Episode 8: Why Robin Pulliam, a highly respected senior DPS staffer, left the district (Hint: a toxic culture played a big role)

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants: 0:09

Hi everybody and welcome to the Board Hawk Podcast. We are honored today to have a special guest, Robin Pullum, who is former Deputy Chief of Staff in Denver Public Schools. So you left the district in 2022, which may make this seem like old news, but it seems directly relevant or at least indirectly relevant to the current news that the Board of Education is likely to. Extend the contract of Alex Marrero imminently. Despite our best efforts in our last podcast, I don't think we discouraged them from doing anything except taking a vote or going into executive session at the last meeting. So what we wanna do here is have Robin and Alexis is gonna lead her some questions. Talk to us about. What she did at DPS. She was in a very important position in the cabinet. And then what led her to leave and where things stand now. So I will now turn it over to Alexis. Thanks Alan, and thanks so much for joining us, Robin. Yeah, thank you. So to kick us off, can you tell us a little bit about your career trajectory at DPS? What were you hired to do, when were you hired, and what were the different job functions that you held during your tenure there? Yeah, absolutely. So I joined the district in 2019. I was the bond and mill levy programs manager. So I ran the bond and mill oversight committees managing the implementation of the 2016 bond. And then I also led the planning efforts of the district for the 2020 bond. During the pandemic we had some structural changes and reorgs and there had been a vacancy in the deputy, deputy chief of staff role. And I had a conversation with then chief of staff and decided to take on those responsibilities and was promoted to deputy Chief of staff from Bond and VY programs manager in the summer of 2020 when we were all stuck at home in our houses. Thanks, Robin. And how, what were the responsibilities that you took on while you were a deputy chief of staff? What were some of the, I know there's not always a day to day having worked in the chief of staff's off office myself previously I definitely understand what that culture is like, at least under the boasberg administration. But can you talk a little bit about what that role was like and then maybe any changes that did happen with your job function when the new superintendent took over. Yeah, definitely. So in addition to the bond and Bill Levy activities that we ran my role was focused on prepping and getting information ready for the board of education, so managing the board calendar making sure that we had agenda topics that were salient and that we were bringing in the right. District staff to present on the progress that the district was making. In addition and kind of ironically my role as deputy chief of staff was one of the point people on the superintendent search. After Susanna had announced her departure from the district I worked with the PMO office to plan all of the community meetings and the different aspects of the very complicated superintendent search. Thanks Robin and I can certainly say having spoken to a lot of previous board members at the time and even some of the the senior staff that you were a very well liked and important member of the team and obviously in a highly visible role as well. It's really interesting hearing your story because I was very closely aligned with a lot of those positions when I left EPSI left about a year before you and sat in a very similar function within the organization. Not necessarily the bond and mill, but working very closely with those teams. So it's really interesting to see the trajectory of the roles over the last several years. And as just, working with the Board of Education, a lot of it is about how are we managing our strategy? Are we delivering in those key areas that our students need us to focus in on? And so a lot of my role was focused on how are we getting the right information to the Board of Education so that they can make decisions about what's best for kids. Great. And then what we're, what's really interesting here, Robin is, your departure, was pretty sudden and a lot of people that I know had were startled by it and wanted to know what happened, but that's something that's really never come out publicly. Yeah. And, I'm curious about when and how things started to change. You were in this job that had a lot of responsibility, that was probably exciting. And something that you probably strove to get and then things started to change. Can you talk about that a little bit and what that was that changed and what got you your thinking? Changing about it. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the question, Alan. So after Superintendent Marrero started at the district it became very clear that he wanted to do a full revamp of his leadership group. As is, the prerogative of any new superintendent to review their leadership staff and determine how his team meets the needs that we have as a district. And there was pretty early on there was the expectation that, that all of the senior leaders that were direct reports to superintendent Marrero would be reapplying for their jobs and there would be an open application and his executive leaders would essentially have to re-interview for their position. In addition to interviewing with other folks who chose to apply for those roles at the same time. And during that I knew that there was a chance that wave would, go the level down to me. And it actually came to my attention that even though I was not a direct report of the superintendent that my role was included in that first wave of re-interview or reapplication for that position. And so along with other senior leaders, I interviewed for my role as Deputy chief of staff and as. Many of your listeners probably recognize and realize I did not get that role. The chief of staff at the time, Deborah Satan, was demoted to Deputy chief of Staff and Superintendent Marrero decided to hire an external entity to serve as chief of staff. And so through throughout that process, after I interviewed and was told that