Jordan Supercast

Jordan Supercast

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  • Episode 212: From Grades to Graduation Rates How JSD Students are Stacking Up

    In Jordan School District tracking everything from literacy and math scores to senior graduation rates, rising enrollment, and more is essential to the work we do. Tracking shows us trends so we can improve and celebrate student success.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with the dedicated team responsible for research, evaluation, and sorting out Jordan School District by the numbers.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. In Jordan School District, tracking data on everything from literacy and math scores to student graduation rates, rising enrollment, and more is essential to the work we do. Following the data shows us trends so we can improve and celebrate student success.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with the dedicated team responsible for research, evaluation, and sorting out Jordan School District by the numbers.

    We're talking today with the Department of Evaluation, Research, and Accountability here in Jordan School District to talk about Jordan by the numbers. Thanks for joining us. Introduce yourselves and let's talk Jordan by the numbers.

    Ben Jameson:

    Awesome, well, I'm Ben Jameson. I get to be the department's director and it's a pleasure to be with you today.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Hi, my name is Brooke Anderson. I'm the data scientist working for Jordan District and working with Ben, and it's very exciting to be here.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The newly appointed data scientist. It's very exciting to have you in that role.

    Brooke Anderson:

    This is my first day as a data scientist at Jordan District.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, I'm glad we can memorialize it through the podcast here. Let's just start off with talking a little bit about what your roles are. Your role is brand new, Brooke, so you get to make it whatever you want it to be. But Ben, let's start with you.

    Ben Jameson:

    So I supervise quite a few assessments that are state and federally mandated as well as a few district-mandated assessments. And then we're responsible for disseminating that data and making sure that people understand what it is and know how to make data-driven decisions based on that data.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And many of those assessments, as you indicated, really are not district-required assessments. Those come from the state or the federal level. A vast majority of them, in fact.

    Ben Jameson:

    Yeah, the vast majority actually come from the state. We've got a couple from the federal government as well. Yep.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And Brooke, tell us about what you have been doing in the department and about your new role as a data scientist because that may be a term that many are not familiar with.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Well, I've been working as a teacher specialist in evaluation research and accountability and in that role, I was cleaning and analyzing all of this assessment data and trying to combine it with all of the other data available that we have about students to ask and answer bigger and better questions about student learning. That's really the goal. The role of a data scientist specifically works on asking questions that are important to the organization and in combining data from multiple sources to make sense of it. To make sure that we can get all the data from the different information systems that we use. Turn it into usable data and analytics that can lead to knowledge that can lead to action. So a data scientist is all about making it easier to make decisions.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And to make data-driven decisions.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Right.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So it's really exciting to talk with you both about this. If you've ever watched Shark Tank, the panel of entrepreneurs on Shark Tank always say know your numbers. And they throw that out at the questions about what are their sales and what of all this. So those who listen to the podcast after this will know their numbers when it comes to Jordan School District.

    Brooke Anderson:

    That's right.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So let's start off before we talk about the changes in Jordan which I do want to talk about, let's just talk about where we are, how large we are, the makeup of our population, our student population, that sort of thing.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Fantastic. We are a large school district. Currently we've we've got about 57,829 students enrolled and we are probably going to have about that same or a little bit more this year enrolled. Normally we take enrollment counts as of October 1. So school districts in the state wait until October 1 to get their official count of students enrolled in their school district.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    School funding has changed a little bit. That October 1 count used to be where all of our funding came from. That’s been updated- daily membership is part of that.

    Brooke Anderson:

    To an average daily membership. Yes, that's right.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    But October 1 remains that date where we say, "Okay, everybody's pretty much registered for the school year. We're underway. People who are going to drop off of the rolls have dropped off. So now we pretty much have a solid number."

    Brooke Anderson:

    That's correct.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's interesting though, Jordan School District is the fourth-largest school district in Utah and even more interesting, the 70th largest district in the nation. Now do you guys know how many there are? So we're number 70, how many school districts are there roughly in the nation?

    Brooke Anderson:

    Over 13,000.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Somebody asked me that the other day and I tried to look that up so I'm glad to have the right number from you. And how many districts are there in the country overall?

    Brooke Anderson:

    Over 13,000.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So over 13,000 we're 70th in terms of enrollment, fourth in the state. I know that Granite, Alpine, and Davis are ahead of us I'm not sure in what order. We are growing but we're growing at a slower rate than we're accustomed to. Birth rates have dropped and not as many people are moving in. How recently was it that we really had big growth?

    Brooke Anderson:

    I'd say our largest period of growth was about five years ago, pre-pandemic for sure.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, that's my recollection as well that it really did taper off. It's interesting, all districts are experiencing that and really it's being experienced across the country. It's an interesting phenomenon.

    Brooke Anderson:

    It is. It's especially interesting, you know, thinking of where we were ten years ago and looking at our enrollment comparison to Granite, who is our next-door neighbor. And at this trajectory, we're going to maybe surpass Granite in enrollment within the next couple of years because their enrollment is dropping so steeply.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Let’s talk about schools. Talk about the number of schools we have at each level and the type of schools that we have.

    Brooke Anderson:

    So we have 68 individual schools. 40 of those are traditional elementary schools and we've got one online elementary school. We have 12 traditional middle schools, one online, six traditional high schools, one alternative high school, and one online high school. And we have a special needs school for students in K-12. We also have a special needs school for adult students. We have two career and technical academies and we also have a preschool which we run for students with special needs before they enter kindergarten.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    A wide range of services.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Exactly.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Lots of different schools throughout a growing area. So with all of that talk to me about the changes that we've experienced as a district over the years. It's really quite interesting to look at those trends.

    Brooke Anderson:

    One of the major trends we've had is that we're becoming diversified. So if you looked at our enrollment 10 years ago We would have had only about 20% of students who would be considered a racial or ethnic minority. And now we're almost 30%. So that's quite a big change over the course of 10 years. And it's a wonderful change because that means that more diversity is being included in our schools. And of course, we've got an increasing amount of diversity in our staff as well. It's not quite to the level of where our students are, but it is increasing.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Not only have we grown as a district, but our enrollment has changed and it's shifted.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Right, it's much more concentrated toward the south part of the valley. We all know that area has built up so much in such a short time. And of course, there are fewer students in the north side of our district. So the needs of where we need to put students in school buildings have shifted pretty dramatically.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's interesting to watch. When I first worked in Jordan's school district, I applied as a teacher. I was excited about Jordan because I knew that it was a growing district. So I thought that would mean more and more opportunities. I worked out at a school that no longer exists, being a middle school out in Copperton, that was torn down due to any number of reasons. New schools were built. And I was always told, "Hey, out here in Copperton, you see all these fields and you can't see where the next house is from Copperton, but all those houses are going to fill in all the way to Copperton eventually.' And there's been a lot of progress in that direction. A lot fewer fields and a lot more homes and that's what we're finding on the west, westernmost edge of our district and in the southwest area as well.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Copperton is still our only rural part of the district that would be considered rural.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay.

    Brooke Anderson:

    But maybe not for long.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Not for long, not for long. I lived out in Copperton, I loved Copperton, it's a great spot.

    Stay with us when we come back, we dive into growing graduation rates and district enrollment.

    Break:

    Hello, I'm Tracy Miller, President of the Jordan School District Board of Education. There are seven members on the Board of Education, one in each voting district. We are committed to listening and serving our constituents as we work together to provide the best possible learning environment for the students we serve. As members of the Jordan Board of Education, we believe it is our duty and responsibility to: increase student achievement; provide parents with the choices they deserve and desire; recognize and reward quality in educators; empower school leaders through policy governance and professional development; and communicate with the public, legislators, business leaders, cities, and parents. We invite you to get to know the Board member who represents you in your voting district and to please join us at our monthly board meeting held on the fourth Tuesday of every month. Or listen from the comfort of your home, on our live stream. For more information and to find your Board member, visit jordandistrict.org. With parent and community input and support, we will continue our work to give students every opportunity to succeed in Jordan District schools and beyond. Thank you for your support. We look forward to seeing you soon.

    [ Music ]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell us a little bit about maybe some surprising facts about Jordan District that people might not be aware of. What makes Jordan unique?

    Brooke Anderson:

    Oh, I would like to talk about some of the things that have changed with our enrollment and bringing in new students. Did you know that we have 82 different birth countries represented, students from 82 different countries attend Jordan District?

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I knew we had a lot. I could not have told you the number 82. That's really remarkable. That's amazing.

    Brooke Anderson:

    The students in Jordan District speak 58 different languages. We're getting about 8% of our students are learning English. They're in the process of learning English. And then some of them, of course, already know English, but we have 58 languages represented among our students as well.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And tell everyone some of the most predominant languages spoken.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Of course, the most predominant languages, English, then Spanish, then Portuguese, then Arabic is number four, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tongan, Samoan, Russian, and Mongolian.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Fascinating. We really do have a broad range of students from a lot of different backgrounds and that's exciting.

    Brooke Anderson:

    It is.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Let's talk about student achievement. Let's discuss some of the areas where Jordan has been doing particularly well and is on an upward trend and some areas where we really have been working on trying to improve.

    Ben Jameson:

    So I think maybe the best place to start is right at the beginning with early literacy in our early grades. We put forth a great deal of effort to help our students read on grade level by third grade and I'm excited with some of the numbers that have come out most recently. Just for instance, 71.7% of kindergartners are reading on grade level at the end of last year. That's the highest that it's ever been in Jordan School District. Even by third grade, which was that time where students transitioned between learning to read to reading to learn, 71.3% of our third graders are also reading on grade level, meeting literacy benchmarks at the end of third grade. So we're super excited about that.

    We're seeing actually quite a bit of growth across grade levels. For instance, 65% of students in grades K through 3 made typical or better growth, which is the highest that it's ever been in the school district. Kindergarten students, again, not only did they have the highest proficiency, but they had the highest growth rate that they've ever had at nearly 59% of students making typical or better growth. 66% of second grade students made typical or better growth, which again is the highest that it's ever been. I keep saying that because it feels so good to say.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It does feel good to say that. And we're doing things we haven't done before. We have the Walk to Read program that we rolled out a couple of years ago. We had piloted it a year before that. And teachers have worked very hard-- coaches, administrators, folks from teaching and learning, parents, students. Everyone's been working really hard to get those results.

    I'm particularly excited about the boosting scores for kindergarten students. So they're getting a better start in Jordan District than they ever have before. And a great predictor of graduation rates is the percentage of students reading on grade level in third grade. And a great predictor of that is how well students are doing in kindergarten. So I think we're gonna continue to see the positive impact of the students learning to read at an earlier age and with greater proficiency.

    And I also wanna point out, a year's growth and the typical or better growth is harder to achieve than you might think because you may have students who are very advanced coming into a class and that statistic reflects their growth as well. It's just not, are you reading on grade level or on the expected level for your age and grade level? It's that you've made growth wherever you started, whether you started with a very low reading ability or very high scores, it's that you grew for the entire year and you made that progress that we would expect and teachers are working really, really hard to make sure that happens.

    Ben Jameson:

    It really is a celebration for everyone involved, all of our stakeholders. And it's exciting to report that we're making such progress.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Talk about graduation rates.

    Ben Jameson:

    90.2% of students in the graduating class of 2022 were able to graduate, which is the highest in Jordan School District that it's ever been. And that's super exciting for us to report as well. Having talked about growth in early literacy, this kind of bookends the hard work that's going on at the other end of the educational spectrum.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's really exciting to have the highest graduation rates we've ever had. It's wonderful and we're going to keep working on that trajectory. Coming out of a pandemic, it's really important that that number continues to grow.

    I think what's important as well is the work that has been done to be sure that that graduation is even more meaningful than it's ever been. That the experiences that lead to that graduation are rich learning experiences. And again, our teachers have worked so hard to create great classroom environments, great learning environments for our students. So that not only are more students graduating than ever before, but they're having a better experience in learning more than ever before.

    Brooke Anderson:

    And we can also see that students are being offered more options for the courses they can take in high school, particularly advanced college and career readiness courses. We can see that the number of students taking CTE courses, for example, has increased. It's the highest it's ever been in 2022 and 2023 to about 19% to 20%. We love seeing that and that's up from about 16% in 2015 so we like getting more students into those kind of classes.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    A variety of experience is really important. It's something we focused on and we want to prepare students for a lot of different things after high school whether it's career, whether it's college, whether it's technical training. So we're not solely focused on college where we have many programs that lead directly to careers or to licensing programs or to other post-secondary educational opportunities. So really the nice thing about having so many students in so many schools is we have a critical mass of people that are interested, that are going to be interested in a wide variety of programs so it allows us to offer more and more of those specialized courses.

    Brooke Anderson:

    One of my favorite tasks every year is being able to update a master course catalog with all the new courses that have been added.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Right.

    Brooke Anderson:

    We've been able to add things like the history of Disney in America, Everyday Chemistry all of those fun courses that I look at that and I think I wish I could take that course.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, absolutely. There's a Rock-and-Roll course that I would really like to sit in on. These are meaningful courses focused around skills and dispositions that we want students to have as they as they graduate. We're working right now on the Portrait of a Graduate process under the Board's direction. And we're getting community input, employee input, student input on what skills do we want students to have, what knowledge, what dispositions when they graduate from Jordan School District. And having that input and really putting that plan in place is an exciting process too. So I think we're going to continue to make progress along these same lines.

    Brooke Anderson:

    We've certainly made progress in the amount of students taking advanced courses. We have 34% of our students in grades 9 through 12 taking AP, Concurrent Enrollment, Secondary Math 3, very advanced math, all of those kind of college preparation courses, which is great to see.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Which speaks to the preparation that leads up to students being ready for those courses, but also that we have educators encouraging students to take more challenging courses and really inspiring students and helping them understand their own capabilities and seeing beyond what maybe they thought they were capable of. Let's talk about some of the areas where we know that improvement is needed. And we've been working hard, but we're maybe shifting our focus and trying some new things to see if we can impact those scores in a positive way.

    Ben Jameson:

    So RISE is the summative assessment that is mandated by the state that we administer to students in grades three through eight in language, arts, math, and science. And so we've been monitoring those scores, particularly through the height of the pandemic and keeping a watch on those scores and how they've been affected by, you know, the various impacts that the pandemic brought along. We did see a drop during the pandemic in all three content areas. We are starting to see a bounce back in the content areas, especially in the elementary grade levels. But we definitely need to still continue to work and keep an eye on our performance, especially at the secondary levels in language arts, math, and science. I think that is something that we are focusing on with teachers even on a daily basis. They're working hard to help students recover some of the learning gaps that came about because of all the things that happened during the pandemic.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Right. And there's so much, you know, we've talked about the pandemic so much, of course, over the last few years and the impact that it's had on learning. And some folks may be tired of hearing that. And we don't want to have a deficit mentality where we're always focused on where we're falling short. But we also have to be realistic about the negative impact that this had on students.

    If you think about how much you changed from, say, sixth grade to eighth grade, or second grade to fourth grade, or ninth grade to being a junior in high school, those two years were not normal years. And so the development and the academic achievement wasn't where it normally would have been. And so we didn't get the interactions with each other and the school setting and all of that in the same way that students normally benefit from.

    So we're still going to be playing catch-up on that, but we've really focused on looking forward and celebrating success and building on the successes that we have. And I really think that we're going to continue to see this upward trend as teachers and students and families have really worked hard to overcome those setbacks. We've talked about where we've come, where we are. Let's talk about where we're headed.

    Brooke Anderson:

    So Jordan District in the next five years we've reached kind of a plateau in our student enrollment and we expect that plateau to continue as demographics may shift a little bit, enrollment may shift in different parts of the district, but really we're expecting to see things to stay pretty stable for the next few years.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And we've seen explosive growth for a long time so it's a different adjustment, but like you said it's a shift also in where those students are moving.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Exactly.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Also, let’s talk a little bit about Tableau- what Tableau is, how we're using it, and how it allows us to make those data-driven decisions in the district.

    Ben Jameson:

    So Tableau is a data visualization program that all of our school administrators and many of our district administrators, coaches, counselors have access to that allows them to both see data and even interact with it so that they can adjust filters to see for instance, how are my students with disabilities doing in this particular subject area? Or what's the reading level of my students that are learning English as a second language? It's exciting because they're able to ask questions about the data, and then interact with the data to be able to get the answers that they need to make decisions they need to make and create plans that will help students achieve at even higher levels. We're very excited about the ways that we can use Tableau and we'll get to use Tableau even more now that we have a data scientist.

    Brooke Anderson:

    We've been getting more and more questions about student learning which is exciting because you never know what's the next question that we can answer that would help us move forward.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The data is really important because at the end of a teaching day, or even as a parent, it's difficult to know am I having the impact that I hope I'm having? And this data allows us to see that yes, teachers are having a great impact on students. They're learning more than ever and they have better opportunities than ever before.

    Brooke Anderson:

    That's true.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, thank you very much for spending the time with us today, but also thank you for all the hard work you're doing to make sure that we have the best information we can to make the best decisions we can.

    Brooke Anderson:

    Thank you.

    Ben Jameson:

    Thank you. We appreciate the invite.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

    [MUSIC]
    24 min
  • Episode 211: What Happens When There is a Potential Threat Against Your Child’s School? Behind the Scenes with Police and District Safety Personnel

    Threats of any kind against a school are always taken seriously, even if the threat is considered non-credible, from out of state, or even originating in another country.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we go behind the scenes with police and District safety personnel to find out what happens when a threat is reported or uncovered. Hear about the immediate steps that are taken, and how we work closely with local law enforcement to keep students, teachers, and staff safe.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Threats of any kind against a school are always taken seriously, even if the threat is not considered credible, comes from out of state, or originates in another country.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we go behind the scenes with police and district safety personnel to find out what happens when a threat is reported or uncovered. Hear about the immediate steps that are taken, and how we work closely with local law enforcement to keep students, teachers, and staff safe.

    [music]

    We're talking now with two of the experts that we work with anytime that we have a school threat. Please let's start by having you introduce yourselves.

    Cody Stromberg:

    I'm Cody Stromberg. I'm the Deputy Chief of Police for Herriman City.

    Matt Alvernaz:

    I'm Matt Alvernaz, the new School Safety Coordinator for Jordan School District.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And tell me a little bit about your career path that brought you to this point.

    Cody Stromberg:

    Sure, I started my career back in 2006, worked in Sandy City and then for the Unified Police Department. I was assigned to Herriman City in 2011, and I've been there ever since. Working for the Unified Police Department and doing community policing in which I was intimately involved with a lot of our school projects, crossings, safe walk routes, school evacuations and reunifications, and all of those types of activities. And then when the Harriman City Police Department separated from Unified Police in 2018, I went over there as a lieutenant in charge of our operations division. And I'm now the deputy chief where I oversee 55 full-time and over 60 part-time employees.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're very grateful for your assistance day-to-day and in the case of emergency, of course. And thank you very much for taking the time to be here.

    Cody Stromberg:

    Of course. Thanks for having me.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    If you have to stand up in the middle of the podcast and leap into action, I will understand.

    Cody Stromberg:

    They don't usually call me unless something really bad happens. So I think we're safe.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Let's hope there are no calls.

    Cody Stromberg:

    Yeah.

    Matt Alvernaz:

    His days of leaping are over.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay. Okay, that's good. Matt, talk a little bit about what brought you here.

