Superintendent Search Round 1 - Michael Thomas

Currently.

Okay. Thanks.

If you'd like.

All right. Hopkins school board. I'd like to introduce your first candidate. This is Dr. Michael Thomas. Dr. Thomas, this is the school board.

Hello. Good morning.

Good morning. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you as well. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming.

Anyone?

I thought it was some perfume. Oh, okay.

Good morning. Welcome to the Hopkins Public Schools. Uh, thank you for meeting with us and about becoming our district's next superintendent. Do you feel like you have everything you need down there at the other end of the table?

I think I do.

Great. Wonderful. Um, today our school board members will rotate asking you questions and we will all be taking notes. Please know we are listening carefully and do not intend to be disrespectful when we're doing that. We've provided a copy of the questions to you. And please note there are 12 questions and our last question will be whether you have any questions for us.

Sounds good. The interview is scheduled for 1 hour and MSBA will notify us when there are 30 minutes left also 15 minutes and then five minutes remaining in our time together in this initial interview. I'd like to open this interview by asking each board member to introduce themselves and we can just start with director Heyman.

Good morning Johanna Hyman. It's my first year on the school board.

Good morning. This is Jermaine Joe. Uh, it's my third year on the school board.

Good morning. Um, my name is Vice Chair Roer. This is my third year on the school board.

Good morning, Shannon Andre. It's my seventh year.

Hi. And I am Treasurer Rachel Hartland, and it is my fifth year on the board.

I'm Kai Thompson, my third year on the board.

Sarah Wilhelm Garbers. It's my first year and I'm clerk.

Nice to meet you all.

Yeah. Thank you board members. We will now begin with our first question. Tell us about yourself and why you are interested in becoming the Hopkins Public Schools next superintendent.

Well, first of all, I want to say uh thank you for this opportunity to uh have a conversation with the board and thank you to the staff and community who will be dialing in and listening to this conversation as well. I'm absolutely thrilled uh to come before you today to express my strong interest in becoming your next superintendent and um and it's not something that I take lightly. Um you know, it was probably 9 years ago when I was expressing my candidacy um to this board uh back then and my heart has not changed. Um what I knew about uh Hopkins then and what I've seen Hopkins continue to grow and evolve to is that this is a district that has a strong focus and commitment to what is best for students, not just academically, but truly taking a holistic approach to how they view um student success. Um it's also a district that is known for its legacy of high performance. Um it's known for its strong uh community support and engagement as well as uh strong athletics and activities. It continues to grow and evolve particularly uh with the new vision 2031 which really sets uh the stage for what is to come. Um and I think uh Hopkins is at an inflection point as it begins to vision what its new life cycle will be. um years moving forward with a strong foundational vision. I think uh the next leader will come in to put together strong operational tactical actions around that vision to ensure that we continue this legacy of success in uh Hopkins public schools. My nearly 30 years as a public educator is something that's very near and dear to my heart. And I've been blessed with the opportunity to work in a variety of educational systems whether it's large uh complex urban systems um to smaller suburban systems as well as leading um an organization um in another state and learning something completely from scratch with new laws, new policies, new funding structures, etc. Um what I have always wanted to ensure that I was doing as a leader is challenging myself to um continuously grow. It's it's a part of my mindset that, you know, who I am today, there will be a better version of me tomorrow. And I kind of jokingly say I'm perfectly imperfect and always looking at ways that I can continue to grow and become a better leader. I've held a variety of different roles starting off as a school-based social worker in a partnership with the Wilder Foundation and Achievement Plus and St. Paul public schools at Dayton's Bluff. Um, I think that was the anchor for helping me understand that when we come into this space called public education and we're literally pulling thousands of kids from a variety of different demographics, lived experiences, family structures and expected now to do school, to get along, to kind of figure out yourself and your identity and your, you know, what dreams you might have. Um, that was profound for me. Uh and what I also observed is that when the students in the program that I was working in at that time would go off to their secondary school options, I found them uh falling through the cracks. Um and and and I should have prefaced this was a a school-based mental health program specifically supporting African-American students. Um and what I found is that there were many structural deficits in this thing that we call public education. there wasn't this clear linear pathway um that was strong and supportive for each student. Um we talk about all students, but I think each gets mixed up and lost in the all. And so what individual students uniquely need to be successful, um that's what grounds my definition of equity. And it's something that has stayed with me to where I'm at today to ensure that as I continue to grow in my career, I really wanted to address the structural challenges um within the public education system so that each student irrespective of the of their background, of their name, of their race, of their zip code, of their family structure would be able to find success and chase their dreams once they walk across that graduation stage. I have also held a variety of central office leadership roles um in large urban systems um served as a superintendent for the past eight years and I am uh looking forward to bringing a culmination of my experiences that I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about um in our conversation this morning um to be the next leader uh that can continually advance um the outcomes here in Hopkins public schools.

Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. Um, so describe a time when you sought input from a broad group of stakeholders before making or recommending an important decision to the school or district leadership. How did the input from those groups shape that outcome? And I just have a quick question. Can you pull your microphone up just a little bit? Just like the echo.

A little closer. Yeah, just a little closer.

How's How's that?

Yes.

Okay. Sorry. It sounds very loud to me and reverbish. So, I thought it was too loud for you if it's distracting.

No, I'm good. I'm good. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Um, you know, I think I'll share I've had an opportunity uh throughout my career um to be a participant as well as leading opportunities for strategic planning. I think it's one of the opportunities that districts engage communities in a very public and broad fashion that I think aligns to this type of question. Um when I came into uh my current district in Prior Lake Savage area schools um we were at the tail end of a multi-year strategic plan and as a new superintendent I really wanted to have a thorough understanding of um what that need what the needs were in our community um juxtaposed to the um outcomes that our community and our you know staff are desiring. So we engaged in a very comprehensive strategic planning process. Um as a matter of fact I recall calling Dr. Rotomir Piri because they had just gone through vision 2031 to just learn from other districts around us who have just recently done this. Um as well as you know Josh Swanson and Eden Prairie. So there were a couple of models that I looked to to emulate because of I thought the successful outcome of such plans were things that I believed our community was also looking for. Um and when I opened up the conversation, it was an opportunity for me to pull in hundreds of individuals through our community um in a very structured engagement process. We started, if you can imagine, with um very broad questions to really open up the dialogue with our community about what their hopes and dreams were for Prior Lake Savage Area Schools. And we did these through small community cafes um throughout our variety of different times, evenings, weekends, etc. And um one of the pieces that uh I will share is that as a leader you are going to have to have the ability to hold multiple truths simultaneously um so that we can continue to advance conversations and some of those truths uh can be painful to hear. uh some of the things that I heard coming from some of our table uh conversations really uh brought pain to my heart and that was that individual community member's truth. There were things that I could jump for joy and sing accolades about and that was that community member's truth or staff member etc. But I had to be able to hold neutral ground where no one felt excluded from speaking their truth. It's actually one of my mantras that I seek and speak my truth with grace. And and that's something that I would always expect of our community. And as we gathered that input, we would take that input and go back to our senior leadership team and we would begin to analyze for dominant themes. Um when we finished our analyzation, our next forward- facing meeting with our community would say, "This is what we heard from the community. Is there anything that we might have missed or is there anything that we need to clarify? So that as we got deeper and deeper into the strategic planning process, the community understood one that their input and perspectives mattered and we were explicit in showing and reflecting back how their feedback and input was actually shaping the process of the strategic plan. So, it's one thing to engage and check the box, but it's another to ensure that we are saying as a result of your uh input, here's how we are going to change. Here's how we might uh move forward. Um ultimately, uh I would say that we landed um on a strategic plan that to this day uh we have had no push back against the plan. there was a lot of uh push and pull through the process and that's okay. Processes are are meant to be messy. we roll up our sleeves and and get into the work. And at the end of the day, um we had a unanimous support from our community and our board to adopt a strategic plan that I think really is reflective of the hundreds of voices throughout our community. And then everything that we do um within our district is aligned and backmap back to that plan so that it's not just a shelf document, but it's a living breathing document that we are becoming.

Thank you.

Hello. Uh I have the next question. How do you balance empowering others to lead with ensuring strong oversight and follow-through? Please speak to your experience delegating as well as in holding others accountable.