I, interviewed extremely well and that my value to the district was prominent the superintendent offered me the role essentially being the district lobbyist. And, despite the fact that had been an interest of mine in, in previous roles prior to DPS, been in the space of politics and lobbying previously I, that was not necessarily the direction I wanted to take my career. And I, I was pretty, I. Excited at that point in time to have some of that personal clarity in what I did and didn't want to do with with my skillset. And unfortunately for the district, it, I just had no interest in playing that role as district lobbyist. After I declined that position the superintendent said that, we would, he would love to keep me on as staff and that I could do something similar to the role that I was currently playing, which was a hybrid of the bond and mill levy programs manager. Because that role had never been backfilled after I was promoted to deputy chief of staff. So I was still playing that dual role of managing the bond and no levy as well as supporting the board of education. And I said I would absolutely consider it. I had some stipulations or requests around salary and titling. Considering that this would be like a formal merging of those two roles, I wanted to make sure that my job description reflected all of the activities that I was doing in support of the district. And then things just steadied out so to speak. And then. A few weeks after that, a senior staff member who I trusted came to me and reported a comment that the superintendent had made, superintendent Mero made. Where given that I had declined the role of the district lobbyist, the reported comment that came to me was that he wasn't worried about hiring for a district lobbyists because all we need is a pretty woman with nice legs'cause that's all the legislators care about anyways needless to say, I was like extremely taken aback by this. And given that this was the role that had been offered to me, it really impacted my view of. How my contributions to the district were being recognized or not. And Robin, just to be really clear, you didn't hear that comment, but somebody, a senior person in the administration who you knew well, came to you having heard it and told you about it? That is correct. And you reported into you yourself, were not a chief, so if this person was senior to you, so I assume this person was a chief at the time. Yes, this person was a direct report of Superintendent Marrero. Okay, thank you. Yeah. It was at this point in time where I started exploring the out outside opportunities, we'll say. I wanted to make sure that, I had role that aligned with my skillset and my passion to, to support our kids and to do so in a way that, that had really strong outcomes. One, one thing I wanted to just stop for a second and go back to was yeah. Talk a little bit, if you will, about the, about your, about just the atmosphere inside the district and the administration and how the superintendents purported, comment amplified or brought that Yeah. Even more into focus for you. Yeah, definitely. While I was surprised when I heard that comment directly, it aligned with some experiences that had been going on in, in the months previous. After Superintendent Marrero started there was very much an atmosphere that women in positions of authorities' opinions were not. Carried with the same weight as male colleagues. And when things were suggested by women of, from se women in senior leadership, while ideas were suggested from them were, tabled if that same idea came from one of Herrero's trusted male advisors in his administration it, it would be acted upon fairly quickly. And there were many instances where superintendent Marrero would defer to male colleagues as opposed to a female who is maybe managing a program. And, I don't like to speak on rumors and whatnot, but there was a very palpable sense that Marrero was only interested in hearing the perspectives of male staff members. Yeah, and I'll jump in here and just provide a little bit of commentary. I know that I'm supposed to be part of the, one of the two interviewers here, but I think what, there's no rules in this podcast. Oh, good. One of the hard things that I've observed, there's a lot of women who have left DPS who have gone on and continue to go on to powerful positions in their own right where maybe they were in leadership positions within the district, and they've gone on to take on leadership positions in other areas of government or in other education nonprofits in Colorado or even nationally. So they are not necessarily in a position where. It would be in their benefit to speak out publicly against the superintendent because they may still have business with the superintendent, or they're working for another elected official or are doing other things. But behind the scenes, behind closed doors and private dinners, private coffees that I've had with some of these women your experience is one that I have heard over and over again. Not specifically the leg comment, but the experience of women in leadership. Having had a difficult time after the transition. And it's not something that I'm hearing here. You haven't said anything that is surprising to me that I haven't heard from other women in leadership, including other chiefs. I will say and it is hard because when you get to a certain level you, you really do put your. Career in jeopardy when you speak out publicly on these things. So I do appreciate that you're coming onto this podcast and several years later. At the time, I know it was really hard for you to, to wanna talk about that and rumors were, out there, but nobody really knew what was happening. But in the same way that people had heard you had left, there's other women who have left the district whose stories have not been shared publicly, but are shared behind closed doors, as I mentioned. I'm curious to hear from you have you stayed in touch with other women who were at the district or maybe have stayed at the district even? And your experience with. Them how many similarities there are and maybe what kind of support system you all have with each other. Yeah. I wish it was a deeper support system than I can say