    Matt Alvernaz:

    So I'll be brief on my background. I started with the Army. I did four and a half years there. Got out in 2009. Started with the San Diego Police Department, worked about seven years there. And decided to move the family to Utah. And it's been good. We started with the Saratoga Springs Police Department. And I got into the schools, working as a school resource officer. An opportunity opened up to kind of blend the two with this newfound love of the education side mixed with the law enforcement side and real big concerns of school safety. So it's a great opportunity and I appreciate you guys bringing me on board.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, we're thrilled to have you, and Matt we're going to have you back on the podcast to talk more about your position and what's involved and your journey here. But thank you for your time today. Tell me about some of the types of threats that come in regarding schools. And, really we're talking about this because from time to time there are these false threats online but we never consider them that until we've looked very carefully at the situation. We take every threat seriously. Speak to that first of all.

    Cody Stromberg:

    Sure. I think we have to take every threat seriously. The reality is in the world of law enforcement everything is as it's reported until proven otherwise. And if you look at some of the statistics, particularly that the state legislature has been gathering through safety and other avenues for the last few years, the reality is that these threats have been happening for a long time. They're just now a little bit more public because of the world of social media in which we live.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah.

    Cody Stromberg:

    And the reality is that a school violence incident is every parent's and every educator's worst nightmare. And so we have to take that threat seriously until proven otherwise.

    Matt Alvernaz:

    Along those lines, I mean, it's good to be precautious, right? You never want to say, “hey, you knew and you didn't do.” It's easier to start with a bigger scene in the law enforcement world then we could shrink it back down. But if you come in too light and now you're trying to expand it because it's worse than you thought, that's harder to do. So we come in, we're taking it for what it is, make it a big scene sometimes, and we shrink it down as we determine it's less valid or less of a threat than we initially thought.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Talk me through what happens when you first hear about a threat on social media. There's a nondescript threat. It's not specific to a school, but students in a certain community are starting to spread it around. And in their minds, they're assigning it to the school that they attend because they've received it from someone that they know.

    Cody Stromberg:

    The upside and the downside of social media is that these threats tend to spread like wildfire, which can be good in the sense that we tend to hear about them more quickly than we used to.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah.

    Cody Stromberg:

    But on the downside, they also can sometimes get misassociated to the wrong school, or they get exaggerated beyond what the original statement was. A lot of times, we get reports from concerned parents who are forwarded information from their student or their child, students sharing information back and forth on social media platforms, particularly.

    I think, as I mentioned before, I think the SafeUT app and some of the other efforts that our state government has been involved in recently have helped us to kind of direct those attentions in a positive way and guide that information to where it needs to be. Because when we first receive a threat, we go through our standard investigative process. We try and figure out is it a legitimate threat, where is it specific to, or is it specific to anywhere, and that will dictate our response, where you could see anything from a physical response of additional officers in school to kind of a behind the scenes, more quiet response where we can identify a specific individual and we have investigators or officers that will go contact that individual directly and go through our investigation that way.

    Clearly, those types of threats are a serious concern. There are criminal statutes specifically related to making threats against schools now that allow us a little bit more latitude to push these investigations further. But the reality is the world in which we live is one of rapid information. And sometimes that information is inaccurate, which makes it difficult at times for us to respond appropriately.So like Matt was saying, we'll start wide and then we'll try to narrow our focus from there.

    Matt Alvernaz:

    Yeah, the information we get is pretty fluid sometimes. It's like, oh, we got, it's over here. Well, hold on, we're getting new information over here, but we can't ignore the previous information. So we have to kind of be ready to adapt and respond. And so you'll have different levels of facets of the response, you know, physical presence there while doing stuff behind the scenes.

    Social media does have the advantage of leaving that digital footprint. We can track things, which is great. People think Snapchat's, you know, got that erase. No, we'll get it. If it comes down to we can dig deep enough, you know, with recent incidents. Snapchat was how we were able to make our determinations through warrants and get that kind of stuff going. And I don't want to speak too much because it was th department who did that, but it was a fantastic job. But yeah, so I mean, it's both a blessing and a curse.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And what you just said, Matt, re-emphasizes the importance of those strong relationships that we work on all the time, is making sure that we have good communication because neither one of us can be as responsive to schools as we need to be without helping each other out.

    Stay with us when we come back, more on potential threats targeting schools and how we work with local law enforcement to hold the suspect or suspects accountable.

    [Music]

    Break:

    In Jordan School District, we like to support students in and outside the classroom along with their families. That's where the Jordan Family Education Center comes in, offering support services and a wide variety of classes for students and their families, free of charge. You can take a class called Blues Busters for children feeling sad or worried. Just Breathe is a class that helps students reduce stress. Or how about a class that supports parents in helping their children make and keep good friends. There are also support groups and free counseling, all provided by Jordan School District school psychologists and counselors. To find out how you can benefit from free family support services offered by the Jordan Family Education Center, call 801-565-7442 or visit guidance.jordandistrict.org.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Walk us through the steps that you take once you find out about a threat from a police department standpoint and from a district standpoint.

    Cody Stromberg:

    For us, we receive that information through a multitude of sources. One, of course, is the SafeUT and the resources that are set up through the state. We get a lot of information from parents directly. Like I said before, we'll get a lot of information from students who will pass information to their SRO and it comes to us that way or it comes from the school because information has been reported to your staff and then comes to us.

    So our first step, again, is to identify as quickly as we possibly can where that threat originated from. And if it originates from a specific student that's somehow connected to that specific school, then obviously that gives us a good place to start. And then if it doesn't, then we start looking at our external areas. We start doing, as Matt indicated before, we start looking at, you know, warrants for social media or we try to trace IP addresses, that type of thing. We have a lot of partnerships available to us to get through some of that stuff.

    But that's usually our first step is to try and place an element of credibility on it as quickly as we can. Because if we can place an element of credibility on it then we also have to start developing some sort of a safety plan or some sort of an action plan related specifically to that threat and then we work it backwards from there. We start- if we can identify an individual- we start looking at a criminal investigation and we move that direction.

    But the first- the first real piece is is it a real threat or is it not? And I say real, but the reality is they're all real threats. Is it a threat that's credible or is likely to be carried out? Or is it something that somebody just said because of you know they're venting or we have a mental health crisis or things that are happening that our youth are impacted by? And sometimes, let's be honest, kids say dumb things sometimes so they're not meaning that they're gonna go through with it but we have to treat it that way until we can prove otherwise. So we have to put an element of credibility on it and then we start trying to trace where it came from.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And as you described in regards to recent events, it's establishing does this even apply to our area? Was this even intended as a message for any of our cities?

    Cody Stromberg:

    And a lot of that happened simultaneously, I can tell you, with the specific incident we were dealing with on Friday, the SRO obviously was intimately involved in, “okay, what's the plan” but I also had a detective who was assigned to do the warrants on the IP address. I had a detective who was assigned to follow up on social media accounts. I had a detective who was assigned to liaise with the district and pass information back and forth. So a lot of that stuff kind of happens simultaneously until we get to a point where we can confidently say that we don't believe the threat is credible and then we might scale it back. But there's a lot of things that have to happen in that first few minutes and whether the report comes from SafeUT, or from the district, or from a parent or student, the reality is the process is much the same. And then we make sure that we loop in our partners. If we get a tip from SafeUT or from a parent, then we'll call the school and deal with administration directly. We'll bring Matt into it and try and make sure that we're all on the same page and operating off of the same set of facts.

    Matt Alvarnaz:

    And the report comes to the school exactly the same way, you know, whether it's students reporting it directly to us, we see it through Safe UT, we catch it on social media, or the police department lets us know in reverse. Our response is you got the principals, they're there, they're on the ground, you got the school staff, faculty, and we continuously train on this kind of stuff.

    You've got your initial information. If you have a name, if you have a lead, the first thought for the principals is what's the way to make it safe? How are we gonna make the school safe? Is it a lockdown situation? Is it a secure situation? Is it kind of just okay, we have flippant comments here let's work with the police department to determine more of what we have.

    In the case where we keep referencing on Friday when that information came to us police department was already there. Their presence was fantastic. I saw these guys out there working, doing their various things. The uniform presence in and out of the school was awesome.

    I was there to help alleviate for the principal's task. He still has a school to run and he's dealing with the parents, phone calls, doing all this stuff. So my job was to help deal with the law enforcement side of it. However we can assist, because at this point you get a threat like this- yeah it's against us, but they're the ones with the tools and the resources. If we find out some information, it's not us who's gonna go do it, it's them, right? If there's some validity to it.

    So how can we be a resource to them at this point? Meanwhile keeping our focus on making sure the kids are safe. And how can we assist that and stay out of their way? Keep the kids safe- out of the way- and continue to operate that way, and that's where that partnership comes in.

    Continually deal with that message. Make sure we're on the same page with that. What we put out needs to match what they're putting out, or don't release information too soon because it might compromise the investigation. Because they know information they don't want the potential threat to know. If we run out and say it, you know, it might damage what they're doing. So yeah, for us it's how to, that initial response, we're there first in a sense, the SRO is there, but make it safe, be that resource and watch the kids and continue to run that school and go from there.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah.

    Cody Stromberg:

    I think you mentioned something really important, Matt, that maybe we don't always consider and that is the disruption that these threats sometimes cause to the school particularly. You know, even a non-credible threat causes significant disruption to the school day whether we do lockdown or lockout or secure or not. The reality is there are a lot of kids who either don't come to school because their parents don't want them to. Or, you know, they get checked out in the middle of the day or they don't go to class. Or just the anxiety that some of our educators face. The teachers in the classroom are having to try and keep control of the kids while all this is going on and try and have a normal school day while they're waiting for information, right?

    I think that's something we don't talk about enough is the disruption to the teachers and the students who are actually in the school not having a lot of information but still having to go through, you know, their school day and it's really, really difficult. That's one of the things that we don't really have great answers for because again, we have to treat every threat as a real credible threat until proven otherwise, but we also just can't immediately say that it's not. So there's certainly an element of disruption that occurs that makes it really, really difficult for our teachers, too.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, I appreciate that. We really try to balance it out, like you described. We want to be responsive to every threat, take it very seriously, but minimize the distraction and the disruption that it creates.

    Let's speak to the statute that's out there, that it's a recent change in the law that allows you to pursue more aggressively those kind of false threats and perpetuating those false threats.

    Cody Stromberg:

    There's been a lot of change in the legislature recently specifically related to school safety. I'm sure that you guys are very well aware of the new school security task force that's being headed by Representative Wilcox through the law enforcement and criminal justice committee in the House. We have members of law enforcement, members of the education world that sit on that committee. Their focus really is trying to identify through the various data that we receive, what truly are our issues or responsibilities specific to school violence and how can we make our schools safer for children. And they're doing a lot of work to try and identify things like statewide standardized best practices.

    When we have these types of events we talked about, you know, do we necessarily want the Jordan School District to respond differently than Canyons does or differently than Granite does? The reality is that in law enforcement our tactics and our response is usually fairly universal, and we're trying to apply that to the school setting as well. So that it doesn't matter where the threat occurs, the response is going to be the same.  And we develop those standardized protocols that are designed and promoted for efficient operations but to gain the most positive outcome from whatever the situation is that's going on.

    Even within law enforcement, between agencies, we use different verbiage for things and different codes for things and it can get confusing at times and those are things we're trying to avoid.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The right terminology is really important. If we're not using the same terminology then it's much more difficult to provide a coordinated response.

    Cody Stromberg:

    Right.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What advice would you give to a parent who finds out or a student who sees a post that seems to be a school threat? They're not sure where it's coming from, they're not sure whether it applies to their school. What are some of the first steps that they ought to take when they see that?

    Cody Stromberg:

    It's almost a double-edged sword in some sense, right? And like I said before about the availability, the rapid availability of information can sometimes be beneficial. Because in that one case– I don't know if you know this, but they've had– SaveUT puts out a report every year of the interactions that happen on the app. There were over 800 confirmed threats of violence against schools last year in the state of Utah. 800. So depending on how many contract school days we have, we're dealing with this several times a day throughout the state.

    But we don't want that one that we didn't think was serious to become serious. And so the reason I say it's a double-edged sword is I want to know about it as quickly as we can. There certainly are better avenues to report it than others. Sharing it with your friends is not a great avenue to report information. It does kind of tend to complicate some of these issues sometimes when they're being shared amongst peer groups and not elevated.

    So the only thing I would say is, I would like you to not press share. But if you're gonna press share, then also send it to Safe UT, send it to the school, send it to law enforcement so that we can investigate it. And we can go through the proper channels of sifting through the data and the information and trying to identify- backtracking to the source and what information is credible versus what's not.

    Kids are gonna share stuff on social media. I was sitting at a high school football game last Friday watching these kids in the stands and they were just, the speed at which they share information on social media is unbelievable. Like, I don't know how their fingers don't cramp up every night when they get home because they're all over the place, right? And so it's gonna get shared. And I don't know that there's anything we could ever do to prevent that. I would love to, but I don't think it's realistic. So the only I would say is to also send it to SafeUT. Send it to us. Send it to the school so that we can begin as quickly as possible to vet out what's credible information and what's not. And we run into that one situation in 800, heaven forbid, that's the real deal that we can begin to respond immediately.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Sharing is not reporting. That's the bottom line.

    Matt Alvernaz:

    If you press share, you send it out, it creates panic. It inflates the issue, makes it so much worse than it needs to be. And then misinformation starts going. People who panic and want to reshare because they're concerned, okay, there's some of that, but there's also people with malicious intent who think, “Oh, this will be fun. Let me spread this out. Let me alter the rumor. Ooh, let me expand on it.” And it just makes it worse. And then the resources that go into, you know, addressing it and confirming it or making sure it's more safe is, it's just, it becomes wasteful. It becomes dangerous and all sorts of things come into play with it. The best thing you can do, is tell your trusted adult, report it to the school and the law enforcement. It doesn't really matter the order on that because we have that cohesive partnership.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Let's talk about what factors we consider when putting together communication for parents because as much as we don't want students sharing with each other, once we have adequate, accurate information, then we want to share that out with parents so they can make decisions and understand what's happening.

    Matt Alvarnez:

    So we have to make sure our information is accurate. So nine times out of ten, the students- you just talked about how quick they are with those phones and pushing out information. They hear a blip of a rumor. We have most of the truth, we just haven't been able to put it out yet. They will put out whatever they hear.

    So parents say, "Why am I hearing it from my kid first?" So your kid's got a half-second delay on what they shoot out.

    "Well, we have to make sure we're accurate." If I just start parroting everything we hear, again, panic, and misinformation.

    “Why are you so disorganized? Why aren't you on the same page with the police department?” If they put out information they have, it’s different from ours, well, that's just incompetent right there. At least it's how it's gonna appear. So we have to be responsible with our information, but we do get it out quickly. As quickly as we can in a safe manner. And again, as of that cohesive partnership.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You're right, we coordinate closely with law enforcement on those messages. Talk about the law enforcement end of those messages.

    Cody Stromberg:

    Yeah, and the transparency piece is huge for us in law enforcement, and that's something we're very passionate about in Herriman. And I know that all of the police departments the Jordan School District share the same sentiment. We've had these conversations before. How do we push out information to parents? When do we push it out? What do we say? And how do we do it in a way that helps either relieve some of their concerns or address some of the issues without adding to the panic and the confusion, right? And so the partnership certainly is key, as Matt alluded to. We spent most of the day on Friday back and forth on the phone with the district's communications team with the threat that we were dealing with at Herriman High School.

    From the law enforcement perspective, the safety of students is obviously the highest priority, but we also have to factor in things like traffic impact, right? If we suddenly have a bunch of parents who show up to a school wanting to pick up their kids, how do we manage that? How do we provide them accurate and adequate information that they can then make a reasonable informed decision as to what they're going to do with their student? And so we try, like Matt said, we try to push out information as quickly as possible, but we're also obligated to push out the truth. And we have to make sure that it's vetted and we have to make sure that we have a plan and that we're addressing the issues that need to be addressed as opposed to being a part or facilitating and spreading rumors, which is usually not helpful.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What's interesting to note, especially in some recent events that we dealt with, is that sometimes something starts in another state, states away from where we are. But it spreads through social media and there are lots of abbreviations for school names that end in HS and that can be applied to many schools nationwide or a reference to a mascot or that sort of thing. We've seen that over the years. So that's part of the reason that we have to take a little bit of time to verify the information. If we know there's an imminent danger, we're going to communicate that immediately. It’s making sure that we've followed up on the information we receive and we're sending out the most actionable information, the most useful information to parents so that they can make a clear choice.

    Cody Stromberg:

    Yeah, I think you're exactly right and that's exactly the situation we were faced with last

    Friday with a message that originated from out of state but because of some references to homecoming and because of some acronyms that were used, suddenly it ends up in our backyard and we're trying to sift through where that came from.

    Now we certainly have a lot of partnerships, both at the state and federal level, that allow us to rapidly move through some of that information and do some of that back tracing. But at the same time, that doesn't help the panic that happens for the two or three hours before that information goes out to the public, right?

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Sure.

    Cody Stromberg:

    And so we wanna make sure that we're responsive to the parents. But what I tell the parents most often is, exactly as you said, Dr. Godfry, that if we had a legitimate and credible threat that we felt the safety of students was in jeopardy, we would let you know.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Right. Immediately.

    Cody Stromberg:

    Right. Immediately. We would let you know immediately. We would have a plan to address it. We would tell you what the plan is, for the most part. We don't necessarily divulge all of our tactics, but we would tell you what to expect. And if you're not seeing that from the police department, then we're probably in a pretty decent place. And if things change, we'll let you know.

    But at the same time, you can't discount the feelings that the parents have, right? I have four children in the district. And when things like that come across my desk or through social media, I have the exact same first thought, which is where my kids are, my kids okay? And then you work through the rest of it. And you have to respect that, those concerns that come from the parent level.

    And so we're trying to push out information that we have, but we wanna make sure that it's accurate. So just like you said, we work through that. If there were a credible threat that safety of students was in jeopardy, we would certainly let people know immediately and we would have a plan to address it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I can't thank you both enough for taking time today, but most of all for everything you do to keep our students safe. We've worked with Herriman for a long time very effectively, and it's obvious how much you care about students. And all the officers we work with in all the cities, how much they care about keeping students and teachers and employees safe. And Matt, we've worked with you before as an officer and now on staff here at Jordan, and we're very grateful for your dedication to everyone's safety as well. So thank you both for everything you do. Our schools are very, very safe places to be and they will continue to be with your efforts. So thank you very much.

    Cody Stromberg:

    I can't speak highly enough of our partnership with the Jordan School District and something that's been long-seated and has been going on for a long time. And you've carried that tradition forward certainly in identifying new ways that we can be more efficient and effective. Like you said, I think our schools are very, very safe. But we can always do better. So we're always looking for ways to make improvements and so these types of discussions, and the information that comes out of what can be a stressful situation sometimes becomes very valuable in helping us to identify better ways to do things in the future.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Absolutely, well thank you very much.