So I am a firm believer that the individuals that I get to work with every single day um come to their roles and their experiences doing everything that they possibly can to provide the best service and support to ensure that we are getting the best outcomes for our students. A lot of my uh job is to sometimes simply get out of the way um while also helping to coach and guide folks um as they are taking on um their work on behalf of our students over o you know every single day and it's a bit of a balance to ensure that I have clarity in my vision clarity in my expectations and clarity in my communication with how we can move work together. When we find ourselves at an impass or sometimes perhaps even in conflict, I think it's because we have lost some clarity or lack of understanding of scope. And so I want to ensure that as a superintendent, particularly when it comes to staff that I get to work with every single day, um that you know I take that adage of clear being kind. Individuals understand those expectations and and how they might need to move forward. I am also openly inviting of staff to ask questions, push back, and challenge decisions that I make with grace. Um, and that's the caveat. It's something that I have been asking of staff ever since I walked into formal leadership roles because I know from a a sense of positional power um that dynamic um in and of itself might uh simply breed compliance versus true commitment to doing what we ultimately know is best for our students. And so I want to make sure that staff know that they can always push on me to seek clarity um so that um they can be their best. And as I noted earlier, we're all perfectly imperfect. There are going to be times that um through delegation even with clarity um there might be opportunities or there might be experiences where staff are not getting the outcomes that u aligned perhaps to the shared vision that we had um or that there were directives that were given um or expectations that were given that staff are not meeting. And that is also part of my job as uh the superintendent or uh any supervisory role is to ensure that where individuals might be falling short, how do I lean into a coaching opportunity in discussion with that individual to one learn where there might be a breakdown. For all I know, that breakdown actually could be me. Um but equally if there are things where I've been very clear and the breakdown perhaps is with that staff um I am always wanting to ensure um as I hold myself to that same standard. How can I make um and help someone become better? You know, my training as an ontological coach is always premised on the fact that individuals have everything they need to be successful and my job as a coach is to help them realize that and experience breakthroughs and discoveries so that they can then own the development of their uh themselves. It's not something again I'm telling you what to do because clearly we're at an impass with that on the first side of that conversation. Um, and so it's always trying to coach up and I would say at the end of the day I've unfortunately had the experiences where some of that was a coach out. Um, and I had to make some tough decisions of holding folks accountable to the point where they were not make making their goals and that I did have to make decisions to um, uh, take further discipline etc. And that's something that uh, that's part of what we have to do. But everything is to ensure that we are always being our best and bringing our best to our students every day.

Thank you.

Tell us about a situation when you discovered a mistake, oversight, or problem in your district that reflected poorly on leadership. What did you do? What was the result? And would you handle it differently next time? If yes, how?

When I reviewed this question, there were lots of things I could write down. Um, uh, I pride myself in being a reflective leader. I know that when I make decisions, um, they are always going to be centered in my heart on what I truly believe is best for students, best for staff, and best for our community. And I also know that I'm human and that some of the things that I might believe or some of the decisions that I might make um might land differently perhaps to my intent versus the impact and or might uh through an afteraction review process help me understand and bring clarity of yeah I would do that differently. Uh the situation that I'm thinking about um when I was in Colorado Springs, uh we had a pretty tough situation that occurred at one of our middle school uh campuses and it was of great public significance. So a lot of uh people knew about the situation and there was a sense of urgency to address the matter and and bring closure in and in and resolution and I would say safety and security were also part part of the elements here. And I think through the spirit of urgency, I had one vision for an outcome while the building administration had a differing vision for their outcome. They see it at the ground level. I'm seeing at a 30,000 foot level. And this is not to say that either is um shortsighted, but just I needed to acknowledge that I see other elements that they might not see in and vice versa. they're really into the details and I might miss something that's absolutely critical. And what I discovered uh and I'll just, you know, poorly might be the wrong word here, but what reflected was a decision on my part. I made a decision from the 30,000 foot level that ultimately caused tension between that building administration team and and me and and a couple other department leaders as well. And as I shared with the previous question that staff have heard me say a thousand times, ask questions, push back and challenge me. So after the decision was made, uh the building principal made a request and said, "I have some significant concerns about the outcome of that situation and I would like an opportunity for a restorative circle to really engage in some dialogue to figure out how we could do things differently moving forward." And I'll tell you, it was a humbling moment for me as a leader, one to really have a staff member lean into that and make that request of me where they felt extremely comfortable and supported to have a restorative dialogue with their admin team and some of the central office leadership team including myself. And what we discovered is that it wasn't so much about the decision that I made, it was actually about the process.

And often times uh in leadership roles uh we are moving at such a fast pace that I need to sometimes slow down and give myself permission to hold and just stand in that process a bit longer. And through that restoration dialogue, uh, we found some great opportunities that ultimately shaped how we changed some of our, uh, uh, crisis protocols, uh, within our schools. So, had that not occurred, we probably would have been exposed at some other point in the future. So, I'm very grateful for that opportunity to have been able to reflect um and make some decisions better so that we don't repeat those mistakes because I'm the lead learner of and of of the organization as a superintendent. And if I can't model the fact that yes, I can make mistakes too and then learn from that and move forward in a better version of of that situation, then I would not expect anything different to happen in our schools or throughout our community. So, I'm very proud about that situation. Um, and I'm and I'm grateful that uh we were able to change internal protocols as a result of that to become a better system.

Thank you.

Could you please share an example of a time when you used financial data to guide a recommendation or decision affecting programs, staffing or operations?

