Episode 7: Why the DPS board shouldn't extend the superintendent's contract (with guest Nicholas Hernández of TEN)

Transcript

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 0:08

Thanks for tuning in everyone. Alan and I are excited to welcome a special guest onto the podcast today. Nicholas Hernandez, the executive Director of 10. Before I introduce Nicholas, we want to share with you what we'll be discussing today. Alan wrote a great piece a couple of days ago on the Board Hawk website about. Superintendent Martos contract extension and some of the interest by board members to continue this contract. What we would say is probably prematurely, we'll get into the motivation of why we think that's the case here in a little bit, but really excited to have. Nicholas Hernandez, the executive director of 10 joining us today. In full transparency, Nicholas is a good friend of mine. Our families are friends and I have to say, whenever there's some shenanigans going down at board meetings, he is usually my first call to ask, did you hear this? What are your thoughts? And, and get the hot take. And in that spirit I will just say at the start before I introduce Nicholas if you are listening to this podcast on speaker or have other maybe young children around, there may be some adult language being used more than usual in this particular podcast episode. So it's just a warning for maybe younger listeners or people who have younger listeners around. Nicholas Hernandez is the co-founder and current executive director of Transform Education now, also known as 10. 10 works to ensure that all students have access to high quality education. With over 15 years of experience in community organizing, policy advocacy, and family engagement, Nicholas is dedicated to building a more just education system shaped by his own educational experiences and the families he serves. Nicholas believes. Real change happens when communities lead the fight for better schools. He began organizing at the University of Colorado Boulder, later teaching middle school in DPS before returning to advocacy full-time. He's a proud Denver native and a devoted husband and father. When he is not working to transform education, you can find him cheering on the buffs or enjoying the outdoors. SCO buffs. SCO buffs. That's right. Thanks so much for being here, Nick.

Nicholas Hernandez: 2:16

No, I appreciate you guys having me. I do gotta say every time something wild happens at a DS board meeting I do look forward to our phone calls just to make sure that I'm not hearing things wrong or that I, I'm not a crazy person. So definitely appreciate all that and appreciate you, appreciate the the board hawk team having me appreciate y'all talking about some of the challenging stuff happening across the district and always, being pretty blunt about it.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 2:37

Thanks so much. We're excited to have you here to jump into this. And before we do Alan, do you want to maybe just give a summary of the article you wrote and what it is we're gonna be diving into here?

Alan Gottlieb: 2:47

Yes, happy to and welcome Nicholas. It's great to have you. So I started hearing whispers from a lot of people in the last couple of weeks to keep track of the the board meeting earlier this month in March. Because there was going to be an executive session to talk about the superintendent's contract. And what was going to be being discussed was extending his contract for a not insignificant period of time. There's no information about how long, very soon. When you think about the fact that there's a board election coming up in November and the composition of the board could change dramatically in November, this struck me as a transparently manipulative move by the board majority to impose their will on the public and the new board. Before they have a chance to do anything about it. Alex Marrero is a polarizing and controversial superintendent. I think it's safe to say he's got his, he's got his loyalists and fans, but I would argue that. The small number of people who seem to actually pay attention to day-to-day stuff about DPSE. It's much more unpopular than he is popular for a variety of reasons. Including inside the organization. There are a lot of people who would never speak out publicly, but are not happy and are intimidated by the atmosphere in there. So for the board to simply decide ticket that they're gonna go ahead and do this, I think is an egregious. Abrogation of their responsibility and their duty to represent the public. Now, it's not a done deal at all. I think there are three board members solidly wanting to do this, and I'll name them because I'm pretty confident about it. Scott Esserman, Sochi Gaan, and Michelle Qba. I think as often is the case. President Kerry Olsen's a little bit on the fence, but is likely to fall off on the fa on the side of those three and do this. And it's not entirely clear to me where all the other three board members are, but I know at least among some of them there's unhappiness about this. So I think, to do this. And then the other thing I want to just add before we get into the conversation is that the thing that was infuriating to me during that board meeting is that board member Scott Esserman. Said that he didn't think that this was an issue. That really some things are board decisions and some things require public, input and public discussion. But this was the board's responsibility and basically they weren't necessarily gonna seek public input before they made this decision, which I think is, I. Infuriating is a mild word for it, but it's just, it just shows that, as I said in my piece that I wrote about this, that, Trumpian authoritarianism is spread to the other side of the political spectrum too. So that's a brief intro.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 5:22

Thanks Alan. Nicholas, what were your thoughts when you first heard about this coming outta the board meeting?

