Innovation in Education with Junior Bernadin of The Ron Clark Academy

With the global pandemic pushing students of all ages into remote learning, tech-fueled innovation in education is more important and impactful than ever.

In this episode of The Digital Footprint, we sit down with Junior Bernadin, Dean of Students and Director of IT at The Ron Clark Academy. The Ron Clark Academy has a global reputation for leadership in education through their unique teaching methodologies, professional development, school culture, and more. During the pandemic, they've stepped up in a big way with the RCA House Points App, enabling schools around the globe to drive engagement and create a transformative school culture.

In our discussion, Junior shares more about RCA's House System, how it evolved, and how he and his team have leveraged technology to bring this innovative approach to school culture into schools all over the world.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Junior Bernadin

💡 What he does: Dean of Students and Director of IT at The Ron Clark Academy

💡 Company/Project: The Ron Clark Academy. The Ron Clark Academy (RCA) is a highly-acclaimed, nonprofit middle school located in Southeast Atlanta. The Academy has received both national and international recognition for its success in educating students with academic rigor, passion, and creativity. Schools from around the world send teachers to RCA to be trained on their innovative teaching methodologies. 

💡 Noteworthy: One of the most unique aspects of RCA is The RCA House System, in which students are sorted into one of four houses (Altruismo, Amistad, Isibindi, or Reveur) and earn
points throughout the year for demonstrating honesty, hard work, outstanding effort, and dedication. The system has been proven to foster a positive culture for students, parents, and staff and to build character, relationships and school spirit. 

💡 Where to find Junior: www.juniorbernadin.com

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Connect with our cohosts Richard Simms & Carlos Gonzalez on Linkedin

Transcript

E661389B_10 - TT - Digital Footprint - Junior Bernadin - Transcript

[00:00:00] Richard Simms: Hello and welcome to the Digital Footprint. I'm Richard Simms, and this podcast is brought to you by Tyrannosaurus Tech, an award-winning technology partner dedicated to designing and developing high-impact software products. We have a great episode in-store today. Very excited to be joined by Junior Bernadin, Dean of Students and Director of IT for the Ron Clark Academy.

[00:00:25] Welcome Junior. 

[00:00:27] Junior Bernadin: Hey, how are you doing, Richard?

[00:00:29] Richard Simms: Very good. Very good. I'm so happy to have you as a guest. So we've been working together for almost three years now. 

[00:00:35] Junior Bernadin: Yeah. 

[00:00:36] Richard Simms: Yeah, I think so. And, and I have to say, you know, working with you and with RCA has definitely been one of the more fun and fulfilling experiences for our team. RCA is obviously a great organization, makes a huge impact across the US and worldwide. Really. So, it's been awesome for us to kind of play a small role in particularly the House Point, Points app, of [00:01:00] course. And yeah, so much about RCA is so unique. The school, the House System, the House Points app. So I'm really looking forward to unpacking things a little more in this episode.

[00:01:10] And, you know, just hearing your perspective on innovation in education in general. So let's jump right in. First, do you mind just taking a minute or so to quickly introduce yourself, tell folks a little bit about the Ron Clark Academy. 

[00:01:24] Junior Bernadin: All right, greetings everyone. My name is Junior Bernadin, I'm the Dean of Students and IT Director at the Ron Clark Academy. I have joined Ron Clark Academy, I believe it's June 3rd, 2009. So I've been there for over a decade, and I came at the ending of the school second year in operation. And when we talk about the Ron Clark Academy it is a very dynamic and innovative middle school that you can find here in South Atlanta. But one of the things that makes the academy extremely special is it's, it's received a lot of notoriety for the educational and teaching techniques., the ways that we've been able to create great relationships with our students and our families [00:02:00] and so forth, but we also serve as a model school that allows visiting educators to come from all over the world.

[00:02:06] To come and learn about our innovative training methods, to attend workshops hosted by our master teachers, and also to get a very unique classroom observation piece that allows them to see some of these methods in action. I think this has led us to, I mean, we've trained over, I think right now, probably at least a hundred thousand agents. from across the world and virtually we've probably trained, you know, close to double or triple that amount. But we really love what we've been able to do. We're a small school with a small staff doing some really big things, and we're also a nonprofit. So one of the things people don't necessarily know about our school is that the school was built by the committee.

[00:02:43] So for instance, it's very inception. You know, Mr. Clark wrote a book called The Essential 55. It became one of Oprah's book picks. And, you know, before you know, it, it was number two in the nation. And Mr. Clark took those proceeds, and decided to build a school with Kim Bearden here in Atlanta, Georgia.

[00:02:59] [00:03:00] And that's been the becoming The Ron Clark Academy. But when they initially bought the school, which is the old dilapidated a hundred-year-old factory here in South Atlanta, the historic South Atlanta district, all the money was gone. So they turned to the community and the community over years, pretty much Frankenstein the building together.

[00:03:18] And, you know, somebody might not have been able to contribute an entire bathroom, but they might contribute a stall, a pipe. Oh, Promethean jumped on board, so we're going to provide you with some Promethean boards. Dell and Intel jumped in and say, "You know what, we're going to provide you with some servers and some computers for your classroom."

