Leading to Succeed #1

Superintendent Moody discusses the role of the School Board with Grant County Schools Board Chair, Lisa Smith.  If you are interested in learning about finances, board purpose, and how our board is working for our community, make sure you listen! 

Transcript

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00:00:00:03 - 00:00:26:33
Unknown
Hello out there. And welcome to the Leading to Succeed podcast I Grant County Schools podcast. This is a new podcast dedicated to taking a look inside Grant County schools. And our first guest for this series is board chairperson Miss Lisa Smith. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me.

00:00:26:38 - 00:00:47:08
Unknown
Why don't we start with your background if, if you don't mind. Tell us a little bit. How did you first get involved in school governance and describe your journey to becoming a board member for the Grant County School District? Well, my husband and I are both Grant County grads. Our kids are both Grant County grads. So I started when my son was in kindergarten, I think.

00:00:47:13 - 00:01:12:36
Unknown
I joined the group, parents, teachers together to try and raise funds to do things at the individual schools. My kids were at Jared's, from then, when Jansen went to middle school. I wanted to still be involved because I joined PTT there, but then they had an opening outside base. Council didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but I thought, okay, this sounds like something I might be interested in.

00:01:12:41 - 00:01:31:57
Unknown
Got on site based council and that was more of a what can I do? What's this going to do for all the kids in our school? That's really your level that you get to learn how you can affect the daily, how the daily school runs. You can affect how the money is spent. Different things in that school.

00:01:32:00 - 00:01:51:07
Unknown
So I really enjoyed that. He moved to high school. Moved to high school with him. I got on site, ran for site based council at the high school. So I was on there for all of his years in high school, when I was doing high school. My daughter was in middle school. They didn't have anybody interested in the middle school like base council at that time.

00:01:51:07 - 00:02:08:02
Unknown
So I will end up staying on both of them. So I was doing both side by side counselors at the same time. Very interesting, very challenging. But it also let me like, do step by step because I knew what the middle school was doing. So then we could talk about things at the high school that might help out with what the middle school was doing.

00:02:08:11 - 00:02:27:15
Unknown
So it kind of felt like a progression. So, in 2016, they had a school board member that was going to retire in midstream of her term. So someone approached me and said, would you be interested in being on the school board? I was like, I don't know. I've never thought about this before. I went home, talked to my husband.

00:02:27:16 - 00:02:41:42
Unknown
I was like, they asked me to be on school board. And he was like, okay, so what do you think? And I said, I don't know. I've never really thought about doing that before, but I so that can affect all kids in the district, not just, you know, certain schools in the district. I said, so maybe I'll want to think about doing it.

00:02:41:47 - 00:03:01:14
Unknown
So of course, my kids were about ready to graduate. My daughter graduated. My son graduated in 15, my daughter's graduate in 18. So I thought, okay, we'll give this a try. We'll see how this goes. So I got on the school board for the first time. I've had to run run for reelection a couple times since then, but I've been on here since 2016.

00:03:01:19 - 00:03:21:45
Unknown
So I don't know, it's just a progression thing of, I guess, just getting involved and liking what I was doing and feeling like I was making a difference for the kids in the schools. So just seemed like a natural progression. So then I've been board chair twice, on my terms that I've been on here. So I'm in my first year of my, third term, I think so.

00:03:21:50 - 00:03:45:58
Unknown
So third term board member and served as board chair twice. What I find fascinating about your story is your entry point. So I think a lot of times, people wonder how they can make an impact or how they can make a difference. Certainly. I think, parents who are involved and engaged in their child's education see benefits about the school, sees a benefit from having involved parents.

00:03:46:03 - 00:04:13:03
Unknown
But I would venture to say that the child, has benefits from parents who are involved just in relationships, with the administration at the school level, certainly with the teachers. I think that's a powerful tool in making sure that the school experience is, maximized for both the parent and the student. And what I like about your journey is that you did not shy away from the responsibility.

00:04:13:08 - 00:04:38:34
Unknown
And you said a key phrase. You said that you felt like you were making an impact. And I think that is so critical, for people to understand that there are opportunities. It it is not completely out of out of the community's hands. There are opportunities to get involved. And that involvement does impact make an impact, whether it be at the PTT level and whether it be at the same base level.

00:04:38:34 - 00:05:06:07
Unknown
And of course, ultimately the pinnacle of that being a school board member. So it's fascinating to me. Elementary. Site based member and then simultaneous middle school and high school site based member. And I really like what you said about alignment between the two schools using that opportunity to ensure that there was some alignment that as a parent, that you could talk about what was happening at the high school and how the middle school could prepare.

00:05:06:12 - 00:05:29:42
Unknown
And, on the opposite side of that coin, perhaps at the high school, give some insight to that team about what was happening at the middle school. So from a superintendent lens, I think that's been a focus that we've had over the past couple of years is to make sure that we're aligned, whether it be curriculum, PBIs, our communication platform, all those things.

00:05:29:42 - 00:05:49:19
Unknown
I think alignment is an absolutely critical part. So I appreciate you giving us your background and telling us a little bit about your journey. You know, a lot of people I think are familiar with school boards. There certainly a lot of press. It's not always good press. And, regional and local media about school board and their involvement.

00:05:49:24 - 00:06:09:29
Unknown
Though people understand that school boards exist, they may not understand what the role is as a board member. So I wonder if you could share with us a little bit about a what a board member does and maybe what a board member doesn't do? Sure. When I first got on school board, I really didn't understand what the roles were.

