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Season 3, Episode 15 - Dan Hungerford
107 Plays2 years ago
Starting in 1999 with Robert, Dan Hungerford has worked his way up the ranks and continues to lead Givens ES in Las Vegas. He is passionate about Nevada and will advocate for the city and state any chance he gets. He is also passionate about his school, partnerships that he has created, and the hope that things can change as the time in his career dwindles down. It is a great conversation from two administrators in Clark County who started at the same school on the same day over 24 years ago.
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Transcript
Reunion and Reflection After 24 Years
00:00:11
Speaker
A little over 24 years ago, I came to Las Vegas and started at Decker Elementary School with, well, there was five other guys, but four of us young guys, all about 22 or 23. And here we are 24 years later, and the guest today was at Decker when we started. And he is now a principal at Linda Givens Elementary School. So Dan Hungerberg, thank you for being here today. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Can you believe we've been here for 24 years?
00:00:33
Speaker
Oh, welcome back.
00:00:40
Speaker
You know, it's funny, some days it seems like a million years. And then some days it seems like yesterday. And it depends on the day. It does. It does. But you know, when we started out at Decker, it was just looking back on it. I mean, I think it was just a different time. But I just like, I don't know where the time went. It just went by. It went so quick.
00:01:03
Speaker
I keep saying, I'm going to reach out to some of those guys that we first worked with that we don't see anymore. Because some of us, we're still here. We still see each other pretty often, which is kind of cool. There's a few that I haven't seen in some time. And still in contact with Sam Haffner on. Yeah.
00:01:23
Speaker
Facebook he seems to be doing well back East. Yeah, but My contact to me on Instagram a couple months ago. Yeah, he's he's just he's just go back. He's just go back man
00:01:37
Speaker
Captain Kovac, right? Yeah, right, right, right, right. But yeah, and Dan, Don is back in South Dakota. So you are the only two that survived Vegas so far. Still here, man. They're stuck with us. They are. Well, yeah, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing that they're stuck with us. I think some people would like for us to sail off into the sunset. I could probably pick a few people who would like to see us.
00:02:04
Speaker
in the sunset, for sure. Well, you know, we're getting close to that. We're getting close to that. And I appreciate you coming on. A couple of weeks ago, I invited John. I said absolutely. So I appreciate the time.
The Flaws in School Rating Systems
00:02:17
Speaker
We were talking not long ago about star ratings. That really was something that we talked about at one of our meetings. And I basically said that I do not like star ratings.
00:02:30
Speaker
because of the way they're set up, you know, like, basically, the top three stars are, I'm sorry, the top two stars are essentially 67 to 100, the top third, and then zero to 67 is the bottom three stars, it's not equal. There's so many different factors. And I know you have some strong feeling about that as well, given kind of your situation this year. So I don't know if you want to expand upon that.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think I can't stand the star system. I think it's a travesty, what it does to school. I think it sometimes it even pulls communities apart because people get so caught up on star ratings. Especially when we all start with a foot in a hole. We didn't create the star system, we didn't create the pandemic.
00:03:19
Speaker
And we certainly didn't create schools that kids don't want to come to. And that's not why kids aren't coming to school. But the chronic absenteeism is crazy. Nobody's getting 10 points in that category right now. The most I'm hearing, the most I've heard so far is four. Maybe you can expound on that if you've heard anybody more than four points. So if you're on a 100 point scale and you're pretty much starting with a 10 point deficit,
00:03:49
Speaker
I mean, that's just not right. Yeah, I agree. I think I think a school close to yours actually, which you might have been pointing into the divided community, I think a school close to yours had had more than four. But even then, you know, you're not wrong. So I don't know what programs you have at your school, but we have three intermediate programs. And essentially, I mean, if a student has an IEP,
00:04:13
Speaker
you know, a learning disability, they shouldn't pass the s back if we're being honest. So when you look at, you know, Thompson, for example, I have three intermediate programs. So in reality, we're kind of one to one for 27, if a kid passes before we even start. So we're, you know, not to make excuses, all kids should learn but but yeah, it's tough, you know, it's just hard to, it's hard to make up when you start out basically one for one for 20 something.
Challenges in Accurate Student Assessment
00:04:40
Speaker
No, I totally hear you and I think they're just measuring their own things because I'm right there with you. All kids do learn. And that's why kids in self-contained programs and kids...
00:04:48
Speaker
kids that struggle with the learning disability have an IEP and they're held to those goals that we sit down as professionals with their parents and advocates on those IEP teams. And we write goals that are attainable and achievable and give them productive struggle, just like we do for any other learner in our school. We just, we don't have a test that measures that, the CRT doesn't measure that. That doesn't measure that, you know, that type of test doesn't measure
00:05:16
Speaker
But we have to include them. And that, I blame on bureaucracies. And people that we elect in office. They're just exempt students that have an individualized plan and are in a self-contained unit. There's no reason why those scores have to go into that. Or we could look at them in a different way. Let's look at how they're making progress towards the goals that we set forth and the benchmarks in their APs. I think we'd see some pretty positive numbers.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you. I think, you know, one thing that Jen Black was on here many, many weeks ago, you know, in one of our meetings, she said, why can't we basically extrapolate data? And, you know, the kids there at school, let's measure those kids. Let's measure the kids who are showing up. Because in reality, if they're showing up, I wonder how many schools are not succeeding. I almost feel bait and switch when it comes to data, like,
00:06:10
Speaker
We grew up under the time where data was just coming to light in schools. We literally did it, you and I, in the beginning with pencil and paper and calculators and spreadsheets. Now everything's digitized, but you think about it.
00:06:24
Speaker
Back in the day when we took the CRT on a bubble sheet and we sent it away and used to have our test buckets and all that kind of stuff, we actually got the test scores back sooner than we do now. I agree. I mean, that's another thing. You're telling me with all the information that we have in Infinite Campus, I mean, just look at the media right now, what's going on.
