100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
100% Humboldt
#71. Roger Macdonald's Educational Journey: From Marin to Humboldt, Embracing Community Spirit, Overcoming Challenges, and Celebrating Educational Leadership
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Roger Macdonald, the superintendent of Northern Humboldt Union High School District, as he shares his inspiring journey from Southern Marin County to the heart of Humboldt. Learn about his commitment to fostering a nurturing environment for over 1,700 students and nearly 300 employees, and his reflections on how weather, community ties, and personal experiences have shaped his leadership approach. Roger's story, filled with family ties and transformative career transitions, offers a unique perspective on the vibrant life and deep-rooted connections within Humboldt County.
Explore the spirit of community that defines Northern Humboldt, from the triumphs of Arcata High's football team to the enduring legacy of track coach James Washington. We celebrate the unsung heroes and beloved figures like Tiki Romanini and the DeLashmit family, whose contributions have left a lasting impact. Our conversation dives into the challenges and opportunities facing the county, with insights from community leader Mary Keene about innovative initiatives like the We Are Up Ranch project, designed to empower students with disabilities and strengthen community bonds.
Discover how the educational community has adapted in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, navigating uncertainties and embracing new instructional methods. Roger discusses the rise of charter schools and the evolving roles of educational leaders, all while balancing professional duties with personal well-being. Through stories of collaboration, resilience, and dedication, this episode highlights the importance of community engagement and the ongoing efforts to support and uplift the diverse landscape of Humboldt County.
About 100% Humboldt with Scott Hammond
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and neighbors, scott Hammond with 100% Humboldt Podcast with, actually, my very new and old best friend, roger McDonald. Hi, roger. Hey, scott, how are you? I am very, very well, it's just the rain is back.
Speaker 2:It's back. It's back with a vengeance. We had a little cold snap too last week.
Speaker 1:That was really cold, man. A couple nights ago in McKinleyville, chilly. We're in the 20s. Oh man, a couple of nights ago in McKinleyville, chile. We're in the twenties. Oh man, my daughter's in the sixes up in Boise, Idaho.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know I always say it's like it's a little taste for us of what it's like in the rest of the country when it gets cold. Oh, but we had like a little flavor and then it war horrible, it snowed.
Speaker 1:People don't come to Humboldt. It's terrible, terrible weather, except for the winter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my brother-in-law was my sister and it was one of those just absolutely beautiful days. It was like when the realtors were just out 60 degrees Right, you're talking about the fog machine. It's like you know they turned the fog machine off today.
Speaker 1:Now it's raining. So, roger, tell us about who you are. What's your duties, what's your title? What are you all about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess I'm all about a lot of stuff. My job I'm the superintendent of the Northern Humboldt Union High School District and that is the Kennedyville High School, arcata High School, mad River, pacific Coast and Six Rivers.
Speaker 1:Charter High Schools. So Mad River and Pacific Coast are those charter schools.
Speaker 2:Mad River is the alternative ed site at the McKinleyville campus and Pacific Coast is the alternative site at the Arcata High School campus. Gotcha yeah.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:And we have really good staff to take care of kids that are maybe slipping through the cracks a little bit. Or you know the comprehensive sites for the networking forum, Yep. So got it, it's good.
Speaker 1:I imagine that's that's common now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I mean I think it's always. You know, when I was growing up you know they'd have like a site like you had to like hoof it to Right. And having them on both sites is a little bit extra for us but it also makes it convenient for kids and families.
Speaker 1:Because Zo Barnum was sort of that right when it was down the street over here in Eureka. Yeah, I think it still is, and I'm sure that Is it still there, yeah, and I'm sure that they get.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm sure they have transportation to take care of Gotcha.
Speaker 1:So how many kids are you over? How many teachers? You must have a lot of staff between all the schools.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a little over 1,700 students across the district and about, you know, pushing 300 employees. Wow, that's everything. We have our teachers and our custodians. We have really great staff secretaries, the transportation department, maintenance and operations. We have a big fiscal team that takes care of a lot of other school districts. You're not over the middle school, just.
Speaker 1:Who are you?
Speaker 2:Okay, no, we're straight up high school. So we're Arcata High, mac High. Right, arcata High and Mac High. So we go from basically freshwater to Oreck Gotcha. Let me show everybody where that is on our map. Let's go to the map.
Speaker 1:Let's go to the map. Let's go take a look at that. Everybody over here with me to the map. Arcade is up there, mckinleyville is on top of it. Yep, yeah, right over there. You can see it on the map. They're right there, yeah, north of Eureka, which is in California. All right, well, that's excellent.
Speaker 2:Have you used my prop for a little while? That was fun, that was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, the Mets gear prop and previous that I was principal at McKinleyville High School for five years. That's right. And then you moved into the district so you're the whole. You're over the whole shebang, correct, got it? So what's your? What are your roles there? What do you do? Ensure that our mission and vision and that our board adopted policies are enforced. You know it's probably the simplest way to say it, but basically my job is to ensure that our kids are safe, our staff are safe, that we're doing the very best that we can to provide an education, to provide our students the opportunities to be really successful in career, college, whatever it is they want to do when they're out of high school really successful in career, college, whatever it is they want to do when they're out of high school.
Speaker 1:So tell me, tell me, where'd you come from? The arc of your life, life story in a couple minutes. So were you? Are you local? I'm not. You're Bay Area. I'm really not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife is, so I have that connection I. I grew up, I moved around a lot, but I'll just try and keep it somewhat simple. For the bulk of my elementary years I lived in Southern Marin County in Greenbrae. I was raised by my grandparents, and they were amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were great.
Speaker 2:So I lived there until I was 12. And then we moved to Redwood City, basically for middle school, and then I had high school, up in Sonoma County, rona Park. What got you to Humboldt? What got me to Humboldt was, well, my wife, essentially, when I was towards the end of high school and through college, and then afterwards I worked at a summer camp in Mendocino County it was Camp St Michael probably, and now it's Redwood Adventure Camp, which is a great place. Any of you have, you know, young middle school and high school students that want to experience just an amazing atmosphere. Hit up Redwood Adventure Camp.
Speaker 1:Formerly Camp St Mike. Formerly Camp St Mike. Where is it? In Mendo.
Speaker 2:It's in south of Leggett. So if you're driving south on 101, you will see the Eel River there to your right, yep, right, as that slide's coming down, the old slide that was coming down, and then we're down in that riverbed down there.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, good spot. It's a great spot. Let me show you the map.
Speaker 2:I'm just kidding, it's there was McKinleyville, arcata, eureka, and then there's Mendocino.
Speaker 1:It's down there where the map is curled on the floor.
