The STEM Pipeline That Keeps Communities Alive Featuring Patrick Miller

Key Takeaways

Welcome to this week's edition of the K12 change equation. I am Dr. Laya Nuland, change agent, joined by my co-host and dear friend, Dr. Mort Sherman, who will introduce our guest in a few moments for our audience. This week, I'm incredibly excited for us to be talking about STEM education and the innovative work that is happening across the Carolas, but more broadly, we're going to be talking about national trends in that particular area of education. The K12 change equation is really designed to dive into topics around today that you're seeing in the headlines. We want to serve our audience, not only our leaders, but also our community members who are change agents as well to make sure that you're educated about key issues occurring in your local systems so that you can advocate as best as you can to support public education in your community. With that, Mort, can I pass it over to you? >> You sure can. Patrick, it's really good to see you again. You and I have bumped into each other over the years when I was at ASA and you served in a national governing board and you've had a number of leadership positions and I'll get to talking with you about a formal introduction in a s in a second but I have a theory I just want to start with on a light note. So you were a music teacher, a coral teacher, and your wife was as well. And I'm more and more convinced that those who are connected to music in life are great leaders because it it resonates. There's a soul, there's a this connection of having harmony. And so let's start with that background in your life. if you talk about being a music teacher because I'm so fascinated by those who then become superintendents and principles. Tell me about that part of your leadership. >> Sure. So when I graduated from college in Chapel Hill 30ome years ago, I taught high school course and theater arts for 10 years before I became a school-based administrator. I enjoyed the classroom and interacting with the kids. uh in music and in musicals and stayed longer in the classroom than I actually intended just because I was having fun. Uh my wife uh likes to say that uh school administration is like directing a musical. There's casting, there's uh blocking and setting up. There's costumes involved with this and that and the other football games, uniforms, board meetings and ties and all. So, uh, it's it's been really fun and has prepared me well for for what was to come in my life. I'm I'm really glad. >> Oh, I can already see the blog that Mort is thinking about that leadership is like conducting a musical. I already see it. >> Wait, wait, Leila, wait this image. So Patrick, so you wish as an administrator you could raise your baton to the community, to the teachers, and to your colleagues and get that moment of quiet, right before you lower the baton and everybody sings together, right? Yes. >> That's right. You don't want everybody rowing the boat together. You want them singing together. [laughter] >> I I love this. And you're right, Leila. There is a blog in this and I think there you you could you could read it already, right? you know me too well. So Patrick, you're you're now in this wonderful position in North Carolina. And by the way, I saw a cartoon over the weekend in one of the papers that said something like, "Why is that football team on our band field?" Have you seen that cartoon? >> I have not. >> I have to find it and send it to you. So tell us a little bit about what your position now and then we'll get into the content itself. I don't like to do formal introductions. I'd rather you talk about what's important to you right now. >> Sure. So, one of the roles that I have uh since I retired uh after 14 years serving as a a school superintendent in 2022 is the director of district engagement uh for STEM East. Uh STEM East is a education initiative of the North Carolina East Alliance which is an economic development organization located in eastern North Carolina in Greenville. And we like to say that we work at the intersection of education, workforce development, and economic development. Uh we like to think of teachers, even kindergarten teachers, as the tip of the spear for economic development because teachers in a sense are economic developers in that they have access to the students and are able to share with them information regarding careers and opportunities in Eastern North Carolina. And so what we're trying to do in a nutshell is prevent the brain drain. Kids are leaving eastern North Carolina in droves to move to bigger cities. Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, Richmond, Virginia, other places. We're trying to convince them that there is a great life for them in Eastern North Carolina. Lots of opportunities for jobs and lots of STEM related fields. They can make plenty of money and stay right here in eastern North Carolina and live a wonderful life. So Liz is going to pick up in this. I know her as well as she knows what I'm going to write in my next blog. So this question of the intersection that you call it, I'm just that's fascinating way of describing it. It Liam and I are doing a series with regional service center Boseis in New York. We just talked to Glattus Cruz two weeks ago and we're going to be talking to somebody in Michigan and somebody in California. Is yours uh is is your organization your work seen similar to those kinds of service centers in other states? To be honest with you, I'm not sure I'm not familiar with the work uh that that you're talking about. And I'm not sure how familiar the rest of the country