Nicholas Hernandez: 5:29

Yeah. I think I think Alan's analysis of power dynamics is probably pretty accurate there, right? In the desire to have a an element of control. I don't think anybody runs for an elected seat without having some desire for decision making. I try to be. I try to be give the, what is it, the benefit of the doubt to folks, right? And say maybe this isn't nefarious. Maybe there, there's other circumstances, but I just haven't been able to really find it right. I remember talking to previous board members when we, when Dr. Murra was first hired, and it was like, we have to do this. We have to keep moving. Like the, we're struggling to recruit talent. Everybody's staying post pandemic where they're at. That's not the reality where we're at, right? There's. There's big cities with superintendent, coming and going and large pools of applicants, so I think the worry that, if he left, if you don't renew a contract and he decides to leave prematurely or at the end of the contract, right? Like we can find somebody, it's not easy, it's not cheap, but it's, it's possible. And, we're. We're in a new era of education, and so maybe we need new leadership to think about things differently or coming from places that are potentially serving kids a little bit better post pandemic. I will also say that like this doesn't feel great, especially considering how other superintendents have been treated when it comes time for contracts and evaluation. I think that was the first thing I thought of, I know you all, y'all, Nick say

Alan Gottlieb: 6:48

Nicholas, say a little bit more about that. Yeah, were, I think you're talking about Sana in particular.

Nicholas Hernandez: 6:51

Yeah. Y'all were around in 2018, right? Right after the strike and things like that. The Eva, there was a lot of conversation about whether her formal evaluation would be published in totality. And I believe if I, my memory is not mistaken, like it was ultimately leaked to Chalkbeat, right? There was not a, there was not a name put to who gave them the evaluation, but we all got to see the evaluation and. That was the justification for really pushing Susanna out. I would argue that, superintendent evaluations should be public documents, and I think we should be having a public conversation about whether this district is heading in the right direction. I think myself and other folks would probably argue that it's not, regardless of what some of the messaging has been I don't think we're heading in a positive direction. I don't think our kids are better now than they were five years ago. And I, and anybody that's worked in schools, man, I. It starts with leadership. Good leaders. Good leaders, build good teams and have good results. And that's true for education. It's true for other places. So definitely a little disheartened to, to hear folks talk about this, like it's not a public conversation or that community doesn't have a role to play in some of this. I think we absolutely do. These are these are our children.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 7:59

Yep. That's a great point. And I think there's, the one piece about how much is being done in the light, how much is being, is trying to happen behind closed doors in executive session. The thing I want to pivot the conversation to for just a minute is really the timing. As Alan mentioned earlier, and also in his article, they don't need to inform the superintendent if his contract is going to be renewed or not until January 1st, 2026. We're in March right now. And this board so often kicks the can down the road on difficult decisions and for them to, in March of 2025, start having discussions about getting a contract renewed. For a contract that doesn't expire until June 30th, 2026, it's really hard not to think using your language from earlier that this isn't nefarious. And I absolutely, I mean my political brain and my political hat on, I think this is poli, this is a political move trying to establish the leadership that this board that will likely end up being the majority has before this election. So that if some of these board members who are. Possibly seeking reelection, lose that whoever is in that position, they have that superintendent in place, the current superintendent in place for who knows how much longer, right? It's in another two year extension. Is it a four year contract? We don't know, but I actually think that's even more of a reason to hold because you will create such a political nightmare for an incoming board of directors should those. Seats flip and the incumbents not be reelected and you have maybe more of a innovative board as opposed to more of a traditional board coming in. But having a superintendent that has tended to side more with the traditionalists, I think would create a lot of tension. And I think it's, I. Better for students, better for the DDPS community, the Denver community broadly, if you allow the leadership and the elected officials to choose a board or choose a superintendent that meets that actually aligns more with the board members of that time. And I think it's also speaks to what the voters and what the public sentiment is as well.

