4J School Board — August 5, 2026

0:04 Eugene School Board to order, August 5th, 2026, at 4:30 PM. Board members in attendance with me are Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, Judy Newman, Jenny Jonak, and myself, Erica Thessen. And attending remotely is Tom Diliberto. Hello, Tom. Hi, everybody. Also, hi. Great to see you. Also in attendance is our superintendent, Dr. Miriam Mickelson. I will now read the land acknowledgement. The Eugene School Board would like to acknowledge that our institution sits on the homelands of the Kalapuya people. In the treaties of 1851 and 1854 to 1855, and the subsequent forced removals of many Indian people from Western Oregon, some of the Kalapuya were moved to the Grand Ronde Reservation and some were moved to the Siletz Reservation.

0:49 It is important to note that all of Lane County was an important trading and gathering area for camas and other resources. During the restoration era from 1977 to 1989, Lane County was designated as a service area for the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, the Coquille Tribe, and the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians. Eugene School District 4J acknowledges that the descendants of original and service area inhabitants of this land are still here today. They are thriving members of our schools and communities. Countless members of other tribes also now call our community and schools their home. We wish to thank those original stewards of this land. We, as fellow stewards of this land, wish to remember that we need to take good

1:34 care of the land and take good care of all the members of our school district community. All right. I'm going to keep my remarks short. Welcome, everybody. We are beginning with a planning meeting now. We'll transition to our regular board meeting at 6:00 PM. As you know, we tried to find a date this summer for a summer planning meeting. However, we just couldn't find a date that worked for everybody, so we're having this combination meeting tonight, and hope to move a few remaining planning items forward for the board approval. We may want to consider a midyear retreat, or we can discuss that at a later date. So as we go through the planning topics now, and then we still have more to get through after the regular board meeting is done.

2:21 If we don't get through everything, we can try to get them later on the agenda or maybe potentially at a different meeting later. We hope to get through all the items of this planning meeting, but we are still holding space for a regular meeting and can revisit topics later. There are a few changes to the meeting agenda tonight, and I wanted to give some context for those changes. The first one you guys are going to notice at the end of the meeting before we adjourn is good of the order, and that's agenda item. And then also, instead of what we used to call public comments, it's now hearing of the public, because we're hearing the public. We're not responding in real time to the public, but we're hearing them. And then also, there may be some agenda topics tonight that we go through that are

3:09 going to require us consulting with legal counsel, and so we've already noticed the possibility for an executive session. So for the good of the order, almost all of the other boards that are in Lane County and other educational boards, good of the order is always at the end. It's meant as a space where board members can share items or celebrations or something. Last year, I was giving a report on a Lane ESD meeting, and then I broke the rules and I talked about pink prom. So it would be an opportunity to talk about something like that, or say the blood bank is low and one of the high schools collected record donations, and thanking them for that. Sort of a short thing as good of the order.

3:55 And like I said, instead of we call it items raised by the audience, it's now the hearing of the public, which is kind of in line with other public bodies of how they do it. It'll be the same format that we've always had, same rules apply. We'll have 10 speakers, and they'll have three minutes each to speak. So anyways. Oh, one thing I want to talk to you guys about. In your packets in the blue folders, we have committees, the board committees, talking about what committees we have, what committees are still active. There's some that are paused or we've sunsetted. What would be really helpful is if you guys could look at these at some point this evening and just kind of write on them somewhere

4:41 what are your first, second, and third choices, and then I will be working with Maya, and we'll be getting to committee assignments here in the next week or two. So just look at the assignments when you have a second, or the committees that are available, and then just let me know for second and third, and then we'll work on those and let you know who is on next. Okay. Let's move to our next agenda item. Next, we have the agenda approval. Are there any questions, changes, or corrections to the agenda that anyone would like to request? Anybody? Okay. Seeing no objection, let's move on to the next item. Okay. So now we're in the retreat portion of our meeting.

5:26 Okay. So first, we're going to start off with the fun stuff, team-building, relationship building. And Maya is more fun and creative than me. Well, I don't know that I'm more fun and creative than Erica. I'm very... I don't know that I'm more fun and creative than Erica, but I do know that I am excited for fun and do believe in the power of play when it comes to one's personal development as well as group development. I was looking at something else and I fell up- Fell across the Harvard Medical School homepage for pediatrics. And it had this headline that said something like, "Want your child to grow up

6:13 healthy, happy, smart, capable, and resilient? Play with them." And that's me summarizing because I went back and looked, and it was gone, so I might have just imagined this, but I really don't think so, and I believe it anyway, even if Harvard doesn't back me up. So despite the fact that we don't have as much time as Erica and I would've liked, we would like to spend a little time doing some things that are not only fun and enjoyable and give us the opportunity to interact in a little bit different than sitting behind our desks, but they also supposedly are designed to meet other functions, such as sparking your brain, getting your hemispheres talking to one another, all those things. Some of the things that we'll be doing today we pulled from Sources of Strength.

6:59 So some of them have puzzles to them, and I'm going to ask that if you are familiar with one of them, tell me or just opt out, because a few of them, the activity is searching for the solution. So I'm going to make you get up, if that's okay. Is everybody okay with that? Sure. And we're going to play the ball game. We're going to use this little Squishmallow that my daughter supplied for us. Maybe we don't- Maybe go over there behind Jenny. Okay. Okay. Ooh, this mic sounds nice. I feel like a whole new person. Because I have to hold the mic, I'm going to just tell you guys what to do.

7:46 So you're going to get in a circle, not too big, unless you really have confidence in your catching skills. Come on in, Rick. Miriam, I'll give it to you. Jamie, you want to play with us? The more people, the better. Yeah. I think we did. I definitely... Tom's here. You can be Tom's proxy person. Has anybody played the Sources of Strength ball toss? Okay. So what you're going to do is you're going to put up- You just did parallel- You're going to put up your hands to show that you're ready to catch. And while you're going to be tossing it, after you've caught it once, you're going to put your hands down. Lisa, I see you. No, you can take my phone. Oh. After you catch, you're not out, but your turn will have been

8:34 fulfilled. And while we're doing this, you need to keep track of the order in which the ball was passed. Okay? So as quickly or slowly as you want, but put your hands up, and once everybody's hands are down, we'll know that the turns were completed. And I'll step out, so then I can hold the mic. Peter. Yeah. Put your hands down. Okay. Awesome. You guys all did it, and we caught it each time. Now, Lisa, will you be our timekeeper, even if just looking up there?

9:19 We're going to keep track, and we're going to repeat that pattern. And the first time, let's just repeat it and get it right and have it hammered home. So go ahead. Oh, sorry. Okay, how long did that take us, Lisa? 11. 11 seconds. Okay. Now the challenge is to go faster. And the only rule, and this is your clue, the only rule is that you have to go in this order. All right. Go. That's okay.

10:05 All right, what are we at now? Oh. Eight. Okay. All right. You can do better than that. Do it. Ready? Go. All right. What was... Seven. Okay, so that was one second. I want to tell you guys that when the middle schoolers do this, they can do it in one second. What? No. Mm-hmm. Nope, it's not impossible. So try again. And remember, the only rule- President's here. Whoa. Look at Jamie and Morgan. Yep, the only rule is it has to go in that order. Okay. Seven. Tiger? Ready, set, go. Sorry.

10:54 I'm trying to get rid of this. I'll be nicer next time. Okay, what was that? That was nine? Okay. Wait, did we- Okay, try it again ... hand it to each other? Yeah. We just hand it to... Go. That's how you get pro. No? I'm sorry. Next time. Okay, again. Okay. Okay. Go. Just hand it. All right. Ready? Hand. Go. Okay. Four. Four. Okay, so I'm not going to make us keep going unless you guys want to do one more round, but- Do we need to reorder ourselves, but still pass it? Yeah, you want to keep going, I can tell. Yes. I'm going to let you guys have another try, but keep in mind, the only rule is that the ball has to go in that order. That's true.

11:42 Okay, we're going to go this way. Yeah, go that way. Oh, okay. Nope, you're here. There she is. Yeah, you're here. We're starting. Okay. And then we just- I'm through ... and then pass it on. All right. Okay, ready? Ready, set, go. Ta-da. Two. All right. Woo-hoo! Okay, so let's just acknowledge that the kids are more nimble in mind and body, and appreciate our two-second accomplishment. I know. Right? Yay. All right. Thanks, Whitney. Thank you. Well, we'll make you do it again. So- Creative problem solving.

12:27 I heard somebody saying creative problem solving. Was that you, Dr. Mickelson? Mm-hmm. Yes, it was creative problem solving. And what else did we do, you guys? Worked together. We worked together. Creative problem solving. What else? One of the things that I noticed, and I didn't think about this till I was watching you do it, is that we removed barriers that weren't technically there, that didn't need to be there, that nobody ever said, "You have to do it this way." And as soon as that hammered home, that's when you guys had some movement in your solution making, which I thought was very interesting. Okay, so that was very fun and very exciting, and you'll have more of those, but now hopefully your blood is pumping and you're ready to listen to Erica

13:12 give us an update. Now I have the much, much more boring task. Okay. It's all going to be exciting. It's all going to be exciting. So, what we wanted to do was review and provide status updates of things that we talked about at the June planning work session. So, just as sort of a recap, because we went through a lot of different topics. So I just want to go through them, and then also for our listening audience. So, we confirmed that the start time for our board meetings will continue to be at 6:00 PM. We confirmed that we're going to keep having one regular board meeting a month and one work session scheduled each month, except for one month where it's a little unusual.

13:57 We confirmed that staff presentations will be limited to 10 minutes, to the extent possible for the presentation, to allow us to have more questions and discussion time, which also means we definitely need to read through our packets and through the information that they give us before we get here for the meeting. We confirmed that we are wanting flexibility about the kind of meeting logistics and statistics to be continued to look at to allow the board, when possible, to be seated on the floor, not on the dais, and around tables, when we can. And then board leadership, we're going to continue to monitor attendance and capacity so that we have some ideas for proposals moving forward. If

14:43 most of our meetings only have 10 to 15 people at them, but then there might be nights where we know there's going to be a lot of people and we may need to have more seating there, which will mean we'll have to be up on the dais. But I think we're all somewhat committed to being down here and together. We confirmed keeping and I didn't email you guys ahead of time. We confirmed keeping the board chair remarks on the agenda as opposed to comments from individual board members. We did agree that interjections from board members about time sensitive events or celebrations would be accepted, and then we added the for good of the order to the meeting agenda to also sort of speak to that ability. We agreed to add 10 speakers during public comment,

15:28 now called Hearing of the Public, at work sessions so that both the monthly meetings will allow for the same number of slots for public comments. And at the work session, it doesn't have to be limited to the topics on the agenda that evening. There are a couple of topics that we'll revisit later tonight that we weren't able to finish during our June 22nd meeting. Those are employee group engagement and meetings with our employee groups, and then board meeting agenda setting with board leadership. And also came out, I think, today in an email, so we'll agreed to continue to have the rolling agenda for board meetings be made accessible to all board members, not just

16:15 leadership. So, it sounds like you're going to have a link in your rolling agenda in the weekly newsletter. And then, like I said, we'll revisit board committee assignments at a future meeting, and then I'll look at what you guys fill out this evening, so that we can work on committee assignments. So, do you guys have any questions about that? Does that all sound correct, spot on for what we discussed last month? I have one question. Mm-hmm. Do we want to spend a minute looking at the committees so that we are... Because I feel like that was something that we left- That is true ... kind of open, at least. And just that way, before people leave today, when they tell their top choices, we know exactly- Yeah

17:00 ... I mean, it might just be that it's obvious, but... So, if you look at the list, obviously, budget committee, we are all on that committee. The bond oversight long-range facilities planning, that's a standing committee, and two to three board members meeting as needed. And I'm trying to think, will we be-- Is it this year or next year when we'll be- Possibly next year. Possibly next year. Okay. And then legislative committee. So currently, Judy has been chosen as our chair for the committee. Thank you, Judy. So Judy, Rick, and I on the legislative committee. So that one committee, because we

17:48 needed to get work done for now, that was already set. So, that'll be the committee assignments for this year for that. Lane Council of Governments, that's another standing committee. Lane ESD Budget Committee, one board member, one alternate, one to four times a year. Our Eugene Education Foundation Um, liaison in an ex officio role. Looks like that meets monthly. Our policy work group. Thank you, policy work group, for all your very hard work. Meeting every two weeks. So it looks like Mya, Morgan, and Judy currently are doing that. Thank you, bye guys.

18:33 And then our Educational Equity Advisory Committee, we don't have board members on that. That's correct. And then the Instructional Advisory Committee, no board members are on that. The charter school, it says here they meet once a month, but I didn't realize they were meeting quite that often. And then everything else has been sunsetted, all of them per board resolution. So community engagement, the ad hoc group on classroom displays, obviously superintendent search, don't need that anymore, thank heavens. Audit and finance, not doing that partially because there's reports monthly at the meetings.