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

    (upbeat music)

    28 min
  • Episode 210: Students & Teachers Celebrate U.S. Constitution Month in Utah

    Students and history teachers alike are excited to celebrate, after Governor Spencer Cox declared September “American Founders and Constitution Month” in Utah. It is a month where students are encouraged to read directly from the founding document each September 17, which is the anniversary of the creation of the Constitution in 1787.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we head into West Jordan Middle School where they have a passion for learning about the Constitution and celebrate it by participating in a “We the People” competition every year.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Students and history teachers alike are excited to celebrate, after Governor Cox declared September “American Founders and Constitution Month” in Utah. It is a month where students are encouraged to read directly from the founding document each September 17th, which is the anniversary of the creation of the Constitution in 1787.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we head into West Jordan Middle School, where they have a passion for learning about the Constitution and celebrate it by participating in a “We the People: competition every year.

    We're here at West Jordan Middle School to celebrate Constitution Day and the fact that Governor Cox declared September as “American Founders and Constitution Month” here in Utah. So we have two adult Constitution experts and several student constitution experts. Go ahead and introduce yourselves before we start talking constitution.

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    I am Kaye Rizzuto and I am the Jordan District Social Studies Consultant.

    William Shields:

    My name is William Shields. I am an eighth-grade US History teacher and a ninth-grade American Institutions and Issues teacher here at West Jordan Middle School.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now tell me about those last classes that you mentioned there because those aren't offered at every one of our middle schools.

    William Shields:

    No, and it's actually a really cool story. After “We the People” happened a lot of students recognize that there is a large gap in the history classes from when they learned about US History from 8th grade to 11th grade, and they were really eager about wanting to keep sharp in terms of the founding documents. Keep up on connecting the past to the present and looking at those important things that make up our nation in much more depth. And it was actually driven by students. I had the wonderful opportunity to work with the counselors here, people at the district, to actually write the curriculum for it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's fantastic. In other words, students were craving more American history at a deeper level, and you're providing that between 8th grade and 11th grade. That's fantastic.

    And Kaye, tell us a little bit about your position so that those listening understand a little bit more about it.

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    So I am in the district office. I'm the administrator over all of social studies from kindergarten through 12th grade.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And you provide great support to teachers and help us all kind of get on the same page and move forward and create a lot of space for creativity on the part of teachers and it's really exciting.

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    Thanks. And, I'm helping to get them supports and professional development. I actually have a team of elementary teachers working on creating curriculum for the entire state on the new elementary social studies standards.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The state is wise. "Hey, we need some help. Let's go to Jordan District and grab some great teachers."

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    Yeah, exactly.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So you mentioned “We The People”, and that's the competition that we've covered on the podcast previously, but can you describe that a little bit for those who may not be familiar with it?

    William Shields:

    It’s a wonderful nationwide program that was actually written between, I believe it was in the late 70s, with a combination of a Supreme Court Justice and some congresspeople, to really encourage schools to take a deeper dive into analyzing the Constitution and founding period principles and topics. And encouraging it in both an individual and a collaborative way so that the students can then work together, prepare a speech, and then respond to questions that would mimic a congressional hearing. So that's really the rundown, is it encourages students to do a deeper analysis of constitutional issues, and then prepare a defense.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, so these students are going to know the Constitution at a deep level because they've had to question it and defend it.

    William Shields:

    Correct.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    All right, well, let's talk with them and see what they have to share with us about the Constitution. These are 9th-grade students who are now in Mr. Shields's classes to extend their American history knowledge. But last year you were all competitors in the “We the People” project. So why don't you introduce yourself and let's talk about the Constitution a little bit.

    Gerardo:

    I'm Gerardo. I'm in 9th grade.

    Savannah:

    I'm Savannah. I'm in 9th grade.

    Ava:

    I'm Ava and I'm in 9th grade.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Why don't you tell me first of all what is your favorite amendment? It doesn't have to be the most important. They're very important, but what's your favorite? Either because it's interesting or because of the impact it had or because of the way it fit into the “We the People” competition?

    Gerardo:

    My favorite amendment would be the First Amendment because it talks about the rights all of us have as people living in the US.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What do you think the US might look like if we didn't have a First Amendment?

    Gerardo:

    It would look way worse than if like some things look nowadays. Because it's never gonna be perfect, but it will look a bit less better than it is right now.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And how about for you? What's your favorite amendment?

    Savannah:

    I agree. I think the First Amendment is one of my favorites.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And why is that one your favorite?

    Savannah:

    I think it's important to all of the things that it covers. Talking about freedom of speech and stuff like that and how we get to express ourselves.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Do you like expressing yourself as a middle school student in America?

    Savannah:

    I do. I think it's nice to have an opinion in certain matters.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I agree. I agree. Makes our country a lot better to be able to express those opinions. And how about you?

    Ava:

    Mine is actually also the first.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    How did learning more about the Constitution for the “We the People” competition change you and the way that you view just your day-to-day life or the country or your family or school? How did it change you to learn more about the Constitution?

    Gerardo:

    Since I already liked history it kind of motivated me to like become a lawyer when I grow up which is one of my main interests because of this class.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And is there a particular aspect of the law that you're interested in?

    Gerardo::

    Civil rights.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Civil rights, okay great. So this may set you on a path toward a career this this class and this experience.

    Gerardo:

    Yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, I wish you well I'm sure you'll do great. How about for you? How has learning more about the Constitution changed you?

    Savannah:

    It's been interesting to learn about parts of the Constitution that you don't necessarily think about on a daily basis. And in “We the People” we got to talk about court cases. It was cool to see how the Constitution gets to defend the people in this country and how we use it in our daily lives and for things like court cases.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay, great. And how about you?

    Ava:

    It helped because I never actually liked history growing up. I thought it was really boring because I never realized that in history you also learn about the Constitution and stuff like that. So when I took the class it just kind of helped me learn about other things and it actually made me want to be a lawyer too to protect certain amendments.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me what's it like being in Mr. Shields' class?

    Gerardo:

    It's a fun class and he's an interesting teacher. He's really funny and he actually helps us learn a lot from his teachings.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I've seen him out and about, he's a cool cat. I expect his class would be very fun, very funny.

    Savannah:

    I agree. I think it's cool to see him teach. You can tell that he loves what he teaches and he puts it in phrases that makes it easy to understand for us.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's great.

    Ava:

    It just makes school a lot more fun. It's what I look forward to every day. He teaches us really important stuff but still makes it in a way that it's enjoyable to learn about.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So if there needed to be an amendment to the Constitution to allow you to be in his class, you'd fight pretty hard for that to get put into place and ratified.

    Ava:

    Yes, sir.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Alright. I know as part of the ‘We the People’ competition, you focus on a particular topic from the Constitution. What topic did you focus on and what can you tell me about it?

    Gerardo:

    My group focused on freedom of speech and we were talking about this court case versus some students who were wearing black armbands to school and we were talking about how the government was like invading their rights as humans.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And did you side with the students?

    Gerardo:

    Yeah

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I thought you might have as did the Supreme Court, right?

    Gerardo:

    Yeah.

    Savannah:

    My group also talked about freedom of speech. One of the cases we got to talk about revolved around a speaker that talked to a small gathering group of members of the KKK and they were putting together a riot. And by speaking he was becoming an accessory to the crimes that they were going to commit and the things that they were going to do. We got to talk about whether his speech would be limited based on the things that he was saying and the things that he was trying to get people to do, and we got to talk a lot about criminal syndicalism laws.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow, and should his speech have been limited?

    Savannah:

    Yes, by encouraging them to join in on the riot he was becoming an accessory to their crime.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay, very good.

    Ava:

    My group talked about political parties and how they started. It went all the way back into the arguments between people who were running - well, I guess they weren't running for an office. But the cabinets and the vice and about what the disagreements were and why they ended up making the Republican and the Democrat parties and basically what their values are.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And do you think it's good that we have those two parties?

    Ava:

    Yes, 100%. It helps people be able to express themselves in a way that not everybody gets to learn because it's private so not everyone has to know your opinion.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, I'm super impressed with everything you know about the Constitution. And it's a great way for me to celebrate Constitution Day by having a chance to talk with you so thank you very much and keep up the great work.

    Students:

    Thanks.

    Stay with us. When we come back more about what we're doing in schools to educate students about the Constitution.

    Break:

    Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now let's talk a little bit about how we've commemorated the Constitution as a state and as a country over the years.

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    So September 17, 1787 is the day that the Constitution went into place, that it was signed, and that's why Constitution Day is on the 17th of September. Throughout the years many different states were recognizing it but eventually by 1956 President Eisenhower made September 17th and the week of September 17th, Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, to recognize the Constitution and being citizens of the United States.

    Then this past spring, the Utah State Legislature wanted to increase that awareness, and they passed a bill making the month of September Founders Month so that we can honor the Constitution and our founding fathers during the month of September.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    When you said 1787, Schoolhouse Rock automatically starts playing in my head. Hopefully, some other listeners that's happening to you as well.

    So tell me, what is it that you think people may be -- what are some misunderstandings about the Constitution that are common out there when you're teaching students or when you're talking with other folks who know that this is what you do day in and day out?

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    I would say that there's often some misconceptions between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Like you'll hear people say the phrase, it's in the Constitution that we have the ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’, but that's actually not correct. That's in the Declaration of Independence. And so you'll see some misunderstanding about the two documents.

    William Shields:

    And to kind of add upon that, I think that there's a misunderstanding that the Declaration created the government that we have today. The Declaration was one of the world in history's best breakup letters with Great Britain. And so they had the early Articles of Confederation but from 1776 to 1783, excuse me 1787, it was a really weak constitution through the Articles of Confederation and in 1787 that's when the government that we have today was formally ratified. And so I think that that's one one of the big kind of learning points is the United States actually had an early constitution that wasn't the same one as we had today.

    Kind of to echo what Ms. Rizzuto said, also that the Constitution is a living document. That it is something that as we see through the 27 amendments, changes can be made. But also through the impact of Marbury vs. Madison and judicial review, that we have court analysis that really does impact and reassure and reevaluate those items that are discussed within the Constitution and the amendments to make it more applicable to modern day life and situations that we face today that they didn't face in 1787.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Let's talk about some of the most important amendments that you cover with students and the changes that they brought to our country.

    William Shields:

    Well in 8th grade we really, we have the wonderful opportunity to really take the founding period and so we start with the First Amendment and we get through what are known as the Reconstruction Amendments, so 13, 14 and 15. And every single one of them are incredibly important.

    I mean first and foremost the importance, and this is towards the latter part, of the the importance of the 13th Amendment and the formal abolition of slavery. The 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment, both the Due Process Clause, but the 14th Amendment's protection against discrimination. And so my core really kind of stops at the 15th Amendment. We take a lot of time at talking not just about what the amendments say but why.

    And so currently in my class were looking at the comparative systems of those European countries that were settling in North America. And looking at, well, what did the United States later use within their constitution from these different ideas? We'll look at the philosophers. The importance, I mean, there are some historical amendments like the Third Amendment with no quartering of soldiers, which we don't really see today. But in terms of property rights, we see the Fourth Amendment all the time. And so even today in my elective class, we were talking about property rights and when is a person liable versus not liable in criminal versus civil situations.

    And so within my US class, it's really an amazing analysis of those items that were important to the colonists at that time from 1 to 15. And then it's important for me to continue the story and say, listen, when you get back in 11th grade, it's gonna continue. Like the US is not done finishing the amendments with women's suffrage rights and voting granted. With things like voting term limits for the president that we'll see in the 22nd Amendment, kind of to prime the pump so they're excited to learn more about it when they get to high school.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's the ultimate cliffhanger.

    William Shields:

    Oh yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hey, 8th grade, we're gonna leave you hanging at the 15th Amendment and then we'll pick up where we left off.

    William Shields:

    Oh yeah, and that's really one of those things that the students wanted. They wanted to-- they were mad. They were upset. They were like, why are we stopping here? And it was one of those things that it was– as a teacher, it was one of the biggest compliments to say–- for a student to approach me and say, I want to learn more. And I mean, I do stick to my core. But I had the opportunity to then kind of get together with this curriculum and say, OK, let's look at all 27. And not just the 27, but what were the impacting factors? You know, when have, I mean, when have there been, you know, to drop a legal term, stare decisis, when it has been continued on through judicial precedent, when has there been big changes? And so the students really are the driving force to that elective class, and it's nothing that I've been more proud of.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, it's pretty thrilling that 14-year-olds will say, I wanna learn more about the Constitution. I'm going to use one of my elective classes to do that, to create that opportunity. So that's a great tribute to you and to our students who are so interested in our country. So tell me, what impact do you see when students learn more about the Constitution? What are some of the light bulbs that come on for them?

    William Shields:

    I think, I mean, I could sit here and quote the founding fathers about the importance of an educated citizenry. But to see the light in their eyes when they realize that they themselves at 8th or 9th grade, they are active citizens. That they can communicate with their local, state, and national, and federal officials if they really wanted to. To know that while they don't have the voting responsibilities and rights yet, it's important to know about the system, to know what their rights, freedoms, but also what the limitations of government are.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Sure.

    William Shields:

    And so to really see them, to see their eyes go, this applies to me, this is important, and also to see them be able to identify how it benefits them individually, but also as a community.

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    One of the purposes of public education is to create good citizens, and that is done by doing these social studies courses throughout elementary school and high school and middle school. That learning about these founding fathers and the documents and all of the things that they learn in these classes is so important in helping them to learn about their role as being a good citizen. And so it's our job as educators to help prepare them to be citizens and to be active in their communities and to do their part to help the country be better.

    William Shields:

    I had a wonderful opportunity in previous years to talk with the Reagan Institute about the, with State Superintendent Dixon, about the importance of civil dialogue and to build that skill that is so pivotal within our constitutional republic to communicate and to know that there are gonna be different perspective and how we should build those skills to be able to process, view perspectives and have a civil conversation.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The author John Meacham has talked about the fact that disagreeing is just part of who we are as Americans. And it's an important element of the strength and health of our country, I think.

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    And it was part of what the Founding Fathers did when they were making the Constitution. They had to have that civil dialogue, whether it was in Independence Hall or when they were off in the tavern in the evenings, they were having those dialogues and working together to form our Constitution. And it's an important skill that we need to emulate because that's how our country was built.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Good thing Facebook didn't exist back then. It would’ve really gotten in the way, I think. Thank you both for everything you do to help instill a love for the Constitution and our nation in our students and for the support you give to teachers. And it's just, I'm really proud of the work that you do and the education that's provided to students around American history and the Constitution in Jordan School District. So thank you for being such an important part of that.

    Kaye Rizzuto:

    Thank you.

    William Shields:

    It's literally my pleasure and Kaye's amazing.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    She sure is. Thank you both.

    (upbeat music)

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

    [MUSIC]
    23 min
  • Episode 209: An Assistant Principal and His Passion for Pickleball

    During the school day he is determined to provide students with the best educational experience possible at Monte Vista Elementary School. But when the final bell rings, Assistant Principal Andrew Lovell trades the classroom for a pickleball court.

    On this episode of the Supercast, find out how Mr. Lovell is sharing his love and passion for the game of pickleball with colleagues. They are colleagues of all ages and abilities who suddenly can’t get enough of what has become one of the most popular, fastest growing sports in the nation right now.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. During the school day, he is determined to provide students with the best educational experience possible at Monte Vista Elementary School. But when the final bell rings, Assistant Principal Andrew Lovell trades the classroom for a pickleball court.

    On this episode of the Supercast, find out how Mr. Lovell is sharing his love and passion for the game of pickleball with colleagues. They are colleagues of all ages and abilities who suddenly can't get enough of what has become one of the most popular, fastest-growing sports in the nation right now.

    We're with Andrew Lovell, the assistant principal at Monte Vista Elementary School today. Andrew, thanks for taking some time this afternoon.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, thanks for having me.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So the pickleball robot is shooting balls at us now. And now do you use this to kind of hone your skills on certain shots?

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh wow.

    Andrew Lovell:

    For sure. Yeah, it's a great way to practice, especially if you don't have anyone to play with. You know, I think nothing beats playing with a friend or people just at a pickup game, but this is a great way to work on this very specific skill and to drill it 100 plus times in a row.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We are here at Pickleball Courts in South Jordan City and a little known fact is that if you come in 100° weather in the middle of the day, you get every court to yourself. People claim Pickleball Courts are full, but they're not full if you come at one.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, that's true, yeah. Typically, in the evening you can go to a place that has 20 courts and they'll be booked, yeah, middle of the day, 100°, it's a great time to come out and play.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So if you could take the heat, come into the kitchen, so to speak. Now, Andrew, we were going to talk a little bit about pickleball in Jordan School District and how it's been part of our health and wellness to start off with. I'd like to learn a little bit more about your connection to pickleball. Tell us about your pickleball past and how you're connected to the sport currently.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, so like a lot of people, I think, in Utah and around the nation, pickleball really picked up during COVID for whatever reason, I picked it up and I just got addicted right away. So I've been playing for about two and a half years and I do tournaments, I play with friends in the Jordan School District, I've helped with Wellness Day and created some leagues. And so it's been a really awesome opportunity to connect with other people. It's a great way to get exercise. It's a great way to stay in shape and also just keep mentally sharp, emotionally and socially healthy as well.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell us why you think Pickleball is such a great health and wellness sort of activity. Because on our Health and Wellness Day, which we've now done for multiple years, we had a lot of employees come out for that and it was a really good chance for them to connect with each other. And I think that's a big part of it.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, one of the coolest things that I saw at the Health and Wellness Day was just people from all over the district connecting with one another. We had, you know, our custodial staff, we had substitute teachers, we had full-time teachers, we had people from the district, we had vice principals. We had just, everyone was there connecting and no one knew each other, so everyone's, you know, kind of on equal playing field, and you just gotta get out there and play. And it's a great way to just to connect with people. And so that was one of the coolest things I saw, just people making connections through something that they genuinely love to do, which was get some exercise and play pickleball.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I know it may be surprising, but I haven't been involved in a lot of sports over the years. And pickleball, it's remarkable how quickly you can have fun with it even if you're not a particularly skilled athlete. Speaking to the connection part of it, my son and I were down in St. George, we’re playing, and another couple of players came up to us and said “Hey, do you guys want to play against us?” and suddenly this competitive fire built within me even though I don't have these pickleball skills to back it up. It was really fun to play with them and it was memorable. So, I'm really excited that we've had that opportunity within Jordan District because of the activities you've put together for employees to connect with each other. So,  you had about 60 or 70 people come to the health and wellness activity. We were fully booked for the day.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we were fully booked. We actually went for almost 10 hours straight, playing drop-in, and that was just, anyone could come and play. And then we also had two tournaments, a beginner tournament and an advanced tournament, and those were full. And then we created a league after that 'cause the feedback was so great. We had too many people actually to be able to fit everyone in. So then we created a league and we had people come out to that every other Wednesday, twice a month and the response has been tremendous. And I think you can really see that people just genuinely love being outside. They love getting some extra exercise.

    We know that our educators, if we can be happy, if we can be healthy mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually, that we're gonna be better teachers in classroom. And so that's I think that's just one of the side effects that we don't always get to see but we know it exists. We know that happier teachers, healthier teachers make for higher success and learning in our classrooms. So it's just it's a benefit to everyone when we do things like pickleball, not just pickleball, but pickleball has to be one of the best for sure.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You get outside there's a little bit of a sense of competition. You connect with other people and I think you get a sense of efficacy like hey, I can learn something I didn't know how to do before. Because it takes a long time to master it but it doesn't take very long to be able to just dive in and have some fun with it.