that it is. It very much felt like I was the first in this larger wave and to your point, there were many people who were still within the district who were uncertain about their future and. I knew it wasn't on them to stand up and put their career in jeopardy. And e even though many of them had ended up having a similar experience to me of being forced out and a attempted to be silenced. I think it was really important that each of those women was able to do what they thought was best to protect their career in their selfhood. I know, I talked to Alan. A couple years ago when all of this was playing out and, I did, I had to take some time to just reflect and be me and be okay with who I am and where I'm at. Because it's so easy to get caught up in some of that noise and, being in a secure position now, and also not really, I'm not working with any of the same people and I made a fairly 90 degree turn. And that was what I needed. For myself at that time. And I do wish, to your point, I do wish there was a deeper connection with others that have those similar experiences because I know they're out there. It's just something that's, that can be really challenging to talk about especially when it feels like the status quo is against you and things are just. Keep on keeping on, right? Yeah. Maybe this podcast will help prompt some of those conversations if people hear it. So I think one of the things we wanna make sure we really emphasize here is that it was after you heard this comment and started thinking about leaving, that things really got interesting. Yeah. We haven't even talked about the meaty part. Yeah. So let's get to the meaty part, which is you decided to leave and and go take it from there. Yeah, and I'll do my best to leave names as much out of it with the exception of a couple of key players. But, after hearing the comment, I determined, I was like, you know what, maybe it's just time for me to leave the district. And so I started looking at opportunities elsewhere and had someone reach out. To my manager at the time just to see if I would be interested in having a conversation about employment with someone who was a current third party contractor for the district. But who was connected in education policy and education advocacy and had. Essentially lined up a role with that person and was ready to, negotiate my transition from the district. This was all rolling out as we said earlier, April of 2022. And I scheduled a meet a meeting with Edwin Hudson, who was the head of hr and. Really just said, it's time for me to negotiate my departure from the district. I was asking for a fairly standard severance agreement based on industry best practices, maybe not in public education industry, best practices, but historical best practices. And just said that, it was time for me to move on and. He pushed, he said, is there anything that we can do to get you to stay? We think you're a valuable team member. And, I was fairly straightforward and I said, I just feel like my value that I provide to the district isn't being fully recognized and the culture has really been impacted. And the tone just is a place that I don't feel comfortable working in any longer. And he pushed some more and said, tell me, what do you mean? And I was like this superintendent I feel like maybe doesn't align with my values in terms of women employment and the value that women in the workplace has. And I referenced this comment that I had heard. And in the conversation I said, I didn't hear this comment. It is entirely hearsay, but it came from someone I trusted and therefore I had to carry the weight of that being the truth for me. And it was at that point in time that things shifted pretty dramatically. So we left the conversation, everything he said, okay, I'll follow up. We'll schedule a, a meeting and I had left the central office building. I had a meeting over at the Akima building for those of you that are familiar, that's where a lot of our facilities teams are. And so was over at that building. Edwin had called me and asked for a follow-up meeting that same day, and I said, oh, I'm sorry. I'm actually not at the building anymore. And so we scheduled the, a meeting for the next day and I show up to this meeting and he has a severance agreement that is ready to go. In fact, it's already signed. His signature is already notarized. And it, it provides me with the financial portion of the severance that I had asked for which was four months severance. Just in case anyone's wondering, I was asking for four months severance, and in that first drafted severance agreement, there was also a clause that says I was prohibited from, I essentially gave up all right, to work for the district forever. That I couldn't apply for jobs, I wouldn't be considered for a role within Denver Public Schools. And that essentially by signing that I was agreeing that I was done with Denver Public Schools for the remainder of my career. Robin. Robin, had you heard of anything like this before? No. Oh gosh, no. No. Nothing like this before. And. Needless to say, I was stunned. I was very surprised. There was some other language in, in that first drafted the severance agreement that also had non-disclosure and disparagement agreements attached to it. So I could never talk about my time at the district. I could never say anything negative about the superintendent or the board or, anything. And, I think there was this. Some like flags going up. Lots of flags obviously. But Alexis, this will resonate with you. One of my original concerns was I have never ruled out public office. I have never ruled out running for board of education. And I had some very serious concerns with agreeing to never say anything disparaging about the district. When, if in the future I ran for office I would probably imagine that I would bring a critical lens to the way that the district operates. And so for me that was absolutely, that was a concern that I had in signing that. In addition to those things, while this is much less meaningful and it is more trivial, I was also banned from the. District central office building, essentially effective immediately. I was employed, wow. I believe it was like for the next couple months, but