19:18 And then student voice also has been sunset. We might want to add the ad hoc negotiate workforce- Mm ... workforce negotiation. Thank you. And that's a superintendent work group? That's, yeah. That's the board's- It's a board's- Yeah Board's. Ad hoc board, ad hoc board workforce negotiation committee. Okay. Something like that. Certainly that one's working still, right? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Erica, I have a question. Mm-hmm. Maybe somebody might have this memory. A few years ago, Laney SD said they didn't want us to assign a budget committee person, and they wanted to select the

20:06 person. I don't know if that's still the case. I know they have a new superintendent- Yes ... so they might want to do that differently. And then the second thing is, we were kind of caught off guard this year or last year with needing to assign a large district rep to Laney SD. Yes. So they need two people, however those are selected. So we might want to add the large district rep. Okay. And if somebody is interested, it might almost make sense for one person to do both of those. That's true. I don't know. That's not necessary, but just thinking about that one here. Do you want me to reach out to their board chair and CC their new superintendent and ask what they want us to do about the budget?

20:56 Okay, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Okay. So even though we don't have that answer, if somebody's like, "I am dying to be on the Lane ESD Budget Committee," it'd be great to mark that now, because then we'd have that information. Okay. So by the end of tonight, we will stop for a minute or two, right, Erica? And people will mark, because that's your ticket out of the building- Yes ... is getting in your homework- That's it ... the classwork. Exactly. You need it. Somehow I did something to my Showflow, and I will need to be saved here

21:43 shortly. Okay, while Erica's talking about that, I want you guys to have your attention drawn to the very back of your packet. Yes. There are two coloring sheets that you can choose from if you would like to doodle or color or use that time, that energy focus thing that some people like to do when they are thinking. So, Lisa has colored pencils, crayons. We'll take it. Did you find your Showflow? I have it. Okay. Somehow I did something to it, and now it's extremely hard for me to read. You want me to resend it to you? Yes. Okay. I just did. Okay. Let me check. All right. I just went to Kathleen and-

22:28 No idea how I managed to do that, but... Okay, so we-- Oh. Thank you. We were super interested. Even if you don't, which one would you pick? You picked the circles? The- All right. You picked-- Wow. Whoa. Out of these two, which one would you pick? Tom. You- Yes, okay. Wow. That's very pretty. You know what? We were almost going to do some anti-coloring book pages. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So every single one of you picked this? Okay. Tom? Yeah, Tom? Can you see? No. I know. Oh. Oh, rats. Would you do the squiggly lines or the little overlapping circle diamonds? I think the overlapping circle diamonds.

23:14 That's your paper. Wow. Jenny? She picks mud. So Jenny. And Erica? She was- Erica, do you want- She's... Hi. Eri- Yes, Tom. Oh. Yeah, thanks. Do you want us to chime in on preferences, or do you want me to chime in? Because I can't really write down anything for you there. Um- Or you can email me. Okay. That's fine. I'll just do that. Okay. All right. Excellent. Okay. All right. What is the significance? Well, Erica and I thought it was really, given a different timeframe and setup for a retreat, we did think it would be interesting to see what people chose and also how they approached it. Are you a rainbow person? Are you two colors? Are you one?

24:02 Do you reject the concept of a coloring sheet altogether? And Erica and I both chose from the selection, the one that pulled us in, and I don't think anybody will be surprised to hear it, but the one that I picked is the one that nobody else wanted. So, but that's okay. I like my waves. There you go. Is it just what we picture, could we really color? You absolutely can and should color them. I know. Yes. Okay. Ooh. So our next item is to review and set our board goals, and so wanted to start off with looking at our 2025, 2026 board goals.

24:50 We typically review these during our summer planning meetings, so just want to look at them and figure out do we need to amend them? Shall we stick with them? So I'm going to just read them out loud. So our 2025, '26 goals. So number one was the board will actively support the superintendent's entry plan and strategic planning process, providing input, feedback, and collaboration as appropriate to advance district goals. Number two, each board member will actively engage in ongoing professional learning to enhance governance effectiveness and understanding of district priorities. Number three, board members will intentionally participate in school and program visits as well as community events to gain a deeper understanding of district operations and student needs. And then the last one, the board will conduct an annual self-assessment to

25:38 evaluate its own governance, effectiveness, communication, and alignment with district priorities. So I feel like we don't have to have a ton of discussion. I do realize that we did not meet number four, because we have not done a board self-assessment. I know OSBA has an amazing, pretty comprehensive one on their website that we could use. But I would be interested in seeing how people feel about these goals and also how you feel about doing a board self-assessment and if we may want to look at doing an assessment soon, and then maybe another one at the end of the year just because we didn't get one done for last year. And before anybody responds to that, I have a very important announcement. Dinner is here.

26:23 Oh, dinner's here. All right. So just let us know if you want us to... Is it okay if we just pass them out? Yeah. Okay. I think that sounds great. If you are wanting to see this, it is in your packet, and it's behind the second blue blank sheet, which you can also use to color. I thought maybe it was going the other direction. Not with the blue sheets. That's just Lisa's organization. But it's in there if you want to look at it. Yes. Erica, did you want- Yeah, please To comment on the self-assessment? Yeah. I think it'd be a great idea, and I think to do it in the beginning of the year would be good. Okay. In the past, the one OSBA had wasn't as relevant. And I haven't looked at it lately, but I think doing one's important, but be sure and look

27:11 at it, and maybe there's a different one that would meet our needs more. Okay. And it might be different. I just remember that. Yeah. And I know it's several pages long, and it sort of looks at some different metrics, and it's kind of a one, two, three, four sort of a thing. I don't know if you guys want me to email that real quick to you. But it was pretty comprehensive. So how do you guys feel? Do you want to go through these one by one and discuss do we keep them the same or do we make edits? Can I make a proposal? Yes, please.

27:56 Okay. In the name of looking at a year where there's a lot of new things and possible unknown things to navigate, I think in looking at these four goals and seeing that at least number four we did not do, and number two might have happened as individuals, we don't really know, but we didn't participate in professional development stuff. Mm-hmm. So two out of our four goals we didn't accomplish or didn't make movement towards those. And then the third goal, I think personally

28:43 is a goal that is still relevant to us as we turn that into muscle memory and routine. So I propose that numbers two, three, and four we maintain. Mm-hmm. And with number one, I imagine that our superintendent would love for us to have a goal be to actively support their work, but I would suggest making it a shorter sentence and eliminating everything following entry plan. So the board will actively support the superintendent, and then the other three goals, keeping them the same and working towards them. And I'm in full agreement with Judy that we should do something at the beginning of this year for a self-assessment. I do wonder if we might want to think about doing something

29:29 maybe simpler than what you're describing in the OSBA one for this side of it, and then at the end of the year pull something more comprehensive together. Okay. But that's not a motion, that's just a proposal on how to maybe think about these four goals. I like that. Judy? Yeah. When I looked at these before the meeting, I think that's good. Mia, I just think you made some really good points. And- Judy, it's hard to hear you To support the superintendent. I would like to add something about stabilizing district's resources and budgets, because I feel like that's been such a big part of our work to support you to do that.

30:17 I don't know. I feel like it's so wide open It just might be good to pick a few things that we want to support you, and I like the strategic plan and the stabilizing our district's resources and budget. It's just a thought. Erica? Yeah, go ahead, Tom. Can I jump in? First of all, I think Mya's ideas is a very good first start. I would agree with what she's pointing out, especially two, three, and four, and the idea of number three being part of our muscle memory. Anyway, but the first one, I think I'd like to hear more from

31:05 Miriam about what the superintendent's doing. And, she's going to start that today a little bit. And, I don't know when we have to have these all buttoned up, but I think I'd be maybe more comfortable with being more specific with number one after we hear what the handful of proposals or ideas or areas of interest are, areas that she's going to work on. I'd like to hear those first before we can get into it. There might be one that we would hear, and then we'd say, "Oh, yeah, that's something we really need to support on." Or, I don't know. We may come back to what you've

31:53 suggested, Mya, but that's just a concern I had. It went through my mind. Yeah. Rick? Well, I'm glad he mentioned that because when you read number one, I was under the impression that that's a given without even listing that part. That's why that doesn't really register with me. And like you said, it is very broad. But, support superintendent's entry plan, strategic planning, that should be a given because we're directors. We're board members. And, so yeah. My only thing is I think it would definitely have to be more specific.

32:49 I'm trying to think. Do you all want to agree that we're moving forward, or we're keeping two, three, and four, and maybe later in the meeting, maybe after we look at working agreements, that we come back to number one after we hear from you? Sure. It's on the agenda. Okay. So I'm happy to talk about superintendent's priorities now, unless the board wants to discuss two, three, and four further. Only thing I would add about number two is we've put a hold on participating in formal

33:35 conferences and things like that. So one of the things we talked about was creating a centralized resource or collection of resources, whether it's linking free webinars or free local opportunities, books, all different types of other resources that then the board can self-select what is of interest and what fits with their schedule, so that we can still achieve that and continue to grow, but we don't have to spend a whole lot of money doing so. I particularly love the book idea. Hmm. Yeah. And I know there was a

34:21 library that was housed in the equity department a few-- I know that Larry and Misael had put together a library. So I don't even know if maybe we could start by having access to that, if it still exists, if there's something like that in the building. But that way, we'd have something already in place and could hit the ground running for those who are eager to crack open a book. And if one of us reads a book that we think is really helpful, we can also offer to share it with other board members. I know Mya had shared recently some podcasts with me and so that's been really helpful as well. As far as looking at annual self-assessment,

35:08 I don't know how everybody else feels. I would like for us to be able to get it done before the end of September. Does everybody feel on board with that? Tom is-- Oh, I lost Tom from the big screen. He's still on. Okay. Does anybody have any great resources? The only thing I really found was the OSBA one, but it is pretty extensive. Does anybody have any ideas or resources for something to do a shorter assessment soon, and then looking at something longer now?

35:53 Erica, would you like me to connect with other superintendents to see what self-assessment their board- That would be- ... uses if- That would be great ... doing that. I could do that. Okay. And then, yes, I would definitely like to see if we can get that done before the end of September. Tom? You need anything, Tom? No. Sorry about the fireworks, Erica. I have something switched on that every time I put my thumbs up, I get fireworks. So- That's terrific ... you're welcome. I appreciate the enthusiasm. It's not on purpose, but All right. Okay. Well, we'll come back to how we're going to word number one, and then, the goal is eventually we'll get a cleaned-up version of this, and we'll bring it

36:40 back at a future meeting for us to vote on our goals after we sort of hear from you, and then we talk about how we want to word number one. But yes. So moving on to number four. Oh, go ahead, Judy. I guess I'd like us to consider, maybe like when Rick was saying something more specific, it feels like as a board to-- And this is probably in line with the strategic plan. I think all the things that we've said, supporting you obviously is our job. It's our job to be good stewards of our resources, et cetera. But what do we want to see? We want to see our kids thriving in some ways, and what would that look like as a board? Just like really for our students, it

37:27 feels like in some ways that should be a board goal that we put out there and... Well, and the one thing I want to say is that board goals are really about how the seven of us are governing. Those goals are more district goals, and so that's the one thing that's hard is that like we definitely want that. But for board goals, they are really traditionally more about the seven of us and what we want about how we're governing. But then those are more in the district goals. Like, am I right? I mean- Yeah ... Jenny? That's my interpretation as well, and I guess I just want to make sure we're not giving up on any of our board goals, right?

38:13 Yeah. Okay. I mean our district goals. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then I think they need to be restated because I think leadership, and we're part of that, really are promoting them. I guess when I've looked earlier on, I haven't looked recently, a lot of times board goals really did underscore those things, which were major, just being there for students and what are our aspirational hopes. That could be a district-wide thing for sure. Obviously, we want to all be on the same page, but I feel like that should be front and center somehow, and we don't necessarily talk about that that much. And using our resources,

39:01 supporting the superintendent, all should be in service to that. It's not a goal, it's what we do to do these things. So I don't know how that gets communicated, but it's missing for me in this. So it might be something that could be connected to number one- That's what I was thinking ... supporting the superintendent in service of student learning or something like that. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Previously we had a separate list that the board put together. So it's not like the district's coming up with them. We, the board, came up with them, and it was our goals for the district. Mm-hmm. The last time we did this, the board goals were very

39:49 self-referential. It was what were we going to do just internally, and then we also had a separate list of things that felt a lot more like what you're saying, which were the student success pieces, all the other bits. And the board came up with those as well. Mm-hmm. So we divided it that way at least for the last two years because I think the stuff you're saying is really important and also, we just put it in a different numbered list than this numbered list. So I wonder if it might be helpful for me to share the priorities for 2026 and beyond, just to continue the conversation and see if

40:36 there might be some alignment in terms of what the board's vision is when it comes to student learning, because ultimately that's what we are here for. So do you want us to just move-- Okay. So I have one slide that we will pull up in a little bit, but I wanted to share with the board that my top priority for '26, '27 is to simplify, given the context that we are having to navigate and lead as a school district because of the massive reductions from last year due to budget. So for me, in 2026, 2027, it's really important that we give our staff the space and the time to be human and not just productive.