You know, I would say that uh one of the things that I think many school districts, at least in the state of Minnesota, are facing are really challenging budget scenarios right now. Hopkins is no different. Uh we know that nearly $300 million deficit exists for the AMSD districts here in the state of Minnesota. And that's not through poor management, poor fiscal management um or or things of that nature. This is truly some deep structural challenges that many of us are facing. And so um having watched uh many of your board meetings as of late, past year and a half, um but as of late, uh there's a bit of a deja vu for me. I I think we're having parallel conversations um and or parallel visions of what is to come as we're looking at, you know, multi-year financial forecasts. And so, uh one of the things that I'll share is that uh as I've been leading through a structural deficit, uh in in my current district, it has been a real uh delicate conversation to bring our community along. Um we have uh a district that uh educates students on a per pupil basis about $2500 less than the state average. Yet we are still boasting 95% graduation rates. We are still boasting increase in AP participation for every student. We are still seeing you know a increase in our AP you know exam scores consistently. we are closing gaps um for uh many of our student subgroup demographics. So I know that we can still do great things and I also have to help our community understand that if we had additional resources, if we had ways that we can address some of the revenue uh challenges before us, we could do even greater things on behalf of our students. And so, um, looking at our financial reality, for the past two years, I've had to lead conversations of making upwards of $8 million in reductions over a two-year time. We are engaged in yet a third-year conversation of an additional $4 million in reduction while simultaneously having conversations with our community around possible operating levies and capital levies. We sit, I believe, in the lowest five districts in the metro area with regards to operating levies. Uh, and that's something that I can fully understand and respect for our community when we're talking about increasing uh, taxes and we are in Scott County has very high taxes. We don't have the breadth of commercial industry such as other districts perhaps and so the lion share of tax responsibility falls upon our homeowners. And I'm also acknowledging publicly that we're not the only tax show in town. We know that we have county and city taxes and other referendum that are on there. So the total conversation at the family dinner table isn't just about Prior Lake Savage area schools and I have to be willing to acknowledge that and help our staff and our community understand, you know, the pros and cons of what this conversation means. So we've been having conversations um making adjustments in our budget. Our primary goal is to ensure that we're um focusing on ways that we can make those reductions farthest away from the classroom while also acknowledging that we we are reaching a point with our consecutive reductions that the things that we are trying to um maintain might be the very things that we have to have conversations about. And that's a really big challenge because we are choosing between what's good for our students and what's good for our students. Like we've trimmed the fat. We've addressed administration uh overhead. You know, we're we're about 3% administration from lead principles up to my role. So we're very lean. Um we don't have layers of positions, you know, before you hit the classroom. Um a lot of that has been addressed. And so now we're trying to find cost containment and instructional and academic uh efficiencies so that we can still maintain the programs and services and supports for our students for them to be successful and maintain the expectation of our board and our community to have a structurally balanced budget every year tied back to our fund balance policy. And sometimes we are finding ourselves in some competing priorities. Um we might state that we want to maintain our fund balance and a structural balance not use our fund balance to you know bring revenue in. We've done that over the over the years. Hopkins has done that a little bit over the years. I mean every district has done that over the years. Um, but we're at a point where we need to protect that because the more you use that when you find yourself in a true emergency and you've been living on fund balance, which is equating to our emergency funds at home, um, and we're buying Starbucks every day versus maintaining that for when our furnace goes out, we might find ourselves in some cold winters at home. And we don't want to experience that here in our district. And so I think I've been a strong steward of public resources knowing that we have multiple conversations that need to happen. We have a local conversation that engages our community around referendums such as, you know, the bonds that you all have just passed, the capital levies you have, the safety and security levies, etc. that you have here. Um, and we also need to acknowledge that beyond the local level, we have to bring our voice to the state level and dare I say the federal level. Because the fact that we have a nearly $300 million structural deficit in the AMSD districts speaks to something way bigger than the local level. This is a structural deficit at the state level that we need to bring our collective voice of advocacy to state. Why in the world would we expect that we have ample resources to support the learner of 2026 when that base funding formula is 55 years old. Right? And that is something that I am proud to be a part on the executive board of AMSD um and the legislative committee to matter of fact after we are done with our conversation I'm going to the capital. This is part of our conversation that I'll be engaged in throughout the day today to ensure that yes, we'll advocate and engage our community at the local level. But equally, we really need to find ways that we can help our state legislature understand that the base funding formula as well as the series of mandates that I could, you know, probably have 10 spreadsheets on that are unfunded or underfunded are really putting us in a a tough spot. Um, and then lastly, I'll close with the fact that bringing my community along with that conversation in addition to the fact that um, one of our largest overruns, if you will, is the cross subsidy of special education. Um, I am the federal advocacy chair for MASSA as well and just, you know, two weeks ago recently returned from DC with MASA and Mace, our special, I'm sorry, our special education advocacy group and administrative advocacy group. And one of our largest conversations was centered around um the unmet promise from the federal government to fund um IDA at 40%. and that passed on to the state and thankfully our state put some commitment behind that, you know, in our last funding um session. But we know that we're still um at a delta and dare I say now at risk with the blue ribbon task force that we may be cutting $250 to $300 million and just taking away that support just as quickly as that support came. So it is my job to bring our collective voice here from the community in multiple spaces to help ensure that we are making meaning for our community around you know our stewardship of public funds. Um to ensure that we are balancing our revenues and our expenditures in wise ways while also maintaining um the programs and supports that are going to allow our students to be the most successful.