Speaker 2:So so right. So I started out there as a maintenance director and then summer administrator. So the first half of the summer was all girls, or all guys. Second half was all girls. And then Dina and I both took on leadership roles and ended up spending the summer together and we were really good friends for a while and then realized we had a ton in common and she asked to marry me, like, I think, twice during our time there and then I finally Finally said yes, took me a little while. Yeah, she was more confident and more mature than I.
Speaker 1:Did she actually get on her knees and offer that no Propose.
Speaker 2:No, she didn't she. No, she did it cooler. You know, she set up a nice dinner on a session break, so she proposed to you that's cool, she did. I probably shouldn't be saying that on a podcast.
Speaker 1:She probably appreciated it's romantic and she was right, it's cool. Yeah, I mean it's a different world and I love it yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah. So we ended up dating through the end of college and then, after I graduated, I went to Chico and she was at Humboldt. Oh, chico State, chico State.
Speaker 1:Yeah, chico State. Oh, we know about Chico State, everybody does that. My brother low in chico state. Oh yeah, oh, scott, chico, for sure, for sure I get that too.
Speaker 2:It's a great school it is. It's a great. It's a great place to go to my daughter went yeah, yeah it's, it's um, if you like the outdoors.
Speaker 2:Uh and I, I got there at the tail end of the party day reputation, right, uh, the you know the playboy party school thing, right, um. But dean and I, uh, I moved up here after, uh, college and I worked for a couple of years in construction Dina was getting her teaching credential, and then we got married and Dina got a job that started four days after we got married, down in the East Bay, wow. So then we spent the next 20 or so years of our lives down there, dina taught, I was in construction for another couple of years Whereabouts Antioch, wow. And then that Brentwood-O Oakley Antioch area, and then I got my teaching credential and then I got a job teaching at the high school in Antioch and she was at the middle school in Oakley and for about six years I was her principal and we had kids and in my family we had had a bunch of, you know, like some of my elders had, you know, had died and were like realizing, you know, your parents aren't getting any younger and her brother's up here and we really we're always driving back and forth.
Speaker 2:And so I applied for a job up in Arcata High School. Actually, I was hired as assistant principal at Arcata and then eventually was over at McKinleyville High School as principal, and it was just. You know, it was a good move for us. People were like, why do you want to, you know, be an assistant principal when you're a principal and like, well, we just want to be in Humboldt County.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:Arcade is not a bad gig. No, Arcade is nice. Who was your boss there? I was hired by Dave Navar.
Speaker 1:He's a good guy, I've heard yeah, I know we used to go to church across the street and y'all would borrow our building while they were doing the new construction on the new auditorium, yep, and it was great, great relationship yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you used our parking lot on the weekends.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I think Dave invited us over for an Easter service to do it at the building there, which was state-of-the-art, it was brand new. It was, yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2:Well, it's still nice, but yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, speaking of Pastor Bethany and Jason, they met at camp down in the Bay Area. Oh really, Our pastor's at Catalyst Church in Arcadia.
Speaker 2:Oh, good work and it's, it's pretty intimate, you know like being, you know being in nature and you know there's no radios or TVs or phones. You know you're just out there and it's a simple life. And you know the mission. You know I mean at the it was a Catholic summer camp and it was all about, you know, creating that sort of Christian environment on earth. You know, sure, and it was just, you know, the relationships and challenging people to be their best selves in the outdoors, right, be a team, and so in that environment, ropes, courses, backpacking, all that stuff, all the fun stuff yeah, you do all the fun stuff. And then you really, you know, so, yeah, good nurturing place for our relationship as well.
Speaker 1:Especially down there because of the magic of the eel and the eel valley. Come on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we'd like backpack to the coast, to Rockport. Yeah, it's really really a beautiful space, it's great.
Speaker 1:It's really nice down there. Yeah, so you came up and became assistant principal, yeah, and then went over to Mac Mm-hmm what year was that?
Speaker 2:2012.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Time flies, I know, I know, so I think I met you around 13 or 14. So you did, so we moved up here, and I think it was that next year. Father Mike Colonies is a good friend of ours too. You know, he's great, we have him over all the time. He's a sweet guy, good friend, good old friend.
Speaker 1:How old is Mike now? 107?.
Speaker 2:No, he's still double digits. Sorry, mike, padre, I know I need to give you a buzz too. He wouldn't care, he wouldn't I think it would be funny. I think he's 80.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somewhere around there.
Speaker 2:He's a good father, he's a great human, yeah, and we ended up buying a house three doors down across the street where Dina grew up. So you know, patricia and Sabrina, would you know? Patricia would get off the bus, walk over and see her grandparents on the way home to our house, and all that. It was great. How cool is that? Yeah, it was cool. It was that old-fashioned, it was very good. Are they still living?
Speaker 1:the grandparents.
Speaker 2:No, they both made it into their 90s, so they had really good, rich, full lives. That's cool yeah.
Speaker 1:I like that, that's. I haven't heard that said for a little bit.
Speaker 2:No, they were. You know it's a good family. You know the DeLashmits. They both are teachers, met in Oreck. They're like a really good old Humboldt County story too.
Speaker 1:DeLashmit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, met in Oreck and they Romanini. Is there Romaninis? Yeah?
Speaker 1:She was an amazing matriarch of Oreck right? Oh sure, is this the lady that would shoot things that would try to get to her sheep barn? Sure, yeah yeah, back in the day, back in the day, we actually did a survey Quick story about Mrs Romanini of the day. Back in the day, we actually did a survey quick story about Mrs Romanini. What was her first name? Tiki Kiki, tiki Tiki. She was like a legend right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was married to Dina's uncle.
Speaker 1:yeah, so Tiki would have been Dina's uncle.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we've got to be careful here, because everyone that's up in Oreck is.
Speaker 1:If All three of you Oreck people, I'm surprised. No, you're right. Yeah, so Oreck sits right over north on the north part.
Speaker 2:If you went, yeah, yeah, if you go north to McKinleyville, mendocino, mckinleyville it's up there, mendocino, mckinleyville. Yeah, we'll keep working our way north. And so then they had their time in Oreck. Doris taught at Oreck School and then she came and taught at Pacific Union and then Dina's dad worked in the woods for a long time. Then he got his credential and taught Eureka High School. He was a shop teacher. How about that? And people still, you know they'll hold Delashmet and people will say, hey, I have a school boat that Wade Delashmet built. That's, you know, dina's dad, dad, or they were in his shop class and same thing with their mom. So they were both loved in the community for a long time.
Speaker 1:It's cool how educators can make that impact.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll circle back to that, but let's go back to Oreck for a sec. Let's go to Oreck, let's go to hey, we're on our way to Oreck. Oreck's actually a really amazing space, there's no doubt. So when I was a young state farm agent, I was up there with Don Brown, state farm agent for Tuna.