is yet with the work that we're doing in eastern North Carolina. We've re I've only been with them for for three years and I would say that the work has really ramped up in the last two. Uh the state helped us about a year after I came on board by providing a very nice investment in NC East Alliance that has allowed us to expand and and do a lot of work. And I'm sure we'll get into that in detail here in the next few minutes. But uh I'm just we are the one of the best kept secrets I think and I hope uh that this podcast and and other things that we're doing will help elevate us uh because I think very humbly that there are some lessons to be learned uh from the work that we're doing and it could be scaled across the nation. So, I wholeheartedly agree and I want to can I pull on a thread? So, I was thinking about an episode we just recorded with a regional service center in New York, Patrick, where we were talking about workforce development and readiness. And that was on the heels of at the beginning of September the NAPE scores coming out and every all the headlines saying we're in crisis with our high school students. And then um was it this morning or yesterday, the Times publishing about reading and math skills? And you know, I just wrote something down that really resonated with me. Teachers are economic developers. >> What >> absolutely >> an astute way to describe one of the themes that we've been circling around on this show for the past several months. So, thank you for that. I want I want to dig into that. So, the article in the Times kicks off, "The US military is seeing lower scores on its armed forces qualification test. At Texas State Technical College, a two-year college based in Waco, students increasingly have to take a basic math class alongside their college level courses to get ready for careers in welding, heating, air conditioning, and manufacturing. And so when I think about our teachers as our economic developers and the chatter around NAPE and the debate that we have about whether or not our assessments are getting us what we need, I'm curious how you all are pulling this together and working with teachers and your thoughts on what what do we need to do differently so that our students are getting to milit military to getting to the two-year college to getting to the four-year college with the basic skills that they need to succeed there because I think that art this article highlights it in a different way that's more compelling to me than you know yelling about the NAPE scores. >> Right. So, I'm going to back up a little bit to when I was still the superintendent and in uh 2014 somewhere along in there, the North Carolina State Board of Education adopted a recognition program called STEM School of Distinction. You can find more information about it on their website at ncpubschools.org. If you just type in STEM school of distinction, you'll come to a landing page and there's lot lots of information there. But it is a very rigorous rubricbased basically a school improvement uh program viewed through the lens of STEM. And currently there are only about 50 of these schools recognized that are actively recognized by the state board of education in North Carolina. It's very difficult designation to get. And Green Central High School, which was in my district, uh was the one of the first comprehensive traditional high schools to get that designation uh back then. And it it was very eyeopening for me looking back now. I can see it. I couldn't see it then, but we would have folks from industry coming in. Part of what we did with kids would present work all semester on what we called a grand challenge and it was based on the National Academy of Engineering's grand challenges things for the world like desalination of water or this or that or the other. We would go an extra step, bring social studies in and put the problem in a place in the world for each team of kids so that they would learn about that place in that part of the world and culture as well. And then the kids would make these big presentations at the end of the semester and industry would come in and listen to to these presentations. And I will never I have forgotten who it was and I wish really wish I could remember because I quote this quite a bit but the man told me, "I don't care what your kids make on standardized tests. They will never fill in another bubble sheet for me as long as they live." But what I see here is these kids are learning real world issues. how to think critically, how to think creatively to solve problems. They're obviously collaborating uh because they're working in these groups and they've learned how to communicate and make formal presentations and they're dressed up. He said, "I can teach them anything I need them to learn as long as they they have this." And it caused me to it caused some inner conflict with me because I'm thinking the board probably expects me to maximize student test scores for North Carolina's accountability model. But these parents and the children that I serve want me to get them prepared for the rest of their life. And there's some conflict there. And so I made a decision that I think it's more important to prepare these kids for the rest of their life. You can't just totally ignore the accountability piece, but you also it almost allowed me to relax a little bit and and because I have found what I was going to concentrate on for these kids. I'm not articulating that well, but it allowed me to come to peace if the results were not what what everybody wanted or expected because I knew we were doing other things that weren't being captured um on