Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
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15:44 We can do that.
15:45 What we can do is reverse the order.
15:47 The first person goes with one person, second.
15:49 You know what I mean?
15:50 We can reverse the order.
15:51 I will always go last.
15:53 You know what I mean?
15:55 To give that window in case.
15:56 If you guys, the only question in that, the five minutes opener,
15:59 the five minute response is one thing.
16:02 The other thing is that I would say in the event that you have a
16:06 question
16:07 to something they said while the other board member is
16:09 presenting their questions,
16:10 just write it down and ask it when it is your time.
16:12 That way you don’t ask a question that takes up the other board
16:14 members’ time.
16:15 So if you guys are okay with that, then that’s okay with me.
16:18 And also consider, I mean, we do have one-on-ones too.
16:21 So if it’s like a detailed follow-up, I mean, it’s probably more
16:23 appropriate for one-on-one.
16:24 Right.
16:25 That’s what I was just going to ask, excuse me, is if we’re
16:27 going to operate off of these lists.
16:28 I mean, I have other questions I’d like to ask, but I was saving
16:30 this kind of more for a one-on-one basis versus…
16:32 Yep.
16:33 These are good starting points though, so I like…
16:35 And you don’t have to take up your full 10 minutes, like…
16:38 Okay.
16:41 Thank you.
16:42 Yeah, that’s what I was going to say is if, you know, I know I
16:43 understand the clock thing,
16:43 but I…
16:44 It kind of sounds like…
16:45 I know.
16:46 We’ve already set up like the inquisition here.
16:47 I know.
16:48 So I’m kind of…
16:49 We can…
16:50 Not informal, but you know, just relax it just a little bit.
16:52 The only thing about the 10 minutes per board member is if our
16:54 questions…
16:56 I think, you know, it doesn’t take 10 minutes to ask my
16:58 questions or whatever.
17:00 But I think we probably do need to like share which ones we want
17:03 to ask either off these
17:05 or…
17:06 So that we’re not asking because if you have your list and I was
17:08 going to ask almost identical
17:10 question, we can kind of have a plan.
17:12 Because whatever we do, we need to ask the same ones of each
17:15 candidate.
17:16 When…
17:17 Just tossing this out as a different format rather than 10
17:19 minutes per board member, that’s
17:20 the reason why I said like, you know, two questions per board
17:22 member or three or however
17:23 you want to do because that way we make sure that every
17:26 candidate answers the same questions.
17:30 If some have shorter answers, they get to answer more questions.
17:33 Yeah.
17:34 You know…
17:35 You can…
17:36 You can litigate yourself into just have a couple of questions.
17:40 You’ve got 10 minutes.
17:41 Go through them.
17:42 Make sure you ask the same questions.
17:43 If you don’t get to them, you don’t get to them.
17:44 And again, with this list that we have, just cross off the
17:48 questions that vaguely resemble
17:51 yours.
17:52 Ms. Jenkins said that she made hers already.
17:54 Right.
17:55 And she’s probably got some of that are very close to these and
17:56 I’ll just mark them off.
17:58 Okay.
17:59 I’m only asking one question.
18:00 Right.
18:01 I don’t care who asks questions.
18:02 We’re probably all going to ask very similar, very similar
18:04 questions.
18:05 Yeah.
18:06 And I know you already kind of said this, but I just want to
18:08 reiterate.
18:09 It’s going to be impossible for every candidate to have the
18:11 exact same question in case some
18:12 of them answer too long.
18:13 Right.
18:14 But if we can try to intend on asking the same question of every
18:16 candidate.
18:17 Yep.
18:18 Okay.
18:19 So we need to note on the questions that we want to ask.
18:21 In this setting.
18:22 I mean, 101 is different obviously.
18:23 Okay.
18:24 Fair enough.
18:25 And I, from the list that Tammy sent us, the ones that there are
18:29 a couple of just the
18:30 general information that are to me are, would be very helpful.
18:35 The first one, you know, top five and you know, we can make it
18:39 three.
18:40 Top five.
18:41 I have three.
18:42 Facing Brevard Public Schools timeline.
18:43 And again, just remembering this interim.
18:45 And then what is one area you can make the greatest impact?
18:47 How would you initiate that change?
18:48 And then really the most, to me, the best questions for our
18:51 situation are on the back, the board
18:54 staff and community relations.
18:55 Because I think that’s where we’re going to really need somebody
19:01 to express how they can
19:03 help us build that back up.
19:06 Mm-hmm.
19:07 You guys all have your questions that you guys think you’re
19:10 going to ask?
19:10 Yeah.
19:11 Do we need to go ahead and highlight what those are now so we’re
19:14 not duplicating it?
19:15 Yeah, that’s what –
19:16 Okay.
19:17 I think – you’re good, Campbell?
19:19 Yeah, I’m not.
19:20 So –
19:21 I think Ms. Jenkins had said that she meant – did you make your
19:25 own outside of the box here?
19:27 Yeah, so –
19:28 Which is fine.
19:29 We just need to know which ones you may have already chosen so
19:30 that we don’t ask the same question.
19:32 No, I wrote my own questions, but –
19:34 Okay.
19:35 But you’re going to ask the same questions –
19:36 I’m going to ask the same questions to everybody, but –
19:38 Okay.
19:39 I hear what you’re saying, Ms. Campbell, but also I just want
19:41 people to understand where I’m coming
19:44 from as well.
19:45 I think more than just the situation, I think it’s important
19:51 also to somewhat think long-term,
19:54 right?
19:55 Because it’s not necessarily the case that these open rooms don’t
19:58 want to be the full-time superintendent
20:01 either.
20:02 Okay.
20:03 So, yeah.
20:04 I mean –
20:05 I would say – what I would say to that, Ms. Jenkins, is we’ll
20:08 have a superintendent search
20:10 with questions then, too.
20:11 And I think that if they want to try to say long-term, that’s
20:14 great, but right now this
20:17 one’s for the interim, so –
20:18 I hear you.
20:19 You can ask any question you want.
20:20 Yes.
20:21 That’s fine.
20:22 Yes.
20:23 But no, I’m asking the same question to every single candidate.
20:25 Okay.
20:26 So, Ms. Jenkins, do you – you have not chosen any from either
20:29 of the lists that we received,
20:31 right?
20:32 I would argue two of my questions that I developed kind of came
20:35 from this, but I tweaked
20:36 it so that it made a little more sense to –
20:38 Can you give us – can you give us which one of those came from
20:40 there so that they don’t
20:41 ask the same question?
20:42 They didn’t come from here.
20:43 But you tweaked it.
20:44 It inspired it.
20:45 Yeah.
20:46 You tweaked it.
20:47 So, if you can just cut those off the sections.
20:48 I couldn’t tell you which one it is.
20:50 So, yeah.
20:51 I don’t mind.
20:52 Sure.
20:53 Wow.
20:54 So, two of them – and again, I don’t even know.
20:56 It’s going to depend on the timing and the answers of the
20:57 candidate and who goes before me.
20:59 So, I have a list of questions here.
21:01 I’m not going to be able to use them all.
21:02 So, the two that I pulled from this and just kind of developed
21:05 myself were, please explain
21:06 your experience with diversity, equity, inclusion, and what you’ve
21:09 done in your current role
21:10 and/or what you do in this one to ensure all students are
21:13 successful, focusing on the
21:15 mission, strategy, and academics for Brevard Public Schools.
21:18 And then the other one is, were you evaluated in your previous
21:21 role as blank because everyone
21:23 has a different resume?
21:24 If so, what were the results of this evaluation?
21:26 What was an area identified as an opportunity for professional
21:29 growth and how did you work
21:31 towards that improvement?
21:32 So, working on – focusing on self-reflection and accountability
21:34 of the candidate.
21:36 So, diversity and what have you done to overcome adversity, too?
21:39 All right.
21:41 Ms. Campbell?
21:42 Come back to me.
21:45 Okay.
21:46 Ms. Roy?
21:47 I would like the candidate to identify the top three critical
21:49 issues that they see that
21:52 BPS is currently facing and how they intend to attack those
21:55 issues.
21:56 And then I would also – I really like the idea of them disclosing
22:01 a project that failed
22:04 and why it failed and how they would improve that.
22:06 I think that shows that they’re able to identify something that
22:09 maybe –
22:10 That first question you asked, if you can read that again, I
22:13 might just let you ask my question.
22:14 It’s the first one.
22:15 I know that she – but I want to work with her through it.
22:17 Yeah.
22:18 What are the top three critical issues facing BPS and what will
22:20 you do to address them?
22:22 If you can add how does your experience allow you to do that,
22:25 too?
22:26 Okay.
22:27 All right.
22:28 Then that takes care of mine and I don’t have to do that one.
22:30 All right.
22:31 Okay.
22:32 Ms. Campbell, are you ready or do you want me to go to –
22:33 Oh, they’re very good.
22:37 Some that are not on here, just, you know, thoughts on policy
22:44 review in your previous roles or current roles.
22:48 Okay.
22:49 And what experience have you had in that process?
22:52 You know, and specifically, too, that may not be on here, we’re
22:55 losing two very important positions
22:58 and cabinet members like HR, for example, and where’s your
23:02 experience on that?
23:04 I mean, that’s something that’s going to have to be addressed.
23:06 That’s more of a now question.
23:09 I mean, otherwise, I mean, very many – I love when somebody has
23:11 to describe their management style.
23:15 And that’s –
23:16 That is probably one of the most important.
23:18 Yeah.
23:19 I agree with you.
23:20 So you say you have management style as your third?
23:22 Yes.
23:23 All right.
23:24 You guys know what I’m doing is, is I think just to help
23:26 everybody out.
23:28 In the event that your 10 minutes maxes, I’ll try to ask the
23:31 questions that you had that maybe you didn’t get to.
23:35 That’s all.
23:36 Okay.
23:37 So, like, if Gene wanted to ask, I really like the management
23:39 one, right?
23:40 Mm-hmm.
23:41 So once we get down to it, it’s just when that happens, that
23:43 will be my questions for the next two.
23:45 That’s all.
23:46 All right.
23:48 Ms. Campbell, what do you got?
23:49 Can I give them three?
23:52 I think – I think – oh, sorry.
23:56 From the list I typed up, I just want to really ask those
23:59 interim questions because we do need – oops, sorry.
24:03 So number 11, what would a productive, successful, intentional
24:07 interim – I don’t know why I put that intentional.
24:09 That was – that was in the question.
24:11 I adapted it from something else.
24:13 Interim process look like for our district.
24:15 Okay.
24:16 You know?
24:17 And then the other one would be from the board staff community
24:22 relations one – that relationships
24:24 one over here.
24:26 Oh, there’s two.
24:27 Those are the same.
24:28 That’s why I like them both because they were the same question.
24:33 The last one, about building trust relationships with all the
24:37 stakeholders.
24:39 So I think I will do those two.
24:42 Where are you?
24:43 It was the last one on – no, this.
24:46 Okay.
24:47 So members – so the last one on – got it.
24:50 The page that I gave you guys and then the last one on board
24:52 staff community relationships.
24:54 So kind of what I have is – is diversity from Ms. Jenkins.
25:01 Evaluate like your situation when you did something that you had
25:04 to grow from, right?
25:06 Policy review, cabinet member placement, and how their
25:09 management style is from Trent.
25:11 Then I had the question that you had.
25:13 Did you want to add any more questions that you were going to
25:16 ask in that realm?
25:18 I – not necessarily in that realm.
25:20 But if we’re all going to take three, I would love to
25:22 incorporate the finance aspect of it.
25:24 So the second question that’s in there, what’s your vision for
25:27 financial reporting transparency
25:29 and maintaining the public trust regarding the financial affairs
25:30 of UPS?
25:31 I would like to address that one.
25:33 Okay.
25:34 All right.
25:35 And then we have –
25:36 I don’t – I honestly don’t know how we can have interviews if
25:39 we don’t ask
25:40 them their thoughts on their current state of education.
25:42 Right.
25:43 Someone needs to ask that question.
25:45 I’ll ask you.
25:46 That can be – yeah.
25:47 All right, let’s see if we’re going to take three.
25:48 So are we going to go rather than – well –
25:50 I mean –
25:51 I’ll ask that one.
25:52 We’ve had the suggestion of 10 minutes each, or are we going to
25:54 go like –
25:54 Yeah, I think I like the idea of like rotating it a little bit.
25:56 Down the line one –
25:57 You do?
25:58 I do.
25:59 I mean, just so that it’s not – it gives – it breaks up the
26:01 questions a little bit
26:03 to the interviewer, too.
26:04 So the only reason I’m saying this is not – I just think, let’s
26:07 be real.
26:08 We haven’t had one meeting that’s been on time, and we’re really,
26:11 really crunched for time.
26:13 If your questions are done, like, you can just move on, right?
26:16 We have an hour.
26:17 Sounds good.
26:18 So, you know, if I’m done in eight minutes, it doesn’t mean
26:20 someone can’t take 12, you know?
26:22 And it’s not, like, solid.
26:23 We’re not – no one’s going to turn your mic off.
26:24 Right.
26:25 But in order to just, like, kind of keep us focused on the
26:27 timeframe we have, I think it’s
26:29 really important for us to do that.
26:30 Okay.
26:31 Sounds good.
26:32 All right.
26:33 So what we have is –
26:34 Five minutes.
26:35 I’ll have a third in case my attendments is –
26:39 No, just get to it when you get to it.
26:42 Okay.
26:43 Thank you.
26:44 So what I was going to do is, is I like what Ms. Jenkins was
26:46 saying.
26:47 For the first round, I just – to be honest with you, I just
26:50 kind of went left from this
26:52 way over.
26:53 So the first one, Trent will start, Wright will go, then
26:56 Campbell, then Jenkins, then I’ll –
26:58 If anything needs to be wrapped up, then the second one will be
27:00 Wright, Campbell, Jenkins,
27:02 Trent, and then Campbell, Jenkins, Trent, Wright, if that makes
27:05 any sense in order.
27:07 That way each one of you guys gets the beginning, sort of, you
27:09 know what I mean?
27:10 Okay.
27:11 That way it’s some sort of order before we get started.
27:13 Yeah.
27:14 And then I’ll follow all of them with whatever anybody didn’t
27:16 ask that you may want me to
27:18 ask.
27:19 All right.
27:21 We don’t have the official interview that starts until 9:30.
27:23 So if there’s any questions, we can kind of stop for a minute
27:27 and get prepared and then
27:29 come back.
27:30 What do you guys think?
27:31 Sound good?
27:32 I think we need to address the bathroom break that everyone’s
27:33 saying.
27:34 We did not allocate a bathroom break.
27:35 Yeah, I was going to say, you can always start and then we’re –
27:38 that builds in a little
27:39 bit of a padding for later on.
27:41 Yeah.
27:42 If we take the hour, you’ve got 10 minutes before 10:30.
27:44 That coffee’s going to start hitting people.
27:45 Yeah.
27:46 If you’ve got to go to the bathroom, you can go to the bathroom
27:49 while we’re working.
27:50 It’s not built in the schedule.
27:51 I don’t want to miss anything.
27:52 Yeah.
27:53 All right.
27:54 How about you guys?
27:55 Can we take a five minute right now?
27:56 Yeah.
27:57 Well, that’s what I was going to do.
27:58 I was going to stop, let everybody go, and then if you guys – I’ll
28:01 check in every
28:01 hour.
28:02 Okay.
28:03 And then if you guys are ready.
28:04 He’s going to look right at me.
28:05 Sounds good.
28:06 Oh, thank you.
28:07 I think we can delay by five minutes in between every person.
28:09 I mean, I think that’s reasonable.
28:10 Right.
28:11 But that’s it.
28:12 I’ll just check it.
28:13 I’ll check it.
28:14 I’ll check at the hour and then we’ll go through.
28:15 All right?
28:16 You want to start a little bit early after we have our quick
28:18 break?
28:18 No, I’d like to start on time.
28:19 On time.
28:20 Here we go.
28:21 Okay.
28:22 It’s kind of a dual purpose.
28:26 Okay.
31:26 Thank you.
31:56 Okay.
42:23 Welcome back everybody.
42:24 Just wanted to take a second and say thank you to Mr. Rendell
42:26 for applying for the interim
42:28 superintendent position.
42:29 We have a series of questions that we have for each one of our
42:33 members.
42:34 Just so the public understands we’ve presented.
42:37 We’ve come up with a series of questions that each one of us are
42:40 going to ask.
42:41 And the order is just going to kind of move down as in the first
42:44 person that goes will become the last person for the next one.
42:47 So with that we’re going to have a five minute introduction.
42:50 We’re going to ask questions for about, you know, 50 minutes and
42:54 then we’re going to have a five minute close.
42:56 Some of us might take shorter and we’ll go from there.
43:00 So with that, Mr. Rendell, thank you very much.
43:03 You have the floor for your introduction.
43:05 Thank you.
43:06 Thank you, board.
43:07 Thank you for giving me the opportunity to interview for this
43:11 position.
43:12 The position of interim superintendent in Brevard is critical
43:15 for the school district at this time.
43:17 I want to thank you as an employee for taking the time to do
43:20 this in a thorough process.
43:22 And you guys are definitely trying to do the right thing by
43:25 students, the parents, the community, by taking your time and
43:29 going through a process.
43:30 I appreciate that.
43:31 I want to give you a little bit of my background.
43:34 Some of you might know that I’m the principal at Cocoa Beach,
43:37 but that might be all that you know.
43:39 I’ve been in the district a long time, but you guys may not know
43:41 me.
43:42 So I’m going to give you a little personal stories, personal
43:44 stories and background, so you know about me, the person.
43:47 So I decided to be an educator when I was in high school.
43:50 I had some really impactful teachers and coaches.
43:53 I said, you know what, that’s what I want to do when I grow up.
43:56 So I went to college, did the things you got to do to become a
43:58 teacher.
43:59 And when I was teaching, I was working for some really impactful,
44:03 inspiring principals.
44:05 I didn’t plan on being a principal, but these people made a big
44:08 impact on me.
44:10 I saw what they were doing in the school, impacting student
44:12 achievement, helping us.
44:14 I said, you know what, when I grow up, I want to be a principal.
44:17 And then as I rose to the ranks and became a principal, I had
44:21 the good fortune of working for a couple of really, really good
44:24 superintendents.
44:25 And then I said, you know what, maybe when I really grow up,
44:28 that’s what I want to be.
44:30 And so I did the things you got to do to become a superintendent.
44:33 All of those roles and all of those roles and all of my time,
44:37 the goal is to provide the best outcomes for students possible.
44:42 I went into those roles because I saw people doing that.
44:44 I didn’t go into those roles for titles or money or anything
44:46 like that.
44:47 I wanted to make an impact for kids.
44:49 And so in each of those roles, that’s always been the driving
44:51 focus, making your decisions on what’s in the best interest of
44:54 the kid.
44:55 A little bit of personal history about my family.
44:58 My wife Heidi and I moved here in 1993, and we bought our first
45:02 house in Hammock Trace, about a few miles east of here.
45:07 And all of our children have been born in Florida, three
45:09 children, all born here in Brevard County.
45:12 We helped form, found Faith Vera Lutheran Church, a couple of
45:16 miles away as well.
45:18 Founding members of that church, all of our children have been
45:20 baptized by Pastor Meyer.
45:22 He is still a close personal friend and pastor.
45:25 So Brevard is in our DNA.
45:27 All of my kids went to school here, didn’t all finish, graduate
45:29 here, but they’ve all spent time here.
45:32 This is in my DNA.
45:34 As a professional, this is where I grew up.
45:37 Teacher, assistant principal, principal, where I learned about
45:40 the craft of educational leadership from the people here.
45:43 Names like Bob Donaldson, Brenda Blackburn, Rich Depatri, McIntyre.
45:49 Those are the people that I looked up to and tried to be like
45:52 when I was making my way.
45:54 So I’ve been in Brevard off and on several times.
45:58 Consider this my home.
46:00 Worked in the district when we were kind of in a better place
46:03 than I feel like we are right now.
46:05 And I’d like to be a part of helping us get back to that.
46:09 You don’t know me as a superintendent either.
46:12 So I brought a bunch of artifacts.
46:14 Like a good teacher, I brought artifacts and primary source
46:17 documents.
46:18 And I was going to get into all that, but I think my five
46:20 minutes is probably wrapping up.
46:22 So if we have time later in closing, take you through some of
46:26 the documents I provided to you.
46:28 If not, maybe in the one-on-one interviews.
46:30 But I’m very proud of my work as a superintendent in Indian
46:34 River County.
46:36 We did a lot of really good things.
46:38 You were looking at me for a position of superintendent.
46:40 So if we get a chance to discuss those things, I’d like to share
46:43 those.
46:44 Thank you, Mr. Rendell.
46:48 And there were some that I was looking at also that I’ll ask
46:50 those questions when it gets to that point.
46:52 Mr. Trent, you’re up first.
46:57 Well, first off, I’d like to thank you very much for being here,
47:01 putting your name in.
47:03 It’s an honor to have you here, sir, so thank you.
47:07 You may have noticed we’ve discussed some of our policies
47:11 already here in the school board.
47:14 So I’m going to jump specifically to your thoughts on a policy
47:18 review for school boards, as large as ours possibly.
47:22 And have you had any experience in that process in reviewing any
47:25 change in policy?
47:27 Yeah, absolutely.
47:28 So when I was a deputy superintendent in St. Lucie County, I
47:31 oversaw a policy review committee.
47:33 It was something we had in place in St. Lucie.
47:36 We reviewed policies every year annually.
47:39 Now, most districts rely on NEOLA or some other organization to
47:42 give you policy updates that are a result of legislation.
47:45 But instead, the policy review committee in St. Lucie, it was
47:48 like a work group or committee.
47:52 Policy review committee had members of the community, parents,
47:56 community members, teachers, other staff members.
47:59 And we were open to reviewing any policy that the policy review
48:03 committee decided we needed to review.
48:06 So the policy review committee might say, hey, we need to look
48:08 at this policy over here about how we handle student choice or
48:11 transportation or something like that.
48:13 And if enough people on the policy review committee voted for
48:15 that, then I, as a deputy superintendent, would take it to the
48:18 superintendent and we would engage with the board to see if the
48:21 board wanted to review those policies.
48:23 So the idea is that we don’t necessarily wait for NEOLA or wait
48:26 for the legislature to tell us about policies we need to change.
48:31 You know, we’re a living, breathing organization.
48:33 We need to respond to the needs and changes.
48:36 So if we have policies that are in place that are not
48:38 necessarily working, then we need to go ahead and address those
48:41 and change them.
48:42 So, you know, I would want to engage in some kind of, you know,
48:45 I don’t want to have more and more and more committees, but, you
48:49 know, you need to be able to respond to, you know, feedback that
48:53 you’re getting that some policies aren’t working.
48:55 You need to have a vehicle in place to address that.
48:57 Thank you.
49:00 Yep.
49:03 That’s great.
49:04 Were we switching?
49:05 No, we’re going to go to 10.
49:06 Oh.
49:07 Okay.
49:08 All right.
49:09 I know you were.
49:10 All right.
49:11 So thank you very much on that.
49:12 So overall, and being the first, I think this is, I think
49:15 general questions might be better off is briefly, how would you
49:20 describe your management style?
49:22 Yeah, collaborative leadership for sure.
49:24 I’m definitely not always the smartest person in the room.
49:27 You want to try and gather as much feedback and input before you
49:29 make a decision.
49:31 If you have a team of people that you meet with regularly, then
49:33 you consult them and you get their opinion before you make any
49:35 decision.
49:36 If you have the ability to seek input from the stakeholders,
49:38 that’s what you need to do all the time, looking for
49:41 collaborative input before you make a decision.
49:44 Now, if you are in the position to be the decision maker, you do
49:46 make the decision, but you gather as much input as possible.
49:50 Think about it as a sports coach.
49:53 No head football coach has ever scored the winning touchdown.
49:56 The idea is that they create the conditions for success.
49:59 So the idea is you build that team, that successful team around
50:02 you.
50:03 You set the conditions for success.