Speaker 2:California.
Speaker 1:And he took me up to Tiki's house. She had just died and he walked me through this home and we met her nieces Gosh I couldn't even tell you who it was now, but it was such a cool thing because she was legend period and she would sit up with her binoculars and this is a quarter mile gunshot now and she would watch, went through a sheep barns and everything down below and then we got the tour of the house and I'll never forget yeah, no, she used to take shots at that critters going after the, the lambs. You know, she's just uh, old school badass she was.
Speaker 2:And also, like you know if how many people got you know in the family. So I didn't get dina. And also, like you know if how many people got you know in the family, I didn't get his parents got him. Like you know whether it was like the pickled goods, canned goods, that's the other thing or the chocolates, and so if you know, like, the way that you can actually demonstrate that you actually did have a connection would be whether you got, like the plate of candies at the holidays and it wasn't just like just chocolates, all sorts of different stuff and I've heard and there's like a lot of people that got it or whether it was, if you're connected with the, the rodeo up there. So just, really just a woman that like had a really big impact over a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Isn't that cool, I love, I love that and I think that's kind of 100 percent Humboldt stuff, oh, whatever, and it's. It's all those kind of pioneer souls, that kind of yeah, that that'd be fun, I bet. I bet Jerry Rohde, the historian, knows about some of those people, jerry call me, call him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, call in, we'll take callers. Take callers at the end of the show.
Speaker 1:Operators are not standing by. So you became then. So you ascended from principal to superintendent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's funny when I look back because I never like intended, like I never intended to do anything other than what I was doing at the time when I was a carpenter. It's like this is it, you know? And then when I went back to school and got my teaching credential, I loved that, and the same thing when I was a principal. But there was an opportunity and I put in for it and I got the job and, honestly, I didn't know what I got myself into. It's a big job, sure, and it's a job with a lot of responsibility and the thing is like and I carry that, I carry that in in a uh, um, it matters to me that I'm doing the best I can to take care of of my people, so they can take care of the rest of our community and just make good decisions, um, that, uh, that are in the best interest of our students and their families and our staff, uh, and I have a great team.
Speaker 2:I have, we have exceptional art, our faculty and staff are awesome. I have, we have exceptional art, our faculty and staff are awesome. You know, we have weather. When I'm driving down the street and I look up and I wave to the bus drivers, like we all sort of know each other mostly and it's and it's um, you know cause we get new staff Sometimes. I haven't gotten to know real well but uh, I, I'm proud, you know, when I, when I see, when I'm driving north on 101 and I see that Northern Humble bus coming south, there's one of my guys right there.
Speaker 2:I love that. It just gets you. You know that's cool. Take pride in that, yeah, I do. And, like I said, just making the best decisions that we can Panther and Tiger pride, panther and Tiger pride and pirates and the rest of it you know.
Speaker 1:Wolves, wolves, let's talk about, let's talk about the Tigers. Yeah, arcata, high Tiger football team State what Champions. I know, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, so let's start all over, right? That's actually a pretty big darn deal.
Speaker 2:It's a big deal, and so I'll go backwards on that. What's funny about that is I'm in this. I was at a superintendent symposium and we had a dinner of just the high school Union, high School superintendents, and of the thousand school districts or so in California, how many do you think are just high schools? Oh, a third.
Speaker 1:You won't guess it's like 74. Oh really so not even a tenth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, like I know most of them. So we're in this room and I was talking to the superintendent of the school district where the other team was, and I wasn't like grandstanding or anything. I said, hey, isn't that sort of cool that our team's and he's like, so what, raj, is this like your first high school football championship? And I'm like, okay, okay, that's good, jerk. Yeah, but I'll tell you about that, like I get, I had nothing to do with that other than just like supporting the kids.
Speaker 2:Sure, the coaching staff, the athletic director, the parents that support the team, it's honestly some of the nicest kids you're ever going to meet, and so it really is that. It makes it that much better of a story when you know that the quality of the student athletes and their families supporting it and the team around the team around the team and the community effort to come forward and make sure, when you know, before we could even really engage in trying to to help them as a district with their transportation, people had already pitched in and gotten handled it. Yeah, handled it, cause they went to you know they had two big road trips and and then, um, and also, just you know, having a football team. That's like reaching out to the cheerleaders and bringing them all in as a family. It was cool, but it was, it was, it was a. It is a significant amount of pride. Yeah, and you know a number of those 5 am greet the vans as they're leaving town and police escorts. It does. It's cool, it's really cool.
Speaker 1:I like that. Cody's 18, so I could probably use his first name, I don't know his last. He came in for a donation with some other young gal from Arcata, high Right Nice guy, really respectful and just you know if he's an example of the team, these guys are doing it right and pretty cool guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they're really Now. Where did they play? They won the championship down in LA somewhere, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're at Fullerton.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they're playing bigger school. Probably Is it the same size. I don't know that the school was that much bigger but it was a little bit bigger, I think. With obviously some experience in the playoffs.
Speaker 2:Probably.
Speaker 1:Been to the Super Bowl, man, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they've been. But I mean, this group was well prepared and ready to go.
Speaker 1:Do you think these guys will be back this year? Do they have some of their players?
Speaker 2:They have a lot. There's some seniors that are moving on, but there's some younger kids that they'll step up. I would say this was a pretty unique group, but I expect them to be successful.
Speaker 1:Next don't forget about James Washington, your track coach. Hi, james Emeritus Just talked to James a couple hours ago. What a great guy. He's legendary. Now James is like 200 years old, isn't he? He's been around for.
Speaker 2:I think James is actually like just timeless, Like, so James?
Speaker 1:you talk about. James is going to be 45 all the time.
Speaker 2:So, dina, like James was Dina's, I want to get this a fifth grade track coach. And, like dean is close to my age, she's younger, but you know, so this is a long time you're only 49 or something I'm 59 but I was just going to take that.
Speaker 1:But just, you know, there's more about james and me.
Speaker 2:Okay, james has been in the community that long right and he, um, and the thing about him is he, I mean, he just builds relationships. People love james, uh, lovable dude and and he's, you know, really done well for a lot of a lot of people too. He's, he's, he's a humble, you know. Original.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he used to hang out at the jogging shop a lot in Arcata. He still does With Chuck Ellers. Is that his last name, chuck?