those bubble sheets that would allow our kids to be successful. >> So, Patrick, the thread that Leila was pulling on, I think you just answered beautifully. You again are very humble. I could hear that. Excuse me. A brilliant answer, but it leads me or Andy, it leads me to two pieces. I we've all been school administrators and I was a superintendent for 25 years and and this question of how do you get good results has never been clearly answered. And I think you're beginning to answer it. And we all have been in these math classes where the kids say to the teacher, "When am I ever going to need to know this?" And what you're doing is providing real time, real skills, real life answers to that. >> And so I want you to comment on that. And then your question about account or your comment about accountability. >> From what I've seen, this sort of approach actually raises the scores, doesn't diminish them. If you teach it a test, you're really narrowing down to that test. But if you teach the way you've just described it, you're hitting the test plus the life skills, >> right? And so you just nailed it with talking about teachers learning to teach their kids math in a way that it's applied and not theoretical. Yeah. struggled in math as a student when I was in high school because particularly in the maths that were more theoretical. But when I could see like in trigonometry, this flag pole is 20 foot tall and it casts a shadow over here. It wasn't a plus g. It was a real thing that I could think about and I could understand that. And that's what we have to do for kids. And that's what we're talking about doing in STEM East is educating our teachers about what goes on in these big buildings off the side of the road on your way to work. And there are jobs for real people inside those buildings. And we're going to pull the curtain back, if you will, and take you through here and show you all these things based on these industry clusters that we've identified in eastern North Carolina. And then we're going to support you and help you learn how to make what you've learned applicable and apply it to your kids so they can see why am I learning algebra? Oh yeah, okay. I will use the Pythagorean theorem on a construction site. I see. Okay. I understand. And I think when you can make those connections, the learning is more meaningful and the kids see there's a purpose to what I'm learning versus just learning in theory or for the sake of learning. >> Can I So, I'm curious. You know, it's interesting. I can't let go of this teachers as economic developers. I really love this view and it has me thinking about our leaders, our principles and school district leaders and who they are in this and what needs to change for them. So, I know we're talking about, you know, at the classroom level what learning needs to look like. What are the implications for our district and school leaders right now? What do where are your wins and what do you see as barriers as folks who are listening to this and thinking about how can this work in my system or in my state? >> Well, one thing um and this is common sense, but I think it needs to be said is that this type of learning is not quiet and orderly and all desks in a row. This is hands-on kids doing things and it's noisy and it might look like chaos to an administrator coming in to do an evaluation, but it is controlled chaos. And we're making an effort to educate the principles and the superintendent on on the work that we're doing because we think teaching with inquiry, problem based, project based learning is is critical to what we're doing. And we're creating activity kits for teachers to use that mirror on a less grand scale, but still the activities mirror what they may be doing in this plant or that plant if we have branded STEM kits based on industry clusters so that the kids latch on to, hey, I'm really interested in this. And the teacher says, well, guess what? But I'm glad to hear that cuz there's a job for you and it's in this county, this county, this county in our region and you can go to this community college or whatever and through Career and College Promise in North Carolina, you can get this credential before you graduate from high school for free and you can go right to work. And if you need more education, guess what? That company will pay for it for you if you need that. And for years and years and years, and I'm guilty of this, and more, you probably are as well. We pounded college, college kids. You got to go to a four-year college. And unfortunately, the kids listen to us. And they all a lot went to college and they have college degrees. And unfortunately, not all of them lead to a a a good job. and they kids have acred hundred thousands of dollars of debt millions I don't billions I guess across the country and it's a it's a really big problem and it's unnecessary and that's what and there's a stigma that is being created now I'm afraid in some instances where parents feel well my kid didn't go to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill it's a failure they just went to a community no it is fantastic way to gain skills and enter the workforce. And it's just things are different now with micro credentials credentials and stackable credentials. You just you not always need it. We have some research from Georgetown University that we quote 70% of the jobs in our region probably in the whole country only require an industry valued credential or an associates degree. 