Continuing our onboarding discussion from the previous two months. 

Onboarding should begin when we start talking to you about the process of becoming officially approved.  

Xiomara suggested that a new trustee meets with ED or Chair of Board and then maybe the governance committee. 

Tom wonders why governance isn't the first stop in terms of vetting.

Nikki synthesizes what she is hearing everyone say about the onboarding process:

1. Resume and questions related to mission alignment, leadership, etc.

2. Governance reviews credentials

3. Candidate meets with ED and Board representative

4. Candidate meets with governance and learns about Board needs and where they can best utilize their skills

Rachel would like to flag one thing is there is not enough time to do all of this. The process needs to be expedited in certain situations. If we don't care about onboarding people in June and having them start July 1, then it could work but it could also get messy randomly onboarding trustees at different times throughout the year.  The only way this works is if the governance committee really drives getting people nominated and through this process before June.

Aaron has recruited five members of our current Board and he thinks this is not a job application, it is an emotional thing that happens because of personal relationships.  We should be talking about identifying people who have proven leadership skills and then best way to do this is to bring them into the school for a tour, talk to Rachel, and then start the process. He doesn't think we need to formalize this with getting resumes. 

Rachel says the hardest thing to get from new trustees is the resume and although she believes there should be a process, asking for a resume up front from people can be a barrier. If not a resume maybe a bio. 

Xiomara wanted to follow up that answering questions right off the bat would be off putting.  She agrees with Aaron that it should be more of a personal process. 

Rachel thinks we are talking about some tweaks to the process we already have but no major overhaul.  What she is hearing as the tweak to the current process is that at some point governance would like to weigh in on the candidate and their skills. We can be more flexible with timing of when this happens. Governance needs to demonstrate a little more leadership around trustee recruitment. 

Continuing our recruitment conversation from last month, focusing on recruitment of skillsets. 

Aaron doesn't think we should approach recruitment with a priority of skillsets.  He thinks the priority should be that the person has proven success in a leadership role. 

Rachel appreciates this point and explained that we pulled this list of skills from board on track but they are generic.  However, we can use these skills as a framework or keep them in the back of our mind as we look for successful leaders moving forward. 

Tom agrees with Aaron only he would have that as his 3rd level gatekeeper in his strategy.  In his strategy, he would have us take a look at skillsets we want over a five year period and then consider our diversity recruitment goals alongside.  Then he would take a look at the Board and compare to skillsets and diversity we currently have. When we move to the action stages, this is where we look at leadership ability. 

Rachel synthesizes that what she hears from Aaron and Tom that it would be helpful to write up a narrative about what an ideal trustee possesses in terms of qualities (e.g. mission aligned, demonstrate a passion to our mission, invested in our community, demonstrate leadership, can make the commitment). We have never had a potential Board member fill out an application/participate in an interview but maybe we need to. 

Xiomara thinks this would be very valuable. Initial conversations as well as the entire Board being involved in the decision to ensure mission alignment, etc. helps both parties make the right decision. She has done this on other Boards she is a part of. 

Rachel says that we do have an onboarding process that includes a potential trustee joining the Board attending a meeting and then the Board reviewing their resume and talking about whether or not they are a good fit at the following meeting. 

Look at the document attached to see whose terms are expiring. 

Ran out of time for this topic - move to February.