41:23 So time and space to grieve and mourn the loss of beloved colleagues, programs that we phased out, adjust to the reduced staffing, recover from last year, begin to heal, and do some community building with all of the changes, and that we have to implement this upcoming year. And our principals and our district leaders are very much on board with this and definitely leaning in. So to me, making space for all of that means simplifying what we ask of our organization, and I will say that it is not the easiest to do because we're dealing with human beings. Young human beings who are developing, and you can't just bottle everything that we have to do into

42:09 one tiny little package and say, "This is what we're doing." But I think that we can nevertheless simplify expectations of the organization, be very clear on our focus, and that is what's essential, and give our staff explicit permission to focus on continuity. What were some of the things that- We've been doing that we can continue to be more intentional about, and so not add, we're not adding any new initiatives. So in other words, I think '26, '27 and beyond, but especially in the fall 2026, '27, we need to be human-centered. I think it's really important for us as a district to be resource-conscious, not just resource money, but also time and

42:54 energy, being sensitive of the context and again, simple in our expectations. So with that framing, I'd like to share draft priorities for the coming year and beyond. And this is still a draft. I welcome the board's comments and input on this. This is very high level because at my level, I think that it's really where it should be. So I'm calling this framework Focus 4J, and it calls out three areas of focus, which to me really capture the core work of what we do in education. And it's aspirational in the sense that we're using the word "every" very intentionally.

43:40 It's aspirational, and yet at the same time, it really is the work. So the three areas of focus for us, every student attends, every student learns, and every student graduates. And for some reason, the foundational pillars are missing from this version. But underpinning every student attends, every student learns, every student graduates are three foundational pillars, which are culture and belonging, community engagement, and fiscal sustainability. So I think that is the work. It's very student-centered, it's very school-focused,

44:27 but those of us not in the buildings working directly with our students, we of course, still play a role here. So within each area, what I would like for our schools would be to identify those strategies that they're already using to help every student attend every day. For example, to make sure that every student is learning, to make sure that every student is able to graduate or complete in 4J. And I'm asking our schools and our principals and our directors to identify strategies that are, again, we're already implementing, ones that are light lift, cost neutral, and not time intensive, and just apply them a little bit more

45:14 consistently and intentionally. And I want to emphasize that light lift does not mean low impact. Some of the most powerful things that our educators do, they don't require new programs or three-ring binders or complicated processes. Taking time to genuinely connect with students, really building relationships of trust and helping students believe in their own capability. I think that those things cost little, and they don't take a tremendous amount of extra time. But they can change the trajectory of a student's year. So they are high impact, high leverage practices. And I know that they're already happening in our school. So just our job this year, this upcoming year

46:01 is not to invent anything new, but to notice what's working, name it, do it more consistently as an organization. So one thing that I will say about every student learns, and I shared this with principals on Monday. We have leadership meetings all week this week, but I shared with principals and our other district leaders that a robust academic program entails curriculum, that's content and skills and standards, instruction, assessment, instructional materials, such as a district-adopted textbook. They are all vital components of a rigorous academic program, but it's

46:47 really important that we don't overly rely or hyper-prescribe the use or application of one of those components at the expense of teachers' ability to exercise their professional judgment, teachers' ability to leverage their professional expertise and experience, leverage their knowledge of students to deepen student engagement. So the idea is that education is not just about acquiring knowledge and skills, but helping our students see themselves in relation to others in the world, often leading to greater purpose and compassion and empathy, wisdom, ethical action. That, to me, is learning. And they have a term for that. Researchers and experts call it transcendent

47:34 learning, and you can't get to that if we're hyper-prescribing or overly prescribing a particular way to teach or to go from here to here. So I just wanted to share that with the board. But at any rate, Focus 4J is high level framework within which I hope that our schools and our departments would operate under in terms of as they set their goals for the year. And this can also form as a basis for a strategic plan. And again, underneath all of this, a foundational pillar, I don't know what happened to it. Community engagement, culture and belonging, and fiscal sustainability. And my theory is that if we empower

48:22 our staff, and we do our very best not to overwhelm them, and we recognize the impactful work that they're already doing, and we're supporting them consistently, we're partnering with our communities, that better outcomes for students will follow, so that our first goal post By 2030, 90% of our students will graduate or will complete, and hopefully then we will get to a place where every student is able to graduate. I think that if we do this work and we do it intentionally and we focus on this work, that, like I said, better student outcomes will follow. So, that's the idea, and I welcome input and comments from the board.

49:09 This is all a draft. My hope is that we can finalize this by the time our staff come back from summer break. Hmm. I have a- Oh, sorry. Tom? Hi. Tom and then Rick, sorry. Oh, okay. Anyway, I really like this. What jumps out to me is the simpleness of it, the basic but just critical nature of these three, if you want to call them pillars. But I think it's something that's clear, but customizable, and that's a word that kept coming up in my head. I think especially this year, no one wants

49:56 to overwhelm a staff that is still hurting and is just beginning to figure out how to deliver what we have been delivering with a lot fewer people in our buildings. And I hope that what people show or offer from their buildings, from their schools, is something that can be customizable, it can be shared. There are great ideas all over the place, and oftentimes we work in silos, and we don't hear about them. So this looks great to me. I really like this first step, this basis for next year.

50:42 Thanks, Tom. And you did mention the simplicity of it, and it can be deceiving because like I said, learning is a very human experience, and it's not simple at all. It is complex. But as leaders, I think it's important for us to find a way, especially if we're trying to help our staff not feel too overwhelmed with reduced staffing, is to help them see that this is a work. And the idea behind having something that is simplistic in its presentation, for lack of a better term, is that I think it's easier to remember every student attends, every student learns, every student graduates in a district where culture and belonging

51:28 are important, in a district that's working towards fiscal sustainability, in a district that's partnering with the communities. One caveat I should probably clarify is that I think it's important for people to be able to share what they do, but not in a way where other areas which may have different populations or different needs felt compelled to apply those particular ones that work at that elementary school or that high school. I don't want that to be the takeaway from anybody. But I really like the fact that this isn't going to be a as you said, a three-ring binder and everyone go to the purple

52:15 section and section four, subsection number five. This is a great place to start. So I very much appreciate your work on that. Thanks, Tom. Rick, you had a question earlier. How did we answer that? My question, in theory, how is this different from what... I can't hear Rick at all. I'm sorry. Even though I'm second to Tom. No. Mm-hmm. No, it answered my question, I believe, because my question was just going to be, in theory, what are the differences in what you're proposing up there as opposed to what we had

53:01 been doing previously? Yeah. But then when you talked about simplicity in particular, and I think we've had that conversation also, it'll help a lot with the drastic changes that are coming about. So I'm good. Okay. So this is really helpful, and then putting that in the context of supporting the superintendent and her plan forward, rather, that makes a lot of sense. I still am a little bothered that we have district goals I can't find on the website. I actually haven't seen, and they should really be drive-- I'm sure these fit into what the district goals are, but I would like to see those with materials.

53:48 It puts everything in context for me- Mm-hmm ... rather than just these other things are out of context until I'm reminded. I think I could produce some of what's on it, but I don't know that I remember it accurately. So that would be my ask, that we include that, make sure all this is aligned, and then I just feel that's important for making progress, being on the same page, et cetera. Can I ask a clarifying question? Judy, are you talking about the list that Morgan was talking about earlier? Whatever the goal-- You said we set board goals. I remember that. District goals, I don't know where those are, and

54:33 I even looked in my- I can look ... file. I looked on the website, and I just want to be sure we're aligned and that's To me, those are the most important goals. Yeah. And I think the goals that we set were specifically for last year, and so I can find them as well. People will look. We'll find them, I'm sure. But these seem great for this year. And I really appreciate that they are about the outcome. They're not prescriptive necessarily. They're, "This is the objective that we're going for, this is the metrics we're looking at." But I really appreciate that they're not strategies prescriptive. I think that's great.

55:24 We can't find them. We're trying to find them. Okay. Maya? Jenny. Yeah? What's that? What did you search? On the website. It's not on the website. I couldn't find it on the website either. Maya? Thank you, Jenny. I appreciate that. Maya, did you have something? I just

56:09 wanted to also express my appreciation for how this is being presented, and the thing that I see in the act of simplifying is an inherent trust in the professionals that are working for us in this district. Oftentimes, when we aren't trusting in their professionalism is when we become overly prescriptive and create new initiatives and complicate things. So when you were talking, the thing that I was just processing is like, this just feels very respectful to acknowledge that the people that are doing this work are

56:56 capable and will make sure that these things happen with the support that comes from district leadership, board, et cetera. But just in order for it to work, we have to believe in the professionals and in their professionalism. So I appreciate that. I like that too, and I also like that I feel like the simple version can be easily held and repeated by a student, a staff member, a parent. I love our prior district goals, but they were pretty wordy and long because we were basically trying to capture 50 different ideas and pretend that there were only three, but they weren't really. And we just had bullet points to try to make them 50 different ideas

57:43 under three bullet points or three headings. So I do like this. Is there-- I don't mean to put you, Judy, on the spot, but is there a way that you see what Miriam just presented to us being incorporated into number one in order to make it more specific and focused? Yeah. I think 100% our job is to support the superintendent, but our assumption is she's really-- It's just, I think, important to communicate simply what we want to see happen in the district for kids and

58:29 teachers. So this does it for me. I feel badly we worked hard on those, and maybe we should make sure the superintendent sees them, they're incorporated. To me, it all needs to be integrated, and it should be simple, and it's all the things you said. I agree with the respect with which these are written and communicated to our staff is important. Anybody have anything further about the superintendent priorities? Rick? Just that one. Oh. Just that one. I interpret that as

59:15 giving instructors or teachers a lot of leeway in how they present to their students, because just being human, individuals have different skill sets and techniques for getting kids to learn. Instead of everything being, "You will do this, you will do that, you will go by this number," you're giving them an opportunity to be creative because in the last three years, I've heard that a lot from specific individuals who have come to public comments and made public comments. You get the emails and everything. So this will be really interesting to see how many of the frontline folks

1:00:01 out there take advantage of this and do it, especially with conditions being the way they are. It's ripe for it now. So it should be really interesting to see how this takes off. And that version has the foundational pillars. They found it. So yeah. Oh. There you go. Thanks, Rick. Do you mind just me taking a quick liberty, Maya? The food reminded me of something. Before we move on to the really meaty part about looking at our working agreements, one of the things that we discussed in leadership, in a spirit of the board being sort of fiscally conscious. So regarding food, I just wanted to make sure that it was communicated to anybody. If we have a meeting that starts at 4:30, food

1:00:48 will be provided because the assumption is that we've We're just coming from work and getting kids to school and all these things. However, if our meetings start at 6:00, we will not be providing food, unless you guys want snacks, potlucks. But just for us to also make sure that we are in the spirit of really being responsible and sort of trying to tighten our shoelaces as well. But I just wanted to make sure everybody knew that, so that if we have a meeting starting at 6:00, eat at home or grab something on the way before you get here, okay? Anyways, I'm sorry I didn't think about putting that in sooner. But now for the fun stuff. Are we done with the working agreements? No. I mean, with the goals?

1:01:34 That's true. Do we want to look and see how we want to finish number one? How we want number one to sound? And then we can get sort of a cleaned-up version of... So goals two, three, and four will be remaining the same. Number one is how we need to look at, because number one doesn't apply in that there's not an entry plan. You have entered. Yeah. And you're not necessarily doing a strategic planning process this year in this... Unless it is a top priority for the board, probably not. What we could do is, again, just take this,

1:02:22 and this is the guide that directs our work, especially this year. So how- Oh, is it? Yes. Oh. What was the name of that document that you just showed us? What- Focus for J. Okay. Focus for J. So if you wanted to finish, I would just say the board will actively support the superintendent's plan for Focus for J for this year. That to me was specific and that's the way I'd finish it. I think that sounds great. Yeah. Tom, how do you feel about that? Yeah. I think that sounds great, too. I was thinking basically the same thing. It's possible that you could complete the sentence by just

1:03:09 naming the three areas in a tight way. We don't want it to be super long, but I would be fine with either option. Oh, there we go. Yes, Maya? Could we come up with maybe two options and bring them back when we have to vote on them at our next meeting? So then if you don't like either one, then we can wordsmith then. Yeah. But at least then there'll be two. One looser like Judy suggested, and one maybe listing the three things, but- I like it. You like that? Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll give you two anyway because... All right. So then we're all agreeing that we're going to go with the same four with the tweak of number one?

1:03:57 Yeah. I think that sounds great. Can I pass out dessert? Oh, sure. And thank you so much, everybody. It's good to get the goals done first because we realize that working agreements is going to be wieldy, so Pam gave me something sweet. Yay. Most excellent. And so we'll start talking about working agreements, understanding that we have to break. We will take a break a little bit before 6:00 o'clock, so we can all have a bio break, and then we'll start our regular meeting at 6:00. So there's two kinds. Lemon coffee seed and chai spiced coffee. Ooh. Just the one on the right.

1:04:44 No, that's not. The next. Just take that. Yes. Yeah. On your left. Thank you, Maya. You want one of each. Oh. Lemon coffee seed on your right. Mm-hmm. Chai spice on your left. There's more there if you guys want. I'm going to have the marshmallow THC.

1:05:33 So because Maya has a bit more longitudinal knowledge than I do, and experience with the district, I am going to let her facilitate the conversation about the working agreements because I realize the working agreements have gone through many iterations and many approaches. That's also known as I lost but rochambeau. Yes. Don't play rock, paper, scissors with Erica, because she's good. So working agreements. We've all been on the board long enough to know how fun and exciting working agreements can be. In your little packets, you should have several things.

