266 Express
Welcome to the 266 Express, your official podcast of Sanger, TX.
In every episode, we paint a picture of life in this beautiful North Texas town.
You will gain insight into everything from our rich history, community events, and the rapid growth and development of Sanger. Welcome to the 266 Express.
266 Express
Inside Sanger ISD: Building the Future of Education
What does it take to transform a small-town school district into a destination for families and educators alike? Deputy Superintendent Jenny Flaw takes us behind the scenes of Sanger ISD's remarkable journey.
A 1990 Sanger graduate with 24 years of service to the district, Jenny shares how this educational ecosystem operates much like a city – with departments, leadership structures, and strategic planning all aligned toward a singular purpose: making decisions that center on students first. Through intentional curriculum alignment, financial ingenuity, and community partnerships, Sanger ISD has created an educational experience that defies the resource limitations typically faced by smaller districts.
The conversation reveals how Sanger's bold move to a four-day instructional week has yielded "off the charts" approval from teachers, students, and families alike. This innovation has dramatically improved teacher recruitment and retention, bringing in educators with hundreds of years of combined experience who are choosing Sanger specifically for its forward-thinking approach.
The crown jewel of their transformation is the stunning new 250,000-square-foot high school opening in August 2025. This "pure awesomeness" as Jenny describes it, features specialized spaces for everything from culinary arts to criminal justice, health sciences to fine arts – all designed with extensive community input. Perhaps most impressive is Sanger's commitment to career pathways, offering fifteen different CTE programs when only one is required by the state.
Whether you're a parent considering educational options, an educator looking for inspiration, or a community member interested in how schools evolve to meet future needs, this conversation offers a blueprint for educational excellence built on student-centered decision making and community partnership.
Ready to see what Purple Pride is all about? Discover why families and teachers are making Sanger ISD their destination of choice.
You have been listening to The 266 Express, the official podcast of Sanger, TX. IF you have comments or suggestions, please send them to dgreen@sangertexas.org
Welcome to the 266 Express. I'm Donna Green, your host for today, and I have a special guest co-host. And who do we have? Who are you?
Speaker 2:Hello, hello, I am Shani Bradshaw and I am the Director of Economic.
Speaker 1:Development Awesome. Today on our podcast we have Jenny Flaw. She is the Deputy Superintendent for the Sanger ISD and so welcome, jenny. It's so nice to have you, thank you, thanks for having me. So, just to kick us off here, can you share a little bit about yourself, where you're from and kind of what path led you to become where you are?
Speaker 3:today.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm a 1990 graduate of Singer ISD. This is the only place I've ever worked. I've been here I think I'm going on 24 years Started out my career as an elementary teacher at Clear Creek Intermediate and then moved over to Butterfield after it was built, stayed there a few years as a teacher and then jumped into administration at Butterfield and then, after several years of that, I decided I think I want to try secondary and so I got a job at Sanger High School and loved every minute of it. Probably the best job ever was being the high school principal. A lot of fun, kids are great. And then from there I have moved into central admin. So now I get the opportunity to work with all six of our campuses instead of just one and kind of get to go back and see some of my old friends at other campuses that you know haven't seen in a long time. And I get to work with them now again and it's been wonderful. It's a great, great opportunity for me.
Speaker 1:So you liked the high school kids.
Speaker 3:That was kind of your favorite class group, I think, because I'm all about Purple Pride and in the high school you're the Sanger Indians and you have all the events and whatnot, and I just love that because it brought back memories from my childhood and from when I was in high school and I was able to, you know, bring some of that spirit back. So that was exciting.
Speaker 1:I admire that. I taught school for a while and they scared me. I liked kindergarten and second grade and sixth grade, because where we went, went in sixth grade was like we did K through six, the sixth graders, they really thought they were going to be somebody. They were so excited. And then go on to middle school and then they're not anybody anymore. You know, not like they think they are, but they're a rule in the school. But yeah, high school good for you. They scare me, they still scare me.
Speaker 2:High school is challenging. It is very, very challenging.
