The Hangout
We talk with interesting people. Come on in and hang out!
The Hangout
# 85 Navigating Public Education with School Board Member Richard Barrera
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Richard Barrera on his third visit to the Superintendent's Hangout. Richard opens up about the financial strategies and hurdles within the San Diego Unified School District, from dealing with budget deficits to the philosophy of prioritizing student needs over building reserves. We also delve into controversial issues such as banning cell phones on school campuses. Richard is a veteran school board member and renowned expert on educational leadership.
Welcome to the Superintendent's Hangout, where we discuss topics in education, charter schools, life in general, and not necessarily in that order. I'm your host, dr Sharetta. Come on in and hang out. In this episode I was privileged to sit down for a third time with Richard Barrera. He currently holds the record for the most appearances on this podcast. Richard is a longtime colleague and friend of mine and just a very balanced and keen analyzer of politics, society, education and a lot more society, education and a lot more. Richard and I talk about potential cell phone bans in schools, the pros and cons. We talk about the role of AI. We talk about gun control. We talk about the role of political will and a lot more. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did in having this conversation with Richard Barrera. Welcome, richard. Thank you so much for coming back for a three-peat.
Speaker 2:I know my God, David, you're sick of me.
Speaker 1:Never, never. Since we've covered kind of your bio and previous episodes and folks can go back and check that those episodes out. We are starting a new school year, yeah, uh, 2020, 24, 25, which is hard to even say, right? Um, what's new in san diego, unified, where you're? You're a long-time trustee. What's new? What's exciting? What should we keep be looking out for?
Speaker 2:I mean I you know we hate to use the term moving back towards normal, but the further that we get away from the pandemic um, the more that, uh, I think you know the opportunities for um kids to be a little bit more prepared when they come into school, the relationships that teachers can have with students, it just gets better. Nobody really has their finger on the causes of chronic absenteeism and we know that we're still above where we were pre-pandemic, but we're also about half where we were a few years ago. So it's like the further that we get away from the pandemic, I think, the more opportunity for the core of what makes school great, which is those relationships between students with each other and between students and their educators. So I think we're going to have a great year and I think it's going to be a better year than last year and probably next year will be a better year than this year.
Speaker 1:Talk to me a little bit about the budget. I know you know Voice of San Diego kind of tracks that pretty closely and they were following the hard work that you folks did in the spring to avoid massive layoffs. But you're still projected to have a deficit and I know there was some spending down of reserves. So where or I'm not maybe I'm mischaracterizing.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, and it's a fair characterization, although I would say, you know, this is my 16th year on the board and every year, good economy, bad economy, relatively good state budget, relatively bad state budget. When we look out a year or two years, we project a deficit Right, and then we go through the whole process where, of course, the state budget keeps changing, but our own analysis of our costs also gets sharper as we go on over the course of the year, and so what we always project is that for the budget that we pass for the upcoming year, we're going to spend down to our minimum required reserves. So we always do that Right. So we never budget something that has. We never plan for a budget that has reserves above the minimum required reserves, reserves above the minimum required reserves, and yet we always get to the end of the year and then we've got some money that we can then apply to the next budget.
Speaker 1:So you're not trying to build reserves.
Speaker 2:We never try to build reserves, and I know that from just sort of a pure financial planning situation. I can understand where people would say, well, it's better if you build reserves, but of course, what that means for us in a state that severely underfunds public education is if we kind of just put money in the bank and don't spend it, that means a second grader is not getting what they need. So we are always going to the state's going to give us the amount of money that they give us for that year. We're going to spend it on the kids and then we'll deal with the budget crisis the next year. So this will be for me, going into budget number 17. And it's always a problem at this time. The one thing I can guarantee is we'll figure it out. What that ends up looking like is going to take a lot of work between now and the spring.
Speaker 1:I think some of that discussion when Sacramento balances the budget and they talk about depleting the rainy day fund. Yes, I think there's a psychology that comes into play when we talk about spending down something that you've kept in your little box. There, I mean, we're talking about billions of dollars, that's right, you've kept in your little box. There, I mean, we're talking about billions of dollars. But there's something that's a deficit mentality, right when you talk, or a negative mentality. There's this thing that it's always more painful to lose money that it is.
Speaker 2:the pain of losing money is greater than the joy that you get from getting a raise, getting something unexpected, right, exactly right, like a windfall, and so maybe part of it's that too, where districts get characterized as that. You get from getting a raise, getting something unexpected.
Speaker 1:Yes, Exactly right.