1:06:19 Before we start, I want to acknowledge that we're not going to be able to finish this before our regular board meeting, unless something magical happens in front of us. Tom, I don't know if you have these documents. Does Tom have them? Okay, Tom does. Yeah. I have them on screen. Yeah. Okay. So in your documents, you should have our current- I'm committing them to memory. Okay, great. Our current working agreements as they are on the website. You should also find a document that is our guiding beliefs and values, which might actually be a document that you all have maybe not seen or maybe just saw the first... Nope, have not seen.

1:07:04 And you will also find- Um, policy BBF. BBF is just one of many policies that find their way into our working agreements. But when I was looking at BBF, I was like, "Kind of looks like our working agreements." Mm-hmm. So I have, and I'll pass this out to everybody. I know in the name of simplifying, I'm offering you four proposals. I know it's ridiculous. But when you see them, you'll see that some of them are not really actually proposals. And ... Sure. Okay. Yes. So let's work backwards because the fourth one is kind of what I think is probably a non-proposal proposal-

1:07:50 Yeah ... which is to just adopt what OSBA has as the model. I don't anticipate that anybody here is going to be like, "That's the one I'm fighting for." Am I right? You're correct. Okay. Yeah. So if you don't fight for it now, we are scratching number four off of this. The other three are somewhat related to each other. Number two would be to maintain the status quo. I know I'm going a little out of order. Just humor me. Number two would be to maintain the status quo, but make corrections based on anything we changed in our policies this year. So that would mean what we have now on our website, the current working agreements. Number three feels crazy, but it would be do a deep dive and dig into them again and go through all of the motions of working on working

1:08:37 agreements. Number one is what I personally am leaning towards, but I'm open to really any of these. And number one would take the documents that we have now, the working agreements, the guiding beliefs, all of our policies, as well as Oregon statutes, and then the one thing that's missing from here is our previous iteration of the working agreements, which were a very comprehensive document, and a really valuable document in my opinion. And what I would like us to do, and we've talked about it before, is to give space to build off of that original document that is very comprehensive and create a document that can be

1:09:24 used for training new board members, a document that can be used annually to revisit, but is essentially like a CliffsNotes of relevant, important policies that we absolutely need to know. What's wonderful about our policy database is that it implies that we don't have to memorize every single policy, but there are some that we need to know. And when they live in all of these different places, it becomes really difficult, especially when talking with the community spontaneously, to be able to tell people, "Yeah, that's a working agreement. That's a policy. That's a law." And it feels really uncomfortable for me to not be able to pinpoint exactly what these things are, and to have people say, "Isn't that one of your policies?" And maybe like I, "Yeah, uh." So I suggest that we

1:10:10 take the bulk of this information and craft a document in two forms, one that is by category, how we govern, how we make decisions, but another that is also just listed by the relevant policies. So we take the policies and just like an annotated version of each policy. Go ahead, Jenny. I have a question. Could we do this but only do one version? We- I think it's the two versions that's throwing me off. Otherwise, I love this proposal one. That's totally fine. I'm not attached. The last part of that would be to embrace this concept of simplifying, and I was thinking about ... Everybody here knows that my husband is a school teacher.

1:10:57 He's already going back to his classroom. I don't know if that's breaking the rules. I can't believe I just said that out loud. But it made me think about those classrooms that you walk into that kind of shifted from my childhood version of class expectations to current ones, and when I was little, it was like, "Do not run. Do not talk. Do not..." Whereas now it's like, "We are respectful. We are..." So I'm envisioning the possibility of us thinking about this, and it'll look different from everybody else's working agreements. No other district's going to have something like this, but statements as to how we come into this space. And not just how we want to interact ourselves, but also how we want to model for the entire district to interact with one another. To recognize that

1:11:44 being an inspiration is part of what we're supposed to be doing, and to commit to doing the work in a reflection of the work that we appreciate of our classroom community builders, for me, would feel really exciting. These four words were me and Lisa brainstorming together things that would make us feel really good. They're not things to be attached to. So it's just a concept- Mm ... of the structure. It doesn't have to be these four words, but it could be. But statements that are statements of commitment. Kind of like when you're walking out of the house and you're like, "I have my keys, I have my phone, I have my wallet." Like, when you're walking in the building, you're like, "I'm ready for these things." So I just spoke a lot. Jenny.

1:12:30 I think of it as like affirmations. So I really like it. I think we should be innovative. We have been together as a board now for a few years, so I feel like we have the comfort level and the familiarity and the expectations to be able to be a little more innovative with our working agreement. I have something. Go ahead, Tom. I think simplify, simplify, simplify should be the mantra. And I'm a little afraid that we'll come up with something that's even longer and broader and less likely to be referred to because it'll turn into this tome

1:13:16 that no one will be able to even carry around. So I- I like your idea, Maya, but I think it's important that we somehow condense these so they're digestible to board members and anybody else who cares to look at these. Because I think, and maybe that's the idea behind it, and I missed that. But what we have now is just unwieldy. I think that was the term that Erica used earlier. So that's my caution, I guess. Judy? I actually would've gone with proposal two and not spent any more time.

1:14:03 I reread them. I thought they're good. I think there's a value in articulating how we do business with each other. I think that's what this was here. I agree. We've been working together. We may get new board members. The value of these documents actually is learning as we produce them together. So I look at this, and I think I've seen this somewhere, the values one. I can't remember where, but-- Hmm? We wrote it together. We wrote it. Okay. And when did-- We wrote it in '21? Yes. Okay. And it was one of our working agreements in our big unwieldy document, was to revisit- Yeah

1:14:48 ... it every year, and we haven't- So- ... for five years. I think honestly, whatever we do, it's about the process, it's not about the document. This will get filed. As you said, I've hardly looked at it since then, so I don't know. To me, the value of these things is often just to affirm we're going to follow the laws, we're going to do it. But also some of the practical things about how we're organized. We know that now, but introduce someone new, and it's there. I think they're two different things, that's all. And I'm not opposed to re-looking at this. But if we want to simplify, I would say, "Yeah, these still look good. Let's keep them." So that would be my thought.

1:15:38 Do you want me to explain why I was a little concerned about just keeping them as is? Because I started-- In the way that they're presented now, they list one. It says "board policy sections A and B," and there's one policy that's quoted in there. But when you actually look at it, there's more than just A and B, and there's CBG is quoted, CBA is quoted, and there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight different policies that are just reworded in there. And very few of them just are

1:16:25 literal agreements. The rest are all things that we don't have the option to follow. So, some of the things, if we wanted to just stick with them, some of the suggestions, just looking for example at number 14, Erica and I were looking at that, and there's a whole lot of words there. If we wanted to keep these, our suggestion would've been to just keep the first sentence, "The board will be mindful of the impact of late meetings on community, staff, and board members." The rest of it starts to feel similar to what we were talking about with the focus 4J, in the sense that the more details and the more guide rails that are in place, the less

1:17:12 space there is for the generation of genuine trust in one another. So I don't know. It's something to think about. So if we do want to go with these and just look at them and make sure that they are updated, that is definitely something that we can do. I would suggest personally that we note which policies alongside them, like there is in that one example, if we do stick with it. And then to answer Tom. Tom, I'm not sure you understood what I was saying. I don't think I communicated it very clearly.

1:17:58 Proposal number one would not keep those as our working agreements. All of that information would continue to live and be preserved in a different document with a different function to it. So that document would be digital, so it would be searchable, so then you'd be able to find the things that you're looking for. But it would be a document that could be used to train new board members, but it could also be used the same way... Jamie, how many times have you taken the bloodborne pathogens? That's kind of a rhetorical question, but it could be used also to review every year, and board members could read over it. Instead of trying to dig through the policy, to have a document that outlines all of the things that are relevant to

1:18:45 me as a board member, and not have to search through all of the additional words. Policy can be really specific, and sometimes it can be so specific there's so many words. So it was a question of creating expectations for us that are more, like Jay said, statements of affirmation about how we do this work and who we come in as into this space. But then all of that detailed stuff, which to me, there was so much work that went into that really comprehensive document. But the degree of comprehensiveness made the document really inaccessible on a quick basis And impossible for me personally, in my brain, to memorize everything that was in it.

1:19:33 So I don't know if that clarifies what you were asking. Yeah, it does. I really appreciate the clarification, and how that would work. One more clarification I would appreciate. Jenny, you said you thought it would be better if it were one document. So what is this one document that you were referring to? Just the- Well, I guess I always worry when there are two documents that you're going to have parts that are superfluous in one or duplicative, and I always like to avoid that. So if possible, I always like to have one document rather than two. That's probably just the lawyer in me. Okay. And, as you talk, Maya, it brings to mind, you can go

1:20:20 about these things in such different ways. We can assume that we want to avoid worst case scenarios, and these can be guardrails. Or you can take the other approach, which is, I don't know, more of the affirmation approach is the way I think about. The bigger document was born out of the time when there was a lot of conflict and a lot of distrust. And, I personally witnessed the rules being used in a way to, not self-check, but check other people's behaviors. And it didn't feel like it was helpful in the context of creating expectations under this notion of working agreements, but it feels like such

1:21:07 important, valuable information to have. And to just shift the intention of the document takes away so much of the, I don't know, weaponization potential. So it doesn't sound like we would be getting rid of anything necessarily. We wouldn't be scrapping the work. It would be a piece of recognizing that all of the detail pieces and the how pieces would be retained, and make sure they align and do those pieces, for professional development, for training, when there's questions, as a reference piece for new chairs. All that would be retained. And a collection of short, declarative positive statements would also be created that would then be referred to as

1:21:54 working agreements, and that those working agreements would wear the new title, but we also wouldn't be scrapping the content. It would just be getting a different heading essentially. Is that fair? Absolutely. Okay, great. I know we're running somewhat out of time before our meeting begins. I would definitely love to make sure that we somehow get the guiding beliefs and values. Because it's funny, again, because it was created in 2021, and I admit that I hadn't seen it till the other day. I would love to have this attached or live in, you know what I'm saying,

1:22:41 be part of this document because I think it's super important. So can we then, because our meeting is about to start, take a break and then come back to this at the end so that we're all on the same page of what direction we're moving in, and then it gives us a chance to have it sink in and think about it also, and gives me a chance after our meeting to make you play another game. I'm all prepared. So Maya, maybe I'm the only one. I don't know that I 100% understand what your proposal is. So not we're going to throw the working agreements away, no. They're going to be put somewhere else for a training document?

1:23:28 And then we're going to have a new document. Is that the proposal? Why don't we come back at the end of the meeting? Okay. I just wanted to understand. I'll try to word it again in a way that might make it- Okay ... more clear now that I understand what your question is. I hit the wrong button. So we're going to go ahead and take a break, and we will be back at 6:00 to begin our regular board meeting. We are going to be transitioning now from the section of our planning meeting into our regular board meeting. Just so everybody is aware, I've already gaveled us in.

1:24:13 We've already done the land acknowledgement, and now we will be doing our regular board meeting. I don't need to do the roll call because I already did that. And yeah. So just thank you to all my fellow board members for coming together in this double header meeting, and thanks for lots of patience as I navigate my first meeting as the board chair. And then we will have more time after this regular meeting is completed for us to do more of our planning meeting discussions regarding our working agreements. So just for the listening audience, if you've just tuned in, I just wanted to restate a couple of things that have changed in the format of our board meeting agendas. So, the section that used to be called public comment is now called hearing for the public.

1:24:58 It was previously called items raised by the audience. And this is just a change to what we call the agenda item. All the details remain the same. Up to 10 speakers will have three minutes to share their comments with the board. The last thing is that towards the end of the meeting before we gavel out, we've added for the good of the order, which is an agenda item placeholder, where board members can share something like a community event or celebration. So anyways, with that, I'm going to hand this off to the superintendent for superintendent's report Thank you so much, Board Chair Thessen. Because we have a full agenda, I will keep my superintendent report very brief, and I just want to say thank you to our summer program staff for making this summer's SEAL, KITS,

1:25:46 Credit Recovery, ESY, and Bridge programs impactful, meaningful, and joyful. And I also want to thank our facilities, grounds, maintenance, technology, and operations team for all of the summer projects that they are juggling while school is not in session. Summer is a very busy time for them, and they have been hard at work, and I just wanted to recognize and thank them. So, as I said, next will be the hearing of the public, which is often the title that most public bodies use to receive public comments at their meetings. And we have no one signed up for this evening, so normally I read a nice preamble and we discuss it, but nope. We have no one signed up for this meeting.

1:26:32 Remember that you can sign up online on the district website. The deadline is the Monday before by 5:00 PM if you want to. And at both the meetings, the regular meeting and our work sessions, we will have up to 10 speakers that can sign up. So please do. All right. So next agenda item is comments by employee groups. Do we have a speaker from EEA? Jamie Myers, come on up. Good to see you. See you all.