Alan Gottlieb: 10:15

I just had a glass half full thought that I'd love to get your guys' thought on, which is maybe the upside of this is if they make this decision to extend the contract, that makes the incumbent board members even more vulnerable in November because it's a great campaign issue for their opponents to run on.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 10:31

That's a good point.

Nicholas Hernandez: 10:33

Yeah. I definitely think it feels like a rush decision, january 20, 26 seems like enough time to put some goals on paper, and correct me if I'm wrong, right? Like we just approved his goals in January. It seems like January, 2026 is enough time to maybe look at progress, do some interim monitoring, do some we don't. We don't

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 10:53

even know if he is on track with his existing goals. Like how are you going to push this through when you don't even know if he's meeting your, the current standards? It's wild.

Nicholas Hernandez: 11:02

And your point about public sentiment, I think is spot on. I, I've been around long enough. I remember Susanna, I remember Tom. I don't ever remember any of those folks having yard signs that say fire, Susanna. And like I still see those and it catches me off guard and it's always three or four houses in a row. I do think that like parents, I do think that community members, taxpayers. I think they wanna know some information, right? Like they hear a lot, they see a lot in the news, and they want to know some data around where we're headed and whether our senior most leader is being an effective leader.

Alan Gottlieb: 11:37

And there's a couple of ways to measure that, right? There's the most important way, as you mentioned before, we got on the Air, Nicholas, which is students, how students are doing. Yeah. Another way is like how the. The community at large has reacted to the district, which we can get to in a minute. But I was really disheartened and I wrote a piece on Boardwalk a couple of weeks ago about the way the district spun the most recent NAP scores. NAP is the nationally normed assessment that is given every couple of years that is considered the gold standard. It's called America's Report Card and DPS put all out releases and. Boasted and the board members are seeing eros praises because they were among the big urban districts look better than most of the other big urban districts. But it doesn't take a sophisticated data analyst to pull apart that data to see that all the progress that's being made is basically by affluent students, mostly white students, which DPS seems to do a great job of. Educating, but the kids that they profess to care about, the kids that comprise the majority of the student body, kids of color, low income kids are doing worse in Denver than they're doing in most other big urban districts. And that's saying something. So we should be paying attention to that and paying attention to the kind of nauseating spin machine that comes out of. DPS that is to me, basically lying to the public about how the district is doing.

Nicholas Hernandez: 12:55

And that's what I was gonna say. It feels intentionally dishonest not to have that full conversation. Let's celebrate the fact that our affluent and our white students are doing well.'cause those kids matter too. And that tells us something. But honest, but like having that full, honest conversation to say that but we are still not serving marginalized kids as well as we know we can. And we should be. Is a problem to me, and the fact that we gloss over it, that our district kind of brushes past it, man, that doesn't, to me, fill in line with our values of equity and community. I it's a real problem for us here at 10. I think we've been spending a lot of time with parent leaders talking about that, right? Because I think folks here oh, things are better. And from a parent perspective, right? Folks see their kids going to school, right? And so they're slightly more disconnected. I think folks had a weird viewpoint into education through the pandemic, and that has stuck with folks and it feels more normal. And then you add that onto the fact that my kid goes to school every day and my kid, the district is telling me we're doing fine. Everything feels, that's the shade being pulled down over all of our eyes. But to your point, Alan, like kids of color, free and reduced lunch kids, special ed kid kids. Like they've made no significant progress in, I think, what, 20 years. There's been no statistical progress made for them in generations now. Like we can start using generational timelines for these kids.'cause those kids' parents are now moving on and moving out.

Alan Gottlieb: 14:16

Then most recently just in this past meeting, they had did a big presentation and did a lot of celebrating about the graduation rates being at all time high. And that's good. I'm happy to see that. Scott Esserman, my favorite board member to also took the opportunity then to basically blast anybody who was cri like what we're doing right now. Anybody who does what we're doing right now is a naysayer and is only looking for the, is distr is being destructive and is not helping. Build the district up. And but you know what, I always ask about graduation rates, and I haven't seen these numbers yet. I don't I think they lag. But is graduation rates alone are meaningless without looking at something like remediation rates? Exactly. And for the uninitiated, basically what that means is. If you're just pushing kids through to to juice your numbers or, as they call said in the old TV show, the wire juke the stats Yep. To get your numbers up there. If the kids who are going on to any kind of form of higher education or post-secondary education are then being forced to take remedial classes that they have to pay for out of their own pocket and get no college credit for, because DPS just wanted to push'em through, that's not good. So we need to, you can't divorce graduation rate numbers from other numbers, but this is DP S'S. MO these days, which is just spin.