50:06 You set some expectations, some standards.
50:08 You provide people with training.
50:10 You provide them with the support to meet those standards.
50:12 You hold them accountable to meet those standards.
50:14 But all in all, it’s a team effort.
50:17 You know, everything is a team effort.
50:18 When I became the principal of Tidesville High at my opening
50:21 meeting with the faculty, I compared our work to being on a ship.
50:27 That oftentimes we do our work like if you’re on a cruise ship.
50:32 Like we all have our own separate rooms.
50:34 And we come together for mealtime, but then maybe for some excursions.
50:39 But we don’t really work together on things.
50:41 We need to operate more like a Viking ship where everybody’s got
50:44 their hand on an oar and we’re all rowing in the same direction.
50:46 And, you know, working together for a common goal.
50:49 But you can’t do it alone.
50:51 Everything has to be in a team.
50:53 So collaborative leadership style for sure.
50:55 I got time for another one.
50:59 You do.
51:00 I do.
51:01 He ended.
51:02 Yep.
51:03 Yeah.
51:04 All right.
51:05 Five more minutes.
51:06 I do.
51:07 And this would be a good one.
51:08 And I might not have mentioned it earlier.
51:10 But I think it’s important here.
51:13 What makes you the ideal candidate for this role?
51:15 Yeah.
51:16 So you’re in a unique situation.
51:18 We are here in Brevard in a unique situation.
51:20 You’re going through a transition.
51:22 I’ve already been a superintendent.
51:24 So the job is not going to be new to me.
51:26 I’ve been a superintendent here in Florida.
51:27 The job is not going to be new to me.
51:29 I’ve been a superintendent in Florida in a neighboring district.
51:32 So the job is not going to be new.
51:34 Challenges are there.
51:35 It’s an extremely challenging position.
51:37 They’re there.
51:38 But the job won’t be new.
51:40 If you hire somebody from the outside, they don’t have the
51:43 knowledge, the Florida knowledge.
51:44 Experience.
51:45 They may have been a superintendent or something like that.
51:48 But maybe not here.
51:49 They don’t know the Florida finance rules.
51:51 They don’t know sunshine law.
51:52 They don’t know all the things, you know, with our current
51:56 situation.
51:57 If you hire somebody that hasn’t been a superintendent, then
51:59 they’re going to have a learning curve.
52:01 We’re not really, I, my perception is that we’re not really in a
52:05 position for a learning curve.
52:08 You really need a steady hand on it until right now as you
52:10 transition, you know, as you make some changes and do some
52:13 things.
52:14 So, you know, I’ve got the experience.
52:16 I can put it in my cover letter.
52:18 It’s a challenging position.
52:19 I’ve met those challenges.
52:20 So, that’s why.
52:25 Thank you so much.
52:28 Mr. Trent, you finished?
52:29 I am.
52:30 Thank you, Dr. Rendell.
52:31 All right.
52:32 Ms. Wright.
52:33 Thank you, Dr. Rendell.
52:34 We appreciate you coming here and taking the time to interview
52:38 with us.
52:39 I have to disclose, you were the principal when I graduated from
52:41 Titusville High School.
52:43 So, two years ago.
52:44 But, yeah.
52:45 It was a positive experience.
52:46 It was.
52:47 It was a positive experience.
52:48 You got me through the finish line.
52:49 So, there you go.
52:50 All right.
52:51 Yeah.
52:52 So, looking at Brevard County, and obviously we have been a hot
52:55 topic lately.
52:56 What would you say the three most critical issues are that we
52:59 have right now?
53:00 And how does your past experience prepare you to be a good fit
53:03 to fix those issues?
53:05 Yeah.
53:06 So, I think the top three is there’s a fracture right now
53:08 between the community and the district.
53:11 That’s one.
53:12 The next one is a staffing shortage all across the board.
53:15 Teachers, support staff, bus drivers, everything.
53:19 And the other is a sense of disengagement from the student body.
53:22 So, the first one, a fractured relationship.
53:25 I’ve been in a couple situations before where I needed to be the
53:27 healer when I came in, so to speak.
53:30 For example, when I went to Morrisville High School in Morrisville,
53:31 North Carolina, when I left high school, there was a real
53:35 disconnect between the district and the teaching staff.
53:38 And I just came in, listened to everybody, and tried to find
53:40 some common ground, brought people together, worked on some
53:43 projects together.
53:45 And once we worked on some projects together, people seemed to
53:47 value each other and stuff like that.
53:49 So, in this situation here, I was dismayed, I think is a good
53:54 term, when I saw, not just here, in a lot of places across the
53:59 country.
54:01 I view our students and our families as our customers.
54:04 And I saw customers coming to the business, giving input, asking
54:11 for things to change.
54:14 And the company didn’t listen.
54:16 You know, I think the idea is that when people come to you with
54:20 concerns and issues, you need to listen and you need to bring
54:23 them inside the tent, so to speak.
54:25 You know, that’s the, so the community would know that we’re
54:28 listening.
54:29 The community would have, you know, avenues to provide input and
54:33 that we would, and we would evident that we’re listening.
54:36 We would provide evidence that we’re listening and making
54:37 changes based on their input.
54:39 Not always going to give everybody what they want, but the idea
54:42 is we hear you.
54:43 We’re going to take into consideration what you’re saying and we’re
54:45 going to, you know, look at policies and maybe make some
54:47 decisions and changes like that.
54:49 You know, it just, people, it’s as simple as when a parent comes
54:52 to complain about something, you sit down with them, you listen,
54:56 you figure out if there’s a way for you to meet their needs and
54:59 respond.
55:00 Our community is the same way.
55:02 You know, over the last couple of years, they’ve brought some
55:05 concerns to us.
55:06 And in some cases, we may not have listened as intently as we
55:09 should have.
55:10 Now, I wasn’t in these roles making these decisions, so I can’t
55:13 really say for sure whether we did the right thing or not.
55:16 But the people need to feel like their voice is being valued,
55:19 you know, limiting time for public speaking and doing things
55:22 like that.
55:23 It’s just, they’re the customers.
55:25 You know, we need to, I don’t mean the customer’s always right,
55:28 but we need to be listening.
55:30 They need to have input.
55:31 They need to feel valued.
55:32 They need to feel like their input is being taken into
55:33 consideration.
55:34 For the staffing shortages, you know, we just need to make sure
55:36 that we’re doing everything we can to recruit and retain the
55:40 best, you know, people possible.
55:43 One of the things in Indian River in the packet of information
55:46 you have is we did some things in the strategic plan to try to
55:49 make sure we retained as many employees as possible.
55:53 And that was at the beginning of this start of this teacher
55:56 migration out of work.
55:58 And we were able to increase our retention rate, you know, so
56:01 the idea is you, again, you listen to the folks, you find out
56:05 what is they need, what they value.
56:07 Most of it was workplace conditions, working conditions.
56:10 It wasn’t necessarily salary.
56:11 We did raise our average teacher salary higher than any other
56:13 district in the region, including Brevard at the time.
56:16 And, but we also, you know, worked on working conditions to make
56:19 sure they understand that, you know, not just teachers, but all
56:22 the other employees that, you know, that they’re valued and that
56:26 we, you know, listen and find ways to give them things that they’re
56:29 asking for.
56:30 You know, and so I would take a look at it’s in, I think,
56:33 another document that, um, what are we doing to recruit?
56:37 Are we, who’s going on the recruiting trips?
56:39 Uh, when I was assistant superintendent in St. Lucie and then
56:42 when I became deputy, I kept HR and I would go on the recruiting
56:46 trips.
56:47 So I would go to the college recruiting trips and there were not
56:50 other assistant superintendents or deputy superintendents on
56:53 recruiting trips.
56:54 It was your recruiting person, you know, but it seemed to make a
56:57 big difference to some of the candidates that, you know, a
57:01 district level person was on, that they’re wooing them, trying
57:04 to get them to come.
57:05 So I would take a look at what we’re doing in recruiting, take a
57:07 look at what we’re doing in retention and try to put some things
57:10 in right away to make sure we stem the flow of anybody leaving
57:14 and do what we can to attract and retain.
57:17 And then the students, um, it’s a big issue.
57:21 It’s, it’s, it’s something that we need to take a look at and
57:23 figure out how to solve or resolve.
57:25 You know, some of our students were out of school, you know, in
57:29 person for a few years and some of their social norms may be
57:34 different.
57:34 You know, their, their expectations, what they, what they were,
57:38 their behavior policies or whatever, when they come back their
57:41 expectations.
57:42 Uh, when I was teaching the classroom, when I was at satellite
57:45 high school and in Virginia, one of the first things I’d say to
57:47 the kids on the first day of school is this isn’t the mall.
57:50 Like you said, this ain’t the mall, but this isn’t the mall.
57:54 This is a learning environment.
57:55 This is a formal learning environment.
57:56 There are some norms here and some expectations, some ways that
57:58 we’re going to interact and behave and some things I’m going to
58:02 ask of you.
58:03 And then you’re going to ask some things of me.
58:05 And I think we have a group of students who aren’t meeting those
58:10 norms, those standard norms in the classroom that we expect.
58:15 And so we need to figure out how we can remedy that.
58:19 Some of it is raising the expectations and holding them
58:22 accountable.
58:23 You know, this is, it is a formal learning, but that’s the, you
58:25 know, it’s a formal learning environment.
58:27 There are some things that can happen in a classroom.
58:29 There are some things that can’t, that shouldn’t.
58:31 And if those things are happening, they need to be addressed and
58:33 responded to.
58:34 You know, I’m not afraid to, um, you know, enforce the
58:38 discipline code and everything like that.
58:41 When I was a Dean at Mel High, I, uh, had one of my regulars in
58:45 the Dean’s office one day.
58:47 And he says, you know, Mr. Rendell, that we have a nickname for
58:49 you.
58:50 And I was like, do I want to know what the nickname is?
58:54 I’m not sure if I want to know what the nickname is.
58:55 I’m like, all right, Matt, tell me what the nickname is.
58:57 They call you the book.
58:58 I was like, oh, cause I throw the book at you as a Dean.
59:01 I throw the book at you.
59:02 No, no, no.
59:03 You go by the book.
59:04 If we skip, we get Saturday at school.
59:06 If it’s our second time of skipping and we get, he says, you go
59:09 by the book.
59:10 You do everything by the book.
59:11 Everything is standard.
59:12 When I was a Dean at Coco, um, you know, challenging situation.
59:17 Um, you guys can check with Dr. Sullivan, but I don’t know that
59:21 I had any parent complaints.
59:22 You know, year and a half being a Dean at Coco, any serious
59:24 parent complaints because you treat
59:27 kids with respect and, but you hold them accountable to the
59:29 behavior expectations.
59:31 And I think I’m not sure how to do that as a district, but that’s
59:34 something we need to work on.
59:38 Thank you.
59:39 Um, all right.
59:40 So we’re going to skip around a couple of these, these questions
59:43 are a little bit all over.
59:44 So bear with me here.
59:45 Uh, what is your vision for financial reporting and transparency
59:48 and maintaining the public trust
59:51 when it comes to our financial affairs with BPS?
59:53 Yeah.
59:54 So publishing a comprehensive annual financial report to CAFR.
59:57 I’m not sure if we do that.
59:58 If we do, I’m not aware.
1:00:00 So maybe people need to be aware.
1:00:02 Maybe the community needs to be aware that we, we publish
1:00:04 everything.
1:00:05 Everything is school, all school district money is, is, is, is
1:00:08 plain to see all the interactions,
1:00:11 all the budget, everything is in the sunshine.
1:00:13 Everybody can ask for information.
1:00:15 So maybe hold some budget workshops where we present the
1:00:18 information to the community, you
1:00:20 know, to show them, this is what the money is going to.
1:00:22 This is what the money is going to.
1:00:23 This is what the money is being spent on.
1:00:24 I think the voters did show the community did show a lot of
1:00:27 trust in BPS.
1:00:29 You know, approving the, uh, additional, uh, property knowledge,
1:00:32 you know, that shows
1:00:34 that they do believe that we are good stewards of the money.
1:00:37 Now we need to make sure we show them that we’re good stewards
1:00:39 of the money.
1:00:40 You know, I know that we have these oversight committees.
1:00:42 Um, are there, how are we sharing their information, their
1:00:45 reports?
1:00:46 We just come to a board meeting and we, we review it, we view it
1:00:48 here at the board meeting.
1:00:50 Do we take it out to the community?
1:00:52 Do we go to rotary?
1:00:53 Do we go to chamber of commerce?
1:00:55 You know, do we take this information out there and share it
1:00:57 with the community?
1:00:59 You know, or do we just do it all here in a board meeting?
1:01:01 And we feel like, Oh, you can watch the board meeting.
1:01:04 It’s all, you know, but I mean, sometimes we need to take the
1:01:06 information to the people,
1:01:08 but you know, school, school finances in Florida are open, open
1:01:12 book.
1:01:13 You know, you can see everything.
1:01:15 And maybe the CAFR, we need to have a whole workshop on the CAFR
1:01:19 and show everybody where
1:01:20 the money’s going.
1:01:21 And so they don’t, you know, there, there is a lot of times some
1:01:24 education that needs to
1:01:25 be done as to, Hey, you know, you have a citizen say, Oh, I pay
1:01:29 my taxes.
1:01:30 You know, you don’t need any more money.
1:01:31 I pay my taxes and maybe showing them how that money has been
1:01:34 divvied up into different
1:01:35 buckets.
1:01:36 And it can only be spent on certain things.
1:01:39 Like a lot of times, you know, capital money can only be spent
1:01:41 on capital.
1:01:42 You can’t use that money for teacher raises or anything like
1:01:43 that.
1:01:44 So, you know, probably some opportunities for education.
1:01:49 Thank you.
1:01:50 Ms. Wright, you have 45 seconds.
1:01:52 Oh, wow.
1:01:53 Okay.
1:01:54 All right.
1:01:55 So this one is really quick.
1:01:56 Can you tell us about a time that you’ve implemented a program
1:01:58 or you were involved in something that
1:02:00 failed and what you learned from that experience?
1:02:02 Yeah.
1:02:03 The one that always comes to mind, not that there’s a lot, but
1:02:04 no.
1:02:05 But the one that always comes to mind is at Titusville High
1:02:07 School.
1:02:08 We were on the block.
1:02:09 And I thought it would be a good idea if all 10th graders took
1:02:13 English first semester.
1:02:15 So they would have all of 10th grade English done before, before
1:02:19 they took the FCAT rights in February.
1:02:21 Made sense to me.
1:02:23 Have all of English been done before you take the writing test?
1:02:27 And the teachers told me it wasn’t a good idea.
1:02:30 And we did it anyway.
1:02:32 And our writing scores dropped.
1:02:34 So I met with the faculty at the end of the year when the scores
1:02:38 came in and apologized.
1:02:40 Said, I didn’t listen to you.
1:02:43 You’re the experts.
1:02:44 You’re the practitioners.
1:02:45 You’re in the room.
1:02:46 And you told me this was not a good idea.
1:02:49 So we will go back to doing it the way we were doing it before.
1:02:52 I will listen in the future and not think I’m smarter than you.
1:02:57 And we did.
1:02:58 And our writing scores went back up.
1:03:00 In fact, they increased higher, I think, the next year than they
1:03:02 had in the previous two
1:03:03 or three years.
1:03:04 But I did have a faculty member pull me aside months later and
1:03:09 say no one’s ever done that.
1:03:11 No one’s ever stood in front of the faculty and apologized and
1:03:13 said they were wrong.
1:03:15 And they said that’s a sign of a good leader or something like
1:03:17 that.
1:03:18 But that stuck with me all these years.
1:03:20 Because that’s probably almost 20 years ago.
1:03:23 But yeah.
1:03:24 Thank you, Mr. Rendell.
1:03:26 Now we have Ms. Campbell.
1:03:28 All right.
1:03:29 Good morning, Dr. Rendell.
1:03:31 So I want to start with what I feel like is maybe one of our
1:03:35 most important areas that
1:03:38 we’ll have to address with an interim.
1:03:40 And that is board staff community relations.
1:03:44 So how would you build and facilitate a collaborative and
1:03:47 trusting relationship with and among school
1:03:51 and district leaders, families, teachers, support staff,
1:03:54 basically the businesses and the community,
1:03:57 all the stakeholders?
1:03:58 How are you going to build those relationships?
1:04:00 And if you have some examples of where you’ve done that in the
1:04:02 past, would you show us?
1:04:03 Sorry.
1:04:04 Yeah.
1:04:05 Go out and meet them where they are is the biggest thing.
1:04:07 You go out and meet them where they are.
1:04:08 So you go to the Chamber of Commerce meetings.
1:04:09 You go to the Rotary meetings.
1:04:11 And you provide them information, but you also listen.
1:04:14 Like you need to go and listen.
1:04:16 You need to go and maybe do a little presentation, but then have
1:04:19 plenty of time for questions and answers and things like that.
1:04:22 I would also open up some kind of town hall, regular, regular
1:04:26 function.
1:04:27 Like every Monday night, the superintendent is in the boardroom
1:04:30 and the community is welcome to come and ask questions and
1:04:32 whatever.
1:04:33 Just open town hall type of meetings.
1:04:35 You know, maybe not do it here at the boardroom.
1:04:36 Maybe go around different parts of the county.
1:04:39 We’re pretty long, pretty stretched out.
1:04:41 You know, and people from MIMS might not want to come all the
1:04:43 way down here for a meeting.
1:04:44 So maybe go to MIMS.
1:04:45 But you go out and meet people where they’re at and you ask for
1:04:47 their input.
1:04:48 You ask for, you know, questions.
1:04:50 When we were hybrid, when we had, you know, fall of 20 through
1:04:55 21, 2021, we were hybrid.
1:04:58 We held a lot of information meetings with our parents on Zoom
1:05:02 as a principal and as administrative staff.
1:05:05 And at one point, I just had open office hours.
1:05:07 Like Rendell is going to be on Zoom from 8:00 to 9:00.
1:05:10 And if you have any questions, just get on Zoom and ask them.
1:05:13 You know, and I really think that we need to do some, have some
1:05:16 kind of open ended opportunities for communication with the
1:05:19 community.
1:05:19 But then you, but then you need to do something with that
1:05:22 information.
1:05:23 You know, I think that’s the part of it.
1:05:25 If people are going to take the time to come and meet with you
1:05:27 and talk with you and give you information, we need to do
1:05:29 something with that.
1:05:30 We need to respond.
1:05:31 So even as the interim, I would start setting up some of these
1:05:34 open forums, town halls, whatever you want to call them.
1:05:37 You know, office hours, whatever you want to call it where, you
1:05:41 know, we put out there, hey, if you have any questions about our
1:05:44 schools and what’s going on, you know, Dr. Rendell is going to
1:05:48 be here at this time, might have staff with me or whatever.
1:05:50 And we do that.
1:05:51 We seek input.
1:05:52 And when we get the input, we do something with it.
1:05:54 Thank you.
1:05:55 So what do you, what would a, you know, over this time, the
1:06:01 interim time is likely to be, you know, four or five months ish,
1:06:07 at least.
1:06:09 What would a productive, successful interim period look like for
1:06:13 our district?
1:06:15 Yeah, I think there’s several things that you would want to see
1:06:18 get accomplished in this time.
1:06:20 Number one, we’ll start working on some of those things that are
1:06:23 glaring and need to be worked on, like this fractured community
1:06:26 relationship.
1:06:27 We can’t say, well, we’ll wait for the permanent superintendent
1:06:29 to come.
1:06:30 We need to do the work now.
1:06:31 You know, I think another thing would be kind of an assessment
1:06:36 of where we are on, on the strategic plan.
1:06:40 You know, one of the things that, you know, I think is that’s
1:06:42 supposed to be our guiding document.
1:06:45 That’s supposed to be our, what we shape all of our decisions on,
1:06:48 all of our work on is the strategic plan.
1:06:51 It’s not supposed to be a document that we generally, you guys
1:06:53 spent months developing that strategic plan.
1:06:56 You know, we spent months developing the strategic plan in
1:06:59 Indian River.
1:07:00 And it shouldn’t be just a document that sits on the shelf.
1:07:02 You should be revisiting it all the time.
1:07:04 You should be making all of your decisions based on what you’ve
1:07:06 identified as your priorities, what your goals are.
1:07:09 And there should be strategies associated with achieving those
1:07:11 goals, objectives to meet, measurable.
1:07:14 So you can see if you’re meeting those objectives.
1:07:16 And you should be visiting that at all times.
1:07:18 So I think one of the first things I do as the interim is take a
1:07:20 look at the strategic plan and how we’re doing, you know, in the
1:07:22 different areas.
1:07:23 What are we doing?
1:07:24 What are we, are we meeting our performance objectives?
1:07:26 If we’re not, why not?
1:07:28 You know, the work of leading the district can’t, we can’t wait
1:07:31 for the permanent superintendent.
1:07:33 The interim needs to get in there and lead.
1:07:35 Now lead at board direction.
1:07:37 You know, one of the things I’m not offering you is a 60, 90 day
1:07:41 superintendent’s entry plan.
1:07:44 Okay.
1:07:45 Because it wouldn’t be my plan.
1:07:46 It needs to be our plan.
1:07:48 The superintendent and the board need to sit down and set some
1:07:50 objectives, you know, for the next four or five months.
1:07:53 What we want to have accomplished in the next four or five
1:07:55 months.
1:07:56 There are some big positions to fill.
1:07:58 I think those positions need to be filled.
1:07:59 I think we need to start looking at retirements and things like
1:08:02 that.
1:08:03 I think that is in a document in the folder.
1:08:05 You know, there’s some things we need to look long term about HR
1:08:08 to make sure we have people in place.
1:08:10 You know, there’s a lot of institutional knowledge walking out
1:08:13 of the door in the next couple months and the next couple years
1:08:16 probably.
1:08:16 Then we need to start thinking about how do we replace that
1:08:18 institutional knowledge?
1:08:20 Do we, where are the next leaders for Brevard coming from?
1:08:23 Are they within?
1:08:24 Have we trained them?
1:08:25 Have we prepared them?
1:08:26 If not.
1:08:28 But in reality, it’s going to be up to the board and the
1:08:31 superintendent in the interim to sit down and set some measurables,
1:08:35 some goals for the next four or five months.
1:08:37 You know, obviously you, you don’t want to leave things undone
1:08:40 saying, well, we’ll wait for the permanent superintendent to get
1:08:43 here.
1:08:44 You know, kids are in school every day.
1:08:47 You know, they’re supposed to be being taught every day.
1:08:50 We need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to provide
1:08:52 that best educational outcome every day.
1:08:54 We really can’t wait.
1:08:55 You know, there might be some things we say we’re going to do
1:08:57 this until the permanent superintendent gets here.
1:09:00 But, you know, I think that’s a board superintendent decision,
1:09:03 interim superintendent workshop or something like that.
1:09:07 Okay.
1:09:08 Thank you.
1:09:10 Um, I’ll ask you a short question and then I’ve got another one
1:09:14 since we’ve got time.
1:09:16 Um, what is your availability?
1:09:19 I’m asking that.
1:09:20 I know you’re here with us, but I’m going to ask that of
1:09:22 everybody.
1:09:23 So I want to be even.
1:09:24 What is your availability?
1:09:25 Um, yeah, I’m available to start as soon as you need me to.
1:09:28 Obviously I’m in the district.
1:09:29 So there’s no issue with that.
1:09:30 We would need to make a decision about Cocoa beach junior senior,
1:09:32 how we’re going to handle
1:09:34 leadership there, that kind of thing.
1:09:35 But, you know, I’m here ready to go.
1:09:38 Thank you.
1:09:39 Um, and then I’ll just, um, add one in here.
1:09:42 What do you believe to be the ideal working relationship with a
1:09:45 school board?
1:09:46 Um, how, and how do we get there?
1:09:49 Yeah, I think open and honest communication, you know, obviously,
1:09:53 um, I don’t know if you meet
1:09:54 with the superintendent on a regular basis, but the most best
1:09:58 relations, the better relationships
1:10:01 that I’ve been in with school board members and, and as a
1:10:04 superintendent is honest and open,
1:10:07 regular communication.