1:27:17 Get myself back in the groove. Okay. Is this good? Okay. Good evening, school board members, Dr. Mickelson, and everyone listening. My name is Jamie Myers, and I'm the president of the Eugene Education Association. August is here. Although EEA members don't officially report back for several more weeks, school is already on our minds. We are thinking about class lists, lesson plans, and when we'll be able to get into our classrooms to prepare for new groups of students. This year, though, many of us are carrying another question: How do we provide the same level of support for students with so

1:28:04 many fewer colleagues beside us? Here are a few numbers to keep in mind. Approximately 80 EEA members who were laid off last spring remain on the recall list, most without a placement. About 160 members were reassigned and will begin the school year in new positions. For many, those assignments were not ones they would have chosen. And slightly better news, about 28 members completed voluntary transfers with colleagues, essentially swapping jobs so each could better meet personal or professional needs. I share these numbers because this school year will be different. It may be tempting to approach it as business as usual. After all, we'll still welcome students into our classrooms and school

1:28:52 communities with the same care and commitment we always have. But the depth of this year's budget reductions have taken us beyond the point of simply doing more with less. We have to give ourselves permission to do less with less, while continuing to provide students with excellent education and support they deserve. That isn't lowering our standards. It's acknowledging reality so that we can focus our energy where it matters most. I also believe many educators will return this fall carrying a sense of estrangement. They'll begin the year in new roles, new classrooms, new buildings, and alongside unfamiliar colleagues.

1:29:37 Belonging won't happen automatically. It will require intentional time and space to build trust, relationships, and community. I hope our schools make that work a genuine priority. Not simply an icebreaker before getting down to business, but an investment in the people who make our schools work. Finally, I want to encourage all of us to normalize rest. As we approach our first contract day on August 31st, I hope the message is clear: It's okay to pause. It's okay to rest. Yes, educators have had a summer break, but the pace of a school year can consume months of renewal in just a few weeks if we don't intentionally protect our well-being.

1:30:23 Rest is not the opposite of good work. It is what makes good work sustainable. I brought a small show-and-tell item with me tonight. It's called the Rest Deck. Each card contains an affirmation and a brief meditative exercise centered on a simple but radical idea: We are human beings, and human beings need rest. I'd like to close by sharing one of these cards. The original is written in the first person, but I've taken the liberty of changing I to we. On the front side, it says: We will unravel from urgency. And on the back, it says: We deserve patience, grace, mercy, and care.

1:31:10 We deserve not to be rushed. We deserve to be seen as both powerful and tender. We are worthy of a slow, connected, and rested life. When we act with urgency, we miss the beauty of what is right in front of us. We will surrender to the flow of life. We will rest. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jamie. That was wonderful. Do we have anyone from OSEA or MAPS here? I don't think so. No? Okay.

1:31:55 We will now move on for items for action, the consent agenda. There are items for information, and we have three items on the consent agenda. Meeting minutes, bond project, the HVAC at Gillom, and the memorandum of understanding with OSEA for the amendment of Article 22, transportation employees. Do I have a motion and a second? Maja? I move that the board approve the consent agenda items as listed on the agenda. Okay, and- So seconded. Okay. It has been moved by Maja and seconded by Morgan. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please raise your hand and say, "Aye."

1:32:43 Aye. That is unanimous with aye votes from Tom DiLiberto, Jenny Jonak, Judy Newman, Maja Rabasa, Morgan Monroe, Rick Hamilton, and myself, Erica Thessalon. All right. So we have no items for information this evening. We just took a break, so I don't think we need to take a break at the moment. Items for action. So we have two items for action. And the first one is going to be presented by Judy Newman, consider approval membership expansion of the board workforce negotiations ad hoc committee. So I hand you the floor, Judy. Thank you. I think Lisa is going to pass out a document, yeah,

1:33:31 for everyone they'll be referring to. So I'm doing a report from the board-appointed ad hoc workforce negotiations committee. Got to get that right, whichever order. But anyhow, so the three board members have been appointed to that by the board and the superintendent as part of that. So it's Maja Rabasa, Tom DiLiberto, and myself, and we met on July 14th. And this is the document that you see in front that we reviewed, which has the information that we talked about in forming that ad hoc committee. There's not new

1:34:17 information there. We just wanted to be really clear we were on the same page for the work and grounded in the work ahead. So I'm just going to read the first paragraph for the public. It's on the onboard book if people want to see it. But the ad hoc workforce committee is established to conduct a collaborative review of the district's recent collective bargaining experiences. By analyzing what worked well and what presented obstacles over the last negotiation cycle for each employee group, the committee will evaluate our current approach and recommend an optimized process and structure for future negotiations to the full school board. So that's our purpose. We talked about specifically the

1:35:04 goals and the scope of work and the proposed membership. So this is where we are bringing it before the board, first of all, to give you an update, but the action we want to take is we want to revise what we originally had proposed for membership, which was three board members and the superintendent. At our first meeting, it became very clear that including other members from each employee group would really enhance our work. So we had obviously intended to have people come and talk about their negotiations. But really, we should hear from each other, learn from each other, and employee groups should be part of the committee to make recommendations and help us through this.

1:35:51 So what we're asking for is if you look at the committee core members, we have the three board reps and the superintendent. The superintendent and the management leadership was part of the bargaining team, so we're going to have two members from board leadership that were part of the team, and we want two members from EEA, OSEA, and EAST, and MAPS. Even though we know MAPS doesn't negotiate, we're going to be talking about their process as well, so they have some representation. So we are asking to do a motion to expand the committee to

1:36:38 include that membership. Any questions? That's good. You look good. Jenny. Jenny. Are the employee groups up for participating on the committee? They were in attendance at the committee. We've reached out in preparation, and they have identified two people- Right ... to be involved. And so yes, I think they'd like- Okay ... to be part of it. They should be part of it. So is it two people who would represent all four of the different employee groups, or two from each group? Two from each group. So we have two from OSEA, two from EAST, two members of EEA,

1:37:24 and then we have two from the management team, in addition to the board reps. Does that answer your question? You have- It does answer my question. It feels really- Because they're voting members, so it feels like a pretty unbalanced between labor and management. If you've got eight and two, is that not what's being proposed? Is that two from each employee group, but only two from management? Correct. And then the board and the superintendent. So the superintendent is not included in the- She isn't. She's an addition to the two representatives. She's part of the original committee that we set up.

1:38:10 Three board members and the superintendent, and two leadership members from the district that were part of negotiations. Okay. It just feels... Although I also don't want to presume that all employee groups have the same concerns or interests. I don't want to, but it just feels like a significantly different weighting, especially since if all three board members and the two management members and the superintendent disagreed, you'd be a hung group. Right? There's as many labor representatives as there are board members, management, and superintendent being proposed. So it just seems, especially since it's voting, and I know they're just bringing it

1:38:57 to recommendation, but it feels pretty weighted. Maya? One of the things that we talked about, though we didn't make any decisions because we don't know what the membership is yet. Totally. But one of the things that we talked about is that in order for this work to be successful, it really has to be rooted in consensus, if not unanimous decision-making. We can't force people to engage in a different process. So we also wanted one of our expectations to be that if we get to the point in this process that we're like, "We're not agreeing on anything," we always have the status quo of what we've done before. So the voting component is there,

1:39:45 but I don't know that that's the mechanism by which we would make decisions around our recommendations. Does that make sense? It makes sense. I think it's- If you look, so the charge of this group is we're going to be sharing what went well, what didn't go well from each of the negotiations, and then we'll be doing some research on possible ways other people do negotiations. Some possible alternatives, ways to improve it, and then we're going to actually talk about recommendations. Those recommendations are merely recommendations that come to

1:40:30 the board to vote on. The school board is going to be the group that is going to decide or choose recommendations. So I don't see the group necessarily voting. We will be producing recommendations, and if there's different recommendations, we could bring those all to the board. I don't know if that helps, but the voting will happen here as a board. I recognize we're the people who make the decision. I recognize that, and this is just a recommendation that's coming forward. I also recognize that our management team that does labor negotiations are some of

1:41:15 our highest people who have very busy jobs. While this is also important, I don't want to presume onto their time also. It just seems like a significantly different number of people on either at the table. I'd like to say something here. Go ahead, Tom. My expectation is that I think that there's real strength in having that many people at the table with all those perspectives. And my presumption is that all the people that come to this table will be consulting with all the teams, all the

1:42:02 negotiating teams, all the officers and those particular organizations, our employee groups, ourselves, staff, people that were involved in it, and then to come back, and I see a real strength in that. And I don't see just the voices at the table, or I don't think we're only going to be hearing from just the voices at the table. I think all those voices at the table will be echoing all the consultations that they've had with the people that they're representing or working with. That's my expectation. Jenny? I'm okay with the composition of membership because not only

1:42:50 do we know before we get the recommendations what that membership was. But I guess as long as I've been on the board, it feels like we've been involved in some level of bargaining that's constrained our ability to communicate with our employee groups. And so to me, having insights from the different employee groups about what the experience has been like feels really invaluable to me. It feels like something that I wish we had the benefit of. And so having that before we have to go into another bargaining cycle, even if that means it's weighted more in that direction, I want to know what those insights, I want to know what that feedback is. Maya? Oh, gosh, I've had this sitting on.

1:43:35 Morgan, I was just doing a little bit of the math, and if we take maps out of it because they're a weird category because they don't bargain their contract- Yeah ... we would have six Folks who represent the labor side of negotiations, and then we would have six people who represent the management side, because we'd have three board members, the superintendent, and two bargaining team members. So if anything, those MAPS folks kind of waver between the categories, if that makes sense. But if you're looking at it in terms of how bargaining happens with two sides of the table, we have the same number

1:44:22 from both sides. If it is a concern, you can also have any vote be subject to a higher percentage of votes to have something go into effect, right? Maya already talked about it being consensus. Okay. But I'm just saying if you wanted to formalize that in some way. Right. Well, that's the question, I would say, is that piece of it, is understanding that. And also, I think anytime we're talking about bargaining, whether it's actual bargaining or whether we're talking about bargaining, just the natural challenge of posturing, the natural challenge of figuring out how to navigate those relationships, all of that's going to happen. I agree it's helpful to get the input and the insight.

1:45:08 It just seems like a... I get what's being proposed. I understand it. Everyone's asking if I understand. I understand it. In terms of the process, for example, we're going to be hearing about each bargaining group because their experiences were really different, and in that presentation, there'd be two district people and two representatives from that. So that would be balanced. And none of the employee groups, so it will be balanced in terms of getting the feedback from the actual experience

1:45:54 with two and two. And I do like your idea. I envision the recommendations we make will be by consensus, but I'm happy to add something that we would come to consensus on our recommendations or, if there are differences of opinion, bring that back to the board, that conversation. And also, whatever the recommendation is, we can't make that decision ubiquitously as a board anyway. We can't be like, "This is what..." We don't get to make that decision. The

1:46:40 success of this work really relies on the digging in and getting to a place where we all are recognizing the importance of making the changes, if we decide that's the case. But we can't determine what bargaining will look like just by ourselves. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Anyone else? Do we have a motion? Anyone have a motion? Were you going to make a motion, Maya? I don't have one written up, but I'll try. It's just a question of

1:47:27 membership, is that correct, for the motion? I move that we approve having the membership of the Ad Hoc Workforce Negotiation Board Subcommittee be made up of three board representatives, the superintendent, two representatives of management leadership, and two representatives of EAST, OSEA, EEA, and MAPS. And do we have a second? Okay, Jenny. So it was moved by Maya and seconded by Jenny. Do I need to restate the motion?

1:48:17 We were moving that this Ad Hoc Committee will be made up of three board members, the superintendent, two district leadership bargaining employees, and then two members each from EEA, OSEA, MAPS, and EAST. Okay. All right. All those in favor, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Okay. Opposed? Morgan? Okay. So we have yes votes from Tom DiLiberto, Rick Hamilton, Maya Rabasa, Jenny Jonak, Judy Newman, and myself, Erica Fessen, and we have a no vote from

1:49:02 Morgan Monroe. All right. Looks like the proposal... Yes. I have a quick question. Yes. For the debrief or the presentations that we hear from, will that be public in any way, or will we get some... Because I'd love to also just hear the raw information. Oh. I believe it's public notice- Yeah ... so it's- Okay ... available. All those things. So maybe we can just figure out the dates, because there may be other board members who aren't on the committee, but we'd love to watch and hear. Yeah, that would be great. Yes, Judy. So the first meeting is going to be August 17th, and at that meeting, we will be deciding our process, and I will just want to say to the board, I'm

1:49:49 going to carry forward, because together we're going to... The superintendent and I talked about some possible ... processes we can use. We're going to bring it to the group. And also, I will share that our preference as a board, or we'd like to come, when we make recommendations, we'll function coming to some consensus. Which to me, will contribute to the success of how we go forward anyhow, because we're all involved. So it's to everyone's benefit to want to communicate and come up with something that is good for everyone, and we'll be communicating that. So I just will make sure that gets communicated as part of the process. Thank you all. Excellent. Thank you very much, Judy. I appreciate it.

1:50:36 So our next item is talking about meetings between board members and employee groups. So, we've talked about scheduling monthly meetings with the employee groups. So I reached out to leadership for EEA, OSEA, and MAPS, to ask them what is their preference, what would they be looking for. So, when I heard back from MAPS, they said that they were interested in monthly, just meeting with board leadership and the superintendent. When I heard back from OSEA, their preference was monthly board meetings with board leadership and the superintendent. When I reached out to OSEA, I mean EEA, hello Jamie,

1:51:21 their preference at the moment is for them to meet monthly with just board leadership. So what I'm trying to figure out is, what are your thoughts? What do you guys want? What are we all feeling comfortable with to move forward as a model for this year? So what we would be doing this year does not mean that this is what we're doing every year. This is something we can continue to look at. And then also, I think in years past, we had something set up. It wasn't working, the employee groups made a change. It's not like it's set in stone, and we absolutely have to do this and only this for all of time. But, I just wanted to get some thoughts from you all on how you're feeling about that. So, basically MAPS and OSEA has the same preference.