Nicholas Hernandez: 15:28

In the words of the famous councilman clay Davis. She, like we, graduation rates are important, man, like I, if we're not graduating kids, that tells us something. But I also think that like graduation rates to me are such a flawed statistic of success because I know kids that, that got a high school diploma and didn't have any options afterward. I've met families whose kids graduated, who couldn't, read a job application. I think your point around remediation is spot on. I also think that I understand why we do it, the multi-year graduation best of average, right? We have some programs that across the city and across the state, that, take five, six years to graduate and those kids leave their school with a, what is it? An associate's degree. And I think that's important to, to factor in. From a lot of these high schools, we're not doing that, but we're still co looking at multi-year graduation, right? You don't graduate high school in four years. What are your real options, right? And or even if you do graduate in four years and that's it, right? You don't have post-secondary credentials, you don't have apprenticeships, you don't have a college degree later on in life. Like what is that actually set up for your life choices? We know that this city is wildly expensive and it takes a good job to, to support a family here, let alone, to do so on just a high school diploma. Not saying it can't be done, but that's not the norm. And I think high school graduation is such a narrow viewpoint of success without looking at what all of those kids are able to experience, or what choices those kids have, right. This, I feel like this happens a lot. We talk to folks, we talk to schools and they're like look at our graduation. Talk to our Vale Victorian. It's yeah, I know your Vale Victorian is great and is doing big things. I wanna talk to graduate number 245. I wanna know what that life is like for those kids who are maybe more of like the average student that we serve. And I, my, my hunch is that the average student in DPS middle of the pack. Who is graduating, taking remediation classes may or may not be going to college, may or may not be finishing college struggling. Like they're having a tough go at it because it's rough out there.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 17:34

Yeah, I completely agree. And speaking as a parent with a lot more influence, a lot more. Privilege. We struggle, right? Like I've talked to both of you about, my, my younger child is in second grade and the things we've been trying to do to get his IEP fully served he's in speech therapy, getting him to read on grade level. He's very behind. We have access to resources and tutoring and or a family of means, and it's hard for us. So I can't imagine a family that doesn't have financial resources or knows what they can and can't advocate what they can and should advocate for around their child's individual needs. It's really, it's hard. And to your point, Nicholas Denver's a really expensive city. I was doing a little bit of research before this podcast and. The median household income for the city and county of Denver is$91,681. The superintendent, when he started in July of 2021, was making$260,000 a year. That number, bumped up then I think in 2023 to 2 75, and then it went into 3 0 1 I think. Now, basically with the latest increase that he got back in October he got a 5%. The equivalent of a 5% bonus, which for his salary of now 346,000 in change was a bonus of about 17,000. Now I know people are pissed and angry, like that is obviously an incredibly highest salary. I will say, he, I don't think he's the highest paid superintendent, and I do know that there's a lot of superintendents making more money and anybody making over$200,000 year, man, that's a shit ton of money. If you are paying somebody over$350,000 a year, you need to show your value and worth and your performance needs to go back to. It needs to be more than the graduation rates. For me, I know test scores are controversial. That's why I personally have very strong opinions about, really changing assessments. Overall, that's a whole nother podcast, but we need to be looking at just what are our benchmarks and how are we making sure. We're talking about equity, talking about that student piece. So I just didn't want to let this podcast come and go without at least talking about the salary piece. And if we're paying you three 50 a year, let's make sure we're getting our money's worth here.

Nicholas Hernandez: 19:52

I, and I think that's how we've been talking about it with families is let's make sure we're getting our money's worth here. Let's make sure that everybody's rolling in the right. In the same direction. The other part is like we evaluate teachers. We, Eva and I said this to some folks after your article, Alan, I was like, it's wild to me that like the idea that his evaluation wouldn't be public. We evaluate teachers, we evaluate students. My mom works at the post office. She's evaluated on her job, whether whether she's serving customers but the superintendent, like that's not a community decision. That's not a community conversation. With that. I actually agree, like maybe that is a board decision, but it has to come with community input. And there has to be a well-rounded, because to your point, Alexis, like$300,000 is a lot of money.$300,000 is a large investment in one person whose task is to lead the largest district in the state. We have all said publicly multiple times, and I'm including myself in this, right?'cause it's a we thing. Kids of color matter hit marginalized, kids matter and their academic outcomes matter. Like it shouldn't be this complic, it shouldn't be this controversial to say then show us that we're making progress with that$300,000. What's changed? What's gonna be better now? Yeah.

