What I Learned From An (In-Person) Visit to a Board Committee

 I attended - in person no less - the most recent meeting of the Board's new Ad Hoc Committee to plan and implement their new SOFG initiative (Student Outcomes Focused Governance). I was sad that no Board members were there in person and only two of them were in the Teams meeting with Board staff.  The two members were Chandra Hampson and Liza Rankin. 

I confess that I left after an hour but I plead for forgiveness because I couldn't listen to one minute more of Hampson's ramblings. For someone who tried to limit the length of director comments at Board meetings when she was president, she sure can go on and on. 

This meeting was basically to continue to review their Work Plan and Timeline. I found looking at this information kinda funny because the status of many items was noted as "off-track." I find that a telling status for a Board that yes, does seem off-track because I'm not sure the Board is thinking of ANYTHING else. 

Here's their Overview of what they are trying to do:

• Clarify Goals, create Guardrails, and monitor progress regarding the community's vision and values. I note that they are still working on defining community. This items has eight items under its heading. 
• Codify board processes and practices. There's three here and they are mostly around board training. 
• Redesign board meetings to be more focused on the Goals. This one is pretty troubling as they fundamentally want to change how Board meetings run in a big way. 
• Invest at least 50% of board meeting time each month into monitoring progress toward the Goals
• Review board calendar (which calendar? Monitoring or Meeting?) to create alignment with the Goals and Guardrails
• Review Board agenda to create alignment with Goals and Guardrails. 

Basically, the Board is on a diet - a policy diet, a committee diet, a Board meeting diet.  At this meeting, there was talk of having to do the "policy diet training" first and then, edit their policies.  I believe their first attempt at the policy diet will occur sometimes in late October of 2022. They want to streamline their work to align with whatever these new Goals and Guardrails are AND doing the work that they are legally obliged to do. And that's it. 

I would venture this pretty much means no more director community meetings because why bother if the Board is already bound itself to what it will work on. 

The most concerning issues are that they want all BARs (Board Action Reports which is how each item on the agenda is presented) to be Intro AND Action. Currently, there are about two weeks from Intro to Action (meaning a vote) and that gives the public time to read about the issue, ask questions and give info on an item to the Board when it is introduced. This change would end that opportunity. 

Hampson was not happy to see that they are a year behind on this work. She stated that the Board could be working "two parallel paths at the same time." Meaning, they are trying to get the new process in place but, the work has to continue so it continues in the old manner.

She said, "Committees are not part of SOFG." I find the idea that the Board would no longer talk to staff about Operations, Finance, Curriculum, etc. very worrying if they dissolve one or more committees. I think the format for the meetings should change but dissolving the actual committees would absolutely mean less oversight by the Board of what staff is doing. 

There's a lovely paragraph in the Council of Great City Schools plan on SOFG and committees:

It is not helpful to indulge in delusion and intellectual dishonesty here. More often than not, board members will try to create relationships between the Goals and Guardrails and the existing committees they love serving on. This is once again the triumph of adult ego and pride over a well-reasoned  focus on student outcomes. No, just accept it and move on.

No mincing words there. I can say that in all my years district watching, I have rarely seen any Board member get truly excited about being on a committee or attending committee meetings. Most Board members have committees that  they like being on more than others but "ego and pride" isn't on big display.

Hampson and Rankin seemed at odds with each other at several points. It was strange because they were agreeing on the same topic but each approached it differently. Naturally, Hampson told Rankin she was wrong ( Hampson does this all the time to Rankin but at least one time during this meeting, Rankin asked Hampson if she could finish her thought). 

One bit of discussion that was also concerning was when Hampson and Rankin spoke about when the Board no longer had policies so there would only be Superintendent Procedures and who would those be written for? Because the public has the right to know about these procedures but the staff has to enact them so those procedures would need to be written to reflect both those needs. 

Hampson also used this analogy on Rankin of training for a marathon, saying you have to train to both run and walk to build endurance. (I have never run a marathon so I cannot say if this is a valid strategy.) She told Rankin, "You walk and I run and something has to get done." I'm not sure if Hampson could get any better in trying to keep Rankin in her place. 

Then they talked about when they go to the Board with all this documentation on this process and getting feedback. Hampson impatiently said, "We've already had a million conversations about this" but Rankin said some members might be more comfortable to come back with comments. Hampson said that the Board is "reasonable" and "we got past stuff." She also stated that she thinks the Board has confidence in the Committee to put forth the "collective philosophy" and that "we are not that far apart." 

She also said - with no irony given her current legal situation where her actions in trying to control two staffers went off the rails - that "you can't control other people, just yourself." Oddly, she compared it to how her husband and her kids are not happy that she doesn't show her worry/stress and she basically tells them to get over it.  (I'm not kidding; that's seemed to be the gist of what she said.)

I was truly getting impatient by this time at Hampson's dominance of the conversation and her near-constant interjections of homilies and family stories but she said one last startling thing and she said it in a fairly cold manner. She said, "Especially for Seattle, we need to get away from things just to make people comfortable." She went on to say that this should be "reflected in the classroom" and that "children comfortable in their learning are not learning." What that all means wasn't clear. I certainly think learning can be challenging and all students need challenge but uncomfortable? Hmmm.

I still have no real sense about how the other four members of the Board feel about this initiative.