Speaker 2:Like a windfall, yeah, and so maybe part of it's that too, where districts get characterized as oh, you're depleting your reserves, so I think it Well the state rainy day fund is a great point, david, because, as you know, when I started, for several years there was no state rainy day fund, and so the fact that the state socks away money, which is again helpful, you know, in down years, but that's our money that it's socking away, you know. So when people say, well, where's your reserve? Well, that's where it is in the state rainy day fund. It just means they're putting less out to school districts, which means less money going out to classrooms in order to build that reserve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be interesting the next couple of years, right? I mean, I think the only thing we know about school finance in California is that it's so impossible to predict. You can't. The swings are drastic, and we're at the vagaries of a small group of really wealthy individuals too. That's right. That's the other part of it, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yes. What's different about this budget crunch as compared to, for instance, during the recession? Okay, during the recession, the economy was in bad shape and it was contracting, and when the economy contracts, the state revenues contract and you understand why there is a deficit. In this case, the economy has been expanding steadily and then we see things like what we saw last week this kind of one-day downturn in the stock market which could have enormous impact on the state budget, but then the next couple of days it was a huge turnaround. So you're exactly right.
Speaker 2:Anybody one of the smartest watchers of the California budget that I know, steve Peace, who is a state senator for many years and was actually the budget director under Jerry Brown what he told me one year was just watch car sales and that'll tell you everything you need to know about the state budget. So if car sales are up, it's going to be a good budget year. If car sales are down, it's going to be a bad budget year. Now, that was 10 years ago, so I don't know if you know that relationship is, but you know, for somebody like that who could find one variable and, you know, boil it down, you know is interesting because it is a very, very difficult thing to predict the state budget.
Speaker 1:For folks who are not involved in leading in a school district or in a charter school context. They don't really understand just the incredible myriad of competing interests that come into play when you're talking about budget planning. What's one thing that an outsider does not understand about the job of a school board member? The life of a school board member, the the daily responsibilities of a of a school board member.
Speaker 2:I mean, first of all, I think you know the the public has every right to. You know, expect a lot out of school board members. You know we know it's a part-time job, you don't have staff, all those kinds of things that school board members kind of whine about, but it's an enormous responsibility. And when we put our hands up to the voters and say we want that responsibility, the voters and the community has the right to expect a lot back and the community has the right to expect a lot back. But yeah, I would say it's maybe one big issue that's not as well understood is 80% of the money for school districts comes from the state budget. So we don't have that independent ability. We can't just raise taxes. We can't just raise taxes.
Speaker 2:We can't just raise revenues so we can only work, you know, with the money that we get from the state. And so when people you know often say to us which they're absolutely correct, how come our class sizes are too big, how come we don't have enough, you know, paraeducators, you know, aids for students with special needs, how come we don't have enough investment in arts and music and science and all those things, that is right, but that is not because the school board deprioritizes. You know those issues. In fact, you know, I believe, that our board, you know, at San Diego, unified over many, many years, has shown our priorities in the form of the decisions that we make for the budget. We had during the COVID years the only time that I've been on the board the kind of revenue coming in that allowed us to expand a lot of, you know, programs that always should have been expanded, but it was one time money that came from the federal government, you know, for purposes of helping, you know, schools get past COVID and now it's gone. And you know, like you and I have talked about in the past, it's a shame that it took a pandemic to bring the kind of resources that schools actually do need and it's a shame that now that we're, you know, out of the pandemic, those resources are gone.
Speaker 2:But the federal government you know where all that you know money came from during COVID federal government continues to dramatically under invest in special education. Feds are supposed to fund 40% of the cost that a school district spends on special education. They've never been above 15%. They severely underfund. You know Title I and the programs that are supposed to. You know support students whose families are in economic distress, the school board. That we weren't dealing with huge budget. You know questions. And now that federal money is gone because you know we're beyond COVID but the needs of our kids haven't gotten any, haven't changed in any way. In fact they've gotten, you know, more severe.
Speaker 1:For one fleeting moment, we were in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2:That's right, or New York, or something right, yeah, or New York, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because there are funding models in other states that are different right.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, my son went to college in Cambridge, massachusetts, and his roommate, his parents, were involved in the public school system there and they spent $30,000 per student. And they would say things like you know, money's not our issue. Well, that would be nice, you know, because we don't even have half of that and money is our issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you and I spoke about this in a previous podcast that the political will is just not there to change that funding model in California, even around the difference between average daily attendance and even enrollment, which certainly doesn't solve all the issues, but it's something.
Speaker 2:There are seven states in the country that fund schools based on this combination of enrollment and attendance. Every other state funds based on enrollment, which makes all the sense in the world, because if a kid misses a day of school, that doesn't mean you as a district cannot pay the teacher for that day, right? So, and, by the way, the other six states are very conservative states, you know. So we've talked a lot about in California, which is supposed to be the most progressive state in the country. In many ways we're the worst funded public school system, worst-funded public school system, and I don't think it reflects the values of Californians. Because every time we go to voters and ask are you willing to invest in our schools, even if that means making some sacrifice yourself, paying higher property taxes the voters say yes. Paying a higher property taxes, the voters say yes. So I think the political will is really more. You know leaders being willing to go to voters and ask the question and you know we're also, as you know we've talked about in the past California has had a number done on it over many, many decades by anti-tax activists who have inserted into the state constitution, into local rules about revenue increases, these supermajority requirements, so we can go to the voters as we have four times in the time that I've been on the board and ask for an investment in school facilities through bonds, and those require a 55% threshold to pass similar, you know revenue measure to fund day-to-day classrooms, teachers, you know, counselors, supports in the classroom.
