School Board Special Meeting

Carolyn Pitchesgood evening ladies and gentlemen this is a special meeting of the city of fairfax school board it is monday august 4th of 2025 please stand for the pledge of allegiance

Lauren Bartelmei pledge

Speaker 6allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all

Carolyn Pitchesokay there are no changes to our agenda this evening um the only announcement we have is that misscessory school board member necessary is uh on vacation so she will not be attending this evening's meeting may the first item is the agenda adoption may have a motion please madam

Sarah Kelseychair miss Kelsey I move that the city at Fairfax school board adopt the agenda as written and distributed may have a second I second

Carolyn Pitchesokay miss miss Kelsey moved in this borrow me seconded all those in favor signify by saying aye aye I none opposed the adoption of the agenda passes unanimously. Presentations to the school board, citizen participation, we do not have anybody signed up this evening, so we will move on to our presentation from Dr. Phyllis Pajardo. She is the education consultant who will be presenting about the superintendent selection process and timeline. Welcome, Dr. Pajardo. Well, welcome back, Dr. Pajardo.

Dr Phyllis PajardostaffWell, thank you very much, Chair Pitches. It is actually good to be back here. I had some wonderful years here in the city, and I just come with a full heart, with a very, very full heart to be back in a place that has a piece of my heart. and I want to again thank the city for my great time as a superintendent as an assistant superintendent and I especially thank you for naming the library at Katherine Johnson after me it has warmed the heart of my family so they

Lauren Bartelmethink their little

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffbaby sister has done pretty well so with that as Carolyn As Chair Pitcher said, I'm back. I'm back with a new title, Retired and Educational Consultant. I congratulate two of you on your re-election, three of you on your re-election, one of you on your new election, and congratulations to Mr. Phillips on being named Acting Chair. Not Acting Chair, Acting Superintendent. Carolyn is still the chair of the school board. Exactly. All right. I'm going to get in this groove after a while. years since i've had to do a presentation you know at the microphone so um and i'm going to have ms king here to just kind of help me out so as we move to the item i want to make sure that you and the public know that we're discussing a proposed search timeline for your new superintendent and

at the end of today's discussion with questions being answered you're going to put a motion forward to approve the timeline as it's being presented or approve the timeline with any amendments to that. So let's rock and roll in terms of the timeline. But first, let me reintroduce myself to some, and this is more for the public than for you. I am pleased to let you know that I have been in public education for 45 years. You can do the math and know that I am very happily in my 60s and a proud person to be in that age demographic. I served here as your superintendent for five great years, retiring in 2022. Prior to that, I was the assistant soup and was also the assistant soup in Fairfax County for HR and for Cluster.

very heavily on that HR experience that I had as well as with being a superintendent and knowing the responsibilities that go with it you can also see that I have been an elementary school teacher assistant principal and principal and still love the kiddos at elementary since I have left the city of Fairfax I have been engaged as a consultant I am an author with an organization called ASCD. I'm on faculty there and I present around the country and work with school divisions on leadership development planning and programming as well as working with school boards and other organizations on something that is very dear to me with the strengths based leadership which is the Gallup work as well as on change management and so I come to you still

working but in a part-time capacity and so but it will not interfere with the that we have before us which is some very very serious work and so I would start with sharing with you board members that you are about to embark on a very major decision a decision that's going to impact 5,000 students a large community for a lifetime if we believe that the teacher in the classroom has on students, then we have to believe that who is hired as the superintendent has an even larger impact. So with that, let's buckle up and talk about what we're going to be doing over the next couple of months. And I put this in months that would be easier for the public to understand and for you to digest as well. So we start with this month being very busy with many activities, meeting with you all individually.

a lot of planning and preparation before we got to this so I don't want the public to know that this is your first time hearing about this timeline we wouldn't have ever gotten to this place without many conversations with you and with staff it is the intention of the board to advertise this position beginning on Wednesday and then to let that advertisement run at least two weeks we are in the middle of a lot of schools opening in this area and across the vacancy to be posted and run a couple of weeks is important to give us some of the better candidates across the commonwealth. I've already been working with Mrs. Dorsey to dedicate a section of the website to keep the public updated on what is happening as well as to keep potential

applicants and candidates updated as well. This month will be a big time to collect input from folks who are your constituents, parents, students, mayor, city council, and with working with staff, you know, in which the superintendent will be supervising, have already been working with Mrs. King, and there have been a number of meetings set up with elected officials here in the city, with staff in the city, FCPS. I'll be working with Mr. Phillips around connecting with the PTA presidents, the superintendent advisory team, your student representative, it's Abby or I am blanking on the other young man, Kevin. Okay, yes, because I did see a board meeting where they were announcing. So I will work with Mr. Phillips and Mrs. King to get with them as well as to hear the