Speaker 2:So everyone in the Sanger community is very excited to hear about this new state-of-the-art high school facility which is planned to be opening next year, and we had the pleasure of touring the facility a couple of months ago and it is just fabulous. We certainly want to get all the details about this new school and we want to talk about the school structure and the operations and some of the behind-the-scenes things that most people don't even think about. So how is the public school system like Sanger ISD structured and how do the different departments work together?
Speaker 3:Well, a school district. It's kind of like a city. So it's very similar to what you guys deal with on a daily basis. We have a school board, you have a city council, we have a superintendent, you have a mayor, we have campuses, schools and you have neighborhoods, and then we have different departments. We have curriculum and instruction, we have student services, kind of like maybe public safety for you. We have finance departments, similar to what you may have Facilities like public works for you guys, and then you know we just all work together to do what's best for kids, as you would for citizens.
Speaker 1:Awesome, as she's saying that. You know you think about people who are wanting to make a career change. She completely was able to take what she does and now you just might as well come run the city now.
Speaker 3:Come on, I don't think so. You're doing the same thing. I love it, but I mean that's the cross skills.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I squirreled, but I thought that was pretty cool. She's a typical teacher, right?
Speaker 3:Right, right right.
Speaker 1:So tell us, because I know there's a lot of work that goes into setting a district-wide curriculum. How do you do that? How do you keep it up to date? How?
Speaker 3:do you keep from going crazy?
Speaker 3:Yeah it's a lot of work, it's a lot of teamwork. It's really more than just like picking a textbook. You have to you know, work with the foundation, which is the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills that comes from the state of Texas kind of lays out what students are supposed to know at each grade level. Then we also have federal guidelines that we have to meet. We develop a scope and sequence with that kind of like how things are taught, what materials are we going to use? What instruction materials are we going to use? We have to try to make sure we find the right tools for our classrooms, and that takes a team effort. We also want to align it vertically and horizontally, making sure that all of our teachers, no matter what campus they're on, if they're in the same grade level, they're teaching the exact same thing. That's something that we have worked extremely hard for in the past maybe six years, and we feel like we are finally there.
Speaker 3:We have done a lot of work in that area and we feel like across the district we are there. Then you have your assessments. You know we have to make sure that the content that we're teaching is working. We use data, observations and a lot of teacher feedback and then we tweak things along the way and that's how it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she makes it sound simple.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:She does, but it's not.
Speaker 3:Well, I have an amazing team of people and you know, with that, with our teachers, we get a lot of collaboration and they are the wheelhouse.
Speaker 1:For people who don't know, the Sanger ISD is really something special.
Speaker 2:We have incredible teachers, incredible teachers, incredible programs across the board.
Speaker 1:Yes, incredible curriculum. Thank you. I mean, I'm one of those people who was fortunate enough that I moved my child here, because and I was shocked at the differences you know you don't think of schools being different, but yeah, so, so much different, and you know. So you guys, definitely you're doing something.
Speaker 2:You're doing incredible. Thank you, yeah, for sure, jenny. How does the district measure success and beyond those, just test scores?
Speaker 3:Well, our district, we're kind of committed to the whole child approach. We want to make sure that our students you know they're not defined by one test on one day. We use a lot of indicators to measure that success. We look at student engagement, attendance. We want to make sure that our students are college and career and military ready. That's something we call CCMR. We also track our alumni and their accomplishments. We have a lot of students who like to come back and share their successes with us, and that's always a great thing.
Speaker 3:I've always said that we really don't measure our success by what our kids do while they're here. We measure our success by what they do after they leave us, and that's something I totally believe in. We also gauge community involvement. You know we survey our parents a lot. We want to check their pulse. We also seek partnerships with our local businesses. The Sanger Education Foundation is a huge, huge source for us, and then you as the city also help us with things, and that's kind of how we measure things. You know, one of the biggest indicators of success really is teacher retention. So, just like any business, you bring in new staff. That takes more time, that takes resources, but when a teacher stays. It's really a sign that they feel supported, and when teachers feel supported, students benefit Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely feel supported students benefit Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:So, speaking of funding, how does a school get funded? I don't think people know, right. Sure, so there's three primary sources of funding. You have your local property taxes, state funding and federal funding, and then we have to allocate those funds. We have to allocate those funds to the things that are required expenses, and those required expenses are like salaries and benefits that takes up about 80% of your budget Maintenance and operations, which includes, like utilities and transportation, special education services that we must provide, and then, obviously, safety and security, and then, after that, we start focusing on our strategic planning. You know what curriculum and instruction are we going to use? What student services can we provide? Maybe through mental health, counseling, intervention, things like that.