Speaker 2:We would need to get a two-thirds you know vote threshold to pass that. And so that's another you know kind of situation that mystifies people. I mean, I believe me, I talk to teachers, parents, students all the time about why do we have these beautiful facilities? Why are we always under construction and yet we have, you know, we don't have enough special education aids in the classroom, and they're exactly right. But the answer to that is because we can go and pass facilities bonds at 55%, and we have, and and that speaks, I think again to the willingness of San Diegans to invest in our schools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we really lead the country in that.
Speaker 2:We really do. Yes, but if we were to ask you know, would you be willing, you know, in the same way, to raise your property taxes to support, you know, having more teachers in the classroom, more counselors? That would require a two-thirds threshold.
Speaker 1:Is it the concept of not paying a salary? Is it that? Is it this provincialism for lack of a better term kind of statewide around? Oh, if my property taxes or whatever taxes go up and that money, is that revenue, is used for additional staff, that somehow that would be wasteful.
Speaker 2:I don't think there is actually a rationale to it, other than, you know, people who don't want, frankly, to pay taxes for anything and those are organized groups, you know, with a lot of money have been over again, going back decades, beginning with Prop 13,. But since Prop 13, have been able to insert requirements that mean you can have 65% of voters say we want to invest in our schools, 65% of voters say we want to invest in our schools. And because you don't have 67%, that measure fails and I mean, I certainly consider that undemocratic, but those are the rules that exist in California and those rules can be undone through voter initiatives. There's a measure on the ballot this fall, not related to schools, but related to city governments, county governments, for instance, being able to go to voters to ask for measures to build housing, and that would change that threshold from two-thirds down to 55%. So that's on the ballot this year.
Speaker 2:I hope that passes down to 55%. So that's on the ballot this year. I hope that passes, because every time, you know, people say we've got an affordable housing crisis in California. They're exactly right. And you know, are my kids going to be able to afford to? You know, live in San Diego. Well, we've got an opportunity to do something about that if we make it more possible for local governments to be able to go to voters and say are you willing to invest in the creation of affordable housing? So that's on the ballot this year and I hope that passes.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of housing and affordable housing and I know San Diego is among, if not the most expensive city, it's among the most expensive cities in the nation now, and I think we're neck and neck with New. York and San Francisco, which is amazing if you've been here as long as I have and you remember how things were 30 years ago, but San Diego Unified has really taken the lead in affordable housing for staff. Talk to us a little bit about what has happened to date and what the plans are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we as a school district own property that can be used to build affordable housing for educators. And actually there was a study a couple of years ago by researchers at Berkeley and UCLA which identified across California school districts own 75,000 acres of land that can be developed into housing, be used for administrative purposes, or it could be a large school campus with underused portions of that campus. But there's a lot of space on school district property that could be used to develop into housing. And going back now about eight years, there are a series of bills in Sacramento that make it easier for school districts to actually convert that underused property into affordable housing.
Speaker 2:And so in our district, as an example, what was the former Central Elementary School in City Heights? What was the former Central Elementary School in City Heights? We had a large, again underused campus for the middle school, wilson Middle School that Central feeds into, and so what we did is we rebuilt both the Wilson Middle School and Central Elementary School on the same campus, consolidated that space and that opened up the old property, and now we've got plans to build close to 300 units of affordable housing for educators at different income levels on that property in City Heights. We're actually hoping the site of our headquarters, our Normal Street Education Center. We're moving the headquarters up to Kearney Mesa, which is going to free up 11 acres that we hope to develop into 500 plus units of affordable housing for educators. So we have a goal right now of getting over the next decade to about 10% of the employees in our district that we can house with affordable rents on properties that the district owns.
Speaker 1:So that would be rent, not own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there are models for homeownership. We don't want to sell the land Right. There's models sort of community land trusts you know where we could retain the land and, you know, provide homeownership opportunities. But when the family is ready to sell their property, it sort of reverts back to the district. Yes, but right now the plans are for rental housing.
Speaker 1:For rental.
Speaker 2:And it's, you know it's the goal is that the employees in our housing would pay no more than 30% of their income on rent. We know there's a crisis in San Diego where so many people are paying more than half of their income on rent and particularly for newer employees, younger employees that are kind of getting their foot in the door, kind of moving up the salary schedule. Putting the door, you know, kind of moving up the salary schedule, having that opportunity in your first five or so years, you know, to have an affordable place to live is really a critical strategy, like you say, for our you know, our ability to recruit and retain employees in a high cost of living area like San Diego.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing. It's as transformative as you know onsite daycare and things like that right. For younger families and you know starting out in teaching and I know that's been a model too. And that's interesting. I really applaud the school board and administration for kind of taking that head on. 10% is really ambitious.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. It is and you're right. And this is where I think it's San Diego Unified, and there are other districts that are doing this as well. But this is sort of the best of us, because we don't sit back and say we've got a housing crisis and that's somebody else's problem to solve for us. We say, well, what can we do to contribute to to solving that crisis?