Thank you.

Can you please describe a situation when you felt that transparency was difficult but necessary? How did you communicate with stakeholders? What was the outcome and what did you learn from that experience?

I would say one of the one of the pieces I'll share is um I have a strong commitment uh to equity. It's been a part of who I am as a person. It's been a part of who I am as a professional and I think I'm very well known in the state of Minnesota as a strong um leader for equity to ensure that um each student and staff receives what they uniquely need to be successful which is my definition of equity while creating systems of access. That's a very simple definition that I believe allows many to cut through the politicization of language that has occurred over the recent years to make sure that we don't lose sight of that each versus all that I spoke about in one of our earlier uh questions. And as meaningful as that is to me both personally and professionally, I've had to make some decisions over my career to ensure that we are being fully transparent around some key opportunities to do better. Early in my career, I was an equity coordinator for a large suburban school system, and it came on the heels of an NAACP lawsuit that fundamentally changed the desegregation rule here in the state of Minnesota. And I would also say it added layers of confusion around language such as racially isolated and isolation and things of that nature. And um and then fast forward to where we're at in 2026 um where we know that these conversations can invoke a lot of I'll just say wonder from a variety of stakeholders on what that actually might mean. And you know, some folks I think um align in a fashion that might be aligned to the definition that I shared while others might feel as though um that means that you're going to take something from my student to make sure that that student at the expense of mine gets better. When in actuality um equity is the high tide for all and for each. We all need something different to be successful even as adults. And you all know that we have achievement in integration funding here in the state of Minnesota and um just recently uh with a legislative audit around ANI. I think there are opportunities for us to reexamine um how that funding is actually moving the metric for for students and it varies. I think that's one of the things that uh um has caused some questions perhaps some critical questions of the efficacy of making the investments on those dollars. And as I shared in the uh question about some of the budget conversations I've been leading, because I don't have a lot of excess revenue, I really have to be strategic in how we maximize every revenue stream in our district to ensure that we are truly getting a return on that investment versus just going through the motions of we have this grant, we have these funds, and let's just, you know, we have this plan and how is it working for our kids?

I don't have additional revenue to make critical investments in a more much more comprehensive multi-tiered systems of support model, MTSS. So, I had to make a decision with our ANI funds as we were moving forward with our new plan year to capitalize on how I might be able to mitigate administrative costs built into the ANI plan and put more into the direct um student support. And I can tell you that came with some controversy because the decisions around making that administrative reduction wasn't personal. But we also know that people are our programs. So there was a person behind that position and there was a a person who had a heart for each student in that position. I also know my years of experience leading this work and that I could carry the administrative overhead, if you will, so that I could add more instructional support to our students. And yes, there was some initial wonderings, why are we doing this? Is this the right thing to do? And you can imagine some of the politic that came with that. And at the end of the day, what we are seeing is that bringing that additional instructional support to three of our highest need elementary campuses, we are starting to see how we are able to um start moving the metric um on gap closures specifically around literacy um with some of our SPASB bridge data for the students that those three individuals are directly supporting and servicing. So we developed an early proof concept that sometimes you have to make some strategic decisions that might come with some push back. But helping our community understand that my intent is to directly make deeper investments closer to the classroom and mitigate our administrative overhead. That was my rationale. Not that I don't care about equity. Quite the opposite. I'm kind of doubling down in that investment um but where it's going to actually give us a greater return. So that's where I had to be transparent on a difficult but I think a necessary communication and once that communication was had and now people understand we are moving forward with that and there is full support in those roles um in our schools and in our community.

Thank you.

And speaking of equity, it is important here in Hopkins. Please share a time when you've led a change designed to improve equity, access or opportunity for students with differing needs and backgrounds and over time what was the impact of that change?