Speaker 2:Extracurriculars what do you think are some of the biggest financial challenges that the districts are facing now and how do you think they're being addressed?
Speaker 3:Well, kind of like every household and every business, we're faced with the same increase in costs and lacking with utilities insurance, transportation, gas so all of those things hit the school district just like it hits everybody else. You know, something that's been in the news quite a bit is about the increase in basic allotment for Texas schools. So since 2019, we have not seen an increase in basic allotment and while all that's happening or not happening, all of the costs have skyrocketed. So many districts have had to adopt deficit budgets. They've had to close campuses.
Speaker 3:We're very fortunate we haven't had to adopt a deficit budget yet, and I think that's because we're just very intentional in how we maximize our state and federal funds. We use a lot of cost-saving measures for utilities. We evaluate our staff each year, so we want to make sure that we support our students' needs, but we don't want to have those unnecessary roles if we don't need them. We also seek out a lot of grants Support from the Sanger Education Foundation is huge for our teachers, as well as partnerships with the city like the EDC and local businesses. They really help us fill in those gaps and local businesses.
Speaker 1:They really help us fill in those gaps. So there's been so much talk in Texas and this is something that I worry about as a parent, but how could this proposed school voucher program impact public school funding, especially for smaller districts such as Sanger?
Speaker 3:Well, it's happening, Governor Abnett. He signed it into law so it is happening. I don't think Sanger's going to see much of an effect. Our district won't see much of an effect on that. We've put a lot of programs in place over the last six or seven years and those programs are very intriguing to students and parents and their families. One of our goals in Sanger ISD is to kind of become the destination district. One of our goals in Sanger ISD is to kind of become the destination district. And we have the programs, we have better facilities now, we have a four-day instructional week and we have a solid teaching staff with a whole lot of experience, and those are the things that families seek out when they're looking for a new place to go.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to switch gears on you and we're going to talk a little bit about growth. We know that Sanger recently moved to a four per week schedule, so how does that work for?
Speaker 3:the school as well as our community. So this is our first year. So when we started the conversation about a four day week, we really did our homework. We attended a lot of conferences with sessions that were taught by school districts that had already implemented a four-day week. We went to visit those districts. We really listened to what they had to say about what worked and what didn't work, because we didn't want to make those same mistakes.
Speaker 3:We surveyed our parents. We really listened to their concerns. We tried to work through ways to support those concerns, like we offered a daycare on Fridays for those parents that need that assistance. The last parent survey that we did really showed unwavering support for the four-day week. It's kind of off the charts, really great. I don't think anybody wants to go back. As far as our students and our teacher surveys, I don't think they were less than 98% in favor of it was off the charts. So it's been a great thing for our district. It's really given our families that time extra time on the weekends to have family time but it's also given our teachers that time to recuperate, maybe plan but, also have yeah but also kind of give them that weekend they deserve as well.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So recruiting teachers we know, especially quality teachers is very challenging and I'm sure recruiting for Sanger, you've experienced the same issues that everyone has. So but when you moved to that four-day week, did that impact the availability of your high-quality applicants?
Speaker 3:It did.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So just kind of taking you back, like in 2023, we onboarded 60 teachers. In the next year, 2024, we onboarded 40 teachers, and that's when we adopted the four-day week. Those 40 teachers had over 500 years experience.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:And so our goal at that time time was how do we make sure we keep these teachers? Because we, you know, we got all that experience. We need to make sure we keep it here. So this year we're looking at right around 20 teachers. It's the lowest we've ever had to date that I know of and really what that says is our teachers feel supported and they like maybe the way our district's headed.