00:06:46
Speaker
with the data breach, there's all kind of information out there, right? We have all this information on students. There's not a way for us to extrapolate the right data for the right students to give the right scores to the school. Like I would even go so far as Star System is, if that kid's score is gonna count for the school, they should have been at that school for at least two years. Yeah, you make a good point there. We have, I just counted a day, it's 100 and I think we're around 156 COSAs. Mm-hmm.
00:07:15
Speaker
the vast majority of the coast is coming are students who are struggling. So now you have a student moving into our zone that we've had no previous time with, and they're going to be there all year. They might come in two grade level below or three, and we may catch them up, but they're still not going to pass an S back, and so that does not shine favorably upon us. No, I totally hear you. And you know me. You've known me for a couple of decades now.
00:07:45
Speaker
I'm all about people, I'm all about kids. And then when I have a parent,
00:07:50
Speaker
and a kid that wants to move from a school that they don't feel is getting it done, or maybe things just aren't working out, and they want to come and try and work hard, I'm all for it. I don't care if it dings me. If it means that I'm going to lose a star over that, you can have your star. You already took 10 points off the top on me, so I don't even count it anymore anyway. But I haven't even gotten to how I feel about it. I'm more going to come back to that, because I have some stronger feelings about that whole thing anyway. Go ahead. Keep rolling.
00:08:19
Speaker
But with the COSA kids, I love having them come over. We have 740 students or so right about now and well over 100 of my 700 are COSA. Yeah, you're the same as us. All I'm saying is let's not count a child into that school unless they've been there for two consecutive years.
00:08:42
Speaker
I think you have a great idea. Do you give us a year to get them acclimated into our system? And then after that, we'll roll with it. Because I'm like you. I don't care. I mean, Marvin the Martian could land his alien ship out in the parking lot. And if a kid walks off there, they're ours, and we'll take them. I will try. Measure me on my efforts, our efforts, rather than arbitrary data. And that's where I come back to what I was talking about a second ago.
00:09:11
Speaker
I think the CRT, the S-BAC just one piece of arbitrary data. I'd like to get rid of that completely and go with math. Like you think about it, when the kids come in in the fall, you take that benchmark right in the beginning of the year, that's a great assessment for us to look at where's the holes, where are the kids in my class right now? As it would look at the end of your standard, it really gives you a nice blueprint, right?
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you on that. I would switch to the map. I've been saying that for years. In fact, when I opened Thompson, I was trying to get all the teachers there. I'm like, listen, I think someday it's going to be map only. Map matters. And I'm telling you, some of the teachers who came from other schools where they never looked at map, it was shocking awe. And I'm just like, no, you need to grow the kids in map. And I really think that hopefully by the time we're gone, that we'll get to that.
00:10:05
Speaker
But you know, I think in politics and money plays into it with S-BAC too, so I don't know. That's my gripe, you know, because at the end of the year, we almost have to choose as a principle which test to take seriously, map three, spring, or the S-BAC, and you know which one's going to win.
00:10:20
Speaker
Because you and I are dads and we have kids to feed into jobs. We want to do well on the test that they put all their marbles into, which is our CRTS back. I'll tell you what, we get better data. I wish we took spring. I tend to look at winter map data and compare that from year to year to year, rather than looking at spring
00:10:48
Speaker
to winter or I mean fall to winter to spring. I like looking at winter across the years for growth for kids because I feel like that's the test we give with the best gusto, if you will. Yeah, I did a podcast a while ago too. I used to do this with Abby Peterson, but she was a kindergarten teacher and we had a debate, what's more important, primary or intermediate?
00:11:14
Speaker
And I was saying, while all teachers are important, there's no doubt about it, the SBAC pitching us, holds us into having sadly to care more about three, four, five.
Foundational Education and Curriculum Choices
00:11:25
Speaker
And that's not fair. But if you're starting a school, what grade level are you going to make sure is great first? What am I going to make sure is great first? Yeah. Well, you can't read to learn until you learn to read. And the problem is,
00:11:42
Speaker
Third, fourth, and fifth grade is where we start seeing kids make that change in life from reading to learn, right? Right. Without learning to read, you know, I'm not totally against some of the stuff we're seeing with this Phonic Skills, because I think we have some kids that need it. Where I go against the grain with that is I sat in a training recently, and it was for the HMH series. And, you know, how many series have we seen come and go in our careers now? They all come and go, don't they?
00:12:11
Speaker
They do. But I love to read and I devour books and there's plenty of books that I've read over and over and over again because they're awesome.
00:12:22
Speaker
How many basil readers do kids pick up because they were like, God, I loved it. I can't rate to read this story about this bento box one more time. You know what I mean? That's not going to make kids love reading. I'm sorry. No. Sorry. At our last meeting, we were talking about this too. I said, with the new HMH system and their schedule, when does a kid get to read Harry Potter if they want to?
00:12:44
Speaker
That's what I'm saying, man. And you know, I can't be just read alouds too, like read alouds are great. And that's one way to capture kids, but that's just one thing. And usually read alouds, you know, when you're using that at a whole group level in third, fourth or fifth grade.
00:13:01
Speaker
You're missing levels. You got some kids, you're right at their level, of course, and you just have some kids that, you know, their listening level, of course, is higher than their academic level, and it can work out. Then you have some kids that maybe are interested in all because they're just not intrigued by it. You know what I mean? Because they're intellectually at a different level. And read-alouds are good. I'm not saying that. But kids need to read books. They need to read novels at their level. They need to find genres and authors that they love.