1:10:08 You know, for example, um, you know, I, we have a set meeting on
1:10:11 every Thursday from nine
1:10:13 to 10 or whatever, a set meeting every Wednesday from 11 to one
1:10:16 or something like that.
1:10:18 Um, there were some times when a board member would say, you
1:10:20 know, I’ll just see you at the
1:10:22 board meeting.
1:10:23 You know, I don’t need to meet with you.
1:10:24 We don’t need to talk about things ahead of time and stuff.
1:10:26 And that’s not necessarily productive.
1:10:28 Um, you need to be able to, you know, talk to board members
1:10:30 about issues that are coming
1:10:31 up, get their, you know, their take on things, you know, have
1:10:34 them give you feedback, information,
1:10:37 input, stuff like that.
1:10:39 Um, I think you sit down and you set as a board, some goals for
1:10:42 the superintendent, some
1:10:44 measurable performance goals.
1:10:45 And you’re always referring to those measurable performance
1:10:47 goals as you go through the year.
1:10:49 And you know, that’s, uh, something we did.
1:10:52 And, uh, it’s something that I would look for here.
1:10:54 I know Dr. Mullins had that, you know, I believe, and, uh, we’d
1:10:57 be doing that.
1:10:59 But I think the short answer to the question is open, honest
1:11:02 communication.
1:11:03 And, um, there shouldn’t be any surprises at board meetings and
1:11:06 stuff like that.
1:11:07 You guys should all know, you know, what’s on the agenda and I
1:11:11 should know what is coming,
1:11:14 that kind of thing.
1:11:15 All right.
1:11:16 Thank you.
1:11:17 That conclude your questions?
1:11:20 Yep.
1:11:21 All right.
1:11:22 Thank you, Ms. Campbell.
1:11:23 Ms. Jenkins.
1:11:24 Thank you.
1:11:25 Good morning.
1:11:26 I kind of already heard this question.
1:11:29 I’ll repeat it again for you.
1:11:30 It’s been a little while.
1:11:31 I knew that was going to happen when that, when she asked that
1:11:35 question.
1:11:36 I apologize.
1:11:37 Oh, no, no, I’m not.
1:11:38 I’m not pointing that as an issue at all.
1:11:40 I’m just, I’m joking.
1:11:41 You’ve heard it already.
1:11:42 So, um, so were you evaluated in your, in your previous role as
1:11:45 a superintendent?
1:11:47 And if so, what were the results of that evaluation?
1:11:50 What was an area or areas identified as an opportunity,
1:11:54 opportunity for professional growth?
1:11:56 And how have you worked towards that improvement?
1:11:58 Yeah.
1:12:00 So, um, obviously, uh, evaluated annually as a superintendent,
1:12:03 served four years in Indian
1:12:04 River.
1:12:05 And so, um, the first couple of years, my evaluations were
1:12:08 pretty, pretty good.
1:12:10 Pretty, pretty darn good.
1:12:11 Actually, pretty strong.
1:12:12 Um, always opportunities for improvement and things like that.
1:12:15 Um, the last evaluation or third year or whatever was the last
1:12:18 one I received, there
1:12:20 were pretty strong evaluations from some board members and not
1:12:22 as strong from some others.
1:12:24 Um, areas to work on that were identified by the ones that, uh,
1:12:27 didn’t score me as high
1:12:29 as they had previously, uh, was board member communications.
1:12:32 You know, it seems like, um, you know, they didn’t feel like I
1:12:35 was communicating well with them.
1:12:38 Remember relations, something like that.
1:12:40 Um, I’ve always tried to have regular, honest, open
1:12:43 communication with everybody I work with.
1:12:46 So I’ve just tried to work harder at that to make sure that
1:12:49 everybody I work with knows,
1:12:51 you know, where we are, what we’re working on, you know, that I
1:12:54 value their input that I’m
1:12:56 going to take into account what they, you know, their advice and
1:12:58 their, their input and we’re
1:13:01 going to work on it together and stuff like that.
1:13:03 But really, uh, that’s the only one I remember as being
1:13:06 something that I said, you know, this
1:13:09 really, we can work on that, you know, is try to improve that in
1:13:13 that area.
1:13:16 Thank you.
1:13:17 Um, I’m actually, I’m going to go off a little bit just because
1:13:21 there was a lot said and I
1:13:22 feel like it’s important to ask those questions as like a follow
1:13:25 up.
1:13:26 Um, so you had given, uh, an example that, you know, our school
1:13:31 district is kind of like
1:13:33 a business and we have customers that we need.
1:13:36 And so, um, you had said that there were times where we didn’t
1:13:40 listen to the change.
1:13:42 So my question is what changes do you feel like were presented
1:13:45 that we didn’t listen to?
1:13:47 And how, how was that not accomplished?
1:13:50 What would you have done differently?
1:13:52 Yeah, I think there were some concerns about, um, different
1:13:55 reactions to the COVID crisis,
1:13:58 you know, the mask mandate, for example, things like that.
1:14:01 And it seemed like we had a good amount of our customer base
1:14:04 saying one thing and another
1:14:08 sizeable amount of our customer base saying another.
1:14:10 And it seems like, you know, we basically chose one customer
1:14:14 base over the other.
1:14:16 We also went against state direction, you know, which I’m a rule
1:14:21 follower, um, by the book.
1:14:23 And so, you know, when we get direction, I feel like we need to
1:14:26 follow that direction.
1:14:28 I think that’s probably the example that comes to mind.
1:14:34 Um, okay.
1:14:39 And then you also said, oops, sorry.
1:14:42 Sorry about that.
1:14:43 Um, you also said, because you’ve had a history with Brevard
1:14:46 Public Schools, um, you made a reference
1:14:48 that we were in a better place then than we are now.
1:14:51 What do you mean by that?
1:14:52 Yeah, I think it’s just a general feeling.
1:14:54 You know, we, we used to, you know, basically compare ourselves
1:14:59 to any other district in the
1:15:00 state with our student achievement and our hiring rates and
1:15:04 everything.
1:15:06 And it seems like we’re not quite at the top where we used to be.
1:15:09 It’s just a gut feeling.
1:15:10 So I haven’t based that on any, uh, data or anything like that.
1:15:13 But I feel like we just aren’t where we used to be.
1:15:16 And where we were one of the premier districts in the state.
1:15:19 And I might be wrong, but it’s just, it’s the feeling that I
1:15:21 have.
1:15:23 Okay.
1:15:24 I want to ask a question that doesn’t give me.
1:15:26 Yeah, no, no, no.
1:15:27 Um, Ms. Jenkins, I just want to, I’ll pause it for a second.
1:15:30 Um, I think that these are great questions.
1:15:32 It’s just that according to some of the other stuff, if we can
1:15:34 just make sure that we ask questions,
1:15:36 um, follow up questions that we want to ask some of those we
1:15:38 should ask inside of our round table.
1:15:41 But, um, if we can keep consistency with what we ask each
1:15:43 candidate.
1:15:44 I hear you, Mr. Susan.
1:15:45 I appreciate, I appreciate that you’re asking follow ups.
1:15:48 No problem.
1:15:49 But, um, according to Gibbs and others, we want to kind of ask
1:15:51 the same questions to the same people.
1:15:53 And then follow up on our own.
1:15:55 So just, just a little reminder.
1:15:56 That’s all.
1:15:57 Oh, absolutely, Mr. Susan.
1:15:58 But I can ask whatever questions I want to ask.
1:16:00 And those are just general statements about the district.
1:16:02 I’m not asking deep down nitty gritty questions and follow ups
1:16:04 to those responses.
1:16:06 So thank you very much.
1:16:07 Ms. Jenkins, I just wanted to make sure that you understood that
1:16:09 it’s not about that.
1:16:10 It’s just about asking the same questions.
1:16:11 I will be asking the same questions to the candidates.
1:16:13 Thank you.
1:16:14 So now to my second one that will be asked to all of the
1:16:16 candidates.
1:16:17 Please explain your experiences with diversity, equity, and
1:16:19 inclusion and what you’ve done in your current role and/or
1:16:22 previous roles.
1:16:23 And what you would do here in this one to ensure all of our
1:16:25 students are successful.
1:16:27 Yeah.
1:16:28 So you’re always looking at data to make sure that every segment
1:16:31 of your student population is succeeding.
1:16:34 And so the first example I’ll share is when I got to Indian
1:16:37 River, I wanted to see, you know, how our students were faring
1:16:41 in all different areas of academic achievement.
1:16:44 And one of the things I noticed is we did not have a lot of
1:16:47 participation in advanced coursework by our minority students.
1:16:52 And we really, the percentage of our minority students was not
1:16:56 represented in the percentage of students taking AP and IB
1:17:00 courses.
1:17:01 And so I said, why?
1:17:03 Why?
1:17:04 And so we did a little bit of investigation.
1:17:06 We found out there were some barriers in place that we needed to
1:17:10 remove to make sure that every student had the opportunity to
1:17:13 take an IB class or an AP class.
1:17:15 For example, at Vero Beach High, to take an AP class, you had to
1:17:18 have, I think, four teacher recommendations.
1:17:21 You had to write an essay and your parents had to fill out a
1:17:23 form.
1:17:24 There was a lot of stuff that really had nothing to do with
1:17:27 whether you could be successful in AP or not.
1:17:30 So we identified a group of students that showed potential to be
1:17:34 successful in AP or IB courses, i.e., they scored three or
1:17:38 higher on whatever the state assessment was at the time, FSA, I
1:17:42 think, or FCAT.
1:17:43 And we said, these kids need to be encouraged to take AP and IB
1:17:47 courses.
1:17:48 And so we met with the families.
1:17:50 We actually had meetings at both high schools with, we
1:17:52 identified the families that, of the students that we thought
1:17:56 could be taking AP and IB courses.
1:17:58 And showed them why we thought they should be taking AP and IB
1:18:01 courses and made sure they understood that not only were we
1:18:03 going to enroll them in the courses, we were then going to
1:18:07 support them and make sure that they were successful.
1:18:10 And so we had a lot of minority students enroll in AP and IB
1:18:14 courses.
1:18:15 We actually identified white students that were scoring at the
1:18:19 rate that they should be in AP and IB courses and they weren’t
1:18:22 in AP and IB courses because, again, some of those roadblocks
1:18:27 that were in place.
1:18:28 Some of those things that just didn’t seem to have any bearing
1:18:30 on whether you could be successful in AP and IB class.
1:18:33 So we increased AP and IB enrollment by great numbers.
1:18:37 It’s on the resume, especially, you know, the black African-American
1:18:40 students, Hispanic students, but even white.
1:18:43 We even increased the number of, you know, white Caucasian
1:18:46 students taking AP and IB courses.
1:18:48 And our performance on the AP and IB exams did not suffer.
1:18:53 One of the things we did after the first year is we checked to
1:18:55 see, we put more kids in these AP and IB classes, theoretically
1:19:00 not as strong students in those AP and IB classes.
1:19:02 And we saw a negligible or no drop in percent of students
1:19:05 scoring three or higher on AP and achieving IB certification.
1:19:11 So the idea was there was a barrier to access.
1:19:14 We identified that barrier to access.
1:19:16 We removed it.
1:19:17 We put the students in and we supported them.
1:19:20 We also had to have some frank meetings with the teachers to
1:19:22 make sure they understood these students were worthy of being in
1:19:25 those rooms and they deserve to be successful just like
1:19:27 everybody else.
1:19:28 So there was a paradigm shift would be the nicest way to say it.
1:19:35 You know, but we had to make sure that those students received
1:19:37 every opportunity.
1:19:38 And I believe the numbers are still fairly strong there,
1:19:41 although I don’t have access to that data.
1:19:45 Thank you.
1:19:47 Ms. Jenkins, you still have a few minutes if you’d like to ask
1:19:49 any other questions.
1:19:50 If you don’t, we can just go kind of running a little bit on the.
1:20:01 Thank you.
1:20:02 So you mentioned one of the important things, obviously, is to
1:20:09 recruit and retain a staff.
1:20:13 And so I guess if you can give me an example, either in your
1:20:16 position currently as a principal or your previous position as a
1:20:19 superintendent, what was, what do you think was the most
1:20:23 effective tool to do that?
1:20:25 And how did you accomplish it?
1:20:26 It’s really how you treat people.
1:20:28 Like, so as a school principal, it’s how you treat your
1:20:30 employees.
1:20:31 You know, if you treat them fairly, you value them, you show
1:20:34 them that you care about them, that you do more than just say
1:20:37 good morning in the morning, but you go and talk to them.
1:20:41 You talk to them about their lives outside of the classroom and
1:20:44 that kind of thing.
1:20:46 And they see, okay, my boss cares about me.
1:20:48 It’s a pretty good place to work.
1:20:49 I like working here and that kind of thing.
1:20:50 So individual conversations, individual how you treat people and
1:20:53 stuff like that.
1:20:55 You know, it showed up in one of the artifacts there.
1:20:58 We did stay surveys and exit surveys with our personnel in
1:21:03 Indian River.
1:21:05 And the responses in the stay surveys to how they’re treated by
1:21:10 their administrators and how they’re treated by their employer
1:21:14 or their supervisor were very strong.
1:21:17 And that was a way that we were able to show that you treat
1:21:19 people right, you provide the best working conditions, they’re
1:21:22 going to stay.
1:21:23 You know, so I think it’s all about how you treat people, you
1:21:26 know, individually and then as a group, as a whole, is why they’ll
1:21:30 stay.
1:21:31 The working conditions, the support, obviously money, if you can
1:21:34 provide additional income, that’s going to help, you know,
1:21:38 better wages and stuff like that.
1:21:40 But again, most research that’s done about why teachers leave,
1:21:46 it’s the conditions, not necessarily the pay.
1:21:52 So, thank you, Mr. Rendell.
1:21:53 Thank you, Mr. Rendell.
1:21:54 Did anybody feel like they had a question on their list that we
1:21:56 had already approved that did not get answered?
1:21:59 Before I start in, I wanted to give, I have 10 minutes, but I
1:22:03 wanted to be cognizant of you guys.
1:22:06 We just understand we have to ask that question again to the
1:22:08 rest of them.
1:22:09 If not, I can start in and then we can get moving.
1:22:13 Okay, we’re good.
1:22:14 Mr. Rendell, thank you very much.
1:22:17 I wanted to take an opportunity to, we are a unique school
1:22:22 district in the fact that we will be preparing the backbone for
1:22:28 space travel.
1:22:29 And one of the things that’s been my, since day one, has been
1:22:33 the career and technical portion of our school district.
1:22:37 And for six years we have had amazing results with building the
1:22:41 infrastructure.
1:22:43 But our results as far as aircraft to aircraft techs and those
1:22:49 in some areas are really good.
1:22:52 But in some other areas we have some kids that are taking
1:22:54 construction just to be able to avoid the test at the end of the
1:22:59 year because it gives them a different way around.
1:23:02 What I would like to do is hear from your perspective what you’ve
1:23:06 had experience in career and technical in the past and what you
1:23:10 may be able to help us tweak in the short time that you might be
1:23:15 here.
1:23:16 Yeah, so as a high school principal I’ve always tried to make
1:23:19 sure we had a strong CTE program on campus.
1:23:23 For example, back at Titusville we had automotive technology and
1:23:26 that program ended up being so strong we hired two teachers.
1:23:30 You know, again, by supporting the teacher in the classroom and
1:23:32 making sure the kids knew about the benefits of enrolling in
1:23:35 those classes.
1:23:36 We actually drew students from astronaut who ties for just to
1:23:38 take the automotive technology program.
1:23:41 So one of it is making sure the kids understand the values of
1:23:44 those programs.
1:23:46 You know, that the fact that you don’t necessarily have to go to
1:23:49 college to earn a good living.
1:23:51 You know, some people, you know, might say that they’re not
1:23:53 really interested in going to college.
1:23:55 But what are the options?
1:23:56 We’ll make sure they know that there are viable options that
1:23:58 they can receive the training that they need either at their
1:24:00 local high school,
1:24:02 at their neighborhood high school or a high school that they can
1:24:05 attend through EPO to receive the training that would provide
1:24:08 them that career.
1:24:10 One of the things we did in Indian River was actually open a
1:24:12 technical college.
1:24:13 So we secured some money from the DOE to open a technical
1:24:17 college.
1:24:18 Treasure Coast Technical College is in Gifford.
1:24:20 It’s right in the heart of Indian River County, right in an area
1:24:22 where job training is needed.
1:24:25 And so the technical college is open to high school students and
1:24:29 adults.
1:24:30 So the high school students can go to Vero Beach High School or
1:24:32 Sebastian River High School for part of the day.
1:24:34 And then go to the current technical college of O-Tech Center.
1:24:38 And people would call it for part of their day.
1:24:41 The idea is that you look at your area.
1:24:43 We do this here.
1:24:44 PTE does this here.
1:24:45 You look at your area, what the job needs are in your area, the
1:24:48 high wage, high tech, high need jobs.
1:24:50 And you try to put programs in that prepare your kids for that,
1:24:54 to provide them that avenue.
1:24:55 Again, like I said earlier, the best educational outcomes for
1:24:57 students.
1:24:58 It doesn’t necessarily mean a four-year degree from a four-year
1:25:00 university.
1:25:01 It’s whatever is going to put them in a position to be
1:25:04 successful.
1:25:05 So I think one of the things that we still probably need to do a
1:25:09 better job is making sure people understand that’s a viable
1:25:12 option.
1:25:13 CTE is a viable option.
1:25:14 It’s not every one of our kids needs to go to college.
1:25:17 And I don’t think that message is still out there.
1:25:21 I think that’s something that we could work on.
1:25:23 So in the short time, if I was the interim superintendent, that
1:25:25 might be one message.
1:25:26 If the board in the workshop says, we really want to hammer this
1:25:29 and get this going, we might try to get the word out about that.
1:25:32 Because we have really strong CTE programs at the high schools
1:25:34 throughout the county.
1:25:36 And I mean, it’s amazing the opportunities our kids have.
1:25:40 I don’t know if the public knows about them all.
1:25:42 You know, I know that in previous roles, superintendent, deputy
1:25:46 superintendent, assistant superintendent, high school principal.
1:25:48 I’ll go to a rotary meeting or a chamber of commerce meeting and
1:25:51 somebody will say, well, what happened to vocational education?
1:25:55 You guys don’t do vocational education anymore.
1:25:57 And we do.
1:25:58 They just don’t know.
1:25:59 So no.
1:26:00 Yeah.
1:26:01 Thank you, Mr. Rendell.
1:26:02 I’m going to give you some time for your closing.
1:26:07 You wanted to present some material and stuff like that.
1:26:10 Yeah.
1:26:11 So what I do is I brought some artifacts.
1:26:13 You know, you might only know me as the principal of Cocoa Beach
1:26:16 if you even know me as that.
1:26:18 So you’re interviewing me for a superintendent’s position.
1:26:22 I wanted to share some artifacts to prove that I was successful
1:26:25 as a superintendent in Indian River.
1:26:29 So what I’ve prepared for you is a couple of documents.
1:26:32 These are primary source documents.
1:26:33 So you have a big three ring binder there.
1:26:35 I’m not going to go through the three ring binder the whole way.
1:26:37 But there’s a couple of documents I wanted to show you.
1:26:39 So the first, if you see there’s a tab that says strategic plan.
1:26:42 So if you flip to that, so that shows you a publication that we
1:26:46 put together that shared our strategic plan with the community.
1:26:50 So you can see that there’s five areas there.
1:26:53 Student success, culture and climate, high quality workforce,
1:26:57 communication engagement, and strategic partnerships.
1:27:00 Very similar to the strategic plan that you guys have or we have
1:27:04 here in Brevard County.
1:27:06 And that’s a tab in the back.
1:27:07 Actually, if you want to pull that out, you can slide that out.
1:27:09 I didn’t put it in the rings because you might have it out to
1:27:12 the side.
1:27:13 It shows you that the four areas, the four goal areas or
1:27:16 objective areas of the strategic plan here in Brevard are
1:27:18 academic excellence.
1:27:20 Exceptional workforce, communication, and operational
1:27:21 sustainability.
1:27:22 You guys should all know, especially the members that have been
1:27:24 on the board, you should know about all of those.
1:27:27 So one of the things that when we engaged in the work to develop
1:27:30 a strategic plan in Indian River was, like I said earlier,
1:27:34 we didn’t want it to be just this document on the shelf.
1:27:36 We want it to be our guiding document.
1:27:37 You know, when we make decisions, we want to say, how does that
1:27:39 tie to the strategic plan?
1:27:41 Obviously, the first area you’re always going to focus on is
1:27:43 academic achievement, student performance.
1:27:45 So that whole first section is on that.
1:27:47 Then culture and climate.
1:27:48 It’s like, how are we doing as an organization?
1:27:51 How do our employees feel?
1:27:52 You know, how do our customers feel?
1:27:55 And then high quality workforce is we need to make sure we have
1:27:58 the best teachers in the room, the best support staff, the best
1:28:02 people working with our children.
1:28:04 Communication engagement.
1:28:05 How are we doing communicating what we are doing with the
1:28:08 community and how are we engaging them in our work?
1:28:11 And then that last one, strategic partnerships.
1:28:13 We had a lot of organizations in Indian River that wanted to
1:28:16 partner with the school district.
1:28:18 So we wanted to take advantage of those partnerships, but also
1:28:21 go out and grow and develop more.
1:28:23 So I wanted to show you a couple of pieces of places in there.
1:28:26 So you want to, I tabbed them all for you.
1:28:29 So we should go to find them pretty easy.
1:28:30 So if you go to the second purple tab, it’s in an area that says
1:28:35 goal one, student success.
1:28:38 You can find the second purple tab.
1:28:40 What I wanted to show you is that each object, each goal area
1:28:43 has an objective and each objective has three strategies and
1:28:47 three measures to success.
1:28:48 So not only did we put these goals out on a piece of paper, then
1:28:51 we also said, okay, how do we achieve these goals?
1:28:53 What can we do to achieve them?
1:28:54 And then how do we measure our success?
1:28:56 So every one of these has this format.
1:28:59 And then if you want to skip to the executive summary, that’s
1:29:02 just a document that shows, you know, kind of how we presented
1:29:06 the information at the end of year one to the community.
1:29:10 One of the things that we did was we set up measurements, KPIs,
1:29:14 key performance indicators for every year.
1:29:18 It’s a five-year strategic plan.
1:29:19 You have a goal you want to reach at the end of the five years,
1:29:21 but you need to know if you’re making progress at the end of
1:29:23 each year.
1:29:24 So we set up year one goals, year two goals, year three goals,
1:29:27 and year four goals, and so on.
1:29:29 And so we presented this executive summary to the community to
1:29:32 show them at the end of year one how we were doing.
1:29:35 This is only a few pages.
1:29:38 One of the ones I wanted you to see, there’s a tab there.
1:29:40 It’s an orange page.
1:29:42 And it has some numbers and it talks about increases in CTE
1:29:45 actually.
1:29:47 So an increase, a 73% increase in completed industry
1:29:51 certification.
1:29:53 And just year one of focusing on that as an area that we wanted
1:29:57 to improve on.
1:29:59 Then there’s increases in dual enrollment, AP IV courses, and
1:30:04 enrollment in career pathways.
1:30:06 So when we focused on trying to improve the educational
1:30:08 opportunities and outcomes for our students, even after year one,
1:30:12 we had really good success.
1:30:13 So we shared that with the community.
1:30:15 So the next chunk of the whole thing is a report that I gave to
1:30:20 the board and the community at the end of year one.
1:30:24 Kind of like a state of the schools address, but it was, how are
1:30:27 we doing on a strategic plan?
1:30:30 So it’s actually 72 PowerPoint slides.
1:30:35 So I don’t expect you to go through them all.
1:30:37 I highlighted a couple that I wanted you to see.
1:30:39 So the first one, I think it’s on page two.
1:30:42 There should be a purple tab there.