Speaker 2:Eh, yeah, chuck coached. And here's a cool story. I wouldn't tell stories about Chuck. He's my neighbor as well, nice, and he was a friend of Dina's parents growing up and we just, yeah, I won't go too far down all that, but we see him all the time. Chuck was track coach, I believe, at McKinleyville and Arcata High School. He was a teacher and then his wife, barbara, was a librarian at Arcata High. So they're old school um Northern Humboldt, arcade and McKinleyville and um, when we, um, when the district chose to um to honor James and like, uh, we don't really name things after people in our district, but the track and the little facility down there is the James Washington track, chuck was like I'm there, you know, he's right on Cause I'm going to talk to him. He's like absolutely, you know, and it was like really a gracious and respectful guy, you know, and he's he. And the Jogging Shop still. You know Mike's doing a great job and the Jogging Shop is like a hangout. It's oh, absolutely, shout out, jogging Shop. I only buy Mike Williams 10% discount.
Speaker 2:Ask Mike about the 10 discount folks. Oh, you'll get it anyway. That's the problem mike doesn't charge enough. He'll give it to you anyway. You won't even have to ask, that's true, and so uh and dina used to work there too oh, you know, back in high school there and they all said there was a shop in eureka and that's right, he had a second shop in hometown with the surfboards and everything up. Yeah, because chuck had that surf background yeah, chuck's got um now he's a golfer, I do know he's a golfer.
Speaker 2:I do know he's a golfer. I know he's got a. He just got another hole. This is great. I hope Chuck watches this. He just got another hole, in one, I think recently, and he had one 30 years ago out at Beaupre, Nice. Chuck's quite the competitor. He's still golfing. So you got to. That's good, Chuck man.
Speaker 1:Nice guy, sales guy for the Tri-City Weekly. It's a thing called a newspaper and Arcata was my beat. When's the last?
Speaker 2:time, I don't know. The Tri-City Weekly.
Speaker 1:Should I? Well, they just retired the masthead. The Time Standard owned it for whatever reasons. So the shopper paper like the penny saver in the Bay Area or anything like that was legendary here for 35, 40 years and I worked to help build that. See how I took credit like just very slightly there.
Speaker 2:hey, I helped build the empire I built, the time standard I built since 1895 I built the time standard how do we still have the time standard?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, yeah, we won't go down that road either. So the so Chuck was on my beat. So I would come in and sit at the jogging shop and just chew the fat with Chuck, who's delightful. You know, old surfer guy, and you know kind of I was going to say opinionated, that's not the right word it is. I was trying to be diplomatic, chuck. I gave it a shot, it's okay Anyway. So, yeah, so, surrounded with a, with a cadre of wonderful team, members up there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's cool, that's cool yeah, and, and you were part of my special needs son gabe's uh experience at mac high oh sure, gabe was great and his, uh, his teachers. He's still there, mr. What's his name? David? Uh, yeah, david's still there. What Mr? What's his name? David. Yeah, david's still there. Do we need to say his last name? It doesn't matter, just shout out to David.
Speaker 2:What a great guy. Oh my God, no kind Patient Loving, Absolutely Just tremendous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so it's okay to say we both have specialty kids. Yeah, yeah, so Gabe's got Down syndrome and he's 23, just turned 23. Is that right? Is Gabe 23? I think he's older, he's turned 26. I was going to say Gabe's older than Patricia. Yeah, on Inauguration Day of all days. Really, he doesn't really care who president is either. He could care less. No, I don't think he could?
Speaker 2:He's not even worried about the mortgage dinner. No, probably is. Patricia cares, though she's really into it, okay. Yeah, patricia also has Down syndrome and she went through our school, so she went through Arcata High and she's doing great. She very much is concerned about politics and I just have to just like—.
Speaker 1:We should go there for a minute, jody. We can Jody suggested, you know. Ask you about how a new policy is going to affect everything, but we'll wait on that. Ask you about how how a new policy is going to affect everything, but we'll wait on that. So gabe had a stellar experience in at mac high as a special needs guy until he's 22, which is yeah to point where you guys you know it's the policy where people move on yeah, well, no, that's right.
Speaker 2:When you're once, you get to be 22, you uh, and this is and this is one of the things that I um and like having a daughter with down syndrome and in our journey with her and Dean and I, you know, we one of our sort of theories is that, you know, we live in a typical world and, and so we do as much as we can with her and I try and do that with our high schools too, when, when I'm engaged with our special education programs is that we're pairing students and young adults to enter a world where they don't have quite the same amount of support, right, right, and so, yeah, when you get to that age, you move out. But one thing that I do tell all my parents when I'm on in life skills campuses because a lot of the parents know, hey, he has a child with Down syndrome too, and then so we'll have conversations is that you know life doesn't end after high school. There are so many supports out there and opportunities for our young adults with developmental delays. It's really, my eyes have been opened.
Speaker 2:One. Humboldt's famous, Humboldt's famous.
Speaker 1:Regional center number one.
Speaker 2:Mary Keene's doing over in McKinleyville Right and we Are Up and all of that work to try and Mary Keene shout out oh, massive. Have you had Mary on the show? Yeah, she's like my first guest.
Speaker 1:She's. Of course, she was.
Speaker 2:She's my first guest. I think she well, I think she was actually Just another she's delightful, delightful, and taking the success that she had in understanding how things work to create, you know, a community that not only will help our students with you know disabilities, but also just the rest of the community, too, to celebrate and integrate. Good, just the rest of the community, too, to celebrate and integrate.
Speaker 1:It's good. So the we Are Up Ranch is, is it 80 acres? They're going to use eight of them, whatever they're going to use. So they got a big, giant facility and it's all track and dude. They got money. They're ready to rock and roll pretty soon, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's a progressive model based on something back East. Yeah, I and it's a progressive model based on something back east, yeah, where I mean College students. You could tell that story all day long.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's a great story. Yeah, it is. Get her back on yeah. I think it will. I'll watch. I'll go back and watch that.
Speaker 1:You watch that?
Speaker 2:Okay, I will. No, I Mary's inspirational, you know she's great start there.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it, got it. I can text you, cause I know you. I know you're on my phone, yeah, so let's talk about what you like. Um, what are your issues with Humboldt, do you? What problem do you have with Humboldt? I wasn't really asked it that way. Hey, do you have a problem with Humboldt? What's your? Uh, what?
Speaker 2:are your challenges that you see for us? You know, oh, challenges, I mostly see opportunities, you know, and I see an optimist like me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, um, we are such a diverse County and as far as uh mindset and um the for for being so big with so few people, um, there's a lot going on up here, you know, and I think that that makes us stronger though. Up here, you know, and I think that that makes us stronger though, um, I, uh, as far as I would say, uh, the economy. You know, finding making sure that we have um jobs for um, our, our youngsters, as they, as they mature into adults and and have it be a place where people would like to stay, you know, and and make sure that we have jobs for them. And so that's, as far as you know, the intersection with work, you know, trying to make sure that our students aren't just ready for college but also ready for career.