    Andrew Lovell:

    For sure. That is one of the reasons, I think, why pickleball is exploding so much. Because the playing field is really level. You have male, female, it doesn't matter the age. You know, I always tell people if you haven't lost to someone who's over 60 years old or if you haven't lost to a 13-year old it's because you haven't played enough. Because there are just so many good people. And you don't have to be- unlike tennis where you really need, you need a flexible, a younger body to be honest, to be able to run those sprints and be able to compete at the highest level, in pickleball you don't. Even at the pro level you'll see people - you'll see older gentlemen, older women, who are competing at the highest levels. And you also see on the opposite end. You see kids who are as young as 13 playing at the pro level.

    So it just it's a sport that everyone can do and it's really easy to learn. If you want to be more advanced there's a few techniques you got to pick up, but really anyone like you and your son, you go out there and play. And you can be just as good after a few times of practice so it's awesome.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    A very successful Health and Wellness Day. Lots of participation in pickleball so much so that you started the league. Now I understand we're starting that back up this fall as well.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, so one thing that we want everyone to look forward to is on Wellness Day we plan on having another set of tournaments and drop in. But then we for sure plan on having another league coming up either in the fall or spring. We haven't fully decided on the dates and well it's gonna work for everyone but that's something we want to continue and we will strive to do.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's difficult to really feel that connection sometimes when we're such a large district and this is a great way for us to try to accomplish that.

    Andrew Lovell:

    That's right, yeah it can be really difficult and it's like I mentioned earlier. It was really cool to see people from our district offices playing. Their doubles partner is the head custodian from another school and that's just something, you know, an opportunity that you just wouldn't see maybe anywhere else and pickleball really facilitates that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well count on me for some of those league nights because I know you're gonna get me prepped so I can really show my stuff out there on the court.

    Andrew Lovell:

    And we can do that. You know, I think for anyone getting the sport there's just a few simple things that we can all work on, including myself, and it's just practice and repeat of a few simple skills and then you can pretty much get to that level. So I hope this can get you the invite to the cool kids party with your wife.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I really want to be at the cool kids table, but it's gonna take your help Andrew. Let's get out on the court and let's see what we can we can do.

    Stay with us. When we come back.

    Andrew Lovell:

    And that was a perfect return.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Listen as we serve up some fun on a local pickleball court.

    [Music]

    Break:

    Hello, I'm Tracy Miller, President of the Jordan School District Board of Education. There are seven members on the Board of Education, one in each voting district. We are committed to listening and serving our constituents as we work together to provide the best possible learning environment for the students we serve. As members of the Jordan Board of Education, we believe it is our duty and responsibility to: increase student achievement; provide parents with the choices they deserve and desire; recognize and reward quality in educators; empower school leaders through policy governance and professional development; and communicate with the public, legislators, business leaders, cities, and parents. We invite you to get to know the Board member who represents you in your voting district and to please join us at our monthly board meeting held on the fourth Tuesday of every month. Or listen from the comfort of your home, on our live stream. For more information and to find your Board member, visit jordandistrict.org. With parent and community input and support, we will continue our work to give students every opportunity to succeed in Jordan District schools and beyond. Thank you for your support. We look forward to seeing you soon.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're out here on the court now and I'll just tell you up front I'm left-handed. I assume that's a tremendous advantage.

    Andrew Lovell:

    You know it actually really is. Playing left-handed I think throws off the majority of players because we're just so not used to it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So I'm starting ahead of the game right now.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah. This is gonna be an easy win for you probably.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Perfect. So let's start off with some basic skills?

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, so I'd say the most basic when teaching new people how to play, I just start with the three most basic things which is the first three shots. So the very first shot that we're looking at in a game is your serve. At the beginning you just want to get your serve in. That's the main goal, but as you become more intermediate and advanced you're looking to get your serve deep to the baseline. So that's the back line. The reason behind that is you want to push your opponent back. You're always trying to prevent your opponent from getting to the kitchen line or the no volley zone area.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And that is right up by the front by the net.

    Andrew Lovell:

    That's correct. So you always are wanting to push people away from that. So you want your serve to be deep to the baseline. And again, if you even want to add a little more to that, if you're playing singles it can change a little bit. I like to serve to people's offhand. So if my opponent's right handed, I like to serve their left hand. Another strategy is to serve right between the two, if you're playing doubles, to create a little bit of confusion. But the number one thing is on that serve, you want to have a good deep return.

    The second skill and shot to work on is the return. So you serve it to them and they're returning it back. And that return, you also want to do kind of the same thing. You want it to be a deep return, preferably to their off hand or to the middle. And that's again, to keep the other team back and to prevent them from getting to the no volley zone.

    And then the third shot is probably the most important. So this is the key. If there was one thing you're gonna go out in there and do besides, you know, dink the ball around, the number one skill that you probably wanna work on as a beginner or someone who's new to the sport is that third shot. There's different strategies and different theories on what to do, but a safe strategy is called the third shot drop. The third shot drop is essentially, when someone's returning it to you, you want to use light hands and drop the ball right into the kitchen. And what this allows you to do is it allows you to run up while that ball is softly and gently falling into that kitchen and allows you to jump up to that kitchen line or no volley zone line. And it allows you and your partner to get settled up at the front. And that shot is extremely important and it's also something that really does take time. That's something that tennis players aren't used to. A lot of tennis players who come to the sport, they really want to slam the ball a lot and that can be an effective strategy, but in pickleball, you really want to work on that third shot drop.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The third shot drop. So now the rules about the kitchen are that you can't hit from the kitchen unless it has bounced in the kitchen, is that right?

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, yeah, essentially you cannot hit the ball out of the air while standing in the kitchen. So you could stand in the kitchen all day and you could just stand there, however, you're not allowed to hit the ball. So the general rule is you stand back at that no-volley zone line, that line that's close to the net, and you wait for the ball to come at you and then you decide what you're going to do. If the ball falls in the kitchen, then you can step into the kitchen and hit it, but if it's coming in the air, you need to be behind that line.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay, let's see a serve. Now you serve it right out of your hand and you just hit it out of your hand. Can you bounce it? Is it legal to bounce it?

    Andrew Lovell:

    It is legal to bounce it, so you can bounce it. Most people don't. Most people are hitting it right out of their hand and you kind of have to come through from a downward to upwards motion.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You can't hit down on it. You can't do an overhand serve.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Exactly. So as opposed to tennis you can't do an overhand serve. It's an underhand serve.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Alright let's see an underhand serve that takes them far back. Okay. That sound is satisfying, isn't it?

    Andrew Lovell:

    It's kind of like a baseball in a ballpark. It has the same feeling.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So how would you describe it? This is kind of like wiffle ball and ping pong and tennis all combined.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, yeah, I think that's a that's a great description. It's ping pong, it's badminton, it's tennis all combined.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Are you putting some spin on as you hit these? Or are you just making sure that you get the placement where it needs to be?

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, so a little bit of both. There's a little bit of topspin coming on there right now. Some people will... they've actually made some serves illegal. So there's not too much… There's not too much you can do. Some people used to put a lot of a lot of different types of spin on it but for the most part there's just a little bit of topspin. Anthony Godfrey:
    What's the illegal about some of the serves?

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, so about a year ago the governing body of pickleball decided to kind of outlaw some of the ways that you could serve. One of those ways was you would take the ball - so if I'm right-handed I have my paddle in my right hand and I have the ball in my left hand and instead of just releasing the ball and hitting the ball over the net they would release the ball, but spin it with their left hand and so when the ball is coming off the paddle it had an additional spin to it. I can't do it. I never was able to do that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So you can't spin it out of your hand and then spin it.

    Andrew Lovell:

    That's correct it you couldn't spin it like that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    All right. I'm gonna go over and try to return some of these serves. Now you told me that the trick is to try to return deep to keep you back. So I'm gonna try that. Now remember, people listening to the podcast can't hear whether I hit it great or not so it's up to you right how you choose to describe it. Okay here I go, I’m going to the other side.

    Andrew Lovell:

    I'm gonna serve straight to Dr. Godfrey's - he's a left-hand player actually, so I'm actually gonna go to his right hand here and see what he does.

    And that was a perfect return! I wish the people actually could see this because that was that was amazing. He's already learned, he's already mastered it. His wife needs to invite him to the next party. Here we go.

    We'll do another one and this time I'm going to serve it to his left hand. So this is the hand that he would prefer to hit it with. And again, perfect. He served it deep and it was right to the center. In doubles that would have been an ideal return right there.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So is there spin on this again? Are you trying to spin in a particular way?

    Andrew Lovell:

    I'm just trying to give it over.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh, right in the corner. That would have been a tough one to return for anybody. Okay.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Pickleball was, I think invented somewhere, I think 1965 out in Seattle. So it's been around for a long time, but it really got popular during COVID. And I think we're somewhere around 35 million players right now in the US.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The people who invested in it in 1965 are finally saying, my ship's come in. Now Andrew, you're new to Jordan School District. Tell us about your career to this point and what brought you here.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Yeah, so I was teaching prior to this in a neighboring school district down south. I taught for seven, eight years in elementary school. And I just had the opportunity to come up here, Jordan School District, after graduating from BYU. And the opportunity was there, took it, and it's been the best decision that I ever have made, hands down. And that is not just because you're here, I'm on this podcast, but literally, it's been life-changing. I’ve met amazing people and done amazing things already.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, we are thrilled to have you here and I can't thank you enough for choosing Jordan and for helping us out today.

    Andrew Lovell:

    Absolutely, anytime.

    (gentle music)

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

    (upbeat music)

     

    18 min
  • Episode 208: Assistant Principal Travels World to Collaborate on Classroom Success

    She is traveling the world on a quest to collaborate and connect with educators and students in countries thousands of miles away.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with Ft. Herriman Middle School Assistant Principal Lisa Jackson to learn about Global Education Allies. It is a group of educators participating in international education travel hoping to develop global awareness and foster innovative learning in the classroom. They even develop life-long friendships in their travels with teachers and students from all over the world.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. She is traveling the world on a quest to collaborate and connect with educators and students in countries thousands of miles away.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with Fort Herriman Middle School Assistant Principal Lisa Jackson to learn about Global Education Allies. It is a group of educators participating in international education travel, hoping to develop global awareness and foster innovative learning in classrooms. They even develop lifelong friendships in their travels with teachers and students from all over the world.

    We're talking today with Lisa Jackson, an assistant principal in Jordan School District, about her experiences traveling around the world learning about schools in other countries. Lisa, thanks for taking the time.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, thanks for having me.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me about how you got involved in this. What's the organization? How does all of this work?

    Lisa Jackson:

    So in 2016, my daughter was graduating from high school. She wanted to do something different for her senior trip. Another educator told me they had been to Africa with this group. So I checked into Global Education Allies, interviewed with them, and she and I went on a three-week adventure to Africa where we visited lots of schools, we did a lot of service, we raised money, and that just kind of started my love for seeing what school is like in other countries and around the world.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow, so what is the stated purpose for this organization to exist? What is their mission?

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, so they're bringing together educators from around the world to collaborate, to discuss cultural issues, to just have shared experiences so we can collaborate with each other and learn about each other's education system.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So this is fascinating to me because we always hear about, well, in this country or that country they do something that really solves everything and makes everything work. Just any of the countries that you visited, tell me some of the things that have really stood out to you. Like, “Hey I wonder what would happen if we tried this?” or “There's no way we could ever do this, but it works here.” What are some of the things that have just been the most memorable as you've as you visited these countries?

    Lisa Jackson:

    I would say there's something really memorable about every single country. So one thing I want to just state though is my experiences in these different countries is probably not indicative of the entire country. It's the areas that I went to, the schools that I was taken to, for example in Africa, I was taken to the poorest villages. Only one school in that area did I go to that was anywhere near what we have here.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So it is that's a really good distinction. It's important to say that the schools that you visited in these countries, not what are schools like throughout the country. I visited schools in China, visited schools in other in other states, visited schools in France, in various countries as well, not in the in-depth as you have, but every time I visit a school, I do have to remind myself of exactly that. One school is not emblematic of what's happening in education throughout an entire country or even an entire district or state or wherever else. So tell me some of the take-aways, some of the things that you've learned. Let's start with Africa. What countries were you in in Africa and tell me about the village and what you learned there.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, so the country I spent the most time in was Uganda. We also went over to Kumbala. In Uganda, I was shocked at the conditions. Many of the schools we went to, dirt floors, doors didn't go all the way to the ground, so they're sharing the classroom with bugs, with animals. Everything is handmade. There's no books in the classroom. We actually brought suitcases full of books. We helped to build a library over there.

    But the one thing that really stood out to me was the kids are the happiest kids I've ever seen. We would go out onto the playground with them and there's nothing, there's maybe an old metal swing set, but you've never seen such big smiles. And they're doing cartwheels and they're pushing a old tire with a stick. And it made me realize we don't need all the things we think we need to make kids happy. We just need to love them. That's really all they need.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's pretty amazing. So you were there in the summer?

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, so all these trips have been summer. However, I just got back from the South Pacific and it was their winter. So in both, in Africa, China, and the South Pacific school was in. In Finland, school was out. So we met with lots of educators, didn't actually see many students. In all the other countries, we were watching class. In some of those countries, we were teaching class with them, teaching English, just working with kids. And I absolutely, it kind of combines both my passions, traveling and education together. So it's the best of both worlds for me.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, that's fantastic. So tell me about, let's talk about Finland.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What did you learn in Finland? Where did you go? What did you find out about education there?

    Lisa Jackson:

    So you know, Finland is known for having one of the best education systems in the world.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Right, teachers are valued, people are happy, scores are high.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Lots of teacher trust, no like extended recesses, shorter school days, no homework. So many things that in theory sound phenomenal. What I did learn is they're really not that different than us, they really aren't. Their pay is very comparable to ours when you consider cost of living in both countries. Teachers have their issues there as well, we all do.

    The one thing I took away from there that has kind of stuck with me is we do special education in the United States really well. When looking at their special education system, I really think that we take the individual student into account. And I was kind of proud of us for that, even though they have some great things and they're scoring phenomenally.

    One thing I absolutely loved about their country is in high school, students are able to pick a path so they have a no-dead-ends policy. So if students, maybe traditional college is not going to work for them, they go to a vocational high school. So one of the vocational high schools we visited was a farming school. So the kids spend a good part of their day learning how to farm, how to work the land had to take care of the animals and when they graduate they have a career path. We do something similar. We have our JATC South, we have extended and college into a high school, but this was a career path as soon as they exit school and I was really impressed with that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's interesting to hear that a lot of what they do is very similar to what we do and that you know the no dead end. I love the idea of that that there's a path for everyone. We just need to find the right match up. Now you've also visited China. Tell me about what you learned there.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, China was a different experience. China was with many educators. There was lots of Jordan School District administrators as well. In that situation we went to their finest schools. We went to their top schools, saw their top performing students. I felt like their education system is very different that ours. They're very proud of it. There was a lot of good, like I remember distinctly one student walking us around saying, "Don't you think our school is beautiful?" And it was, and I would love for our students to feel that kind of pride in our schools.

    But I also noticed the teaching is very teacher-centered. Teachers are on a raised platform. Students have a specific way that they sit, a specific way that they answer questions. There's a lot of sit and get. So, while they have some great things going, I also took away that we have some great things going from that experience.

    But I loved being immersed in their cultural experiences. The one thing I learned is even though our countries might be a bit divided, that doesn't mean the people have to be. We had some great relationships with some of the Chinese educators and the people that took us on our tours and they're wonderful people.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me about other countries that you visited as well.

    Lisa Jackson:

    So I just got back Sunday from the South Pacific. So I went to Australia and to New Zealand. I spent a lot of time in New Zealand schools.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Bali High School?

    Lisa Jackson:

    No, no, I'm sorry, I did not go there. (laughs)

    Anthony Godfrey:

    South Pacific Musical Reference, yes.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me about the schools there.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, you know what? Gorgeous country, gorgeous country. Lots of collaboration, and like I said earlier, not to categorize every single school into one idea, because the different schools we went to were all so different. The very first school we went to was a primary school. It was a two-room school. There was two teachers and one principal. The one teacher taught K through three all together. Four through six was the other teacher, and the principal did all the pullouts.

    Then we went to another school that was brand new, just opened in 2022. Gorgeous facility. But that one had, so when they're finished, they'll have about 900 students. What I loved about them was they're very collaborative. It was built with all glass doors and you can slide all the doors open so all the classrooms combine. So a very collaborative approach. Yeah, which I loved. Loved that.

    I will say the one thing I took away from this trip that I just came back on, I kept marveling at the scenery and how beautiful New Zealand is. We were sitting at one school and I was sitting in their faculty room looking out the window thinking I would love this view. And then I started thinking, hold on. I am at Fort Herriman Middle School. If I sit in our library and look out, I have a very similar view of the Oquirrh Mountains. But I'm so used to it that I've never given it the same consideration and had the same admiration for mountains that I live by. So I walked away thinking, oh, I need to value, I live in a beautiful state. And I don't think about that. I travel all over looking for beauty and it's right here.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's a great thought. And I do this to my kids and probably others listening do the same thing. I stop and say, look at the mountains, look. And they look up from their screen and go “Oh yeah, Dad”, they know what to say. “Yeah, that's beautiful, that's amazing.” And then they go back to their screen. But you're right, we need to pause, we need to stop. I even had an art teacher in high school who was also the wrestling coach and I can remember exactly where I was in class 'cause this seemed like, it was a surprising quote from him. He just said, "You know, you guys need to stop and look at the sky. It's gorgeous and too frequently we don't stop and look up." And I've always remembered that. You have to look around yourself and be really intentional about noticing the beauty around here because people come and they marvel at how close we are to the mountains.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Right, right.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    There were some other things that when you came back from these trips you really valued about the United States and Utah and Jordan School District education. Because you go and you learn new things from them, but you also come to appreciate some things that are in place here.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Absolutely. Yeah, I mean we have a lot of good things going and I'm always excited to share with them. I'm proud to be part of Jordan School District. I'm proud to live in Utah. I'm proud to be American. So I love to share all of those things with people in other countries to learn from theirs. I think we do a lot of things right. I think we're really good at building relationships with kids. I think that we are really good at looking at a student as an individual rather than a whole group or a cohort of kids. I think we are really good at professional development. I think that's something I didn't see in other countries is quite as much bringing our teachers and our administrators together and learning from each other and learning from other people in our field. So there's a lot we're doing right. There's a lot we have to be proud of.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Stay with us. When we come back more from Lisa Jackson on her love for world education travel.

    (upbeat music)

    Break:

    Are you looking for a job right now? Looking to work in a fun and supportive environment with great pay and a rewarding career? Jordan School District is hiring. We're currently filling full and part-time positions. You can work and make a difference in young lives and education as a classroom assistant or a substitute teacher. Apply to work in one of our school cafeterias where our lunch staff serves up big smiles with great food every day. We're also looking to hire custodians and bus drivers. In Jordan School District we like to say people come for the job and enjoy the adventure. Apply today at employment.jordandistrict.org.

    (upbeat music)

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now you went to Finland, did you go to other countries in Europe as well?