00:13:25
Speaker
You have to give them a choice. And the HMH, they're going to say, oh, well, you have the books to give them choice. But they need to walk into the library and know their level and be able to make a choice about what they want to read. And then we need to support that. But I just don't. This is the struggle. You and I just disagree on HMH. Yeah, that's been my struggle this year, really, is trying to find a way to use HMH.
00:13:53
Speaker
to a level that's appropriate to make sure we're covering the standards and that kind of thing. And at the same time, trying to find ways to bring in that Fountas and Pinnell guided reading groups that Lucy Culkin's writers workshop, where kids are working with reading, working with writing and doing it because they're excited about it.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, I think too, I kind of what I've been seeing on social media lately and hearing things is I think the district might be realizing that the teachers are indeed the experts and they should be able to do lessons that they think are right for kids. I think we're caught in a tough spot because you think back to about 10 years ago when we had an opening, saying third grade at your school,
00:14:45
Speaker
You probably had a handful of applicants, you know, and out of those applicants, probably well over 50% of them had gone to school to be a teacher. And then there's the alternative routes and they're not certainly not downing alternative routes. They've been, they've been the backbone the past few years. But why bring that up is I think one of the reason we're seeing things like HMH and then in the
00:15:10
Speaker
95% phonics in the letters that came out a year or two ago, those schools are still going through, is I think a lot of people that didn't go to school to be an elementary education teacher missed out on that phonological awareness, that core phonics, that phonics instruction, those word attack skills. Where those of us that went to school for that, we took those classes. So that's what angers us about some of this coming out is because we've already had it and don't want to do it.
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah. But I understand why they're bringing it, but as they always say to us, differentiate, I wish they would do that for us. One of my biggest gripes. Look at our transcripts. Go look that I took intro to language. You're going to see that I took these classes. I know this stuff. Yeah. One of my pet peeves is, don't tell me what to do on campus if you have a step foot on campus.
00:16:00
Speaker
I just struggle with that. And then you have your high flyers. Like if you think about your best teacher or teachers, and then you are having them do HMH, I just think it's slowing them down. I think we're getting in the way of that greatness. Yep. Now I hear you. Like I literally, were you at the 1.30 discussion today? I was not. There was some talk that the superintendent did an interview with a teacher.
00:16:30
Speaker
I haven't seen the interview yet, so I certainly don't want to talk to it or down about it or good about it for that matter. But what I was led to believe in the discussion today was that he made it sound like these materials are just being provided for you to use if you want to use them. Yes, he made a lot of gray area, from what I understand. And I live in the gray area. What's not the message coming from the instruction unit? So that's one of the big
00:16:59
Speaker
concerns I hear from people is that what Dr. Jara just said is not the same as what Dr. Larson Mitchell believes. And the sasses are not kind of being open to what he's saying. So now we're stuck because we want to go run things our way, but then someone comes in and says, no, you're supposed to be doing this. And then if I cite Dr. Jara saying, this is a resource, where's it going to go? Yeah. Well, you know,
00:17:28
Speaker
I know what they'll say. The answer always is reach out to your region and talk to your staff. I was going to say, I feel like I have a good open line of communication with my staff. I think he has confidence in me that I'm running this school in a good direction, taking the school in a good direction.
00:17:52
Speaker
He sees that we're using the HMH and I think that's what they want to see, you know what I mean? But we definitely are still finding ways. Particularly third grade, you know, hats off to third grade, they're finding ways to trickle in the guided reading. You know, now it's going to be my job to make sure that the HMH is being taught because, you know,
00:18:15
Speaker
You know me, I'm a soldier. I'm going to go against my own will on that and do what they ask of me. Well, I give you credit for that because, you know, you are, you know, I mean, for lack of a better phrase, you are a good soldier. I live in the gray area. So where I hear, you know, this is a resource and we teach the standard. What I hear is what I believe, which is I don't care how you teach it. Just don't get me in jail or get me on TV or get me in trouble.
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm pretty gray too.
Balancing Teacher Morale with District Mandates
00:18:49
Speaker
I like to be that soldier and do what they ask of me, because at the end of the day, I work for them. Right. But there's the other shoulder that says, who's really your boss? And to me, it's the 740 kids that call it home every day. I know. And I got to do what's best by them. And I want them to love reading. I know I'm not going to make every kid
00:19:13
Speaker
be a page turner. Some people are and some people aren't. But we can at least turn people on to things they're into. And you're not going to do that with a basil. I'm sorry. I agree. And I think, you know, you're like me where you're a servant leader, you're there to help the teachers do the job. So right now,
00:19:30
Speaker
is what we are asked to kind of have them do the right thing, because it's not inspiring them. It's not, you know, it's not boosting morale, so to speak. And that's the struggle for me. I don't, I don't want to live in the negative and have teachers like hate to come to work. So it's like, how do you, like, I'm constantly or we constantly are trying to find ways to boost morale and, and keep people happy in this time. And it's hard. Coffee, coffee trucks and car washes only go so far, right? Yeah, you feed them all the time. You know, I, I, uh,
00:20:01
Speaker
We have a lot of extra money, so if you, there's no more volunteering, extra duty is the way, but it's just a challenge, I thank you, I mean, but if everything was easy, we'd be bored. Now, since you said that, I'm going to take a plug to say thank you to our governor. I've been living here now for 24 or five years I've lost track.
00:20:27
Speaker
And I've never once seen an increase in per-pupil student-centered, per-pupil funding like we saw this year. And my hat's off to Governor Lombardo for doing that. I can speak for me. I will be a good steward to that money. We will spend it wisely. We will put people in good places.
00:20:49
Speaker
who buy great things for the school, I am so excited to be able to say yes. We have had to say no for so long. It's so good to hear and say yes. Yeah. I tell this story all the time. When I was at Smith, I used to pray that I'd have $30,000, $35,000 to run on. Now I'm sitting over a million and it's like, what? I opened that. I didn't believe it when I saw. I thought there was some kind of error and I'm like, I'm not saying nothing.
