After each candidate's arrival Sergio Martin explained to the candidate the format of the interview. 

• They will have a total of 30 minutes. 
• The first few minutes they can introduce themselves. 
• The board will ask 5 questions to each candidate. 
• Then the board will give them time to add anything additional to share with the board. Something they feel is relevant that they did not get a chance to share with the board. 
• Annie Azarloza will be taking notes of their answers/comments.

1. How would your experience and skills complement our Board? 
2. What do you know and understand about Charter Schools? 
3. How might you advocate for the school publicly and privately? Why might you want to support FRCS? 
4. What are your thoughts regarding holding all scholars to college preparatory standards? For example, scholars who are identified as English Learners, scholars identified as special education, scholars identified as low income. 
5. Working on a Board requires close teamwork among a group that is likely to bring diverse backgrounds, experiences, and different points of view. When there is discussion and disagreement regarding a decision, and the Board comes to a conclusion that you don't agree with, how would you proceed?

Introduction: She has had her daughter since 5th grade. It's a long process to get her here; they waited a long time to get her here and then her sister; loves the school and she hopes with her background and HR with over 20 years and DEI last 13 years she hopes she can add to the board or a different look and feel here at FRCS.

1. There are a lot of parts she wants to bring … she is a woman of color and she has two students of color so that the board matches the student body; she's worked on equity inclusion boards, literacy boards, United Way boards in RI. She has seen other operations worked and she has learned how boards can bring their expertise to solve any issues.
2. She understands that charter schools pulls on public funds; 16 different towns; charter schools brings something unique and brings different people together; brings diversity into one place; also charter schools are under fire because people can't decide whether they love them or hate them. We can craft the education to the students coming to the school. 
3. We get asked all the time why they don't see her children in the neighborhood; she talks about how she really wanted diversity and the language component; she wanted them in public schools with a private setting feeling; she wanted to push her children's education forward; maybe speaking to people about the school. Her children go to school here and as a parent she wants to show her children the importance of education and the sense of community.
4. Education is deep and broad because that's what is important; specifically about college - she doesn't know if college is for everyone. She reminds her children that she used algebra today to show them that it's useful; what's most important is that students give their most important and not all students may go to college and that's okay.
5. Before that vote even happens when you are in this group, you owe this group an honest opinion and explains it thoroughly so that everyone gives their opinion. If after that the decision does not go the way you want, and when the group makes the decision, then you support it. If you try to be divisive you end up fracturing the group. And she will support and help the board move forward with its decisions.

Closing Remarks: Ultimately the older she has gotten and the more things she has done, it's important that she does not work those crazy corporate hours, she wants to give back by being part of different groups and the work experience. She cut back on boards and when this came up, she wanted to give back to education and show her kids that she is involved. She wants to use her corporate side in a non-profit way. She said she can drop something in order to do this. She wanted to do something that was in direct support of her children.

Introduction: Parent of 4 students here; in 5 years there will be another; 15, 9, 11, 6, and 10 months. Engineer; always wanted to be an engineer since 5th grade. Transitioned into a role that she is passionate about since the pandemic - went back into the workforce after being a stay at home mom; she encourages her children to do whatever they think they can do; she loves to be part of a team; she is most effective when she is part of the team; independent; in order to have a bigger outcome you need to be able to collaborate; her career as an engineer has led her to do that. She is driven by success; she likes to achieves goals; she likes to have a plan; she likes to be held accountable.

1. Professionally she covered that; she will bring to the table direction and a type of organizational skills to a group that may already be strong there but she can elevate it. She likes to collaborate. May not be the one to come up with the initial idea but she can build on it. She's been in the school for 11 years. She has seen this school go through a lot of change; she speaks to a lot of parents ES/MS and HS. They give her their perspective. It's hard to promote the MS. She has children in 3 different schools. She has their positives and understands their negatives.
2. Her mother likes to think her children go to an independent school; no, it's a public school funded like any other school; but not operated like other schools; the families who live in Boston and they talk about the curriculum and their curriculum is a lot more basic than ours here. I believe we can set our own curriculum granted there are guidelines but we can implement it differently. Boston is more stringent and we can be flexible. She lives in Attleboro.
3. Is that really a question? She advocates for this school all the time. She was an active member of parent board to support communities. When she goes to those meetings she speaks about FRCS all the time. She tells them about what we're doing, about our programming, how we get parents to get involved. She advocates on the state level. To her friends and family she advocates about the curriculum. People have told her they want to withdraw her children but she convinces them not to. She talks about MS, it's tough right now but we are working on it. Parent advisory team that she is on to promote improvement. She is constantly talking about FRCS.
4. She thinks it's very important. She went to Boston Latin Academy and her kids come here because of the education they are going to receive. In Boston schools it's night and day. What they are learning and what we are learning is night and day. Her kids can have a conversation with other friends in the Boston environment and they are learning different things apart from the language acquisition. Our pace is different. Even in Attleboro. If it's not a college preparatory the school is not doing the school justice. We should be preparing our children to want more. Not every student will want to go to college — that's why we have vocation and that's okay. Especially what is happening in other countries that are fighting for a free education like we have. Her children know after 12th grade you have to go to college then graduate school. 
5. If she got her way, this would be a very boring place to be living in. No one gets their way all the time. That's why we have a voting system. We are free to voice our opinion; you can back it; you work any legal angle to see it your way but if you don't get it or if you don't get people to back your decision, you still have to support what the team decided. I work on a team and I don't always get what I want and sometimes the vote goes in my favor and that's great. You have to be flexible. Two sides to a coin and if it lands on tails and you wanted heads, you still have to march in that direction to support the decision.

Closing Remarks: She is here because her son has been in the school for a long time and is about to graduate. Things have changed positively and some things not changed and some things have changed negatively. She's a part of committees to volunteer. She's seen a lot that the school has gone through. She has been a very involved parent. It's time to do more. This pandemic has taught her a lot. She wants the school to grow and develop. She wants to help drive the school forward. And the board is not as diverse as she would like. ES is very diverse. MS/HS is not so diverse. No fault on anyone. She wants to see the enthusiasm to see different groups of friends for her children. She wants to promote that. She doesn't know how she can influence that but she hopes the board can influence that. She wants to bring sustainable change.

There was a discussion over how many trustees to add. The Board decided we would like to add three trustees at this time. Their terms should end with the annual meeting so that all trustees renew their terms with the same cycle. At that time, the Board will review when all board members' terms end and renew them for up to three years as the by-laws allow. The intent would be to balance the end of terms so that there would not be a large exit in a single year.

Board members then nominated candidates to the positions.