    Lisa Jackson:

    I did, I went to Sweden and I went to Estonia.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So tell me about Sweden and Estonia. I've never been to any of those countries.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, so Estonia is by far my favorite. Gorgeous, gorgeous country, all cobblestone, old, old architecture, lots of castle-looking type buildings. The people were incredibly friendly. The cost of living there is really low. I just really enjoyed Estonia.

    We went to several schools in Estonia and I enjoyed talking to their educators. In several of these countries, we've been able to meet with their Ministry of Education and see what they're doing and what they're bringing into their schools. I just really enjoyed those conversations and those collaborations.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What sense did you get for education in Estonia? The general focus or what would it be like to be an educator in Estonia from what you can tell?

    Lisa Jackson:

    They're very focused on digital literacy. In fact, we went to E-Estonia and talked all about how they're bringing technology into just changing their whole education system. So they're focused on technology there. They're much like Finland in their education system but they have a very technology-centered focus. And both countries, both Estonia and Finland, you know they were under Soviet rule for so long and they've brought themselves out of poverty and really they've done a lot of that through their education system so they have a lot to be proud of.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow, that's fantastic. How about Sweden? What was Sweden like?

    Lisa Jackson:

    So in Sweden I didn't get into schools, but we did have educators with us on all of our cultural experiences so those were a lot more of just casual, real conversations with teachers and one principal that was with us. Just conversations about what education is like.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You brought books with pictures from your travels, and on the front of these books, there's a picture of the group that you traveled with. Have you made some great connections with the people you've traveled with, in addition to the people that you visited?

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, that's been one of my favorite parts of this. I have made lasting friendships with people from all over the country, and I would say that we're genuinely good friends now. When I first went to Africa, my very first trip doing this, I had my daughter with me. And on this last trip, so that was in 2016, we're now 2023, and I went on this trip, and I took a picture with a lady who my daughter had kind of bonded with. They both played college softball. I sent that to my daughter and she immediately sent a picture of her and that lady on top of a safari van in Africa. And it's just sweet how people I met in 2016, I'm still talking to. I've met some great friends from Philadelphia, from New York, from Florida. I've actually tried to recruit a couple of them to come to our district.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Good, good. Recruit worldwide for Jordan School District.

    Lisa Jackson:

    I've tried, I've tried.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's awesome, it's amazing as I look through this, the remote areas that you were able to see, and monkeys out in the wild, and rapids in Africa that you're traveling through, and that's remarkable.

    Something that's exciting about what I see of your travels as I look through the book here is that you're really embedding yourself. You're really getting to know the locals and the local area because of the nature of the trip, but also just because of your spirit of adventure here as you go through. I love that. So this is not a tourist trip. This is a trip where you get to know people, where you help people and you learn from people.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, absolutely. Which is what has drawn me to Global Education Allies, that they do get you in with local people. We get into people's homes, we get into schools, colleges, libraries, museums, places I may not go if I was just traveling there for vacation.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, if someone wanted to be involved in Global Education Allies, how would they go about doing that?

    Lisa Jackson:

    Yeah, they have a great website that tells you all the information, and there's other companies as well that do these kinds of trips. This is just one I've connected with early and I've stuck with. But you can look them up on the web. I'm happy to tell anyone about my experiences with them. I think they're a great organization. I've loved every minute of my trips with them. So I encourage people to just get out.

    And my thing is how much I've changed, how much my view of the world has changed by seeing more than just my little world here. And so it's one thing I highly encourage my own kids to do is just get out and travel and see what the world is really like.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And it's a good message overall. Learn from the people around you as much as you can, like you said about appreciating the scenery that we have here and what we have here.

    Well, you're a great example of putting yourself out there, making sure you maintain a sense of adventure, and more than anything, curiosity about how things work elsewhere and what we can learn from the people around us. So thank you for spending time talking with us. This is really exciting, and I can't wait to hear about your future trips.

    Lisa Jackson:

    Thank you so much for having me. It was great.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

    (upbeat music)

    20 min
  • Episode 207: New Teachers Talk About Their Journey to Jordan School District

    It was a huge celebration with cheerleaders, a drumline, mascots, administrators, and more gathered to welcome 450 new teachers to Jordan School District.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we hear from some of those teachers about their journey to Jordan and what they are most excited about as they head into classrooms for the upcoming school year.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It was a huge celebration with cheerleaders, a drum line, mascots, administrators, and more gathered to welcome 450 new teachers to Jordan School District.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we hear from some of those teachers about their journey to Jordan and what they are most excited about as they head into classrooms for the upcoming school year. We start by listening in as the crowd goes wild when the new teachers arrive for their first day in Jordan School District.

    Announcer:

    Hello guys, welcome to Jordan District! We're so excited you are here. Come on through!

    [cheering]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're at West Jordan Middle School this morning. We have four different media outlets covering our new teacher induction. This is a return to in-person new teacher inductions after a long desert of COVID years where we were online and doing virtual inductions. So we're going to talk to the human resources department now to talk a little bit about today's event. Introduce yourself and tell us about what's going on today.

    Jane Olsen:

    Hi, I'm Jane Olsen. I'm the HR specialist over hiring, recruiting, and licensing for elementary schools and today we're gonna be welcoming about 450 educators.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    450! When I tell people that they are amazed at the number of new teachers we have every year. It's really exciting though.

    Jane Olsen:

    Yes, it is. Very very exciting. Ten percent of those are gonna be new graduates so we've got young ones coming in.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's fantastic. Now these are teachers who are teaching everything from preschool all the way to post high school.

    Jane Olsen:

    Yeah, and we also have our school psychologists, our SLPs, all of those education support staff are welcome to be joining us today.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And we have teachers and licensed educators from all over. Tell me about that.

    Jane Olsen:

    Yeah, so we ran the numbers a few days ago and it looks like we're covering about 20 states and eight different countries that are going to be represented today.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's fantastic and we've cast a wide net over the past few years to bring in as many great teachers as we can and this year we've had some really great candidates. As I've talked with elementary principals they've reported that they've had 40 or even 50 qualified candidates for every position.

    Jane Olsen:

    Yeah, the depth of the pools even up through last week was wonderful. We were hiring special education teachers with professional licenses even up through last week.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And it's exciting to see that we're hiring at greater numbers than ever before, but we're filling those positions faster than ever before, and we're drawing from a deeper, deeper pool, as you said. So we've got some fantastic teachers here. Tell me a little bit about what we're doing for teachers today.

    Jane Olsen:

    So today we are welcoming them with a big clap in. There's quite a scene out here with cheerleaders and mascots and even some of our principals are dressed up today. And we're going to be providing them with a backpack from the community that is full of supplies and gifts and certificates for all different things. We could not do today without the community support that we've had and the amount of donations and generosity of their time and resources.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We've had a bunch of donations from local businesses that have been eager to help and I was there when they were putting together the backpacks. It was a whole assembly line getting all of these great prizes put together for our teachers.

    Jane Olsen:

    It was a whirlwind of a day, five hours stuffing 450 backpacks.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What is some of the information that will be shared with teachers throughout the day to help them get a great start to the year?

    Jane Olsen:

    Well, the first thing we'll start off with is kind of a classroom management with what we call our JBAT team, Melanie Dawson and Brian King, who are going to really help them with the classroom management aspect. Which is one of the pieces of feedback that we received last year that they really felt like they needed going into the school year. And based off of the feedback and some research that was done in-house, we targeted in on a few things that they felt were really important, which is understanding how to utilize technology in their classroom, and what student services supports that they have, APPEL, and JPAS. You can hear it getting loud out here. So licensing, anything related to licensing and evaluations, and as well as teacher resiliency. We felt like that was a really important thing to kind of end on a high note.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, I love that. I think all of those topics will prepare teachers well. And you talked about the fact that this was based on survey responses.

    Jane Olsen:

    Yes.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So you really have done your research, I know, in preparing for this. You've asked new teachers that have been new to Jordan in the past, what do you wish we'd covered. What do you wish we had provided at the beginning of the year? So this is really calibrated to the needs that were expressed by new teachers in the past.

    Jane Olsen:

    Yeah, in addition, Amanda Bollinger did some research for her dissertation, and so we integrated that knowledge of knowing that they want to come and feel belonging and supported. And we knew that this in-person session, as you can see, was an essential piece to that. That we couldn't miss that opportunity to give them that sense of community and belonging.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's fantastic. Well, it's really fun to hear the enthusiasm and the background, all the excitement for our new teachers here. It felt pretty awesome for me walking up, and I've been here for a while. Thank you for all your hard work. It's going to be a great day. Jane Olsen:
    Yes, it will.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're talking with one of our principals and her newest hire. Introduce yourself and the newest teacher at Aspen Elementary School.

    Suzie Williams:

    Okay, I'm Suzie Williams the principal at Aspen Elementary and we are fortunate to have Jared Kosareff with us at our school. He'll be teaching fifth grade this year. He comes to us from being a substitute teacher for a while. Prior to that he was in the business world and we are blessed to have him. He'll be a great example to our kids. He's very knowledgeable. His mom was a teacher so he knows a lot about teaching and we're just grateful to have him.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What made Jared stand out in the interviews?

    Suzie Williams:

    He has a pretty dynamic personality.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay.

    Suzie Williams:

    He's a lot of fun and he'll be a great role model.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That'll come in very handy in fifth grade.

    Suzie Williams:

    Yes, it will.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Jared tell me a little bit about your journey to Jordan. We're excited to have you.

    Jared Kosareff:

    Thank you, I'm excited to be here. I was in the construction industry prior to this. My daughter goes to Aspen Elementary. Talking a lot about leading into this, you know, who inspired you to be a teacher. As soon as I said my mom's a teacher, my dad was a teacher. A huge inspiration for me. And then the one that really got me was my daughter's first-grade teacher, Haley McCall. When we went back to school and I walked into her classroom, I was like, this is the coolest classroom ever. I want to be in this class.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's awesome.

    Jared Kosareff:

    And you know, interacting with her and then just the way kind of life works out. I needed to make a change and I immediately thought about becoming a teacher. I started talking with Suzie about it. Picking my daughter up became little interviews with Suzie almost every day. And Suzie told me about the job fair that they had last year, or earlier this year I should say, and I went in and met with Suzie and she introduced me to Jane who got me introduced into the APPEL program and the rest is history. Here I am.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    How are you feeling on the cusp of your first school year as a teacher?

    Jared Kosareff:

    Beyond excited. You know, meeting the team at Aspen, working with the team that I did last year at Ridgeview, and then now you know getting sent into the school that's gonna be my new home. The support from every individual, from every aspect of being an educator has just been overwhelmingly awesome.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You're gonna be surrounded by some great people and some wonderful kids. So we've tried to put on a big welcome for you here today. How does that feel?

    Jared Kosareff:

    It feels awesome. You feel like walking the red carpet, I guess, as close as I could feel that it would be like. Just seeing the support from the community, from the other teachers, you know, they always say teachers are the ones that are going to help you the most. They have everything in their brains and their hearts that they want to give. So when you're surrounded by people like that, it's exciting to be part of that. And I get to be one of these people cheering other people on one day too, which I look forward to.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I love that. Any plans for the first day of school yet?

    Jared Kosareff:

    You know what, I'm still running that through my head. I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate Star Wars into everything because I'm a huge Star Wars nerd.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The force will be with you on your first day. There's no doubt. I'm a big Star Wars nerd myself. So it's a good go-to.

    Jared Kosareff:

    Yes, sir.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, congratulations. We're so happy to have you.

    Jared Kosareff:

    Thank you.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Whatever paths led you here, your parents and that experience with your daughter's teacher. I'm just grateful that you're here and that you've decided to teach in Jordan. Jared Kosareff:
    Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Have a great day and a great year.

    Jared Kosareff:

    We will. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're talking with another one of our new teachers. Introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about you.

    Chance Clouse:

    My name is Chance Clouse. I just finished my M.A.T. at Westminster. I'll be teaching at Herriman High.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What will you be teaching?

    Chance Clouse:

    Art.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Fantastic.

    Chance Clouse:

    Painting and drawing.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And what is it that made you want to be a teacher?

    Chance Clouse:

    I love art and I love being able to spread that love with my students and help them find that and I'm excited to just be out there with them.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What is your favorite medium?

    Chance Clouse:

    I like oil painting is my favorite, but I do a little bit of everything.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oil painting is forgiving. You can kind of cover over right?

    Chance Clouse:

    You can go back over.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Watercolor is a little less so.

    Chance Clouse:

    Yes.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay. That's about all I know about painting. So there we have it.

    Chance Clouse:

    You got it. That's it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What is it that you hope that your students take away from your art classes?

    Chance Clouse:

    I hope that they just learn how to be able to learn new things and be okay with making mistakes in that process of learning.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And that's sometimes a very difficult thing to help students understand. The creative process involves mistakes. It involves kind of letting go and allowing yourself to experiment.

    Chance Clouse:

    To learn something new you have to be willing to fail and get up again.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's got to be one of the fun things about being an art teacher is that you're having students try things and do things that maybe they never have done before, never thought they could do.

    Chance Clouse:

    Yes, sir, and then they also get the benefit of like quick feedback and responses.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, that's true. As a student, I took art classes of course and I remember some of the very specific projects that I was involved in. I remember pots that I made and a painting that I did because it's meaningful when you put yourself into that project.

    Chance Clouse:

    Yes sir.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What do you think of all this hoopla?

    Chance Clouse:

    It's pretty amazing. I was a little shocked walking in.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And have you been teaching elsewhere? Did you just finish?

    Chance Clouse:

    This will be my first teaching in public schools. I've done a lot of community stuff for various outreach programs in Youth City and things like that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So you've been involved in teaching but this is your first all day I’m a teacher.

    Chance Clouse:

    All day, I'm in a school, teacher.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What are your thoughts about the first day and your first week of school?

    Chance Clouse:

    I'm really excited I've got a lot planned already. I’m happy to get in there and get to know my students and build those relationships.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, it's gonna be a great year we're excited to have you thank you very much.

    Chance Clouse:

    Thank you.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Stay with us when we come back more with some of our amazing new teachers.

    [Music]

    Break:

    Are you looking for a job right now? Looking to work in a fun and supportive environment with great pay and a rewarding career? Jordan School District is hiring. We're currently filling full and part-time positions. You can work and make a difference in young lives and education as a classroom assistant or a substitute teacher. Apply to work in one of our school cafeterias where our lunch staff serves up big smiles with great food every day. We're also looking to hire custodians and bus drivers. In Jordan School District we like to say people come for the job and enjoy the adventure. Apply today at employment.jordandistrict.org

    (upbeat music)

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're talking now with the new JROTC teacher from Herriman High School. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself.

    Sergeant Wilson:

    I'm Sergeant Wilson. I've been teaching Junior ROTC for 10 years. I'm transferring over to Herriman to get this program going.

    Anthony Godfrey;

    We're really excited to have the JROTC program here in Herriman. We've been hoping to have that for a long time. Tell me about the value of that JROTC program for any student who signs up.

    Sergeant Wilson:

    Well, from the parents' point of view, it's a life lessons class. It's a bunch of life skills as the parents see it. For the students, it's a new beginning for them. It's a chance for some to fit in. It's a chance for some to excel. It's a chance where– it's an opportunity for students to actually be a part of what happens because the students run the program.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What is it that made you want to be a teacher?

    Sergeant Wilson:

    I think it goes back to the 20 years I served in the military I always taught. From the very beginning of my career, I was teaching other soldiers and leaders and it just became natural. I loved the ability to see that light come on when they grabbed that concept and it's just something that I've always wanted to do.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, we're really excited to have you here and have you bring your experience in the program to the new program in Herriman High and this is available for any student in Jordan School District.

    Sergeant Wilson:

    Any student from 8th grade to 12th grade.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're excited to see what happens and thank you very much for being part of Jordan School District.

    Sergeant Wilson:

    Thank you.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself.

    Kathryn Berry:

    So my name is Kathryn Berry and I will be working at West Hills Middle School and I come from residential treatment. I taught eighth grade through twelfth grade in the residential treatment and I'm looking forward to working in the Jordan School District because the people are awesome.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me about the work that you did previously.

    Kathryn Berry:

    So I was teaching eighth grade through twelfth grade all subjects except English and Social Studies. I was also doing the administration duties and some of the registrar duties as well. So it was a heavier load and I'm happy to be–

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You get to focus a little bit more. You have a long list of a wide range of different responsibilities. Tell me what you're looking forward to most about this school year.

    Kathryn Berry:

    I think I'm looking forward most to being able to focus on helping the kids know something about science. I think for me science is a, I've been doing science stuff for 25 years. So to me getting the kids able to focus on and maybe decide a kind of science that they would like to be more interested in so that when they do make that transition to ninth grade and through high school they can actually focus on their you know the things that they like rather than the things that are maybe required.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Give them a chance to try out lots of different aspects of science study and see what interests them the most.

    Kathryn Berry:

    Yes.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What do you love about teaching?

    Kathryn Berry:

    I think the opportunity to spread the love, spread knowledge, and the power that knowledge can give to students. Knowing that they have that knowledge and that they can then share it as well or increase their knowledge or expand their knowledge to other aspects and how they can grow and learn.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You're going to be starting out at West Hills, you said, that they've told you that it's the best hills.

    Kathryn Berry:

    Yes, absolutely.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I taught there the first year it was open myself. So congratulations on coming to Jordan School District and we're thrilled to have you.

    Kathryn Berry:

    Yes, I'm so excited. Thank you so much.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

    [MUSIC]
    18 min
  • Episode 206: JSD Partners with Local Company to Support Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom

    It is a way to enhance student learning and support teachers in the classroom. We are talking about using artificial intelligence in the classroom.

    On this episode of the Supercast, learn about a pilot program which has Jordan School District partnering with a local company to support the responsible use of AI in our schools. And, hear from teachers who say AI will help them become better at their craft and more connected with students in the classroom.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a way to enhance the student learning experience and to help support teachers in their work. We're talking about using artificial intelligence in the classroom.

    On this episode of the Supercast, learn about a pilot program which has Jordan School District partnering with a local company to support the responsible use of artificial intelligence in our schools. And hear from teachers who say AI will help them become better at their craft and more connected with students in the classroom.

    [MUSIC]

    We're here with Jared Covili from our Teaching and Learning department. He's an administrator that works with digital learning. Jared, thanks for joining us.

    Jared Covili:

    It's great to be here, thanks.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell us a little bit about School AI. I've been really excited about this.

    Jared Covili:

    School AI is a program that we piloted over the summer to help our students and teachers use artificial intelligence in a way that works for us, kind of in a guarded system so that they don't get out on the internet with everything. It helps the kids and the teachers prepare lessons, it helps them prepare, potentially, assignments for kids to work on with a peer tutor that's kind of a chatbot.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And the chatbot is an interactive way to help coach students through learning activities and actually offer learning activities that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

    Jared Covili:

    Right, the way I like to describe it is for a teacher, it's like having a teaching assistant. So it'll give you ideas about things you can do with lesson plans or activities. For a student, it's kind of like a peer tutor. So it can give you ideas of how to write something or how to think about maybe something that's going on in class. It can give you some, just some guidance as you move through that process.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And what school AI has been able to do is first of all, kind of create a fenced-in area, a safe playground within which we're able to work and learn and experiment and be creative without worrying about being out on the broader web and using maybe versions of AI that aren't exactly tailored to teachers. And the other thing is these prompts that teachers can use to really get the most out of artificial intelligence, getting accurate information, and getting helpful information.