Speaker 1:and it turns out there's a lot that we can do, so speaking of, you know, kind of hot button issues, cell phone restrictions and bans, yeah so, um, just for listeners, kind of setting the the, the kind of setting the the the stage here a little bit. There's been legislation on the books for a number of years already allowing leas to to restrict cell phone usage on campus, but now there's pending legislation that would mandate a banner or a restriction policy, if I understand it correctly.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And then LA Unified, as the 600,000 student elephant in the room, they jumped in ahead of everybody and now they're at least talking about I haven't seen anything in black and white, but they're talking about yeah, we're going to ban cell phone usage everywhere In class, outside of class, anytime on our campuses, yeah. So, with that landscape out there, where is San Diego Unified in these conversations and where do you think this is trending?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a conversation that's coming to, I'm sure, every school district.
Speaker 1:We're having it too, yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 2:We haven't taken this issue up formally as a board, but I know we will. I know this will be a conversation. Los Angeles Unified announced that, starting in the second semester of this year, the winter semester students, with some exceptions, when they come to school they've got to put their cell phones in a pouch and then they can pick them up. You know, at the end of the day my starting point again, just speaking personally, because this is not, you know, a conversation that we've started as a board I understand the impulse, you know, around cell phone bans. I do think that students have a level of distraction with cell phones that is beyond what we experienced when we were in school.
Speaker 1:I had a calculator, watch Acasio, and the battery would always die.
Speaker 2:No, that's exactly right. And the battery would always die? No, that's exactly right. And even this generation of students has an experience in terms of their relationship with cell phones and social media that is different from their older siblings. You know, five years ago, right, and part of that is intentional Social media companies, you know, or other entities that try to addict young people to their product, and they're successful. And if you're a young people and you're up against, you know that level of money and power and you know ability to think through strategically how to addict me. That's tough, you know, you're, you're, so I understand all of that and I think it's very real.
Speaker 2:I do think that a policy like, you know, banning cell phones across the board at all schools during the school day, has to be done carefully and it has to include communication with teachers, with parents and with students. And you know so the conversations that I've had with students so far and I've had, you know, several conversations around this idea of banning cell phones is pretty nuanced, you know the kids are not naive. Pretty nuanced, you know the kids are not naive. It's not that they don't understand the degree to which cell phones, social media, can be distracting and beyond distracting, you know, contributing to mental health issues. Students understand that, frankly, better than we do as adults. They also understand things that we may not understand as adults. So, for instance, you know, I've had students that tell me if you, as adults, are banning cell phones because you're trying to protect my mental health, well, there are some things that we would say should come first. So, do we have enough counseling support at our school? Do we have wellness centers that we've got access to? Is there really that kind of level of support for mental health of us use our cell phones as kind of a substitute, you know. So there might be wellness apps.
Speaker 2:You know, on the phone, that when we're getting really, you know, stressed or anxious about something, it's what we, you know the phone is what we use and we're not saying that's the best way to deal with it.
Speaker 2:But if there's nothing else, you know, and so I think that's important and students will also, you know, kind of voice. Look, we are growing up in a world where we understand that technology is more pervasive, faster, more overwhelming, intentionally so. So we better learn how to be prepared to live in a society where that's the case, because that's our future. So, rather than take the phones away from us, equip us, you know, to deal with the fact that, whether it's a cell phone today or whatever the form of technology is going to be a few years from now, the same dynamic of, you know big powerful, you know companies trying to addict us, you know, to their product. We're going to have to deal with that our whole lives, and so we've got to deal. We've got to learn how to deal with that in school and I've heard from students who say, yeah, take them away, you know, and it would be better, and then we can actually do more work during the school day.
Speaker 2:And then we're not going to be up late at night doing our homework because, you know, we've been playing on our cell phones. So students are all over the place on this conversation, but it's important, I believe, to include them on the front end in this conversation rather than to just, you know, pass a blanket policy that affects them directly without their voice.
Speaker 1:Do you know where? And I mean, I think, to use the term labor is an oversimplification of a very nuanced grouping of agencies. But where would teachers unions in general come down on this? Because, on the one hand, it would seem that you know. Anything that preserves focus, peace, tranquility in the classroom should be a positive, but on the other hand, if not implemented correctly, all you're doing is creating innumerable opportunities for conflict between adults and kids.
Speaker 2:And I've heard that a lot and I'm sure you've heard it too. David, you know, sort of from the classroom teachers perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sure it'll go. You know, I've heard classroom teachers who will say I want. And there are many classroom teachers, of course, who do say when you walk into my class, put your cell phone in a bucket and I'll give it back to you at the end of the class, and that's a policy. But even those teachers will often say but I'd rather that the district just passes the policy than forces me to be know, to be the person you know, to develop that policy. However, what you're also saying is correct, because if, as a classroom teacher, what this ends up doing for me is putting me in a situation where I've got to be disciplining students, because let's face it students are.