[00:03:35] So we saw this, like slowly the school became, began to become pieced together. So we've always been a school that's really just been rooted in community involvement and people who worked at corporations and companies were always looking for a place to truly make a difference. And this small school inside, in South Atlanta is literally impacting education and creating a revolution that's going across the world.

[00:03:56] Richard Simms: Very cool. Yeah.

[00:03:57] It is a very magical place to say the [00:04:00] least. I mean, of course I was familiar before we truly started working with you all, but I hadn't been to the school and it's, it's, pretty amazing, you know, getting that initial tour. So, so another question, you know, the last year and a half of course have been particularly wild in the education space, COVID has really turned everything on its head, and unfortunately, you know, it's, it's not over by any stretch it seems. So, as a thought leader in the space, what has it been like navigating this for RCA, you know, have others look to you all for guidance on how to adapt and thrive in this new environment?. 

[00:04:37] Junior Bernadin: I think if we looked at this pandemic in a couple of ways, you know, honestly, when it first hit us, you know, there were some, I can think about the thought process that's kind of going through our mind, like, "Oh, maybe this is going to last for like a month." Right. Like, so you had this expectation that it wasn't, that it possibly wasn't going to be as bad as it was.

[00:04:59] So [00:05:00] we were like thinking about creating this very like temporary plans. And we're going to be watching things and looking for a moment for us to kind of come back in. And the more it kind of started kind of, oh, like lasting a lot longer, like we were like, "Oh, wait a minute." Like we're literally having to pivot right now, because as I mentioned earlier, we're a non-profit private school.

[00:05:22] And actually our students attended The Ron Clark Academy and they paid tuition. Our tuition is $18,000 a year. Now, you know, the average family is not going to be able to afford $18,000 a year. So the revenue from our educator training and some of our other programming actually helps to subsidize scholarships for our students.

[00:05:40] So the average student is paying about 40 to 50 bucks a month, which again, when you look at the difference on what the price would be if it was $18,000 a year, that's a huge, that's a huge difference. And the way that we've been able to do that is through educator training, but in the midst of a pandemic, we can't drain educators.

[00:05:57] And we're also trying to run a school at the [00:06:00] same time. It's like you're going through the business aspect of it, trying to figure out ways to kind of keep the lights on and keep people paid and, you know, making sure that the, you know, our, our building, you know, laps on payments. And so like, so we are literally trying to figure out not only a business plan, but going through all the struggles of education at the same time. Because on the education side, it was all right, great. We happen to be one-to-one already, which was really awesome. Right. So we happen to be one-to-one already, and we were like, "Oh, okay. So the students have their iPads." When we started putting, I worked together with a team, with a group of teachers, all the teachers who love embracing technology. We came up with a plan, started ironing out those plans, share those, and literally in a weekend, that we literally took a weekend, this entire weekend and turned around. And before you know it we're hosting virtual classes. Then we ran into some other situations like, "Well, what if a family doesn't have a strong internet connection? And what if the students' [00:07:00] technology happens to start acting funky while that is happening?"

[00:07:03] So we have staff members who are jumping in cars, driving around, delivering hotspots to our students and swapping out iPads and so forth. So it literally was kind of like all hands on deck. It gave me the, it gave me the feeling of a mobile tech, mobile tech company that's going around and handling the business of its clients.

[00:07:24] So like we were all over the place. But then we're also now working with the teachers, making sure that the classroom and their grade books and different things were set up correctly so that the user experience on the student's side and on the parents side, it could be something that it would be manageable.

[00:07:41] And then we had a huger piece, because we are a school that's rooted in relationships and, you know, we're probably the most hugging in school you can ever find. There are moments where, and 40 or 50 kids are running and hugging another kid because they just earned their RCA coat, which is a huge tradition at our school.

[00:07:58] Right. So we have that. We're [00:08:00] very family oriented. We have parents who kind of come in and volunteer hundreds of hours a year just to our school. And now we're being told that we have to remain separate, like. It was extremely tough. But we use things like zoom and, you know, our teachers are so creative and our staff is so creative that we started figuring out fun ways of engaging with the students, even via zoom, playing little games, finding technologies that allow collaboration amongst multiple people all at the same time. We've did movie nights. We've done, which we did a virtual family vacation via zoom where for literally it was about a week and a half. We put together several different activities that involve scavenger hunt, kitchen rock band, and, you know, karaoke. We did so many things on our end, again, just trying to find ways of becoming innovative.

[00:08:50] But when we look at this pandemic that most, what it's done is allowed us to actually create new solutions. Because the method, the creativity of our educators and our master teachers in the building, we [00:09:00] were like, "Wait a minute. This is cool. Yeah. This is another cool, platform that we can use that we could help to, that could help to interact or create a awesome learning experience." So what did we end up doing? We actually started doing some of the virtual PDs for free on our Ron Clark Academy Facebook page. So once a month, or once every other month we were there, we were kind of sharing some techniques, some things that we found, we were highlighting, people who were still using the House System. 'Cause y'all the House System is, that's the foundation of our school. And when I talk about relationships and we talk about what it's been able to do, it's beyond PBIS which is a Positive Behavior Intervention or improvement System that is used in a lot of schools. It's beyond that. It is a way that you're creating a home for students, a home away from home, where they feel seen, where they feel heard, and they have the opportunity to not only interact with their educators and their peers, but to feel that sense of belonging. And belonging can go a long way in education space and helping students to truly [00:10:00] reach, reach their full potential.