So uh again equity for me is giving each student and staff what they uniquely need to be successful while creating systems of coherence and access. And it's something that I realized as I shared early on in my career and I have not lost sight of that. So irrespective of the nearly six years that I led equity in a very formal way um as a as a director um it's been a part of my leadership disposition to always want to ensure that I am looking at data disagregating data understanding where we might have gaps and opportunities for our students and or for our staff and as I talked about access are our systems also providing barriers to student success and getting that return on our investments. As I talked about earlier, uh one area that I'll just share uh that I will have seen experience over my career in a variety of different roles is around special education. Uh aside from the fact of the funding inequities that exist, uh we still have federal law um to follow and we still have services by law that we have to uh administer. And I want to be very clear irrespective of the law, we have ethics that will make us do the right thing for all of our students, particularly um those receiving the support of special education. And when I was a middle school principal, two areas that were very clear to me that stood out uh around how we had gaps with our African-American students and how we had gaps with students receiving special special education. And I'll never forget uh after my first six months and declaring that we are going to address these gaps and bring closure to them. Uh you would have thought that I was on a different planet. I think the staff were wondering how naturally right um and I will tell you the experience that I have with a lot of gap closure uh returns don't come from things that I myself have done. It's been things that I along with a lot of staff have dedicated extreme amounts of time developing coherence clearly interrogating our curriculum, looking at ways that we can understand and utilize the data that comes from assessments versus just being exam heavy and test heavy like and what are we doing as a result of that in our you know um data cycles to get the outcomes that we're desiring. We made safe harbor for the first time after my second year as a principal many many years ago um back with the early No Child Left Behind days. It's an area that is near and dear to my heart uh because that's a demographic of student that often times is otherred and you could layer a lot of other student subgroup demographics in that but they were otherred. One structural thing that we did fundamentally different was moving them from this farthest wing in our building right next to the office hallway so that they're front and center and just we're visible. Half the time we will listen carefully and our students will tell us, "I don't feel seen. I don't feel heard. I don't feel valued." That was one of our um strategies, believe it or not, was just proximity to where it mattered, right? Um fast forward up to where I'm at now. Uh in 2018, Parlakes Savage Area School began engaging uh with Special Olympics in looking at unified programming. Two years ago, we made a full investment in how we could become a unified district, one of 17 um here in the state of Minnesota. And you will see that our intentional programming of creating unified classes um throughout our um elementary, middle, and and high school classes and experiences um where by design, not just it so happens that we have students receiving special education in this general education class. rather students in general education sign up for a section knowing that we are going to have a heavier concentration of students receiving special ed to be buddies and to be mentors. And you will take a look at our um state achievement data that our special education outcomes are about 20% higher than the state average. I speak to that because that's a testament about our deliberate uh cohesive approach to inclusion um in our district. It's something that we are unapologetic about. And I could go on with various other student subgroups, but as a matter of time, I'll just kind of leave it for there. But know that we have realized that across multiple other student demographics while our all student demographic, if you will, continues to grow. So this is not an eitheror proposition. This is a both and um and what is that high tide that will lead each student to their success?

Thank you. Uh academic outcomes are also important here. So please share a situation in which you work to improve academic outcomes through changes in curriculum, instruction or assessment. What was the impact of your work and how did it impact student success?

So I've had the opportunity over my career to go through a variety of curricular adoptions. Uh we are in the process of concluding um a curricular adoption and and making recommendations to our board as a result of REDAC. I know you all are doing the same thing here. Um and we know that that's a tool. Uh it's not the beall endall, but it certainly is a prominent tool in an educator's toolbox to ensure that we are getting the resources to help guide that instruction in our classroom every single day. I will say that one of the things that uh uh was kind of a a wondering for us um with our data, our graduation data last year was that we we found a statistical decrease um in in our data. And it's something that was a bit of an anomaly. And data doesn't give you the answers. It just gives you uh a better way to ask better questions and deeper questions. And uh we met with our our high school administration team and our district leadership team to really begin to uh uh pull back the layers of the onion to understand what happened. And what we found is it just so happened that that co and you know it's a year in in reverse in reporting but that particular cohort happened to have a higher amount of students receiving um special ed support than previous year's cohorts which then had an extended time graduation. So it wasn't necessarily a four-year but they would have the continuation rates. We are seeing a growth in um our diversity in Prior Lake Savage area schools where a historical traditional four-year um mark of graduation in isolation may not capture the breadth of our student experiences compared to maybe some other districts such as Minneapolis who has long um had you know multiple five six um year graduation rates. So that was one of the things that we discovered and we wanted to make sure that we put together systems of support around ontrack systems. We moved over to a new data portal so that we can find those indicators early on so that we could find ways with our counseling department um social workers etc to bring additional supports to our kids so that we didn't lose them to be on track. We also have strong and strengthened our um uh credit recovery systems. That was last year. We know that this year um we have graduation rates that just came back back out. And what we are finding is that our efforts actually rebounded um our graduation rate um back to that 95 94.9% rate from that 92. So in what I I share that because we looked at data, we found ways to build coherent systems of support, found um ways that we could isolate the factors that might have been contributing and then execute on strategy that shows that when you have that clarity and that alignment and accountability, we can turn around outcomes. And that's something that we are proud about in Prior Lake Savage Schools.