Alan Gottlieb: 21:04

And what really strikes me is that, this administration seems to me to have certain parallels to the early days of the second Trump regime in that it's a combination of authoritarianism and incompetence. That's how I see it. And one of the, one of the benchmarks for me about this is I just went back and reviewed the number of really serious and potentially very costly lawsuits that the district is currently facing. Most recently in the last. 10 days in the, at the second anniversary of the tragic shootings at East High School. The two, both deans who were shot the have filed suits against the district. The family of the shoot, the kid who did the shooting, who then took his own life they have not filed a lawsuit. So I don't know what's happening there. But Luis Garcia's family, the student who was shot out in front of east. A few months before that shooting, his family's filed suit. We've got Kurt Dennis, the former principal of IFF International School has filed suit and we had him on this podcast with his lawyer. We're basically being railroaded out at the district for daring to question their safety plan. We've got, brandon Pryor, an outspoken gadfly community advocate who was barred from going to public comment because he dared to speak truth to power, and they felt like he was too. He's an assertive, aggressive guy, to ban him. So he's got a lawsuit pending. And then a woman named Kristen Fry, a white woman who was accused to buy. A community activist who is known to stretch the truth sometimes of calling him the N word which apparently did not happen. But he was publicly or she was publicly chastised and called out by board members, andante Anderson, and I think Scott Esman in particular by the superintendent, by others. She's filed suits, so a lot of these suits are gonna wind up getting settled. It's again, because of just plain. Stupidity and arrogance that these suits have happened or. An ideological blindness to the idiocy of their student safety plans that allowed kids to go to school with other kids who definitely were it just was dangerous to other kids and to themselves as it turned out. So they've got a lot of accounting to do, and this is the superintendent who were there about to extend and give a raise to who's brought all this down upon the district and which is going to cost the district. I predict tens of millions of dollars down the road.

Nicholas Hernandez: 23:25

I think of of big systems in like sports analogies, right? A good team has good leadership, right? Whether that's player level, whether that's coach level and the good teams, they don't have this nonsense, right? Like they don't have these problems. Lawsuits happen. People have missteps things happen. But to have this pattern, this repeated pattern of just. Chaos and I can't put it any other way other than chaos speaks to, to, to a lack of leadership. A lack of leadership at the most senior level. And you spoke to the safe plans, and I think the thing that like always caught me off guard at the safety plans was like this idea that oh, that. That's a school decision. That's a school decision. Just totally passed the buck. Yet when it came time for advocacy. When individuals within schools spoke up, your point about the how did you phrase it? A Trumpian authoritarianism. That's been a pattern of Dr. Morero since day one. I was. I was at the American Indian Academy when he had some pretty bold statements to say, long before we had decisions to make. I was at the capitol when teachers came and spoke and teachers and leaders came and spoke maybe in like on policy decisions that weren't in lockstep. And they all got a letter that said, Hey when you speak on policy, you told the company line. And that's to me like this is just. That is just repeated behavior, poor behavior from a leader who doesn't understand the idea of service leadership, right? It is a top down. It's a power. It's a me and I know best follow. Just listen to what I say. And unfortunately it seems like some members of the board are back in that, right?'cause that's what an contract extension means. That's what a that's what a, a salary what is it a. A bonus means, right? Like you're doing well. We're rubber stamping your decisions. We, we got your back. When you evaluate an employee and you say, Hey, you've done an excellent job, and you give them additional dollars and responsibilities. That's what that says. That is a ex, that is a articulation of your values.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 25:21

