Public Education as a Site of Community Transformation with Kate Noble

Have you ever wanted to make a change in your community and not known where to start? Do you have children? Have you ever cared about traffic or where alcohol can be sold or food insecurity or mental health or flu vaccinations or access to books? Your community public schools are the place where you can have an impact on every one of those issues and so much more. In this episode, I spoke with Kate Noble, President of the Santa Fe Public School Board and CEO of Growing up New Mexico about public Schools as the foundation for community wellness. Kate is brilliant and funny and deeply passionate about public education. 

Kate Noble was born in Santa Fe and got a wonderful education in the Santa Fe Public Schools. She graduated from Santa Fe High School and attended Columbia University in New York City, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies. Kate spent 10 years at the BBC’s Business News Desk as a producer, reporter and anchor. She then returned to Santa Fe and began working for the City of Santa Fe in economic and community development, where she focused on growing local businesses and local talent. She joined Growing Up New Mexico, an early childhood community organization, in 2018, and became CEO in 2023. She is proud to have her son in the Santa Fe Public Schools and considers him her greatest teacher.

Kate has spent the last eight and a half years serving on the SFPS Board. She believes in the power of running a good meeting, and values the different viewpoints of fellow Board Members. She is proud of the progress made during her time on the Board including increases in graduation rates, and raises for staff. 

Both/And is a project of the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs.     www.nmcsap.org  
Need support? Call, text, or chat the NM Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-844-NMSAHLP | 1-844-667-2457 | www.nmsahelp.org

Intro music: "Can't Get Enough Sunlight" written and recorded by Michelle Chamuel http://michellechamuel.com/
Logo: Alex Ross-Reed
Produced by: Jess Clark
Edited By: Dacia Clay at Pillow Fort Studios
https://www.pillowfortpodcasts.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Both End, a sexual violence prevention podcast. I'm Jess Clark, Director of Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, and your host. Have you ever wanted to make a change in your community and not know where to start? Do you have children? Have you ever cared about traffic or where alcohol can be sold or food insecurity or mental health or flu vaccines or access to books? Your community public schools are the place where you can have an impact on every single one of those issues and so much more. In this episode, I spoke with Kate Noble, president of Benefit Public School Board and CEO of Growing Up New Mexico about public schools as the foundation of community wellness. Kate is brilliant and funny and deeply passionate about public education. I hope you enjoy. Kate Noble, thank you so much for coming on both hands. I have had the pleasure of working uh in your vicinity and periphery for some years because I spent over a decade working in Santa Fe public schools doing sexual violence prevention through my organization Solist. And one of the things I've been so impressed with the public schools around is that in Santa Fe, you all just do the thing. Sometimes you spend a lot of time talking about doing the thing, but more often than not, you just do the thing. You see a thing that needs to be done and it gets done. And that's been the case for sexual violence prevention, for protecting trans students, so many things that we'll talk about in our conversation. But I've been able to see you as a leader in that space and in Santa Fe more generally, saying, hey, there's something that needs to be done, we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it thoughtfully, we're gonna do it intentionally, but we're gonna get it done. So I was really excited to bring you on the show to talk about getting things done, getting things done in community, getting things done uh with intention, getting things done while bringing people closer instead of pushing away while also still having a really a true north. So thank you for coming on, Kate.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Very happy to be here. And thank you for that kind intro. I feel like you're a real leader in this. So um, it means a lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

On a good day. So, Kate, I always start with this question because I think it's helpful for us to be able to remember where we come from and how we got to this moment. So, what is your origin story? How did you come to this work?

SPEAKER_02 2:36

It's a great question. I do think, and uh at one point had a wonderful therapist who was talking about how we are shaped by our relationships, previous relationships, particularly. This was about romantic relationships, and and I thought that was very profound. But of course, it's true for all of our life events and life stories that shape who we are. I was born and raised in Santa Fe and and went through the public schools and had really quite a wonderful time uh at EJ Martinez and and Capshaw and Santa Fe High. And and then went away to New York City because I really, I don't know, just have a big city person inside me that that needed to stretch her, stretch her legs.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