student voice. a number of meeting individual meetings a number of group meetings we have a community forum plan later this month August 26 that will be in person 630 at Fairfax high school and I would invite you to attend you know that where we can hear from a number of people during that meeting as well as all community members staff students will have an opportunity to submit their comments in an online survey Ms. Dorsey and I have been working on that survey. It's not quite complete yet, but we will make sure that you see it before it goes live. It, in essence, is asking people around characteristics, experiences, challenges, priorities, opportunities, uniqueness to the city, and to collect that over a period of probably at least three weeks.

but we are kind of beta testing that with the right tool to make sure that it gets, you know, the answers that we need it to get. So that's August in a nutshell. All righty. You're still buckled up. Let's go into September. So in September, we'll continue to collect the online survey information, and then there will be an online community forum, a virtual community forum. So those folks who can participate in person can participate on September 17th. It'll be at 630, and we will get information out and post information about that. But prior to that, on September 15th, I will be back in front of you with an update. That will also be a time for you to consider and for us to consider. If there's been anything that's been wonky in the timeline, it would be the chance to publicly talk about that.

and to make adjustments while I am all in, and I know you are all in to doing things. None of us can predict the future, and so if we may need to make adjustments, we would do that and be informed of that. You have every right as the hiring manager to make some adjustments in your timeline, okay? So, you know, I want to be clear, you know, what you're committing to tonight is a time frame, but you always, as a hiring manager, can make adjustments. We could progress it a little further. You could go into fifth gear if you needed to, or we can pull it back a little bit. Also on September 15th, I'm going to give you some initial data around information from the survey and from the stakeholder meetings and share a little bit with you.

Behind the scenes in September, I'll be pre-screening the applicants based upon the minimum qualifications, certifications etc all right and then we move into October now this is where you have to hang on to your hats because every week in October board members you are going to be involved with some pretty intense work beginning with an update to you on October 6 where I do put together a we call it a profile of the superintendent that is all of the input that's been gained from the stakeholder input from the surveys from the meetings and share with you what the public said about the next superintendent following that meeting I will also share with you a slate of candidates and then you're going to make

how many folks that you want to bring in for the initial round. And we will also finalize the interview questions that first week in October. Moving to the next week in October. Again, there's something every week in October. The week of October 13th, you will be involved in the first round interviews. The next week in October, you'll be involved in the second round of interviews. decide to bring one finalist back, you may decide to bring two finalists back. I think unlikely you will bring three, but we haven't done the interviews just yet, and we don't know who's applying, et cetera. But you will be bringing another round, you will have another round of interviews, and you'll have a finalist or two.

And if everything works in our favor, then at the end of October, you will offer a contract to an individual that's been vetted, that meets the qualifications, that fulfills the desired characteristics and qualities that you want and that the community has said that they want. And in November, November 3rd, again, if everything works the way it's supposed to, then you will be presenting that person to the community and mr. Phillips is going to breathe a sigh of relief on that night or he might cry you know just a little bit because he will have to go down from the chair that he's in now on the dais and return to his assistant superintendent position I fully expect that there is going to be some level of transition that has to occur.

There has to be knowledge building with the candidate, the finalist, time for Mr. Phillips to share and get them up to speed, as well as I am confident that whoever you choose is employed right now and that they will have some level of transition that they must have with their current employer. If things go the way that I think that they're going to go, you're going to have someone that's in a pretty high level in their organization. And so that organization will likely want probably what's generally expected is a two-week time frame. That's kind of general practice with some negotiation of time back, et cetera. So while you intend to announce on November 3rd, the person very likely may not report until later November.

But I think it meets your needs with a November 3rd announcement. And for candidates or anyone who's interested in this to know that this process will take care in the fall, I think will be very, very helpful. I did put this bullet in because when you endeavor in a process such as this, there should really be time for reflection. I think at the end of this process, it's a time for you to think, how did we work as a board? Were we able to come together? Were we able to share differences and still have a great candidate and a great finalist? You certainly need to evaluate me as a search consultant. How did I do? expectations we need to look at glows and grows and we need to memorialize that just for future search opportunities as well as for you to

think about if there's anyone else in the staff that you may be replacing it's good to memorialize the glows and grows you know of the process that's not on the timeline itself but I do want to put that out to you to have some time for reflection so we are now at the point of questions I do need to say having been in HR and num and run a number of processes when I was in Fairfax County we must address the what-ifs what if no one applies I don't think that that's going to be the case what if you get to the finalists and they decline the offer that can be real what if you get to a point in the process where you really cannot come together okay there are always a number of things that are beyond our control it's just a matter of continuing to work toward it to keep the

public engaged and let them know what is happening in if we have any of these things because there are a number of things that have to come together for us for you to name a new superintendent and for me to just get back to life as usual retired life as usual there is a email address that has been created for folks to send their search inquiries to so that we will be able to keep track of anyone who's asking questions about this process etc and with that i am able to entertain questions share pitches