00:06:09:34 - 00:06:27:14
Unknown
Being from site based council, I was like, okay, maybe it's going to be similar, but when you get into the school board, you realize it's an actual thing of all of it's, because you're responsible for, I guess maybe a few less items and you are on site base, but you're responsible for some bigger items than you are on site.

00:06:27:14 - 00:06:49:57
Unknown
Right? So, our major focus would be setting the policies and, the financial parts of the school board. So we set some policies and then we, we back up after that. We set the policies. But it's up to the superintendent, the leaders of our schools, to make those policies effective and create the procedures that go along with those policies.

00:06:50:02 - 00:07:06:54
Unknown
We set the financial part. So we kind of we have a budget. We start in January, which our next board meeting, we'll start with our, draft budget. We get that in January. We get a second tentative budget in May. We don't actually get our final budget until after school starts, when people think is crazy.

00:07:07:08 - 00:07:26:40
Unknown
I still think that's a little absurd. But you don't get all your final numbers from the state about your moneys until after school begins. So you really don't get your final budget till August. But we start talking about that in January. So we're responsible for that throughout the year. We also work closely with you. That is one of our main jobs is to hire a superintendent.

00:07:26:45 - 00:07:51:13
Unknown
Do the superintendent evaluation and to work closely with him in trying to create, the policies and procedures that are going to work for our district and make our district successful. So that's mainly probably our three biggest things. And then to try to create things that are, like we've created a strategic plan, which we did not have in the past, but it's one thing we've done in the last couple of in the last year, to set goals for where our district is going.

00:07:51:14 - 00:08:05:03
Unknown
Not that we didn't do that before, but we didn't have it drawn out into a plan necessarily. We just had goals and said, this is where we wanted to be. Now we have an actual plan that you can look down and see what we're doing and where we plan on going. So that's the main things that we do.

00:08:05:07 - 00:08:21:57
Unknown
The things that we don't do are getting bogged. The first thing is no personnel issues. That's the thing that we need to stay out of at all cost. We've been told that multiple times that our state meetings. That is not your role. So if we get a call about that, we direct them to who we think is the person they should go talk to.

00:08:21:57 - 00:08:36:32
Unknown
But we don't try to we try and stay out that we don't try and try and give answers or say, well, let me fix this for you or let me see what I can do. Not a good idea. We don't try to get involved in the day to day operations. We don't want that. Doesn't want them. That should not be our role.

00:08:36:34 - 00:08:53:45
Unknown
We want to let you and your staff and the leaders in our buildings and our staff in the buildings do the day to day processes. We just are the people that are looking in, trying to oversee and make sure things are getting done. But we want to stay on the outside. We want to attend things. We want to be involved.

00:08:53:45 - 00:09:10:04
Unknown
We can definitely be involved. That's one of our biggest things we can be at all the events we want to be, we can be involved. And that way, every way we can. We've started the town hall meetings with you to try and involved be involved more with our community. We may not say much at the town hall meetings.

00:09:10:13 - 00:09:29:04
Unknown
That's not because we don't want to. We want to be there to listen. We want to take in what everybody is saying because we represent the community. That's our biggest role is our representation for elected officials. So we are representing our constituents so that, you know, we need to reflect what we hear from our community and what we do at our jobs.

00:09:29:09 - 00:09:50:12
Unknown
So that's probably the things we need to stay on. And clearly is day to day operations, personnel issues. That's the things we don't want to really be involved in. We want to let you handle that. And there are people in our district because that's what they're trained for. We're trained from a different lens through the Kentucky School Board Association trains us on what our roles are and what we should be doing.

00:09:50:16 - 00:10:08:33
Unknown
I appreciate that answer. And just for, anybody that might be listening in isn't familiar, you're required as a board member to have a certain number of hours annually, of recurring training, am I correct? So that's that's 12 hours, each 12 hours each year. They also set guidelines on what we need to be trained in.

00:10:08:42 - 00:10:25:03
Unknown
So we need to have so many hours of finance. We need to have so many ideas about ethics. And we need to have so many hours about, superintendent evaluation so that we can do our due diligence, due diligence or more during your evaluations or any superintendent for that matter. We're going to dig a little deeper into that and a little bit.

00:10:25:03 - 00:10:52:28
Unknown
But just so I can kind of put it in context, you talked about some pretty, overarching concepts there. You talked about policy and you talked about budget, and then you talked about evaluation of the superintendent. While that may not seem like it directly impacts students, I would say that it absolutely does, because the policies that you, put into place, it's my responsibility as superintendent to ensure that those policies are, upheld and adhered to.

00:10:52:33 - 00:11:15:29
Unknown
And then as far as the evaluation, you're evaluating my ability to manage the district and make sure that we're working together, cohesive as a team. And then when it comes to finance, I think those are probably some of the most critical decisions that you have to make. And I appreciate the fact that you alluded to the fact that the we don't actually have the final budget until after school starts.

00:11:15:34 - 00:11:35:33
Unknown
And I don't think, anyone, not everyone fully appreciates that. So when you come to casting that vote on the tentative budget in May, there's some faith in there that the numbers are going to work out. You're putting faith on enrollment is going to be what the projection is, that state funding is going to be what they projected it's going to be.

00:11:35:45 - 00:12:01:03
Unknown
And then we have the tax rate to contend with. Beyond that. So there's while it may seem like it's a done deal, there has to be some level of conservatism with respect that we can't put ourselves in a hole that we can't dig out of. And that's that's why that, that balanced forward fund becomes very critical, because even though the budget doesn't get set until end of August or September, we still have to pay bills beginning with June, July 1st.