[00:10:02] Richard Simms: Hm. 

[00:10:02] Junior Bernadin: So when we saw all of these things happening and The House events we were doing, we had, we have a ton of traditions that we started trying to hold these, keep these traditions virtual. Like, for example, we had a pep rally, which was like, House cheers. We do this every Friday, where we call a student of the week, they will come up to spin the wheel to earn some additional points for their House.

[00:10:22] But the students also get the showcase like a song, a skid, or a title of some sort. They get to dance and show off their House pride. Well, here we are virtually we're like, we do this in our lobby, jam-packed with a bunch of parents and students and everywhere, everybody's there cheering. And we're like, "Well, what happens now?"

[00:10:39] So we told the kids, "Now you're all going to have to do this virtually", and the kids responded. And when I tell you they responded, they were using their cell phones, we had some students who had great skills in editing, some students who had no skills who decided, "You know what, I'm going to learn these skills. I'm going to go online. I'm going to go find a platform." And students started teaching each other. And before you know it, every [00:11:00] Friday we would gather on a Zoom. And we're like, "All right, the first House up is Isibindi." And Isibindi will come on and we will play the Isibindi video and everybody would be cheering and tanting. 

[00:11:10] And like, you know, it's just, it was a moment. It was a moment for us. And that's when we recognized, "Yeah, being virtual is different and it's no way by any means the same as being in person and having that personal interaction and being there with people. But technology did provide quite a few ways of us still trying to remain connected."

[00:11:33] Richard Simms: Yeah. totally. And I remember talking with you through some of those transitions and, I feel like RCA is as best equipped as possible, even though it was such a challenge to I think pivot like you said, and you know, you're very technology-forward in general. So, you know, pushing that that much further, you know, obviously it helped you all figure out a new paradigm.

[00:11:56] So, you obviously, we're speaking to the House [00:12:00] System a little bit and it's something I want to expand upon. You know, RCA has such a unique culture, of course, and the House System is, you know, a big part of that kind of intertwined into to everything. So, I'd love for listeners to better understand the House System, you know, where it came from, how it's evolved?

[00:12:17] And then of course, the work that we've done together has been, you know, building out kind of more of a platform to support the House System in other schools. So how did it go from, you know, an internal cultural thing to a much bigger kind of global presence? A lot of questions there, but just expanding on the House System I think would be awesome. 

[00:12:38] Junior Bernadin: Well, the House System, I, when we, when you think about the House System, when we think about its origins, it's, this is something that's been around for hundreds of years, that date back to, you know days in England where there were schools and these schools had Houses where students were kind of sorted into it. But it did kind of really become popular here in the United States per se until like Harry Potter.

[00:12:59] [00:13:00] Like, so when you look at Harry Potter, you have, you have the Houses, you have Gryffindor, you have Slytherin. You know, you have, you have the different Houses. And it was a huge hit in American culture, for students, for kids, I mean, for students, for adults, people who just love the magical world. And yeah, when we look at our RCA, it's like, Educational Hogwarts of schools. Nothing about it looks small. We have a huge dragon in our gymnasium, we have a wheel, we have some magic or what we call some secret doorways. We have a, like a lot of little secrets. It's very like mystical, magical, kind of gives you a very Harry Potter type feel in our school. Right. So, of course, with Harry Potter, and the whole House System that concept.

[00:13:43] You know, we, we gave it a different twist. Because you look at Harry Potter, like the House System is, is very interesting because you have teachers trying to kill students and you have all type of mischief, that's kind of happening. We were like, |No, no, that's not what we want for an environment." And what we decided was [00:14:00] that, "No, we wanted something to kind of really feel like home for our students." And we didn't want it just based off of competition. We wanted it based off of relationships. But we also wanted a global presence. That's kind of associated with it because we believe in creating global citizens for our students. That's one of the reasons our students have been able to kind of travel the world over the years and, you know, meet interesting people, collaborate multiple cultures.

[00:14:25] 'Cause again, it creates a better sense of appreciation for our students and the cultural exchanges that they can have with other students around the world. So, when we look at the House System and when it started The Ron Clark Academy, the school opened in 2000, and in 2007 we had our House System. And the House System, our students were sorted, they were competing throughout the year for points, and we decided to use some software to also display the status of the Houses as they're kind of going on. And at, that did a couple of things. That allowed our students to be seen for their contributions to each House. But then that also allowed them to work [00:15:00] together the team, to kind of say, "Oh my gosh, we want the House Cup, the House championship."

[00:15:04] And they wanted the opportunity to do that. But what's the most important about what we do at RCA is that we believe in developing relationships. So this was also an opportunity for the houses to bond with one another. And by bonding with one another, creating that sense of belonging, what that does is helps to kind of, pretty much meet the psychological needs of students, especially in the middle school and the middle school, elementary school, and even high school era. It allows us to meet the needs of those students and hopes that they can reach their full potential, their self-actualization. So when we go, and if a lot of research that's associated around that, if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it talks about when students have their basic needs met and we meet their psychological needs and they can actually meet their full potential.