00:21:19
Speaker
I was in Utah. You know how it came out over the weekend where you could actually see your amount? Was it Labor Day recap? I think it was Labor Day recap. I opened it up on Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and I went, that can't be right. That has to be a high school's budget. I shut the lid, went back to drinking my coffee and said, I'll call my analyst on the Monday or Tuesday when we got back to work. She's like, no, that's really it. That's how much money you have.
00:21:48
Speaker
That's an American dollars. I think it's interesting, now we have money, but we don't have any people. It's the paradox. We had plenty of people to choose from. We were great at recruiting, which is a whole other topic. What night we're talking about recruiting, I'll come back.
00:22:12
Speaker
Now we have all the money in the world, there's nobody to spend it on. Yeah. Well, HR drives me crazy. I feel like I've been saying for years, I've talked about this and it's in the book about fingerprints.
Addressing Recruitment and Hiring Challenges
00:22:27
Speaker
We hire someone and then you have to hope that they'll wait.
00:22:32
Speaker
long enough to get cleared to come in. I can wait six weeks and then if they decide they want a different job or they don't get cleared and then I'm starting all over. That should be the first thing they do the moment they say, I'm interested. As soon as they check a box anywhere on that application, it says, I'm interested in applying the CCSC to say, first thing we need you to do is get a background check because we won't even take your application until the background check is complete because then people will jump on it.
00:23:01
Speaker
I agree. And I've always said, I mean, I've told I've told I emailed the former HR lady, I said, Listen, you Yeah, it talks. If you want to fix one thing, I hear Miller, like the first week that she she got here, I said, if you want to fix one thing, I don't want to see him on my screen in HCM until they can start next Monday. Yeah. And I swear, I've been harping on this for years. That's what it used to be.
00:23:24
Speaker
When we had that antique system passport where we used to, remember it was DOS prompt? Literally. You'd have to like push like F1, F3, F6, F5. But then people would be, you'd call them and you would interview them and you can hire them. And then they started.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny how I miss that system. Sometimes it was so telling me, you know, you just get stuff. You could find things out about people. It was right there. But anyway, let's let's switch topics. You are you're in a little bit more affluent neighborhood than I am. Yes.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah, so what challenges do you face in your community? I was shocked to hear you say chronic absenteeism is what it is. I felt like it would be a little bit lower up there, I guess. But what else do you face? No, because we face the chronic absenteeism on the other end of that, too. It's like, hey, we're taking our family vacation to the Swiss Alps. They're gone for two weeks. That's true. You know what I mean? We get a lot of that.
00:24:24
Speaker
A lot of our second language students don't come from south of the border. They're not Hispanic speaking. We do have that, of course, but a lot of them come from Asian nations, China, Vietnam, South Korea.
00:24:44
Speaker
popular this past year or two, South Korea. And then the middle Europeans, because we have a lot of folks from Cirque du Soleil, Ukrainian, Russian, Scandinavian,
00:24:56
Speaker
Hungarian, all that. So like, man, there's a million languages, which I think is the coolest thing. It's one of the things that I love about Las Vegas. You know, like I grew up in Podunk, Ohio, where they talked, you know, I went to school learning about this melting pot, but everybody in the pot looked like me. And I got out here and it's like, Oh, this is the melting pot. And I dig it. You know, one of the cool things about Givens
00:25:19
Speaker
is you think it's up there in that pocket of just Summerlin, but man, there's a ton of culture up there because of that. Right. But I think what are the pitfalls or the challenges, if you will? They're looking for that private school feel at that public school price. You probably have fluency. Yeah. But then again,
00:25:48
Speaker
For every parent that's kind of in your grill, giving you a hard time, you got 20 that want to help you. You know what I mean? When I have a fundraiser, you don't even want to know. You don't even want to know. It's awesome. You don't even have to think about it. And then the ability to get donations to have killer fundraisers because of the connections you get to make within your community. Awesome. You know what I mean?
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah, you know, being a Smith back where we could barely raise any money, and that wasn't anybody's fault. It's a working class neighborhood. And then going to Thompson, which I, you know, it's like, like you were saying, we are a true melting pot. I mean, people think we're in the suburbs, but we are majority Hispanic. And I love it. I mean, it's just, it's amazing. You can legitimately
00:26:37
Speaker
see every kind of race and culture at lunch. And that adds so much value. But I think people, you know, people who look at our schools and think, oh, you know, they, you know, they're, they're in the suburbs. Very easy to run. But you know what, they're easy because we work our butts off like getting to know parents and relationships and we're outside or you know, like we'll get back to them. So it takes work. It's so easy to sit in your office.
00:27:07
Speaker
Yep. They're easy to run. That's what I hear. Right. I'm ready to trade. I wouldn't trade for the world. I love my job. Yeah. Love my school, love my community, love my job. Like some of the connections that I've made at Givens, some of the things I've gotten to do because of that. I got to drink a beer out of the Stanley cup.
00:27:26
Speaker
That's amazing. The connection I made, it gives. I mean, that's, that's like the coolest experience in the world. I mean, that was just so neat to do. And I have other stories like that and just have met so many cool families. Just the form of people. I can't believe it's been, I think 13 years since I've been at that school.
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, one of the good things I think the district has done, you know, hopefully they'll continue this is they've allowed principals to
Community Roots and Long-term School Leadership
00:27:52
Speaker
stay at schools. Now it's not like a, you know, a dance of the lemons type thing or, or I think I feel like people can build some roots and some, some systems and structures, which I think is a great thing back when we were starting out, especially as APs. I was AP at three schools. I don't know. Yeah. So I think that's one good change they've made is they've allowed us to build up
00:28:12
Speaker
relationships and systems and build trust with the community. 100%. Like Alison, I've been working together now a number of years. So on those days where you step away, doctor's appointment, medical appointment, a quick family vacation, it's nice to know she's there and vice versa. We talk about everything. We finish each other's sentences. It's pretty sweet to have built that capacity over all these years. You know what I mean? It's pretty wonderful.