Yeah. And what they're also

Alan Gottlieb: 25:22

saying, go ahead,

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 25:23

Alexis. Oh, there's two things that come to mind for me really quick on this. One is. The board itself, I would say the dysfunction has gotten better. There's still for sure it's still not perfect, but we see it's a lot more civil, a lot more respectful. The disagreements are grounded in, just normal discussion and there's still disagreement. That's fine. It's what you would expect. But the dysfunction of. The superintendent and the administrative leadership has not gotten better. And to me that alone is reason enough to reconsider whether or not to extend his contract. And then the second piece, I have to do my own petty chiming in. Usually Alan's the one that calls out his pettiness before you said that, but this time I will. I mentioned this a couple of episodes ago. But the other parallel that I see a lot with this current superintendent, Morero and Trump is the comparison to previous leadership. You always see Trump talking about how terrible Obama was, or, even his opponent, being a sore loser Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Madero comparing himself constantly to Boberg and what about Boberg? This Boberg that's dude, you gotta move on. Like you're in the power, you're in the position now. But I still just think it's hilarious that he, and it's such a Trump move. After I spoke at public comment, the fact that he came up to me and said where was the advocacy against, boberg on this thing. I just find it so laughable that is what he chooses to latch onto in the same way that Trump chooses to latch onto things that, Obama did or Biden did.

Nicholas Hernandez: 26:57

And I and what a a historical revisionist, right? Like we were all there when. People were lining up to yell at Tom and Tom sat there respectfully and listened to everyone whether he agreed with you or not. Whether you were nice about it or not, he sat there and he listened because he understood it was important. And in fact, the Boberg administration and Bennett before him and Susanna continued, welcomed that into a way that actually said it is our responsibility as senior leaders, whether we're elected, whether we're appointed, whether this is our job. We're gonna sit here and listen when actually what we see from these group of folks, a superintendent who says community matters. A board who originally ran on this idea that community control of school was important, have limited public comment. They've made it more complicated. They have actually made it harder for folks to engage in these conversation. And then finally flat out said this actually isn't in your purview. You actually don't have a seat at this table. To me, that. Is wild to be able to call out the folks that came before like that, especially if you weren't here. Especially because like they endured all of that. I bet you if you asked Tom, he was like, yeah, I got yelled at quite a bit. There was a lot of advocacy, there was a lot of angry people. I was

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 28:07

he when he got screamed at. And same thing I was in the room when Susanna got yelled at a lot too. It is worth Alan s considering maybe for a future episode. Just doing the episode on the censorship of this administration and the amount of censorship that has existed or created now as opposed to the previous previous leaders.

Alan Gottlieb: 28:23

Could all the NDAs and accept

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 28:26

all of that. Oh, I forgot about the NDAs. That's a whole nother thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's

Nicholas Hernandez: 28:30

Could you imagine if folks at the capitol said, we're only gonna limit public comment to an hour, or, we're gonna do this. Like routinely those folks, for better or worse, right? They're there five, six hours listening to people yell at them. Could you imagine if they did that? The uproar, the but DPS does it, and folks go, maybe we'll get out of here a little bit early.

Alan Gottlieb: 28:51

Yeah. So I think, to me, the bottom line is that this board, or the majority of this current board is basically. Staring a future board by extending Ros contract if in fact they do it to take the political hit down the road of having to pay buy him out if they wanna get rid of him. So they're creating a very difficult situation deliberately in an in, in an, in order to make their the lives of the future board miserable because that future board presumably would be a board that was. Tilted in the direction opposite of the current board's direction, which is to me, politics. But you shouldn't be playing that kind of politics with public education

Nicholas Hernandez: 29:29

and who loses in either one of those situations. If Marrero is terrible and we have to fire him it's kids, right? Because we now have to pay out this money. If he's, if we fire him like now and we're able to find somebody better, then kids win, right? In every situation that these folks are talking about, it's kids that are the bargaining chip, it's kids futures. It's kids who are in the balance. Not the adults. This board, the next board, like they're volunteers. They'll come, they'll go. But a fourth grader will still be here through the next administration. That's right.

Alan Gottlieb: 30:05

Yep. I don't have anything else, and I think that's a pretty good note and a good focus to end on. Let's keep in mind that's what this is all about, and we often forget that, and I feel like it's certainly the board seems to forget it, despite their incessant lip service to kids. Their actions belie their words, sometimes. Any other, if any final thoughts, Alexis or Nicholas.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 30:28

Nope. Just thanks so much for joining us, Nicholas. It was great having you on and I think we did a really nice job of very few swear words there. Good job everyone.