20% require a bachelor's degree and just one in 10 require an advanced degree. So, not everybody needs to go to a four-year school and and you can have a fantastic life and make a wonderful living and contribute. And we're we're trying to preach this and build up Eastern North Carolina, which is, if you're familiar at all with Eastern North Carolina's lots of generational poverty, lots of of of issues, but we're we're trying to turn that around. So, Patrick, I I want to come back to the college and community college, and we probably have both done this as superintendent somewhere in our careers. you know, uh, Harvard begins in kindergarten. And I go, "Oh my god, why did I allow that to be said?" Right. You're right. >> No, no, I get it. It's so Maya Copa. Uh, but I want to go to the the industry clusters you talked about, what they are, how you selected them, and then a personal story about that related to the cluster. My father was an auto mechanic, dropped out of high school in 10th grade and was certainly proud all his sons, you know, did very well and I have we have doctors and so on. >> But uh if I put him in front of a car today, I wonder if he could fix it, you know, you know, if because he could talk to me about plugs, points, and condensers and the carburetor and the kids today would say, "What what what are plugs, points, and condensers?" So if you you know so this question of the clusters that's you know how did you select those and how flexible are they and then the question of it's almost like a not a criticism but it could be doesn't it narrow them into like the next couple of years and not a long-term survival or business or economic survival because it's a narrow window that they're learning in. I think you could make an argument about that that it could do just that, but I'm going to try to counter that argument. >> Yeah, please. >> With my answer here. So, in the summer of 2023. So I talked to you before I get too far into that I talked to you about one initiative of STEM east and that's the STEM school of distinction program and we provide technical assistance and help for schools that want to get that that designation. And now of the 50 uh STEM schools of distinction, 50 or so in North Carolina, 14 of them are in our region. So we have a 28% market share. We're trying to get that up. The industry clusters piece is part of an initiative that we have for teachers that we call industry in schools. And in 2003, we looked across the region and there were three industry clusters that stuck out uh for us. Of course, in eastern North Carolina, huge agriculture areas. So, smart agriculture uh is is one thing uh that we latched on to. We also have what we call the aviation corridor if you're familiar with eastern North Carolina. In Wayne County, there's Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. In the next county, there's the Global Trans Park. Um in Kinston, North Carolina, it has the longest runway in the state of North Carolina and lots of there's a Airbus uh facility, a Spirit Air. There's mountaire cargo. Uh the military is building fleet readiness center depot there. It's first time it's not been on a on a military installation and they'll work on C130s and Huey helicopters and one other aircraft I can't remember. And then if you keep on going down Highway 70 to Newurn, the big fleet readiness center at Cherry Point Marine Air Station there in Havlock. And then you jump over a county to Elizabeth City and you have the Aviation Logistics Center, which is the Coast Guard's version of uh Fleet Readiness Center. And every Coast Guard aircraft in the country goes through that depot once every four or five years. So aviation is a big one. Just between aviation logistics center and fleet readiness center there's 6,000 jobs. Then the other our 29 county region mirrors East Carolina University service area and in turn ECU health which used to be called VIDA health. There's a shortage of nurses just like there's a shortage of teachers. So healthc care jumped up uh for us and there's lots of satellite hospitals uh in our region that that need help as well. So we started with three teacher workshops, health, aviation, smart agriculture. They're two-day deals. We bring the teachers in, we feed them, we pay them a stipen, we treat them like royalty. They learn about the industry cluster that first morning. Then they eat lunch that afternoon. We take them out to see if it's the health care, they will tour a hospital. If it's aviation, uh they tour like the aviation logistics center or they go to fleet readiness center in Havlock and tour and see all that. Smart A, they usually go to a farm or a farm production industry and tour that. Then we do what we call an industry dinner and we invite representatives from those industries all across the region to come in and mingle with teachers and talk to them about job opportunities that are there. And then the next day they tour the community college uh that supports that industry and see what the classrooms and what the coursework is like. And then in the afternoon, they spend time integrating what they've learned into the standards that they're going to teach, whether they're a kindergarten teacher or a high school biology teacher, it whatever, but we help them learn how to integrate that into their standards. So then in the summer of 24 we doubled the number of the original three workshops health aviation and smart a and we added biioarma because we have the biioarma crescent in our region there's fizer johnson and johnson merc thermofisher cattle you name it there's huge uh biofarma presence here we added the blue economy which is all things ocean related you know eastern North Carolina has the shoreline and all the estuaries, commercial fishing, aquaculture, boat building, all the