    Jared Covili:

    That's been a big deal with our pilot this summer because a lot of times our pilot group was really instrumental in helping School AI to think about what prompts, what things do teachers need to do most often, most regularly, so they don't have to hunt and peck or learn how to prompt engineer those things. They provide a lot of those on their website now - like the, "If I only have three minutes and I need to do something, what's one of those prompts?"Our group provided a lot of that information to the company and it kind of customized the interface to help us get more out of it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So in a lot of ways, school AI is customized to Jordan School District because the hundred teachers that were so eager to be part of things over the summer have really helped shape the way that it operates.

    Jared Covili:

    There's no question about that and I would say, you know, whenever you're an engineer you think you know the way a teacher wants to use it or you poll the parents or teachers that you know and ask them. But when you get a group of practicing teachers who are in the trenches, they'll give you the real information about what would be most beneficial to them and to their classrooms.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now tell us a little bit more about the pilot this summer. We had 100 teachers that were involved, very eager teachers that I think surprised School AI with their level of enthusiasm.

    Jared Covili:

    Well, you can imagine that when we pitched the idea of this pilot we were telling people this is going to be during your summer we don't have stipends for you. We're looking for people who are interested in really developing this kind of technology and using it as a classroom teacher. So the group that came were pretty invested, right? And not only invested for– they like the technology but invested in what it could do for their classrooms. And so they just took it and ran with it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And we have a couple of those teachers here with us. Introduce yourselves and then let's talk a little bit about what this experience has been for you.

    Jill Firkins:

    I'm Jill Firkins. I teach at Jordan Hills Elementary in sixth grade.

    Andrew Holmes:

    I'm Andrew Holmes. I'm a ninth-grade science teacher at West Jordan Middle School.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me what has this done for you and what have you been surprised that it's able to do, maybe better than you thought it would be able to.

    Jill Firkins:

    I've really liked the lesson plan aspect of it, just in the amount of time that it saves me. I was pretty new to AI when this started and excited to kind of see, so it's really exceeded my expectations.

    Andrew Holmes:

    I've been able to enhance a lot of my pre-existing lessons. I had it the other day- I teach a lot of different organisms for one of my high school science classes, like about 80 of them, and they're all based on different categories, and I have trouble eliminating my own bias on which organisms I prefer to teach versus the ones that I probably should teach, but forget about. And I had it help me completely balance out all of the different topics that I have to teach and create a timetable for me to be able to teach those topics.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, I love that it's saving you time and that it's also maybe expanding the options that you're considering for students to learn, because I remember as a teacher I kind of went to my favorites as well, and maybe it helps you break out a little bit of the things that you're used to presenting to students. What would you say to teachers who are considering trying this out but maybe aren't sure about whether this is a direction they want to go?

    Jill Firkins:

    I really like that it's a good rough draft of things and so to recognize that you can pick and choose what you want to take from it. That it's just giving you ideas and that it's not, well I have to do it like it says or you know. You can work with it instead of just having it replace what you were doing.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Having a starting point I would think is very helpful whenever I'm writing an email or writing a letter many times I like to read what someone else has started and worked from there instead of stare at a blank screen for a long time.

    Jill Firkins:

    Exactly. Yeah, that's what I've done with it a lot.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    How about for you?

    Andrew Holmes:

    I started treating it like I'm talking to a person. I have my conversations, I write my sentences to it as if I'm talking and having a conversation, and I found that I can bounce ideas off of it. I'll tell it I don't like this idea and this is why maybe we can try something else and so I'm able to have instant feedback with myself about topics that I can use to enhance in my classroom.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Is this something that you're eager to use with your students as well? Not just for preparing for class but also giving them an opportunity to be part of it?

    Jill Firkins:

    Yeah, we didn't get a lot of chance to do it with students since it was all in the summer. But the stuff that they have is like that the students can talk to AI and it can give the teachers an idea of where a student sits with a particular subject. You know, these are students that understand. These are students that are still struggling and kind of do some of that groundwork as well.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So it gives you the chance or it will give you the chance to really do a quick assessment of where students are with their learning, how they're feeling about their learning, and I think that's the exciting part of it.  It really multiplies what a teacher is able to do and I can't wait to come to your classrooms and see how this is working. Tell us, Andrew, about how you plan to use it with students.

    Andrew Holmes:

    One of the big things I'm looking forward to is using it with student feedback. I mean, I've got, my class sizes are average. Some are larger than others, it's just what happens. But giving meaningful feedback to those students in a timely manner, that can be really challenging. Especially as I'm trying to find ways to make sure the students have met a standard. And what do they truly know? Sometimes the best and highest quality assessments make more time for the teachers. It takes more time to gauge the true quality. And using AI is starting to, I've been able to kind of test around with it over the summer and give it prompts and say, "Hey, if I've got these students responding to this prompt or doing this type of skill that they're testing, can you help me grade that?" And so students are able in my class, theoretically with this new program, to be able to drop in their work and get real-time feedback based off of the parameters I've set. So that when I go and do my true grading, they've already had feedback before I get to them. And so I'm really looking forward to how this can expand the students' skill sets and their knowledge because by the time I've graded, I'm not the first set of eyes that have laid eyes on their work.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's really exciting and I love how you've both described that I think what students will be able to do is have a better sense for their own learning, have some interactive experiences that prepare them to get the most out of their interactions with you. You know, we've talked about what School AI can do and I'm really excited at the idea that it can be a coach for students, not a replacement for learning because there's this worry, well, they just say, "Hey, write an essay for me," and now they aren't writing the essay anymore. But it can be a coach alongside a student who's trying to get past their own writer's block or not knowing where to start or not knowing what to do next. So I just commend both of you for diving in over your summer no less to make the most of this opportunity for your students and I know they're going to benefit and your colleagues will benefit from your examples. So thank you very much for being willing to do this.

    Jill Firkins:

    Thank you for letting us be a part of it.

    Andrew Holmes:

    Of course, we'll love to continue the pilot.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So Jared, where do we go from here? Tell everyone what's going to be happening next.

    Jared Covili:

    So the next process is we're going to start the RFP process where we're going to let School AI and other companies who do similar things bid on being an artificial intelligence solution for our district. During that time, more teachers who want to get involved with School AI will have that opportunity. We're going to extend the pilot so teachers can apply to be part of that extension. And then hopefully within the next few weeks, we'll have a solution that will be more of a permanent solution for us throughout the year.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're really excited to continue that trial because I know teachers are eager to make the most of this. No one's required to do it, and we'll be sending home parent permission slips for students to be involved. But we want to do this in a way that provides a safe environment within which to experiment and with a lot of support. School AI is going to be providing that support to teachers along the way and I just appreciate your leadership in moving us forward in this area.

    Jared Covili:

    We're excited to give as many teachers as would like the opportunity to use this in their classroom. I think, like we heard from our teachers today, once you get using it, it really sparks ideas of how else you can use it and how else it can benefit you. The biggest thing teachers need is time and we hope this will give them back some time.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, thanks again for all your hard work. Thanks to both of you for your example and I can't wait to see where this takes us.

    Stay with us. When we come back we'll hear more from the local company partnering with Jordan School District, School AI.

    Break:

    Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're talking with Kevin from School AI. Kevin, tell us a little bit about how School AI got started. This is a local company in Utah and about the passion that drives your interest in AI.

    Kevin:

    Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me on. School AI, we're based here in American Fork and the majority of our team is made up of all former educators, either teachers, principals, or student success or school leaders. With the exception of a few areas, for example, our CTO was the founder of DevMountain here in Utah. And the CEO of our company worked at Apple on the Everyone Can Code project and worked in a lot of the education in areas of Apple. And my background has been largely in supporting the student experience and student success for adult learners in boot camps.

    And so where we got started was, you know, as education and technology nerds, when the latest advancements in AI came out last year, we saw this huge opportunity to adapt that technology into some of the most challenging areas of education to truly free up teachers and administrators to be able to do more in their capacities.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We're excited to be part of it and to be partners with you in all of this. Talk us through some of the capabilities that have been added to school AI based on the pilot project that you've done with Jordan School District this last summer. Kind of describe that for folks who aren't familiar with it, and then talk about some of the features that have been added as a result of the input you've received from teachers.

    Kevin:

    You bet. So early on working with Jordan, it ended up being one of the best opportunities that we could have ever had as a newer company, because the teachers and the administrators that we've been paired up with to work on this pilot with, they don't pull any punches. They give great feedback. They've been engaged. I mean, just over the summer for teachers to tune in and be present and involved.

    So, in that process, as we would highlight, here's how you do X, Y, and Z inside of our platform. For example, using generative AI chat, you know, Chat GPT Alternative, we would have a lot of inputs on, “Hey, can it do this? Can it do that?” So we ended up adapting a lot of the pre-built prompts based on specific inputs that the teachers on those calls gave.

    And then one of the areas of our product is this formative assessment check that teachers can quickly use to get a pulse on where students are at. And it was, I forget the name of the pilot user, but they planted a big seed in our head. They asked a question around, “Hey, this is such a fun experience to use for a formative assessment check. What would this look like, you know, for maybe a bell ringer or an exit ticket or something like that?” Or that it's this conversational interaction between the student and this chatbot. And then that eventually evolved into what we now call Spaces, which is this kind of adaptable environment that a student can go into to explore a subject or to do, you know, answer a few questions about how they're feeling. I won't get into all the details for the sake of time, but just a lot of the specific UI, the usability, where to go, where to click, where to do things. We had just so much input and feedback from the pilot users that it made the entire product more usable.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    There are some really exciting things that I know are happening. The bell ringer and the exit ticket are particularly exciting to me because this is not just answering a question, it's an interactive conversation that you have with the bot to really kind of process your own learning at the end of class or to prepare to learn at the start of class. What it essentially does is it multiplies the teacher, but it also gives the teacher input that they can use to inform their instruction and inform their engagement with students. And what I like about the way that you've described artificial intelligence of using school AI is that it really kind of clears the deck for teachers to have more meaningful interactions with students. There's no way this comes even close to replacing a teacher. It enhances what the teacher is able to do.

    Kevin:

    Exactly. I mean, one of the things that I'm always inspired by in working with teachers is when I see examples of a teacher meeting a student where they are. When they find out where that student's at and then they do whatever they can to support that scenario, that individual. And one of the huge upsides of using AI is that it helps you meet a student where they are. And it may be that a student in a bell ringer is just having a friendly conversational interaction, whereas the alternative is typically a multiple-choice question, or a slip. And when you have a student that is, you know, engaged and enjoying the process of something like a bell ringer, and there's the novelty of, you know, AI being involved in that, you end up getting really rich information out of that individual on how they are actually feeling and they're going to type things and do things that they wouldn't do if it was just a multiple-choice question in that scenario. So yeah, it's really exciting on how that actually can help a teacher get more teed up to know where a student's at and be able to support that scenario.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me, what would you say to a teacher who is maybe hesitant to delve into AI and to to start using School AI. We're gonna be expanding the trial to teachers. We've had a ton of teachers who've been really excited about it. And then teachers who know those teachers are now asking, how do I get involved? So if someone's maybe a little bit hesitant, saying, “I'm not sure how this can help me” or exactly whether this is gonna be worth investing the time and trying this out, what would you say to a teacher who's thinking about it, but not sure?

    Kevin:

    Great question. I think it's just absolutely fair that a teacher in, you know, it's such an involved capacity being a teacher, and you know that. And so a teacher when it comes to taking on a new technology and having some apprehension or concern, or maybe just, you know, having the time to do it, I think that's just fair. I mean, it makes sense that that happens. So one, I hear you. I hear you that that's a thing and I empathize with that.

    Two, I would urge you to keep an open mind because teachers are often one of the biggest examples for students and a teacher that has an open mind towards new technology, especially a profound technology that's gonna be a big part of everyday life, an open-mindedness and a willingness to use and explore and adapt, I think sets an incredible example for students.

    And third, I would say, pick one thing. I often tell teachers this, but pick one thing in your day-to-day life. You know, a question I ask is, if you could, you know, wave a magic wand right now and change one aspect of your job, what would that thing be? Is it administrative? Is it outreach to family, you know, guardians? Is it dummy questions on a quiz? Whatever it might be, pick that one thing and then see how AI can help alleviate certain aspects or that complete thing and then go from there. But just start with one thing and see where you can get with that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, I could talk with you about this for hours, but I want to thank you for your time and thank you for getting things kick-started for us in the world of AI. School AI has been a great partner and we're excited to be working together to help move each other forward.

    Kevin:

    Yeah, and I just wanna commend you all for being incredible folks to work with and for being proactive in this area of utilizing AI. That's an excellent opportunity for us to partner with folks like you.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

    (upbeat music)

    21 min
  • Episode 205: Parents Passionate About the Classroom Pursue Path to Teaching

    They are parents who wanted to make a difference by getting involved, supporting their students in the classroom.

    On this episode of the Supercast, find out why some passionate parents at Oakcrest Elementary School fell in love with the classroom, so much so that they decided to pursue a career in education to become teachers themselves.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are parents who wanted to make a difference by getting involved, supporting their students in the classroom. On this episode of the Supercast, find out why some passionate parents at Oakcrest Elementary School fell in love with the classroom, so much so that they decided to pursue a career in education to become teachers themselves.

    We're here at Oakcrest Elementary with Veronica Holyoke, one of the administrators here. You're the assistant principal at Oakcrest. Introduce yourself a little bit and tell us why we're here for the podcast.

    Veronica Holyoke:

    Well, I joke that I'm Veronica Holyoke at Oakcrest Elementary on Hilltop Oak Drive. So, a lot of oaks.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh wow.

    Veronica Holyoke:

    Yes, yes.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, that's right. The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.

    Veronica Holyoke:

    Right, that's right. Yes, exactly. Exactly. We're here because I was noticing my instructional coach and I, her name's Marla Daniels, shout out to Marla. She and I spend a lot of time looking for the good that's going on in our school. And we have this draft of all the good things that our teachers and our aides and our support staff are doing all the time. And then we make a weekly shout-out video that we share with everybody to highlight all the good things we're doing.

    And in doing that this past year, we noticed that we had so many aides that were pursuing education. The more we got to know them, the more that we created a community of teachers. And so I felt like that was so powerful that I wanted to share that with you, because now we're up to seven aides that are pursuing or have graduated with a career in education, and two, we've hired to teach at our school for this next year.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And you emailed me, I think it was back in February to tell me about this story.

    Veronica Holyoke:

    It was on a snow day, one of our virtual snow days.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, hey, there's another silver lining to that snow day. There was time for you to pause and send me that email.

    Veronica Holyoke:

    I had time that’s right. Yes, correct.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And we've been thinking about this story ever since and I know it has evolved even since you emailed me in February.

    Veronica Holyoke:

    Yes, 'cause I think it was only maybe five or something like that and now we're up to seven.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And we are now in the media center here and there's nothing quieter than an elementary school media center in the middle of July.

    Veronica Holyoke:

    Yes, it's a little eery.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And so we're here to talk with three of the employees here at Oakcrest and we want to talk with you about your path forward and your connections to Oakcrest. So just introduce yourself.

    Natalie Slack:

    My name's Natalie Slack. I'm connected to Oakcrest by my children go here. And then I started here last year as a math aide. I'm currently going to school to be a teacher. I've got about a year and a half left of school. Before this, I had been interested in education, but had never pursued past where I am now.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Great. And tell us about your connection.

    Natalie Osborne:

    My name's Natalie Osborne. My kids go to Oakcrest, and I would volunteer in their classes. I had a different career, and I had a couple days off. So I would come in, and I just absolutely fell in love with elementary schools. So I decided to go back to school. I graduated in December and then was hired by Oakcrest to be a critical needs aid in December as well. And I did that throughout the year, and then I was hired to teach fifth grade at Oakcrest next year.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    OK, tell me about your path.

    Megan Grossaint:

    Hey, I'm Megan Grossaint. And when the boundaries realigned in 2020, my kids started coming here. My youngest was in first grade that year, and there was an opportunity to apply to be a literacy aid. And so I did that and I worked as a literacy aid. And within probably two months, I knew that it was time to go back to school and finish my degree and pursue elementary ed.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now tell me about those two months, because I'd love for lots of people to have that exact same idea dawn on them, that yes, I need to go back to school and I need to be a teacher. Tell me what happened there. What made you want to do that after two months as a literacy aid? Tell people a little bit about what the job is like as a literacy aid and then why that led you to wanting to be a teacher.

    Megan Grossaint:

    So the first, we hadn't started the Walk to Read program that year, so that year I would just work with three classes and work with individual students that needed some extra help with literacy and I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with being with the kids, with helping them to grow. And I was always constantly trying to think of new ways to help. And I wanted I just didn't want to leave. I wanted to be with them all day. So it led me to jump right in and get my degree. And now I get to be with them all day.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Your brain and your heart, it sounds like, just started firing and you couldn't turn it off. That's really what happens is you get with the kids and you can't turn it off.

    Megan Grossaint:

    You can't.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The teachers that you worked with had an impact on that as well.

    Megan Grossaint:

    Oh yeah, the teachers here are awesome.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now tell me, you have now been hired as a teacher for the coming fall. What is on your mind? It's July, they're coming next month. So I remember the feeling. It was a long time ago, but I still remember it.

    Megan Grossaint:

    Yeah, I'll be teaching sixth grade in the fall. And so right now there's a lot in my brain from what my classroom's going to look like to what I'm going to be teaching. So I'm just trying to get it all on paper and organized and look at the curriculum and really kind of try and break that down and figure out what I'm going to be teaching this year.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And I'm sure you're thinking back on your student teaching as you prepare for next year. Tell me about the student teaching experience.

    Megan Grossaint:

    Well, I student taught in second grade. So the curriculum is much easier for me to grasp than the sixth grade is. So I did my student teaching in second grade and it was awesome. It was just being with them all day and getting to really dive into different subjects and figure out different ways that I can teach and introduce them to a curriculum. And we did a lot of fun things together and it was a good time.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I've always admired elementary teachers' ability to keep kids going for the whole day. I was a secondary teacher and I had to make it work for 50 minutes. And I just, you know, the last 15 minutes, if it's tough, we struggle through and I get a fresh batch the next hour. But that whole day with students, and I know there are rotations and there are some other things happening, but it really takes a special person and a unique approach to make sure that you're connected throughout the day and effective throughout the day. But you also have deep relationships that you don't get when they leave every hour. You really get to know them in a different way throughout the day. You've experienced that as an aide and as a student teacher, I'm sure.

    Megan Groissant:

    And those relationships, it actually, your day goes really fast because you have the kids that finish faster and the kids that don't finish as fast and you find time to fill in those last 15 minutes.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh yes.

    Megan Grossaint:

    You're working with different students on different things.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, I'm excited for you and I'm really excited that you've pursued a career in education. And you did your student teaching here, right? You were an aide here, your children are here, and you're teaching here.

    Megan Groissaint:

    I'm here for life.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You are here for life. All right, I'm going to hold you to that.

    Stay with us. When we come back, we'll talk with Natalie Osborne and Natalie Slack.

    [MUSIC]

    Break:

    Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now let's talk with Natalie, this Natalie, not that Natalie, this Natalie for right now. Tell me about your path. You said you had a previous career as you started volunteering. You had some time available. Tell me about that career.