Speaker 2:Well, we all know that Sanger is experiencing a great deal of growth. When we look around, we see all this residential development coming in, all the commercial development, and we know that that's going to impact the schools, obviously development. And we know that that's going to impact the schools, obviously. So how is the school district preparing to accommodate the increasing amount of students?
Speaker 3:So we are constantly looking and planning five to ten years out. That is a reoccurring thing with Dr Hunter. We always work to maximize what we our current facilities and then we prepare for future bonds to build new schools, and so that's kind of what we do and he's great at it.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of bonds and future schools, what are some of the challenges that comes from all that? I mean? We've got the rapid growth. We know we're going to need more schools, even though we have a brand new one. So what are the challenges and how are you planning for that?
Speaker 3:So space is always the biggest concern, making sure that we aren't overcrowding our buildings. Another concern is making sure we're hiring the best educators to keep up with that student growth. Also trying to make sure we have a plan for transportation, possibly having to add more buses, as well as technology resources that are needed when you have increased enrollment. It takes a lot of constant planning, flexibility, I would say, and a lot of teamwork.
Speaker 2:So how does the school plan for the future school facilities and staffing needs, especially when there's a shift or when the growth projections kind of shift. When it comes about you just so quickly it's thrown at you. How do you adjust that?
Speaker 3:Well, what we try to do is stay in front of it by constantly monitoring trends, staying in close contact with the city and the home developers the housing developers so that we kind of know what's coming. We also try to build flexibility in our plans, meaning by that we design schools where we can expand them, having staffing models where we can adjust things as needed. And because we're always looking five to ten years out, we're not just reacting, we're doing our best to be proactive so that we're ready when that growth hits.
Speaker 1:So I want to move on to star testing. I know that I got excited because the Texas House had voted 143 to 1 to eliminate the STAR and then I think I heard today that it did not pass in the Senate, right. So I mean, what do you think the future of the STAR testing is? Since we are, it's not going to affect the students this year Hopefully I'm one of these proponents of. I feel like the teachers, if they have to, if we do the STAR, they have to teach to the STAR and it doesn't leave a whole lot of flexibility.
Speaker 3:So what do you?
Speaker 1:think the future is there.
Speaker 3:Well, I think state assessment you know it's been around for a long time I think it's necessary but it doesn't tell the whole story of a student and we want to make sure that we don't just use that test to tell the whole story of a student. I think the idea of replacing the STAR test with maybe shorter assessments that can kind of go throughout the year, that's probably a step in the right direction. It's going to give our teachers better insight into how the students are doing in real time and take maybe that added pressure away of a single test on a single day. You know a lot of factors go into taking a test on one day. You know what if that student came to school hungry?
Speaker 3:You know, what if something happened in the family dynamics the night before and then that child has to come to school, take a test and you know he's labeled for that score, and that's not fair. So I think, if the goal is to support real-time learning, reduce stress, I think that's something that our. So I think, if the goal is to support real-time learning, reduce stress, I think that's something that our district is very open to.
Speaker 1:Testing is stressful. If I had to take a test today, I'd still be stressed. I'm stressed just thinking about it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I don't do good at testing. Well, we are very excited that we are getting a new high school Yay.
Speaker 1:And it's gorgeous, so it is absolutely awesome.
Speaker 2:Tell us about the new high school.
Speaker 3:Well, it is about 250,000 square feet of pure awesomeness. Wow.
Speaker 1:It is awesome, yes.
Speaker 3:You know, it was a very intentional build, one that really reflects our community. It's welcoming traditional, one that really reflects our community. It's welcoming traditional, resilient and real forward-thinking, and it is loaded with Purple Pride.
Speaker 1:And it is gorgeous. It is gorgeous, thank you. I mean you guys. You thought of everything. We got to tour it.
Speaker 2:And it's so big they may even have room to move some of our city offices up there. It's so big, that's what we're thinking we could use some of that space.
Speaker 3:for sure, it takes a while to walk through it, for sure.