1:52:06 EEA has a little bit of a different preference, but Jamie's here and we're able to chat. But yes, Jenny? I think we've had a while where we haven't had these meetings, and we're not in a bargaining situation right now. I'd really like to have the meetings, and I think if an employee group requests something like that, we should try to honor it, understanding that there may be questions or operational issues that are out of our purview that we can't answer or address without involving the superintendent if that comes up. Morgan? I think last time we did these when it wasn't bargaining, right, but long ago, three years ago. The vast majority of what was talked about was

1:52:54 stuff that was the superintendent. And so that's where I had that hiccup for me is that space of recognizing that so much of what came up then was things that were very much not board as what-- Really, they were superintendent things, and you'd come back from those meetings with a list that you could give to the superintendent. But that really was like, it felt awkward. It felt like a game of telephone. And so I don't know how to navigate that, but I think having the superintendent there is very helpful because you actually know the day to day.

1:53:39 And so that's that piece of it, so... I've got something. Go ahead, Tom. Yeah. First of all, I should say that I completely understand wanting to just talk with the board. That was my view when I was a teacher and a teacher leader as well. But we had a different superintendent then. The dynamics were different in our school district. But I still see it as a useful mechanism, and I do see how there's worth in that coming from an

1:54:24 employee group's perspective. That makes sense to me and I'm willing to honor that, even though I think Morgan makes a good point, that I think we all felt some frustration when we were in groups and they'd say something that could be better in our district. And I would just love to be able to ask the superintendent, "Well, what about that? What's going on?" But there is a feeling, I think it's a valuable conduit that I do understand and would like to respect if an employee group would prefer that the superintendent not be there at that time.

1:55:09 But I also want to echo what Jenny is saying. I think it's extremely important for us to meet with employee groups. And this year we're not bargaining. We really don't have an excuse not to, I think. I think good boards listen to their employee groups, and this is a really great way to do it in over coffee or in an informal way. I see it as a valuable opportunity I don't want to miss. Can I say a quick word on timeline? The EEA contract ends June 2027, and we will begin prepping for it, at least management in December, and likely the

1:55:54 bargaining conversations will probably happen in the springtime, right? Yeah. I don't know. Does the board have-- Is there a motion? Do we want to chat with Jamie? How is everybody feeling about... I'm also happy to share- Yes, please ... my preference. Yes. Yes. My preference would be to participate in the conversation. And of course, I respect that EEA wanted to just have that conversation with the board, but I think about what is the purpose of these meetings and what is the role of the board.

1:56:42 The role of the board is governance. The role of the board is to evaluate the superintendent, and you develop policy for the district. And even with policy, there is a superintendent support group that supports the work around policy. I do feel that having me participating in the conversation makes the meetings more productive, and we're avoiding triangulation, and it probably will be richer, because if something is brought up and I am there, then the board can ask clarifying question, and then it turns into, hopefully, a productive conversation. I would venture to guess that many of the topics that will come up will be operational.

1:57:30 Because, again, of the limited scope of the board's role, I don't know if the conversation will strictly be about policy. If it is about the superintendent, that is one thing. Anybody can always go to the school board, right, and share concerns about the superintendent. And it is in my contract, I'll just point out, that if there is a concern about the superintendent, that the board will bring that to me, so that I can grow and get better. And so that would be my preference, is to participate in the conversation. And I think also, since we are a district that is

1:58:15 wanting to heal and come together, it sends a very strong message to the organization when you have leaders in the district, the superintendent, association leaders, and the school board coming together and talking about topics that are important to the district. I don't know. Do you want to come up and speak? Yeah. Tonight is just like-- Because we had our planning meeting before this, and we'll be doing more of our planning meeting after this. I feel like it's very collaborative. Come up and chat and talk to us about how your feel- I'm never quite sure what the rules are- Oh ... when I'm here. But I think,

1:59:02 first of all, just to clarify, that my first reaction to the question was including superintendent as part of the conversation. So we're not opposed to that. However, this past year, because I've been very new to this role and things happened mid-year, there just wasn't a regular, consistent meeting that had been set up and already in place. But when you go back a year prior, before you joined us, Dr. Michaelson, that year had started out with EEA leadership and board leadership and the superintendent, and our former EEA president actually halted those meetings partway through the year

1:59:49 because she found that they were not productive meetings, that they were repetitive, that because EEA also has monthly meetings with the superintendent, it didn't feel like a great use of everybody's time. So pulling all that together and consulting with our vice president, we thought, "Well, maybe a good thing to do would be to revert to the previous practice," going a few years further back, where it had been just EEA and board leadership. So that's in my response to Chair Thessen's request. That's what we put forward. But also, in the spirit of collaboration and community, we are willing to entertain

2:00:35 other configurations if that's what works best for the board leadership and for you. So... Yes. Go ahead, Morgan. One of the repetition pieces also was we traded which board members were there, and I think it probably felt like you had to-- It would've felt to me, if I was in that situation, that you had to start the same conversation over and over again. Because you said with meeting with board leadership, and so having consistent people, I hope would help with that as well. Because it did feel kind of like, "Oh, I've had this conversa--" It struck me as if that was part, and that just sounded so hard. And that could be so. I think I was present for one of those meetings, so I can't really speak to it not having been at the table at

2:01:23 those. But that's certainly possible. Yes, go ahead, Judy. First of all, thanks. That was a very gracious response. It seems that given what we're trying to accomplish this year, all be on the same team, I really appreciate honoring the preference of all meeting together, but also saying if anyone feels this is repetitive or not useful, can we revisit it? I don't think anyone, especially these days, should be wasting time. So superintendent, if you find the repetitive or you, because you two would be the most likely, or the leadership, please,

2:02:10 let's change it. That would be my hope I appreciate that, Judy, and I would hope that any of us who are attending these meetings would feel free to say, "This format isn't working," or the frequency, or whatever it might be. And I'll own, I'm still learning how to do the job that I'm doing right now, so I'm still taking giant leaps of learning all the time. So, we can work together to find the right fit, I think. All right. Jenny? This could have been because we last met when I was pretty new to the board, but part of what I did like about the structure of our prior meetings was really just getting a chance to relationship develop-

2:02:55 Mm-hmm ... with our employee groups. And to that end, I liked it when we had completely rotating, like all three, I remember doing the charts myself to make sure everybody had an equal number of meetings. And I think that's pretty important, because otherwise, I think there's not maybe a lot of exposure for some board members versus others with employee group voices, and that's so important for everybody to hear from. So, I am not really wedded to who has to be included in a meeting, except that I would want board membership to really rotate on who attends those. Go ahead. I totally understand what you're saying, and I also recognize that

2:03:43 all three employee groups, that was the one thing we requested not to have, because it was reported back that people either didn't show up, and that didn't feel good, and that because there was such a lack of repeating the meeting, that the relationships didn't get built the way that hopes had been set for. So I totally understand what you're saying. I do want to just clarify, so no superintendent is not a deal breaker? No. Okay. Awesome. No. I love to hear that. If the board came back and said, "We really feel strongly we would like to have the superintendent present at the meetings," EEA will agree to meet with you. We won't walk away. Yeah, and I'll just say, I'm fine. I

2:04:31 think my gut is honor whatever the employee groups want as the meeting terms, because our number one goal is relationship building and reestablishing those ties of communication. Yeah. Go ahead, Judy. Just one other suggestion. So maybe at one of your meetings you could talk about, say, because I agree with Jenny, but I also honor you might be more productive with the same membership. Is there a way other board members could build relationships or there could be other ideas. So I just ask to put that on the agenda sometime, and knowing that we all would like to do that, and maybe there's some other ways. Yeah. One of the things I'll share is when I was the new board member, and I was just trying to learn as much stuff as possible,

2:05:17 the former EEA president and I ended up reading a book together. So we both read "Street Data", and then we would meet every six weeks, over pizza, and just talk about... So it wasn't anything about district operation, you know what I mean? Or bargaining or anything. It was literally like, "Is this doable? What would this look like in real life?" kind of things. So, I don't necessarily know if this year's the year for us to think about doing that, but I do think that we can think of really creative ways to work on those relationships. And one of the questions that I had, is as we do this, say we decide that for all three employee groups, the board leadership and the superintendent will

2:06:02 meet monthly or every four to six weeks. How do we disseminate the information to all of you? Because I want to make sure that our time is well spent with you and that things are getting disseminated out. So I just really wanted to get some feedback from all of you about what would that look like for you, and what do you need, I guess is the other question. And I would also make sure we're not doing a serial meeting, would be that other piece of it. There's that. Maybe if you want to bring an idea forward and reflect on what that could look like, because I think try to get all the good without overstepping. Yeah. One way, perhaps, to ensure that there's transparency and

2:06:47 communication on the rest of the board is at least apprise of what's discussed, but avoid serial meetings is I could include an FYI in the weekly superintendent memo to the board, and it's just here are the things that were discussed. FYI only. Yeah. And you do a really good job of not replying all or just having those conversations outside of public meetings. Maya? I love the method that you just described, partly because the audience for that isn't just the board, it's also the employee group, so it kind of has a little accountability component to it. Like, "No, you didn't understand," or else like, "Yep, you got it." Kind of gives an opportunity to double-check.

2:07:32 Go ahead, Jenny. Sue, there may sometimes come up issues where there's either a confidential component or someone's going to feel outed if that shows up in a memo. So I think there will just have to be some sensitivity to that. And I think that's something that we can make sure to share with all the employee group leadership is- Mm-hmm ... what is the level of this certain sensitive issues level shared out. Yes, go ahead, Morgan. And with Miriam putting it together, what Dr. Mickelson can filter through, that difference between things that might be deliberative, things that are coming up, topics. Because there's plenty of topics that can be shared and in no way, shape, or form, cross any OGEIC lines. And it

2:08:19 would be great because you Have a clear-- you see all the things that are coming, and so that would be nice also, just so that gets extra careful. Because thank you. Does any- OGEC. Yes. Oh, our lives are OGEC-ed. For the people in the audience, the Office of Government Ethics Commission. Yes. Which, yes, helps answer lots of questions when we are not entirely certain to make sure we are following statute and law. Does anyone have a motion? Do we need a motion, or is this like a without objection? Yeah, like a without objection.

2:09:04 Yeah. I do appreciate that EDA had a divergent request. I do personally support keeping it consistent, mostly because I feel like one of the main things I've heard since before I was ever even on the board as a critique of 4J is the siloing that happens. And just in the name of that relationship building and trying to eliminate silos, I would encourage us to go for the board leadership to honor that component and not do the rotating, but then include the superintendent,

2:09:50 barring feedback that says this isn't working. I think expressly, make sure when we have these meetings to say, "If this is ever not working, you let us know-" Yeah ... "and we will talk about how we can make it work okay." Because at the end of the day, this is all about relationship. And we just need all the employee groups for you guys to understand that we are ultimately partners in the success of this district and our students, and our employees' wellbeing. Rick, did you have something? No, I'm listening and I like the idea. I turned it on you. No. But I like

2:10:35 the idea of if the superintendent can show, I think that's great that the leadership would be able to meet together like that. Because like you said, the majority of what will probably be discussed will be just that functionality of the district. So although I know part of the reason why some of those things kind of fell off the bandwagon, there was a lot of things going on that year. Mm-hmm. A lot of things going on. So I give a lot of credit to that particular time,

2:11:20 that there was a lot of stuff going on. So I'm taking it that we-- Is everyone feeling like we can do this by consensus, so we don't need a motion? Is that... Okay. Well, I'm looking very forward to... Todd? Okay. So looks like we'll move forward this year with meeting monthly or every four to six weeks with board leadership and the superintendent and each one of our three employee groups' leadership. Hey, thank you for letting me just randomly call you up. I love speaking into microphones. Excellent. So it looks like now

2:12:05 we have notice to move into executive session. So do I need to read the preamble here or in the next room? In the next room. In the next room. All right. We- Sorry, you have to announce here- Okay ... before we break. Okay. So the board will now convene in executive session to consult with counsel regarding the legal rights and duties of a public body with regard to current litigation or litigation likely to be filed, pursuant to ORS 192.662 (2) , and to consider records or information that are exempt from law from public inspection, pursuant to ORS 192.660 (2) . All right. We will be in executive session, and then we will be back.

2:12:54 Okay. Hello, listening audience, viewing audience. We are back for the remainder of the regular board meeting. Let's move on to items for action at a future meeting. So we have two items for action at a future meeting. One of them is board meeting agenda planning, whether or not to have a rotating board member. So during our June 22nd planning meeting, the board talked about the possibility of adding a rotating board member to board leadership meetings. We meet twice a month where we set the agenda for our board meetings. So we have policies about this, and there's Board Policy BDDC.