1:30:45 In the blue box at the top, in the slide at the top, it says
1:30:47 five year strategic plan.
1:30:48 Then it shows that five goal areas, three objectives in each
1:30:51 goal area, three strategies for each goal, three measurables for
1:30:55 each strategy.
1:30:55 The monitoring framework, which I did not print for you because
1:30:58 it’s like 100 pages long, had 197 data points.
1:31:04 So to measure our success, we were checking 197 data points.
1:31:07 The idea is what gets measured gets done.
1:31:10 So you have to check your progress.
1:31:12 You have to have these key performance indicators, all these
1:31:14 things, all the time.
1:31:16 You know, you set a five year strategic plan, you have a five
1:31:18 year goal, but you want to be able to check your progress after
1:31:21 the end of each year.
1:31:22 So we did that.
1:31:23 So this 72 PowerPoint slides checks every single objective.
1:31:30 So the next one that I wanted you to see, I believe on page five,
1:31:36 that should be your next purple tab, page five of the big packet
1:31:40 there.
1:31:41 And it talks about students receiving high quality instruction.
1:31:44 And how do we measure that?
1:31:45 We measure it with academic achievement.
1:31:46 If you look at that chart there, almost every column on the
1:31:50 right, almost every number is green.
1:31:53 That means an increase, an increase in student achievement.
1:31:56 Even after just after year one, we saw significant increases in
1:31:59 student achievement in almost every category.
1:32:02 The only one that dipped was seventh grade civic.
1:32:04 And then the next year we bumped that back up.
1:32:06 But one of the things I’m most proud of is the 14 point increase
1:32:09 in algebra one.
1:32:10 We looked at how we were teaching algebra one.
1:32:12 We looked at whether we were focused on the identified standards,
1:32:16 because you have that.
1:32:17 The state tells you what the identified standards are.
1:32:20 You’re focusing on them.
1:32:21 Are you preparing the kids for success on the algebra one EOC?
1:32:25 We looked at teaching our kids how to solve word problems.
1:32:28 Because a lot of them want to see a word problem.
1:32:29 So we focused on algebra one.
1:32:30 And you can see at the end of that first year, a 14% increase.
1:32:34 The next one I wanted to, and I’m showing you one in each goal
1:32:36 area.
1:32:37 So we’re not going to go through all of them.
1:32:39 The next one is in the goal area of culture and climate.
1:32:43 One of the things that we did there is ask our students and our
1:32:48 staff to grade their school.
1:32:52 And so you can see the, from 2016, 17 to 17, 18, most of the
1:32:58 grades went up.
1:33:00 The people felt better about their school.
1:33:02 The students felt better at their school.
1:33:04 Staff felt better about their school.
1:33:06 So some might say that’s not a quantitative measure.
1:33:09 It’s a qualitative measure how people feel, but it’s real.
1:33:12 You can measure it.
1:33:13 And so that’s one thing that we did was we want to say, okay,
1:33:16 how do you feel about your school?
1:33:17 And, you know, just after the first year of concentrating on
1:33:20 that.
1:33:21 The increases went up.
1:33:23 The next one’s on page 21.
1:33:25 Your next purple tab.
1:33:26 This one I talked about a little bit earlier.
1:33:29 We made a conscious effort to make sure that we retain as many
1:33:32 of our teachers and staff as possible.
1:33:35 And almost every one of those data points shows an increase in
1:33:38 retention.
1:33:40 So we focused on making sure that our employees felt valued and
1:33:44 they stayed.
1:33:46 So that was good data, even just after year one.
1:33:51 And the next one, page 27.
1:33:56 This was feedback from stay interviews.
1:33:59 Like I said before, we did exit interviews and stay interviews.
1:34:02 So these we asked employees to respond to.
1:34:06 Our first year employees were the bulk of that.
1:34:09 And you can see the responses are all really strong.
1:34:13 For example, 87% said their employer treats them fairly, like
1:34:17 their boss treats them fairly, stuff like that.
1:34:20 And the one that I think that was really promising was 78% said
1:34:24 that they plan to have a long career with Indian River County
1:34:27 schools.
1:34:28 So the idea was we were working on retention and we were
1:34:31 succeeding.
1:34:32 The last one I want to show you is the last page, page 36.
1:34:37 This is a huge document, 197 data points.
1:34:41 The five-year strategic plan had a lot of stuff in it.
1:34:45 But it really all comes down to relationships and outcomes for
1:34:48 kids.
1:34:49 One of the programs we put in place was that we worked with big
1:34:51 brothers, big sisters.
1:34:53 And we put in place a program where employees could qualify as a
1:34:56 big brother, big sister, and become a big brother, big sister to
1:35:00 a kid in our district.
1:35:02 Be a mentor to a kid in our district.
1:35:04 And so after just the first year, we had 30 employees volunteer
1:35:08 and qualify to become a big brother to a student in our district.
1:35:13 I qualified and was a big brother to a student in our district.
1:35:17 Not working in the district anymore.
1:35:18 I don’t qualify to be his big brother anymore, but I still text
1:35:20 and talk with him quite often.
1:35:22 But this is something that even though we have this huge
1:35:24 document and everything, it still comes down to individual
1:35:26 students and how we’re impacting them.
1:35:29 And that’s why that slide is the last one I wanted to show you.
1:35:32 This is part of my closing too.
1:35:34 So it’s actually surfaced earlier.
1:35:37 One of the reasons that I think I’m a really good candidate for
1:35:39 this position is I’m already here.
1:35:41 I already know the district.
1:35:42 I already know the job.
1:35:43 I’ve already been a superintendent.
1:35:45 I know the challenges associated with it.
1:35:47 I know the rules about what we can do and we can’t do.
1:35:50 And so in this time of transition, you need somebody that has
1:35:54 already done the job and knows Florida and knows Brevard.
1:36:01 Thank you, Mr. Riddendale.
1:36:02 I really appreciate all the time.
1:36:03 I’m going to give each board member about 10 seconds to just say
1:36:06 thank you if you can.
1:36:07 And then we have about five minutes that we can break to use the
1:36:11 restroom.
1:36:12 Mr. Trent, we’ll go in order from you because that’s how we
1:36:14 started.
1:36:15 Again, you’re probably going to hear this.
1:36:17 We extremely appreciate you throwing your name in this.
1:36:22 I mean, it’s a daunting job and I know the community well where
1:36:27 I live and how they think about you.
1:36:31 So I appreciate the time.
1:36:33 Thank you so much.
1:36:35 I want to thank you also for being so well prepared.
1:36:39 This is very insightful.
1:36:41 I appreciate your honesty and your ideas.
1:36:43 And, yeah, I look forward to our one-on-one.
1:36:45 Thank you.
1:36:46 Stepping up to even just the interview process puts you and your
1:36:51 family in a spotlight.
1:36:54 And thank you for taking on the extra pressure of this process.
1:36:58 We appreciate it.
1:36:59 Ms. Jenkins.
1:37:00 Thank you.
1:37:01 I look forward to our one-on-one as well.
1:37:03 And talking about the spotlight, I didn’t realize that this was
1:37:06 going to be recorded for you guys until yesterday afternoon.
1:37:10 So I understand the pressure of that.
1:37:13 So thank you.
1:37:14 Thank you, Ms. Jenkins.
1:37:15 I appreciate it.
1:37:16 We’re going to break for five minutes and we’ll come back at 10:30.
1:37:18 Thank you very much.
1:37:19 Thank you.
1:42:30 Good morning, everybody.
1:42:59 I wanted to say thank you for returning with us and thank you,
1:43:02 Mr. Larson, for coming and applying to be the interim
1:43:06 superintendent of Brevard Public Schools.
1:43:09 I appreciate your time looking over your resume.
1:43:12 It’s pretty impressive coming from Orange County Public Schools,
1:43:14 which is we’ve all got friends that are over there on the school
1:43:17 board.
1:43:18 So we appreciate it.
1:43:19 I appreciate you taking the time.
1:43:21 And the way we’re going to do this today is have a five-minute
1:43:24 start.
1:43:25 And if you’re coming close to the end of it, I’ll let it roll.
1:43:27 It’s not like it’s going to stop.
1:43:28 You’ll see me stop the time, let you roll a little bit.
1:43:30 But if you can be respectful.
1:43:31 And then we’re each going to take 10 minutes max to ask you a
1:43:34 couple questions.
1:43:36 The questions are going to be the same as they’ve been asked of
1:43:38 the other people.
1:43:39 And then I usually ask one and try to make up the back end of
1:43:42 that to give you roughly about 10 minutes to respond in the end
1:43:46 to have closing statements and make anything that you feel like
1:43:49 didn’t get asked and you might have an opportunity.
1:43:51 We’re good on that?
1:43:52 Absolutely.
1:43:53 All right.
1:43:54 So the beginning today, we had Mr. Trent start with the other
1:43:57 one.
1:43:58 What’s that?
1:43:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:44:00 But he, Mr. Trent’s going to be the first one to ask your, or Ms.
1:44:02 Wright’s going to be the first one to ask your questions.
1:44:05 But you now have the opportunity to give us the five minutes.
1:44:08 So it’s all yours, Mr. Larson.
1:44:09 Just before you start, can you pull that microphone a little bit
1:44:12 closer so the broadcast picks you up?
1:44:14 Thank you.
1:44:15 That’s good.
1:44:16 Well, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to sit and
1:44:19 share today.
1:44:20 It’s not a decision that comes lightly to take on and apply for
1:44:24 such an important role, especially in an interim position where
1:44:30 you’re in a big situation of transition.
1:44:33 And so having an opportunity to speak to my family and we have
1:44:36 been actually having much conversation about next steps.
1:44:41 January 3rd marks 30 years for me in education.
1:44:45 And the thought was, well, what’s that next chapter going to be?
1:44:47 And why not open another chapter in an opportunity like this?
1:44:53 And so that’s why I’m here.
1:44:58 It was never anything I wanted to do.
1:45:00 I’m one of those that believe that it is a calling.
1:45:05 And I was not listening.
1:45:07 I grew up in, what, the ’70s and ’80s, where if you were a math
1:45:09 and science student, you went to engineering.
1:45:12 And that’s where I went.
1:45:14 And my father, after retiring from the Air Force, went into
1:45:18 education.
1:45:20 And I saw what he brought home every day at the dinner table.
1:45:24 What he harbored and shouldered from the students and just the
1:45:27 work itself.
1:45:28 And I was like, no, not for me, not for that kind of, not for
1:45:31 that compensation.
1:45:33 No, no, no.
1:45:34 Made it all the way in my senior year.
1:45:36 And I just couldn’t, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
1:45:39 And I walked out, went down to the guidance office and said, I
1:45:43 need to be a school teacher.
1:45:44 Get me out.
1:45:46 And so revamped my entire degree from a Bachelor of Science in
1:45:48 Electrical Engineering to a Bachelor of Science in Liberal
1:45:52 Studies.
1:45:54 Four minors.
1:45:55 My minors are in Mathematics, Engineering, Behavioral Science,
1:45:57 and Physical Science.
1:45:59 Not your typical Liberal Studies degree.
1:46:02 And within a month, I was teaching at a high needs, low socioeconomic
1:46:07 school.
1:46:08 Eighth grade, Science on January 3rd, 1993.
1:46:12 And that started, and that’s what got me, to build the resume
1:46:15 that you had before.
1:46:17 It was a calling and still is.
1:46:20 52 years young.
1:46:21 Got a five-year-old at home.
1:46:23 Not looking to be done anytime soon.
1:46:25 My oldest is 28.
1:46:27 But you got a five-year-old at home, you’re pretty much invested
1:46:31 for quite a few years.
1:46:33 So we’ll see if this opportunity comes through.
1:46:39 And if so, what happens after that?
1:46:41 I recognize that it’s an interim, but it’s an opportunity I
1:46:45 could not pass up.
1:46:47 Thank you.
1:46:48 Thank you, Mr. Larson.
1:46:51 First up is going to be questions from Ms. Wright.
1:46:54 Ms. Wright?
1:46:55 Well, I want to thank you for coming over, obviously, and doing
1:46:57 this interview process.
1:46:59 This is a bit, it is putting yourself out there.
1:47:01 So we appreciate you being willing and eager to jump into this.
1:47:04 And so we’re going to go through a few questions, and we’ll just,
1:47:07 I’ll start right away.
1:47:09 With Brevard County, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’ve made the
1:47:11 news headlines recently.
1:47:13 I know you’re not part of our district currently, but what would
1:47:15 you see the top three issues that Brevard County is facing right
1:47:18 now?
1:47:19 And what do you think, or how do you think your experience that
1:47:21 you’ve had thus far in school systems equips you to handle those
1:47:24 issues?
1:47:25 So, I don’t know that many of the situations and needs that you
1:47:31 have are completely different from other districts with regard
1:47:36 to hot topics and things of that nature.
1:47:40 So, I think one of the biggest issues that we’d be facing right
1:47:43 now is this transition and is the position of the interim
1:47:46 superintendent and how that rolls out.
1:47:49 And it is very easy for an interim superintendent to either make
1:47:54 waves or actually make progress.
1:47:58 And this is a very, very important decision that you’re making
1:48:01 today.
1:48:02 So, I think that’s, I think that would be my number one because
1:48:05 I think a lot of people are sitting in a tenuous position going,
1:48:10 what’s going to happen?
1:48:11 Right?
1:48:12 January, what’s going to happen?
1:48:13 This isn’t a summer where you get a chance to have, you know,
1:48:16 certain meetings that you can have in the summer that you might
1:48:19 not be able to have during the school year.
1:48:21 You’re jumping in in January.
1:48:22 And so, I believe that that’s a very important thing that’s
1:48:25 going to come up.
1:48:27 How do I play into that?
1:48:28 I think I had a very eclectic job experience based on, even
1:48:31 though it may have been entirely in Orange County, I think my
1:48:35 opportunities have been very eclectic.
1:48:37 I think I bring a lot to the table.
1:48:40 Although it’s been a linear title progression, there’s been a
1:48:44 lot of lateral opportunities that I can bring to the table.
1:48:48 And that way I’m not coming in with no knowledge.
1:48:51 I still have knowledge.
1:48:52 Now we just have to connect it and how is it going to work the
1:48:54 best here in Brevard?
1:48:56 So, that’s number one.
1:48:57 Number two, I would say marketing, marketing our district,
1:49:03 putting our best foot out there.
1:49:07 Making sure that we’re putting out as many positive stories as
1:49:11 possible.
1:49:13 That we’re showing what programs are viable and thriving.
1:49:17 And how are we getting that word out?
1:49:19 I think that is something that most school districts do struggle
1:49:23 at times.
1:49:24 You hear people sometimes say, well, you know, our work should
1:49:27 tell the story.
1:49:28 No, we have to tell the story.
1:49:30 This is a competitive situation.
1:49:32 You know, schools are competitive now.
1:49:34 We have school choice.
1:49:35 We have to compete, thus we have to market.
1:49:38 So, we have to take the positive things.
1:49:40 But at the same time, let’s not oversee the fact that we also
1:49:44 have to, in that marketing,
1:49:46 accept the challenges that we have and meet them forefront and
1:49:50 say, look, here’s some
1:49:51 challenges we have, here’s what we’re doing about it, because
1:49:54 that’s just as much marketing
1:49:55 as it is selling the good.
1:49:57 You’ve got to be able to show that you’re willing to take on
1:50:00 those challenges.
1:50:01 And so marketing is a big piece.
1:50:02 And I think it goes into what I would consider the third
1:50:06 challenge, which is vacancies, teacher
1:50:09 shortage everywhere, specifically in our exceptional education
1:50:15 roles.
1:50:16 Not just in the instructional, but in the paraprofessional world
1:50:19 as well.
1:50:19 We’re wearing ESC teachers out because they don’t have the
1:50:23 support in the room with them.
1:50:26 How are we going to market our school in order to bring and
1:50:30 attract that talent, not just
1:50:32 here in Central Florida, but across the United States?
1:50:35 Are you willing to move here because we’ve got the opportunities
1:50:38 for you?
1:50:38 And right now, it’s a teacher market.
1:50:41 Teachers can decide any school they want to go to, there’s vacancies
1:50:44 everywhere.
1:50:45 So what are we doing, and how are we coaching up our school
1:50:48 leadership to produce environments
1:50:51 and climates on their campus that says, I want to come work for
1:50:54 you, I want to come work
1:50:55 for Brevard because I believe in the leadership, and I believe I’m
1:50:58 going to get the support that
1:50:59 I need once I get there, because at the end of the day, they
1:51:04 want to teach children.
1:51:06 That’s what they’re called to do.
1:51:09 We just need to help create that environment so we can mitigate
1:51:12 those vacancies.
1:51:13 Thank you for your response there.
1:51:17 I’m going to switch gears a little bit, and I’m going to ask you
1:51:20 about a time that you’ve
1:51:21 had a project or a program that you were involved in that failed,
1:51:24 and what did you learn from
1:51:26 that, and how did you change your, maybe your direction moving
1:51:28 forward?
1:51:29 You know, I’ve asked this question in many interviews, and I’ve
1:51:33 actually had people say,
1:51:35 I can’t recall the time, and you just look at them and go,
1:51:38 really?
1:51:39 Really?
1:51:42 So, for myself, I would have to say it revolves around mastery
1:51:45 learning.
1:51:46 I’m a believer in mastery learning, and some students may not
1:51:52 get it by Friday test day,
1:51:55 but that doesn’t mean that they don’t and should not have an
1:51:58 opportunity to still acquire that
1:51:59 knowledge.
1:52:00 The teacher’s job is to teach.
1:52:02 They should be rewarded for a student’s excellence, and so
1:52:06 trying to implement a mastery learning
1:52:08 mindset at a school, and just tossing it out there, and assuming
1:52:11 that everybody had the
1:52:12 same mindset, not the best way to do that.
1:52:15 A lot of pushback, a lot of arguments.
1:52:20 That’s not the real world.
1:52:21 That’s not how we live.
1:52:23 It’s, you know, you either get it or you don’t.
1:52:25 It’s dog-eat-dog, you know, dog-eat-dog world.
1:52:29 So when I repurposed that conversation, I realized that I needed
1:52:34 to have more input, right, especially
1:52:37 from my union representatives, you know, teacher leaders,
1:52:41 because they’re the ones that are
1:52:43 going to support it or not, and having them have an input on how
1:52:46 should that roll out and
1:52:47 how should it look.
1:52:49 And so when we rolled it out the second time, the why was there.
1:52:54 We didn’t have the why before in the first rollout.
1:52:58 You’ve got to provide the why for them to have the heart.
1:53:01 And so we did that, and we said, “Look, here’s the situation.”
1:53:05 I mean, in all reality, look, you could take the, back in the
1:53:08 day, FCAT, FSA, whatever
1:53:09 it is, you could take it as many times until you passed it.
1:53:12 We take the algebra PMA as many times until you passed it, you
1:53:14 get an important score.
1:53:16 You could take the SAT, ACT as many times as you need to get the
1:53:19 score you want.
1:53:20 Why shouldn’t we do that within a certain timeframe within our
1:53:23 own classroom?
1:53:24 If a child and a student does not have the extrinsic or
1:53:27 intrinsic motivation to continue to learn
1:53:30 the content and they simply fall further, further behind.
1:53:33 And as a math teacher, I can empathize with that, sympathize,
1:53:37 sympathize because I’ve been
1:53:38 through it.
1:53:41 If they’re not willing to take the extra time to put the work in
1:53:44 to learn that content, then
1:53:46 that’s a gap.
1:53:47 So we’ve got to learn how to incentivize those students to say,
1:53:50 “Look, I just, I want to
1:53:51 get a little bit more.”
1:53:52 And at the end, at the backside of that, it’s not just
1:53:55 struggling students.
1:53:56 If a child gets an 88 on a test and wants that A, why don’t we
1:53:59 give them the opportunity
1:54:01 to show that they’ve learned the material that they didn’t get
1:54:04 to get that A?
1:54:05 And it went over a lot better the second time when we talked
1:54:09 about the reasons and how and
1:54:11 how we could do it.
1:54:13 We took the burden off the teachers and placed it on after
1:54:16 school personnel that I paid for
1:54:19 to provide those opportunities.
1:54:21 So it wasn’t additional work for the teachers.
1:54:23 It was just an opportunity for students to continue their own
1:54:26 education on their own or
1:54:27 through tutoring or personal help to continue to strive to learn
1:54:32 that content and move forward.
1:54:35 Thank you.
1:54:37 Thank you for that answer.
1:54:38 Would you say that you were able to track success in your method
1:54:43 there?
1:54:43 Absolutely.
1:54:44 Our graduation rates went from 72% to 91% in the time I was the
1:54:48 principal at that high school.
1:54:50 Grade point averages went up extraordinarily.
1:54:54 And there was a lot more buy-in from students because they knew
1:54:59 that we believed in them and
1:55:01 that we weren’t just about a test at the end of the day.
1:55:04 It was about learning the material so that you could become a
1:55:07 stronger student for next year
1:55:09 and for the next year.
1:55:10 And so there was a lot of value to it.
1:55:12 Not just a tangible grade, but the feeling that the students and
1:55:17 teachers had about the
1:55:19 success that students were experiencing.
1:55:21 Great.
1:55:22 Thank you.
1:55:23 And we’re going to switch over to finance now.
1:55:24 And I’m going to ask you, what is your vision for financial
1:55:27 reporting and transparency and maintaining
1:55:29 the public’s trust when it comes to really being stewards of the
1:55:33 funds that we receive from
1:55:35 taxpayers?
1:55:36 So transparency is a word that gets thrown around a lot.
1:55:40 It’s a word that, as transparent as we as a board or a cabinet,
1:55:45 we feel we’re being transparent,
1:55:48 but there’s always that, no, you’re hiding money, you’re hiding
1:55:52 things.
1:55:53 So you guys, I know in your strategic plan, you were rolling out
1:55:57 a new financial reporting
1:55:59 and implementing it.
1:56:01 And then I saw that in your plan.
1:56:04 And it’s not enough to just have a strategic plan meeting here
1:56:08 in the boardroom.
1:56:09 We could drop the screen down, we could put up the numbers, but
1:56:13 there are a lot of numbers.
1:56:15 And it’s a lot for community members and even some of our
1:56:18 stakeholders to understand.
1:56:19 Our budgets are not necessarily run like private organizations,
1:56:23 for sure.
1:56:24 And they’re definitely not run like home finances, right?
1:56:28 The different pots of money, the categoricals that we have to
1:56:32 really define.
1:56:33 And we feel sometimes that we’re doing it very clearly.
1:56:36 We feel like, I thought I said it pretty clear, and then you
1:56:39 realize that you just haven’t.
1:56:41 And so a singular presentation of where the dollars go, even
1:56:44 with ESSER funds, which I’ve
1:56:46 been working with now for the last six months with ESSER III,
1:56:49 you think that you’re laying
1:56:50 it out there, but you’ve got to give folks an opportunity to
1:56:53 have those questions.
1:56:54 And going out into the community and saying, hey, you want to
1:56:56 know a little bit more about
1:56:57 the budget, let’s sit down and have a conversation.
1:57:00 And it’s the same thing with our union members, right?
1:57:04 I mean, reoccurring costs are reoccurring costs.
1:57:07 And we’ve really got down to brass tacks about where do we have
1:57:11 pockets, where can we save?
1:57:14 And then just ask me the question, I’m going to give you the
1:57:17 answer.
1:57:17 And let’s get to that point where you actually believe what I’m
1:57:21 trying to share?
1:57:22 Thank you.
1:57:24 Ms. Campbell.
1:57:25 Thank you.
1:57:26 Well, welcome and good morning, Dr. Larson.
1:57:31 Appreciate you coming in to invest in this process.
1:57:35 So how would you build and facilitate collaborative, trusting
1:57:40 relationships with all the stakeholders
1:57:43 among our school and district leaders, teachers, support staff,
1:57:46 parents, students, business partners?
1:57:48 How do we build those relationships with our community as a
1:57:53 whole?
1:57:54 And if you have some examples of how you’ve done that in your
1:57:57 past experience, share those.