    Natalie Osborne:

    I went to college for one semester, and I was working at a title company. And I fell in love with title, doing closings on homes. I'm licensed to still do that. I worked for the best title company in Utah. But I just kind of got bored with it. I felt like I needed a different challenge for myself. And I felt like I needed to make a difference. I was watching all these choices. I was watching all these teachers and the difference they were making in my kids' own lives when they would come home, and watching the growth in my children. And when I would volunteer, I wanted to be part of that. Just to see the light come on in a student is the most amazing thing. It's like parenting, teaching so hard, just like parenting. But those little glimpses is what makes everything worth it to me. So I worked full-time and went to school full time and finished up. I did my student teaching at Fox Hollow, so just around the corner. Shout out to Fox Hollow. I still love you guys. And then I got hired here. I was on the School Community Council, so I kind of already had some connections here. And my kids have always attended here. So it was just a great opportunity for me.

    Being a critical needs aid, I felt like I learned so much about behaviors and behavior plans. And I fell in love with my student that I worked with. And he was difficult sometimes. But you just learn so much. And you learn to create those relationships. And I could see the difference in him when I created that bond. So it's something that I plan to do with my own students. It's really important to cultivate that relationship so that they'll learn from me.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You described what it feels like to be a teacher very well. That's exactly how it feels. And I love the idea that you saw the impact on your own kids. Tell me about that.

    Natalie Osborne:

    Yeah, my kids, I have two– well, they just graduated from sixth grade. I have twin girls and then a son in first grade going to second grade. And my girls struggled in kindergarten and first grade and it was really hard because as a parent I felt like, "Man, I don't even know how to help them. We read at home or we do this at home." I didn't know. Their teachers, when I would go to parent-teacher conference, the care that they had for my kids, they really wanted to help them. It wasn't just a job, right? I don't know any teacher out there, that it's just a job to them. If you're going to do this, you're going to care.

    And just seeing all the growth that I would work with the teachers and be like, hey, what can I do at home to help these guys be more successful in school? And they were always there to be like, try this, this, and this. And we would work on it. And it was just a team effort. And the growth in my girls from not being on grade level to now being on grade level and being set up for success in middle school has been amazing.

    And I mean, my son, literally the snow days that we talked about earlier would cry because he couldn't go to school. He had the most amazing teachers so far.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow. That's a great endorsement.

    Natalie Osborne:

    Yes, like he-- his first grade teacher was amazing. So he absolutely loved it. And just to see them grow, not only academically, but socially too. His first grade teacher taught them so many social emotional skills that I did not think I would deal with in first grade. All the drama.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Sure.

    Natalie Osborne:

    But it's just amazing to see your kids grow and to have a community that cares about them, right? It's not just their parents that care about them, but everybody here at Oakcrest, all the aides, the administration, their teachers, it's amazing.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It is an exceptional school, that's for sure. Tell me about being a critical needs aide. Some might not understand exactly what that involves.

    Natalie Osborne:

    I was assigned to help a student that needed an aide with him at all times for behavior reasons. So we kind of set up our own curriculum. Marla Daniels had some work that we could do together. We worked a lot on his reading and math skills. One thing I noticed for him is because he wasn't on grade level, we have a Hot Reads Challenge here, and so I just let him choose whatever book. And he was able to earn pins for that and the difference it made for him to feel like he had achieved something was huge right? It didn't matter that it wasn't on his grade level but it made such an impact on him and I think to the aids that worked with him. We all just cared about him and we rallied around him and it just made such a huge difference in his life. I hope. I hope it made a huge difference in his life.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I have no doubt that it made a permanent impact on his life in a positive way. Thank you for that. That's awesome. Tell me, what are you teaching next year?

    Natalie Osborne:

    I'll teach fifth grade.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Fifth grade? Okay. And how are you feeling right now? Mid-July, looking forward to next month?

    Natalie Osborne:

    I'm like excited because I'm ready to just get in there. Right? Like I'm like Megan, where I've thought about things a billion times over and over and over and now I'm like, I just need to do it. Like I just need to do it.

    Megan Grossaint:

    We've been hired since February. It’s time to teach.

    Natalie Osborne:

    Yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow, that's a long time.

    Natalie Osborne:

    So we're just like ready to get in the classroom and meet our students.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's a lot of anticipation. Yeah. Now, it'll be great to have a week under your belt. And you know, I got week one, we're set and here comes the month. Next thing you know it'll be Halloween, then it's Christmas, and then it's February again, you know? But that's awesome. Okay, Natalie too. Now, not Natalie T-W-O, Natalie T-O-O, you're also Natalie.

    Natalie Slack:

    Exactly.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me about your path forward.

    Natalie Slack:

    So my path is kind of one of those where I started college right out of high school, and I knew I wanted to be a teacher then. I used to, in high school, I went to the elementary school for one of my classes. And I actually went to Welby Elementary and her name was Miss Loeffler. She made me want to be a teacher. That lady was awesome. I helped her all year for first grade. She was my host teacher, loved it. And I was like, this is what I'm supposed to do. I got out, started college and I got married, bought a house and life kind of got in the way.

    And then I was like, I was done. I didn't like the job I was in. And so I was like, I'm gonna try something new. And I talked to Mr. Westwood and I got hired on here last year. And as soon as I did it, I was like Megan, you do it for two months and you're like, “I'm not leaving, I am staying here. I love it here.” And so I started going back to school. And working here while you're going to school, I think, is a really huge advantage. Because when I have questions, what better group to ask than the teachers here?

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Right. You're surrounded by experts at all times.

    Natalie Slack:

    Yes. So it's been amazing to have all the support. They egg you on when you're like, “Oh, I don't know if I can do this anymore.” And having my children here, being able to work and see my kids more, and be, like Natalie said, be able to participate in my kid's schooling. Where before when I worked I didn't get to do that all the time you know. Some jobs you just it's that nine-to-five thing and you're stuck there. I don't feel like that here and I love what I do. Being a math aide. I was a little hesitant to do that because I'm like, I don't know if I'm an expert at that, but I have definitely learned a lot over the last year. I feel like I have an advantage where I get to work with all the kids first, second, third, the whole shebang, so I get to meet all these kids and experience all the curriculum and it's just been, it's very eye-opening.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So you're a celebrity walking down the hall then. Lots of thumbs waving.

    Natalie Slack:

    Yeah, yep, or in the grocery store.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, that's right, in the grocery store.

    Natalie Slack:

    Everywhere, the gas station.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Everywhere you go, yeah. When I was a high school teacher, I was always envious of the driver ed teacher for the same reason, because he had every student for one quarter. And as a result, he knew everybody in the school. And I was always envious of that, walking down the hall with him. He knew everybody. He was a central part of the school, and that's you getting to be a math aide as well.

    Natalie Slack:

    When these guys got their list for next year, it was like, "Look! Who are these kids? Can you tell me about them? Who's this?"

    Anthony Godfrey:

    'Cause you knew all of them.

    Natalie Slack:

    Yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.

    Natalie Slack;

    It's nice to, like I said, it's a good place to learn while you're in school.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And tell me about your school. Where are you going?

    Natalie Slack:

    So right now I am going to– I just graduated with my associates. So now I'm going to Western Governors University, which I had a lot of the teachers, including these two, suggest because it's online. So I'm able to work here. It works with my schedule. And I've had a lot of teachers here say that's the path that they went down. I've only been there a few weeks, and it's been great. So I'm looking forward to progressing through.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And you have some friends here that are paving the path a little bit ahead of you. So now you get to talk with them and learn from them as they start teaching this fall.

    Natalie Slack:

    Yes, Natalie is actually my next-door neighbor.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow. The web of connection is deepening here.

    Natalie Slack:

    It's deep, it's deep. It's nice and Megan doesn't live very far away. And so it's nice, like I said, to have all these resources at your fingertips. And they're really great about, you know, look, you should try this while you're in school or this. And it's just nice to have a path.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And by the time you graduate and you're hired as a teacher, you're just gonna be exactly like they are right now. Get me in that classroom, I'm ready to teach, let's go.

    Natalie Slack:

    Yeah, there's not a doubt in my mind.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, that's awesome. So tell me, if someone listening is thinking, you know what, I wanted to be a teacher and I've thought about that. I’ve volunteered or I've been an aide and maybe I should do that. What advice would you give them? What would you say to them?

    Megan Grossaint:

    Just do it, just go for it. I went through Western Governors University too and it's awesome because you can go at an accelerated pace because I'm not getting any younger and I wanted to get it done. I was able to push through it really fast. I mean if you're at the school, if you're volunteering, if you love it, if you love it, I just say go for it.

    Natalie Osborne:

    I also went to Western Governors and I can't say enough good about it. It was amazing. I was able to work full-time and then in the cracks of my life, go to school full-time. And like Megan said, you can really accelerate it, which helped get through school faster for us. I feel like it prepared me as much as you can be prepared for your first year. But yeah, go for it because I was so worried. I used to think that I couldn't make it through college like I was too busy or I was not smart enough or all these things and it's not true at all. Go for it and it's amazing. It pays off in the end and you get to teach amazing little humans.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Absolutely.

    Megan Grossaint:

    What kind of stopped me for a while is I kind of felt like I was too old. I'd missed the boat starting a new chapter.

    Natalie Osborne:

    It's never too late.

    Natalie Slack:

    Yeah, if you're willing to apply yourself to the group, the atmosphere for this, for teaching, it's totally worth it. And if you have that, I don't know, the feeling inside that this is where you're supposed to be, then you need to do it, 100%.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I love that, I love that. So dive in, cast the fears aside. And if you're excited about it, then do it. And obviously, it's energizing to do something you didn't expect to do and something new that maybe you'd written off and thought was no longer available to you. Thank you for taking the time today. This has been, it's been awesome talking with you and getting to know you and I'm definitely going to drop in a few months into the school year and say hi.

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We’ll see you out there.

    23 min
  • Episode 204: JSD Jumpstarting Careers in Auto Mechanics and Repair

    It is a program driving students to find success in the car care business.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we stop by the auto mechanics shop at West Jordan High School. That’s where we meet the auto shop teacher and a student who just placed among the best in the country in a car repair competition. This truly is a class that is jumpstarting careers.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Join us as we visit a program driving students to find success in the car care business.

    On this episode of the Supercast, we stop by the Auto Mechanic Shop at West Jordan High School. That's where we meet the Auto Shop teacher and a student who just placed among the best in the country in a car repair competition. This truly is a class that is jump-starting careers.

    We're here in the West Jordan High School Auto Shop to talk about the SkillsUSA competition. Thanks for taking time. Introduce yourselves and let's talk about the competition.

    Bryan Liddell:

    I'm Bryan Liddell, Mr. Liddell, the automotive teacher here at West Jordan High.

    Eli:

    I'm Eli Atwood.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And Eli, tell me about the competition. What does it involve and how did it go?

    Eli:

    So during the competition, we did brake inspection, we did tire inspection, we looked up service data, did a job interview, electrical stuff. So we diagnosed an electrical circuit, we had to build an electrical circuit. There's a written test and it went pretty well. I got 14th place out of 30.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow. Where was the competition?

    Eli:

    It was in Atlanta, Georgia.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Atlanta, Georgia. And your competition was from all over the country?

    Eli:

    Yeah, there was one person from every state. Well, not exactly, but there was-

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Roughly.

    Eli:

    Yeah, roughly one person from every state.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's interesting to me that they add all of these other layers to it. It's not just about working on the vehicle, it's also about the interview and the written test, tell me about that part of it.

    Eli:

    Yeah, so the interview, you're pretty much interviewing to apply for a shop or something like that. And then the test is just an ASC test that they take. There's 50 questions and you got 20 minutes to do it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Twenty minutes to answer how many questions?

    Eli:

    50.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    50? Well, I would get three of them answered and they'd all be wrong. That’s how much I know about auto mechanics. Tell me what got you interested in auto mechanics. I know from personal experience just how good you are at this.

    Eli:

    Thank you. So I've just always been interested in tinkering at home and then I came here to the high school and Bryan really got me involved in it. I've just been interested ever since. I'm working at an auto shop right now and I love it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So what type of work do you do at the auto shop? Just whatever comes your way?

    Eli:

    Everything, yeah, just automotive repair.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And is that what you want to do as a career? You want to continue with that?

    Eli:

    Yeah, I'd like to be a mechanic and then one day own a shop.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's fantastic.

    Eli:

    Thank you.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So tell me a little bit about this program. What do students do to qualify for this national competition?

    Bryan Liddell:

    We have a district competition, and then we go to the state competition. And each state gets to take one student in MLR, which is what Eli went in, which is Maintenance and Light Repair. And then there's also the ASE test. So you can take two students in the competition from each state. So for him to get to that level was amazing.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me about the ASE test.

    Bryan Liddell:

    The ASE test is actually what they use in the industry. All of the mechanics that get ASE certified have these tests, and they're all automotive-based tests. And they're mechanic A and mechanic B tests. So there's a lot of tricky questions. And it's something that he did really well. I'm master certified. I owned a shop for 18 years. So I try to run it like a shop and make it so that they understand what they're getting into the industry.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And did this prepare you well? This program and this competition for working in an actual shop?

    Eli:

    Yeah, it definitely did. So Bryan, in the shop here, we'd be working, doing live work. We do stuff in the classroom. They really prepared me for what actually we're going to see in the real world.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What is the hardest work that you do on a vehicle? What's the most difficult thing to do?

    Eli:

    Diagnostic for sure, and electrical stuff.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah.

    Eli:

    Trying to figure out electrical.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Just figuring out what the problem is to start with. Tell me what vehicle this is.

    Eli:

    It's a Chevy Tahoe.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    All right. Talk me through the elements of the engine and the different components you would be working on in the light maintenance competition.

    Eli:

    So on something like this– So we had a car that we needed to pull a code on, and it had something with a crank signal. You had to pretty much take the code, you had to run through the diagnostic sheet on when you put it in the service data, and you test certain components on the engine with a multimeter and stuff like that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The multimeter, is that the little device that–tell me about what the multimeter is.

    Eli:

    Yeah, so the electrical device, you could test voltage with it, continuity, just different things like that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So it was an electrical issue?

    Eli:

    It was, yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Are you trying to solve the problem as quickly as you can?

    Eli:

    Yeah, so you only got 10 minutes, yeah. You have a worksheet, you have 10 minutes to do all that, so you gotta fill out the worksheet, diagnose the thing. Usually, you don't get through the whole thing, but–

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It would take 10 minutes just for me to do the search on YouTube to try to figure out what I'm supposed to do. So does everyone have the same problem that they're trying to solve? Everyone in the competition?

    Eli:

    So each time they reset the station and you gotta figure out the same thing. So it's all even.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay, and what are some of the other aspects of the vehicle that you had to understand in order to be successful in a competition?

    Eli:

    Se we had to do tire identification, so you had to use a TPMS tool, the tire pressure monitor, and you had to trigger the sensor, see what all the pressures were at. You had to look at the tread on the tire, look if it's good or not. You had to measure the tread depth. You had to check brakes, you had to measure the brakes, look if they were good, check if they were warped or anything.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Did you get to meet some people from around the country that were kind of fun to get to know?

    Eli:

    Yeah, I got to know some kids in my competition. We had a deep– like before the competition, we did a thing and I got to meet some of the kids and just met them. There was a kid from Oregon, got to talk to a little bit. There's kids from all over the US.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me all the different sounds that people make when they come in and describe what's happening with their car.

    Eli:

    Probably a--

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It makes this thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk sound or what are some of the others?

    Eli:

    Clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You're trying to diagnose, initially at least, I know it's all computerized for many vehicles, but you're trying to get the best description out of the customer also.

    Eli:

    Yeah, yeah for sure.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So now you said that there's a mechanic one and mechanic two aspect to the competition. Tell me about what that means.

    Bryan Liddell:

    The difference is in high school level we teach MLR and at the college level they teach the AST, so each state gets to send two competitors.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh, so it's a college level competitor and a high school.

    Bryan Liddell:

    And a high school level competitor, yes.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay.

    Bryan Liddell:

    This is my first time going to nationals, so seeing all of the competitions. And I mean it's everything that is– you know from cutting hair and doing nails all the way up to building homes, automotive I mean there was–

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So all all the SkillsUSA competition is at the same time.

    Bryan Liddell:

    It's at the same time.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay.

    Bryan Liddell:

    Yeah. There’s so many people at the competition that we have the Staples Center full. I mean, there's, I think, 430,000 SkillsUSA members across the country between advisors and students.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Well, I think it's really exciting for us to be represented at that national level in various categories. And like I said, this is so far out of my realm of expertise that I'm very impressed at your skills and just your passion for the work.

    Stay with us when we come back more at West Jordan High School.

    [Music]

    Break:

    In Jordan School District, we like to support students in and outside the classroom along with their families. That's where the Jordan Family Education Center comes in, offering support services and a wide variety of classes for students and their families, free of charge. You can take a class called Blues Busters for children feeling sad or worried. Just Breathe is a class that helps students reduce stress. Or how about a class that supports parents in helping their children make and keep good friends. There are also support groups and free counseling, all provided by Jordan School District school psychologists and counselors. To find out how you can benefit from free family support services offered by the Jordan Family Education Center, call 801-565-7442 or visit guidance.jordandistrict.org.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What would you say to a student who's thinking about getting into a program like this?

    Bryan Liddell:

    It was really great to hear Eli say that he enjoyed being in here, he loves working on cars and that he wants to own his own shop one day because that's exactly how I started out. I was sitting on the fender well of my grandpa's truck while he was doing stuff to it and I just decided one day I was going to own my own shop, and luckily all the cards were laid out right and I ended up owning my own shop for 18 years. And then I got the opportunity to come and help train technicians for the future, and I jumped on that. So I would say, even if it's something you're not into, you should take Intro to Auto because that's going to help you maintain your car a little bit so you're not spending a lot of money in the future. And then just take the more advanced classes and work your way up. There are a lot of students who take my class because mom or dad says you don't get a driver's license unless you take Auto.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh yeah.

    Bryan Liddell:

    And then they find out that they really like auto.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I love the idea that you get to drive a car only if you know how to maintain and repair one.

    Bryan Liddell:

    Yeah, well I think that's, you know, the basic maintenance, you know, being able to change a tire or something like that is very important.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah.

    Bryan Liddell:

    Even if this isn't something you want to do for a career. You should want to do this for a career. It's an awesome career and we can't all do the same thing.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Sure.

    Bryan Liddell:

    You know, so.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, and it's a skill that, I mean, most people are going to end up owning a vehicle at one time or another and all of those vehicles need maintenance and they're going to need repair. What is it that made you want to go into education?

    Bryan Liddell:

    That one's kind of a funny story. When I was in high school, I took auto mechanics and I fell in love with it. I mean I already was because of my grandfather getting me into it and everything. But I ended up my senior year, I was able to take three of my periods were Auto Mechanics and on A day and then on B day I had Auto Mechanics for two periods and then I had woods and then I had work release. So I spent a lot of time in the shop my senior year. And when I graduated, my teacher actually wrote me a three page letter about how I should go to school and be a teacher. I kind of laughed at him. And then here I am, oh, I was 40, 42, I believe, when they came. When one of the teachers here, who I happen to work on her car all the time at my shop, came and said, "We need an auto teacher." And I thought about it, and then I came down, and this has been probably one of the best decisions I've ever made. I love my job.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I love hearing that. That's a great story. And did the teacher who wrote you that letter find out that you ended up teaching?