00:28:40
Speaker
We really want to bring another person into the mix because we have the money for it this year to bring in a second AP or a success advocate, but I'm reluctant. I don't know.
00:28:51
Speaker
I struggle with that too. Actually, there's a teacher that's going to go back and get her admin degree now. She's read by grade three, and when she gets done, then you've got your person right there that you know is going to come in and not cause problems. But it's nerve-wracking. I've had four APs now, and you just never know what you're going to get. And then it's almost more work sometimes, and we don't have time for that. No, that's all right.
00:29:20
Speaker
I have a couple that I've grown on my own that are there at the school, but because they're hardcore teachers, none of them want to leave their classroom because they're halfway into or a third of the way into a school year and they're like, I can't do that. I appreciate that. Absolutely. At the end of the day, if I'm willing to wait, which I am, there's no guarantees I'll get them because- That's the scary part. You're putting your faith in people that might not want to give you what you want. Yeah.
00:29:49
Speaker
or see things the way I see them. It's like, I'm not saying I'm the best principal out there. That's certainly not the case. I just think we're on the right side of the bell curve. But I know my school. I know what my school needs. You know what I mean? Like I know that. What's back to, you know, like I have absolutely no right to not to tell you what you need at your school because I've never been on your campus.
00:30:11
Speaker
Why is school so different? You know what I mean? And I've had my finger or thumb on the pulse of the school now for a long time because prior to my principal gig here, I was the AP for two years and he was outgoing, you know, retiring. So I got to be pretty involved, you know, right off the bat. I've been a part of Givens for a long time.
00:30:33
Speaker
Well, pretty much since the start, Jeremy, Jeremy opened it, right? Jeremy was there for the first three years. Yeah. And then Rick was there for seven. Okay. I was there for two, or two of his seven years. Yeah. So I mean, you, again, you know, and bless your staff is your staff. That staff's been there so long.
00:30:52
Speaker
And some of them, you know, followed me over from other schools. Some have just been there, that kind of thing. And we rarely have an opening when we do it because we've either grown or someone's retired or spouse relocated out of state, something like that. But like even beyond the people, like physically, like I know what's going on. Like I know.
00:31:13
Speaker
that if the bathroom across from PE floods that I have 15 minutes to make sure that no other water is running in that school or I'm going to have
00:31:23
Speaker
a sea of poo on the first floor right at the bottom of the staircase. I know that because I've had it happen many times. How do you feel about schools that have a second floor? Because I'm a little lukewarm on it. I just don't know how I feel.
00:31:47
Speaker
This is going on year four now. But how do you feel about your second floor? Do you prefer the style that is one level? Do you like it? I'll tell you what. What's kind of cool about it is we're kind of built into a hill.
00:32:06
Speaker
Even when you're on the second floor, you could end up outside, if that makes sense, right? Because we're on a hillside. When you're on the second floor, that's where our multipurpose room is. That's where our PE room is, and you walk right outside.
00:32:19
Speaker
And that's kind of cool. And then there's like this fishable effect to the library. When you go across the top bridge, if you will, you could look into the library with these big tall windows and it's kind of neat. Yeah. So you got some Erickson like it for the way yours is. Here's a different model than, than Thompson, but definitely some inherent flaws. And that's probably why there's only a couple of them. There's mine. There's the Hollingsworth one that was downtown. And then there's another one that I don't even know the name.
00:32:48
Speaker
but there's some true inherent flaws. I mean, I guess if you're in a landlocked area, second two-floor schools would sure wind up, but man, we got nothing but space out here in the middle of the desert. I'd rather have a big sprawling ranch person. Yeah, I agree. I agree. What do you see? You gave Governor Lombardo credit, now we have all this money. We also have, thanks to the federal dollars, we have all these programs or AKA resources,
00:33:19
Speaker
Let's just say that none of that stuff works. And then in two years, we were right back here, or scores went down. What are we going to do? You were not talking to me. You kind of made me sad. Sorry. Because you're like, I'm getting close. And the thought of being revolutionary or really making a dent in this profession, the lights kind of going out for you.
00:33:44
Speaker
What are the people behind us going to do if money and resources don't fix the problem? Well, I think we need to look at the problem from a more global perspective. One of the things that I've always gripped about here in Nevada, and I love, love, love Nevada. I'll probably never leave Nevada. I'm almost to the point now where I've lived here longer than Ohio, where I grew up.
00:34:13
Speaker
And I just love this state. But I'm convinced that this state's not too thrilled or too excited about having an educated workforce. This is the first year we've truly seen money towards education. We haven't seen, well, we've seen a little bit of growth. We haven't seen huge growth in post-secondary choices here in Las Vegas. You know what I mean? Other than casino, there's not a whole lot out there beyond
00:34:42
Speaker
beyond high school. Yeah, I mean, you make a good point, which I don't think you know, people might not think about is, you know, the strip needs workers. And, you know, sadly, you know, it needs it needs people who are not going to college in a lot of ways, it just needs, you know, it needs laborers. Even that, like, think of where you grew up.
00:35:03
Speaker
Walla Walla Washington, correct? Weightsburg, very close to Walla Walla, very rural, very rural. If you were to draw about a six-hour driving circle around that point, how many post-secondary college choices did you have? Six hours, you'd have a few. You'd have Washington State, you'd have Gonzaga, Whitworth. You'd have a few, but I mean, you can go Walla Walla community colleges, or after that, you're driving at least two hours.