1:57:58 Sure.
1:57:59 First and foremost, be present.
1:58:03 You’re not going to do it sitting in an office, putting out an
1:58:06 email or putting out robo-calls.
1:58:09 That’s not going to build those relationships.
1:58:11 I pride myself, and I think most people that have worked for me
1:58:16 would tell you that I connect
1:58:18 with people very well and very quickly.
1:58:21 Of the five strengths of strength finders, two of my strengths
1:58:25 are wooer and relater.
1:58:27 First impressions, long-term relationships.
1:58:29 And that’s what you’re going to need in this position right here,
1:58:31 right?
1:58:31 Because it’s interim.
1:58:32 So you’ve got to have that woo factor.
1:58:33 You’ve got to be able to sit in a room and say, look, it’s going
1:58:35 to be okay.
1:58:36 Let’s talk about what’s available now, let’s talk about what
1:58:38 could be available down the
1:58:39 road, set up a structure and a skeleton, because even if I’m not
1:58:43 in this position permanently,
1:58:44 we should still be building that structure.
1:58:46 We should still be setting it up for the future.
1:58:48 There was a plaque on my father’s wall when he was an educator
1:58:51 that said, “Success is…”
1:58:53 and there are like 10 things on there.
1:58:55 I only remember one.
1:58:56 “Success is knowing that people were better because you were in
1:58:59 their lives.”
1:59:00 That’s the same thing in this position right now, whether this
1:59:03 position is four months,
1:59:03 five months, six months, or turns into a permanent role.
1:59:07 Are you going to leave Brevard better than when you got there?
1:59:11 Now the only way to do that is to have that relationship with
1:59:14 the board and myself initially.
1:59:16 What are your priorities?
1:59:19 What has to be done now?
1:59:21 What can’t wait?
1:59:22 What has to be done now?
1:59:23 What are your priorities?
1:59:24 Number two, how does that then relate to the school buildings
1:59:29 and the districts within the
1:59:31 school office, right?
1:59:33 So one-on-one meetings, group meetings, you’ve got to get in
1:59:36 there.
1:59:37 What’s going on in facilities?
1:59:38 Where are we?
1:59:39 You’ve got four capital projects that are out there right now
1:59:41 that we’ve broken ground
1:59:42 on or in process.
1:59:43 You’ve got the middle school X coming in.
1:59:46 So where are we?
1:59:47 What do you need?
1:59:48 What do we have to get pushed forward now?
1:59:50 And have those conversations.
1:59:51 And then what’s going on in the classrooms?
1:59:54 So for the last four years, and actually six of the last ten
1:59:57 years of district leadership,
1:59:59 I was in schools every single day, walking classrooms, sitting
2:00:03 in planning meetings, with
2:00:04 the teachers, with the paraprofessionals.
2:00:07 In this role, you need to jump on a bus, you do.
2:00:12 In this role, you need to go work the lunch line if you’re
2:00:15 visiting a school that day, right?
2:00:17 There is no job more important than another.
2:00:20 We’re all working together for one thing, kids, and their
2:00:23 success.
2:00:24 And their outcomes.
2:00:25 My job would be to connect those community partners, those faith
2:00:28 organizations, businesses,
2:00:31 the schools.
2:00:34 All in coordination with the priorities for what the board lays
2:00:38 out, you are the boss.
2:00:39 You say, you do.
2:00:41 And so it’s imperative to keep those relationships and lines of
2:00:44 communication open.
2:00:46 The phone’s never off.
2:00:47 It’s an unfortunate part of the job.
2:00:49 The phone’s never off.
2:00:51 So, I believe that all of my roles, from even being a teacher
2:00:57 and connecting with parents
2:01:00 in a high-need school, to now trying to get 19 fund managers
2:01:06 with a billion dollars worth
2:01:08 of the investor funds, all on the same page, making sure that we’re
2:01:11 monitoring it, because
2:01:12 you know the audit’s coming, and making sure we’re all on the
2:01:14 same page.
2:01:14 And that’s just, that’s being available.
2:01:17 And that, I think, is number one.
2:01:20 Thank you.
2:01:21 I think you’ve already touched on this, but if there’s anything
2:01:24 you wanted to add, my second
2:01:26 question was, what would a productive, successful interim
2:01:29 process look like for our district?
2:01:31 Like I said, you’ve touched on some of those, but if there’s
2:01:34 anything else you’d add, jump
2:01:35 in there.
2:01:36 If this was a permanent position at this point, I would walk in
2:01:40 with a 100-day plan.
2:01:42 As it is, I put together a little 30-60-90, but again, it’s a
2:01:46 skeleton, right?
2:01:47 It’s what I think would need to be done.
2:01:50 For instance, what RFPs are out there that need to be looked at?
2:01:55 What contracts need to be renewed by the end of the year, or
2:01:58 maybe sunset, right?
2:01:59 Those are things that have to be done.
2:02:02 Those are non-negotiables, right?
2:02:03 You can’t let things fall through the cracks at this point just
2:02:06 because you’re interim.
2:02:07 When you’re in this interim position, you’re the superintendent.
2:02:09 You’re the one that’s going to make the decisions, and you need
2:02:11 to understand that.
2:02:12 You also need to understand that in the interim role, you should
2:02:16 be taking the time to meet
2:02:17 with all the stakeholders because I would consider it my duty to
2:02:21 gather as much information from
2:02:23 as many stakeholders as possible so that whoever does follow in
2:02:28 this role permanently, be it
2:02:30 myself or someone else, they got a head start.
2:02:34 This is what the community wants.
2:02:36 This is what the businesses are looking for.
2:02:37 This is what your staff is looking for.
2:02:40 And that’s both administratively through classified, which I
2:02:45 like to call support professionals.
2:02:48 And so I see those as being huge roles.
2:02:52 You’ve got to be prepared to make the decision.
2:02:54 You’ve got to be prepared to say, and thank goodness our Kansas
2:02:57 season’s over.
2:02:58 But you’ve got to be able to make those decisions.
2:03:00 And you’re in this role, and your title is interim
2:03:03 superintendent, but you can’t think that
2:03:05 way.
2:03:06 You’ve got to think like, this is the job.
2:03:08 You’re doing the job.
2:03:10 And you need to prepare for the ‘23-‘24 school year just as much
2:03:12 as you need to get through
2:03:14 testing at the end of this year, which again, brand new, right?
2:03:18 So there’s a lot of things on the table that as an interim, you
2:03:22 just can’t look at it that
2:03:25 way.
2:03:26 Okay.
2:03:27 Thank you.
2:03:28 This one’s a pretty quick one, but what is your availability?
2:03:32 So it’s FRS.
2:03:33 I’m ready to go.
2:03:34 Let’s do it.
2:03:36 So as I said, January 3rd marks 30 years for me.
2:03:41 I am available.
2:03:43 I know that the superintendent last day is the 31st.
2:03:46 I think the last board meeting, I heard that the expectation was
2:03:48 January 1st that this would
2:03:49 be in place.
2:03:51 The name’s on the line.
2:03:52 Okay.
2:03:53 Thank you.
2:03:54 And I think I’ve got just a few minutes left.
2:03:56 So my last question has to do with the superintendent board
2:04:02 relationships.
2:04:04 So describe what you believe to be the ideal working
2:04:07 relationship with a school board and
2:04:08 how do you achieve that?
2:04:10 It’s two-way communication in all forms.
2:04:14 Phone calls, text, email, whatever we need to do to communicate.
2:04:19 Information needs to come this way.
2:04:20 Information needs to go that way.
2:04:22 You need to trust that what I’m sharing with you is exactly what’s
2:04:25 happening.
2:04:26 You’ve got constituents reaching out to you every day.
2:04:30 I understand that.
2:04:32 Having the opportunity and availability to text me or call me
2:04:35 and say, “Hey, James, what’s
2:04:36 going on with this situation?
2:04:37 I’m hearing there’s something going on here.”
2:04:39 Board relationships need to be, you’re setting policy.
2:04:43 I’m enacting policy, and as things come up throughout the school
2:04:49 year or the day, how are we going
2:04:52 to deal with this together?
2:04:53 All right?
2:04:54 And hiding behind something or hoping something goes away is the
2:04:59 most detrimental thing that
2:05:01 can happen between a board and a superintendent in their cabinet.
2:05:04 It’s got to be absolutely 100% out there.
2:05:07 I use the word out there because I don’t want to keep saying
2:05:11 transparent.
2:05:12 So understand that we may not agree.
2:05:17 We may not agree on every single topic, but when we get off the
2:05:21 phone or we finish our meeting
2:05:22 and I walk out that door or I hang it up, I’m 100% on board.
2:05:27 This is what we’re doing.
2:05:28 Let’s go, team.
2:05:29 It’s not about what my belief is or my politics or my thoughts.
2:05:35 I share those in those meetings.
2:05:37 And once the decision is made, then you press forward and you
2:05:40 take care of business.
2:05:42 - Thank you very much.
2:05:44 - Thank you, Ms. Campbell.
2:05:47 Ms. Jenkins.
2:05:48 - Good morning.
2:05:49 I think we’re still in morning, Dr. Larson.
2:05:52 Thanks for joining us in Brevard.
2:05:54 So my first question is, were you evaluated in your previous
2:05:58 role, and I’m going to go
2:06:00 off of your last position, as a chief academic officer for
2:06:04 Orange County Public Schools?
2:06:06 And if so, what were the results of that evaluation?
2:06:09 Was there an area or areas identified as an opportunity for
2:06:12 professional growth?
2:06:14 And how did you work towards that improvement?
2:06:16 - Sure.
2:06:17 So my last role as area superintendent reported directly to the
2:06:20 deputy superintendent.
2:06:21 And that evaluation, there’s two pieces to our district
2:06:25 leadership evaluation.
2:06:27 There was the operation side, and then there’s the school
2:06:31 performance side, as we were on
2:06:33 the teaching and learning side.
2:06:34 So the operation side, the highest you could get is meeting
2:06:37 expectations.
2:06:37 I received meeting expectations.
2:06:39 Which meant that all of the compliance issues, drills, you know,
2:06:43 you name it, everything was
2:06:45 completed on time and was done appropriately.
2:06:48 So that was meeting expectations.
2:06:49 On the academic side, I was satisfactory.
2:06:52 The highest is above expectations.
2:06:56 So I had 30 schools that I was overseeing.
2:07:00 11 of those schools were in very high need, coming off the
2:07:05 pandemic especially, low socioeconomic
2:07:08 areas.
2:07:08 And so there were 11 of them.
2:07:10 Nine of those schools improved their grades one to two letter
2:07:13 grades.
2:07:14 But we did have two grades, two schools that did drop, which
2:07:17 accounted for that satisfactory.
2:07:20 Both schools were one point from a D, the heartbreak.
2:07:23 And when I say one point, I’m talking like four tenths of a
2:07:25 point and it rounds up.
2:07:27 It was heartbreaking.
2:07:27 But that would be, so it, there wasn’t anything that was denoted
2:07:33 that I needed to work on.
2:07:34 It was simply, we had two grades go down, satisfactory as
2:07:37 opposed to above expectation.
2:07:39 Thank you.
2:07:42 Yes, ma’am.
2:07:43 So I’m going to go a little bit off here based off of something
2:07:46 that you said.
2:07:47 And I think it’s really important to ask you this question.
2:07:50 So you mentioned that you manage nearly $1 billion worth of ESSER
2:07:56 funds over in Orange
2:07:57 County, which is comparable to our overall budget.
2:07:59 And so obviously that can’t be simple.
2:08:03 Obviously there has to be hiccups.
2:08:04 So what was the biggest challenge or one challenge that you
2:08:08 faced managing
2:08:09 such an enormous budget and team of people below it?
2:08:12 And how, how did you manage that?
2:08:15 So I am so fortunate to work with an individual, Kim Gilbert, if
2:08:19 you’re watching,
2:08:19 who manages most of the dollar side of that house.
2:08:24 And when we say, if the first award was like $8 million and then
2:08:29 $55 million and then $850 million.
2:08:31 And then when you add in all of the additional state ESSER funds
2:08:34 that come out, not just from
2:08:35 the federal government, it drives up over that figure.
2:08:39 The money’s the easy part.
2:08:42 I mean, to be quite honest, you know, balance it, zero it out.
2:08:48 And if it’s encumbered and you spend it, great.
2:08:51 If you’re over, where are we going to pick those dollars up?
2:08:54 Where are we going to, you know, where are we going to save to
2:08:56 make sure that we’re balancing out?
2:08:58 That’s actually the easy part.
2:08:59 The difficult part that we’re, we’re really, and I’m spending
2:09:04 the majority of my time doing,
2:09:06 is monitoring those activities that we said we were going to do.
2:09:08 So there are over 170 activities just in ESSER III that we’re
2:09:13 monitoring.
2:09:14 That could be anywhere from tutoring to tier one intervention
2:09:18 teachers that we’re putting into
2:09:19 all of our schools.
2:09:20 How are they being utilized?
2:09:22 And then also on top of that, the return on investment and the
2:09:26 program evaluations that
2:09:27 we’re doing on those big dollar tickets.
2:09:29 Because at the end of this, in 2024, right, dollars have to be
2:09:32 spent by September 30th, 2024.
2:09:35 There’s not going to be ESSER IV.
2:09:37 And even if there is, we have to go into it with the mindset.
2:09:39 There’s not going to be ESSER IV, right?
2:09:41 So what’s sustainable?
2:09:43 What’s going to have to drop into the general fund?
2:09:45 Right?
2:09:47 And if it’s not having a return on investment, then we need to
2:09:50 sunset that.
2:09:50 We need to be honest about it, but we need to do that with data.
2:09:53 Not because we don’t feel like this program is working.
2:09:55 We need to see it.
2:09:56 So I work very closely with the research accountability and
2:09:58 grants department
2:09:59 on program evaluations and return on investment.
2:10:01 And so trying to manage, what are we going to sunset in 2024?
2:10:06 What are we going to continue?
2:10:07 And all of the new amendments, where are we over already?
2:10:12 That’s what I’m working on right now.
2:10:13 Have we overspent the first quarter of ESSER III?
2:10:15 Have we underspent?
2:10:16 There’s areas where we’ve underspent.
2:10:18 There’s areas where we have positions.
2:10:20 For instance, say, social workers.
2:10:22 Now, we’ve allocated money to put additional social workers into
2:10:26 school,
2:10:26 but if we can’t hire them, that money’s still sitting there.
2:10:28 So what are we going to do with those funds and where can we
2:10:30 shift those
2:10:31 to bolster programs that have a better return on investment?
2:10:34 So that’s what we spend most of my time doing.
2:10:36 Can you please explain your experience with diversity, equity,
2:10:43 and inclusion
2:10:44 and what you’ve done in your current role or previous roles
2:10:47 and what you would do in this one to ensure all of our students
2:10:50 are successful?
2:10:50 I hope this is your last question because there’s only five
2:10:52 minutes.
2:10:53 You can take all the time you need.
2:10:56 Don’t worry.
2:10:56 Don’t feel pressured that there’ll be another question.
2:10:58 It’s okay.
2:10:58 So equity is one of those words that I think a lot of folks get
2:11:04 a little worked up about.
2:11:06 Equality, equity, you’re taking something away and giving it to
2:11:09 someone else and that’s not the case.
2:11:11 Equity merely means that you’re taking resources and giving it
2:11:14 to people that need the resources.
2:11:15 You’re not taking it from someone to give it to another.
2:11:18 And I think that’s where we get really worked up when we don’t
2:11:22 have that reality and we think equal,
2:11:24 equal, equal.
2:11:24 But I want to put that in terms because I am going to answer the
2:11:27 question and I know
2:11:29 my resume dictates quite a bit of it, but I’ll highlight some of
2:11:31 those things in my resume.
2:11:32 Okay, if you’ve got a class of 25 students and you’re sitting in
2:11:36 an Islesburg class,
2:11:37 Islesburg High School, definitely, right?
2:11:39 That’s a lot of work there.
2:11:41 20 of the students do not understand AX plus B equals C and five
2:11:47 students do.
2:11:48 Well, equality means I’m going to make those five students who
2:11:51 already understand AX plus
2:11:52 B equals C have to do the same thing over again because these 20
2:11:55 students don’t do it.
2:11:57 Equity applies to those students as well.
2:11:58 They need to be moving on to AX plus B equals C, AX plus D.
2:12:02 So equity works on a range.
2:12:04 And I think that sometimes when we hear that word, I think
2:12:07 people get a little nervous about
2:12:08 equity because, oh, we’re going to take something from one group
2:12:10 and give it to another.
2:12:11 That’s not the case.
2:12:12 When I began my work in the Minority Achievement Office in 2015,
2:12:17 it was some of the most rewarding
2:12:19 work that I think that I’ve been experienced in my role up to
2:12:23 that point.
2:12:24 The Calculus Project, we took low socioeconomic students.
2:12:31 We took gender.
2:12:33 We looked at why do we not have as many females in middle school
2:12:36 algebra and provided a system
2:12:39 in the program to additional support after school.
2:12:45 We brought, it was a contract.
2:12:46 We brought the parents in and said, look, they’re going to do
2:12:48 additional work after school.
2:12:49 They’re going to get tutored after school.
2:12:51 You’re going to do this.
2:12:51 We’re going to provide folks from the community and Lockheed
2:12:54 Martin to come in and really talk
2:12:58 about why is algebra important.
2:12:59 And so the Calculus Project was in design.
2:13:02 It came out of Boston and it was to get more students through
2:13:05 calculus by the time they
2:13:06 graduated high school because if you’re only taking algebra by
2:13:09 the time you’re in 10th grade,
2:13:10 you’re never going to get there.
2:13:11 And in 9th grade, you’re probably not going to get there.
2:13:13 So that was kind of one of the things.
2:13:15 I did a lot of work.
2:13:16 I was the BPO of discipline at the time, the business process
2:13:19 owner of discipline.
2:13:21 And so restorative practices was brought in the year before I
2:13:24 got there.
2:13:25 Again, a lot of misconceptions behind restorative practices.
2:13:30 Folks here, oh, restorative practice, we’re going to sit in a
2:13:34 room, we’re going to talk to each other,
2:13:35 and you’re not going to suspend these kids and you’re not going
2:13:38 to discipline them.
2:13:38 And that’s a misconception behind what restorative practices
2:13:41 really is.
2:13:42 I will give you my philosophy on discipline.
2:13:45 Discipline should be administered at the lowest level
2:13:48 appropriate to the offense
2:13:49 necessary to modify behavior, not punish, but modify behavior.
2:13:52 And sometimes that might mean a 10-day suspension.
2:13:55 Sometimes the lowest level appropriate is an expulsion because
2:13:58 it’s a level four offense.
2:13:59 And I think that that needs to be clearly stated.
2:14:02 But what we did was we looked at the disproportionate suspension
2:14:04 rates.
2:14:05 And we looked at how many days students were missing school.
2:14:08 What was the average number of days students missed if they had
2:14:12 one suspension during the year?
2:14:14 We looked at recidivism within different subgroups.
2:14:17 And when I say subgroups, again, not just
2:14:20 demographics as far as race, we looked at as gender.
2:14:25 We looked at our ELL populations.
2:14:26 We looked at our ESE populations.
2:14:28 So when you say disproportionate suspension rates,
2:14:30 at one school it could be with this group,
2:14:32 at another school it could be the other.
2:14:34 And so data is so rich, we have it.
2:14:37 And it shouldn’t be used to hammer a teacher or a principal
2:14:42 because of what’s happening at their school.
2:14:43 It should be used as a tool to say, hey, we’re obviously not
2:14:46 connecting with this population.
2:14:48 What are we going to do to connect to this population?
2:14:51 Because we’re missing it.
2:14:52 They obviously don’t feel a part of the school the way we need
2:14:56 them to.
2:14:57 So as important as data is, it’s doubly important as to how we
2:15:02 use it and what we’re doing with it.
2:15:04 And so I’ve had an opportunity.
2:15:07 We put the Minority Leader Scholars Program Award where we were
2:15:13 taking high school students
2:15:16 and bringing them back to the feeder middle school as mentors to
2:15:19 our students in the middle school.
2:15:21 And telling them, look, this is what’s going to happen when you
2:15:24 get to high school.
2:15:25 Hey, this is what you need to be prepared for.
2:15:28 And we saw a lot of success in those programs and students just
2:15:33 really taking off and taking
2:15:36 charge of their own education.
2:15:38 And that’s the beauty of it, right?
2:15:41 We’re not taking something from someone else.
2:15:44 We’re providing the resources to the ones that need it.
2:15:48 Look at that.
2:15:51 Perfect.
2:15:52 I was keeping an eye on it.
2:15:54 Thank you.
2:15:57 Mr. Trent?
2:15:58 All right.
2:15:59 Thank you, Dr. Larson, for coming out and putting your name on
2:16:03 the list to be here.
2:16:05 And congratulations on being in the finals.
2:16:07 Thank you.
2:16:07 Of this position.
2:16:10 So I’ll get right to it.
2:16:11 Some will be the same questions.
2:16:13 Your thoughts on policy review as a potential superintendent.
2:16:19 And have you had any experience in this process and how it would
2:16:22 work?
2:16:22 Sure.
2:16:23 So a couple of different experiences in my career with policy
2:16:28 review on two different levels.
2:16:30 First of all, I’ll say this, right?
2:16:33 Any legislation that comes down is going to predicate the need
2:16:35 to review our policies.
2:16:37 And so you’ve got that top-down approach from state legislation
2:16:40 says, okay, we’re going to make
2:16:41 these changes.
2:16:42 So we have no choice.
2:16:42 At that point, we’ve got to get in there.
2:16:44 We’ve got to look at the policy.
2:16:45 And we’ve got to be in compliance with the regulations of the
2:16:48 state of Florida.
2:16:50 And that’s taken care of through the cabinet and appropriate
2:16:54 folks in the school district that work
2:16:57 on that in that department.
2:16:59 Say, for instance, extracurricular activities.
2:17:00 And then the proposal is made to the board where the board has
2:17:05 the oversight on, no, we want to see
2:17:07 these changes included, we want to see this change taken out.
2:17:10 And so it’s got to be a very cohesive conversation about what
2:17:13 that policy is actually going to
2:17:14 finally look at, look like, because you’re going to be signing
2:17:16 it.
2:17:16 So myself personally, while I was, I was a Title IX coordinator
2:17:22 for the district
2:17:24 and all kinds of legal, I was working with the legal committee.
2:17:28 And I think I was involved in the revision in 2015-16 with, I
2:17:35 don’t know, as many as
2:17:36 possibly 10 board policy revisions where we sat down, we got the
2:17:42 information we needed to make the
2:17:44 appropriate revisions so that we were not only in compliance,
2:17:48 but that we were doing the best
2:17:49 to protect the district and protect the students and staff,
2:17:52 because that’s part of why policy is there,
2:17:56 to keep things in check, the checks and balances.
2:17:59 So I was able to firsthand work on revising policy myself with
2:18:05 the legal department,
2:18:07 and others involved.
2:18:08 And then at the cabinet level, all of those board policies come
2:18:12 to us before they go
2:18:13 and present it to the board.
2:18:14 So at that point, you’re involved in any board policy review
2:18:18 that takes place,
2:18:19 and everybody has an opportunity sitting around the table to
2:18:22 provide their suggestions and/or concerns.
2:18:25 But it’s not outside the realm of reality, where as a
2:18:29 superintendent, you look at the board and say,
2:18:34 hey, can we talk about this policy?
2:18:36 I think we need to make some revision and have that conversation,
2:18:40 just as much as it is for you,
2:18:41 as the board, to say, hey, we need to take a look at this policy.
2:18:45 And so that’s also a two-way street there through the
2:18:48 communication.
2:18:48 And then once it’s determined that a policy needs to have
2:18:51 revision, let’s make the revisions,
2:18:53 let’s make sure they’re legal, right?
2:18:55 And then let’s sit down and say, is there anything else that
2:18:58 needs to be done, or are we good?