You did the reverse newsies.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yes, right. So I I went to New York, I got into Columbia University. I only applied to one college. I applied early and I got in, and hallelujah. I was I was real clear. Some there was a moment my mom and I did a college trip that it became very clear where I wanted to go. And I studied film and then I took a documentary class and decided I was interested in true stories and did a bunch of internships and ended up at BBC World News, doing business news, because in a way it was the most entrepreneurial, challenging, innovative environment I found. Um, I interned there for two years in college and then was hired. And I worked there for 10 years, from about age 21 to 31. We did a daily news program, told a lot of stories about small businesses, also about macroeconomics. We went to the IMF and World Bank. And then honestly, I got to 31, 10 years after college, and a lot of things started pulling me home. It was like gravity. Um, there was some family stuff. My grandmother passed away. My mother's an only child. There was, I think, some biological clock stuff. I was like, what is having kids in New York City like? I did meet the man who's now my husband. That probably didn't hurt. But ultimately I came home with the idea that I would take what I'd learned at the BBC in business and economics, which was a significant education over those 10 years, and apply it in my hometown in economic development. And that at that point was just words for me. I was sort of casting about for, you know, let's develop the economy. Maybe that means a more diverse economy, different types of jobs, more vibrancy, more, you know, I knew a lot about what healthy economies look like. And then I got a job at the city of Santa Fe in economic development, and I discovered that the idea was mostly to do industrial recruitment, to bring big companies in in economic development in New Mexico. Intel comes to Rio Rancho and makes chips. And then we hit the Great Recession. And fortunately or unfortunately for my career, I got to engage a bunch in entrepreneurial development, in the local economic ecosystem. And long story short, I guess that was the next 10 years of my life, but I found myself thinking the great input into all of this is public education. And public education is, you know, a multi-generational economic development support because of course we it takes care of kids so that adults can work and kids get socialized, they learn things, they figure out their place in the world and gain skills and curiosity. So I um I ran for the school board, I ran for mayor, I ended up after all of that and and sort of become finding a passion for government in early childhood, which I consider one of the best areas because of the science of how important those first five years are. But also because it's been so unsupported and unshaped, it feels very meaningful to bring support to what's been the unorganized end of education. So now I work in early childhood and I'm on the school board, uh, just starting. Well, I will start in in the new year, my third term, having been on almost nine years. And the way the two things work together feels like I'm at a very wonderful place for me that all of the economics and government nerdiness and communications and leadership and macro thinking and and micro storytelling weave together in my life now, which is, you know, both to work in early childhood for growing up New Mexico and be on the Santa Fe Public School Board.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

I love that. And your desire to come back to Santa Fe and and build here, I think is echoed in so many people in my generation and a little bit older that many folks went away and then have been pulled back here with this really clear understanding that this is where we want to build, this is where we want to raise our families, this is where we want to put all of our energy. I love that. And when you talk about your time at the city in economic development, I need folks to understand that you made economic development fun. Those mixed uh gatherings, those mixed parties were like the peak of social scene in Santa Fe that were a project of the city. And that's not something that typically happens.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

No, it I mean, it's amazing. Mix Santa Fe, while a very serious economic development project designed at retaining young people in this community, we did a lot of very deep thinking and came up with four things that people stay for. But it was like people stay or would stay in Santa Fe for a few reasons. One was a job, one was a relationship, a romantic relationship, a partner, uh, one was family, one was a friend group. And we figured, you know, we can't really influence the family part, but we can help people find dates, we can help people find jobs, um, and we can help people find friends. So we got a lot of sponsorships because of the engagement. So we gathered a lot of data about what young people were into. And it really was an entrepreneurial development sort of petri dish where we had people testing products. You know, do you here's these gluten-free cupcakes, which ones is your favorite? And this sort of thing, you know, at a very sort of micro business scale, we did it at a different place every time to light up spaces, new things, cool things being done, introduce the community to itself. We had a lot of interactive things. You know, I remember stickers, we did it a couple of times where we had people who were hiring. We said, you know, if you're hiring, put on a sticker that you're hiring, or if you're looking for a job, put on a sticker that you're looking for a job. And half of what I learned, I feel in life, I learned from Mix because it was also a very collective exercise and how we move together. And then ultimately there was a team that gelled better than anybody expected. And that was the magic of mix, of course, for me. Behind the scenes was just my partners in it and the other people behind it. And when you when you click with people, when a team, a great group, if you will, really gets going. You know, we were scrappy, we were having fun, um, we really liked each other, we respected each other, we communicated well, we drank a lot.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