Thank you.

How do you build trust with groups that may feel disconnected from, cautious toward, or skeptical about district leadership?

Uh, I would say that uh for me, it's all about trust. Uh I I'm known for my three T's and I get teased about it a lot, but that there's there's something to this. And for me, it's about truth plus transparency equals trust. And those are non-negotiables for me. Uh, as the district superintendent and you know, I am I am the face of district leadership. this amorphous word leadership staff will also tell you that I try to flatten every organization that I've been in irrespective of what role of leadership I've been in because I believe every young person every scholar should look to an adult as a leader irrespective of title and that's something that I want to make sure that we can help reshape that image of district leadership but it is all about trust and trust for me falls in three domains and that is competence, reliability and sincerity and folks want to know do I have the knowledge base, the research base to effectively build trust around a particular domain and that's something that I want to make sure I am heavily invested in so that I know what I'm talking about. The second is reliability. Does Michael do what he says he's going to do? Is there follow through? Um, I think one of the biggest ways that district leadership can erode trust is that if we say one thing and our actions do something completely different. And then lastly, is it evident that I have a strong ethic of care, that sincerity domain, um, that I'm not just doing this because it's my job. I'm not just doing this because I have positional authority to do so to do so. I'm doing this genuinely because ethically this is at my core of what I'm purposed to do for kids every single day. And so I would say that um my ability to build trust is to make investments in those three domains and be highly visible. Um I know that uh the magic happens in our classrooms every day. And having lost that as I've grown in my career, I know that if I don't stay connected to our classrooms, if I don't stay connected to our community, um I will not be connected and I will not have the trust that's necessary to be effective to be an effective leader. I protect my calendar by scheduling two days a week to be in schools. And this is not just for fairs, foods, and festivals. This is actually where I might go do instructional walkthroughs with the building principal and then do um a uh in interrator reliability post observation with that individual and observe him or her giving feedback to that staff and then finding ways that I might bring some constructive um uh opportunities for them to grow and improve and or give great validation or affirmation for their effective leadership in that space. I'm also highly visible in our community. I don't think anyone in our community will say that. Uh on a Saturday at Target, a student will come up to me and say, "Hey, aren't you?" I'm like, "Yes." "Why aren't you wearing a suit?" Because it's Saturday and I'm at Target. Um and I'm in, you know, I'm at our games. I'm at our plays. I'm at conferences. I I am at every event that I can possibly find myself getting into because my presence matters in the communities in which I serve. And that's something that I would be bringing to this role as well to be highly visible both inside our school district as well as throughout the community so that folks know I'm accessible. And when I'm accessible as a leader, I think that really helps to shape the image um and skepticism of district leadership because they know that they can get answers or get perspectives straight from the source.

Thank you. Uh please describe a situation in which your first communication of an on an issue did not land the way you intended. How did you recognize that and what did you do next?

I I would say that uh there's an example where um we were having communications around budget um reductions and one of the components that I spoke about was uh transportation and where we might be able to contain costs and there were a myriad of conversations around transportation. yet another overrun which I know that you all are contending with as well um along with special education. But one of those overruns that I had looked at so much data and so many reports and in a public meeting um I was talking about ways that we could contain costs around field trips and I misspoke. I interchanged a field trip with a

different transportation cost, and the very next morning, there was a point of feedback from transporta, uh, our transportation provider, around the inaccuracies of that statement. And so, I made sure that, like, you know what, they're right. It didn't land, and I think it caused more confusion, I think more concern. Are you telling us the truth? That kind of a thing. Um, and it was truly an honest mistake, uh, just because of the myriad of things that we were engaged in. Um, and I referenced, um, uh, a different, uh, financial chart, and I own that right away with the board. I own that right away with with the transportation company to state, this is the actual true cost, and our true savings would be this, not that. And I thought that showed one, humility, and also my willingness to say, yes, in my time of of inaccuracy, I want to make sure that truth is out there because it goes back to one of my three T's, and if I don't have truth, then I'm not going to have trust.

>> Thank you.

>> In your current or past positions, how do you approach working with a school board in a way that's both cooperative and appropriately role conscious? In your opinion, what does true partnership look like between a board and superintendent?