Speaker 1:So tell us what are some of the standout features or innovations about the new high school that students and parents really need to get excited about.
Speaker 3:I think the state-of-the-art CTE programs. You know we have a culinary kitchen it is out of this world With a separate bistro. There's a school store for our business students to manage. The AV Tech classroom has its own news station. There's a mock trial courtroom for our criminal justice program that is crazy. There's a patient care room. It's outfitted with the hospital beds and everything you need to learn how to take care of a patient, fitted with the hospital beds and everything you need to learn how to take care of a patient.
Speaker 3:The fine arts wing is huge, huge black box theater, larger than life band hall. It is huge and you know lots of great things. The art classrooms they open up to the courtyard. Each of the art classrooms has a garage door that raises where a student can go and, you know, maybe paint out in the in the light, using the light to help them paint, and so it opens up to that secured courtyard. The courtyard is a place for students to congregate, go eat lunch. They can use it to get from one side of the building to the other. It will have like huge turf.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, berms so that you can hang out and whatnot. So it's really neat really neat and we cannot.
Speaker 2:I mean the library. That library is, that'll be the envy of.
Speaker 1:Denton County. I'm telling you, it puts it's. I can't imagine there's a public library out there that's anywhere more beautiful. That was just beautiful. It was a really great space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the athletic wing. We have a competition gym that holds a little more than 1600 fans. We're going to have that field house for outdoor sports and it's, it's, it's state of the art, everything is. There's a couple of training rooms that are totally outfitted for our sports medicine programs. There is, you know, there's something for everyone, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there is a lot of planning that goes behind the scenes when you're working on a project of this size. Can you walk us through the planning and development process of this particular project?
Speaker 3:Sure. So building a high school takes a whole lot of teamwork. You're working with architects, project managers, obviously, us as school leaders and our community. So first you have kind of a long-range planning committee that's formed and they work to figure out what the district really needs and then they put that plan. They look at our current schools, they study the community, they look at the growth through like demographic data and they kind of come up with that plan that makes the most, gives us the most of what we have, while still planning for the future.
Speaker 3:And then, after that, the plan goes out to the community for a vote through a bond election and then, once that bond is passed, then we move forward through designing the school, getting bids from contractors, and then construction starts. And then that whole process takes a lot of communication, a whole lot of meetings to make sure that everything stays on track and that we're meeting our goals. So, if you remember, we passed our bond in May of 2022. And now, after all that planning and all that work, we're moving in to the new high school in August of 2025. So you can see the span of three years worth of work to build a school.
Speaker 1:Not to mention in that time they were remodeling their other schools to transfer students.
Speaker 3:Yes, we are Building the ag building, I mean so they're not just one school. This is a very busy summer.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so no time off for the teachers this year they're moving. So you mentioned a lot of the great features, but what were some of the key priorities when you were designing this school and how did the community input help you there?
Speaker 3:Sure. So it's very important to our district to gain insight from our stakeholders insight from our stakeholders, from our parents, our community and even our students and our teachers. What we did was we put together an education curation committee that involved community leaders, students, teachers, parents, and they were able to really give us that insight on what they wanted in a building. We had students saying you know, we want a place where we can congregate, flexible seating, you know, using the latest technology. We had parents that wanted to see, you know, updated spaces like our science lab, cte classrooms that were equipped with, you know, equipment for real world learning and so, and also safety Safety was a big thing Lots of room for the arts, and I think we achieved that, and so these kind of conversations really helped us plan how we were going to build the school, and so we kind of made sure everybody's ideas were in mind. Awesome.
Speaker 2:How is the district managing the transition for our students and staff as they prepare to move into the new high school?
Speaker 3:Well, we kind of started that yesterday. We kicked off our big move yesterday Sanger Middle School. They had already packed up, so they started moving into their new space at the old Sanger High School, which is amazing. It's going to be an amazing middle school for our kiddos. There's a lot of behind the scenes work. You know there's some renovations that we're having to do at different campuses. You know, updating technology on those campuses, making sure transportation is set for the upcoming school year, looking at the new travel patterns that we're going to have to create. And then our administrators are hard at work, working on like new processes and procedures because they're in new spaces and so it's exciting. There's a whole lot of moving parts right now, but we have an amazing team and everybody kind of has their area and what they're supposed to do, so we're excited.