It was a time.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

It was a time.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

That energy that you all brought to mix was so important. I and I think just as important was the idea that your default orientation was towards seeing the best in a community, seeing the best in Santa Fe and believing that Santa Fe was wonderful. And Santa Fe is wonderful and can do incredible things, and that there are wonderful people that we need to keep here. And I think so many people move into public service, whether that's working for government or running for office with a whole lot of ideas about everything that is wrong. And I have I have the one thing that can fix this. Here's my laundry list of everything that I dislike about this community. And one of the things I've appreciated about you and seeing you through your career is you seem to do quite the opposite, which is what are the incredible things that are happening in our community? How can we highlight them? And how can we figure out where we are missing a beat, where we are not engaging in the ways that we should, and how can we use the strengths that we already have to fill those gaps? And I really loved that. So I want to talk about that energy and how that has manifested for you in the school board. So school boards, I feel like people didn't used to think about them much, if at all. And that has shifted in recent years. So in the last few years, the role of school boards as kind of forums for public discourse, it seems to have increased and even intensified. What do you think is behind that? Why are we here?

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Well, first of all, I want to say thank you. I feel I feel so seen. You just articulated something about me that I think is true, but it hadn't crystallized in that way. And that that was really, really lovely. And and I work really hard, even with the grumpy voices in my head, to be strength-based and um lift things up. But I really, really appreciate what you just said. And to your question about the school board, you know, it's interesting. When I first ran in 2017, my husband said to me, You need to do this. The religious right has focused on school boards, and that's been an important way that they've built power. And, you know, liberal thinkers haven't done the same thing. And you need to get in there and do that. And we need to pay attention to the sort of uh ground, the soil that schools are and that leadership exercise. So, you know, my husband really had a had a perspective that people have engaged in school boards, but that maybe the more left side of the spectrum had neglected that. And that was part of his encouragement to me to run. You know, and Santa Fe is a liberal community, and we've been very fortunate to stay off the front lines of a lot of the culture wars that have emerged nationally in schools, knock on wood. But I do think that, you know, foundationally people get it in their head, and then it's a momentum thing that sort of spreads because people share ideas and communicate. Uh and it's sort of the reason I ran. It's like this is the foundational thing. We're shaping children. This is actually an immensely powerful place to be. Because I ran for the school board and I won unopposed in 2017. And then I tried running for mayor when the mayor of Santa Fe, you know, rather surprisingly said he wasn't going to go for a second term and all these things. And that was in 2018, about a year later. And a lot of people said it's too soon for you, and and you need to wait and sort of cut your teeth at a lower level, like the school board. And here's my perspective now on that. Schools actually control the community. I mean, I know that's how it's seen, and that the mayor is a higher sort of office, but you know, it determines whether people can go to work. It determines traffic patterns. It's hugely important around land use and where businesses can open. You know, we don't have liquor stores or even or um cannabis stores near schools now. We have different ways that things work in terms of crossing and patterns and all the basics for cities. It's you know, key to recreation programs and parks and how they're used, just transportation, everything. I'm like, wow, no, turns out, and and I think I had a sense of that even very early on. It's like this is this is foundational stuff. A lot of people have kids, and there are a lot of kids. And if you work on this system, it's a way to make actually a very large-scale difference because it is so wide-reaching. And even people who don't have kids or grandkids in the system, I promise you, they're in that morning traffic if they're going to work, or they've got people at their job who don't come in when schools are out for the day. Everyone is impacted by schools. And I really, I really started thinking that, you know, also in the 2017 election when Donald Trump first won against Hillary Clinton. As a trained journalist, I'd seen on social media a huge amount of misinformation and people not knowing how to vet uh facts and fiction and sources and understand what's refutable and what's not, and what's scientific and what's not. And I found myself thinking, we got to start with the kids. They've got to be media literate, they've got to, you know, understand science, they've got to be able to read and think critically. And without that, it's like, you know, building a foundation on sand when the tide is coming in, like, or try to build a structure on sand when the tide's coming in. Like you've got no foundation and it'll just erode. So I guess some of that came to me very powerfully, frankly, on the morning after that election. And I realized how much I've been thinking about, even through economic development at the city, which had become community development and included things like housing and transportation planning and land use. And I found myself thinking, it's all about the humans. And it's it's nothing happens, you know, we don't build roads accidentally, we build them because humans get together and do a thing. We don't have houses accidentally, we get together because we we build houses because humans get together and do a thing. And so my whole sort of theory and thinking has really followed how do we cultivate the best humans we can and give humans tools and togetherness, you know, cultivate that togetherness and and collectivism that I believe in so strongly, and and respect for the humanity and the struggles and the the victories and celebrations of that humanity, and and schools are just so big in that. And we learn so much from schools as children, of course, as social beings, but then as parents, right? I mean, I feel like I don't know what I would have done without my community to help me raise my child. I mean, becoming a parent is such a humbling experience when you realize that you can't do it alone. You just really can't. Um, and again, schools is sort of all of that on steroids, especially when you get up to larger public education systems.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