[00:15:47] So, we're like that. The House System is almost like that middle piece. Right. It's that middle piece that allows us to kind of create connections, friends, but also allow students to feel accomplished, when they're like winning [00:16:00] something or earning points for their House. And that whole system that we have at RCA is it creates an interesting dynamic, because of the way that we've taken Houses, and the way that we've taken relationships, and the way that we've taken the spirit of competition, but also the importance and understanding of character and how you treat others and making sure that those are valued just as much as getting an A in the classroom. I think that is what makes up a huge, different in our, a huge difference in our school.

[00:16:31] And what we found was, when we look at the typical student, their very first day at a new school, "What goes through their mind?" They're frustrated. Sometimes they're nervous. They're like, "Am I going to make new friends? Am I going to, am I going to like my teachers? Are people gonna like me?" Now you have that small group of people that, it don't matter where you put them, they're going to go into school and, you know, turn it around, you know, your extroverts, the people who are just on the scene in your face, but that isn't the majority.

[00:16:57] The majority is thinking about how are they going to [00:17:00] fit into this new space. And in our building, on the first day of school, our new students are brought up and they're called up one by one. So imagine this, you're a new student, you are on this platform in podium and you see all the Houses, all in their House sections.

[00:17:15] They have pom-poms, and signs, and everything else. Right. We have a Facebook live going on where our parents who are a huge portion, or a huge part of the magic that we create with our House System. They're watching live, and visiting educators from around the world are, "Oh, Ron, it's The Ron Clark Academy."

[00:17:32] We'll spin. Right. It's a sacred ceremony for us that we kind of allow people to see virtually. But in our building, that moment when it says, "Jayda Ladelle", and Jayda comes down. And Jayda goes walking. And as Jayda's walking the entire building is going crazy. "Jayda, we want you in our House. Jayda, please come, come spin red, spin blue, spin.".

[00:17:56] Everybody is literally like freaking out, including the teachers. The [00:18:00] teachers in the building are like sweating out here, dude. Then we're sweating out our shirts 'cause we're cheering, "No, tell you that we want you here." And Jayda goes up to, we have a wheel, that's how our students are sorted. They spin the wheel, and honestly it's it's probability.

[00:18:14] But for us, we tell the students it's their destiny. Because this destiny they're going to span and they're going to be a part of this House for a lifetime, not just the moments that they're going to be spending in the school. So they go and spin the wheel. They run all the way up the stairs. They slide down our slide, and when they come out, the students don't know what house they blended in, but the House that they blended in, it runs out, picks them up, tosses them up in the air. Then there's some time, there's confetti and everything else. And like everyone cheering and you know, it is a moment. And if there's like a Superbowl moment where like you're looking at, you just won the game, the confetti, the fireworks.

[00:18:50] That's how our kids kick off the very first day of school. And that's through the House System. So of course I love what we've been able to do kind of over the years, [00:19:00] because we began tweaking things and looking at different ways. It's been impacting our students and our parents, but also since we're a learning lab, for many educators around the world, we are like figuring things out. We're like, "Hey, this, this is something that needs to be replicated everywhere, everywhere else." Now there were schools, some schools who had some programs or who had House Systems, right, where they were saying, "Oh, you don't have a House System students assigned points." It was very kind of like, if I could describe it very just point space competition base and so forth.

[00:19:27] You have some students started bonding through that teamwork effort, but the intention was a little different, I would say. And that's not every school, some schools did have the intention of creating of some really great relationships. But I think what we did, there's a secret sauce that we kind of added to the formula that made it fun, that created relationships that broke many barriers in our school that allowed students to achieve great, like greatness and academics and feel motivated that allows students to feel seen and heard, and that they'd have their talents recognized, but that also allows students to actually improve [00:20:00] behavior in class.

[00:20:00] Students were now more wanting to be more alert in class, more want to contribute more to the lesson, or earn opportunities to earn points for their House because they are also creating, you know, they're also contributing and being recognized for those contributions. So we love that so much that we decided we were like, we should share this with the world.

[00:20:19] So we decided we were gonna share it with the world. So we have our four Houses, the House of Amistad, which is the red house of friendship. Amistad is the Spanish word that means friendship. They're like the protectors of the rail. They're there knights. They also represent the Royal Peacock. Like, it's literally, like, that's who the house of Amistad is. Then you have Reveur, that's the blue house, that's French for dreaming. So Reveur, they're the dreamers, they call themselves the Wolf pack. So all four houses have identities. We have the house Altruismo, which is, which is the black house of givers. And then we also have the house Isibindi, which is Zulu for courage. All of these houses right here.

[00:20:52] And if you notice the words are representing different places from the world, we have Amistad from Mexico. We have Altruismo from South [00:21:00] America. We have Reveur from Europe, than we have Isibindi from South Africa. Right. And we're looking at those names, Mr. Clark wanted representation of cultures from around the world associated with the house.

[00:21:12] And this recent, recently this past year, we actually unveiled four new houses that are actually kind of being spread across the world as well. So we're loving it. We have schools using our House System or our RCA inspired House System in Australia. We have them in Bermuda, Argentina, Chile, Northern Africa.