Carolyn Pitchesokay thank

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffyou

Carolyn Pitchesdr

Lauren BartelmeRicardo.

Carolyn PitchesMs. Barlmay, do you have any questions?

Lauren BartelmeI think it looks great the timeline and I appreciate all the detail so I think it's very transparent both to the applicants and to the community so thank you.

Dr Phyllis PajardostaffThank you, you're welcome.

Lauren BartelmeMs. Kelsey.

Sarah KelseyHi, can you possibly share just for the community kind of what the community forums were are going to look like and where exactly they need to go more information about them

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffyeah I appreciate that thank you miss Kelsey so for one we are going to post this information on the website it will be in the dedicated space for the superintendent search as well as likely front page of the website to be involved in it I know that as I've been talking with miss Dorsey that as you are entering your back-to-school night activities that we're gonna put flyers QR codes that actually allow people to click on them do a pre-registration for those forums whether it is the in-person or the online the idea of the forum is to have a place a safe place for people to share their concerns it is not i am a a trained facilitator so it will not be a say everything that you want to say about the

city of Fairfax board what's working what's not working the focus is on the qualities and characteristics of the next superintendent the experiences that you think are important for that superintendent to have the potential challenges that that superintendent is likely to face and then what the opportunities are so there will be a very strict protocol of discussion on on the in-person as well as the virtual and then folks will actually submit they can do some things online while we are there in person and obviously when they are online they'll be able to click on some links and complete the information right during the forum so that that is the nature of the structure of both the in-person forum and the online forum great thank you i appreciate you

explaining that absolutely miss

Carolyn Pitcheshickman just

Amit Hickmanwant to thank you for the work that you've already put into this and the work that's going to come ahead and you know for being our guide in this

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffabsolutely happy to work with you

Carolyn Pitchesokay um i know we're going to we have lots of opportunities for advertising the survey are we going to look at like through city scene or through the sort of city government side of things

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffyeah that's where miss dorsey and i are looking right now the city already has a engage Fairfax that has been used to engage our community on a number of projects. And we've seen some good success with that. And so that's the kind of the portal that we're looking at now. We had initially, you know, looked at some other ways to host the survey, but we want to make sure that we host it in a way that is convenient to people, chair pitches, as to them so right now but this is not confirmed yet that we will look at the the i think it's called public engage site that is on the city website right now and then there will be a link from the city schools page to that

Carolyn Pitchesokay and there won't be any written survey mailed out

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffno there

Carolyn Pitcheswill not If people are

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffparticipating in the in-person forum, I certainly would give some the opportunity to write things down and submit. Some people are just kind of wonky and don't want to do things online. They feel like there's a digital footprint that's linking that, and I have to respect that. So there is no intention beyond that community in person to have any paper surveys. When I am doing the one-on-one interviews, as I have done with you all and as I'm going to do with a number of stakeholders, I am writing information down. I almost feel like I'm in my doctoral data collection again. And so I am writing down things that people are saying and looking for themes, et cetera, but they are not writing anything down.

Carolyn PitchesOkay, and can you speak to how you are going to, we know how we're going to collect this data, how you're going to use the community feedback throughout the process? Yes,

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffgreat, great, great question, because as people are involved, they want to know that you're going to look at what they say, right? So one, it is creating that profile of the city of Fairfax superintendent. Not anybody else's superintendent, but the city of Fairfax. input will be used to create that from there Mrs. Pitches I think it is important that when you are developing your interview questions and your look for etc that you consider that feedback as well in the questions that are asked of the candidates so one it being used to develop the profile two it can be used as part of a screening process for me and at least I plan to engage another HR professional or another sitting superintendent or retired

superintendent to review the applications and we will look for that now share that with you in presenting the slate of candidates and then finally in the interview process and I think each of you as elected officials you're going to carry that input that input is going to weigh on you as you're interviewing these candidates because you're going to be looking for does this meet the match of what you expected and the community expected.