And especially in that schools are are moving in to to navigate so many areas of children's lives. It is not just have you learned your math and your science and can you read at grade level? It is, do you have food? Do you have what you need to get through the day? Are you being taken care of? Is your mental health being tended to all of those pieces that schools have become such a centerpiece of our lives? And so it makes sense that there is increased engagement around them in ways that maybe there hasn't been before, or maybe that engagement was there, but folks just weren't paying attention in the same way.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

I think it ebbs and flows with society and and social things and you know what you say. I mean, schools have become that, and honestly, they should be.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

They should be, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

It's the right place for it, and that's why we need more resources in our schools because it's a system we've actually built it pretty well, and people have bought into it. They feel safe, they feel good to feed kids, they feel good to address mental wellness. There are relationships with adults where there's really important connections that that save kids that are having a tough time in a tough time, that save adults who need, you know, heart and inspiration. I mean, it it is the beauty of our collectivism. And on some level, I do feel like people wake up to that every so often, like, wow, this is our sort of ground for what we do together. You know, as much as we might build roads or buildings, children are precious and we take care of them and support their development together. And we have an amazing institution to do that that is public education.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Also, I just want to note that I asked that question as a there's this big thing happening that is really hard. And you entirely talked about how many incredible opportunities there are in that. Um, which is again, so case in point. How have you navigated those moments when it has been more contentious, when something has come before you at the school board and and there's been a lot of public outcry or engagement in really positive ways? What's that been like for you and how you have you moved through it?

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Oh boy. Well, I feel like there's, you know, I saw you speak at a panel not too long ago where there was a question about, you know, how contentious you get when you're pushing as an advocate for for someone, you know, how much fight and you and your co-panelists very much came down on the side of giving great grace um and humanity to it rather than punching people in the face for being wrong. And and I feel like in on my best days, that's how I I navigate controversy and and those difficult moments. You know, there's a very human thing that anyone in in a position or situation like this has experienced where it's very hard in the moment. You have a visceral and emotional response when someone is yelling things. Hateful things sometimes at you. And you know, you go to a place. I go to a place where I'm just like, breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. You and I tell myself sometimes you don't have to react. You don't have to do anything. Just be in your body. Just listen to what they're saying. Try and be intuitive about what's behind it. You know, I sometimes really try and go into a Zen place that's like, don't be defensive, don't be blocking, don't even energetically, don't be angry, don't respond. Just absorb and intuit what's happening. And sometimes I'm like, you know, oh gosh, I'm sorry. This feels like this is your childhood trauma on display. Or it's and I can get into a more compassionate place. Sometimes I get angry too, you know, and I just, and that's when I just tell myself, just be quiet, just be quiet, just be quiet. And the more I've done it, the better I am at that. You know, I used to, I used to have more fight in me. And it's interesting how you get older and just just want to sort of roll with the waves. And it's interesting because I've struggled, you know, that's that's how you get through the moment. And I feel very fortunate that my convictions, you know, I've never felt myself need to change the what I'm going to do. I try and stay open to it, but I haven't felt the need, like my convictions are are pretty clear from the beginning on things. And even though, you know, there was one time I felt really spun around by a long public hearing where there was a lot of people saying sometimes unkind things, often things I disagreed with, um, and sometimes things that I really that really could land with me, that I could really hear and understand a different perspective that I appreciated was the whole spectrum. But there was a recommendation from a considered committee that had been made to the school board. And I knew from the beginning, because I sort of believe in fundamentally in government, not always, but I believe in the work done at committees and the people that have collectively dug in together and done well-intentioned work, gets it right most of the time. And I I felt that on this one. And so even though I felt completely spun around in the end, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna vote to uphold the committee's recommendation. And I'm gonna go away and process a bunch of what this brought. And it's interesting because, you know, that being an issue that's come up a few times controversially at the school board, the last time, and I've I've felt like things are right and we need to do certain things, and I ended up voting in a minority and not having what I wanted to have happen happen. And I actually found myself thinking, I don't know that even if I'd won the vote, that it was worth all of the ugliness that it threw out. And so for the first time, I'm I'm still grappling with this very profound shift in myself that is like, what is the greater harm? Because there was so much harm. I saw one parent yelling at me, spitting, red faced, anger, hate, all these things. And I was like, this is gonna happen in some form, maybe not as powerfully, but at the dinner table tonight with the child who is going to learn that anger and that hate and and want to defend the parent and want to, you know, there's just this human stuff, and I just thought, how do we break generational cycles of having the same argument and anger again? And maybe it's not, to bring it up for a controversial vote, which I had fully supported because I was like, we gotta do the right thing. And then I saw what doing the right thing was going to mean at dinner tables throughout our community, and I found myself thinking, I don't know that that that is right. And maybe we can't change culture, but on some level, you know, sometimes when you bring something up, the pushback can end up digging it in and making it harder to change.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yes. Yeah. It's an interesting thing, and all of that ends up being, you know, you gotta you gotta choose in a particular circumstance because sometimes you do still have to fight. There is no question about it. And I don't know if we're moving into more of a time when we we need a little more fight in us and a little less acquiescence. I happen to think that's right. But it's an interesting thing, I guess maybe that just is the definition of maturing as you start to be like, maybe I wasn't as right as my teenage self thought I was.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