Speaker 1:So, you've seen a decade or more of guys and gals that have had to go right. That left the county.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I see I see people coming to the county and hoping it'll be something and it's not. And I see, um, yeah, people that have left for other jobs. But I I'll tell you, I see a lot of folks that have stayed. I mean, our schools are full of graduates. We had a couple. One of my former students just came in into our Indian Ed program at Mickey Middle High School and it's just this young woman with kids and she's just vibrant and just taking names, you know, bringing her talents back to the high school. So we have also had a number of our young adults that leave, get degrees and come back to make a difference. The return.
Speaker 2:So, I probably it's easier for me to talk about the things that I like. As far as the potential for really seeing our county grow, yeah, but as far as our challenges, I'd say it's it's health care attracting and keeping high quality health care professionals. You know, that seems that's a challenge. I have friends that are in that industry.
Speaker 1:I'm on the board of Destination Humboldt, where we pay doctors loans who agree to stick around five years. That's great. What a great idea. It's a great idea. Imagine that it's got great track record. They're doing great. Yeah, good yeah. Shout out. Destination Humboldt track record. They're doing great. Yeah, good yeah. Shout out. Destination Home. Thank you, I'll have to get you on the show.
Speaker 2:I should come on the show.
Speaker 1:You should come on your show. Wait, how do I do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Yeah, you know we can be. I know there's going to be improvements to technology and broadband and all that. So some of those things that I know we need to fix, some of the highway stuff we need to fix, you know, the road to Crescent City, and it doesn't take much for us to be completely isolated. Yeah, there's only a few ways in and out of here.
Speaker 1:Oh, we were shut down two weeks ago I think. With that big there was some big storm. I remember my friend well, it was last week Ron came up. They couldn't go Leg and guess what, shut down before they got there. So they had to go over the Neyland road Oof Bridgeville, neyland, that's over there.
Speaker 2:That's that way. Yeah, it's terrible. I've never done that.
Speaker 1:In a storm, in the dirt, in the fog.
Speaker 2:An hour trip that takes two plus yeah, yeah, no fun, oof, yeah, oof I like our county, though the more I get to I mean when I say our county. I've only lived here since 2012. But you know we have. We're fortunate to have a little cabin that Dina's parents built, you know, in just over the border in Trinity County, so we sort of get to know that part of the county as well. And you know family up in, you know Crescent City and down in, uh, you know obviously, in um in, uh, sonoma County and whatnot. So, you know, drive around quite a bit, but it's uh, there's a lot of things that are good, you know, um. So it's a good place, good place to live. Yeah, not too shabby. I can get in my. I can, like you know I can be from my house. I can get in my. I can, like you know I can be from my house. I can be in the Redwoods in like four minutes. Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's like You're here in Eureka right. I'm in Arcata so you could go to Arcata Forest so I can go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can ride my bike over here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, and even faster, with a new trail coming in any minute. That's going to be cool. Yeah, yeah, it's. Hey, they said the first of the year, and guess what time? It is Spring of, it's almost spring.
Speaker 2:Sure, that's actually that, that that actually happened and that it's come as quickly as it has. It's pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 1:Should I show everybody where it is on the trail?
Speaker 2:on the map. I think if people remember that we talked about Eureka and Arcata, they'll get it. Yeah, they connect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they connect. So we could go from the power plant South Eureka on a bike trail or a walking trail all the way to literally Little River Beach, north of Clam Beach, right Abutting Moonstone Beach, which is a long, freaking trek. It's a long trek. It'll be fun, let's do it. I got an e-bike. I could just cruise it, do you really? Yeah, they're great, tell them about your e-bike.
Speaker 1:Well, I was during COVID, we were having a bakery moment, went down to the bakery with my daughter and grandson and Ferndale, and so there's two older farts in Ferndale riding e-bikes, Cruised around in whatever that park is. I should know the name of it. What's the name of it? What's the name of the park? Do you know it, nick? I'm a fan. It's the one with the big Christmas tree. Anyway, it's on the south side of town, gotcha, and these guys are cruising. I go hey, can I have a ride? He goes, sure, get on there, boy. And I got up and I'm whizzing around, I'm going downtown, I going, man, this is, this is the bomb. I could really have a good time. I could go a long ways. I could keep up with joni, my right, which is right, which would be really good, I see I see a lot of people, you know, with the e-bikes.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I so about I don't know. When I first moved up here, a couple of my teachers like really like, uh, great teachers and also like super fit, really into into cycling, got me into cycling and so, um, I was writing a lot, you know, several times a week and, you know, working my miles up, and I went on some pretty big rides with those guys. Um, and then Dean and I took the family to Europe for the summer, to Italy, and I'm like you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna run a bike. And so I rented a road bike to just cycle, you know, through, you know, the areas that we were staying. And I'm going up the steep hill and all of a sudden, these two kids in jeans come flying by me on mountain bikes and I'm like what is happening here? And they're e-bikes. But I'd never really seen an e-bike and I was like what just happened, you know, and it took me a while to figure that out. I'm like I'm done.
Speaker 1:I need to just hang this bike up, but it was, they had that battery assist. So you're super involved. As I remember, you're like Mr Involvement. You go to sports stuff for your kids, your school kids. Sure, that's part of your gig.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I think it is. I think if you're going to be like a small town, like I mean, you know, our school district is one of the bigger school districts in the county. It's not that big, you know and if you're going to be a superintendent, a leader of an organization like that, you should be out and visible and I enjoy it, you know, and so I do. I do go to, I try and make it to as many events as I can just to celebrate our kids and see people. You're like me. Here's how Probably lots of ways.
Speaker 1:We like each other? Yeah, no, but it gives you life to hang out with people, it's life-giving. So for some of us others that will go unmentioned it's life-taking. In other words, going out and hanging out at the uh, at the carter house, or going to mad river brewery or you, you know, whatever an event, sport it's like, it's life. It's life draining and life soul sucking, which is really interesting. So, and I kind of, I'm learning to be sensitive to that, yeah, and to go, and there's a point where I need to back off too and be For sure, go home and have a quiet we call it a quiet night in which is Well, there's a balance, right, there's a balance.
Speaker 2:Right, there's, there's a balance. There's two things on that. There's a balance between your family and your professional life, and sometimes that they intersect. You know, like you know, we're we're all doing the same thing together, um, and I, and I've had to to work on that to be more present to my family, like I'll be like I gotta go.
Speaker 2:It's like wait a minute, do I really? You know I should be with them, you know, or we'll all go together. You know, and also and you're right, everyone's different. When I say that, I think it's important, I probably in the Bay area prior to that. When you're a principal, you're sort of like you are. You have a different role in the community, like most people.