2:19:00 And if we’re good, let’s sign it in, and then we follow.
2:19:03 Okay.
2:19:04 Thank you very much.
2:19:05 All right.
2:19:08 One of the other questions would be your management style.
2:19:13 I’ve heard, you know, some of the questions, I kind of get an
2:19:16 idea,
2:19:16 but how would you describe your management style?
2:19:18 So I’m a code shifter.
2:19:20 I remember the big, big, big, and this is not my answer.
2:19:26 We have heard it for so many years in interviews, servant leader,
2:19:30 servant leader, servant leader,
2:19:31 and it was so overused.
2:19:32 I’ll do whatever, I won’t ask anybody to do it, you know, that I’m
2:19:36 not willing to do.
2:19:36 And that is really overused.
2:19:39 And there are times where that is appropriate, but I consider
2:19:41 myself more of a situational leader.
2:19:43 There are times where you need to be, let me make sure I get
2:19:46 this right, not authoritative,
2:19:49 or, you know, there’s the good side of it and the bad side.
2:19:52 There’s a time where you have to be, look, I’m putting, this is
2:19:55 it, I’ve got to make the decision.
2:19:56 All right.
2:19:57 And then there are times where you’ve got to bring folks to the
2:20:00 table and say, okay,
2:20:00 let’s have a conversation.
2:20:01 You’ve got to be able to delegate.
2:20:05 You’ve got to delegate to people what they want delegated to.
2:20:10 And that’s not, you know, placating to people.
2:20:13 They’re doing what they like to do.
2:20:15 They’re going to put more effort into it, more heart.
2:20:17 It’s going to have more value.
2:20:18 And so that’s the same thing we do as we’re building leaders in
2:20:20 our school systems, right?
2:20:22 You know, when you’re trying to build a dean to an AP and an AP
2:20:24 to a principal,
2:20:25 you give them roles that they’re interested in so they can
2:20:28 thrive.
2:20:29 And then you build on what they might be lacking.
2:20:33 So I consider myself situational.
2:20:35 I can adapt to any, any, any, anything that’s coming at you.
2:20:40 And again, sometimes you’ve got to hit it quick.
2:20:43 You’ve got no time and, and you’re definitive about it.
2:20:47 And when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.
2:20:48 When you’re, when you’re wrong, you say, you know what?
2:20:51 Okay.
2:20:51 I blew this one.
2:20:52 My bad.
2:20:54 Let’s, let’s, let’s hit it from a different direction.
2:20:56 Maybe I was a little too quick on this one, but you’ve got to
2:21:00 have the humility in leadership
2:21:02 that I think sometimes we, folks get this idea of, well, I’m in
2:21:07 charge.
2:21:07 I need to always look like I’m in charge.
2:21:09 Well, even a duck on a pond looks calm on the top.
2:21:13 Their feet are churning away on underneath, right?
2:21:16 As a leader, that’s how you need to portray yourself.
2:21:18 Your feet are churning.
2:21:19 Your wheels are spinning.
2:21:21 But when you’re on that water, you look as graceful as a duck on
2:21:24 top of that pond.
2:21:25 It’s moving, but it doesn’t look like you know how.
2:21:28 And that’s the same thing a leader needs to do.
2:21:30 And, and I try to emulate that.
2:21:32 You don’t need to look like there’s a crisis when there is a
2:21:36 crisis.
2:21:36 Because that’s when everybody all of a sudden starts to act like
2:21:38 there’s a crisis.
2:21:43 All right.
2:21:44 Well, thank you.
2:21:44 So how much time do I have here?
2:21:46 Uh, you still have almost four minutes.
2:21:48 All right.
2:21:49 Over four minutes.
2:21:49 So the question was, what makes you the ideal candidate?
2:21:53 I’m going to switch a little bit on this because of the question
2:21:56 that we had for our last candidate
2:21:58 and being recorded.
2:21:59 It’s out there.
2:22:00 I’d like you to have maybe a little bit towards that.
2:22:02 You mentioned situational leader, which I think is very
2:22:05 important.
2:22:06 So when you have a situation that you have a clear direction
2:22:10 from our state, you had mentioned
2:22:12 even that on policy.
2:22:13 We had a situation here in the last couple of years where I
2:22:17 believe we had a clear direction
2:22:20 from the state and from the governor.
2:22:22 Our last, our last candidate kind of hinted maybe where we didn’t
2:22:29 listen to the public.
2:22:30 And that was really on our mask situation.
2:22:33 Sure.
2:22:34 So in the last couple of minutes, how would you have liked this
2:22:39 scene that that had played
2:22:40 out if you were in this role?
2:22:43 Would you have, would you have been that situational leader?
2:22:45 I don’t think, I think at that point you’d have to, you know,
2:22:48 you’d make the decision.
2:22:49 I mean, that’s, you, you flex over into, okay, if this is the
2:22:53 state mandate, right?
2:22:55 I mean, let’s, let’s take a look what’s happened down south.
2:22:57 Um, you know, you buck the system and boards get replaced and
2:23:03 then
2:23:04 other things, ramifications that come in that are both financial,
2:23:07 personal, professional.
2:23:09 Um, and so you have to understand your place.
2:23:13 And I think that goes back to humility, right?
2:23:15 My politics do not determine what I am instructed as a
2:23:19 superintendent of a school district to do.
2:23:24 No different than when my superintendent tells me in my role now
2:23:27 or previous roles,
2:23:29 this is what we’re doing.
2:23:30 And to me, that was a mandate that came from my boss.
2:23:33 You’re my boss.
2:23:35 State tells us what to do.
2:23:36 Um, the piece that really is difficult when you’re in that role
2:23:43 where you’re like,
2:23:44 look, we’re going to follow the state mandate.
2:23:45 And this is what we’re going to do.
2:23:46 Is how to find a way to be an empathizer to all of the
2:23:52 stakeholders.
2:23:53 To be able to walk that tightrope of, look, this is what we need
2:23:58 to do.
2:23:58 This is why.
2:24:00 This is how we’re going to try to mitigate it.
2:24:03 This is how we’re going to try to make it as painless as
2:24:06 possible.
2:24:06 But this is what we’ve been instructed to do.
2:24:10 And that’s tough because you’re going to get hit.
2:24:12 You’re not, 73,000 students, how many of those are, you know,
2:24:17 families?
2:24:18 You’re not going to make everybody happy.
2:24:20 But you’ve got to give them the why.
2:24:21 And you’ve got to work through the best ways to do it.
2:24:25 And I think that’s where the conversation sometimes,
2:24:28 and not just necessarily in the mask mandate,
2:24:30 but I think that’s where the conversation should sometimes roll
2:24:32 in other situations such as.
2:24:35 Instead of saying, let’s just buck the system.
2:24:39 No, we need to do it.
2:24:40 But let’s talk about how we can work within those parameters.
2:24:43 Is there a little wiggle room here?
2:24:46 What can we do here?
2:24:47 What are your ideas?
2:24:48 Don’t just share with me that you don’t like it.
2:24:50 Don’t share with me, because that’s not going to help.
2:24:51 And I can’t help to say, this is what we’re going to do.
2:24:55 All right, now we’re at a stalemate.
2:24:57 But the conversation needs to shift away from no, yes, no, yes,
2:25:01 to how’s the best way to make this work?
2:25:03 How can we make this?
2:25:05 And that’s through conversations.
2:25:07 And that means sitting there getting berated at times.
2:25:09 You know, that’s through being, you know, lots of names being
2:25:15 thrown your way.
2:25:16 That’s going to happen.
2:25:17 You can’t take it personal.
2:25:20 It’s personal for me as a parent with my children in the school
2:25:22 system.
2:25:23 But when I sit in that role, in whatever role I hold in the
2:25:26 school district, that’s my profession to take care of what’s
2:25:30 best for children.
2:25:31 And at the end of the day, parents can be mad at me all they
2:25:34 want.
2:25:35 But if I’m making the best decision for children, I’ll sleep at
2:25:38 night.
2:25:41 Thank you.
2:25:42 Good, Mr. Trout?
2:25:44 We’re good.
2:25:45 Is there anybody that felt like they didn’t get a question asked
2:25:48 that I could actually ask for you?
2:25:52 Before I move on to my one question that I have and give them
2:25:55 enough time to finish out.
2:25:56 We’re at 11:12 and I want to give you 10 minutes.
2:25:59 So I’m going to give myself two minutes to ask you a question in
2:26:03 response because then that’ll give you the 10 minutes.
2:26:05 And then if anybody needs to use the restroom for five, we can
2:26:08 before we start the next.
2:26:09 So my question is, is that one of my big passions for the past
2:26:14 six years has been career and technical education.
2:26:16 We’ve spent a considerable amount of money in infrastructure
2:26:20 building footprint of career and technical programs.
2:26:23 One of the issues that we have is that the students that may be
2:26:26 taking those classes may not see that as a career,
2:26:29 but rather just an extra class to take, which is okay.
2:26:31 And I think that there’s also a need for our – some of our
2:26:37 students that may have at risk and some
2:26:39 of those other things to see a career through those as opposed
2:26:43 to sometimes maybe they wouldn’t be the best fit for college.
2:26:45 But if they’re not, then showing them that there’s something
2:26:48 they can succeed at also.
2:26:49 So I want to kind of hear what your vision would be somewhere
2:26:52 wrapped around how a successful career
2:26:54 and technical program would work.
2:26:55 I know I don’t expect you to understand our infrastructure and
2:26:58 everything else,
2:26:59 but just philosophically, like how – how could you take one and
2:27:02 put it forward?
2:27:02 Because in my mind, we’re preparing to be the footprint for
2:27:06 space.
2:27:06 Yes.
2:27:07 So with that, it’s all you, man.
2:27:09 So I’m going to start with a personal anecdote.
2:27:11 My 28-year-old son went to high school where I was the principal.
2:27:17 God bless him.
2:27:18 And sat through all of my meetings and all of our conversations
2:27:24 about post-secondary education.
2:27:27 And when we would sit down at home and say, okay, what do you
2:27:30 want to do?
2:27:30 You know what?
2:27:31 He had two passions in life, music and NASCAR.
2:27:35 That was it.
2:27:36 Those were his passions.
2:27:37 Anything else was not important.
2:27:40 And so he’s like, well, I’m going to go to Florida State for
2:27:44 music.
2:27:44 And I said, all right, we’ll get you on the path and we’ll start
2:27:48 looking at Florida State for music.
2:27:51 I came home from work one day and he’s sitting on the couch.
2:27:54 And he’s like, Dad, we need to talk.
2:27:56 And I’m like, well, no, let’s not have that conversation.
2:27:59 He says, I’d like to go check out a school tomorrow.
2:28:03 And I said, all right.
2:28:04 What school?
2:28:06 And he goes, Universal Technical Institute.
2:28:08 I said, oh, yeah, over there off Taft Island Road.
2:28:10 He says, yeah.
2:28:11 He goes, I want to check out the automotive school.
2:28:12 I’m like, all right.
2:28:14 So I said, yeah, there’s no school tomorrow.
2:28:16 So yeah, we’ll go.
2:28:17 He goes, oh, we have an appointment at three o’clock.
2:28:19 I’m like, who are you?
2:28:21 We got there at three o’clock.
2:28:23 At six o’clock, I signed a contract to send him to North
2:28:26 Carolina for the NASCAR Technical Institute.
2:28:27 I was so impressed with the program.
2:28:30 And he graduated from UTI and he is now working in Kentucky for
2:28:35 Volkswagen.
2:28:36 And on the way home from that check, I look at him and I said,
2:28:42 dude,
2:28:42 why did we just have this conversation today?
2:28:45 He goes, Dad, you’re a high school principal, so let’s go to
2:28:48 university.
2:28:49 I said, you sat in my meetings with juniors and seniors and I’ve
2:28:53 always talked about CTE, military, university, workforce.
2:28:58 What do you think?
2:29:00 He goes, Dad, you’re a high school principal.
2:29:01 I thought I had to do it.
2:29:01 I’m like, well, I obviously didn’t market it to my son.
2:29:04 I sure need to do a better job marketing it to everybody else.
2:29:07 I think that was part of the problem, right?
2:29:10 In the 1970s, grease shop is not automotive, right?
2:29:13 And so in where we’ve been, one of my mentors was the associate
2:29:17 superintendent over at CTE in Orange.
2:29:19 He’s one of my current mentors.
2:29:21 And he said it best.
2:29:23 He says, why are we pushing kids into AP or CTE?
2:29:26 Why can’t you have steak and lobster?
2:29:27 And why are we only marketing it to this group of students
2:29:31 versus this group of students?
2:29:33 And that’s what it comes down to, right?
2:29:34 It’s the marketing.
2:29:35 It’s the viability, not just of the program, but the future.
2:29:40 A TEAG welder can come out right now and make 70,000 plus to
2:29:44 start.
2:29:44 That’s such a skill.
2:29:47 An art is what I would call it.
2:29:50 How are we not communicating with businesses to build these
2:29:54 programs?
2:29:55 Over at Orange, they turned it into Orange Technical College
2:29:59 with five campuses as opposed
2:30:00 to these five remote sites that were all separate.
2:30:03 And unfortunately, when I became principal, and I know I’m out
2:30:05 of time, but when I became
2:30:06 principal, most of the programs that we had, we had an
2:30:09 automotive program at the high school,
2:30:10 but it was then sent to the site.
2:30:12 And then it all got pushed out to the site.
2:30:14 And so now we’ve lost that connectivity sometimes in those
2:30:18 schools.
2:30:19 It is crucial for our society to build those programs and to not
2:30:27 treat them mutually exclusively.
2:30:30 And it goes back to one of the three challenges in a school
2:30:33 district, marketing.
2:30:35 What are we doing to sell this as a product and not just as a,
2:30:41 here’s something else, here’s
2:30:44 something cool you can do?
2:30:45 So that would be my thought.
2:30:50 Thanks for that passionate speech.
2:30:52 I didn’t know that you would get into a relationship with your
2:30:54 son.
2:30:55 So thank you for taking that time.
2:30:56 That’s good.
2:30:57 I’m going to give you eight minutes because I was going to give
2:30:59 you 10, but we kind of rolled
2:31:00 over.
2:31:00 And I have to be respectful of the other individuals being able
2:31:04 to use the restroom.
2:31:05 I get myself in trouble because I forget sometimes when we roll.
2:31:08 Completely understood.
2:31:08 So I give you the eight minutes.
2:31:10 And this is your floor to tell us anything that you may not have
2:31:12 been able to.
2:31:13 And we appreciate it.
2:31:15 So here you go.
2:31:15 So I shared that my father went into education after the Air
2:31:21 Force.
2:31:22 And I’m going to hold on right now.
2:31:27 So when he passed in 1997, the young age of 50, he never got to
2:31:35 see me progress through
2:31:38 my career.
2:31:39 I’ve been a teacher for four years.
2:31:40 I have worked my entire career to honor his name.
2:31:45 I’m not here today about a legacy.
2:31:53 I’m here because I was drawn.
2:31:56 So can I make Brevard a little bit better, even if it’s only in
2:32:01 four months, than when
2:32:03 I got there?
2:32:04 Because I do feel like I’ve been able to do that throughout my
2:32:07 career, in all of the
2:32:09 assignments that I’ve been given.
2:32:10 I believe that if you were to do any research on me, the value
2:32:15 of relationships, how you treat
2:32:18 people, why they keep coming back, and why they’ll run through a
2:32:24 wall for you, even if
2:32:25 they don’t understand or don’t agree, but they believe in you
2:32:31 that much, that you’re their
2:32:33 recognized leader.
2:32:34 We do panorama surveys, garner support, and thoughts about
2:32:41 support.
2:32:44 My learning community office was 95% favorable rate.
2:32:48 That’s with all administrators, APs, principals, but they’ll
2:32:53 tell you, my title doesn’t matter.
2:32:58 The job matters.
2:33:00 Children matter.
2:33:01 The title just gives me some latitude on how much I get to do to
2:33:06 get there.
2:33:08 But I’ll lay on the floor and talk to a child in trauma.
2:33:12 I’ll sit in a classroom and do a one-on-one with a child.
2:33:15 I will sit with a teacher who’s ready to quit.
2:33:20 And a principal, well, numerous principals over the last two
2:33:25 years that were ready to quit
2:33:27 and say, we’re going to make it through.
2:33:29 How you treat people is how you’ll be remembered.
2:33:34 And that’s something my father instilled in me.
2:33:38 That’s why I’m here.
2:33:40 Can I bring a relationship base that can bring stakeholders
2:33:46 together after the last two years
2:33:49 of high contention?
2:33:52 And I think that I’ve got that skill set to maybe heal some
2:33:56 wounds, scars are never going
2:33:58 to go away, but maybe heal some wounds, build some trust in
2:34:03 district leadership, school board
2:34:05 leadership, with the folks that are out there that are doing the
2:34:07 job.
2:34:08 I believe that’s what makes me the best candidate for this job.
2:34:13 Thank you.
2:34:15 Thank you, Mr. Larson.
2:34:18 I’m going to give each one of them an opportunity to say a
2:34:20 couple of words real quick.
2:34:22 Mr. Trump.
2:34:22 Mr. Larson, I just, again, want to thank you very much for
2:34:27 coming out and laying
2:34:27 all on the line.
2:34:28 You’re an impressive human being, so I appreciate it.
2:34:33 And I wish you all the best here.
2:34:34 Thank you.
2:34:35 Mr. Wright.
2:34:37 I want to thank you as well for coming and putting your name in
2:34:40 the contest here.
2:34:42 That’s a step of bravery, it is.
2:34:44 I look forward to our one-on-one this afternoon, so we’ll get to
2:34:47 know you a little better.
2:34:48 Thank you.
2:34:49 Ms. Campbell.
2:34:50 Yeah, thank you.
2:34:51 And it always brings an extra spotlight, especially since we
2:34:54 have you lined up like we’re the
2:34:55 Inquisition and live stream.
2:34:57 And if nothing like a little pressure, we very much appreciate
2:35:00 your time and your candid responses.
2:35:03 Ms. Jenkins.
2:35:05 Yeah, thank you again for taking the drive over here and joining
2:35:08 us today.
2:35:09 I appreciate it very much.
2:35:10 And I appreciate your responses, not only about your
2:35:13 professionalism, but as well as your personal.
2:35:16 So thank you for being open and honest, and I look forward to
2:35:18 our one-on-one.
2:35:20 Mr. Larson, I know you got a couple of FSU fans up here, so
2:35:23 thank you for telling that story.
2:35:25 I do have one that went to Florida, too.
2:35:27 I just got to say, right, there’s your equality right there.
2:35:30 And I did want to say you have a very impressive resume, and I
2:35:35 appreciate the time for you coming
2:35:36 here before us and taking the time to answer some of these
2:35:38 questions.
2:35:38 I’m excited.
2:35:39 I’m looking forward as they are, so let’s get moving.
2:35:42 Thank you.
2:35:43 Thank you very much to all of you.
2:35:44 Thank you.
2:43:43 - For all those that are tuning in,
2:44:09 we have our next contestant for the–
2:44:13 - The interim superintendent,
2:44:16 and we have a series that’s gonna be the same exact way.
2:44:19 What we have is a five-minute introduction,
2:44:24 which is followed by a series of 10-minute questions,
2:44:30 multiple questions by each board member,
2:44:32 and then I usually come in at the end,
2:44:33 depending on the time, ask about one question,
2:44:35 give you about 10 minutes to finish up
2:44:37 with anything that may not have been an opportunity
2:44:40 for you to do so in the past.
2:44:42 But with that, I think we get started.
2:44:45 I really appreciate you being here
2:44:48 and taking the time to apply and to come.
2:44:51 You came from out of town, and we really appreciate–
2:44:53 - Stuart.
2:44:54 - I know, still out of town.
2:44:55 It’s a couple down.
2:44:56 - Simple ride.
2:44:56 I know the road well.
2:44:58 - But we appreciate you coming,
2:44:59 so thank you very much.
2:45:00 The floor is yours.
2:45:02 - Well, good morning,
2:45:03 and I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you
2:45:06 about your expectations
2:45:08 for the interim superintendent,
2:45:10 and how my extensive experience
2:45:12 both in the interim setting
2:45:14 as an interim superintendent in several districts,
2:45:18 and my executive skill set
2:45:21 in very large school districts,
2:45:24 and state settings,
2:45:26 and highly diverse communities,
2:45:28 and very large school systems,
2:45:31 may fit your needs,
2:45:33 particularly as you go forward
2:45:35 through a nationwide search
2:45:36 for your permanent superintendent.
2:45:38 Let me be clear.
2:45:40 I believe that an interim should not apply
2:45:42 to be a candidate for the permanent role.
2:45:46 And I base that on many reasons.
2:45:48 A lot of experience,
2:45:50 both as a search consultant,
2:45:53 where I’ve done a number of superintendent searches,
2:45:56 as also as the interim superintendent.
2:45:59 And, number one,
2:46:01 you want to have the maximum flexibility as a board,
2:46:04 I assume,
2:46:05 to attract the finest candidates,
2:46:09 and not restrict in any way
2:46:12 someone who might apply for the job.
2:46:14 Okay?
2:46:16 And so, you don’t want the interim
2:46:18 to try to do your business in the short term.
2:46:22 And sometimes making some very hard decisions
2:46:24 with the board,
2:46:25 in order to, so to speak,
2:46:27 address the issues you don’t want
2:46:28 your permanent superintendent
2:46:29 to have to handle day one.
2:46:31 And you don’t want that individual
2:46:34 looking to campaign for the job simultaneously.
2:46:38 So, what I’m saying to you is that,
2:46:42 when I’ve walked into interim positions,
2:46:44 I’ve made it known,
2:46:45 if the legislation was,
2:46:47 as I explained,
2:46:48 perhaps you had seen,
2:46:48 when I was in Baltimore,
2:46:50 when the state took over,
2:46:51 and I was brought in as a CEO and CFO,
2:46:54 that the interim could not be permanent.
2:46:56 And I think that was the best arrangement.
2:47:00 It allowed the school board,
2:47:01 and for me,
2:47:02 on the school board’s agenda,
2:47:04 to make hard decisions,
2:47:05 to do the kinds of things necessary.
2:47:07 It also allowed,
2:47:08 for a very thorough nationwide search.
2:47:12 Ultimately,
2:47:13 the teachers and administrative association,
2:47:18 and the board went through the state board,
2:47:20 to change the legislation,
2:47:21 which they did sort of offer me the job,
2:47:22 and I refused to accept it.
2:47:24 I don’t go into a job and say,
2:47:26 on one day I’m only gonna be an interim,
2:47:28 and the next day,
2:47:28 I want the permanent job.
2:47:30 Unfair.
2:47:31 So, I’ll say that up front to you.
2:47:33 And so, I appreciate very much,
2:47:35 that you are looking for an interim.
2:47:37 And,
2:47:39 I think you understand.
2:47:40 I could begin immediately,
2:47:42 to provide a very seamless transition.
2:47:44 So that when schools open,
2:47:47 right after winter break,
2:47:49 I can hit the ground running.
2:47:50 In fact, I would appreciate that,
2:47:52 if you do decide to appoint me,
2:47:54 that I could begin the next day,
2:47:57 at eight o’clock,
2:47:58 to start debriefing,
2:47:59 your current superintendent,
2:48:00 and working with you individually,
2:48:02 and as many stakeholders,
2:48:03 between now,
2:48:04 and the first week of January.
2:48:06 I’m in a position where,
2:48:07 I don’t start another,
2:48:09 consulting position to contract,
2:48:12 which we just received last night,
2:48:14 until late January.
2:48:16 But I will,
2:48:17 I’ve already talked to my partner,
2:48:18 and explained that,
2:48:20 if I was so fortunate to work with you,
2:48:22 all bets are off.
2:48:23 I will not be doing that.
2:48:24 I will simply,
2:48:26 find someone else to replace me,
2:48:27 in that role.
2:48:28 And, everything else that I would do.