things that that go with with the blue economy. Lots of jobs there. Great jobs. Everybody wants to be at the beach, so why not? And then, uh, energy systems was an obvious one with wind energy and the solar panels going up all across the area and other energy issues. We felt like that that was a good one. And then this year we added one more that was requested by our community college partners. And I haven't told you this yet, but we have in our 29 county region, there are 31 school districts. All 31 school districts pay to be a member of STEM East and there are 16 community colleges in that footprint and 15 have paid to be members. But we added smart manufacturing, which used to be called advanced manufacturing, and there's there's lots of opportunities here with that. And next year, we're going to be adding legal systems and education. And we had a retreat yesterday and spent some time thinking about what those would look like. But over the past 3 years, we're approaching probably getting close to 7 or 800 teachers that have gone through one of these clusterbased teacher workshops. Uh some have gone through several of them. And the feedback that we get is really really positive. And the problem we're having is how do you measure the impact because you other than just say the number of teachers trained but then you say well how many kids have they impacted how many kids have they told about what they learned. So we don't we don't know that's that's a problem for us to wrestle with. But if you have any suggestions I'll listen to them. >> Well l so I I I just I love what you're doing Patrick. I think you're so on target and what you're describing should be a national model and because I'm hearing you're reflecting the local economies, the local opportunities and building possibilities for those. You're taking the teachers who will use those programs get involved with the program and helping them understand and the question of accountability then monitoring effectiveness goes beyond just those kids in the program. It's the other kids that the teachers impact. Right. So, right. it it yeah so I hear that clearly so congratulations to you and and so what I'm hearing just this question that that Leila and I posed to you and that you did for yourself is how do you create a national model is I'm going to say then you just play with it but this idea of every region in the country has opportunities and possibilities that doesn't have to be your model your clusters but if if you go to Montana or you know I did lots of work in North Dakota or some of the other places there are distinct opportunities at each of those to make the learning real and to make it practical. Is am I hearing am I hearing you correctly? >> Yeah. You so what I'm thinking about so I'm going to take us to the systems level as I think about how we've circled around this topic in previous episodes when thinking about how our current federal government is pushing workforce readiness. We know with shifts in funding we do need to think critically about how we deliver K12 education and what is the purpose right and you know I think that there's broadly what's really interesting to me about this is broadly we all agree that public education is to serve the next workforce right we are to generate the next generation we've really struggled with that push and the pendulum swinging to everybody's got to get a degree and we're trying to claw that back and mindset. It has me thinking about strategic planning. And maybe this is just because I live and breathe district strategic planning in my work daytoday with my team, but it seems like as we think about accountability, we really need to go out to our superintendent and central office staff and ask them, does this plan and the way that we talk about accountability and we talk about our measures align with what you're talking about right now? Because I think if you we got all of our superintendents in a room and they heard what you're doing, they would be so excited, right? But as we think about accountability and we think about change management in systems, it does have me thinking about strategic plans. So I'm curious, how do you think about this in this work? The the systemic the infrastructure that we need to have in place. >> So I'm really glad you asked that. I was wondering how I was gonna get to this next initiative. And >> so Patrick, on this show, this is when you tell me I asked a good question. [laughter] >> You asked a very good question. >> No. And and you've got to say to me, I asked a great question because we're competitive in our question. >> Oh, okay. Well, your questions have been thoughtprovoking as well and great. So that's that's good. We work some with the Smithsonian Science Education Center from my STEM school of distinction work and some other stuff. We have a relationship with them and they brought us an opportunity like in February to take teams from our member districts to Washington DC for a week. And that week was at the end of February, the 24th, whatever that that last week of February. Johnson and Johnson underwrote it uh for us. And we had eight of our districts send five or six person teams for a week to Washington DC to craft five-year STEM strategic plans. We call it an SPI or strategic planning institute. They came back after that week with these plans and STEM East has undertaken the job of supporting these districts for the next year as they work to implement these plans and to align and integrate them with the existing strategic plans for the district. And if you're familiar with Smithsonian Science Education Center, you know they like the