    Bryan Liddell:

    No, it's kind of sad. He had passed away already, but that was pretty neat. I never even saw that in me back then, but it was great that he could.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's amazing that he saw that potential, and ultimately, that's where you ended up. And how long have you been here at West Jordan now?

    Bryan Liddell:

    Next year, I think, will be my seventh year or eighth year. You know how the years are different.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    The years blend, yes. All those COVID years contract. After students graduate from this program, where do they end up? What are some of the things they do with the skills they've learned?

    Bryan Liddell:

    There are a lot of shops out there hiring right now. Eli works at a great shop, but there's also post-secondary. You can go to, there's a bunch of technical colleges that you can go and get some degrees in. I know that because of the competitions that Eli has some scholarships to go to college also.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now you've got a variety of vehicles here and it catches my eye that you've got a golf cart up on a lift. Tell me about what's going on there.

    Bryan Liddell:

    That one is the baseballs.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh, baseball's golf cart.

    Bryan Liddell:

    Baseball's golf cart.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So if it has wheels, they're going to bring it into you for repair.

    Bryan Liddell:

    Well, and I love that, especially when we teach the oil changes. I send out a thing to the teachers, and then they're able to come in and have their oil changed. And the kids get to work on live work. And it also makes them happy, because they can go to math and say I'm the one that did your oil change.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now that does not hurt your grade if you're able to help out a teacher's car. Eli, have you found that to be true?

    Eli:

    I have found that to be true.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    (laughing) Suddenly they're relying on you and that doesn't hurt when they're calculated grades. (laughing) And you know what, you probably will have to protect yourself the rest of your life from people who say, “Hey, Eli, you're a mechanic, any chance you could come over and take a look at this?” How do you handle that?

    Eli:

    I just try to help out people. If I know them, good. Might as well.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's awesome.

    Bryan Liddell:

    That is something that's great about this, because at the current moment, I have three cars sitting in my driveway because it's summer and everybody knows I'm not here.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah.

    Bryan Liddell:

    So yeah, and it's great to be able to not only have a skill that helps you pay your bills, but also to be able to help out friends and family who are in need.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    My dad was a mechanic in the summers. He was a university professor, and in the summers, he worked as an auto mechanic at Sears in their automotive. And it's been really awesome that I can always call my dad and say, “Hey, my car's doing this or my car's doing that.” And people have come to him over the years for some help. So that's a nice thing. And it's a nice connect with people in your neighborhood, family, and friends that they know they can rely on you for some help. I think it's awesome. Well, you're going to make a lot of friends with these skills, Eli, and have a great career ahead of you. I've known you for a long time and it's really exciting to see you at this stage and see all your accomplishments. So congratulations.

    Eli:

    Thank you, appreciate it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And thank you, Mr. Liddell, for providing such a great experience for our students here.

    Bryan Liddell:

    You're welcome. Like I said, I love my job. Keep 'em coming.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I'm grateful for all those circumstances that brought you here.

    Bryan Liddell:

    Me too.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    All right, thanks guys. Thanks for the time and good luck with everything.

    Eli:

    Thank you.

    [MUSIC]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

    [MUSIC]
    17 min
  • Episode 203: Father of BHS Softball Coach an Inspiration to Entire Team During His Battle with Alzheimer’s

    She has taken the Bingham High School girls softball team to multiple state championships in her time as head coach. But when the state title suddenly eluded the team for years in a row, someone very close to Coach Jackson, didn’t give up.

    On this episode of the Supercast, find out how, despite his own battle with Alzheimer’s, Coach Jackson’s dad stood by the team and was in the stands cheering them on to victory once again, at the last game he would ever see. It’s an inspiring story you don’t want to miss.

    Audio Transcription
    [Music]

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. She has taken the Bingham High School girls' softball team to multiple state championships in her time as head coach. But when the state title proved elusive for years in a row, someone close to Coach Jackson, didn't give up.

    On this episode of the Supercast, find out how, despite his own battle with Alzheimer's, Coach Jackson's dad stood by the team and was in the stands cheering them on to victory once again at the last game he would ever see. It's an inspiring story you don't want to miss.

    We're here with head softball coach, Mikki Jackson at Bingham High School. Mikki, thanks for taking the time.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Thanks.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    We are now up to nine championships for you here at Bingham in softball. Is that right?

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me about why this particular year was so special.

    Mikki Jackson:

    I think there's a lot of reasons. I have personal reasons and then I have the actual coaching reasons. It's been, it feels like a long time since we've enjoyed being on top and having the escort home, all the excitement of that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    When was your last state championship?

    Mikki Jackson:

    It was 13 years ago.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay.

    Mikki Jackson:

    We've been in several state championship games since then but we just didn't get over the top. And so to finally get back on top feels awesome.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And I understand you've had eight close calls, right?

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yeah. (laughs)

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Eight close calls where you're almost there.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And tell me about this team this year, what happened over the course of the season

    and what got them over the hump finally?

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yeah, I think this group, you know, there's always that mix of talent and effort, but then there's gotta be that, I call it the magical ingredient, and that's loving each other. And this group definitely grew close. They came in close, but they learned to care and take care of each other in different ways as the season went on. Plus they are young and so they were maturing. The more experience they got, understanding that their character is not, who they are isn't based on an error or a success. But that's icing on the cake, but who we are makes us the results that we get.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Softball is of course a team sport, but it's a team sport where your individual errors or shortcomings are on full display. (laughs) Tell me about some of the things that you've had to overcome, some close calls in the season maybe, where you really saw what the girls were made of.

    Mikki Jackson:

    I think you're right, that the focus is on those individual successes and failures, but overall, you know, all of those come together to make that. And we had some times when we didn't get over the bump. You know, we are one strike away against Riverton in that first game this year.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah.

    Mikki Jackson:

    And our sophomore pitcher's on the mound and she's doing great, fouling off, and they got the better of that at-bat and they end up on top. That's, you know, it's a game of inches, you know, half an inch fair foul. And just from that game on, just helping the kids understand how to work through those moments and that maturity that kept growing stronger and stronger. Sometimes those failures make that strength later on. And I think we saw that with this group. They got stronger because of it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What was the makeup of your team? You said that they're now more experienced than they have been. Did you have a lot of seniors this year?

    Mikki Jackson:

    We had three great seniors. Shelbee has been on the mound for us. She pitched almost everything last year for us. This year we had Brecka come in as a sophomore and she took some of that load off of Shelbee so Shelbee could play elsewhere. And then we have Braxtyn who can play pretty much anywhere on the field and is primarily a middle infielder. And then Charity, our catcher and left fielder. So all three of them are significant players. Beyond that, we had one junior that was playing most of the time and the rest of them are sophomores and freshmen.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh wow. So there are great things ahead for being a sophomore.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yes, and the kids that played behind those guys got a lot of time this year. Behind Charity is a sophomore, now a junior catcher, and Braxtyn has another kid sitting right behind her that's been working into her spot as well.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Good, that's great.

    Mikki Jackson:

    I can't say they're all perfectly replaceable, but that group coming up is working hard and has the ability to do it.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's great to hear. Tell me about how the tournament works for those who may not be aware. It's double elimination. Tell me about the journey this year.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Well, it's double elimination, but they do break it out into the brackets. We have a four-team pool, and then there's a second four-team pool. We went in as the four seed with Riverton being the one seed and we had PG in there. The seeding is how that's all broken out.  So you play the same teams three or four, it's almost like the women's college World Series. In fact, it is. You have your seedings through the regionals and then if you drop that game you're going to come back to that person that sent you to the losers bracket. That team is going to come back at you.

    So we had PG and in that game, even more opportunities to grow because our backs were against the the wall multiple times with runners. Our pitching helped us a lot. Hitting kind of came around. Then we had Riverton, who had already beaten us two times several years in a row.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Now, psychologically, that's pretty tough to face down someone who's beaten you in this situation more than once.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Because they've had great teams for years down there. And there's been a mutual respect of our two teams in that we know that we've got two great teams coming at each other each time we play. And so, you know, I just watched, it just felt like the kids were different this time. I think the two losses earlier, they were like, okay, we're done, we're done with this. But then they will have five to one on us. And we clawed our way back, oh, and the second game, I guess it was. But getting through that one.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So you're down five one in the second game. What was the final score?

    Mikki Jackson:

    Seven to six.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Oh, wow. (laughs)

    Mikki Jackson:

    Five to one, I think it was five to three.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah. I can't remember exactly, but I know we were still down one, 'cause I remember thinking, do I want to give up this out and bunt? Or do I want to bring them around? We bunted and we brought two around and we scored two more in the next inning and we had to hold them that bottom half of that inning, 'cause we were visitors the entire way through the tournament 'cause of our number four seed.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    It's been 13 years since you had a state championship and we've talked about why that was exciting this year for the team. Let's talk about why that was exciting for you personally.

    Mikki Jackson:

    My dad has Alzheimer's, and we've been going through the late stages with that. And especially about– I guess it was the second week of May, he was pretty close to leaving us. He was in really rough shape. I spent about five nights with him by his side in the hospital. And I kept thinking, we're so close, Dad. Hang on. I just want you to see us play again one more time. And our game times for the afternoons don't work with somebody with Alzheimer's, with the sundowners. And I knew that an 11 o'clock game in the championship was the way he was gonna be able to come.  But unfortunately, those couple of days ahead of time, he wasn't drinking or eating anything, they couldn't get him to wake up. It just wasn't looking like it was gonna happen.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    And he's been in the hospital all this time?

    Mikki Jackson:

    Well, he went back to the care center that he was in. We got him healthy enough. He had a few infections and things that week that he was there. My sister happened to be in Europe at the time. Finally takes the family trip that is overdue by years and about four or five days after, I'm thinking he can't pass while she's gone. We've got to keep him alive long enough. And we got him to where she got home just a few days before state and she said “Well, we'll try. Let's do everything we can to try to get him there.”

    So we start the game and then I heard my sister's voice in the stands. I couldn't see where she was, but I could hear her, and she stood up and waved her arms and she pointed down. My dad was right there, and so my dad got to attend that game. She told me later that that morning the nurse called and said “You're not going to believe this but your dad got up this morning. He ate his breakfast, he drank his juices, he's sitting in the chair. If you want to come get him I think we can make it work.”

    And so after the game I went back up to him, I ran up to talk with him and I said, "Hey Dad, it's Mikki." He didn't really respond too much, you know, a little bit of his little quirk that he acknowledges you there. And I said, "Dad," I said, "my girls are champs." I leaned down to his ears. I said, "My girls are champs." Just like everything you've always taught me to be. And his eyes came open. He smiled. The first smile, the first acknowledgment. And he reached out for me, grabbed my hand, and then put his other hand over the top of mine. And that is more purposeful movement than we've seen in the last three months from him. It's a moment that I will never ever be able to replace.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's miraculous that you were able to have him there. It's the time of day it worked and he held on through that. How's he doing right now?

    Mikki Jackson:

    Unfortunately, we're probably going to take him home tomorrow to California. I'm going to do the parade with the girls and then I'm heading out. We don't know how much longer we'll have, but we got through that game. We got through a happy moment for him. I could see him watching and scanning the field at times, even from down at third base. I'd look up there. A couple times, he was sleeping, which is fine.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Sure.

    Mikki Jackson:

    But a couple of times I could see him scanning and my sister said, "Mik, he's not been that alert the whole time she's been back."

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow.

    Mikki Jackson:

    And it's been great. So, you know, we don't know if we have days with him next week or if we have a month, we don't know, but we're gonna bring him home.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    But an additional moment of pride in his daughter and her accomplishments.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Oh yeah, and he was the kind of dad, I mean we know, as educators, we know how much parents put into their kids. And you can appreciate this, when we moved from Southern California, we moved to a town of 200 people. It had a K-8, one-room schoolhouse in this town.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Wow, wow.

    Mikki Jackson:

    And so at that time we lived 20 miles out of town. I'm too young to drive still, and I'm doing a pentathlon, so he built me a long jump pit, and we did a bunch of mattresses, and then we have a high jump pit. That's the kind of dad-he was always making ways for me to be successful and my siblings as well.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So he really went out of his way to create opportunities where in a small town they weren't just available around the corner.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Tell me about some of the other ways that he impacted you as a person, as a coach, as a teacher.

    Mikki Jackson:

    I think he always had an expectation that we would do our best, but it wasn't a pressure, it was just the way he lived himself. And he was so selfless that I personally, I can't even think of things that were his love. Things that he liked to do because everything was always taking us to. Like we have this lake that we go to. My sister and I run a youth camp up in the mountains by this lake, or my sister does and I help her out sometimes, but the family is up there. And my dad, when we go to this blue lake, he's always the one fixing their campers and boats and stuff like that. He's just always doing for others. There was a joke- we were out there celebrating his 70th birthday and one of the persons got up and said well you know he just travels around to all the widows and he's always taking care of all the widows in town. He had this little circuit that he would drive around he was just he's just a very selfless person. I think that you just internalize that when you live around it, you just internalize it and I think that's the biggest gift he's given me personally.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    That's amazing. How did he impact you as an athlete and as a coach? Are there some philosophies that you bring to coaching that came from the way that your father has lived his life?

    Mikki Jackson:

    I think probably some of it is. Like I like to break skills down to teach them and I think that comes from him. He was a mechanic and so you know, this part goes with this part, goes with this part, and maybe that's why my mind is a science mind too. But I think, you know, I'm the one that tries to see what skills need to improve and how to fix those. And then I think the way he was always patient teaching us how to do something, like even fixing a car or something like that, which I'm not very good at, 'cause he always did it for me.
    (both laughing)

    Anthony Godfrey:

    But his patience in talking you through that and teaching you has translated into the way that you interact with your athletes.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes I'm probably not as patient as my dad was with me. (both laughing) But I try to remember that every one of those kids out there is someone's daughter. And that person is a kid that's growing up, that may not understand the game. I look back at things that I know about the game now that I never even thought about. There's a maturity that goes on and what we're ready to learn. It's like in math, like in science, some brains are ready for this right now. Others are gonna take three more years before their brain's ready for that. And you just try to take wherever those kids are at that time and build the best you can inside of them. And I think that comes from my dad and my mom. My mom's pretty wonderful too.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, I don't doubt it.

    (soft music)

    Stay with us when we come back, more with Coach Mikki Jackson.
    (upbeat music)

    Break:

    Does your student want to become a veterinarian? Commercial pilot? Programmer? Maybe they want to make a difference as a dental assistant. These are just some of the programs offered as part of Career and Technical Education. CTE in Jordan School District. CTE provides the technical skills needed to prepare students for future employment or for a successful transition to post-secondary education. Career and Technical Education provides work-based learning opportunities. We partner with industry experts to offer apprenticeships and internships with students working in the real world at real jobs while going to school. The CTE experience starts in our elementary schools with the Kids' Marketplace and grows through middle and high school. To explore all CTE has to offer in Jordan School District visit cte.jordandistrict.org today and let's get your child started on the pathway to a profession.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    What got you started in softball? What got you interested in softball to begin with? I assume you played when you were younger?

    Mikki Jackson:

    I did when I was younger. I wasn't in a big city area where we had summer and travel ball. I just played and I loved it. My mom was one of my first coaches when I was little and the funny thing is the first team I ever played on, I found out later we won one game by forfeit. I was a catcher, yeah I had no idea about stealing even was. I I didn't even know stealing existed. I didn't know what it was.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Yeah, sure

    Mikki Jackson:

    I kind of have a goofy start to that whole thing, but I was in Southern California at that time, then we moved up to another area. I actually played other sports too. My parents encouraged me to do other things. I played soccer and I have to think I must have been pretty good because I was scheduled to go to Japan and Europe and stuff like that as a fairly young kid and then we moved so I didn't. And then track, I ran pentathlon I was a miler when I was in elementary. And then through middle and high school, I did the pentathlon. So I was a multi-sport athlete. I heard somebody say once when she figures out softball, her thing, she's going to go a long way. And I guess-- I don't know if that influenced my decision to go that way or not. I actually did not play softball my junior year in high school, or my senior year. I actually wrecked my ankle my junior year playing, but I went back to track in my senior year. And then I came out to BYU as a walk-on.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    For the softball team.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yeah  and tried out and got to play.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Great. Tell me about your teaching career. Where have you been throughout the years?

    Mikki Jackson:

    I actually was headed to medical school and I was accepted to medical school and my husband wasn't quite done with school yet, so I requested a deferment. I also had some family reasons to stay. I got it. I started here at Bingham. I did my student teaching here and then I just loved it. I loved being in the classroom and when I was in high school, they had a cross-age tutoring program to kind of prepare kids that they thought had leanings toward being great teacher material. And I was invited to be in that class and I think that was where some of those seeds were sown, that it was there. But then from there I've been at Bingham. I taught at Copper Hills for a little while. Over there primarily chemistry, anatomy, physiology, biology. I have zone now so I've had a little bit of everything. My favorite though probably was action chemistry when I had the kids that had one foot in the court system and one foot supposed to be in the classroom but not quite there. That was early in my career and I really loved that experience with those kids

    Anthony Godfrey:

    So how many years have you been at Bingham now?

    Mikki Jackson:

    At Bingham itself, I started in 89-90 with my student teaching and then I was trying to figure that out earlier, someone asked that. In the middle stretch I was gone for about five years.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    Okay, okay. What do you hope your girls take away from the experience of being on your softball team?

    Mikki Jackson:

    I think particularly this group, the relationships are the things that last. That trophy will always be special to them and it's just really special to be able to say you're a state champion. But every year my hope is that they walk away proud of having been a Bingham Miner, but also that those relationships are the ones that they're sending the invitations to each other's weddings. That they're following up. Our 2009-10, that was the three-peat. Those guys still are so in contact with each other. They still are friends with each other and other groups too.

    I also kind of find it exciting, I don't know if you're aware of it, but Herriman had three previous Bingham players on their coaching staff this year. Nicole just graduated a few years ago. Heidi and Pam played for me in the 90s on state championship teams. And I kind of hope that the impact of having to go through challenges and lead yourself, and be an example to others grows in the long run. Mylei Zachman is an administrator from the Davis District. She's out of our program, she came through our program too. I look around and I see so many people that have come through and they're successful. And I'm not saying our program made them successful because I feel like they also made the program successful because of the traits they brought, but you look at that and you're just excited to see them being happy and successful in their life. And you hope that you have a little bit of a piece of that.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I love that. Well, thank you very much for taking the time and thank you for all the time you've invested in these athletes over the years. I have no doubt it's a lasting positive influence on everyone that's been on your team.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Yeah. They've been an influence on me too. I'm who I am because of the things I've learned from the families and the kids that I've been fortunate to have crossed my path along the way. And I just hope that they know how much I love them. And there's been people that have been happy, sometimes people not so happy, but I love one of them regardless of what experiences they had.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    I'm sure they know that without a doubt. Well enjoy your parade, enjoy that victory and my best to you and your family. Thanks for the time.

    Mikki Jackson:

    Thanks for everything you do for us too. I feel like you really engage with us and you really appreciate us in our district.

    Anthony Godfrey:

    You guys are amazing, thank you.

    Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

    [Music]
    22 min

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