2:13:40 There's also some rules about this enshrined in our board working agreements. I did send an email, or a request to OGEC, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, to ask them, basically, I just said we're a board of seven, four is a quorum. We have these agenda planning meetings, which are the superintendent, board chair, vice chair, should anything happen where the board chair cannot be in attendance at a meeting, and then chief of staff. And if what we're doing is looking at planning the meeting, like how many minutes for each topic, how many topics will be addressed, business will be done in each meeting,

2:14:26 does that violate- The Oregon Public Meeting Laws. So, OGA has three separate levels of answers to questions. So basically, this was a low-level review and the lowest level of answer back. If you need more, then there's two separate processes. Each process takes progressively longer periods of time. This was the shortest turnaround. The response from OGAC said that so long as these agenda planning meetings and any related communications do not expand beyond the three board members, they would not involve a quorum and would not be in violation of, or subject to, Oregon Public Meeting Laws.

2:15:12 When we do have an agenda planning meeting, board leadership meeting, Miriam shares the agenda with the whole board via email, usually that evening, almost always that evening. So then the content of the agenda is made public via public notice emails and posting on the district website, which is the same agenda that we're using during our board meetings. So I wasn't sure if Dr. Nicholson or our counsel had anything extra to add while we're in this setting, but I was going to let you speak. The only thing that I will add is I just want to emphasize that most of the time,

2:15:57 the agenda setting is straightforward, and it really should be straightforward. You're just talking about what goes into what are the agenda items that we are going to put into this agenda for this particular scheduled meeting, how much time do we allocate? No substantive discussion whatsoever during the agenda-setting meetings. The other piece that I would like to add is that most of the time, the agenda items are set by requirements, by the state, or things that we routinely have to discuss. So for example, there's a Division 22 report due to the board in November, so it's there. So it adds to this element of agenda setting being

2:16:42 straightforward because some of the agenda items really should be there included by requirements and things. Does anyone have any questions, discussion? This is something that'll come back at our next meeting about-- Currently, the practice that we have is that it is just board leadership and that we do not have a rotating board member, and we made that change, was it the beginning of last year? Middle of last year. Okay. When we got some advice from our counsel. So, the question is, do we continue with the practice that we're currently doing, or do we make a change and bring back a rotating

2:17:28 third board member? But I just didn't know. Does anyone else have anything they want to talk about? Any questions, any topic on this? Yeah, Maya. Just to make sure that we're clear and that the community understands, technically right now, it's the superintendent and the board chair, and then the vice chair is there at the invitation of the chair. Okay. Anything else? All right. We will be discussing this again at our August 19th board meeting. The next item for action at a future meeting is Consider Approval of the

2:18:15 District Organizational Chart, and our presenter is Dr. Nicholson. You have the floor. Thank you so much, Chair Thesson. So as the board is aware, hiring and retaining staff outside of the superintendent position, of course, falls under the superintendent's operational authority. However, Policy CCB requires board approval of direct lines of authority, and that is why the org chart comes to you for approval every year. Very quickly, a few notes on the org chart that I am presenting to you for first read today. This is very high level, and it shows only direct lines of authority, meaning direct reports to the superintendent and who and what they are responsible for. It also reflects the executive leadership

2:19:02 budget-related reductions that I presented to the board last year. Specifically, we went from having a chief of staff, a chief of operations, and four assistant superintendents down to this new school year, just three. Chief of staff, chief of operations, and one assistant superintendent. These are the executive level leadership team members reporting directly to me, the superintendent. So the org chart just formalizes the budget reduction specified last year at this level. The core leadership team made up of me, chief of staff, chief of operations, and assistant superintendent, we meet weekly for decision-making with the superintendent, myself, holding final

2:19:48 authority on operational matters. So once the board approves the structure, we will publish a version on the website that includes names, because what you're approving right now is just positions. So at least the community has clarity on who holds what role, and I'll make sure, of course, that the board has access to that same information. Beyond the core leadership team, I've also formed superintendent's cabinet, which meets weekly to provide input and insight, and I've also formed several other advisory groups, like the principal advisory group to the superintendent, to support collaboration and ensure that decisions that we make at my level are well thought out and well-informed. And separately, and this is outside of the board's approval process,

2:20:37 I just wanted to let the board know that we're developing more detailed department staffing information meant to help staff understand who's who across departments and know exactly who to contact for support, especially next year with reduced staffing. It's still in progress, but we hope to have it ready when staff return. So tonight, this is just first read for the board, and we'll bring it back for action at the next meeting so you have time to ask questions and request any additional information. Does anyone have any questions? Tom, anything? No? Okay. All right. Well, then we'll see that back on the August 19th board meeting

2:21:23 where we'll vote on the revised organizational chart. Okay. Now, committee reports by individual board members. So next on the agenda, we have committee reports from the legislative committee that just met. All right, I'll let you take the floor. Okay. The legislative committee just met this week, and I think I got appointed as chair. And so we are getting information from our legislators to get a date set for the breakfast. And we did talk about the goals. We haven't seen-- We

2:22:08 sort of revised, I think, one or two of them, and at our next meeting, we'll bring them to the board. I think they haven't been completely edited yet. So show them to the committee and then the board. And we're going to meet again in a couple of weeks to try to get a date and finalize those goals. And I think in a perfect world, we were kind of hoping we could do the legislative breakfast maybe in December because there's an election. We're looking at the end of November, beginning of December, the beginning of January. What we're doing is checking with legislators to see what would make the most sense.

2:22:56 And previously, we had planned on having breakfast in October, but there's a conflict with the EA because they also have their legislative breakfast annual in October, and we decided that it probably would be best until after elections to hold the breakfast. Any other committee reports? I don't have a committee report, but do you want to ask people to take two minutes to mark their- Yes ... committee sheets so you get that info? Yes. Go ahead. And I already got an email from Jenny. So if you guys want to mark your sheets of looking over the committees and what does your heart desire for the committee

2:23:44 that you most want to be on, and then Maya and I will work diligently to get those assignments to everyone and let you know. I will give you a few minutes while I color. Because what's great is I already know my preferences. I mostly think we're going to shoot the best with Tom.

2:24:41 Go ahead. Yeah. Right. And be able to leave. I keep them base heavy because there's something base heavy. That's just my heartbeat.

2:26:01 Can I give you guys a few more minutes? Awesome. Well, I think it's okay. Great.

2:26:47 Last. Last year. Yes, it is. Erica? You're on late, yes. I should've been on- Are we going to be discussing them? You want to hear these orally in addition to the ones that we're sending you via email? Say that one more time. I'm sorry. Are we going to be discussing them tonight as well, or are you just going to take them in via email and then try to sort them out? Yeah, I was just going to look at them and get back to everyone on email. Okay. The one thing we did not discuss is do we want any sunsetted things to come back or if we want to stick with the current committees as they are.

2:27:36 And I realize why some of these were sunsetted is, at the moment, we just don't really have the capacity and bandwidth for things like community engagement. We're weaving community engagement through so many things, but I think a really part of, from what I somewhat remember, is that we sunsetted it because we just don't have the staff capacity to do a huge project, something more like we did a couple of years ago. Right. That was my understanding as well. Do we want to move on to considerer board requests for agenda items or information? All right. Does anyone have

2:28:21 anything? Yes, Morgan. I have wildfire-related questions and smoke that were probably best suited to a Friday memo. And so there are things like we currently have high school sports teams doing summer practices, and what are some of the protocols around that? How do we navigate those situations? We have facilities projects that are vital and exciting and involve humans being outside, and so how do we navigate that to make sure staff are safe, and is there anything needed to help keep those projects going? School start planning. We had a year where we couldn't start school because there was so much smoke, and so just understanding what the plan is if that happens. And also, we have some buildings that are very

2:29:07 challenging to be in when the smoke is high, and the heat is high. I know that we have some new AC that went into schools this summer, which is very exciting and should really help, but just understanding sort of what that looks like as staff and children are returning to school. Hopefully, it will be done, but maybe it won't. May I add something onto that? Because I do think I remember from years past, but maybe just a clarification that should we need shelter space or some sort of an emergency reunification or something, I was fairly certain that the-- I remember when Churchill was a site of a shelter for people that lost housing in the Holiday Fire.

2:29:54 But just kind of a reminder of where we fit in sort of emergency planning with Lane County at blah, blah, blah. I'll include it in a future Friday memo. Anyone have anything else? So for the good of the order, I was going to give an example for good of the order, and it sounds like you also have it. Anyone for good of the order, I was going to say that Project HOPE, which provides backpacks to students at all of the Lane County schools, the sign-ups for that should open sort of second to third week of August. So for families that are definitely needing help with being able to get back-to-school supplies,

2:30:42 backpacks, shoes, those types of things, it's worth going to the Project HOPE website, signing up for their newsletter so that you can find out when. It'll discuss on there what are the eligibility requirements. Judy. Is that something we can put on our website? Yes. Yeah. Sounds like it is. Great. Excellent. Because everyone doesn't listen to our meetings. No, I know. Thank you for putting it on the website. That's a good resource. Do you have a good of the order? My good of the order is just to humor me and play the game before we start the last part of our retreat. I love that. Anything else?

2:31:31 Okay. And then remind me, given that this is my first and such an unusual thing, do I need to gavel us out of this meeting and then-- Oh, okay. I just wanted to make sure. All right. I adjourn this regular board- We're not- Not yet. No. We finished the last- We have to go back to the working agreement. Okay. Hi. All right. So we are now finished with the regular board meeting, but we are going to go back to our planning meeting to finish working on working agreements. Okay. Well, yes, I'm insisting that we do this partly because I made my daughter prepare this- ... so when I get home and she asks how it goes, I need to be able to report back.

2:32:16 I also anticipated that we might have a little bit more stickiness around some of the work that we did with goals and working agreements, so I was ready for us to kind of think about problem-solving in a different way. I'm delighted to say that now we can just do this mostly because it's just going to be fun. I have enough for five partners. And with the board and with Dr. Mickelsen, I'm not going to do it because I know how to do it. Has anybody here done the yarn knot game? I don't know specifically the sources of strength. You are not game? Okay. Well, if you find yourself knowing- I'd love to know ... speak up. I just kept my mouth shut. Okay. That works, too. So can anybody else, I'm looking at you, Jamie. Does somebody want to be a partner with Jamie?

2:33:01 Oh, Bob, you looked up so fast. I'm so sorry. Oh. But the teacher in me sees that eye contact. I'll do it. Whatever. Yay. Awesome. Well, if anybody else wants to do the last pair. Are we standing up? We are standing up. Okay. This is another moving around one. You are each going to get a piece of yarn that you hold it. Wow, very much. Here we go, Bob. Oh. Here we go, Morgan. Sure. Jenny. Jamie. Look at me practicing everybody's names. Miriam. How many purple do we have now?

2:33:49 I want- We have three purples, and we have three greens ... one better So we need one more green and one more purple. Anybody else? Come on, I have more pairs. The more the merrier. Come on. Oh, I'm the observer. Okay. Okay, fine. Okay. Well, actually, you're going to need to hold this because I'm going to need to show you what you're going to do. So you're going to take your yarn, and everybody that has a purple one, put your two hands through it. Now you need to find somebody with a green one to match up with. So pick a green. Purple and green. Yes, sir. Mm-hmm. Okay, now the person with the green one, you're going to loop it through here- Under ... and then put your hands through it. So you're hooked.

2:34:37 Okay? All right. So now you're hooked. Morgan, do you know this? Okay. So you guys can give each other some space, because you're going to be moving around, and now what you guys are going to do is separate. Come apart. You cannot bite it, you can't rip it, you can't pull it, you can't break it, you can't cut it, you can't take your hands out of it. No. So get started. I don't know this.

2:35:49 These two are having way too much fun. I know. Rick and Morgan. All right, so part of this is learning how to ask for help or take help. Do you guys want to be the people that get the help so then we can offer it?

2:36:55 Okay. So part of this exercise, I would let you just do this forever, but we don't have time necessarily. But part of it is also recognizing when you need help, and asking for help, and also being somebody that's willing to give help. So Jenny and Judy can help if you want help, but you can also keep at it, struggling with it if you want.

2:38:48 I'm trying. You're darn. If you would like to, please take your own challenge home. I've done that. Wow. I student challenged you. Can I go home? I'll give you the students. Let's give you the students. She has a whole deck. Sometimes it's not your grandfathers, but it's your- That's incredible. Mm-hmm. Husbands. Anybody else want some? I'll take one. I figured the people with kids- We'll make Amy Rose and Joshua, because he's, of course, the teacher of the year. Teacher of the year. Nice. Yeah, he's very excited. Okay. Now does everybody feel so ready to

2:39:33 tackle the challenge of working agreements? Thinking differently, being able to ask for help, accept help. There's always a way out. I just threw- Yeah. ... my words of wisdom and encouragement to us all. There's always a way out, so let us not catastrophize. We can look at something, and it looks like, "Oh my gosh. How do we do this?" Especially when you ask for help. There you go. And sometimes when things feel really hard, it feels like the only answer is to just break it and start over. But it's not. That's not always the answer. So, yeah.