laser model. And so we base we have quarterly face-to-face meetings really. Yeah, they're about quarterly, but we have done some more based based on me, but they're based on the pillars of this laser model like professional development, evaluation, material support, community involvement. So tomorrow the SPI network ironically we're having a professional development for about 40 teachers on science and engineering practices in action that the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching is leading for us. But the leadership team is meeting tomorrow to talk about the professional development piece of that laser model. Then when we gather again in December, we'll be looking at the community involvement piece. But these eight districts have sort of been our little they're they're our first group, our our babies, if you will. And we would like to have the opportunity to take eight or 10 more districts through the SPI process this winter or early spring and let the original eight districts serve as mentors for those districts as they complete that very important work as you said of strategic planning. So they have a roadmap of what the work will look like for the next five years. I love that it, you know, to share several episodes ago, we were interviewing uh Sean Bolson, the superintendent in Harford County, Maryland, where they >> Can I stop you right there? >> Oh, you crazy. >> Sean is my ne he was superintendent next door to me in Wilson. They're a member of STEM East. We would make weather calls together and I know Shawn very well. >> So, >> tell him I said hi. >> I will do so. John's episode we were talking about how in his system and and others are you know using this framing but employment enrollment enlistment and I I really love this framing as we think about strategic planning with our systems leaders of when we're writing our strategic plan can we see those three buckets reflected in the work right um in the facilities investments or shifts that we're making. And I I just think, you know, as we look at the budget climate, it's so critical to start at that strategic planning level because otherwise it we're doing it in reverse order. And I think that's where those structural challenges come into place. So, I love how you've described what this can look like. Mort, can we keep going or or do we have to go to the now? What? So, what? No, no, no. Don't go there yet. Patrick, I want to come back to this accountability question and and this agency question. I think what you've done in terms of the planning with the teachers is giving voice and agency to them rather than the superintendent or the head of the organization saying, "Hey, the board and the community and I came up with this plan. Isn't it great? It's not what you did." So, I like very much that approach. this question about accountability and monitoring success. There was a book several years ago, you probably know it, good to great, >> and there's a monograph that's connected to it, which I would encourage everybody to read. It's it's assessing the success of nonprofits. And there's a story he writes about uh the Cleveland Orchestra. I think it was a Cleveland or the Cincinnati, but I'm pretty sure it was a Cleveland Orchestra. Tried to figure out how do they measure success and they really struggled with it and and they came up with an answer. It's not the tickets they sell. It's not necessarily based upon the financial situation, although that's important. And they went through their list and they said, you know, really comes down to how many standing ovations we received. And so when you ask that question of accountability, I'm reminded of that story because so often we you and I as superintendents and Leila who's a research and and measurement expert. We've given away our voice and and what you said before if we you know we should weave back that that part of this tape where you spoke about the life skills the lifelong learning that goes on as the essential in the core and how do we measure that? So it's fine to get a score, but how many standing ovations have the students and the teachers and the community given you because you're doing the great work. So before we get to the now what so what before we went on the air you or maybe even at the beginning you mentioned Patrick the concept of some obstacles you're facing or maybe Leila mentioned but I'm really curious uh you know your advice as you look to make this a national model. What obstacles have you faced? And then you use the phrase lessons word. Can you combine those two? >> Sure. One of the biggest obstacles and one that we're facing now is all nonprofits wrestle with it. But how to ensure sustainability through through funds and we write grants. We're trying to make the work we're doing known uh by advertising, but that's that's limited. So, I appreciate what you all are doing here to elevate the work at STEM East. The state has given us a very generous investment, but they're fighting the general assembly, the Senate, and the House are fighting with each other, and they've not passed a budget. We had another uh investment in the budget, but we don't have a budget and I don't think we'll get one. And the money that they currently gave us runs out in December of 2026. So, we have little more than a year to find our next big investment to help help us keep going. We are writing grants and and getting trying to get in front of uh the foundations and philanthropists and everybody likes the story when they hear it. We just need somebody to bite and help us out. The other issues that we run into um time you're dealing with a a region this large with 