00:12:01:08 - 00:12:27:47
Unknown
So there has to be some carryover money that allows us to operate until those funds from the state and the federal government come in. And so that's just kind of some insider information that I'm not sure that everybody appreciates how that works. Definitely appreciate, that answer. In your time on the board, I wonder how many superintendents have you worked with and how would you describe the school board superintendent relationship and what makes it an effective one?

00:12:27:52 - 00:12:46:36
Unknown
Actually, you are my second, when I came onto the school board, actually, that was in the prior. Helped hire the former superintendent, Mr. Morgan, and I was on the board when, he retired and we had to choose another one. And so I was on the in the process of choosing you as well. That is a crazy process.

00:12:46:40 - 00:13:10:10
Unknown
It is a worthwhile process, but it is a crazy process. There's a lot of things to consider when you're looking at what you want in a superintendent. And I think it's hard, maybe hard for you guys to, like, tell us everything when we're interviewing you, like what your big goals are and what you see happening. A lot of people that you my interview don't work in our district, so they don't know where we're at at that moment and where we want to go.

00:13:10:10 - 00:13:33:20
Unknown
And so when it came down to it, when it comes down to it, it's a matter of what relationship we build with you to set our goals for where we want to be. So I think it's probably one of the most important relationships that there is, is making sure that we can all agree as a board. And our biggest thing is to listen to each other, to try to work together for everything, about the students.

00:13:33:25 - 00:13:52:09
Unknown
We don't want to try to. We will leave all the background noise out, individual preferences. We want to think about what is best for our students. When we're looking at any kind of decision. So I think we as a board have to work with from that lens. And you as a superintendent have to. We all have to be missing together to talk about what's best for our students.

00:13:52:13 - 00:14:09:16
Unknown
Where do we want to be? How do we want to move forward? Where do we want to be in three years? What are our goals? So I think that is probably a huge relationship that if it doesn't work, I could only imagine how much tension and how the district could fall for easily. Sure. Because that's just it would not work.

00:14:09:21 - 00:14:41:44
Unknown
You know, I go to a lot of meetings with a lot of superintendents, and of course there's some conversation about superintendent board relationships. And I've heard stories of very positive relationships, and I've heard stories, that were not so positive. And I think a key phrase that you used is what's best for students. And I think regardless of the personality and the background and the walk of life that you may come from, I think as long as the focus can be on what's best for students, the relationship will be strong.

00:14:41:49 - 00:15:10:03
Unknown
And I don't think that everybody has to be in lockstep agreement all the time. As a as a matter of fact, I think some discussion is healthy and, candidly, some opposing viewpoints. And because, you know, ideally a school board, is going to be made up of various perspectives. That is truly representative of the entire community or at least has knowledge of the, the, the span of the community and serves as a voice for the entire community.

00:15:10:03 - 00:15:30:18
Unknown
And I've been impressed in my time in this room with the board's focus on what's best for students and placing students at the center and at the heart of every decision. So I appreciate that. And I agree with you. 100%. The board superintendent relationship is critical if the district is going to be healthy and if there's going to be a clear focus and move forward.

00:15:30:23 - 00:15:54:10
Unknown
But nothing gets that, relationship on a better foot than grounding it and what's best for students. So I appreciate that comment. I would think that most of our audience is aware that we recently went through a strategic planning process. You alluded to that earlier and that identified our priorities for the next three years. Anyone interested in learning more about that can find out more on our website.

00:15:54:10 - 00:16:18:16
Unknown
There is a link that will take you and, we'll give you the goals and kind of priorities for a strategic plan. I want to get your thoughts, though, on, about the process and the value of having a strategic plan. What is that meant to you as a board member? I think it just gives us a idea of where we want to go and how we're going to get there.

00:16:18:21 - 00:16:40:43
Unknown
I think before when you we just had goals. We didn't have it all into a set process where we could actually go and look at it. And then we've even got down to now of indicators under our different things on our strategic plan, how we're going to measure if our strategic plan is being successful or not. I don't think before we ever like before we had the strategic plan.

00:16:40:48 - 00:17:01:23
Unknown
You have goals, but you didn't always have things set to measure them. We had ideas of where we wanted to be, but this all being in one place where we can just, like, go back and review it and say, okay, we've met this now, what's our next steps? Do we want to add to the strategic plan? Is there something we don't like about the strategic plan that we can go back and look into?

00:17:01:28 - 00:17:31:10
Unknown
And the strategic plan was built with I thought process to this. I mean, you had two town halls, we had community member involvement. We had so many things built into this process. It wasn't just like we just decided we're going to have a strategic plan. We're going to, just make these goals ourselves. We really looked into what we thought the community, our staff, and even what our students were looking forward, forward into our district and what they wanted out of our district.

00:17:31:10 - 00:17:51:14
Unknown
So that was the guiding process in getting this strategic plan. I think now we are in the process of implementing it, and we need to go back to it every couple of months maybe, and just see, have we done anything with this or where are we moving on this goal? Or you know, a it's a what's the word I'm looking for growing.

00:17:51:14 - 00:18:20:36
Unknown
It's always growing, always changing document. It can't stay the same because our district is not going to stay the same. All right. Our kids are going to be different each year. Our staff is going to be different each year. So I think we have to work at that plan to make sure that it goes with whoever we have in our district and whatever is going on in our district or around our district, for that matter, what's going on in the world around us, what our state's doing with different parts of our, funding and everything else that always that's going to play a role in to that strategic plan.