2:48:30 Because, what I do,
2:48:32 when I take over a school district,
2:48:33 either on a permanent,
2:48:34 or interim basis,
2:48:35 or on a consulting basis,
2:48:37 when I do my thorough and efficient studies,
2:48:40 like 89 districts around the nation.
2:48:42 Everything else stops in my life.
2:48:44 And that, my wife doesn’t like that.
2:48:46 Nor is my dog.
2:48:47 But the bottom line is that,
2:48:50 you deserve 24/7 my attention and my effort.
2:48:56 As I pointed out,
2:48:58 I’ve specialized in leading large school districts.
2:49:01 And states with multi-race populations,
2:49:05 multi-ethnicity,
2:49:06 wide variety of socio-economic levels.
2:49:09 And I’m talking about the second largest school district
2:49:11 in the nation.
2:49:12 I’m talking about Baltimore,
2:49:14 139,000 students.
2:49:16 I’m talking about,
2:49:18 yes, I’ve even taken on some smaller districts.
2:49:21 But the point being is that,
2:49:22 in the districts I’ve run as a permanent 49,000 students,
2:49:26 and whatever, that,
2:49:28 in each situation that I’ve walked into in my entire career,
2:49:32 ‘cause I was trained for this,
2:49:34 is a district or a state in transition.
2:49:36 I have followed,
2:49:40 always in the middle of the year,
2:49:42 those superintendents were departing
2:49:45 for one reason or another.
2:49:46 So,
2:49:48 having very specialized experience in this area,
2:49:52 allows me to bring a perspective
2:49:54 that I hope could be of value to you.
2:49:57 And seriously,
2:49:59 I’m at that point in my life and career
2:50:00 where I choose to work at the projects
2:50:03 and wherever and help districts out,
2:50:05 because it’s my way of giving back.
2:50:08 And I enjoy it.
2:50:09 Get a great deal of personal satisfaction out of it.
2:50:11 As we talk here,
2:50:14 you’ve seen my paperwork.
2:50:15 I’m sure you’ve read through it.
2:50:17 You know my life better than I do,
2:50:18 probably at this point.
2:50:19 But I think what’s important is that I’m also,
2:50:24 having done consulting jobs in everywhere from huge districts,
2:50:28 I just completed one that took over a year,
2:50:31 Baltimore County.
2:50:32 It did a large lion’s share of that
2:50:34 in every aspect of operations,
2:50:36 as well as for the county government.
2:50:38 In Houston, the year before,
2:50:39 and I can go on,
2:50:40 I don’t know if I sent you a list of the consulting assignments
2:50:43 and districts and I will provide that
2:50:45 and even the studies I’m so interested,
2:50:47 but has allowed me to know how to move into seamlessly
2:50:51 a school system.
2:50:54 I’ve already done a deep dive into every document
2:50:56 that your district has online
2:50:58 or the state has about you.
2:50:59 I know your strategic plan,
2:51:01 your metrics and your outcomes.
2:51:03 I know your organizational structure.
2:51:04 And I read through your recently adopted budget line by line.
2:51:08 This is what I do.
2:51:10 I immerse myself in and be knowledgeable of.
2:51:13 That’s what I’ve been trained to do when I was at Wharton,
2:51:16 of how to move into a transitional situation.
2:51:19 So I’m not going to go on to talk anymore.
2:51:24 I think my time may be up.
2:51:26 It’s just that I’m really looking forward to this conversation
2:51:28 because it appears to me that you’re very focused
2:51:31 on the notion of an intro
2:51:35 and not conflating that with that of a permanent
2:51:39 because they are two distinctive roles.
2:51:41 Very, very distinctive.
2:51:43 And I speak only from the fact
2:51:45 that having been in all those roles,
2:51:47 I know the difference.
2:51:49 And also having been the chairman of two state boards,
2:51:53 I know something about what it means
2:51:55 in terms of having to manipulate all of that
2:51:58 and also what to do with regard to board policies,
2:52:02 directions, regulations,
2:52:04 and the context of state and federal laws.
2:52:08 Thank you for that time.
2:52:12 Sorry I went over.
2:52:13 - No, Mr. Schiller,
2:52:14 I don’t mind going over a little bit.
2:52:16 That’s why I give up my time at the end.
2:52:17 So thank you so much for those comments.
2:52:20 Ms. Campbell’s going to go up first,
2:52:22 then Ms. Jenkins,
2:52:23 then Trent and then Ms. Wright.
2:52:25 You have the floor, Ms. Campbell.
2:52:26 - Thank you.
2:52:27 And good morning, Dr. Schiller.
2:52:28 - Good morning.
2:52:29 - It’s good to have you with us today.
2:52:30 - Just fine.
2:52:31 So my first question has to do with relationship building
2:52:35 in our community.
2:52:36 So how would you build and facilitate a collaborative,
2:52:39 trusting relationship with all of our stakeholders,
2:52:42 our school and district level leaders, students, families,
2:52:45 teachers, support staff, even our business and community leaders?
2:52:49 And if you would give some of your experiences in doing that?
2:52:53 - Sure.
2:52:54 I’m going to frame most of my responses from the perspective of
2:52:59 interim.
2:53:00 The experience I’ve had as interim.
2:53:02 You know, if you want me to talk about my high school years as a
2:53:06 principal
2:53:06 of 2,300 students in New Jersey, I can roll that in, whatever.
2:53:11 But in every situation that I’ve found, that I walk into a
2:53:15 district community,
2:53:17 somewhat in transition, whereby credibility may need to be
2:53:22 improved
2:53:24 or restored with the stakeholders, elected officials, governors.
2:53:32 And that the interim has a very critical role.
2:53:36 Assuming that that particular matter that you’ve raised, Ms.
2:53:41 Campbell,
2:53:41 is high on the board’s agenda for the interim.
2:53:45 Then I’m going to rely on you to help me open the doors,
2:53:49 to meet the right people at the right time, visit the schools
2:53:52 together,
2:53:53 meet with the right stakeholders.
2:53:56 So they understand that together, the board and its chief
2:53:59 executive officer
2:54:01 are marching in the same direction and looking to see what we
2:54:04 can do
2:54:05 to build the relationship that you, as a board, need with your
2:54:11 community
2:54:11 and stakeholders in order to go forward.
2:54:15 Example, my last assignment as an interim in the number one
2:54:21 rated academic school
2:54:23 district in Fairfax County in Virginia.
2:54:27 Superintendent left with a difficult situation.
2:54:31 The board and the city council were fractured.
2:54:36 There was no credibility in the budget.
2:54:39 And the board said, okay, Bob, do some magic.
2:54:45 Do whatever you can to repair.
2:54:46 We need to get in.
2:54:47 They believe they needed a new high school.
2:54:49 They needed a school, elementary school to be renovated and
2:54:53 expanded.
2:54:54 And sure enough, it did need all that.
2:54:58 One, I built the budget in public, line by line, piece by piece,
2:55:06 with the board and with the public in public settings.
2:55:09 And of course, all of the city council members who I brought in
2:55:15 as partners
2:55:15 because they funded us.
2:55:19 That developed a lot of credibility because it answered people’s
2:55:24 questions of,
2:55:24 oh, you’re spending too much.
2:55:25 You’re not spending in the right place.
2:55:27 My school’s not getting as much as another school.
2:55:30 Number two, getting to know the informal and formal leaders of
2:55:36 your community,
2:55:37 the opinion makers, the ones who you believe both elected and
2:55:41 appointed
2:55:42 and also the informal, and those are the important ones.
2:55:45 To what extent we can draw in and I can work with them and you
2:55:51 as a team, partners,
2:55:55 to address their issues and to restore the credibility for one
2:55:59 purpose,
2:56:00 in order to put together the foundation to hand off seamlessly
2:56:05 to your permanent superintendent.
2:56:07 Nothing harder for a permanent superintendent to walk into a
2:56:10 community
2:56:10 that’s fractured or doesn’t have a lot of trust and belief.
2:56:16 I can go on forever in terms of how much time and how much
2:56:19 effect,
2:56:20 but the important thing is openness, communication, going to
2:56:26 these folks
2:56:28 and seeing it and talking with them and listening.
2:56:31 And again, it’s not what I, as the interim, may do.
2:56:35 It’s what I, as the interim, on your behalf, am doing.
2:56:39 And that’s why I would ask, as I do in other cases, and I know
2:56:42 you all have jobs
2:56:44 and families and obligations, and although this might be your
2:56:47 highest paying job,
2:56:49 that this is the kind of time that needs to be invested.
2:56:53 And I know you probably will make that investment to the extent
2:56:56 you can.
2:56:57 The other thing is, is that from my experiences in this role,
2:57:05 remember I walked into, after being appointed by a governor and
2:57:09 a state superintendent in Baltimore,
2:57:11 after they took over this school district of Baltimore, took it
2:57:15 over, removed the entire board,
2:57:17 removed all the central administration, canceled all the
2:57:21 contracts, negotiated agreements immediately,
2:57:24 and said, go get ‘em, you have to negotiate the contracts, which
2:57:29 I do, I’ve been trained in that.
2:57:30 Rebuild the budget, it was in multiple millions of dollars of
2:57:36 deficit.
2:57:36 I’m certified as a chief financial officer, school business
2:57:39 administrator in about five states.
2:57:41 And turn around the lowest performing urban school district in
2:57:50 the nation, academically.
2:57:52 And in your spare time, rebuild the relationship with the
2:57:57 community.
2:57:59 Now, mind you, Baltimore is largely a majority minority.
2:58:05 I’ve worked in many of those kinds of districts around, in Shreveport,
2:58:09 Louisiana, and Los Angeles,
2:58:12 and I can go on.
2:58:13 That’s been my career.
2:58:14 And for me to go in and to be able to build the credibility that
2:58:18 was needed.
2:58:19 And I guess the highest estimate that I could point to it was
2:58:24 the fact that, as well as with the mayor,
2:58:27 because I had to create a fiduciary, single fiduciary unit of
2:58:31 the school district, separate from the city.
2:58:34 Well, all these folks are the ones who had gone forward to
2:58:41 legislature to want to make me permanent.
2:58:44 We did something right, the point being is that, I don’t know
2:58:49 what will work here,
2:58:50 but you and I will find out what will work in right quick order,
2:58:54 meet with the right people,
2:58:56 and go down that road, because what I want, and what you would
2:58:59 hope, at the end of however long this will be,
2:59:02 and I’m sure your search consultants are going to tell you,
2:59:05 expect six months to eight months before someone is here.
2:59:08 If you’re going to work with one of your national firms, I’ve
2:59:12 worked with them.
2:59:14 I was part owner of the second largest one that we sold out to
2:59:19 one of these in 2012, okay?
2:59:23 I know what the process is, and it’s so hard these days to find
2:59:27 quality candidates who are going to relocate, move, and come in,
2:59:32 much less leave their district before the end of the school year.
2:59:36 So, but the point is that we would set the table for and rebuild
2:59:40 as much credibility as we can, through the budget, through our
2:59:45 openness,
2:59:45 through our willingness to listen and to respond accordingly,
2:59:50 and not everyone’s going to like what we have to say, or agree
2:59:53 with what we have to say,
2:59:54 but we’re going to be honest and frank about what we’re going to
2:59:57 say and what we’re going to be capable of doing,
2:59:59 and turn it over so when your new permanent superintendent comes
3:00:04 in, whether you choose someone from within, or someone from
3:00:08 wherever,
3:00:08 that individual can benefit from the fruits of our efforts.
3:00:16 Thank you.
3:00:17 Thank you, Ms. Campbell.
3:00:18 That’s all right.
3:00:19 Thank you.
3:00:20 You actually answered my second and third questions.
3:00:21 One was what would a productive, successful interim process look
3:00:24 like?
3:00:25 I was trying to write it in as we were going.
3:00:26 Yeah, yeah.
3:00:27 So, my second question that you covered already, so that’s good,
3:00:30 about what this interim process might look like,
3:00:32 and then what is your availability, you said immediately, and in
3:00:35 fact, immediately, immediately, pre-immediately.
3:00:37 Yeah, how about eight o’clock tomorrow morning, I’ll be here.
3:00:40 There you go.
3:00:42 So, my final question is, what do you believe to be the ideal
3:00:47 working relationship with a school board,
3:00:49 and how do you achieve that?
3:00:52 It’s different with an interim relationship with the board than
3:00:56 that of a permanent, and I’ll tell you why.
3:01:00 One is because, as the interim, I am following your specific
3:01:07 objectives and directive and our agreed-upon plan.
3:01:16 I’ve been fortunate to work with extremely fine boards,
3:01:21 particularly on an interim basis, as full partners.
3:01:28 I had to train, in service, the entire new Baltimore City Board
3:01:34 before I could release them for the legislature to let them to
3:01:38 take over, function as a board.
3:01:42 Okay?
3:01:43 I’ve had close working relationships and personal relationships
3:01:47 that have been ongoing for years with many of my former board
3:01:51 members.
3:01:51 They’ve been to my home.
3:01:52 They still come here.
3:01:53 Maybe it’s because we’re in South Florida.
3:01:55 They come visit.
3:01:56 We talk often, those who are still with us and live.
3:02:01 But the point being is that it’s a partnership, folks, on an
3:02:06 interim basis.
3:02:08 Highly interactive, communicative on the phone.
3:02:11 Weekly written updates, so you all know what my and my staff are
3:02:16 doing.
3:02:17 And the critical nature is the fact that we look upon this and
3:02:23 send a message to your public.
3:02:26 We’re in this together.
3:02:28 I may be the figurehead who may be more available than you all
3:02:31 might be at times.
3:02:33 But I’m doing your work.
3:02:35 I am representing you, Ms. Wright, you, Mr. Trent, and the
3:02:41 collective board.
3:02:43 I follow your policies, your directives, the state laws, the
3:02:48 federal laws, and implement them faithfully along my staff.
3:02:54 I don’t interpret.
3:02:55 I implement them.
3:02:56 Thank you.
3:02:58 Thank you, Mr. Schiller.
3:03:01 Ms. Jenkins, are you prepared?
3:03:03 Yeah, sorry.
3:03:04 Okay.
3:03:05 No.
3:03:06 Thank you, Mr. Schiller.
3:03:10 So I’m going to have to tweak my questions a little bit because
3:03:13 you have a different experience.
3:03:15 And you’ve been very forthcoming about your intentions here.
3:03:19 So it kind of changes the questions that I asked previous
3:03:23 candidates.
3:03:24 So you seem to work for yourself.
3:03:28 It seems like you’re your boss, technically.
3:03:30 But you’ve rotated from place to place, you know, when you step
3:03:34 into these roles.
3:03:35 And so I guess my question would be, you’ve never necessarily
3:03:39 had an evaluation from these positions that you’ve stepped into.
3:03:42 But I’m sure there’s been some kind of feedback.
3:03:45 And so has there ever been a scenario where you’ve stepped into
3:03:47 these school districts where the feedback might have not been so
3:03:50 positive and offered an opportunity for professional growth?
3:03:53 And how did you take that and possibly implement it to something
3:03:56 that you did in the future?
3:03:58 I didn’t burden you with sending to you my evaluations going
3:04:02 back to when I was a principal.
3:04:04 Okay.
3:04:05 I’d be happy to give them all to you.
3:04:07 State level, district level.
3:04:10 Okay.
3:04:11 On many contracts I’ve worked with, it was a pay for performance
3:04:18 bonus effect.
3:04:20 Where I could tell you proudly I got 100% of the bonuses that
3:04:24 were put out there for hitting the goals of student achievement,
3:04:28 dropout rate, and whatever.
3:04:29 Okay.
3:04:30 I’ve been trained into a management by objective and results
3:04:35 process at Wharton Penn.
3:04:38 And I’d be happy to offer that to you.
3:04:41 Generally, in my early years, the criticism, okay, of where I
3:04:49 need growth, impatience, wanting things to happen in districts
3:04:57 and organizations more quickly, you know, because of the inertia
3:05:02 that bureaucracies have.
3:05:03 And I can remember one interesting, because I was going through,
3:05:12 my wife hates all these boxes I have, I keep these things.
3:05:15 Okay.
3:05:16 And going through one yesterday, going through a box and she’s
3:05:19 always telling me I have to get rid of more stuff, rid of more
3:05:22 stuff.
3:05:23 Where I came across one from Illinois, I was looking at the
3:05:27 evaluation.
3:05:28 And the only real negative was the fact that I don’t have enough
3:05:33 time in the day to balance all the time I spent externally
3:05:38 visiting the school districts and the universities and with
3:05:41 legislators and also inside the agency, the department.
3:05:46 And, you know, that is a balance in a, particularly in a large,
3:05:50 diverse district like this one.
3:05:53 How does one balance being out there?
3:05:57 And I will promise you this, I will be in your schools two to
3:06:00 three days a week with you, if you’re available.
3:06:03 With you.
3:06:04 Okay.
3:06:05 And also balance what I have to do inside.
3:06:08 But the key is, if you have a very strong team inside, your
3:06:12 deputy and I know your organizational chart and I know the
3:06:18 announced departures and their dates of departure and the
3:06:22 challenges they are.
3:06:23 But if you have a strong team, you’ve got a strong CFO, you’ve
3:06:27 got a strong, effective folks in all the key positions like the
3:06:32 facilities and whatnot.
3:06:34 And I happened to watch a portion before I got to a dentist
3:06:37 appointment of your board meeting where you, your assistant
3:06:42 superintendent was addressing your facilities questions and
3:06:45 getting flashbacks to other school tracks I had to build and
3:06:49 everything like that.
3:06:50 Okay, because I’ve been heavily involved with facilities,
3:06:54 facilities management contracts, new schools.
3:06:57 And if you have a strong internal team, given the management
3:07:02 style that I like to talk about with you.
3:07:06 That when folks know what the expectations are, and the
3:07:09 standards, and we have agreed upon knowledge of where we’re
3:07:15 going, what we’re going to get accomplished, I’m not going to do
3:07:18 their work for them.
3:07:19 I’m going to hold them accountable, work with them closely.
3:07:23 But they’re the experts in the field.
3:07:25 I know about all those things very, very deeply because I’ve
3:07:28 done every kind of a review of districts in each of those areas.
3:07:33 Even IT, which is not my strongest suit.
3:07:36 But the point being is that sometimes it’s hard to balance
3:07:41 because where’s the fund?
3:07:43 The fund is out in the schools, in the community.
3:07:48 But I am a day-to-day manager.
3:07:50 That I will tell you.
3:07:52 I balanced that in Los Angeles with 700,000 students, the daily
3:07:57 operations with the internal running of the department.
3:08:02 Okay?
3:08:03 My time out there was lessened in my time inside.
3:08:09 One thing I’ve learned is that I adapt to the need of my
3:08:13 situation.
3:08:14 If the need is from you all to be external, rebuild, and build
3:08:19 relationships, you know where my focus of attention will be,
3:08:24 making sure that in the home front, all the trains are running
3:08:27 on time.
3:08:28 If the attention is that I’ve got to attend to some of the major
3:08:33 issues inside the department in order to support, and that’s all
3:08:37 the central office does, provide the support to the schools,
3:08:43 then that’s where I will be.
3:08:46 Or I will find that balance very quickly.
3:08:49 You know, when I do these evaluations of school districts and
3:08:53 superintendents and operations of them all, one of the things I
3:08:58 always look at is how is someone using their time?
3:09:03 And to what extent it’s effective?
3:09:07 And where are we putting our efforts?
3:09:10 So, the short term is that I’ve learned that I have to adapt to
3:09:16 the need of the organization.
3:09:19 And I would expect that you, with whomever you choose to be your
3:09:22 intro, I’m sure you have other fine candidates, that you will
3:09:25 sit down and say, all right, as a board, this is what we’re
3:09:29 going to focus on.
3:09:30 And consequently, we’re going to have checkpoints every month,
3:09:34 every two months, every three months, or at the end.
3:09:37 What is our scorecard of what you expected and how we are going?
3:09:42 And I think the important thing goes back to, and I know I’m
3:09:50 repetitive here, the iterative relationship between the board,
3:09:56 and this is, for me, working with five board members,
3:10:00 I’ve worked with as many as 15, typically nine.
3:10:06 Okay?
3:10:07 This would be a luxury.
3:10:09 Now, I don’t know about you individually.
3:10:11 Careful about that.
3:10:12 You might take that back.
3:10:14 You’re going to take that back.
3:10:15 I’m about three times.
3:10:16 That’s so funny.
3:10:21 Okay, I appreciate you actually formulating my next question for
3:10:27 me.
3:10:28 So, you said that you adapt to the need, and you identified a
3:10:32 very significant need that we’re going to have, day one, come
3:10:36 January.
3:10:37 We are losing two extremely talented cabinet members.
3:10:42 We have a very, very strong internal cabinet.
3:10:47 And so, how would you address that need if you were to step into
3:10:51 that role?
3:10:52 Immediately.
3:10:53 The backbone of a school district is your HR.
3:10:57 Your staffing, and that’s a critical issue that you’re facing as
3:11:00 well as every other school district.
3:11:03 And so, I think that’s a critical issue.
3:11:04 I think that’s a critical issue.
3:11:05 That’s a critical issue.
3:11:06 I think that’s a critical issue.
3:11:07 That’s a critical issue.
3:11:08 I think that’s a critical issue.
3:12:13 I started off as an assistant superintendent for HR.
3:12:21 Then became my deputy in Caddo Parish,
3:12:25 Shreveport, Louisiana.
3:12:27 I mentored him.
3:12:28 And then when I moved on,
3:12:29 he went to two large school districts as superintendent.
3:12:33 And he’s a great friend of mine.
3:12:36 But the point being is that perhaps we could reason together.
3:12:40 He’s telling me, all right, Bob, bring in someone immediately
3:12:43 from the outside.
3:12:44 We want them on an interim basis.
3:12:46 He’ll leave the doors open.
3:12:48 Or, Bob, how about some of these people from inside you could
3:12:53 look at?
3:12:54 And I would look at those folks very closely.
3:12:56 If I could find someone or you had someone in mind who could
3:13:02 step in,
3:13:03 in those roles, temporary or even permanent,
3:13:08 and could bring a lot to the table with my guidance,
3:13:11 I’d move there tomorrow.
3:13:13 If these two folks who are leaving,
3:13:15 and they are critical to your operation in those positions,
3:13:19 then that would be, I would think, job one.
3:13:24 And, Ms. Jenkins, you said that the board considers that your
3:13:29 internal cabinet team strong.
3:13:31 Boy, that’s music to my ears.
3:13:33 I wouldn’t want to begin to tell you how many places I’ve walked
3:13:36 into
3:13:36 and had to replace people immediately or shortly thereafter who
3:13:42 just simply could not.
3:13:44 That’s why I went in Baltimore as the CFO as well as CEO.
3:13:49 He drove that district into deficit, $30 million by midyear.
3:13:54 And so, the point being is that we want to get the best team
3:14:00 that will meet your need, short-term and/or long-term,
3:14:05 and to be able to go forward with that.
3:14:07 That, I think, is really critical.
3:14:09 That’s what I would look at.
3:14:10 I have a network of folks that I might be able to turn to who
3:14:13 might walk in here short-term.
3:14:17 But, you know, the point being is that how wonderful it would be
3:14:20 for me, if I was your interim,
3:14:21 to have people who know this district, who you know, who trust.
3:14:26 And again, seamless.
3:14:28 And that’s what I worked for.
3:14:30 A seamless transition with me coming in and an absolute seamless
3:14:34 transition from me to the permanent.
3:14:37 And that’s what I’m about.
3:14:40 That’s what helped you.
3:14:43 I hope that answers your question.
3:14:45 Yes, thank you.
3:14:46 Thank you, Mr. Schiller.
3:14:48 Mr. Trent.
3:14:50 I’m actually struggling to find a question you have not.
3:14:55 I know.
3:14:56 I’m sorry.
3:14:57 Did I mess up your order or your structure here?
3:15:00 Perfect.
3:15:01 No, you’re doing great.
3:15:02 Football.
3:15:03 I think you’re getting a sense of who I am.
3:15:06 I’m much more conversational than sitting here and giving you a
3:15:11 rote kind of response.