2:40:20 That was fun. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. Very much. I hope that the people you challenge with it enjoy it as well. If you want to pull out your stuff about working agreements again, that would be great. I'm going to assume that we are... Or I'm not going to assume, I'm going to ask and check in. We already said no to proposal four. Thank you. And I think that we are also, if I'm seeing correctly, no objection to eliminating proposal three. Nobody wants to do a deep dive and start over? Awesome. Excellent. So, to explain number one again in a way that I hope might work a little bit better, I'm going to

2:41:06 just want to remind everybody that a few working agreements ago, we had this document that was very robust, very long, very detailed, and really very helpful when you wanted to understand all of the different rules and parameters around board behavior and board expectations and board relations. With that document, we then moved into the space we have now with our current working agreements, which were almost halved. The previous one had 42, off the top of my head. This one has 24, off the top of my head. So in that process, we eliminated a lot of stuff from that

2:41:54 document that actually is incredibly important and incredibly useful. And as it stands now, that document just lives in people's Google files or folders, because it's not an official 4J document as it stands. What I propose that we do is resurrect that document in combination with our current working agreements and create something that can be used as a training document, but also as a retraining for board members who just need a primer or another review annually. In place of that, I think Jenny called it words of affirmation or statement of affirmation. I would propose that we generate

2:42:40 a handful of statements of affirmation around how we commit to coming into this space together. So that would preserve that other document, but with a different function, and it would not preclude us from having to follow all of those things. None of those things that are listed in those two documents, the current and the previous working agreements, are things that we don't find in policy and statute. So by not including them under the category of working agreements, we're not saying that we're no longer going to do those things. We're still developing our

2:43:26 agenda-setting items, for example, in that capacity. So do we still want to preserve a huge document as working agreements, or do we want to move towards something a little bit simplified, and then allow that other document to remain robust and even revert back to some of the thoroughness of the previous document? Hi, Jenny. I guess to me, it depends on what we see the purpose of the document. If the purpose of the document is really informative, especially in contemplation that we might have a new board member at some point, and it's more

2:44:13 informational, then I think the thoroughness can be really helpful. If it's more just an understanding among us as to how we plan to conduct meetings over the next year, then I feel like it could be much simpler. Yeah. Morgan? I really like keeping the detail somewhere. Because I think one of the things that can happen when what you just go down to are the positive statements, is that my version of Being curious can look like asking obsessive questions, which some people might not find very welcoming, or it might take a lot of time. And so I think that's a space where

2:45:00 keeping the details somewhere I think is really helpful, especially because so often the positive declarative statements are so deeply subjective. So that would be a space just to keep in mind. I think they're lovely and nice, and I think it's also helpful to have the detail behind it. And I don't necessarily care what they're called, so that's fine. It's just that space of... For example, the work I do, a lot of people have many different definitions of what is professional, and then I get to have a lot more work. And so just that space of how we navigate that I think of just to keep in

2:45:46 mind that they are very much in the eye of the beholder. Yeah, Judy. So just to clarify that, what did you call it? The previous hefty document is this one that's four pages. Is that what we're saying? So we're throwing this one out. No. Nothing is getting thrown away- Okay ... at all in the suggestion. So I guess the suggestion comes down to two things: maintaining that, but just making sure it is aligned with the changes we made last year, and maybe polished a little bit so that it could get linked to the

2:46:31 places where those things come from, be it policy or statute. Or combining that with the document that had been previously generated. I think it was you and Martina who initiated that big document- It was Martina ... which is full of a lot of really important information, that when you hold that up next to that other one, in order to reduce it, we left out a lot of really great things. So I'm trying to figure out how to preserve the work that had been previously done in that very long document of 42, in a space that doesn't then require us to be aware of what all the things are in

2:47:17 all 42 of those things off the top of our heads. Because to me, it feels very uncomfortable when somebody asks me what my working agreements are, and I can't tell them. Mm-hmm. I feel really uncomfortable. Or when somebody says, "Isn't that your policy?" And I'm like, "It's either policy or working agreements. I'm not sure, or both." So what I was trying to tease apart was having a document that could be robust without compromising our understanding of our expectations of each other. Having been intimately involved with that last iteration, when Martina and I worked on that one together, there's going to be stuff in there that is totally not relevant. There might've been some things we lost.

2:48:03 Actually, I read this. I think this is pretty up to date. I did have one question. So, I'm not opposed to adding or doing this document about these affirmations, whatever we're going to call them. But I don't know what we're going to title this, and I think I read in your proposal we would review them once a year, and new board members would have that orientation. So, there still in a way would be working agreements, and then we'd have these affirmations of how we are with... I don't know what you're going to call it, but training materials? I don't know. Relevant board policies. I don't know.

2:48:49 There's lots of things that it could be called. And then it would live where? On the internet. In Jenny's Google Drive? No. I'm just trying to get practical, so it would live somewhere. If I'm a new member, I want to refer to them, it would have that kind of information that I might want to refer back to like, "Oh, how do I get an item on the agenda?" Or- Right ... "What do I do if the media contacts me?" Or something. Exactly. Yeah. The where does it live question to me is kind of an operations question. I don't know that Kelly wants me starting to figure out where things go.

2:49:37 I wonder if we can put it on the district website under the board webpage. Yeah. Why not? I was thinking the same thing. Why don't you put it maybe in BoardBook? It's also in LinkMaker. So Lisa's holding up something for me to show maybe even just the visual of why when I was looking at our current agreements, it'll show you. We don't have to dig into it, because it's definitely a map into my brain. But if you see that every single thing on there that has a highlighted pink is found in policy. I just made it, like, two days ago.

2:50:22 Oh, I thought you shared with us what the- This was with the one that had the 42. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But now we currently still have working agreements that are rooted in these other things. But while we have those working agreements, I don't think any of us have found a way, maybe people have, and I would love to have somebody give me a lesson, figured out a way to Unless we delineate, answer those questions of what are these and where do they come from? So when somebody says to me, again, "Don't you guys have this policy?" And I can't answer if it's a policy or a working agreement or both, or Oregon statute or all three,

2:51:07 I don't like that, personally. I would prefer to be able to create something that has linked policies so I know. This could be my working agreement, but I want to know that it's an agreement only in name, but it's actually a requirement. Because the vast majority of these, if they have a linked thing, they're not agreements. We don't get to choose to stop at a stop sign. We got to stop at a stop sign. So all of these, we can say we agree to the rules, but I don't know that we can agree not to the rules. I was just going to say, I think what we're saying is that in the process... And again, I could try something new. This

2:51:55 is our shared understanding of those policies and rules, which I think we list, but I think they actually get operationalized a little more. And we are agreeing that we all understand the laws, the policies, and this is our shared understanding, and we're agreeing to abide by them. So that's what I sort of thought working agreements were about, and maybe what you're saying that's unnecessary, and a lot of this is unnecessary, a year or whatever that we've been working together. I get that. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. You are up in the queue. I'll put myself down after you. So I think what you're describing to me sounds more like a board manual.

2:52:43 Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think probably if you had a board manual, that would be super helpful as a new board member- Yeah ... and maybe even as an existing board member if a question pops up. Yeah. And then you can hyperlink to exactly what the source and the basis is. But I also view the working agreement as a little bit different. Mm-hmm. We don't have to agree necessarily to follow the law, because it's presumed we'll follow the law. Mm-hmm. But I think a board manual sounds like a great idea. Yeah. I love that title for that particular document. Yeah. It describes exactly what the function of it would be. I- Go ahead, Tom. Yeah. I like the specificity, having that in one spot and

2:53:30 tightening it up so we know what's what, what's a policy, what's a law. That makes sense to me. And manual seems like a good word for it. But I also like the other piece to it, the shorter section where the list of affirmations. This seems to be going in the right direction. We do want to make it easier. I think everybody wants to make it easier for new board members coming onto the board and for existing ones to find things, or to be able to just point to someone or point to a section where if someone has a question about. So I'm in favor of this.

2:54:16 I know in preparing for this, one of the things that I've done over the past several weeks is literally go to other school districts' websites, go to their board websites, and I was googling "XYZ school district board working agreements." And what was really interesting to me was that many boards don't have working agreements. They have norms. They have values. They have kind of what you're talking about, like an operational manual, but it was interesting to me. And then some boards' working agreements were things like the four agreements, like be impeccable with your word, those types of things. So it was really interesting because I was looking for other school districts to like, "What did they do?" And then I found, wow, it's very varied, but that often

2:55:02 it's more talking about norms and values. So these affirmative statements would be one thing. An operational manual, like a work manual, would be something different. But I like the idea of it being hyperlinked, because truly, there are days where it'll be like, "Is this an AR? What is this?" So I would like that to be in this working manual. Operational manual? Working manual? Board manual. Yeah. Board manual. Thank you. And then having it hyperlinked. But I really like the idea of an affirmative statement or affirmative agreement state... There you go. Yeah. So I realize now why you wanted two documents, and it just took me a few hours for my brain to figure it out.

2:55:49 Would this also encompass institutional knowledge that is operational in nature, but for the board, but not necessarily... What comes to mind is, let's say we have a complaint, and the board chair has to deal with investigations. As far as I know, that was never written down anywhere, what that whole process was, and I actually did try to work on coming up with a set of instructions and everything for that. That might be something really handy to have, even though it's not set forth in a specific policy or AR. Go ahead, Judy. I think I can get my mind around a thing like a handbook or a manual. I think that works.

2:56:37 And I would like to include things that not 100% of these things are in policy or in law. So, I keep going back to the example, but I think it's a good one we use each time. How do you get something on the agenda? So that, as far as I know, is not really codified anywhere except in our working agreements. But that was in policy. Now I need to look. Which one? How to get things on an agenda. There are probably others. It's the original board governance- Judy is right that it doesn't live in policy, but when I was looking through it, if it did live in policy, it would probably make

2:57:22 sense to add it to BBDC. But it doesn't. That's one of the things that you're absolutely right, that's not in there. But that doesn't mean that it couldn't make its way in there, for sure. I was just giving an example and supporting what Jenny said, that it should also include those things that are operational that we have worked out. Absolutely. Did you have something, Marie? No. So I don't know if everybody's had a chance to give any sort of feedback. If people want to attempt to do some

2:58:10 affirmation statements, or if they would prefer to just keep it working agreements and keep it as it is. I don't know that my brain is up for writing affirmation statements tonight, but I'm not opposed to having them in the future. I'd say the same thing. My brain is about fried tonight. But yeah, and I really like the idea of having a handbook. Really, especially for me, my brain. Anyway, it would do wonders. Are you saying that you want to play another game? No, I'm just kidding. So can I try to

2:58:55 state back what I'm hearing you guys saying? That we go for the-- We attempt this new idea of creating a manual so that all of that previous work can be recouped. Obviously, we won't put anything in place that's no longer accurate. And then in the meantime, we will look towards creating some affirmative statements. And maybe if people can come to the next meeting, if they have some types of... There's the four examples in there, but those are just examples. They don't have to be like, "We are welcoming." But if you're at homework and you're like, "Oh, this is the word. This is what I want us to think about," come to the next meeting with that

2:59:40 information. Everybody? I like that idea. I like that proposal. I'm being selfish in this one. I think it'd do me a world of good to have a manual or a handbook. That's not selfish, though. Yeah. Yeah. The amount of times I search through policy is really frequent. And then when you go to the policy, you get to the policy, and then you have to read through the policy. It would be so awesome if the policies had a cheat sheet. Mm-hmm. So then are we all on the same page? Will you kindly repeat it, Maya? Yes. Where you landed? Just making sure I'm tracking. My understanding is that the board is

3:00:28 okay with moving forward with the first proposal, where the bulkier documents, the current working agreements, as well as the previous several iterations, because there's a few of them, are used to create a board manual. Or what did you call it, Judy? Handbook. Handbook. Manual. Mm-hmm. And in turn, we will generate some statements of affirmation regarding how we come into this space to do this work. Mm-hmm. Okay. And bring that back on the 19th.

3:01:14 Not the completed manual. Yeah. Okay. Right. Okay, good. The affirmation part of it. Yes. Okay. But we come back ready to do the work of generating statements of affirmation. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. And then we will come back with the goals. Mm-hmm. So the goals will be ready to be voted on. Mm-hmm. The working agreements or statements of affirmation or whatever we want to call it- Mm-hmm ... can be two meetings down- Yeah ... for approval. Generation of those statements on the 19th. Staff can also help with a manual, of course. Yeah, I can help with that. And for the staff that wasn't listening or the community that wasn't listening, this was largely inspired by what we see our educators doing in their classroom spaces when they're generating and creating classroom

3:01:59 community spaces. It reminds me of what you were saying at the beginning, Dr. Nicholson, about less prescriptive and more room for personalized touches. And maybe this is me being hopeful, but it feels like when groups and relationships are healthy, you need less parameters. And so again, maybe I'm just being Pollyanna, but I genuinely believe that the very detailed parameters that we had in place before are not necessary. However, I don't want that work lost because it

3:02:45 was precious. It is precious. Anything else? Tom, would you give us a thumbs up? Yeah. Yeah. Can we see that? Thank you. Does it work? I was like, "Oh, there's the fireworks." Thank you, Tom. You're so easily impressed. Speaking of fireworks, before we gavel out, does anyone want to show their coloring page to fellow board members? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So precious. I need to go get that. Oh, that's cool. Working. Maya, I swear you have a sweater or a scarf knitted in that.

3:03:31 It's that raspberry one. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, but I am planning it. I am so impressed by the brains that can multitask. Look at mine. Oh, all right. Thank you, everyone. Our next meeting is going to be Wednesday, August 19th at 6:00 PM. Thanks again, everyone, for being here. This meeting is adjourned at 8:35 PM. Good job, everybody. Yay.