00:18:20:36 - 00:18:40:10
Unknown
If our funding changes some of our strategic plan might have to be revamped a little bit if it were to. We have a group, big growth in our county, and we have a bunch more students that may change our strategic plan. We may have to back up and say, okay, we're going to have to do some different things because we have more students, or there's just so many things that go into thinking about it.

00:18:40:10 - 00:19:07:35
Unknown
But I think we just worked really hard at a board retreat to say, this is what information we were given that people want to see in our district. So now let's make it into a plan so that we can report back to them how we are implementing what they want to see. I appreciate that answer. One thing that I really kind of want to focus in on is the board could have said, we're going to develop a strategic plan.

00:19:07:35 - 00:19:32:53
Unknown
We know what we want and that be the end of the story. But I remember back to that March retreat in which we first discussed the idea, and I remember that we spent well over an hour talking about the need to bring the community in and the need to give the community a voice. And it was very clear to me from that meeting that my charge was to find a way to allow people to share their ideas, express their concerns.

00:19:32:58 - 00:19:56:16
Unknown
Definitely. And I and I know that early in my superintendency, we had a lot of, community, involvement at board meetings, and we had a lot of, audience and which was great. But in those town halls, we did a survey. And one one of the things that I found very valuable as part of that survey question, we had pre prescribed questions and then we had open ended questions.

00:19:56:16 - 00:20:17:48
Unknown
And I would say that the both were equally valuable because we learned a lot of information from those open ended questions that led to, targeting some of our goals. And I just want to take a moment and thank everyone who was a part of that process, whether you attended a town hall, whether you filled out a survey, you served on the committee that work through the goal setting process.

00:20:17:52 - 00:20:47:27
Unknown
I felt the community really come together through that process. And so I'm very, proud of the fact that I believe that the strategic plan is no one single person's plan. It really reflects the values and the desires of the community. Another thing I'll say real quick is that you know, and for me, I think this is what I shared with the board originally and thinking about having a strategic plan, I think I use this quote and I don't know who to attribute it to.

00:20:47:38 - 00:21:10:23
Unknown
But the problem with the desert is not that there's no direction is that every available direction, every direction is available to you. And so what I like about a strategic plan, it's a chart, a course. And it doesn't mean that you can't adjust course, as you alluded to as circumstances and environments change, but at least it puts you on a path towards a direction.

00:21:10:28 - 00:21:36:45
Unknown
And then that that just leads to action. And I think that leads to outcomes much more quickly than just the budget approach and, improvement. So I appreciate your thoughts on that. The strategic plan led to the development of our local accountability model, which will go live on our website this month during my time as superintendent, I know that establishing our pillars has been a big goal of yours.

00:21:36:50 - 00:22:03:21
Unknown
For anyone that doesn't know our three pillars our growth, community and success, maybe share with us what those things mean to you and why it's important for us to have a local accountability model. One thing we are required, now to have a local accountability model. And actually, Commissioner Fletcher came to our district and talked to us in a meeting with, some of us were able to attend, and we talked to him about our succeed model.

00:22:03:21 - 00:22:24:40
Unknown
That's going to go well at this month. We actually we're already work have been working on that for several years now. This is not a new thing to us. We've changed up some of what those letters actually may mean now, or what the words are to associate with those letters. But that process has been ongoing for 2 or 3 or at least 2 or 3 years now, trying to work in to getting to this process.

00:22:24:45 - 00:22:51:24
Unknown
But the pillar thing was kind of a new concept because we wanted something that was short and memorable so that we could just associate three letters, three letters, grant County Schools growth community succeed. So now we have those pillars. We can just kind of reflect on those to see, how would we determine what growth is? To me, growth of a student is not just what they can do on a test.

00:22:51:28 - 00:23:09:03
Unknown
Growth of a student involves a whole lot more than that. A lot of our kids are successful in many other ways. We have a wonderful current tech center at our high school, that many, many, many of our students have gone through or and are involved in and they've it's led them to awesome jobs outside of the high school after they graduate from high school.

00:23:09:14 - 00:23:25:00
Unknown
That didn't involve college, not the college is not a great route for some of our students, and I want everything at our high school to if they want that route to go. I want everything at high school to be the best it can be to get someone ready for college, but some of our kids, that may not be the best route for us.

00:23:25:00 - 00:23:45:56
Unknown
So growth looks many different things. It's not just that state testing. It's not just a test that you take at the end of the semester on stuff to make growth this whole lot more than that, it's just a kid being from one point to the next. That may look different from any of our students. We have so many different students that growth looks different for every student.

00:23:46:01 - 00:24:05:35
Unknown
So I think we have to look like we have to judge that based on each student, not just the overall big picture, community. For a long time, we felt like the community, we didn't have a lot of involvement. It seems like going back to that background, when your kids are in elementary school, you're so focused in on being there for every little thing that they do.

00:24:05:40 - 00:24:25:05
Unknown
And I think as your kids get older, you want to give them their wings. You want to let them fly a little bit. But I think you kind of back off a little bit, too, of trying to be involved as much. We don't want that. We want to involved as much at your elementary school level as we do when you get to your high school level, as far as how you feel, you can help our schools.

00:24:25:10 - 00:24:48:52
Unknown
Every part of our community can help our schools, whether it be our business leaders, whether it be our parents. There's so many different ways people can be involved. So it doesn't necessarily mean being right. They're leading your kid by the hand to take. It's going to take them to high school. But it may be, you know, involved in other ways at our high school level, success succeeding success looks different for each of our students.

00:24:48:52 - 00:25:12:51
Unknown
And, some of our kids. It's going to college, graduating from college, getting their job, other students finishing their, career and tech education. And being successful in their careers. Welding, electrician. There's so many ideas out there for our career and tech center. That's probably one of the most things I'm proud of is what our career and tech center has meant to our district.