[00:21:32] We actually had, I remember it was a cool group of educators who were, came from Haiti and who translated the Reveur House into French and so forth. So if, if for us, it's just been magical watching this, this movement happen and more and more schools are rolling it out. We have a school district of entire school district that's for Katy ISD in Texas.

[00:21:54] They're rolling out Houses at their school, and people are reporting on the chain, the improvement they're seeing in [00:22:00] behavior, comradery, academic excellence and so forth. And there's just a lot of great things that are happening, so we're super excited. And what, while we saw this excitement kind of happening, we were like, people need ways of tracking points.

[00:22:11] Right. So our, our House System, our RCA House software is actually a very unique software that not only provides like licensing and different things for people who want to use our Houses, but very dynamic ways, cool animations, cool techniques and tricks that you can kind of use, and little Easter eggs you can unlock.

[00:22:30] That's really, it's a game changer, for our environment as a game changer for environments all around the world who are using our House System. So it's, when I look at the Houses, it's a package. You have, we do some PD professional development, allow you the opportunity to kind of see this in action.

[00:22:46] Then we look at that software itself that tracks the points where you can run reports and kind of see who's been contributing and where, and how teachers have even been contributing to points as well. How they've been assigning points and making sure there aren't any biases or anything there. [00:23:00] And then there's the House System itself.

[00:23:02] A home away from home for the kids. And collectively, when I tell you those things are it's, it's, it's changing education as we know it, and I'm loving what I'm seeing from it.

[00:23:12] Richard Simms: For sure. It's a really cool platform and I know for our team, you know, it's been so fun just working on something that has a lot of personality and, you know, it has these animations and Easter eggs, like you said, and, you know, we get to work on a lot of cool stuff, but most projects don't have, you know, dragon animations and, all kinds of stuff like that.

[00:23:33] So, it's been pretty awesome. So my next question, you know, anyone who's been in startup or tech world knows launching a new product is a huge undertaking, comes with its ups and downs. What have been the biggest challenges for you all with RCA House Points, app, you know, the biggest challenges you faced and how have you all overcome them? 

[00:23:56] Junior Bernadin: Whoa. Yeah, that's another really big question right there. [00:24:00] When we are first looking at this House Point system, and thinking like, you know, as a school, we're not a software company per se, but we have all these really innovative ideas. And we were like, "You know what? This is something that we need to do. This is something that we need to spit here and on our end. So of course when you're launching everything or anything, there, no matter how much research you do, no matter how much input that's strategies that you look at, there's always going to be some learning curves. And I think for us, we learned, you know, really to take things step-by-step. Because what we found was, when we were looking at our model House System and what we do, there were other things that kind of align with that same model.

[00:24:41] And when we were designing our software, we're designing our software specifically for the House System. But what we didn't recognize was there were like other PBIS systems that could have also benefited from our House System model and we've been able to marry the two ideas. So we found ourself, we built for a House System, which is really great, but then we started [00:25:00] having schools who might have a, a mandate of sorts, right, where all of their schools must use a PBIS system of sorts. And part of that PBIS system required them to do certain things or required certain features that we didn't necessarily include as part of our environment. So now we find ourselves kind of like now, "Oh, okay." Looking at this space and looking at this opportunity now, trying to customize that, customize our software to also meet some of the additional needs that these schools have.

[00:25:30] You know, when people talk about schools and what comes down from their state, like the restrictions and the requirements. Another thing we learned about with a lot of like legal issues, like when you start looking at service agreements, there were some service agreements where, you know, we looked at it and it literally was requiring RCA to take on all the liability if something were to happen.

[00:25:51] Now, of course, if you're talking about like a data breach or some type of issue that would come along, that with a vulnerability in the software so forth, of [00:26:00] course, you know, that's one of the areas that we can sit here and say, as an organization or at the company that, you know, this is something that would require us to take a look at and be accountable for.

[00:26:10] Right. But, on another note, if a teacher left a computer up or administrator was logged in on a kiosk or a system at the airport. It left it up and somebody was able to access student data. That shouldn't be something we're responsible for. But some of the contracts that I was seeing were actually really, they were really tight-knit and didn't leave.

[00:26:31] It seems like the, it seems like the software agreement was written for a different type of saw than what we were providing. Because we only use directory information anyways, but nonetheless, it still was something that was a he, was a huge deal because our legal team had to talk to other legal teams back and forth.

[00:26:47] And sometimes we couldn't get to come to an agreement because we were like, "Yeah, we can't accept liability for negligence or misuse of the app by your employees if you're not willing to put that in writing." So for us it was, you know, that [00:27:00] was some of the struggles that we ran into. Then of course funding.

[00:27:03] We're a nonprofit, we're a private school. We are already using all of our funds to subsidize scholarships for our students and so forth. And now we're taking on this app, and apps required development, and it required time, and when something goes wrong or something needs to be fixed, there's, you know, or an update happens, that's causing about functioning the app.

[00:27:23] Like, all these things have to be addressed. And trying to address those in the midst of a pandemic is also something that was like, "Oh my gosh". I remember we had to cut, you know, we're in a middle, we were almost like at the tail end of a major upgrade and we just had to stop. We just stopped development.