Speaker 1:And there's going to be an open house or something.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, oh yeah, Sure.
Speaker 1:We'll get all that information.
Speaker 3:Sure For sure.
Speaker 1:I want to switch gears just a little bit. Sanger has a an amazing career in technical education program and I don't know if people realize. I mean, like when I went to school we didn't have that. I mean I was lucky to graduate high school, but I don't think people realize that that's not something you're required to do.
Speaker 1:That's something that Sanger does, because we want to give more offerings to our children. So I feel like we're very fortunate. But so tell us about since it's not a requirement tell us about how those come about and why we do it here in Zanger.
Speaker 3:Well, it is actually a requirement To receive federal funding. You have to have at least one pathway, one career and tech pathway. In Texas they do require one program of study and you have to have like a sequence of three courses with that. So you do have to have at least one now, one One.
Speaker 1:So we've got a lot more we do.
Speaker 3:You know our CTE programs. We have 15 different pathways ranging from animal science, audio and video production, automotive, which is huge, cosmetology, which we're actually bringing to Sanger. Our students have had to travel to NCTC for that program but now we're bringing it in-house. We have an amazing instructor coming for that. Culinary arts is another big one for us Engineering and robotics, drones, graphics design and our health sciences and welding. Welding is a big one for our students Welding.
Speaker 2:A lot of students take welding, so how many total programs are offered to our students?
Speaker 3:Well, we have 15 programs, 15, 15. Which, you know, I would say that is in great comparison to a lot of 5A schools. I would put our programs up to any of those schools. So we, you know, I wouldn't say we're fortunate, I'd say we were very intentional. We make sure that, you know, for the past six or seven years that's been our goal is making sure that our students have that avenue to find their passion, whether it is going to the workforce or college or any kind of a trade. We want to make sure that each of our students has what they need and we try to provide them as many opportunities as we can for that.
Speaker 1:And what are they kind of introduced to the opportunities?
Speaker 3:They're introduced early. We start introducing them in grade school, but when they get to middle school they can start taking those CTE courses.
Speaker 1:That's incredible, that's incredible.
Speaker 3:Several of our programs we start in middle school so that they can start that. So you know, sometimes they change their mind and that get when you start them in middle school. That gives them that opportunity to make a change and still finish and finish a pathway.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to that cosmetology we can go up for lunch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that wash and blowout you can take your car and get an oil change while you're getting your wash Right for sure 100%.
Speaker 2:You know that I mean the CTE programs. I am a huge supporter as an economic developer. We see the value of these CTE programs. Explain to me why those CTE programs are so important.
Speaker 3:I think because they give our students an opportunity to kind of see what's out there, to kind of gauge what they want to do for their future, and we try to make them, help them find that passion and then guide them in that direction. And that's kind of what it's all about. It's figuring out what they want to do in life. And that's kind of what high school is about. It's getting you set up for that next step, that next journey when you're done.
Speaker 2:And they're able to. You know we understand some. You know there might be some kids that just aren't going to go to college and that's completely okay, and these programs provide these students an opportunity to graduate with certifications so they can enter into the workforce. They're workforce ready, that's right, and they can find incredible jobs with these certifications.
Speaker 3:And even if they go to college and they have a certification, they can use that certification to help work through college and they have a certification. They can use that certification to help work through college. So, regardless of what path they take, that certification is priceless to them. It can go a long way in helping them make money for whatever. If they're going to college and just need extra money, they can use that skill set to help them.
Speaker 1:Sanger is very blessed. We have 15, you said. But how do you actually decide what CTE programs to actually offer?
Speaker 3:Student interest. It's all about what our students are interested in. We survey our students all the time. We want to make sure that we're providing them those learning opportunities that they want. We look at our local workforce. We kind of talk to you know what are the needs in our local workforce? But we also look at the trends in the region and our available resources.