00:25:12:55 - 00:25:30:06
Unknown
I don't think anybody realizes how lucky we are as a district to have that current techs that are in our district, our districts are kids. Well, when I was in high school, if you wanted to do something really technical, you got on the bus and you rode to Boone County to go to school every day in the afternoon and wrote the bus back home.

00:25:30:10 - 00:25:50:47
Unknown
We have our fingertips. It's right at our buildings. Our kids walk down the hall. They make a left turn there in our current tech center. I don't know what, gym that we have. That is more probably not advertised and not well known by our community. Other than that career and tech center. It's it's a big part that nobody, a lot of people don't even know anything about.

00:25:50:51 - 00:26:12:52
Unknown
Right. So I would encourage anybody that wants to to come announced but come to visit the career in tech there just to see what's going on. We just remodeled the kitchen for the culinary. We finished it up last year. We had a ribbon cutting for that. So we have a kitchen that is, now acceptable for our kids to get out and be able to go get jobs in the culinary industry.

00:26:12:57 - 00:26:37:15
Unknown
3D printing, we have, a dog grooming our agriculture, pathway is amazing. She has a dog grooming service. She has floral design. There's just so many opportunities that her kids can have. So to me, success means a lot of different things. Yes. It's great that they could go down that list and tick off the word succeed, but success is also what that kid wants it to be.

00:26:37:22 - 00:26:54:37
Unknown
Oh, I like that. So, you know, we talked about different levels or whatever, and I think it was one of our kids wants success to me. What do they say? I'm successful when I get out of grand County schools. I'm proud to be from great from county schools. That's what we want for our kids to have. I like the way that you frame that.

00:26:54:37 - 00:27:16:00
Unknown
I always use the word agency, and I think we're saying the same thing. We want kids to have the agency to define what success means to them and be able to, live, the life that they want to, to lead. When I was a high school principal, I would bring the seniors I bring every class in at the beginning of the year, and I would talk about my definition of wealth.

00:27:16:04 - 00:27:55:12
Unknown
And my definition of wealth is not how much money you have in the bank, but how many options you have before you. And so and, stressed the importance that everything that they saw in that building and every adult that they interacted there, with their was there for their future and present success. And so for them to take full advantage of it, I know that in Braves Bash, the board members, many of you came to Braves Bash and we actually directed unintentionally the traffic beginning at the career and Tech Center so that people could walk through and just get a glimpse of the amazing facilities that we have and the amazing programs that we

00:27:55:12 - 00:28:17:42
Unknown
have. And we will continue to work on celebrating that tech center. And I agree with you, in all the districts that I've worked, this is the only one that it had that has that model of that kind where it's all under one roof. And our and our students have access without leaving campus to really have some, powerful, vibrant learning experience, hands on experience.

00:28:17:47 - 00:28:39:23
Unknown
And I think that's a great thing for our students. You alluded to what success, means to students this year. You participated in the offenses of learning. And for anyone that may not know, our succeed criteria, are attached to the fences of learning that last year, for the first time occurred at the elementary, middle and high school level.

00:28:39:23 - 00:29:00:42
Unknown
And, we've asked community members to to sit, in on that. And we've always had great feedback. Anything you want to share about your experience, sitting in on those defenses? Yeah. Slusher is it was they actually had done it in a previous year, but it wasn't across many grade levels. So last year, I think was the first year we had a fifth grade defense and eighth grade defense and a senior defense.

00:29:00:46 - 00:29:27:30
Unknown
And I think it was it's just a way for kids to kind of reflect on what they've done in those different levels of their their career in grand county schools. So I think fifth grade, it looks different way obviously way different than eighth grade or your senior year, but I think it's just a way for them to put together some pieces of what they've done and be able to talk to a community member, a teacher, just in a setting of like, what have I learned while I've been here?

00:29:27:30 - 00:29:52:34
Unknown
What have I done? What what do I think has been a success even what do I think maybe was a failure that I would, you know, want to grow from and move on to my next level to do, I sat in on eighth grade defenses and with that one that I had that kids kind of like, go ahead and maybe pick a tentative career, something that they thought they might want to do, and they had to give us some information about what they thought that career would be, would involve.

00:29:52:39 - 00:30:10:59
Unknown
And I know they had two notes how much they made or, you know, and I just had an idea about that courier. I think those for most little kids are solid. Eighth grade will change right before they get to high school because he usually does. Like is it changes once you start college. Your what you went into college for may not be what you graduate with.

00:30:11:04 - 00:30:30:15
Unknown
So I think from eighth grade to to senior year, I would like to go back and sit in on some of those and be like, really? I remember in eighth grade that you said you want to do this, but now you're doing this. It's just, I think a good way for them to kind of realize what they've done and try and figure out where they're going forward.

00:30:30:19 - 00:30:49:10
Unknown
So I, I, I don't know, I just think it's a wonderful idea. I don't think it's really it's not meant to penalize a kid if they don't do well on those, interviews or whatever, but I think it's one way we told them to. Every time you get a chance to interview, that is a great process. You know, we're not here to holler at you.

00:30:49:10 - 00:31:08:13
Unknown
We're not here to give you. We just want to give you feedback. But every time you get a chance to interview for anything, it makes you more successful the next time that you do. So I think having those opportunities for the kids to talk to community members and teachers in that kind of a setting just gives them a new perspective on something maybe they've never done before, like fifth grade student.