29 counties, 31 school districts, probably approaching 200,000 K12 students in this region. We sometimes struggle getting our message to the smallest places and in that you and I both know I send stuff to the superintendent. I know them all. They're my friends. I send it to them. We were not the best at sharing information. We see an email. Okay, keep on going. Oops, I should have forward that to the chief academic officer and that I Anyway, so we're we're learning to build our database with the people who who actually do the real work in the districts and our alum of the industry and schools teacher workshops. We send it to those teachers where those are some of the lessons learned. The superintendents are not always the most reliable disseminators of information, but that was who we knew to start with and that that's just just how that worked. Ironically, now we have a bunch of my colleagues and friends have retired and they've come to work with us at STEM East because they believe in the in the mission of the work. But those those are a couple of the issues uh that we're facing. We also struggle with and this one is interesting and I you may have some advice for for how to tackle it but we're doing all this work in one way if you think of it this way for the industry in our our region. We're like hey here's your workforce for the next generation. work with us and help us help you. And we're having a hard time getting there are some who who see it and and get involved with us, but we're having a really hard time overall getting them to get involved with us if that makes sense. >> Oh, it makes a lot of sense. And later, so the let me introduce the now what so what and then you could pick up on it close us out. So this question of the now and so forward is how do we work with you? How do we share ideas? How do you involve colleagues to understand that the the landscape is changing uh you know even when talk about agriculture and I mentioned to you Peter Fitch from Yakama Washington I think I've shared with the leas some pictures of apple orchards which are highly structured so the robots can go down and pick the apples and so the world is changing so quickly. So then now what? So what? I feel you're on the cusp of the national conversation with terrific answers and and so then now what do we do to support you and to get colleagues part of the conversation that agency we talked about with teachers before and that's not easy. You and I and Leila know this. It's part of why we call this the change equations. It's like there is no algorithm or formula but there is conversation and so you at least have my commitment Leila's commitment that this conversation is essential and thank you for that today Patrick it's uh it's encouraging and inspiring >> thank you Patrick I would love to think about how we could host a workforce readiness summit and pull some of our more innovative district leaders from other states I mean Sean's a great example of that uh Aaron Spence on episode one of the show. I think that we have some leaders that we should link up with and think about what kind of event we could host to get the word out and to support district leaders is they're thinking about, >> you know, like I said, I would start with our strategic plans. I think we need to start with some visioning of what what does the system need to be set up like and what are our goals in service of getting our kids ready for career, college, military. Um, so I I can't thank you enough for this conversation this morning. It's been refreshing. The work that y'all are doing at STEM East is work that we need to be doing everywhere right now. And so I'm so thrilled we had the opportunity to start getting the word out. This is just the beginning. And >> Ila, Ila, in all the episodes we've we've had until you talked to Patrick, I never heard you say y'all. >> Well, then you're not on the phone with me enough because I use y'all all the time. You know when I learned to start using y'all? When I first left the classroom and started working at uh I'm going to take you on a little walk. K12 insight. Uh, and when I was there, I was given uh, school districts in the southeast and I am your fasttalking New England gal. And I remember getting on the phone with one of the CEOs that we were working with in a suburb of Dallas and he interrupted me and he said, "I'm going to need you to slow down before I bring you into a meeting with my team and it was just an early career lesson of regional differences and connection and making sure that I'm aware of how I'm showing up and I have I've just adopted y'all. >> Y'all are doing great. Really terrific. >> What? How's she doing? >> It's okay. >> Works for me. >> Yeah. All right. >> I can't hide mine. you. >> I've lost the Connecticut in me and I've fully embraced being a Virginia. Um, well, in all seriousness, I've really enjoyed this conversation and I think the work that you all are doing is critical and it's something that we need to scale. and we're at a moment, we're at an inflection point in K12 education. And so, as our audience is uh dialing off, I want to remind everyone, we are here to share real stories of district transformation and uncover the variables that drive sustainable change. And I think what we heard today is making sure that the work that we're doing is in service of what comes after K12 and making sure that we're bringing our workforce partners to the table with our school system. So Patrick, thank you again to our audience. We'll be back in another two weeks and more as always. It's always fun for us to sit together. >> You are terrific. Thank you. [laughter]