00:35:30
Speaker
Uh-huh. So you mean... See, like our choice is here in Las Vegas, and unless you go into Southern California, you got UNLV. It's a good place. I mean, not saying nothing about it. You know, he's a good place. UNR is a great college. I have two sons up there, but it's eight hours away, seven hours away, you know? And then that Nevada State University now, right? Nevada State University now is starting to grow, which is nice to see.
00:35:58
Speaker
And then CSN, we saw it go from community college to Southern Nevada to college to Southern Nevada. So we have those three colleges down there, down here, but none of them are like, what's the word I'm looking for? None of them are like teacher institutions. Well, it blows my mind. We're the fifth largest school district in the nation, and we have three colleges right here, and none of them are really like teacher factories.
00:36:26
Speaker
Even then, even if we had a teacher factory, though, do you think people are going to go into this profession? Like we're now starting to see people not just live here, but live here and stay here. I'm one of them. You're one of them. You know what I mean? People live here, stay here. I have people who that we grew up with coming up through the district, who were the principals when we were just becoming.
00:36:51
Speaker
And now their kids are teachers in here in Nevada and it's like, okay, so we're starting to see this generational thing that's new. We need to do better at keeping our people here, I guess is what I'm saying. Like we grow our own in our buildings to be leaders, we need to start growing our own to be teachers here.
00:37:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we have to do a better at retaining them. I just don't know that in this world that we live in that there's any kind of spotlight on the profession. It's all about YouTube and, and professional sports and, you know, all social media and I don't know how we recruit people into a profession that has no extrinsic value unless you turn out to be like insta famous or something like that.
00:37:30
Speaker
Well, the thing is, it's like, how do you talk? I blame it on the cost of college and the interest rates on college loans. Because now that I have kids going to college and saving all these years, it certainly wasn't enough. Because college went up exponentially. And the interest rates on student loans is crazy that you don't even want your kids to take them. Because why in the world would you go into a profession where you're going to come out making 50 grand a year when your freshman year costs you 50 grand?
00:38:00
Speaker
You're scaring me, because my kids are getting close to college. Well, you buy kids. Here you go, buddy. Two boys in college, in state, at a state college, year one, so that you have instruction, dorm. And if you're in a dorm, a meal ticket, almost $30,000. It's crazy. One year. And I had to choose them up there.
00:38:25
Speaker
Well, yeah, you know, we, we're professionals too, you know, and think about, you know, the families that are really struggling right now, how in the world they have no other choice. And then it becomes a choice of do we even go to college or do we go, you know, do we go CSN for a little, a little bit back to why I made my statement. I can live in Vegas and I could deal cards. I could pour drinks. I could work in Uber. I could work for a limousine company. I could work transportation.
00:38:55
Speaker
construction because we do some building. You could make a darn good living. You can. My brother-in-law is a bartender. He makes way more than I do. Two dang master's degrees. He makes way more money than me. He looks like he's having way more fun these days.
00:39:13
Speaker
Well, yeah, I always laugh, too, because every, I mean, not every road, but 90% of the roads have road construction. And they don't seem to be working too fast. There's not a lot of urgency there. So how do those jobs work? Now, do I want to be outside in the heat? No. There's trade-offs. There's trade-offs, right? Absolutely. Yeah, so again, though, it comes back to what? How do we get teachers? It's a tough one, man.
00:39:42
Speaker
I gotta be honest, I know it's a cop out answer, but I'm glad I'm on the waning end of our career because I don't know, going into school leadership now, the way the community views you or views public schools.
00:39:56
Speaker
how hard it is to find teachers. I mean, I'm literally, I recruit from parents. When parents move here from other states and they twinkle that little bit of information that maybe they work as a teacher, I'm like, pardon me, would you? I know. What was that? It's November 6th that I'm already looking for next year. Yeah, I've been working for me that was literally just that exact scenario.
00:40:20
Speaker
There was a three by grade three student that she taught in elementary school. She is, I believe, a freshman in college going into elementary ed. And I'm like, check back with me in three years, please. Don't take a job until you talk to me. And then I had a colleague, retired colleague, principal whose child was graduating from university in teaching. And I offered her a position and I said, do you have any friends?
00:40:47
Speaker
And that's how I found some teachers. And then I kept telling them, do you have people that were a year behind you? Give them my number. One of my things, I don't know recruiting wise, why you don't fly to Youngstown and I don't go to the U of I and we don't sit in the education building and not offer jobs to seniors, but we offer jobs to juniors and sophomores and say, here, sign up online. And when you have your degree, you have a job. Why in the world?
00:41:17
Speaker
Have you heard from any of the people that have gone on recruiting trips? I've heard a few rumors. I've heard a few things. So I'm not going to say nothing because I don't know. I didn't see it firsthand. We weren't there. But what I've heard is not good. And why we're not doing that old model, I don't know. Apparently there were some problems. Then discipline the people that gave them, gave you problems. Like go look at my track record. You'd send me to Cleveland or Toledo or Youngstown or Pittsburgh and I'd come back with a bushel full of awesome teachers. Yeah.
00:41:46
Speaker
Well, I remember going to my interview and it was, you know, Clark County, the lady was on campus and I, you know, you don't get a job back home unless someone dies. So I don't understand. I don't feel like we're doing a very good job retaining or recruiting. And now, you know, with the teacher contract, by the time that thing gets settled, we're going to need another 18 percent just to catch up to the states again. If they sent us out to our hometowns and home colleges,
00:42:16
Speaker
and let us go in to do the way we used to do it where we would do a job fair one day and then interviews the next or something like that. All we have to do, I remember it distinctly going into one of those things. I remember my professor saying to me, how many of you want to be teachers in the fall? And all of us put our hands up. How many of you are willing to leave Youngstown, the little town I was from, to get that job? And there was three of us with our hands left up in the air.