>> It is one of the most important aspects of this role, from a governance disposition to a leadership disposition. We are the parents, if you will, of of the school district. And if we are not on the same page and aligned, and or if parents are fighting with one another, kids see that. Kids meaning even our staff, right? And so, it is really important to me to have strong relationships with not only the board as a whole as a governing body, but each of you brings your own unique perspective, passion, and vision, um, for what you would like to see in Hopkins Public Schools. So, it's been my practice to have regular one-on-one meetings with board members on a cadence that's established between myself and that board director. Uh, the superintendent role and the chair are perhaps even more intimately connected in terms of regular communication. I talk with my board chairs historically, no matter who's been sitting in that role, um, probably three or four times a week sometimes. Um, maybe not hour-long conversations, but there are some checkpoints, right, to ensure that we are calibrated, um, as a team. It's very important that I am investing in our collective development. Um, I love leading teams, and this is no different. And so, by state statute, we all know that it's required for MSB1 and two training for any new school board member, and yes, I attend those trainings, and yes, I'll go even if I've already been to those trainings because I experience it differently based upon who I'm engaged with that's going through that process. So, I could walk through a that curriculum 10 times, and on the 11th time with somebody new, I'm going to learn something different. And so, I have to be able to make sure that we're making that investment to ourselves as a team. Um, and and and that's something that you'll you can expect from me as your superintendent. There should be no surprises, no surprises for the board, and the board should have no surprises for administration, and together, I think we will effectively lead as a strong team, um, to really advance the outcomes, uh, here in Hopkins Public Schools together.

>> Thank you. Final question. What questions do you have for us?

>> Well, okay, so, so first, I just want to again express my sincere gratitude to have a conversation with all of you today. Uh, I hope you were able to, uh, learn a little bit more about me, uh, as Michael, uh, as the potential candidate for superintendent here of Hopkins Public Schools. Uh, it is really important that you know that I am purposely called, purposefully called to serve students. Uh, it was many years ago that I found myself at a pivotal crossroads in my life. And believe it or not, it was a young 10-year-old boy named Reggie who fundamentally changed my life forever and really helped me realize that this is the work that I'm called to do. And I have watched Hopkins continue to grow over the past nine years and get even more deeply connected to what is good for students, what, uh, is meaningful for this community, and have a vision that is going to allow Hopkins to grow effectively into its next life cycle. As your next superintendent, know that I'm going to come in heavily listening, doing a lot of learning, and really understanding how I can build some cohesion around ways that we can put actionable operational steps to executing on that vision 2031 so that we remain that premier district of choice, um, not for families to just choose, but for families to stay. And that's something that really excites me, and, uh, I look forward to additional conversations to go even deeper, uh, with all of you, um, to express my sincere and genuine interest for this for this position. The question, uh, I know I'm probably right at time. So, uh, one question I'll just ask for any of the board is, uh, in two to three years, with a new superintendent, what does better look like for you?

>> Thank you.

>> Well, I can start. Better looks like to me is having a strong social infrastructure for all students and staff and creating a culture of, um, creating a healthy culture for, um, all students and staff to have the autonomy to do their best and to be their best. Anyone else want to go next?

>> Um, I will, I will go. I think better, um, looks like, um, closing a lot of our disparities that we see across different demographics of students. Um, for me personally, better would look like, um, finally being fully funded so we don't have to have, um, scarcity conversations every year, leaning into our abundance. Um, better would look like a community that is in lockstep with administration and the district, and, um, also being consistently and authentically led by student voice.

>> Jesus.

>> Yes.

>> Yes. Hi. Uh, I, I really like your phrase about a rising tide. I think that, uh, to me, you know, it's, it's basically everything, right? Like, like the tide needs to go up and disparities addressed, and, you know, uh, and I really appreciate that you described, um, family retention. I think that you nailed one aspect that, you know, to me, in two or three years, if we retain more kids, that'd be great.

>> Anderson. Yeah. Um, thank you for the question. Uh, better, I'm going to return to what you first said about each and all, and just that we're a district where that sense of, um, enhanced pride and sense of belonging for everyone, where each and all, every family and our whole community, um, is just proud and feels like they belong in Hopkins. I support what all of my colleagues said. Um, I think that they pretty much covered it for me. But yes, that the rising tide and and a little bit of everything, uh, is what better means to me. I would say better to me, um, I'll, I'll echo what you said as well, is that this is about giving each student uniquely what they need to succeed. And I think there have been, um, members of our community that have not felt that their student or their child or their family member has been uniquely seen and heard. And in two years, um, two or three years, to have a strong reputation that Hopkins sees, hears, and identifies what each student needs to make everyone uniquely successful in their own way is success.

>> I don't have anything to add. I appreciate it.

>> Thank you, uh, so much for joining us. We will be in contact this evening after the school board has finished our deliberation.

>> Thank you all.

>> It was a pleasure. Thank you.

>> Appreciate you being here today.