Speaker 2:There's no end to how smart young people can be. And if you say, when you walk into school, put your cell phone in a pouch, that doesn't mean you don't have another one in your backpack.
Speaker 2:Or a watch or a watch or something like that. And so now, if I'm a classroom teacher and I notice that a student is violating the policy, now I'm in a disciplinary relationship with that student, and that's not what I want either. So again, I think this is not a, you know, easy solution that a school board can make without listening to those voices as well Classroom teachers and parents, you know who will want to weigh in, you know, on these questions also.
Speaker 1:It seemed to move pretty quickly. It went from the Surgeon General to you know. I know our governor was saying, hey, if anything comes to my desk on this, I'm signing it. You know, and I you know again, the devil's in the details it is on this.
Speaker 1:Yes, right, it's the little pieces it's and it's it's not accurate to call it a cell phone ban policy, because it just the way, at least the legislation is drafted now and it obviously hasn't passed. But yeah is that it would require boards to enact policy to restrict and or ban. Yeah, so you know, restrict could mean a lot of things. Yeah, as you mentioned Discussions from parents and assertions that kids need these for safety.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:And I don't know of an active shooter situation that was somehow foiled by 2,000 people having their cell phones Right right, people having their cell phones Right, right. I know of situations that are made much more complicated by 2000 text messaging uh phone call cell phones Right yes. So it's going to be an interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, look it's whatever happens in whatever district that we're in um will likely mean pretty significant change from the way things have been over the last few years.
Speaker 2:And, as we know, often when you change a situation the first thing that people think about is all the things that could go wrong and because you haven't experienced the benefits or the positive aspect of change. But I also think it's never a good idea to just simply impose change by fiat. You have to give people a chance to be part of the conversation. Often the best ideas emerge, you know, when people have a chance to be part of the conversation. So I think in our district the one thing even though I am sympathetic and again, like you say, the Surgeon General, I mean the health risks associated with young people's exposure to social media through their phones or through other tools is well-documented and I'm sympathetic to that and I understand that. I just think it's important that the way we do this in our district is respectful and inclusive and doesn't leave people feeling like we just, you know, sort of change their world without their being part of that.
Speaker 1:Do you see a similar approach is necessary for the conversation around AI? Absolutely. I know I was reading some interviews with you, or the local online newspaper did, where they were asking you about kind of whether your district has a policy and it seems like there's not really yet a board-approved policy. Correct, there's not.
Speaker 2:There's not a board-approved policy or even, I think, a consistent strategic approach as a district to AI, and I think it's something that we again have to get into, and that's a process that has to involve a lot of different stakeholders, because that conversation, its starting point, can be all over the place. Often that starting point is around are students cheating by using AI, for instance, in a writing assignment, and the teachers that I talk to again that again that's not the converse. They don't want to be in a relationship where they're trying to figure out whether a student cheated or didn't cheat.
Speaker 2:So you know, a lot of really thoughtful teachers will say you know, if I get an essay and it seems to you know, have been at least partly generated by AI, what I do is I ask the student a lot of follow-up questions. You know, okay, you've, you've surfaced some interesting ideas here. Now go back and write about those ideas and come back to me and it's a you know, and again it's you know. You talk about the you know sort of the calculator watch, and I know that some people reject this comparison.
Speaker 2:But yeah when we were in school, we were sort of at the tail end of a debate around calculators. And if you introduce calculators, does that mean that students will just never learn able to expedite, which allows a student to actually get to the higher order thinking? You know around math and I think you know that's possible. You know with AI as well. With AI as well, and I also think you know there are many young people and by this I mean people in their college, students today or you know people out of out of high school who are working, who use AI all the time and you know they consider it just. You know that's, that's how I generate. You know whether I'm writing an email or whether I'm writing a research paper. You know I'll start there. So you know there's a lot, as always, to be concerned about. And and my starting point is any tech you know entrepreneur who runs around saying they're here to save the world. My, you know, skepticism. Beginning skepticism is you're here to make a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And and and. Often that means if you can make money by screwing up the world, you'll do it. Screwing up the world, you'll do it. So I'm not starting with. You know, this sort of glossy, you know, vision of technology is somehow, you know, is going to make the world a better place. It can at times make the world a better place and it can at times make the world a worse place. And so in a public school district, that's an opportunity in a democratic, you know, society for us to come together and say, yeah, but what are our societal values? You know that we want to have guardrails, you know, in place, for it's that democratic conversation about what is actually best, you know, for our young people, and it's not getting caught up in the hype of the latest tech companies saying that they're going to somehow you know make everything better.