[00:27:39] And I was like, so I was freaking out, but of course it's because, you know, of course as the organization, we had to make sure that we were, you know, being fiscal responsible and prioritizing the things that were going to be considered most important for the survival of the organization. So COVID really threw a wrench in that sentence.

[00:27:57] You know, a lot of our proceeds come from, as [00:28:00] you get a majority of our proceeds come from educator training, we weren't allowed to really train a single educator in person, because of COVID they weren't allowed to travel, there were all these restrictions. So it's a lot of things that we've kind of learned.

[00:28:11] But I would say between those, those were probably the biggest lessons that we were learning during this time period. Now there was a bright light in the midst of all of that was, many schools was sharing how important the House System, and how important the House app were during the pandemic. And I think that's something that truly meant a lot to us because schools credit us for keeping their school together.

[00:28:34] And that meant the world to us. That meant the world of opportunity. And if, you know, we just loved where it was going prior to the pandemic, but now we also see the House System emerging from the pandemic. And it's like, it's a really huge movement. More and more people are signing up to do Houses, signing up for the app, and we're just kind of loving this watching it grow.

[00:28:58] Richard Simms: Yeah, that's, that's awesome. Of [00:29:00] course on our end, we've similarly enjoyed. Like, I do feel like there's a huge momentum behind it right now. Which is super exciting, and, one of the things you said, it's, it's kind of a good segue to one of my questions, which you touched on a little bit, but, you know, there's so many different facets of RCA. Right? You've got the school, you know, day-to-day running a school. As you mentioned, your professional development, trainings and conferences, ongoing fundraising efforts, you know, now, in the last few years you're supporting the technology platform. So what's it been like, yeah, trying to essentially do, do, you know, a technology startup within all these other, you know, big initiatives and just for you personally in your role, you know, you're straddling that direct responsibility to the students in the Dean of Students role, but also Director of IT?

[00:29:50] So I, you know, I assume there's no simple, easy answer, but it's, you know, how do you prioritize those things and kind of balance them with everything that's on your [00:30:00] plate? 

[00:30:01] Junior Bernadin: Well, I can tell you this, the world's most phenomenal team of educators, that I'm just so appreciative to have, I work with, you know, the visionaries of the school, Ron Clark and Kim Bearden, who really allow us to be flexible, with the way that we attack and approach problems and so forth. And, one of the things I've loved the most is actually to help me manage the entire school and to help me manage multiple sectors, like, not only do I have an assistant, Tyrel Cooper who was our technology specialist, but we have a junior engineers program where our students have the opportunity to kind of learn about the technology in the classroom. Learn about operating the technology in our school. And over the years it's grown to such a point that they pretty much manage a lot of the key things. Like, we will handle much more of the, what we consider the high ticket items. Right. The, the items that they could not solve, or they couldn't figure out what the problem is. But in the classroom, if a teacher is running into an issue, many of our students can get up and solve that issue.

[00:30:59] [00:31:00] If we are in the midst of having a musical, and you know, our lighting system is down or something like that, the kids know the steps of troubleshooting that, and again, that allows us, that kind of frees us up a lot more to deal with the things that are most important. But then we also have staff members who are also willing to kind of jump in and help in at a moment's notice.

[00:31:18] So when we were looking at the virtual adaptation of education, when we were, you know, going down to a virtual platform for our students, you know, we had some star educators like Dr. Jones, and Mr. Daniel Thompson, and like, what we were sitting there kind of working together in order to pretty much come up with a strategy and a plan.

[00:31:38] Like, of course I could have done that by myself, but that would have took me like forever. But they are the educators in the room and having different stakeholders and voices as a part of this conversation allowed us really to truly create a dynamic environment where people can feel supported. Now, in my role of Dean of Students, I'm also, you know, I work with various people.

[00:31:57] I work with our counselor, also work with the funders at the school in order [00:32:00] to truly create an environment where students can feel seen, can feel heard and can feel supported. And that's a lot of work, because students might, they may call, they may send an email or they might come to my office. "Mr. Bern, I need to talk to you." And ultimately students will always be our number one priority and our focus because that is why we are in the building. You know, the students, without the students, we can't have a school, without a school we can't train educators. So ultimately we want to make sure that our students are the major priority, and we encourage our teachers and our staff also to have a backup plan because you know, technology will be technology at times.

[00:32:33] There'll be some moments where I can't run in and assist you with this problem. And at RCA we all wear a million hats. So there've been times during the educator training experience, I'm on stage, literally like presenting either about the House System or about our basic shape. I'm on stage presenting and I see somebody kind of standing by the doorway, looking at me and I'm like, "Okay, start presenting."

[00:32:56] And after I'm done presenting my part, I turn it on over to Mr. Kurt Brown. [00:33:00] Who's our Director of Development who's going to speak on the next portion. And, maybe I know Mr. Brown's workshop is probably about 10 minutes. I mean, his part, his portion of his presentation is about 10 minutes long. So I will leave the stage. I will gone, run all the way down the hallway. Go, help us with this issue, come back, grabbing something to drink, wipe my face comes sweating now and wipe my face and present. And then by the time Mr. Brown is done, and I come back out, but no one even knew what happened. So literally we're just that I would say we are all just superheroes here.