00:31:08:13 - 00:31:23:44
Unknown
I can't imagine a fifth grade student being like, I've got to do an interview. What does this mean? Right? You know, thinking about my career and interviewing for different things in my career. But I think it's just an opportunity for them to share what they've done and where they want to go and what they think they want to do.

00:31:23:49 - 00:31:45:56
Unknown
I don't know. I just think it's a wonderful idea that somebody came up with down the line to say, we think kids should really, like, give an idea what they've done. And then I think it makes them look back and go, and did all of that while I was in school kind of thing. And although it's amazing, I think for what they will get out of it, I recently read a book that talked about the power of the story we tell ourselves.

00:31:46:01 - 00:32:10:28
Unknown
And so what I like about those interviews is students actually have to develop their story. And so there's a tremendous power in naming and claiming their successes. And I would even say your failures and how you've learned from those failures and to your point to to have three opportunities by the time you graduate high school at fifth grade, eighth grade and 12th grade to shape your story and present it to an audience.

00:32:10:33 - 00:32:33:52
Unknown
I can't say that is in any way being a negative. For a person going out into the world, because, as you said in those interviews, that your chance to tell your story and how you present yourself and how you present your story, absolutely matters. And the more we can build into students and help them see that they have what it takes to be successful, I think the better their chances are.

00:32:33:57 - 00:32:57:02
Unknown
And, one another thing you said earlier, I want them to be proud to have graduated from Grand County schools. And when they look back on their experiences, I hope that they see those experiences as meaningful and powerful and able to sustain them through the next phase of their lives. So I appreciate your comments on that. I do want to talk about budget, everybody's favorite topic for just one minute.

00:32:57:07 - 00:33:21:20
Unknown
So last year there were there's been a lot of activity. The board approved a restructuring in the salary schedule. We surplus the old bus garage, which led to the sale of that property to a local business. And we've recently approved a major side improvement project at the high school that includes the, athletic stadium football field and some other things.

00:33:21:25 - 00:33:42:22
Unknown
What would you say is important for the general public to understand with regards to the budget and how these projects are paid for? Well, it's probably not what everybody's going to be thinking. If you've never dealt with public education, it is a whole ballgame in itself. I think the word is called mean. This is a system that they use.

00:33:42:27 - 00:34:04:19
Unknown
There's different pots of money. So we have our general fund, which is our contingency, our money that we can spend on our own what we need to buy. We have federal funding pots. We have capital, improvement pots, which can only be spent on capital improvements like our buildings and stuff like that. So we can't necessarily pull those funds from one project to the next either.

00:34:04:30 - 00:34:21:25
Unknown
So we have to work on our capital, get our capital funds, to do the big project at the high school, that involves some bonding and different things like that, which is another word that we will learn when you get on school board one of these days. What bonding potential means for your district. That was a word.

00:34:21:25 - 00:34:47:44
Unknown
I had no clue what that meant. I don't know of that 100% understand it, but basically, that's what you use to do your projects for your buildings. So we did some good bonding potential things for this term. And we are set to start our new project for the high school, which we are super excited about. It involves revitalizing our football field, adding some new lights, putting some tennis courts ins and paving projects.

00:34:47:49 - 00:35:06:32
Unknown
It involves a bunch of things, but we are super excited. We've been waiting so long to hopefully get something like this going. So I don't know, it's just. But school budget is a totally different thing. I think when I first got out here, I thought, oh, there's just money. You just spend it when they say you need to spend it and then I found out, oh, you can't do that.

00:35:06:43 - 00:35:23:51
Unknown
So when we wanted to raise the salaries or change our salary schedule for teachers, we had to look really hard at how that was going to be. If we raise them, could we sustain what we. What with the raise that we gave? We didn't want to say that a year later. Sorry. They gave me that raise, but now it can't keep going.

00:35:23:56 - 00:35:42:22
Unknown
Because we our funding isn't there. So I think we've really worked hard. We had some extra money during Covid. When the Covid money was there, we did some, but some materials that we could use some resources in our buildings with the Covid money. At that point, we actually use it to purchase some staff hours.

00:35:42:26 - 00:36:00:03
Unknown
Because we had some Covid money that we could was eligible to be used for staffing. So, we brought some extra staff in when we got back in the buildings, and we could use that funding. So that money is now gone away. But we did some great things with that. As far as some resources that we purchased and different things like that that we can still use now, but we don't.

00:36:00:03 - 00:36:24:43
Unknown
It didn't have to use our general fund money to buy those. But, since you've been on board, we've actually bought some other resources so that now all of our schools are kind of aligned, on what we're doing as far as our reading intervention or math intervention. Our elementary schools are much more aligned with each other on that now, so that when the four elementary school and one middle school, they've all been kind of prepared the same way.

00:36:24:48 - 00:36:45:36
Unknown
Matter of fact, that's been one thing that's bothering me for all the years I've been on this that we were not all aligned because we're all Grant County schools. Our four elementary schools been into one middle school and one high school. So if everybody doesn't come in kind of knowing the same things or have been taught the same way, it always to me kind of created a difference in the buildings.

00:36:45:41 - 00:37:01:25
Unknown
We don't want there be a difference in our buildings. Our kids are all Grant County kids. They're all our students. So we want everybody to kind of be, brought up the same way, kind of taught the same way. And then everything just me kind of funnels right on into middle school, right on the high school. It's kind of a seamless thing.

00:37:01:30 - 00:37:26:34
Unknown
So the financial part of the school board thing is your biggest, not headache. But I think what are your biggest concerns? Because you don't want to overspend, but you want to try to stay competitive because as we know, the teaching, things become more competitive over the last few years, to keep teachers in your districts because unfortunately, in public education, a lot of people are not going into that field right now.