Speaker 1:I feel optimistic about AI in general. Yeah, in schools. I think that it's going to show us that we, that it's going to bring out the humanity, because, as you say, if you wondering if your student wrote this, just sit down and have a conversation with him about the topic. Yes, I mean I could take AI and pass the MCAT, but in like the first half hour that I'm in organic chemistry, they're going to know and let's hope you never get to.
Speaker 2:You know, holding the scalpel, exactly exactly, that's right, that's right so.
Speaker 1:So you know that's that's it.
Speaker 1:Right is like, and ai can't do bedside manners yes and it can't tell it can't talk to a person of you know, a family member of someone who's ill yes, and you know it can't talk to a family member of someone who's ill yes, and it can't. So, on the other hand, there's some really efficient ways that it can synthesize information. That's right and I think our students should learn that Absolutely. I was kind of chuckling because the district was taking a little bit of heat in this article about not having a policy, but this is moving so quickly.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:I mean, it seems like every day there's a new tool.
Speaker 2:Of course there is, and that's where I think again it's fair for the community to have an expectation of the district and of the school board that we will have a conversation about this. We will, you know, have a community process that does develop some clear thinking about what our strategy and approach is, because otherwise, without that, it's whatever latest. You know kind of whiz, bang, uh thing that's being sold to the district might sound good to somebody and the next thing we've got contracts with you know different vendors and we're all over the place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's, and right now we're in the. We're in the 1.0 version, right of everything. So everything is being. Now that chat GBT is out there, everything's piggybacking. On top of this, I've been experimenting with this device called applaud PLA UD. This is they're not a sponsor, we have no sponsors, but PLA UD is a is a credit card sized device that is a recorder.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And it syncs to a cloud platform that runs on chat, gbt. Okay, and so you can point this thing down in a meeting. Flick the button record. It captures everything that you're talking about and then you can throw it up there in the cloud and put it into a meeting template.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And it'll actually, and in the notes it'll put your action items and to do and so, but it's not perfect.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so you still need a human to go in and do it. But it saved, it could save. Of course, that would take an hour of me or someone else writing it down and we're going to miss things and so Of course, yeah, but you also can't blindly go in and go out. Chat GBT said to do this.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to email it out to everybody and then, and then everybody knows what happened at the meeting. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's that that human piece, that comes in and it's still not a substitute for being in the room.
Speaker 2:It can't be yeah you know, I mean, look, I mean if we ever needed a lesson and, um, why we need to be in the room together. I think you know the uh, virtual, uh school and during covid gave us that lesson, because there are a lot of people who, as we know for a long time, who were saying remote learning is the answer, that's the magic bullet that's going to solve education, and I think we saw what happened when people are not together in relationships, students in relationships with each other and relationships with adults, and so all of this is it's really is the technology a tool that we control, that we're clear about, for our purposes of building community, of empowering students, or is it a tool that's controlling us?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and to date and this may change and these language learning models, they learn and I'm seeing they're improving, but to date they don't do nuance Right. So I've had podcasts, for example, where I'll say, well, not for you because I know you, but for people I don't know. I'll say hey, come up with 10 podcast interview questions for this person. This is their website, boom, and it'll generate 10 questions.
Speaker 1:But of the 10, I'd only want to ask one or two, the basic kicking off the conversation ones and then after that they're just not nuanced, they're not interesting.
Speaker 2:Yes yes.
Speaker 1:So it just feels like, okay, you, you go on a news and we've all been those of us who, like you, you get interviewed all the time. You can tell when the interviewer actually took some time to know about the issue or they're just kind of free riffing and going. So, mr barrera, tell me about, uh, you know, and it's like it's not interesting mean.
Speaker 2:One thing that we know of about human interaction is when two people, or 20 people or 40 people get in a space together and start having a conversation, things evolve from where people were at when they walked into that room, and so that's something that I think you know. Uh, that form of technology has a real hard time doing because sure it could generate, you know, some, like you say, pretty, um, you know rote, uh, conversation pieces to kick off a conversation, but then what happens when people actually start to get to know each other and start to explore ideas together?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the human part that is. I'm looking forward to seeing what the district comes up with in terms of a policy, Even if you come up with a formal one or not. We have an AI working group.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they've been kind of tracking this for the past year and meeting and reading books and getting smart about it. But in the month or two between the meetings the train moves on. Sure, Absolutely. So the next meeting you're talking about something that's almost passe.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's kind of how quickly that's right and that's a great point, david. I mean whatever policy, you know, strategy approach that we take at any point in time is going to change and it should change.