Speaker 2:It's like politics, like God, I hate the government but I love my politician, you know, and I think it's somewhat in some ways it's like it's easy to um because I say no a lot.
Speaker 2:It's easy to uh cause I have to um to like not know me that well or have some issues, and when I was principal, like I almost never had that because you could always work it out, you know, and so anyway, I say that just to say there have been periods of my time when I didn't necessarily want to go out and I just sort of had to sort of like work that through my whole headspace too, about. You know, it's like you have ups and downs and you're in your community but you're still in your community and I will say that, no matter what's been going on in our school district or around it or you know, with me or others like it is rare that somebody will see me and be anything other than respectful and kind. That's cool, you know, which is great. I mean you can always, and it's just. It's so that for me in this job it's just good to be out and about, you know, and in connection, and be available for people if they want to share something so sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, I have some feedback for you.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well, no, hey, I, I well, the line hasn't. It isn't that? It's like hey, I hate to bother you on a Saturday, or I hate to bother you with your family, but it had been so and I always, I always laugh and I always, and it's and my family gets it too Like they'll just take a couple of steps off to the side, and it's just. It's a choice, you know.
Speaker 1:I made that choice. Yeah, try being an insurance agent.
Speaker 2:Hey. Scott you're out there, though You're not just an insurance agent, I mean, you're everywhere all the time.
Speaker 1:I try to be present for the community. You are. I think you're right, though there's a balance. It's like you don't. I don't know. You know, raising nine kids I wasn't out there at all, other than I would grind and go to work every day and kill myself and commission sales. You better work your ass off or you're not going to eat and that's the end of the story. Oh, I cussed so and the bottom line is it's different now, because it's cool to be.
Speaker 1:I'm on a board. Yeah, they accepted me in a club. I'm in a club Whoa, they had me. Remember Groucho Marx? Yeah, never be part of, I would never be part of a club that would have me as a member. Right, right, hilarious, that is good. It's kind of a dad joke, almost, it is so. Club of politics Sure, segway. So new president, new administration uh, everybody's, nobody can keep up with them. Joni calls them exhausting, wherever you stand. How does that affect, uh, y'all? Oh, man, arcata McKinleyville at this point, is it, is, there, are, are, are you anticipating? Are you seeing? Uh, we have a friend at church who's in the VA uh here locally, sure he goes.
Speaker 1:We have a friend at church who's in the VA, here locally, sure.
Speaker 2:He goes. It's just like it's crazy pills, you know it is, and the change and the rapid change is affecting a lot of people in a lot of different ways. Um, I try not in that when I was younger in this role I would be a little more like public about like my stance on on things like when we were going through a period of time of really trying to to raise um our visibility of, of, of really um caring and making every effort for our um, you know, for our students of color and their families, to to, you know, to close the disproportionate gaps in education. We were a little more public about that and I think for most people they understood, you know, like this is what we're trying to do in our community. That's got this rich indigenous heritage and, as our demographics change, we have students that came from underrepresented groups that need more support. For the most part, people get that.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to go out there and grandstand one way or the other right now over the political divide, because people are coming from all sorts of different places on it and it's just not a productive conversation.
Speaker 2:What we do do I said do do is we You're cussing I know I'm sorry now I'm cussing is that we, you know, we work with. We work with some of our community partners to make sure that some of our students and their families that are facing the potential of some actions that can be harmful for them. We're trying to stay in touch with them to let them know how we can take care of them, you know. So trying to. I don't want to engage in a sort of binary good bad conversation about politics right now or ever really, because that that doesn't help. You know, then you've got to have a winner or loser in that conversation. But when we're talking about this, this, this change, and it's affecting so many people, the, you know, my staff are legitimately concerned about their jobs right now, you know, and their life and their families and the kids and students are too.
Speaker 2:you know, like I walked through, I sent a oh, I sent an email out a couple of weeks ago to our students and staff and their families and, like I'm on campus and students are like hey McDonald, I read that email that you sent. Thanks, you know. And so I get that, you know, and then I'll lean into that and ask if they want to talk more about it. And so we, as far as the politics part of it, I'm more interested in how we can prepare for any consequences of the change in direction for our staff, direction for our staff. You know, whether it's being really, really prepared in case there are cuts, and really thinking about our families that feel like they're, that are sort of, you know, under fire right now, that we're taking care of them.
Speaker 1:That's cool, I like it. Human beings.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:For sure, yeah, I love that. Do you know? Carla Darnell? She was specifically Carla Carla, I love.
Speaker 2:Carla.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was carla carla. Yeah, hey, carla. Hey steve, hey, yeah, hey carla. Now steve tells about the time where she was, um, you know, in a situation to take care of students. That there was, that story doesn't really matter, but the fact is she had the influence, the control and some power and wielded the power to take care of said under uh I may know what you're talking about and just to give her a break, won't mention the no but I.
Speaker 2:But she, uh, carla's fearless and student-centered and kind and she was great gonna take care of some people.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, didn't have to grandstand, didn't have to divvy up and call names and just kind of got it quite like got it done I love that.
Speaker 2:I think that's a really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's, she's a good one, yeah, so hey, uh, first question of the day what we got bing? What three things do you do to make a difference? You, we talked about a lot of them so far, roger, but uh, in your job, in your life, in your ministry, if you will, in your service, what? What are the three things do you think that you do or practice that make you a difference maker and humble?
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, that's actually that's a great question. Um, what do I do? Um, I can say what I try to do. Um, I try and make sure, um, or I do make sure that the decisions that I'm making, um around the policies that we have, um, and the decisions around you know like hiring a professional development, what we're doing that they're most impactful for our students and that any, any changes that we make or any programs where we implement are like as staff centered as possible to help them be successful. So, I guess, trying to be other othercentered as far as the impact, it doesn't look like that to a lot of people, but that's, you know, behind the scenes. That's something that I really do think about, I think—.
Speaker 1:Well, you're juggling it too. Yeah, yeah, Money and budgets and profitability, or? I don't know if that's the right word. Well, it's not profitability. You're not private sector.
Speaker 2:It's not, but it's making sure that the dollars go to, in the immediate and then developing terms, where it can be best supportive and effective and impactful. I am honest and I'm humble, you know. I'm not really in this for myself. I am in it for, you know, caring for my, my family, for sure, but also caring for my greater school community, and so, um, that humility means that I will take a lot and and I won't lash out and, like you know, make a fire bigger, you know, and I think that, that, um, over the long run, I think that's helpful and makes a difference. And I'm also, like, I'm helpful, you know, like I care about my, like my, I have a group of superintendents that I keep. I love our Northern Humboldt group of superintendents. It's a really good, tight group. That's going to be your superintendents of the Arcade Elementary School District and Pacific Union and Jacoby Creek.