00:37:26:45 - 00:37:42:52
Unknown
We've had a decline in people wanting to be in public education over the last few years. So it's led to some kind of not and I owe money, but it kind of has led to almost being like it. I owe money with sports. Teachers have kind of been pushed one way or the other based on financial. What they had to look for.

00:37:42:52 - 00:38:09:28
Unknown
Financing was so that we had to look at that. And that's been a struggle for the last few years. So I think with the restructuring, we feel like we're in a good, good way with that right now. And hopefully that will keep some continuity with our, our staff for the next few years. We've actually tried to do some of the things we tried to do that we did the Bloomberg with our staff, which was a way for them to get their next level of education and the district help fund that with some money that we had when Covid was going on.

00:38:09:37 - 00:38:27:27
Unknown
So we are trying to figure out ways to keep our staff, with us for many years to come. We hate when we have to have staff leave because of financial things come up, and they need to leave because they need the financial part of it. So we have great teachers that we've lost over the years because of that, and that just broke our hearts.

00:38:27:39 - 00:38:49:01
Unknown
So the restructuring was one way we felt like that was going to hopefully help out. Getting rid of the bus garage was just another thing, because we can now take that money and use that to repurpose for something else. And so that was a big boost, I think, to our district to finally kind of say, okay, we're rid of this and, you know, we can move on to something else and use that to help our students succeed in a different way now.

00:38:49:06 - 00:39:13:30
Unknown
And I and I'll say, as a former principal within the district, the uses of those Covid monies were very impactful. As a principal, I was able to buy some intervention programs with, the attendance bonuses certainly came in, very helpful at critical times. I believe they occurred, before winter break and before summer break. And that's when families need those extra monies.

00:39:13:35 - 00:39:37:51
Unknown
The Madison, as you said, those monies have gone away. But certainly I appreciate the district's foresight and the stewardship of that money. Some districts did not have that foresight. And we've seen some examples, unfortunately, of districts being in some financial stress because they did not plan for the sustaining, as you said. Those are recurring costs, some of the investments other districts have made.

00:39:37:51 - 00:40:02:03
Unknown
So I appreciate your stewardship over the years for that. We're about ready to wrap this episode up, and I wonder what advice you might give to a community member that is interested in getting involved in a school community. What steps might they take? I would recommend starting at the school levels. That probably was my biggest thing. I think I did right in the whole process.

00:40:02:07 - 00:40:18:42
Unknown
A lot of my time on, that was such a great experience with, just helping to raise money to do different things for our school. We always did the Santas workshop at Christmas for kids can come in and buy stuff for their parents, and to me, that was one of the most fun things that we ever did with our funding.

00:40:18:46 - 00:40:34:12
Unknown
But then get involved at your school level because that teaches a lot of things. Starting out, in your career as far as that goes, you learn at the building level, you know, what goes on, learn what goes on at the building level and how that funding is different from the funding that you get once you're on the school board.

00:40:34:26 - 00:40:52:34
Unknown
And that is a big involvement in your child's everyday life. This is the school board is more of a big picture. You're working for all kids, which is awesome, but we need to we need people to work at this like base level. I mean, we've had years in our district where they didn't have anybody run for some of our site based councils.

00:40:52:39 - 00:41:10:32
Unknown
That broke my heart. I can't go back and take a side position, but if I could, I would have at some points because I don't want to see any school not have representation from their parents. That is your opportunity to get in there. Represent your kids, other kids. That is your chance to get in there and be involved and know what's going on.

00:41:10:37 - 00:41:28:03
Unknown
Then they know that possibly the school board later, you know your kids do it after kids get out of school. My kids are no longer in the high school or no longer in the district, but I feel like every kid needs a cheerleader. Every kid needs somebody that's looking out for them, whether it be a community member, a parent, a teacher.

00:41:28:08 - 00:41:44:22
Unknown
That's one thing I will say. Or I really am proud of our district, that we have mentors for our kids in every building a teacher, a staff member. It's somebody that they know they can go to if they have a problem that's so different than, you know, any other position that you're in. I think everybody needs somebody to talk to.

00:41:44:22 - 00:42:02:22
Unknown
Even in your work position, you need somebody to talk to. But if our kids start out knowing they've got somebody they trust, somebody they can go to, and our buildings, I think that makes all the difference. So if you're a parent and you're the one that's sitting there helping to decide how many teachers we need, then you're actually influencing how many mentors we have at our building.

00:42:02:27 - 00:42:20:35
Unknown
You're setting different goals for your school. You're influencing all the kids. You're influencing everything that's going on. The school board is wonderful. It's just a bigger picture of all of that. But I would say start out at the local at your schools, get involved in your schools as much as you can, your kids, your only little ones.

00:42:20:40 - 00:42:35:16
Unknown
So you can do school boards long after your kids are out of school. I mean, you could start hopping on school board. That's great. We need those people too. But be involved with your kids. Be involved at that school level. Be involved as much as you can and then work your way up to this if that's what you choose to do.

00:42:35:16 - 00:42:54:52
Unknown
It's a great thing I've enjoyed all my time. I can't say that all of it's been fun. Covid was a little challenging, but you know, everything comes with challenges. But I think there's been a lot of there's a lot of reward to it, too. I would say it's such a parallel from the teacher lens to so, for a teacher that maybe wants to be more involved, there's so many opportunities.