Speaker 3:Really, the most important piece to any CTE program is the instructor. Without the passion of that instructor, a student's going to go somewhere else, they're going to go to a different program. So it really all relies on that instructor. And if you have a great instructor, you will have loads of kids coming in wanting to be a part of that program. And we have a ton of amazing instructors. All of our programs are strong and that's because we've really sought out the people that have that passion for that program and they are able to provide our students with so many opportunities automotive or in AV tech. You know our AV tech teacher. He has done so much work outside of teaching that he has a lot of contacts and different things and he's able to provide that to our students. He's able he's even been able to help our students get scholarships for e-sports and things like that and it's amazing. That's awesome Good deal.
Speaker 2:Well, we know, recently the, the Economic Development Corporation and the Education Foundation and the school district partnered together on an incredible program, the SWAG program, to benefit some of the programs that we mentioned earlier. But how do you partner with the local businesses to support these programs?
Speaker 3:I mean I think the partnership is very critical to the success of the programs because these businesses help us bridge the gap between the classroom and the workforce. You know we have a lot of businesses that invest in our programs through donations. They mentor our students, they provide internships for our students, and then they come and they speak and they kind of give us that direct pipeline into employment. So I mean we are forever grateful to our business partners because we couldn't thrive without them. They're very helpful to us.
Speaker 1:So, moving into some final thoughts here, so some personal insight for you, um, in all of your years in education, what is the one moment in your career that just has stuck with you?
Speaker 3:hmm, I've had a lot of great moments. Like I said, I've been here for almost 20 I think 24 years, but I think the most meaningful moment for me has really been being a part of the team that's helped bring this new high school to our district. You know, it's not about like the bricks and mortar. It's more about creating that space that truly reflects our community and it gives our students those opportunities that they deserve, not just for today, but really for the next 30 to 40 years. And I played a very small role in a very, very big project, but it's something I'm incredibly proud of.
Speaker 2:If you could tell the Sanger community one thing about the school district we know that it's awesome. What would it be?
Speaker 3:Well we have. We're very fortunate. We have an amazing school board who is so supportive, and we have a superintendent in Dr Hunter that wholeheartedly believes in making kid decisions. Sometimes we may not make the most convenient decision, or even the most popular decision, but every single decision that we make is centered around our kids and, with his leadership, we never lose sight of that. We never lose sight of who we serve, and our students are our biggest priority and we will always stand by the decisions that support their growth and their safety and their success.
Speaker 1:Awesome so one question, I'm just going to throw at you here because I was thinking at it. So if people want to get involved and to support the school, you have everything from parents to businesses. You know what's the avenue. Where do they go? Who do they contact?
Speaker 3:We have our website is full of information. If you want to work with our CTE programs, we have there's information on there about how to get involved and who to contact at Singer High School to work specifically with those programs. I mean, I'm always available. I know a lot about the high school but I can, you know, I can always direct somebody in the right, in the right uh, direction. Awesome. We have a lot of opportunities for people to get involved and you know we love it. We love for our community to be involved.
Speaker 2:So more, the merrier for us. I have one more question. Okay, what was your favorite subject? What?
Speaker 3:is your very favorite subject.
Speaker 1:Math, math, math oh.
Speaker 3:I stink at math. That was my favorite too.
Speaker 2:I might say basketball.
Speaker 3:You might too. I like sports too. She might say softball. I think history was, was my thing, but I was awful. I still am. He's repeats himself if you stick around, wait, I had some great math teachers, so this has been fun.
Speaker 1:It has been fun, jenny. Thank you so much, um, for for joining us today. This has been wonderful. We would love to have you back after you get settled into the new high school. Yeah, sure, and I know there's going to be more things on the horizon, so we definitely will have you back. Thank you Again. I am Donna Green, your host for the 266 Express. I'd like to thank Shani for joining us as our guest host Very welcome.
Speaker 1:Wonderful so you've been listening to the 266 Express. Thanks for sticking with us and listening to what's going on in your small North Texas town.