[00:33:29] Everybody goes above and beyond in our school to create magical moments for our kids, to support the building, support what we do, support, support educators around the world. And I mean, we have a superstar squad, man. They're, there, they're a dope squad of people. Like, I think they probably the dopest squad of people I've ever worked with in my life, to be honest with you, 'cause EV it's like iron sharpening iron, and everybody is involved. So we take turns helping out each other, we take turns trying to find ways to [00:34:00] support the programming of the school. And everybody's pretty observant. You know, our project manager, Hutch Jones, like he, he may actually sit here and look and say, "Hey Junior, yeah, I kind of noticed that the students are typically doing this in the morning. So maybe we should, we can create a new policy that will help to remove this, this overhead or this bottleneck that's happening here. Create a smoother system." And so we're constantly working for maximum efficiency in our building.

[00:34:27] And we love that everybody kind of walks on, especially like our more technical logistical minded people, like we'll come together and put together a plan. And we can actually do it pretty quickly just because of the way that we think and how many different, you know, nuts and bolts in between things that we're looking at to kind of create, what life looks like.

[00:34:44] And a prime example of that is actually our team that actually helped to put together are coming back to school plan. You know, after the, like we talked about the pandemic, but now it's like, oh, we're coming back in person. What does that look like? What does that look like in regards of technology? What does that look like [00:35:00] in regards to social distancing, spacing?

[00:35:01] What does that look like in regards of classroom and so forth? So we literally transform our entire building to be socially distance. We transform our gymnasium, that, to support a room that could have a 153 kids, all socially distance in there so that they can eat lunch whilst also being separated.

[00:35:17] But we also want to find ways of making it fun. So we allow them to go outdoors because at the time they were suggesting, you know, a lot of outdoors activities. So students had breaks outdoors and different shifts where they also feel like they were, you know, throughout the day getting breaks from the mask, you know, from having the mask mandate, and having a mask on all day.

[00:35:34] Some teachers had little plexiglass screens that were see-through. So again, it would block off, but you know, almost serve like a face shield, but it was blocked off, but students can see their teacher and hear their mouth and hear the different things that are happening. I can tell you that we had an awesome, awesome sponsor audio enhancement, and they have quite a few products and one of their products is the classroom microphone, the system that also integrates with the camera system called VIEWpath.[00:36:00] 

[00:36:00] Right. So literally our teachers were able to not only present in the classroom, but then also have a camera that's capturing them and also present that virtually at the same time with the audio, from the microphone, filling up the classroom, but also being transfer to the Zoom classroom at the same time.

[00:36:19] So when we talked about creating a truly collective experience, where we call it mission control, which was our, our students were virtual. That was their cool named mission control, where they can still participate in the all school activities. They weren't just a siloed group of students who were, were virtual.

[00:36:37] Like, no, no, no, no. We had a hybrid model where teachers didn't have to teach an additional class session, but what they could do is teach it hybrid without it causing a huge strain on what it is that they needed to do. And we had the most loving students ever, who would monitor a Zoom and say, "Oh, such and such has a question", just in case the cloud, the class might've [00:37:00] been a little too loud and couldn't hear, you know, couldn't hear them, made sure the students had a voice as well. So, we put together a plan, that where we came together and it was about three or four of us. Actually, no, sorry, it was six of us that came together and we had it running like clockwork. When I say clockwork, we had no breakouts in our building.

[00:37:18] Literally everything, you know, anytime we had a situation where something was of concern, we had a medical team we work with called Ascend Medical, and they came in and we did testing every Monday, 

[00:37:29] Richard Simms: Oh, 

[00:37:29] Junior Bernadin: every Monday we had a system, we had a numbering system for carpools and pickups. And so we, we had it under control.

[00:37:36] It was a lot of work. I will say that, but it was so effective. And what that showed us was, "Wow." We created a way for our students to be safe in school, but also attend school and enjoy it. And then we started rolling into opportunities for visiting educators and different ways that we can kind of include them in the equation.

[00:37:58] Because again, we also had to get some [00:38:00] additional funding coming back into the school after not being able to train educators for almost a year. So it was, it was, it was tough for us. It was tough. I will say that it was tough. But I will say it was something that showed us like, "Wow, we have some real magic makers in our building to help make this possible for our students to feel like they can come to school, be safe, still have fun, us still train educators and create magic." And, you know, it's, for us, it was a godson.

[00:38:28] Richard Simms: For sure. Yeah, it's awesome. And I think you all have been firing on all cylinders, always, but especially through COVID. And I definitely admire like how everyone's kind of come together to not just make it work to kind of survive, but make it really vibrant and, you know, still really dynamic and engaging for the students and stuff.

[00:38:50] So, a couple more questions for you. With the, House Points app specifically, you know, you all are still relatively early in the [00:39:00] journey because I think it was launched, you know, a couple years ago at this point. So what does success look like you know, for the product longer term, like a year from now, five years from now, where do you all want to take that? 