3:15:13 And that’s the privilege of age.
3:15:16 Mr. Trent, you could ask a policy question.
3:15:21 I don’t think we have time.
3:15:22 Yeah, I think that’s been there.
3:15:23 So we’ll go back to the one.
3:15:25 All right.
3:15:26 So more of the day-to-day.
3:15:28 Thoughts on policy review, review committees.
3:15:30 Have you had any experience in this process?
3:15:32 And if so?
3:15:33 Very heavy.
3:15:34 Yes.
3:15:35 Okay.
3:15:36 Very heavy.
3:15:37 I didn’t doubt that.
3:15:38 With regard to school district policy review with our committees,
3:15:40 with our board.
3:15:41 Where I’m at the table to give the advice.
3:15:44 And of course, you know, you subscribe to probably the Florida
3:15:47 School Board Association policy and other associations that will
3:15:51 give you and through your legal office to have embedded and so
3:15:54 forth.
3:15:55 But I think as a new board is a very critical issue.
3:15:58 And I’ve done that with many of my new boards to go through the
3:16:02 policy because you are now in effect representing your community
3:16:06 and you want your policies to so reflect that.
3:16:10 And so consequently, I think I can bring to that process insight,
3:16:16 great deal of experience.
3:16:19 And also importantly, to make sure that their implementation
3:16:25 through regulations, whatever, and with staff, carried out with
3:16:31 fidelity.
3:16:33 And I think that’s the real key.
3:16:35 You know, one of the things I studied when I was at Penn was the
3:16:39 impact of initiatives and policy, you know, in terms of how they
3:16:43 are designed and how, when they filter through a system, how
3:16:46 they are no longer recognizable.
3:16:48 And so I think what’s important, Mr. Trent, is the fact that I
3:16:53 think I could be an asset in this area as much as you would need
3:16:56 and your policy community would need.
3:16:59 I could give you my best thinking and advice, but I will not, I
3:17:03 will not put in my own personal venue perspective or biases.
3:17:09 This is your community.
3:17:11 It’s not mine.
3:17:12 You know your community better than I will know your community.
3:17:16 And you want to be reflective of your community’s composition,
3:17:20 direction, philosophy.
3:17:26 Is that all right?
3:17:27 Yes, absolutely perfect.
3:17:28 Thank you.
3:17:29 All right.
3:17:30 Mr. Susan, I’m actually going to just pass it on to you if it’s
3:17:34 okay.
3:17:35 Yeah.
3:17:36 All right, to Ms. Rebbe.
3:17:37 Yeah.
3:17:38 Well, to take over.
3:17:39 Yeah, no, I, I, I was thinking the same thing.
3:17:40 I was like, I may not even need to ask a question.
3:17:42 By the time it gets to you.
3:17:43 So, um, sure.
3:17:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:17:48 Okay.
3:17:49 Ms. Wright, it’s all yours.
3:17:50 I know.
3:17:51 I, too, am also struggling with finding a question that I have
3:17:53 prepared for you that you’ve not already answered.
3:17:54 I can ask you questions.
3:17:56 So, I know.
3:17:57 I’m like, I feel like maybe we have to switch this around.
3:17:59 All right.
3:18:00 So, uh, you have already indicated, uh, one of our major needs,
3:18:03 obviously, is this interim superintendent.
3:18:05 Uh, from your experience, what would you say our top three needs
3:18:08 are with, obviously, the interim being one of them?
3:18:11 Uh, maybe two more needs that you see within our district.
3:18:14 Number one need?
3:18:15 Your search process to get your permanent superintendent.
3:18:20 The person who you select, she or he, who is going to guide this
3:18:26 district, hopefully, for a number of years.
3:18:29 I say this to all of my boards, is that, I think that’s said
3:18:34 somewhere, that’s your main role.
3:18:37 Who is your chief executive officer?
3:18:40 And if, for whatever reason, you leave the board this year, next
3:18:45 year, personal reasons, at the end of the term.
3:18:48 There’s somebody who’s going to be your legacy.
3:18:51 So, you putting your effort on that search.
3:18:55 Number one, ma’am.
3:18:56 Number two, internal housekeeping.
3:19:00 Staffing, staffing, staffing.
3:19:02 And staffing the schools for next year.
3:19:05 Tough market out there.
3:19:09 Tough times in the school, for schools.
3:19:12 Hard to get people to relocate.
3:19:14 I’ve had to go through massive hirings for school systems.
3:19:19 Particularly in interim roles and et cetera.
3:19:22 And I’ve got some notions of how we’ve been successful.
3:19:26 I helped the Houston Independent School District 250,000 kids
3:19:31 two years ago.
3:19:32 As part of the study there.
3:19:34 To revamp all of what they’re doing with their recruitment and
3:19:37 hiring.
3:19:38 Recently involved, the Moore County, that study there, you know,
3:19:43 did the analysis.
3:19:44 Why are, looking at the people who are leaving and their
3:19:50 outgoing interviews and causes and
3:19:55 surveying why people are leaving.
3:19:57 This is not so much recruitment folks to focus on.
3:20:00 Although we have to bring them in.
3:20:02 It’s the retention of what we need to be focused on.
3:20:06 What is it that’s driving folks out.
3:20:09 Or away from the profession from Broward County.
3:20:13 So, I think that’s really critical.
3:20:15 And third, you’ve raised it.
3:20:17 Okay.
3:20:18 For whatever, and I don’t know the depth.
3:20:21 The need for strengthening community and school district
3:20:27 credibility and support.
3:20:30 I think those are probably Broward specific.
3:20:35 The other things.
3:20:36 I mean, I’ve read your budget.
3:20:38 You know, your superintendent and CFO know what they’re doing
3:20:41 with regard to constructing
3:20:43 the budget.
3:20:44 I can bring some dimension to that and ask the right questions
3:20:49 and build it in a way to assist
3:20:52 them and to guide them in what you’re looking for.
3:20:56 So, you know, and it appears that many of your projects are
3:20:59 doing well.
3:21:00 So, I guess the big picture is to help you move forward with
3:21:05 your search for the permanent.
3:21:09 I’ve done a number of searches.
3:21:11 I’ve helped, as an interim, I’ve helped districts along with
3:21:14 their search consultant.
3:21:16 Because who knows better what the job is.
3:21:20 And, you know, I’ve served as that resource for candidates.
3:21:23 Briefing them, preparing the briefing books that I turn over to
3:21:26 them before they come in.
3:21:28 You know, I can help you in a lot of those kinds of ways if you
3:21:33 so choose.
3:21:34 Okay?
3:21:35 But I think what we would need to do, and that’s my question to
3:21:38 you, what does the board want
3:21:41 in the next six to eight months, realistically, to accomplish
3:21:45 with your superintendent?
3:21:47 Your strategic plan for this year?
3:21:49 Your metrics?
3:21:50 All that stuff.
3:21:51 I mean, it’s all boilerplate and very nicely constructed.
3:21:54 Outcomes.
3:21:55 What are the outcomes?
3:21:57 You know, looking at all these things.
3:21:58 But most importantly, here’s your time in the district in
3:22:02 transition and transformation.
3:22:04 How do we define Brevard County Schools?
3:22:08 I’d like to be a part of that.
3:22:10 All right.
3:22:11 I have one more question.
3:22:12 This is a little off script.
3:22:14 And again, because you have already achieved the answers of all
3:22:17 the questions I was going
3:22:18 to ask you.
3:22:19 Does that mean I can leave soon?
3:22:20 That means you’re going to get lunch early.
3:22:23 So, looking at your resume, it looks like, obviously, you have a
3:22:25 lot of experience, none
3:22:26 of which is really in Florida, though.
3:22:29 How familiar are you with Florida statutes and our rules here?
3:22:32 I conducted a national search for the commissioner of education
3:22:36 in Florida like four commissioners
3:22:39 ago.
3:22:40 Okay.
3:22:42 Got to know Tallahassee real well.
3:22:43 Actually, I’ve been living in Florida since 1950-something, when
3:22:48 my parents moved their business
3:22:51 from New Jersey to Florida.
3:22:52 Okay.
3:22:53 Started to go to Florida schools so they realized they were not
3:22:56 in Miami, not meeting my needs,
3:22:57 and I went back and was educated in New Jersey, but spent more
3:23:02 time.
3:23:03 I’ve served all your beaches.
3:23:05 I’ve fished all your waters here, up and down.
3:23:09 Been here a long time.
3:23:11 My father and I and business associates actually tromped through
3:23:14 a place called Kissimmee when
3:23:17 it was all swampy and whatever.
3:23:19 And someone said this notion of a Disney World’s coming here.
3:23:23 My father didn’t see the investment.
3:23:26 I’m sorry to say.
3:23:27 That’s so good.
3:23:28 My wife and I have personally owned our homes here in Martin
3:23:33 County since 1979.
3:23:38 My folks passed on, but after they moved from Miami years later,
3:23:44 saw out their businesses.
3:23:46 I spent, if I had frequent flyer mods for all the times as a kid
3:23:50 I would fly, I watched Miami
3:23:53 from downtown Miami become from nothing to what it is today.
3:23:57 Okay.
3:23:58 I also conducted a major study of Sarasota County and had
3:24:06 responsibility for their reconstructing
3:24:10 and doing the thermal efficient for their budget.
3:24:16 HR, transportation.
3:24:20 I know the green book.
3:24:22 I know every aspect of the laws here.
3:24:24 You’d be surprised.
3:24:25 I mean, I do this for a living.
3:24:27 I’ve done this my life.
3:24:28 Whether it’s California, you know, people say, oh, you can’t
3:24:31 just parachute into.
3:24:32 Well, sure, you can.
3:24:34 There’s not that much difference.
3:24:35 You know, there’s a past time I read school codes.
3:24:39 Okay.
3:24:40 There’s not going to be much that I’ve never encountered.
3:24:42 I’ll tell you the fact.
3:24:44 And I know Florida.
3:24:45 I know, I know Florida very well for 50 some odd years.
3:24:50 Yes, we’ve lived in, I have lived in other states as jobs would
3:24:53 require, but we’ve always
3:24:55 had our main residence in Stewart, Florida.
3:24:58 And so my wife and I, that’s been our world.
3:25:05 Personally, my wife was a former elementary school teacher and
3:25:08 assistant principal and counselor.
3:25:11 That’s how I got into education.
3:25:13 I was all set to get my MBA in economics.
3:25:16 That was my training originally, finance economics.
3:25:20 But there was this thing about the University of Southeast Asia
3:25:23 that attracted me back in
3:25:27 the Vietnam era, which, and I came out of it and my girlfriend
3:25:31 at the time, who now my wife
3:25:34 of 53 years, introduced me to the wonderful world of elementary,
3:25:38 of education.
3:25:39 So I took a job.
3:25:41 I got paid.
3:25:43 Can I guess what my first salary was as a teacher?
3:25:47 $27,000.
3:25:48 Of English?
3:25:49 $27,000.
3:25:50 $11,000.
3:25:51 $5,800.
3:25:52 Oh my gosh.
3:25:53 $4,400.
3:25:54 How much?
3:25:55 $4,400 to be a high school English teacher.
3:25:58 And they gave me $400 to be the varsity basketball coach and
3:26:04 city baseball coach.
3:26:06 And in New Jersey, they also gave me a shovel to shovel off the
3:26:10 infield and a pitcher’s mound
3:26:12 for baseball.
3:26:13 Wow.
3:26:14 I got hooked.
3:26:15 I was hooked.
3:26:17 And education then, and fortunately, I’ve had wonderful mentors
3:26:20 along the way to keep
3:26:22 driving me.
3:26:23 They recognized something in me that I didn’t see.
3:26:26 And you can see, in rapid order, I taught honors English,
3:26:30 advanced placement English for four
3:26:33 years.
3:26:34 Became a high school principal in another district.
3:26:36 You talk about parachuting with 2,300 kids.
3:26:39 That was out of control.
3:26:41 And my mandate from the board and from the superintendent was
3:26:44 bring this school, high school, under control,
3:26:48 discipline-wise.
3:26:49 Okay?
3:26:50 Stop the food fight.
3:26:51 Stop the excessive cutting.
3:26:53 Stop the violence and whatever.
3:26:55 That was my job to start off with.
3:26:57 Okay?
3:26:58 And then, in rapid succession, you’ve seen my life.
3:27:02 This is your life.
3:27:03 I’ve laid it out for you.
3:27:05 Thank you.
3:27:07 And I got the scars to show it too.
3:27:10 Ms. Wright, you still have a minute and 45 seconds.
3:27:13 Do you want to give it to Ms. Jenkins?
3:27:15 What I was going to do is ask them, because we’re getting close
3:27:18 to the end, if we can ask
3:27:19 you a question and you can tie it into your final piece also.
3:27:23 Does that, because it kind of goes with what I think you would
3:27:26 say anyway.
3:27:27 Ms. Jenkins, if you, I’ll give away my questions.
3:27:30 Right?
3:27:31 Ms. Jenkins, if you can ask that question and then if you can
3:27:33 roll from that question into
3:27:35 your final, we should be able to finish up on time.
3:27:38 Ms. Jenkins, sure.
3:27:41 I kind of avoided this question originally just because I felt,
3:27:45 don’t get me wrong, when
3:27:46 you step in as an interim, our schools are still running.
3:27:49 Our students still need to be successful.
3:27:50 But I was deviating a little bit just to make sure I had the
3:27:53 other questions in there,
3:27:54 because I think this is even a bigger picture kind of question.
3:27:57 So, do with it what you think is appropriate for the role you
3:28:00 believe that you will be filling.
3:28:02 Please.
3:28:03 So, please explain your experience with diversity, equity, and
3:28:06 inclusion and what you have done
3:28:08 in your previous roles and what you think you would do in this
3:28:11 one to ensure that all of
3:28:12 our students are successful.
3:28:14 Could you repeat that?
3:28:17 I’m having a hard time hearing from the distance here.
3:28:19 Ms. Absolutely.
3:28:20 Yeah.
3:28:21 The echo we hear.
3:28:22 Ms. That’s okay.
3:28:23 So, please explain your experience with diversity, equity, and
3:28:26 inclusion and what you have done
3:28:28 and what you would do in this role to ensure all of our students
3:28:32 are successful.
3:28:33 And again, more framework of what you really believe your role
3:28:36 as this interim would be.
3:28:37 Yeah.
3:28:39 I’ve worked, as I indicated to you, mostly large, diverse school
3:28:45 system.
3:28:47 Many levels of socioeconomic.
3:28:50 Many, and when I talk about diverse, I’m talking about students
3:28:55 with special needs.
3:28:56 I notice your percentage is about 6% higher than that of the
3:29:00 national average of those who are classified.
3:29:03 I’ve dealt with consent decrees in special ed, consent decrees
3:29:08 with integration.
3:29:10 I’ve worked in school districts with high levels of Hispanic
3:29:15 population, non-English speaking, like Los Angeles,
3:29:20 African American, Shreveport, Louisiana, my states throughout.
3:29:26 And I’ve endeavored that any child who walks into any of our
3:29:34 schools, whether it’s any state school or schools that are
3:29:38 responsible for up to 2.4 million students,
3:29:41 or in our district schools, regardless of condition, identity,
3:29:48 regardless, deserves a safe, secure environment, which I’m a bugger
3:29:55 for.
3:29:56 As well as the education, the best that we can offer by making
3:30:01 sure that we provide the supports, structure, rigor needed for
3:30:07 them to be successful.
3:30:09 To that end, my boards, and I will give you all that data you
3:30:12 would like.
3:30:13 You can see it on some of my accomplishments list if you had a
3:30:16 chance to look that over that I sent to you.
3:30:18 My boards can proudly point to, in every situation I was in,
3:30:23 significant closing of the gaps among subgroups, African
3:30:30 Americans, and even special ed students at the state level and
3:30:34 the district level.
3:30:36 And even in short-term assignments, those that needed attention
3:30:40 academically.
3:30:42 Now, I didn’t have to attend to that in Falls Church because it
3:30:45 was the number one academic.
3:30:46 But I did assure us all to become the first recognized K-12
3:30:53 International Baccalaureate district.
3:30:55 Okay?
3:30:56 But in the others, I can show you, and I think I’ve demonstrated
3:30:59 there to you, I can give you all the press releases and state
3:31:02 reports.
3:31:03 Like in Baltimore, Los Angeles, in such short order, to turn
3:31:08 around the test scores in each of these areas.
3:31:12 Performance, big focus.
3:31:15 Number two, engagement.
3:31:17 I am what I am.
3:31:21 This is how I am with people.
3:31:24 Regardless of race, nationality, ethnicity, or choice.
3:31:30 I will protect your children.
3:31:34 I will have our staff endeavor to implement for fidelity the
3:31:38 highest academic delivery program possible with the highest
3:31:42 standards.
3:31:42 And most importantly, to carry out the efforts of trying to
3:31:48 rebuild after three hard years and where test scores have plummeted.
3:31:54 State ratings and academic report cards here in Florida for your
3:31:58 district and others have tanked.
3:32:00 In a turnaround.
3:32:02 And in a short period of time, it’s going to be hard.
3:32:05 But if I can set the framework in place, the foundation, your
3:32:08 permanent superintendent can carry at home.
3:32:11 And I think that’s what a leader does in a transformative
3:32:14 environment like this 1B.
3:32:16 To set the table.
3:32:19 To prepare the meal, so to speak.
3:32:22 To allow then it to be delivered.
3:32:25 And therefore, your permanent superintendent takes on a
3:32:28 different dimension.
3:32:30 And that is the one who implements and drives home what you’ve
3:32:34 wanted and which I might have had a hand.
3:32:36 Not I.
3:32:37 I’ve never created a program on my own and said we’re doing it.
3:32:41 One thing I’ve learned about policy is how you build from bottom
3:32:45 up.
3:32:46 That’s where it flows.
3:32:48 To implement.
3:32:49 So, I’m proud of what I’ve done and that’s why I didn’t settle
3:32:55 in on just the comfortable suburban districts for a career.
3:33:00 Well, they, okay.
3:33:03 Whereas, by taking on the assignments that I’ve taken on and
3:33:07 some really crazy ones that people don’t understand how I would
3:33:10 jump from, you know, district to a state.
3:33:15 State back to a district.
3:33:17 Takeover districts.
3:33:18 I love the challenge.
3:33:20 I love the challenge of diversity.
3:33:22 In fact, let me close with this.
3:33:25 I was tasked first as a consultant and then as the interim
3:33:28 deputy superintendent for 11 months in Los Angeles.
3:33:32 The state was poised to take over the school district
3:33:35 academically.
3:33:37 So, I don’t have a plan unless someone came up with a plan to
3:33:39 convince them they could do the things they need to do for the,
3:33:42 all the middle schools and all the high schools.
3:33:46 New superintendent who did not have a background in education.
3:33:51 Who I was helping as an executive coach and as a consultant
3:33:54 asked that I put together something.
3:33:56 And with my knowledge at the state level and spending time up in
3:33:59 Sacramento and going back and forth, I built the plan with my
3:34:03 staff and the community.
3:34:06 Very important because they were going to have to implement it
3:34:09 long after I had gone.
3:34:11 Strategic plan for priority schools to turn them around.
3:34:15 The California State Board of Education approved it unanimously.
3:34:20 State backed off from taking over the school district.
3:34:22 I think I may have included in their accomplishments.
3:34:28 The noted improvement in the test scores and the school ratings
3:34:33 for those schools, particularly for minority, Hispanic, non-English
3:34:38 speaking and special ed and black students, was phenomenal.
3:34:43 I think I would like to help out distance every other school
3:34:46 district.
3:34:47 My board, that board there, that superintendent was very proud
3:34:52 of that.
3:34:53 But, trust me, it’s not what I’m saying, but I’d be happy if you
3:34:58 ever wanted to see any of this stuff or the data to give it to
3:35:01 you.
3:35:02 It’s what happened.
3:35:04 I wouldn’t have held on to any of those jobs because, again, I
3:35:07 work into a, I’ve worked with compacts with my board on
3:35:11 performance.
3:35:13 And with quarterly reports.
3:35:15 How am I doing?
3:35:16 How are we doing?
3:35:17 On everything that we said we’re going out to do.
3:35:19 And we did them in public.
3:35:20 I don’t know if you’re doing that with your strategic plan and
3:35:24 all your metrics or not.
3:35:25 Whether or not that’s something that’s being put up as a scorecard,
3:35:29 as a dashboard, and also reporting to the board.
3:35:31 I like moving my boards into policy boards, corporate-type
3:35:36 policy board operation, and not in the weeds boards,
3:35:41 administrative.
3:35:44 And if you have the central office courses that you say that you
3:35:47 have and you trust in, I can see this board giving them the size
3:35:52 of this district.
3:35:53 Remember, you’re the 48th, 49th, 50th largest district and
3:35:57 growing in the nation.
3:35:59 You’re large.
3:36:00 You’re diverse.
3:36:01 You’re running a $1.5 billion all-in budget.
3:36:06 You need to be thinking big as a board, how you operate, the big
3:36:11 picture, and your outcomes.
3:36:14 You hire interim, permanent, and central office staff to make
3:36:19 sure that what you want to get accomplished is getting
3:36:24 accomplished on the timeline that you want accomplished.
3:36:26 That’s what I could put into place, and I’ve done that.
3:36:30 Sorry for a long answer.
3:36:32 That was great.
3:36:33 Thank you.
3:36:34 Did that include your conclusion?
3:36:36 We have about a minute and 20 until the time where we have to
3:36:42 break.
3:36:43 Yeah, let me just say this.
3:36:45 One, it would be an honor for me to join you immediately.
3:36:49 Like I said, I can stop writing the books I’m writing.
3:36:55 And I could put a hold on my consulting.
3:36:59 I’m flexible at my time.
3:37:01 And most importantly, it would be fun.
3:37:05 I think we can laugh together.
3:37:07 We can cry together.
3:37:08 And most importantly, I appreciate this opportunity to have a
3:37:13 conversation and not just structure, structure, structure,
3:37:16 question.
3:37:17 It’s artificial.
3:37:18 And if you still want me to hang around for the one-on-ones, it
3:37:22 would be my honor to continue the conversation.
3:37:25 Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
3:37:28 Thanks so much for this time.
3:37:30 Mr. Schiller, thank you very much.
3:37:32 I mean, I want to say a million things right now, because that
3:37:35 was, if we hire you, do we get all of these reports that I was
3:37:40 reading from all of the other places that you’ve been at?
3:37:44 All right.
3:37:45 Mr. Trent, do you have something to say?
3:37:47 I just want to say thank you very much for putting yourself out
3:37:50 there.
3:37:50 And it was a pleasure.
3:37:51 Thank you.
3:37:52 Thank you, Mr. Trent.
3:37:53 Yes, I appreciate you coming in and all of your knowledge and
3:37:56 expertise.
3:37:56 I look forward to the one-on-one.
3:37:58 Thank you for being a real human.
3:37:59 I really, really appreciate that.
3:38:00 Thank you.
3:38:01 Mr. Schiller, it’s been a pleasure.
3:38:02 Thank you very much.
3:38:03 Thank you, sir.
3:38:04 All right.
3:38:05 So an extra pressure of being in the public.
3:38:07 And of course, you know, we’re live stream.
3:38:08 We’ve got the inquisition set up here.
3:38:10 So appreciate you being here.
3:38:11 And I look forward to our conversation this afternoon.
3:38:13 I do too.
3:38:14 Thank you.
3:38:15 Same thing.
3:38:16 I appreciate you being here.
3:38:17 I look forward to our one-on-one.
3:38:18 Thank you for the, for the laughs and the chuckles and just
3:38:21 being a real human.
3:38:22 I really, really appreciate that.
3:38:23 Thank you.
3:38:24 Mr. Schiller, it’s been a pleasure.
3:38:26 Thank you very much.
3:38:27 Thank you, sir.
3:38:28 All right.
3:38:34 Thank you.
3:39:04 Mr. Schiller, it’s been a pleasure.
3:39:05 Thank you.
3:39:06 Mr. Schiller, it’s been a pleasure.