Speaker 1:I was recently reviewing our staff handbook and there was a piece in there that I'm sure had not been updated in 20 years. Yes 20 years. Yes, yeah, because it was expectation for classroom teachers and it said before you show a movie in your classroom, uh, check with administration. Have administration watch the videotape prior. Something along those lines, clearly from the vhs days, you know yes um right, you know, and so somehow we'd missed that in our annual updates of the policy. But yeah, things move along, and that was Netflix. Took a long time to impact culture compared to this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely no. That's exactly right yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's moving faster and faster, with some questions about a topic that's a sobering topic for anyone who works in schools and just anyone who's human, which is active shootings on campuses, and I know that the district has some really clear safety guidelines in the renovations of campuses and single point of entry fences that are of a certain height, all these pieces um. Recently there was an article about a school in san diego we don't need to say the name, but they allegedly had run an active shooter drill that in some capacity included the sound of gunshots and sirens. Whether that was intentional or not is we'll never know. I wasn't there, um. Was it radio interference or something else? But right, suffice to say traumatic for anyone who heard the radio transmission.
Speaker 1:Subsequent to that, we have a local assembly member ward who is proposing legislation to kind of put some bumpers and guidelines around active shooter drills on campuses. Turns out that the research on the effectiveness of active shooter drills is kind of mixed right In terms of risk versus reward, re-traumatizing versus educating and empowering. Where does San Diego Unified come down on that from a board level, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's. You know, a couple of years ago we had an event at San Diego High School and there were a lot of. It was actually representatives from the Padres were there and different people from the community were there having a conversation with the students in the auditorium and the alarm went off and the principal announced over the intercom um, we were in a lockdown and that meant everybody had to stay where they're at and there were probably 200 or so students in the room and one of the sobering, you know, experiences that I had with that was the students. This had become everyday life.
Speaker 1:Routine.
Speaker 2:Routine. The adults were freaking out. You know the Padres player was saying I got to get to practice, but that experience again. You know the difference of what daily experience, what real life means to a young person, is compared to. You know the difference of what daily experience, what real life means to a young person, is compared to. You know what a lot of us grew up with is. You know it is.
Speaker 2:It is something that you know makes you realize, um, because I wouldn't say that that group of students at San Diego high school or any students, um, it's not that they are now just somehow immune. Um, it just means that's a level of chronic stress you know that they live with that. I think is is something that's hard for you know, um, people from you know older generations to really appreciate that. You know, if you ask students about sort of what their number one concerns are at school, particularly among high school students, this will usually rise to the top. You know what do I do if? You know we end up in an active shooter situation? Um, you know I, I, I never would have thought about that as a, you know, as a student in high school we had fire drills we had fire drills we had.
Speaker 1:No one took them seriously.
Speaker 2:Earthquake drill yeah, I'm from new york, so we didn't dumb thing to do, right, yeah, stop drop and roll in a way that we're actually increasing that trauma in students in sort of preparing for these drills. And I think there's, you know, I think there's a balance there. Even you know this is one of those reasons why I've always thought it's a bad idea to put metal detectors, you know, at school, to have a lot of those types of you know kind of security strategies, because it probably actually makes the school less safe. You know, if students start to have an experience where they think that adults don't trust them or that you're creating this sort of almost sort of fortress, you know, atmosphere, I think it can the impact and we've seen a lot of research that backs this up like you say, that all that does is add to students, you know, stress and mental health issues. So it's, yes, we need to do everything we can to, both on a physical level, on training, in terms of communication, be as prepared as we possibly can be for this reality into a situation where students are just really anxious to go to school and to be at school, then I think we've gone too far the other way.
Speaker 2:And you know, david, you know you and I, you know talked about this. It's for anybody who thinks that we solve the problem of school shootings with these kinds of safety training strategies at school and ignore the fact that people have access to those weapons, they're either incredibly naive or they're, frankly, in the pocket of the gun manufacturers. And we talk about political will. We've got too many people, too many elected officials in this country who are willing to sacrifice the safety of young people because they don't want to get on the wrong side of the NRA and the gun manufacturers. People in this country do not need to be walking around with access to assault weapons period, and when they do have access to assault weapons, they're going to show up at school campuses and it's going to threaten the safety of our kids.
Speaker 1:The fascinating thing about that horrifying reality is that the NRA has, like recently, collapsed as an organization, you know, just through mismanagement and otherwise, but the that didn't weaken the cause. Yes, yes, and you know. I think Pennsylvania was one example of. You know that's. That was an AR-15, that the kid had to go to target practice.
Speaker 2:Dad thought he was going to target practice that day and again there's too many examples of other countries that have sensible gun policies that ban these, you know, assault weapons, and that don't see the level of gun violence that we see in this country. And so again, it's um know, we've talked about sort of the predatory, you know, outlook on the world that technology companies have, you know, towards young people. Well, I don't know how somebody who promotes, you know, the idea that people in our society should have access to these kinds of weapons. I don't know how they sleep at night, I don't know how they look at themselves in the mirror, because Sandy Hook had all of those policies in place single point of entry, perimeter fencing, training of staff, all of that and we saw what happened there. And it's because those guns are too available in our society.
Speaker 1:The Secret Service obviously has a vested interest and sometimes they make mistakes. But they have a vested interest in trying to anticipate mass shooting incidents and trying to profile and there really is no. The only profiling thing they've ever been able to do is by gender.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the only overwhelming thing.