Carolyn PitchesOkay, great. I think that's all of the questions I have. Oh, I was thinking about in the event that we have a community member who wants to speak with the consultant, you, one-on-one. They don't feel comfortable filling out the survey. They cannot attend the community forum. I don't suspect that we would have 25 people who want to do this, but say there is one or two community members. Absolutely. Could we have them reach out through that

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffemail address? Through the email. That's there. Okay. And I will work with Mrs. King to schedule time with them. It may be a telephonic conversation. It might be a Zoom. It may be in person. There will be a period of time where we will stop collecting input. think in november that they can call me up ring me and say hey i'd like to give input you know i will say that that window has closed and we can make that once we have the survey ready to roll we will make it clear this is open until x period of time but i've already been working with mrs king now on a number i think today we probably scheduled about 20 people all along but if folks want to meet with me outside of them being already kind of on our list of key stakeholders they can certainly

reach out via that email address or directly to mrs king or to call the city school's office and i will work to accommodate them

Carolyn Pitchesokay will we have sort of a drop dead date for input that will be advertised

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffabsolutely because in order for us to move forward in october with the really heavy input has got to stop you know you have got to we have got to you know as a group have the desired qualities the superintendent profile people can share things but it will not be in that data set that you'll get on october 6th and as well as i would say this chair pitches once a new superintendent is hired, people should be able to reach, part of that person's role is connecting with stakeholders. And so I would also say if there's a community member that misses the stakeholder window, then, you know, we could, and this is the time to talk with me, that we should probably keep a running list. And when the new superintendent comes on board, that we share, you know, that

with the new superintendent we

Carolyn Pitchesare incredibly grateful that you have agreed to take this on I mean just hearing you speak um takes me back to the pandemic and the work that

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffyou back to the pin

Carolyn Pitcheswell remember you and I worked very closely during that time and we had a lot of community you know feedback input whatever however we want to um and I think that was a great strength of So I think that you know exactly what is necessary to be successful in the role. Dan can attest to that. I think he was sitting principal at the time at Providence. So we are incredibly grateful that you have agreed to do the search for us and work with us.

Dr Phyllis PajardostaffAbsolutely. Well, and I thank you for the confidence that you have to invite me back. tolerate you I don't think you tolerated I didn't have to talk was not an appropriate word we did work seamlessly together not always agreeing on things but always finding a path forward we

Carolyn Pitchesboth have strong personality

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffabsolutely absolutely and and I appreciate the opportunity to do this work as I said in the beginning of this

Dan Phillipsstaffthere a part of my heart

Dr Phyllis Pajardostaffis truly in the city and I I couldn't have done the work without the number of students, of staff, parents who I interacted with, who I believe are still here or who gone on to do other, you know, They're just in our office. So it's kind of, you know, kind of coming home in a way. So thank you.

Carolyn PitchesMr. Phillips, would you like to say a few words or have a question or two?

Dan PhillipsstaffNo questions at all. I just appreciate Dr. Pajardo. First, I just appreciate you all together. I just had such a great experience working with you, and I wouldn't be in this seat right now if it hadn't been for you and your guidance. And just, again, we went through the COVID process together before and after. Always gave me good guidance, and you were honest with me, and you were compassionate and caring and all the things that you'll bring to this role, too. So I'm thankful for that, and I know we're going to find a great candidate, and I look forward to working with you and helping.

Dr Phyllis PajardostaffAbsolutely. And a little known secret, Dan was my first hire as an assistant, Sue. his panel when he was in the vetting process for Providence so to see his progression as well because I know your heart is here too it definitely is absolutely glad to be back thank you madam chair

Carolyn Pitchesokay any go backs nope all right thank you and we will be spending a lot of time together I'll

Lauren Bartelmejust say see you soon

Carolyn Pitchesabsolutely absolutely thank you thank you okay

Lauren Bartelmewe'll

Carolyn Pitchesmove on to public which we have none and on to action items okay let's approve this what we just were discussing the superintendent search timeline that was presented this evening may I have a motion I'm

Amit Hickmanchair

Carolyn Pitchesmiss Hickman

Amit HickmanI move that the city of Fairfax school board approved the superintendent search timeline as printed and distributed may have a second I

Carolyn Pitchessecond okay miss Hickman has moved miss barnall me has seconded city of fairfax school board approved the superintendent search timeline as printed and distributed are there any changes additions or modifications okay being none all those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye aye aye no members are opposed so the motion passes unanimously okay very quick meeting all right um if there's nothing else before the board I will adjourn the meeting at 7-0-1. Thank you.