Speaker 2:So it was like you know, Melanie Nizzi and Luke Bisecker and Renee McBride. I mean there's a bunch, Julie, there's a ton of them. There's another Melanie at Mack High right. Melanie, no, that's Melanie Sousa Villa. Is she still there? She's money, yeah.
Speaker 1:She's a principal.
Speaker 2:Melanie works in the district office managing our grant programs.
Speaker 1:Okay, she was VP or something at Mack High. Yeah, she was very impactful with it. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, she's great, hi, melanie. Melanie's in Washington DC right now Of course she is. She is. She's working with the Department of Ed on some of our grants right now, like today, sweet, probably not tonight. Bring in that money, that grant money. She's going to come back with information for us. Yeah, that's cool, but just our little. All the associate schools that feed into our high school district, you know we, if any of us, are having a problem, the rest of us will chip in and help out. Wow, you know whether it's.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, Like Jacoby Creek Elementary or anybody. Yeah, yeah, huh, so kind of a synergy.
Speaker 2:It is a synergy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is everybody like that? All the other principals and supers yeah.
Speaker 2:Is everybody like that? All the other principals and supers, we in our group, we all take care of each other, whether and sometimes you know, sometimes we're not always, you know, we're like a little family and um, but we do, we're always, we always do show up for each other. That's cool, sounds good.
Speaker 1:And Michael Davis Hughes is he. Would he be a distant peer?
Speaker 2:or boss.
Speaker 1:Is Michael like our uncle? He's like Uncle Michael Uncle.
Speaker 2:Michael.
Speaker 1:The superintendent of public school, for sure.
Speaker 2:What's his title? So Michael is, and I feel like I should rattle off the names of all the superintendents in our area. That's fine. You know Raven and Justin and Deanne and the rest of them.
Speaker 1:I must have forgotten someone I know. I'm like oh shoot I forgot my producer, Nick. Thank you, Nick, for all you do.
Speaker 2:But no, michael is so the county office. So in Humboldt County, with our 130,000 people and 17,000 students or whatever we have, we have 31 school districts and I think 15, 12 to 15 charter schools. Wow, is that a lot for our size? Yeah, antioch, where I used to live, had 130,000 people and 20,000 students in one school district. So just for perspective, yeah, bigger.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, all centralized, you know.
Speaker 2:And so all of our unique rural school districts. We function, you know, independently and in larger groups. We have three main groups we've got um, the eel river group, um around fortuna, high in the associate schools, gets together their central humble, which is eureka high, and then the rest of the small school districts around there.
Speaker 1:Very nice, yeah, very nice, very nice and the way you say it like that.
Speaker 2:And then, you're right, you bring back to the microphone my inexperience.
Speaker 1:It's fine, you're great, it's my first podcast, Scott. It was mine too. I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:And then Michael in the county there you know, they provide, they provide. Their prime duties are to provide oversight for our LCAPs and to make sure that it gets paid.
Speaker 1:Three areas, then Eel River. What were the other two?
Speaker 2:Well, there's Southern Humboldt, which is Southern Humboldt, and then there's Eel River, and then there's Central Humboldt, which is Eureka's city schools, and then the Freshwaters and the South Bays and the rest of them, and then there's Northern Humboldt, which is us. Would it include Hoopa and Trinity? Well, no, and then I was saying then there's Klamath, trinity and KT, and they're great. I mean, they do, they're doing great work up there.
Speaker 2:I like that the KT Valley. Yeah no, they're great up there. It's just hard. It's hard for them to make it down to things Like when, Michael, when there's events at the county an hour plus, and then the weather, and then it's two hours because you drove, and then the meeting's two hours. You just spent an entire day at a meeting, and that's one thing that we got out of. Covid was a lot of those meetings can happen remotely, you know, so people can get the information that they need, um, without having to drive down.
Speaker 1:Let's, let's talk about the big C, COVID. Uh, what? How did COVID affect your educational world, Roger? What did COVID do to?
Speaker 2:you. That was rough, covid, this is like a five-parter right, I mean. So the first thing was, I remember in the lead up to it, like that week it was, you know, I think we, I think we announced that we were going to shut our schools down for a couple of weeks on a Friday, and it was just the Wednesday before that we were in a meeting at the, at the county office, with everybody talking about what are we going to do? Something's happening, yeah, and it was it just. But the thing about it that was hard. Like I think it's great that we all have the autonomy that we do, but I do at the time I remember we were all sitting around.
Speaker 2:It was Saturday and we're in the conference room over in McKinleyville by my office over there and all the principals and all the district admin and you know, sarah with transportation and John with me all of us were in there waiting for this. We're waiting for the governor to come on and the governor we waited and we waited the podium they showed us on TV. There was the podium waiting for the governor to tell us what to do and we never really were told what to do, like, usually there's like a protocol or there's a, there's a, you know, like something to follow. Was it Newsom? Then, yeah, it was Newsom, yeah and it's. But I mean we, we never, they never really took the responsibility to say this is how you need to to interact with this COVID. There's guidelines, but everybody could sort of pick and choose in our schools how we responded to that. Well, that's got to choose what they thought was best for them. But I've always wondered, like, how is public health something that, like a superintendent who is trained for education and a school board who are volunteers in the community, should be given that responsibility? You know, everyone did the best they could do, no-transcript. You know we were having board.
Speaker 2:I remember sitting in my office past midnight, a school board meeting that started at six o'clock was still a couple hundred people online, not happy, you know, um, not happy because they were afraid that we weren't being safe enough, or not happy because we weren't providing enough in-person, face-to-face instruction, and every single person that was complaining was right, right, you know what I mean. They were all right because of their family situation or the health of their own family or the needs of their own family, and so that was definitely challenging as far as you guys could win. No, it was. It was a no winner. I mean we kept, we kept doing the best we can to to do the very best that we knew how to do.
Speaker 2:So I'm actually proud of the work that we did and I'm really proud of my, of my staff and my teachers and everybody for um, but it was just we probably were given too much freedom and probably were given, you know, too much money at one time, without a longer timeline to spend it, to implement. I mean it was just, it was things were happening in a way that made it very difficult to manage, you know. And so, yeah, I think there was, you know, some definite pushback from the community, there was some trust. I mean this is across the country, the world, the county, for sure. So you had some families picking up and moving their kids to other schools, which you saw were you know some schools, some of our charter and private schools, like their enrollment, jumped up because they had the flexibility and they were willing to do that. So it was tough you know it was tough.
Speaker 2:Good things that came out of it Better instructional practices for kids that can't be at school, so like if you're sick, for students that are missing some school. Our teachers are doing this amazing job of putting their in-person classroom onto the Google Classroom Perfect, and so there's a lot of that stuff that's good.
