I also want to add that another item that showed up as being very important on that list was understanding and responsive to the needs of a diverse student population right I'm sorry I should I should have said that as the four all all of those were about even um so if we could move to the next slide all of the um information that we obtained through our meetings and our focus groups and all the information we got from the online Sur survey we put together um in a a list of six different specifications um we tried to listen really carefully to what everybody had to say um I want to reiterate what Reena said uh people were very honest with us we appreciated that great greatly and we think these six specs capture the spirit of what most of the folks shared shared with us so the first one is an experienced knowledgeable and inclusive educ educational leader with a strong background in enhancing curriculum instruction and student achievement and well-being and the commitment to addressing the diverse needs of all Learners So that obviously has to do with they want somebody who's an educational Le leader the second is a compassionate thoughtful and active promoter of Princeton Public Schools mission to prepare students in a culturally diverse District to lead lives of joy and purpose as knowledgeable creative and compassionate citizens of a global society and the third was a collaborative energetic team Builder who emphasizes fostering strong relationships and who engages with parents faculty staff students and the broader Community to unite around a common Vision that supports the district's Mission and the next one uh the fourth specification is a clear proactive and transparent Communicator who effectively utilizes multiple platforms to listen to learn from inform and share ideas with others followed by a skilled and adaptive Financial Manager with expertise in budget development who understands how to maximize resources deploy staff and engage the community in longrange planning to address enrollment and the use of facilities and finally a courageous ethical visible and accessible leader who's excited about becoming a member of the Princeton community and who relishes the challenge of leading a diverse nationally recognized School District to an even more impressive level of Excellence next steps yep go ahead Marty I was just going to say um we could go back to the six specs and ask if any member of the board wants to ask a question about them or has a comment about about them I'm sure just to get a few questions going um uh first of all Marty and Reena thank you very much for was obviously a huge amount of work over those three days and synthesizing all of the data I guess I'm curious um of these six specifications um how similar or different are they um to the specifications you've developed for other high- performing districts um they're both they're similar in that they're aspirational and most this districts um aspire to have a leader who um encompasses these skills and characteristics but they're different in that um we targeted these specifically to what we heard people saying about PR Princeton uh so four eggs example um the mission here is different than the mission in a lot of other settings the word Joy often does not appear elsewhere but it appears here and so we wanted to make sure we captured all of the information that people shared with us um as well as um incorporating it with the um with the words that already exist here in terms of mission and vision and the other thing um that I do want to add is you saw from some of the survey results that that notion of community engaging engagement and collaborative that theme weaves itself throughout all of the specifications using a variety of words compassionate active promoter collaborative so we were very careful to include words like that in the specifications that mirrored both what what we were Hearing in the forums um and interviews and also what we were read in the specifications in the sorry in the survey and I I would add one other point um we pretty consistently heard that in addition to all the skills that people are hoping the new superintendent will have there's also a desire for him or her to become part of the Princeton community that was really emphasized multiple times um and so in the last bullet we talked about that and we talked about the challenge of of leading a diverse nationally recognized School District that's already doing great work with kids to an even more impressive level of EX Excellence uh but being part of the community was something that people talk to us about were there any other questions or comments thank you so do you can continue with the with the rest of the the presentation I'm sorry if somebody was speaking I couldn't hear I couldn't hear either we were we're ready for the next steps you can continue with the next steps thank you okay thank so so um assuming the board approves the six specs tonight we will launch the search tomorrow and what that means is we will uh send out U the um the letters begin our recruiting calls and begin to run ads um in various um journals that uh sup superintendents and other school leaders read um I want to talk about this as a rolling search because we've we've spoken with the board about this and the difference between a regular search and a rolling search is that a regular search has a deadline by which people need to apply so you have to apply let's say by January 20th um here we're saying people can apply early on and um Reena and I will interview them if we think they match these specs and if we think they do we're not going to wait for a deadline we'll send the candidates on on to the board to meet with if you know again we think that they are PE people um who uh who match the six specs um the the way in which this this will work is um there will be a couple of times during this search where we will uh share with the board the paperwork of everybody who has applied including people who we think do not match the specs but we think the board should see all of the P paperwork any anyhow um recruitment occurs through um out Outreach on our part we will um make phone calls send notes um get in touch with people who know people who know people who know people to put us in touch with folks who we think um might be might might match um what the board has has in mind for this um job and I think Reena has a list of the target organizations that we're going to send um our ads to yes I do so um so what we do in terms of the advertising um is that we post the job listing on our website together with the specifications and applet Trak and you know candidates when they do formally apply are asked how they heard about the position and typically about 40% respond that they first learned of it from our website um we also uh have an uh information mailing about the vacancy to about 1,500 superintendents and others who hold key