00:42:43
Speaker
And I remember Dr. Feist-Willis, she goes, you three will have jobs in the fall. So after class, I went up to her and I said, Dr. Feist-Willis, how do I do that? She goes, start going to job fairs and move to a town where they need teachers really bad. I said, where do I find that? And she led me to it. And within a month, I had a contract to Clark County Schools.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah, it was easy. They offered you the contract before you even knew where you were teaching or what you're teaching. I didn't even care. I was freezing cold in springtime in Ohio, and I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to move to Las Vegas to 100
Selling Las Vegas to New Educators
00:43:21
Speaker
degrees. I remember looking, it was 100 and some degrees that day.
00:43:25
Speaker
That's where I'm going. I'm going there. Yeah. And now, you know, if you, I think, you know, back in the day, and then the cost of living was so low here. Oh my God, it was awesome. You know, it's great that we used to go to Arizona. We got here. We go to Arizona and Charlie's and have like $1.99 steak and eggs. Remember that. It was seven for 77 cents. That's seven different breakfasts. And each breakfast was 77 cents. We get all seven. You'd have 25 plates in front of you. You know, it'd be $4.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, or you could go to Moose McGillicuddy's and buy like 19 drinks for like $30 or something back in the day and now you can't get two drinks for $30. Oh my God. I don't leave my house. I don't drink outside of the four walls I'm sitting in.
00:44:07
Speaker
If you're 22 years old and you're coming out of college, if you wanna have fun and you like sports, Vegas is your place. But if you're looking for money, Albuquerque starts at like 60 and there's other places and that's one of my- But here's the sell. Here's the sell. This is the part they're missing. You're right. Their pay is better. But you gotta live in Albuquerque for 30 years.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah, do you want to learn how? We have to tell Vegas better and then give them something. There's got to be something to keep them here. Find a way to make it better down the road so people will come. But Las Vegas is still a very, very desirable place. Oh, it's a great place to live. And I love it here. When we started, when we started, you used to get breaks like for Southwest Gas. Yeah. Or you know, you get a little bit off the rent.
00:45:00
Speaker
here and there. I don't again, I just, but that's, you know, one of my big frustrations is I just, I'm like, I'm like, we gotta have some action. We, you know, I'm an ideas guy. Let's go. We got the ideas, but I don't ever see anything happening. Here's, here's, you know, like you were saying earlier that I broke your heart because, you know, I don't think I can make any change in the system. Here's what I want to do before I go.
00:45:26
Speaker
Because I really feel like this town is moving towards sports, which is really, really good to see. We have all these professional sports teams coming. I think we are moving in a good direction with the district as far as trying to push kids forward. But I don't think we do a very good job of marketing how we're better than the competitors out there.
Public and Charter School Dynamics
00:45:46
Speaker
I mean, ultimately, the city is growing. In the past five years, the city has grown in population, but the school district has shrunk because people are being attracted to
00:45:56
Speaker
to these charters and magnets for what they're offering. We need to be able to offer some of those things. And I think we do. I just don't think we get the word out there. We don't. We don't. I don't know how ever you are into social media. I'm more of a Twitter person than Instagram, but I just don't see a lot of positivity about the district. I do a thing called 100 positives, hashtag 100 positives. And every year I put out 100 positives about Thompson or
00:46:23
Speaker
something in education. And then I look around and I don't see people above me posting anything positive. So you go Google Clark County, you're just going to see, you know, El Dorado teacher beat up or you're going to see what the news is anymore. I stay away from mainstream news because it's all it is is negativity. But we need to market like this is the time of year where we should be marketing the heck out of all of our magnet opportunities. So parents know the deadlines are coming.
00:46:48
Speaker
And if this is something you're interested in, like there are parents that had no idea that elementary magnet schools even existed. There should be incentives for us as principals to turn our schools into magnet schools or STEM schools or whatever. There should be incentives for that.
00:47:02
Speaker
Well, yeah. So I struggle with magnet schools, and I have respect for the principals, of course. But magnet schools frustrate me because I don't feel like going back to the star ratings to kind of bring it full circle. I don't feel like it's a fair game. They don't have self-contained above pre-K. Students can magically be not coming back the next year. So I would love to. I mean, I don't want to turn into a magnet because I have this desire
00:47:29
Speaker
to do it, you know, do it with all the things against me. But you're not wrong in the fact that the good things that we have, we, I just, it's Vegas, like, you know, why can't we market this stuff better? There's so many marketing people everywhere. Plus, we have donors to throw money at the problems. Like the one big thing that I'd love to do with my last five years, I want to build a 12 use center for CCSD kids.
00:47:54
Speaker
for 12-year sports, from cheerleading to flag football to basketball, you name it, and have a facility for them to go to, and then maybe start building other ones. Because people pay money to rent facilities, so if we have land, get donors to build a facility, I think we can compete against
00:48:11
Speaker
some of the Little Leagues that run around town. You're never going to complete with Summerland South Little League or any kind of baseball Little Leagues. But man, we could have flag football. We could own it. We could have cheer. We could own Little League basketball. It would be awesome. I just started at Thompson. This year, this is the first year, we have flag football with Mountains Edge schools and we have a cheer team and basketball and soccer coming, which is great. But going back to it, you know,
00:48:38
Speaker
this is a controversial topic or a subject or a statement, but do you know who has probably spread more cheer to educators over our careers than anybody else? I don't know if you're tied into this, but Tam Larnard has given out thousands and thousands of tickets to shows because he has a hookup. I'm looking around and I'm like, Vegas has given out sweets to the Raiders. Why are we not helping out educators? It goes back to probably what you're saying is, do we really want to?
00:49:08
Speaker
Partnerships, like I don't feel like we build those partnerships and that's how you do it.