May we all believe that at some point in our lives. Speaking of teenage selves, you and I have talked about this before, but I I think it's it's helpful in this context. Is I asked at the beginning this increasing shift towards public schools and school boards and school board meetings as a site of public discourse. And now as you're talking, I'm thinking back to actually a public school board meeting was my first site of any kind of public engagement when I was in high school, well, middle school and high school. And first it was showing up because teachers wanted raises and it was a whole big thing. There was an almost walk, there was a big thing going on, and I thought it was important that my teachers got raises. So I showed up at the school board, school board meeting and spoke very passionately. Uh, I believe at one point someone had been saying, we just need five more years, and it and I pounded on the podium and said, I don't have five more years because I was 13 and that's which correct. Then the second one was a program that was actually put on by what was then called Santa Fe Rape Crisis Center called CLIF. And it was gay lesbian youth preventing homophobia, because we didn't talk about trans people there then. But at the time, it was a radical program uh that was trying to prevent homophobia through a curriculum that was in the public schools. And this was in the late 90s, which so cool. It's so cool that this was present in the late 90s. And the program was going really well. It had been going well for a while. It was taught by adults and with youth uh leaders, doing some peer mentorship. It was great. And suddenly Focus on the Family got their eye on it, and they came down from Colorado to our school board meetings and started coming to every single school board meeting, such that every school board meeting for almost nine months became about Project Cliff. Nearly every letter to the editor during that time in our local paper was about Project Glyph. Places like United Way, folks started boycotting because they were funding it. Churches and uh synagogues were being vandalized because they were in support of this program. And it was such a huge community outcry, actually in support of it in many ways, that helped me move into public life in a way that I hadn't considered before. And I remember showing up at those school board meetings. I was there almost every every school board meeting for most of that nine months. I got really familiar with that room. And seeing the hate, seeing the the terrible things that adults felt it was appropriate to say in front of uh children about uh queer and trans people was it really impacted me. So speaking about the what happens at the dinner table later that night, you know, that wasn't even my family member. And that deeply impacted me. And it was my first understanding that who I was in the world was deeply hated by a lot of people. And on the flip side of that, there were so many folks showing up and saying, no, this is what we need to do to protect not just the queer and trans people, children, and we weren't using those terms then, um, but uh because this is what we do for students. We make sure all students are safe in our schools, period. And that time helped me understand that my my voice really mattered. And I'm thinking now about public schools and school board, school board specifically as a site of engagement and as a as a place for young people to start to learn that they have agency, that they have a say in what their education looks like. And I don't know if it was because there were teachers and adults in my world who said, no, of course you should go speak at a school board meeting. Um, or if it was just built into the culture. I'm not sure which one it was, but it it definitely created a foundation for me that has carried me through the rest of my life and is probably a good bit of why I do this work today. My entrance back into the world of sexual assault prevention was through the same program that uh I went to speak out in support of when I was a teenager. When I first started at that agency at Solus, they there was a scrapbook and it had all of the letters to the editor during that time. And one of them was from me, which was such a wonderful full circle moment to to come to is talk about true north. It's like you were in the right place doing the right thing, Jess. And you were you were directed in the in in you were pointed in this direction from a very young age.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Backfire effect, you said.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

Um there's a beautiful version of that, right? And and maybe that hate and and all of that ickiness that that came into this community from Colorado and focus on the family had this positive outcome of you being engaged and doing this work for closer to a lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Yeah, I mean, it's the piece where it makes people dig in further, and it sure did make me dig in further. Very much so. I'm doing this work. So I know how meaningful that engagement was for me. How can communities in in general become more engaged in public schools? And what do you think that would do for our communities?