leadership positions in varied education institutions and I do want to emphasize that this is also a national search um will advertise an education week uh which has a national reach and we're in close contact with other organizations that have liftting such as the New Jersey Association of school administrators New York State uh superintendent Association the American Association of school administrators the National Alliance of black school Educators suburban school superintendence the superintendent Roundtable National Association of Latino administrators and superintendents um there a I will not go through the entire list now but I know that the board might be providing updates with some of the postings uh where the postings have been um have been placed and I I want to um talk about one more issue um confidentiality several people uh during the focus group meetings that we held asked us if they'd have an opportunity to meet with candidates during the search and we told them no because um our understanding is that the board wants to um conduct this as a completely confidential search and we agree with that let me explain why it is the case that um some of the best candidates currently are not thinking about making a change and getting a phone call or a note from us might get them to begin thinking about doing that and they are currently working with Boards of Ed that are very happy with them and they're very happy where where they are once you start um bringing candidates in front of people other than the board of EDS so it's not a completely confidential search people drop out they withdraw because the risk is just too great if their own board were to find out that they were applying someplace else so the purpose of the focus groups and the forums and the Sur the survey was the frontload all of the information that the board would need in thinking about what would the ideal candidate be like and then take over the search in a completely confidential way so it's important for the community to understand that the greater the the um opportunity for people in the community to meet C candidates the less likely it is that the really top candidates will apply for the job thank you any other questions from board members no um so Mar Reena before you go I just wanted uh I'm just going to look straight ahead I just wanted to thank you um the feedback that we received and yes we received back on you um was that people who met with you uh felt that they were heard um and they felt that their opinions were valued so um you know on behalf of the board I just want to thank you um for your professionalism and for um working with our community in such a a great and transparent way thank you for that thanks and I'll e echo my thanks uh to say we've really enjoyed working with you thus far we look forward to the emails and phone calls uh when you are bringing candidates our way I also want to Echo the thanks to our community we appreciate that hundreds of you um have gotten involved in this part of the search process and our staff for facilitating the visit by school leadership so thank you Dr Foster Matt everyone who took part in that um I'm grateful to all of the people sitting here we do meet in less than two weeks but we wanted to start the search as soon as possible so we scheduled a special meeting I appreciate everyone um being here so again we just want to reiterate this is a rolling search and that the the board is united in finding the right candidate to lead our school district um so we will continue to Pro provide updates that we can but um we and also we will post these two documents that we're about to take action on on our website tomorrow okay thank you thank you Morty and Reena or do they want to stay one quick question thank you thank you all is there a location that we could share with members of the community where they could go at and actually see the the posting oh sure um oh the actual posting well yes in fact on our website uh there's a button for the superintendent search and that links to the school leadership website and they um Reena and Marty just mentioned they'll have it posted there but we also on our website have a link to that as well so it'll be it says something like a box for in information for interested candidates yeah and I believe it's nine pages correct the job posting uh the job description the job description um is many pages okay and that's consistent with New Jersey superintendent job description so we're not much of an outlier yeah we were worried we checked into it um okay and I just want to on behalf of the board thank you for uh organizing all of this a thank you again as I said in the beginning the board is um a group of 10 unpaid volunteers although that's redundant volunteers are unpaid but they' say it twice um so so we just wanted thank you but a pleasure but Betsy thank you for everything thank you thank you we're lucky to have you all right and with that um the next item up is uh D1 public for and I'll just note for the record uh there's only one member of the public who's a reporter um would you like to comment no comment no comment all right so um we don't have any uh public comment tonight um so moving on right now we have uh two items for the board to vote on one is the um superintendent job description Amendment um and the next item is acceptance of the specification development report for uh the superintendent search um so I'm moving quickly now on to item F1 the consent vote um Mr Balden would you please um oh can I get a motion oh my God it's been like two weeks and I forgot already can I get a motion Rob second Mara dapon Kendall yes Betsy bag wheel yes Beth Baron yes Debbie bronfeld yes Mar franceski yes Elenor hubber yes Brian McDonald yes Rob Christopher yes motion passes thank you Mr Balden um and that is basically it for our meeting tonight uh thank you for those of you watching at home thank you to our administrators for joining us today um our next meeting is Tuesday October 29th that'll be a full board meeting um please check our website um as Betsy mentioned under superintendent SE uh we will be posting um the report that um Dr um Brooks and Miss Bader talked about tonight uh there will be a link to their website and a l a link to the um characteristics that we're looking for um in the superintendent and you can also find the job description as well um we just want to again thank the community um more than 700 people participated in providing feedback um to us including staff um and students and uh we're grateful for that um ultimately we're here to serve uh students and so um that what we're committed to doing is finding um the best candidate to lead the district forward um who will focus on um the criteria that has been identified um by a wide section of our community uh so with that could I get a motion to adjourn please rob second Beth all in favor right thank you good night good night