00:42:54:57 - 00:43:28:24
Unknown
You can be a department chair, you could be team lead, you could be on the guiding coalition, you could serve. You could be serve on Sybase Council. There are certainly many opportunities. And I would say that maybe, you know, everybody's situation is different. I want to give a quick shout out to our principals. I know that we struggled to open our doors after Covid, but I have seen a real commitment to having events and nights in which our families are welcome and invited into our buildings, and those interactions are meaningful.

00:43:28:24 - 00:43:53:07
Unknown
There's learning opportunities. There's fun, there's excitement, there's enthusiasm. One of our schools, I think, even has some advisory panels with parents involved, in that. So I think we are definitely on the right track. So even if you can't commit to a position, I would say take advantage of any opportunity that you can to get inside the building and interact with your child's staff and teachers.

00:43:53:07 - 00:44:18:37
Unknown
And certainly if your child I used to say this as a band director, no child is going to, you know, especially in, high school. They're not going to say I want to be at the band competition, but I promise you, they want you there. So if your child's an athlete or involved in an any type of extracurricular archery at the elementary or whatever, your child wants you there, they're always looking into the crowd to see if mom or dad or Grandpa, grandma and uncle is in the crowd.

00:44:18:37 - 00:44:40:45
Unknown
So I encourage everyone to get involved, at least at that level. All right. Finally, we covered quite a bit of ground today, and you've been involved in the school community for many years. Certainly the board of Plus the board has taken a lot of steps to prepare us for a bright and hopeful future. I wonder what excites you most about the future at Grand County Schools?

00:44:40:49 - 00:45:02:40
Unknown
There are a lot of things. I'm so excited about the revitalized revitalization of our football field and, adding the tennis courts. I know that's been a need for a while, but we just didn't have everything in line at that moment. Actually, that's one thing we could go back to when we talk about the funding thing that also, can get changed by the legislature.

00:45:02:49 - 00:45:20:43
Unknown
So keep an eye and an ear to what's going on in your legislature, too, because that changes a lot with schools that you might not even realize happens. They put a thing where we could do the funding could be changed. Now, we could use different funding to do some of our projects. In the past, we've not been able to do that.

00:45:20:43 - 00:45:37:07
Unknown
So that's one thing that led to us being able to do the football field this time on the tennis courts. So things that go on in the legislature also determine a lot of things about what happens with our schools. And I don't think we spent a lot of time talking about that, but that is a huge thing that we all need to be concerned about.

00:45:37:12 - 00:45:54:47
Unknown
Because January is a legislature month, so there are going to be some things come out of there that are going to, probably change some things that we do and how we do them in our schools. So, but I'm really looking forward to that. Get that project getting started. I'm looking forward to seeing where our strategic plan leads us.

00:45:54:52 - 00:46:13:36
Unknown
Having town halls every year, because I think that really gets the community a chance to kind of listen to what's going on, but also share back with us what they want to see going on in our schools, what they want going on in our schools, what they want our kids to be doing in our schools. So I think that's a good interaction for all of us to have each year.

00:46:13:40 - 00:46:29:24
Unknown
I don't want to we we the sky's the limit for us. We don't really have to put, I don't think, limits on ourselves of what our schools can accomplish or what our kids can accomplish. I think probably one of the best things I've had, we've had happen in the last year, was that, or not, our graduation rate was 90 something up.

00:46:29:28 - 00:46:44:36
Unknown
Yeah, it was very high. We didn't have, I think any kids that had to go to summer school to finish up stuff. I can't say that I remember a year when that has not happened in quite a while, or we didn't have to have a senior go to summer school to finish up their stuff. So, I mean, there are a lot of things going on here.

00:46:44:36 - 00:47:04:48
Unknown
Everything is not always positive. I won't say that it is because everything with involved with money people growth has it's has its little moments when things are not the best and things get a little bit rocky. But I think us all working together. You working with the school board? The school board, working with you, the school board, trying to work with the community.

00:47:04:53 - 00:47:26:37
Unknown
I think every if we can all work together, I don't know what grand county schools could do in the future. You said a comment before the show aired. You said if that process doesn't. Challenging isn't challenging you. You're not getting much out of it. So, that really resonated. I feel that about the kids as well as us as school board members and as well as our staff.

00:47:26:42 - 00:47:47:54
Unknown
I think if you don't struggle a little bit, then the process is not always as meaningful. We say that and we talk about the kids, that there needs to be a productive struggle. I think that's true. And I think that even with us as school board members, we need to have a productive struggle because that makes us grow, that makes us reflect on what we've done in the past and where we want to look, what we want to look for, for the future.

00:47:48:07 - 00:48:04:14
Unknown
So I think the productive struggle is not always a bad thing, even though sometimes it seems like it's horrible. I think that's what we need to do to grow and and see where we can lead to what we can do for our kids in the future. But that's our number one goal is what's best for our kids.

00:48:04:19 - 00:48:26:06
Unknown
I don't see that changing. Because if that's what you're if that's what school board is all about, then everything is going to be right. That's right. If we start getting in the weeds about other things that don't mean as much as our kids, then we're not going to be successful. Well, Chairperson Smith, thank you for your leadership and thank you for all the levels you have.

00:48:26:06 - 00:48:48:36
Unknown
Serve the Grant County School community and I look forward to sustained relationship with the school board and making these dreams come to fruition. And, hopefully developing a future strategic plan at the end of this three year cycle. And I want to say to our audience, this concludes our, first episode of leading leading to succeed at Grant County Schools podcast.

00:48:48:50 - 00:48:57:00
Unknown
You can expect a monthly podcast to be released and hope that you will join us again in the future, and we wish you a good day. Thank you very much.