SPEAKER_02 32:55

I truly believe that it's good for us to engage, that that one of those foundational ways we save the world things is more engagement in specific ways around productive things that we're doing together. So, how are we dealing with the mental wellness crisis in our youth? Everybody's seeing it. Kids are and staff are having a tough time. Like, how do we deal with that? How do we plant a garden in the spring? I mean, it can be really simple, you know, again, from big mental wellness to the sort of simple smallness, for lack of a better word, of planting a garden. And if we do things together and engage, we'll know each other as humans, not as sort of silhouettes that are just ideas. And I think that's really important. What I think a lot about, you know, is is the format. And we've done these things a certain way for a long time, and you engaged with that, and you've seen that, and it's designed to protect and you know, balance some discourse. So we have public forum with three minutes to speak at the microphone, and um, we don't interrupt people. We do have ground rules that say speak with respect and try to find answers on common ground. And sometimes people listen to them and sometimes they don't, and we barely know how to how to manage it if they don't. You know, we have the power of the microphone, you have the power of the gavel of a recess. We've never used it. I think we should have once or twice to just sort of um calm the room down, turn turn the temperature down. But I would love the engagement and I spend a lot of time thinking, how do we do this better? You know, I think we need we know we need to go where kids are. It took a lot of strength for you as a kid to go in there, to sit there, to stand up and make comments sometimes in a really adult-centric world. I'd love to make it easier and lower the barriers by going to where kids are and listening to them, by going to where staff are, teachers, cafeteria workers, custodians, bus drivers. We have a lot of people that take care of kids that that we need to hear from because it's a whole it needs to be a whole systems approach. But the engagement, you know, our kids know everything. And now that I have a teenager, I find his wisdom extraordinary. And I'm like, oh my God, we really should be listening to them. So, you know, that's something I actually want. So I'm gonna write it down. I want to work on my third term, which is sort of better mechanisms for engagement, because I think that could matter and make it easier for more people and hopefully inspire more people to get involved and work for the collective good in the way that civics and advocacy need. But, you know, we do we do have the ability, even the power of an email. Like you don't have to come into our strangely beige room and stand in an awkward way at a microphone that you know clicks on and off and and and you know, just it's the most deeply awkward sort of scenario. We don't have to have it that way, and and I appreciate, you know, when folks do, but I'd love to see it be different and the power of an email, which is fairly easy, and and you know, we get nasty anonymous emails, but most people write under their own name and they can be a little bit nasty. I used to have a rule that if I responded three times, somebody would diffuse entirely. And so, you know, it's one of those things that I guess I that's maybe the first level to let people know. Just write us an email. You can write the school board, you can write the superintendent, and a clear, articulate email about what's going on, what needs to be fixed, what you'd like to see, how you want things to be better, uh, goes a long way. It's still important that we maintain what we have, but I'm I'm pretty sure we can do better.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

And I think on the community front, it's important to remember that even if you don't have kids in public schools, the public schools are still, as you were saying in the beginning, such uh such a foundation for the health of the rest of the city.

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Completely. I mean, I really do see it as as it's like this this is the primary input if if you had to pick one. Schools are the primary input into the functionality of this city and any other.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Much of my job is spent supporting sexual violence prevention programs across the state who are going into schools and bringing comprehensive sexual health education or uh just straight-up sexual violence prevention programming from pre-K, 12th grade, college beyond. And the way that they interact with schools is very different across the state, depending on the community that they're in. I was really lucky in Santa Fe for all of those years that we were not only invited into the schools, but we were built into the curriculum, that truly comprehensive sexual health education was built into the curriculum in seventh and eighth grade with an MOU, with uh a deep collaboration between nonprofits and the schools that included not just, hey, come into the school, but also how is it going? How can we improve? Let's really coordinate about content and evaluation and make sure that young people are involved and make sure that the district really understands what's going on. And that partnership has been so meaningful. And it means that the Santa Fe Public Schools right now is the only district in New Mexico, at least, that has truly comprehensive sexual health education. It's a big deal. And that is one part of a larger public health strategy when it comes to sexual violence prevention. So when we're going into schools, we are doing that individual level education with seventh, eighth graders, or we're doing a multi-session child sexual abuse prevention program in pre-K through first grade, or doing classes around sexual harassment in fifth and sixth grade, or doing anti-biased work, which is very much sexual violence prevention. All of those pieces are so important. And then we've worked with the schools to put on parent nights, to do training for faculty, to even update policies. All of that has come together to mean that we have been able to work across the social ecological model to really engage in a public health framed strategy to prevent violence in the schools. That's been a very specific role here in Santa Fe. Generally, what role do you think the public schools should play in public health, specifically in in sexual violence prevention? A very big one.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