Speaker 1:That came through, that yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that came through.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And now we're seeing, you know, we're seeing attendance rates come back up, but we're definitely seeing a group of students that doesn't have the same skills or knowledge that we're accustomed to at different times, whether it's fourth grade or whether it's 11th grade.
Speaker 1:So there was a deficit. Definitely affected, yeah, I imagine, emotionally and mental health stuff too. A hundred percent All of it, and so, which is pretty ubiquitous right Across the nation, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the world, yeah, oh yeah, it was. For some it was such a, a, a, lonely, scary place to be you know Weird yeah. Yeah, like for me. My hair grew out, I gained weight. I know a lot of my friends like live their best lives. You know I went to the office every day. I worked from home like one day and I'm like I can't do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, couldn't stay home forever, no, so like you know, for me I actually I have stories of my friends and family that like. I have stories of my friends and family that like they spent months just exercising and doing, eating perfect food and stuff like and it was great and I didn't make that choice. Looking back, I probably should have been more selfish a little bit, but I wasn't old Catholic guilt maybe. I don't know, it happens. But we're all sort of coming back from that in our own different ways you mentioned charter schools, real quick.
Speaker 1:I'm going to park there and then talk about your legacy. Sure what you'd like to see. What's your, what's your sense of how the charter school models affected California, humboldt, y'all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we. I think that we have a disproportionately good experience up here. I think that the charter school I don't, I think our charter schools are run by and managed and and taught by people that really care about their community. I can't say that for all the charter there's there's lots of we don't need to get into internet whatever the charter schools are scams, right, that were just that just were there to generate revenue for the charter director and a few key people, and so there's lots of stories of, of charter schools that have just taken.
Speaker 2:I think I think our charter schools up here by and large, have really given, they've given a different um, nice, yeah, so I, you know I, I have a different perspective on charter schools than I think lot do.
Speaker 2:But I would also say this as a public school educator you know we, you and I know firsthand, we both have children that would not have made it at charter school. You know my younger daughter, she'd go wherever she wants. But you know we have students with disabilities, we have students with families don't have means to get them to different places, and I don't think there's a better place to raise a student, to raise a citizen, than a public school. So I definitely am a proponent of our public schools. I just, if you pulled me, compared to a lot of my colleagues that are superintendents, I would have more positive things to say about our charter schools than others would. I do think, though, too, that a lot of our charter schools are housing students that just weren't going to make it in our schools, which is a challenge to us to innovate and to improve our practices, too. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they fulfill a role. Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah. And Glen Paul School is amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure. Well, glen Paul, yeah, the county office. There it is. Have you been over there?
Speaker 1:Oh, many times, yeah, gabe went there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's younger. Yeah, it's. Yeah, they're doing. They're doing excellent work over there.
Speaker 1:It's one of like charter. This was like legend, though it's kind of. It's nice, it's good, yeah, it's also in a good spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's well taken care of and staffed and a nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's good oh the rest of your quiz. I almost forgot.
Speaker 2:What else?
Speaker 1:we got Speed dating Number one. Where do you go to dinner?
Speaker 2:It's free, 200 bucks, 100 bucks a meal, so I cook, I like to cook.
Speaker 1:Anywhere you want to go.
Speaker 2:I'll do it quick. So if I I won't talk about my cooking. If I'm going to go to dinner, I want to go to Larapin, Larapin. I wish it was closer, because I can't walk to Larapin.
Speaker 1:No well, you can, if you have enough time.
Speaker 2:But when we get there, I'll tell you as a family, when we get there, you slow down and it's consistent. I've been eating there for 35 years, like once or twice a year. It's like I don't go there all the time, but I like that for a meal Shoot. I mean Never had a bad meal there, no, gosh. No, it's the same thing all the time, but it's good. Yeah, well, similar. Um, they vary at fish and different special yeah, I'm gonna miss dutchies.
Speaker 2:Dutchies, call out dutchies pizza pizza a couple weeks if you want to get pizza, dutchies um.
Speaker 1:Is that an?
Speaker 2:arcata yeah, it's an arcata 11th street, right, right, right 11th, and k.
Speaker 1:Yep, used to be cal farm insurance. Was it 100? Earl miranda, great guy ah what a sweetheart, another.
Speaker 2:you keep bringing people back. Earl Miranda, old family friend of Is he still here? Yeah of my, yeah, what a great guy. I mean one of those things where I inherited all these old family friends. That's cool.
Speaker 1:Earl's great, yeah, what a sweetheart man, he was a really neat guy.
Speaker 2:Okay, question two Two go oh man, you're a coffee drinker, I'm a coffee drinker and I got to tell you that my favorite spot. But a job doesn't allow me to be there, so much is Northtown Coffee in Arcata, nice Okay.
Speaker 1:Number three you get to have a free cocktail and the night off. Where are you going to go?
Speaker 2:Oh, where am I going to go for a cocktail? And yeah, the night off to back that up, I'm probably. I've only done this once. I'm probably going to go to Moonstone. I'm probably going to go to Moonstone. Grill and have a drink up there. The View, yeah, with the View, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, day off, you and Dina. Whatever you want to do Tomorrow, you got. Well, let's pretend it's sunny tomorrow. It's probably not going to be, but what would you guys do? So we're starting off at our house.
Speaker 2:Not at our house. Yeah, what would you do with a day off? I think we'd get up, we'd get a fire going, we'd make the coffee that we like to make. Go for a hike. I think that a great day off would be. So Dina would say, a great day off would be mushrooming somewhere and foraging. It would involve hiking, cooking together and some form of sporting activity, whether it be playing a little golf or something like that.
Speaker 1:Last question what do you want to have said about your celebration of life?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Or your tombstone, or what are we reading about you?
Speaker 2:Wow, I would have no idea how to answer that, other than I would hope that people would realize that I don't know that I cared. You know that it was an intentional life in the service of of others and in my family.
Speaker 1:Love it Intentional. Thanks for coming, raj. Thanks for having me Appreciate you. Yeah, appreciate you too. Thanks, scott. I'm going to do my announcements now. So if we want to know anything about our district, you can go to nohumorg, nohumorg.
Speaker 2:And you can find the phone number, find the email and if you either are already in our school district and thought that was interesting and have questions, shoot me an email, or if you're interested in being part of our school district and you weren't, then shoot me an email.
Speaker 1:Nohumorg. Appreciate it Well everybody. Scott Hammons, 100% Humboldt. Thanks for coming. Thank you, roger, and we are live on Access Humboldt. We're on YouTube, we're on all the podcast platforms and somewhere else, and we'd love you to like us, share us, maybe write something nice and come back next week. Thanks again for coming, roger, that was great. No-transcript.