[00:39:15] Junior Bernadin: It's funny. When we first opened up our house system to like officially to the public, like schools were kind of using it unofficially. But when we first opened it up officially to the public, I said to Ron, I said, "Five years from now you won't be able to recognize it." Right. And you know, he kind of looked at me, laughed about it and we joked.

[00:39:35] And when I tell you

[00:39:41] short term, is that every school in the US will have a place that students can call home. That's what success looks like. Right. In regards to the app, all of those schools [00:40:00] will also have an app that says RCA House points on it, that they can use to literally support that environment to support that mission.

[00:40:10] I believe, you know, long-term, the RCA House System is about to transform a lot of places in the world. It will create light in a lot of dark places. It will inspire educators to do a little more and recognize their importance in this mission. But most importantly, it will have long distance created families that students will begin to kind of see, like, "We hear stories." Right.

[00:40:36] Like, Mr. Clark, he was somewhere one day, and he's walking around, I forget what state he was in. He was walking around, I think to go get some food and he looks up and there's a kid with a reverse shirt on. So of course he's freaking out. He's like, "Oh my gosh, you have on a Reveur shirt", like, "Yeah, we are growing. "And now you're finding your extended. Not only do you create a sense of belonging in your school, but now you'll [00:41:00] have the opportunity to be connected worldwide and look at a worldwide like communities and so forth. So, when I look at long-term success, it's, that's what it is. Connections, a network of people that can all help to support one another because they were all, they all had something in common.

[00:41:17] Richard Simms: For sure. Yeah. I love it. It's a great mission. And it's it's well underway, I know. So last question I had for you. You know, for someone who is in the early stages of pursuing a new digital product or thinking about launching something or doing a startup, you know, what advice would you give them, given your experience so far with this new platform? 

[00:41:40] Junior Bernadin: I would say, well, you know, when you look at launching anything new, there tends to be a, you almost kind of go through a checklist of things, right. To check, to see if you're ready. Right. I would say that checklist is probably 60% of the battle because there'll be so many other things that you probably, we didn't have the opportunity to think [00:42:00] about.

[00:42:00] Even if you have a very dynamic team there are some things that will come up and some opportunities that you will see. But what I would probably say most important is, take the chance. Take the chance, like, you will spend a lot of time thinking and deliberating and wondering if this is a good idea and so forth, like no, it will tell you whether it's a good idea or not, you will find out.

[00:42:21] But hopefully it is a good idea, but Mr. Clark kind of told us, one of the things he had said when we were getting ready to launch, launched, it is, he said, "Junior, just sometimes you have to jump, you have to jump." He said, "If you don't take the jump, you never going to know. So, take the jump." And so that's about what my advice for people would be like, do your research, take your time to do your research and thing, but the moment where you're contemplating, like, "Am I ready? Am I ready to do this? Is this the right timing and so forth?" Just take the job, because the last thing you need is, is to be your own obstacle, because you mentally are not prepared for the magic that could actually happen. So, that would be my [00:43:00] suggestion. That would be my biggest suggestion for Well, anyone, because we can easily talk ourselves out of, out of decisions.

[00:43:08] Richard Simms: Right. I love it. It's so true. I mean, you know, there is never a perfect time. You're never 100% ready for anything. And as, as you know, and have alluded to it's, you know, there's things you can't predict, there's unknowns, you know, the only way you start to get into it as, yeah, by jumping in and learning as you go.

[00:43:28] So yeah.

[00:43:28] That's, that's great advice. So it looks like we're about out of time. I really appreciate you coming on Junior. This was great. Before we sign off, where can listeners go to connect with you and learn more about RCA and, The House Points app as well? 

[00:43:41] Junior Bernadin: All right. Awesome. Awesome. Well, anybody who looking to connect with me, I can be reached at my website, which is www.juniorbernadin.com. If you're looking at and interested in connecting with the school, our website is www.ronclarkacademy.com [00:44:00] and we have multiple social media platforms.

[00:44:02] So on Instagram, you can find me I'm Mr J Bernadin. And of course, RCA is RonClarkAcademy.com as well. And anybody who's interested in the House System specifically, if you go on our website or if you go to www.rcahousesystem.com, you'll find a ton of information and then find our guide books, resources assets and different things that, you know, you may know of a school in your local area that might be needing this opportunity.

[00:44:31] So feel free to share it because parents can also share these opportunities with schools or parents can share them in schools. And I just think it would be a great way, again, to help us spread the word, spread the magic, because it is a game changer and it's a place where students are not just a part of a House, they're part of a culture.

[00:44:49] Richard Simms: For sure. well thank you so much Junior. It's been really great having you on, and, you know, looking forward to getting this, this episode live. I'm sure that listeners will enjoy, [00:45:00] hearing all your good insights. So thank you again for coming on the Digital Footprint. 

[00:45:04] Junior Bernadin: All right. So appreciate you Richard. And thank you for supporting us in our mission and Tyrannosaurus Tech's impact with us being able to have the House System up and running and helping us to create new features to again, touch the lives of, touch the lives of not only just our educators, but just everyone.

[00:45:20] Richard Simms: Of course, we love it. All right, thanks again, Junior. Appreciate it. 

[00:45:23] Junior Bernadin: All right. Thank you, Richard.