Well, and I I think you're describing well how it happens on some level, you know, you and your organization and and many wonderful people like you have done this direct work, and we need that in partnership with organizations that have expertise in that. And to some extent, you know, it's it's almost like the stacking Russian dolls, you know, and and that's where the sort of contact with the students can happen. And if we were really well funded at the at the funding sort of structural level where we are now, I don't think we have it in-house. So it needs to be in partnership with community organizations that have expertise. And, you know, I do think in the Santa Fe Public Schools, glad to hear that we're doing well on some of this, but to some extent we can follow it and try and maintain and even expand that model. Because then we have a wellness department whose job it is to work with the community nonprofits, and you need good people there. And I cannot emphasize enough that the good people that we have in the Santa Fe Public Schools Wellness Department deserve that credit for that strength and the good people that are there now, and probably good people that have come before that set up some of these. And then there's sort of the leadership of the superintendent in the district. And I'm talking about it sort of from the school level up to the governance level, if you will, in the school board, but you know, it takes all of us because then the superintendent empowers, hires, makes life easier for the wellness department to do their work, to bring the community nonprofits in. And crucially, you know, the school board, as any sort of leadership and governance exercise, needs to set the tone. Needs to be clear. This is a priority, this is what we're doing. These are the policies that we're passing. Now, again, most of the policies which have been updated, you know, I'd say probably three or four times since I've been on the school board. So maybe we do about every two years, partly is language. As you said earlier, you know, when it was like we didn't talk about trans, we didn't talk about some things before. We need to update our language, gender nonconforming, I think was something we put in there in one of the policies, but those have come from the wellness department, uh, informed by the community nonprofits. And the school board votes on that and sort of has the final say. But it's worked really well. I do think this is a real area of strength for the Santa Fe Public Schools in that I don't have to be an expert because I have real experts that will guide and listen to it. I get to be a generalist who can set the tone and do that leadership thing of like, we need to make sure all students are included and safe. And whatever language and support, and and that means safe from violence and and and working on bias prevention at those right, you know, how do we get that right early? Because as you say, these are anti-sexual violence. This is how we do the prevention work and ultimately holding the space for that with the clarity of human rights, all students being safe, preventing that violence is is, I think, where the governance should sit and has. And then, you know, the updated language, the smart things, the specifics need. To make sure we get it right and then can do the good work and have guidance and boundaries and parameters for community organizations, because not every community organization is going to be completely altruistic and not every person coming in. You know, there are risks involved always. And that's where, you know, to hold the strength of the governance of the wellness department can have vetting and accountability around what happens has got to happen. And it works when you have competence and clarity, I think, at all the levels that go from the sort of big picture of governance all the way to the expertise and the criteria for the expertise that comes into the schools and does the direct work with students.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

It's been really refreshing to see you all take that approach. And that I again I support programs across the state. And some of them are experiencing a total shutout from public schools, even from districts that they've been working in with no problem for years. Not out of nowhere. We know where it came from, but very suddenly for the programs, they're not allowed in the schools with this idea that you can't talk about sexual violence. If we talk about sexual violence, if we bring you in, we are admitting that we have a problem within our district, or we are going to be talking about things in ways that are not child and age appropriate, or you are going to talk about gender, and that is a hot button piece right now. And so, no, you are not allowed in the schools. And it's been really hard to see programs that have built these relationships over so many years because it is not the individual teachers that they work with or anything like that. It is usually a parent or someone higher up at a district or a school board member who is saying, no, no, no, you cannot. We've even had a program be pulled out in the middle of their session because a student sent a picture to a parent who is on the school board and they pulled him out of the class mid-session. Oh, wow. And those moments are terrifying for our programs because when they happen, when they're told no, you cannot come in to talk about sexual violence prevention. The bulk of the people who work in those programs are also working in advocacy, which means they're there in those moments of response to harm that has already been caused. And it is hard to not hear no, you cannot come into the schools and not immediately go to this is more harm that is going to be caused. Okay. This is these, this is this many more young people who don't know they can get help. This many more young people who aren't taught the skills to say no and to hear no and to uh have healthy relationships and a sense of agency in the world. Oh my goodness, it's really scary.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