School and Business Collaboration for Workforce Development
00:49:13
Speaker
You know what I mean? If you, if we had like a sports center, then you invite those guys down to it. You know, like when I would, when I do the carnival and stuff at my school, that's, that's where we make our money is reaching out to the sports guys and hey, help us out. Give us this, give us that. I think they want to give, you just got to ask and ask nicely. Right, right. I think they definitely want to help, but I feel like there should just be,
00:49:35
Speaker
there could be so much more done between the district and the community. I feel like when Dr. Jarra got here, you know, was it five years ago, I felt like he was doing some great things with partnerships in the community. And then COVID hit not to make any excuse. And then things just seem to go away. And it's just like, we got to, we got to have a partnership here. Like this is all encompassing. And I don't, I don't understand why we, why can't we, you know, why can't we have a, a SAS that's in charge of community partnerships or something? That's what I'm saying. No, even with like,
00:50:05
Speaker
Some of the names we had here in time, like we had Zappos here in town before Tony Shay, you know, asked and all that, but it was like, why didn't we have a business partnership with them? Or we have, what's his name? It's building the bullet train. I can't think of his name. Elon Musk, where they're building that pneumatic bullet train. How come we're not
00:50:32
Speaker
Why aren't we doing stuff with them? Why aren't we connected with them? And then like we have the Nevada test site. How come we're not doing stuff with them? We have Nellis Air Force Base. How come we're not doing stuff with them? We should be doing stuff with all these people. All these should all be a part of the community, all interwoven. And it should be going back to like Embardo. You give tax breaks or, you know, I mean, Elon's got a decent tax break for, uh, for outside of Reno. But again, it's all, it's all encompassing. It's a community.
00:50:58
Speaker
it's a community profession. We're here to help try and draw those business people to our desert, then they're gonna need an educated workforce to work in those businesses, right? Right. Or they're not gonna wanna come here, because the education system's not great in their eyes. So we're losing- I think that's been a deterrent. I really think that's been a deterrent for businesses to be here. Sure. I mean, why, you know, if I can go, you know, trying to think of somewhere else,
00:51:28
Speaker
If you can go to Boise or you can go here and you're going to be, or Reno, I mean, we both love Reno. If you go to Reno or Vegas, which one are you picking? I know you're probably picking Reno. Yeah, I would, if I had the opportunity, if the right opportunity presented itself, I would, I would consider moving to Washoe County. I would.
00:51:49
Speaker
I don't see why you wouldn't, I mean, it's got outdoors, you know, we're outdoors. You know, I love the great outdoors and that's what I love about Northern Nevada. Not that we don't have some great outdoors down here in Southern Nevada. There's some places down here I love a lot, but I like those
00:52:06
Speaker
Colder temps and I like the water. I miss I miss lakes and streams like lake Mead's nice. Don't get me wrong Yeah, but there's nothing like time. I mean Carson City is really probably my favorite city in Nevada I love Vegas but our city you're close to the outdoors. You can do a tile you go skiing you go fishing you go boating and
00:52:27
Speaker
You go to Pyramid Lake, you can go catch some history in Virginia City, or you can hang out in Reno. I love Virginia City. That's one of my favorite little spots to go have a drink. It's just a cool little place, man. Could you imagine being alive in the 1800s? Do you like Bergen? No. In my older age, I really don't drink much. I'm pretty much just margaritas anymore. There is a place in Fallon, Nevada called Fry Ranch, F-R-E-Y.
00:52:57
Speaker
And it's a bourbon distillery. And it's all family owned. And everything about it is Nevada. The grains are grown here. It's distilled here. It's bottled here. It's distributed here all out of Fallon, Nevada.
00:53:14
Speaker
That's awesome. Everything is in Nevada. It's all here. I just wish people knew that. Vegas is a great place. How many times you go down the strip last year or month?
00:53:34
Speaker
It depends on what you mean by down the strip. I don't go down the strip very often, but I go down to see the nights who are on the strip. And then there's some restaurants that I prefer that are on the strip because I'm a bit of a foodie and I like to go out to a nice steak house or a good seafood house every now and again.
00:53:52
Speaker
Man, when it comes to cuisine, what's better in Vegas? There's so many parks. Everybody's moving here except for teachers. I'll tell you what, I think the other cell that they're missing out on, what's going on downtown with the arts district.
00:54:08
Speaker
Our district's cool. It's an up-and-coming place. Such a cool little idea with all the old neon up and then all the little kitschy places that opened up. There's so many great restaurants, bars, and shops down there. My wife and I, it's become our favorite place to go when we get a night out. We go downtown. One of our favorites is the Cornish Pasty. Have you been in the Cornish Pasty? Not. Oh, go into Cornish Pasty. Get yourself a nice pint of pasty and learn the story of the Cornish Pasty. They're very good.
00:54:35
Speaker
I will do that. Well, sir, I know it's a Monday. It's been a long day probably. You were kind enough to come by for close to an hour. I appreciate always being able to text you in times of difficulty or in times of fun.
00:54:52
Speaker
No matter where you stand, I have always appreciated your perspective on things, and I appreciate you and all you've done for Kids in Nevada. Well, I'm back at you. We've been friends a long time. I think it's so cool that we started out very first years teaching out here, and we still know each other. Yeah, crazy. Still talking shop, still trying to make Clark County School District a better place. It's a good place, but a better place.
00:55:18
Speaker
And right back at you, we'll keep doing what we do for a few more years. And then we'll sit back and really, we'll be like those two guys on the Muppets. Up in the mezzanine. Right. We'll just sit back and watch them. We'll hope for the best that we'll probably expect. Taking our heads going. What the hell's going on? Exactly. Anyway, man, I appreciate you. I'll talk to you soon. All right, man, take care.