Speaker 1:Other than that it's pretty. It appears to be pretty random, yes, um, but they conclude every time they do these longitudinal studies that one of the most important elements in keeping a community safe is to have a community that where people know each other, yes, and care about each other, yes, and you know a head up and greeting. And to me it's just, it's so simple. It's not always easy, not always easy. We're all going a million miles an hour.
Speaker 1:If we're staring at our phone, we're not doing that either, yeah yeah, yeah and so, but what a simple but elegant human solution or not a full solution, but it's something. Right To know who is there, who's in your community, who's having a hard time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it gets back to even the importance of teachers greeting students at the door of the classrooms, absolutely, absolutely, which? Is I was. Who was I speaking to? It was one of the podcast guests that we talked about. Maybe it was Hedy Chang, who, statewide, does a lot of work on chronic, yeah, attendance, chronic absenteeism, she's kind of become the statewide guru.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fascinating and she talks about hey, I'd love to do research on the impact of greeting students at the door on student well-being and academic achievement. So what if we did that at the front door of our campus too?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. It's, you know, it's everything it's, you know we've talked about this it's anybody who comes to work every day wants to be in a community, wants to be, you know, feel like there's people who care whether I'm there or not. You know people who know me, people who value me, young people need that more than anybody. And so, yeah, the schools that create the best. Again, it's like you say.
Speaker 2:I think it's a simple and powerful strategy for anything that we want to achieve in our schools, for anything that we want to achieve in our schools. If you have a stronger school community where kids feel like they're connected, they're going to do better academically. They're going to, you know, their self-confidence is going to grow, their leadership, their you know, their belief in themselves is going to grow. It's a place that teachers want to teach at, you know, it's a place that parents want to feel connected to, and it just makes the school better in every way. You're exactly right, that's the and. So, you know, when we think about, you know, in terms of the way that we want to set up systems and policies in our schools, I do think the number one focus should always be does the policy, does the system facilitate those genuine relationships between people at school and if it does, a lot of things are going to get better. If it gets in the way of those genuine relationships, however well-intentioned, it's probably going to fail even in its own objectives and I think it also.
Speaker 1:There's no way to isolate or separate what happens on campuses with what happens in society. You can't. If we're polarized outside of campus and we create an oasis, it's not going to hold up. That's right. Um, and so this is really that collective work. That's right.
Speaker 2:That never ends. That never ends. Yeah, and you're right, we can't create oases, but schools are the vehicle that allow people from all different backgrounds and experiences, daily and you know, over the generations, to come together, get to know each other, appreciate each other, believe in each other, and then our society gets better, you know, as a result of that. It's the genius of the idea that we have in our community these places, that we bring young people together and they learn together and they get to know each other and it's free and and it's and everybody you know gets to be there and everybody actually has to be there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, you know, obviously, when we're kids we sometimes have this notion of, ah, I gotta go to school, I can't wait till June 15th or whatever. But now, as I get older the other day I was reflecting back yeah, if I go back to my first day of preschool, let's say I don't know what I was, four or something to now, yeah, I've had 50 years of the first days of school. A half a century between my schooling all the way up through, and then college et cetera, and then professionally.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking I've spent half a century doing this first day of school, and what a gift, yes, and that's so great.
Speaker 1:That's a great way to right the refresh, the the, the re, the refreshing of a new year, and you know the challenges you're going to have. Yeah, but you're ready to take them on, yeah, um, some seem like they're the same challenges from 30 years ago and others are completely new that's right at 30 when I started my career. When you started your career?
Speaker 1:neither of us owned a cell phone, that's right or AI, and fortunately active shooter wasn't even in the vernacular before Columbine, so it's interesting how this profession has so much to give to all of us and to our kids. I just feel very grateful.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I wanted to thank you again for coming in and for supporting the work, and I think I'd be remiss if I didn't just mention that we're going to be doing a ribbon cutting on a phase, one of many phases on elementary campus and thanks to just a great collaboration with the district that we talked about in the last podcast, right when brand new state-of-the-art building for kids like whether they're in a charter school, a district school, it doesn't even matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't matter. There are young people, it doesn't even matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter, there are young people. They've got an opportunity to now learn in state-of-the-art facilities, and all of us, as San Diegans, should be proud, because all of us made that happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll be seeing you and I, I think, unless they cut mine out, which they probably should have we'll be on the news in a couple of days.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're talking about that, talking about that right Profiling, I know you're going to be in that story as well to some capacity, so I really wanted to thank you, richard, for your time this afternoon, for your generosity. I know you're busy. You got a lot of stuff going on and you don't have a staff too, so I know you have a lot of work, so thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thanks, david. Thanks as always, yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Superintendents Hangout. You can follow me on Twitter at DVS1970. Please be sure to share this show with friends and family on social media and in the real world. Thank you to Brad Backeal for editing and production assistance and to Tina Royster for scheduling and logistics. Thanks for hanging out and have a great day.