And that's harm in itself if you don't get that.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

And so they're trying to shift away from schools to other community organizations to do this work in. And on one hand, great way to make it work and way to to pivot as you need to to keep doing the work. And for me, because I think of schools as such an incredible important part of a community, they're they're the center of a community that having sexual violence prevention be evicted from that community, it it not only takes away the individual lessons, but it speaks to an overall value. The policies we make in a school board are a reflection of community values. Period. And the reflection of the community values and the reflection of of the needs in those moments. And when those values are ones that say we we we just don't talk about those things here, or this is not something we're willing to acknowledge, or those values are we only think some children deserve to be safe and be seen and loved in our schools. It it's hard to not get caught up in the the fear there for me. Where do you think the opportunity is there? Where do you think there that we should be moving? How should we be moving in these spaces? Um, you spent a lot of years on a school board and in a very particular context, but I I think you you've imagine you've learned quite a bit about the power there and the opportunity there.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

Yeah. Well, funnily enough, I I just think it it sort of goes back to what my husband said when he encouraged me to run the first time. Like, you've got to pay attention to school boards and that advocacy and support and work needs to happen for school board positions everywhere. There's a lot of them. It's the largest group of elected officials in the country. I didn't know that. Yes. We learned that at the national school boards conversation, which is amazing. I mean, there's a national convention that that brings school boards in from all over every year. And I really do think it this is, you know, it comes down to sort of that that foundational power of the people through the vote. And we can't let it go because, as you say, you know, good for the community organizations for pivoting and and being able to do the work in the moment as we need. And truly, you know, when you work with kids, you realize every moment matters and you you cannot, it doesn't ever feel good to say, oh, we'll just let, you know, this cohort go without that. You know, you let's see, I don't have another five years. Yes. No, they're kids now and they're growing up fast. They always do. But this needs to happen in our schools. On what planet has it ever been a good idea in schools to say, we don't talk about that? No. Part of raising kids well is we need to be able to talk about things. And even if it's redirection of, you know, whatever it might be. I'm trying to think of the thing we wouldn't want to talk about, but maybe it's, you know, it's violent ideation or something like that, that that we don't really want to say, tell me more, tell me more. Something like that, right? But but mostly like humans need to, suppression doesn't work. We know this, we've studied, and and I really believe foundationally it scares me if we start abandoning public schools as a place where this is what we need to happen and how folks come in, you know. Again, I don't want to let a single kid and so yes, well, well done to the community organizations finding another mechanism, but we need to fight for that in the school. And it does start with school boards because, you know, again, as as I talked about and as we've said, but it gets it gets clearer to hear you say it. It's like it needs to not just be held at the school board. The school board needs to be so clear on that, it's organizational culture that the superintendent and district administration is that, so that every principal at every school site is clear on that because that that there's a lot of power there for principals of who's let on and off campus. And principals define teachers and how they welcome folks into the classrooms. And so it needs to permeate with clarity through every level. And I do think, you know, again, we probably stand on the shoulders of many giants in Santa Fe, but Santa Fe has been clear on that. We do things to keep all students safe. We believe in, you know, a very inclusive world where students are humans and humans have rights. And I will fight for that to stay in our school board and expand as much as we can. But I do think, again, my husband was right. Like, we can't neglect the school boards because everybody's like, what about the presidency? No. Start with school boards. There's a lot of really important things, and schools are raising our children.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

I think that's a perfect place to end, which is exactly where we started. I love it when that happens. I love it when that's happy. I love me a full circle moment, which is that we can't neglect the school boards, we can't neglect the schools, we need to treat them like the public center that they are. We need to treat them like the very precious uh resource that we have in our community that they are.

SPEAKER_02 52:13

The soil from which everything grows.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

You're here. Kate Noble, thank you so much for coming on. Both and I look forward to seeing what you do moving through uh your next years on the board and as a leader in community.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Thank you so much, and thank you for all the work you do.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

Thank you for listening to Both and. Both End is a project of the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, and this episode was made possible by the New Mexico Department of Health. Both End is produced by me, Jess Clark, and edited by the fabulous Daisha Clay at Hillowford Studios. Intro music was written by Michelle Shamuel and the logo design by Alex Ross Reed. You can find links to the articles and papers we mentioned in the show notes, and as always, you can reach me with questions, comments, and even disagreements at Jess C at nmcsap.org. Thank you, and I'm so looking forward to next time.