I was being asked to not report into the building which I also found fairly shocking considering my time and tenure and how well regarded I was within the district. So Robin, I'm gonna connect some dots that you might wanna connect, but I just think to help make this more clear to people. Presumably what happened was that as soon as you finished your meeting with Edwin Hudson at, during what you relayed the comment about the lobbyist needs to be a woman, pretty woman with nice legs. Edwin went to Herrero's office and reported this conversation, presumably that. Superintendent said, okay, he's outta here. ASAP. Is that your understanding of what happened? Yeah, and actually the district documented that. So long story short, I, I filed A-C-C-R-D with the state to review the practices that the district had. And, the district admitted that immediately following that meeting that Edwin Hudson went and had a conversation with Superintendent Marrero about that comment. And so it, it doesn't, it would not. That's not disputed. That's okay. The district's version of things. And for those that don't know, CCRD is the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, correct? Robin? Yes. Yes. Okay. Between, or following that first meeting that you had with Edwin Hudson, did you, did he signal to you that your employment was coming to an end that next day? No. In that meeting? No. It was only after I received a voicemail from him. That afternoon I called his executive assistant back and we had scheduled a meeting for the ne the following day. Okay. And it was at that meeting that you were, he presented me with the severance agreement banning me from future employment with the district. Then what, when you had the document you, had just spoken to us about the emotions the shock. Did you sign the document? Clearly not You're talking about it here. Yeah. No. I did not sign my, my red flags got the better of me and I said, I need to discuss this with my attorney. Which I did and I think this will not come as a surprise. Edwin Hudson did not want me to. Leave the room with that piece of paper that had that information on it. And he said, don't take a picture of it or anything like that. And I said I have to send this to my attorney. Like I'm gonna let my attorney take a look at it. And. He even said you can sign it now, but then you have seven days to think about it. And as some of you may know, like there were future severance agreements that were presented to Denver Public Schools employees that did have a stipulation of, you have an X number of days after signature to review this. That language was not in my version of the severance agreement. There was no review period that was stipulated. So if I had signed it, it would've been in effect immediately. But you probably were one of those kind of first Guinea pigs under this new, some would say administration, some, like we would say, regime. What to do with these folks who you were ready to dismiss. You weren't dismissed necessarily. You were ready to leave, but the fact that they just turned around and said, Nope, time for you to go now. And then subsequently change it. Yeah, and we hadn't even actually gotten to that point in the conversation yet. I said, let me take a few minutes. But I immediately said, I'm not willing to say that I'm never gonna work for the district again. I have no interest in doing that. And I would prefer to take nothing than sign something that said I could never work for Denver Public Schools again. I had given my. Blood, sweat and tears to the district and hoped to do so again in the future at some point in time. And so I said, I would be willing I would be willing to consider five years, a five year ban on employment. Wow. But again, this was all like in the moment I was, thrown off guard and further thought prevailed. And I said, you know what? I. I'm not willing to sign anything that has a an NDA associated with it. In particular because of potential future desires to run for office or advocate for needs of the district. And, I just really didn't wanna have to walk on eggshells about what I said for the rest of my life. And so I had agreed that I was not gonna take a severance agreement. And so I said that in the meeting with Edwin and I said, what if I just said, Nope, nevermind. I don't want this. I just wanna give my two weeks notice. Can we do that? And his response to me was, the district has no interest in that. And I said what even though before, what do you mean? Even though the before I said, what do you mean? Yeah. The day before he was trying to convince me to stay. What could they do to keep me in the district? And, and I said, what do you mean the district has no interest in that? And he said either you sign the severance agreement or you're terminated, effective immediately. And it was at that point in time where things devolved as one might expect. I said, okay, I need to get my attorney back on the call. I need to get my attorney back on the phone. Edwin Hudson then went and got Aaron Thompson, who is, was. Deputy general counsel at the time had not yet been promoted to general counsel and who was general counsel at the time, if you mind me asking. It was Michelle Bergey, technically. But Michelle Bergey also went through the rehire process and was not awarded her role as general counsel. And so it was a transition period for, that's what surprised me most. What surprised me reading the document is that it was the deputy and not the actual counsel, which, again, leading into this discussion fact that it was one of the women who was, also in a similar position, dismissed or not hired back, excuse me. That was surprising and also not surprising that that's who, who was called in. Yeah. And it, later Aaron Thompson would be promoted to general counsel. Correct. But at the time of this conversation was not yet, and, essentially I spent that meeting trying to figure out I don't understand help me understand what's happening here. You won't even give me. Two weeks to close out my things, say goodbye to my people. To the bond and mill oversight committees, which I was running at the time which were with external stakeholders. It was. I was upset. And I think some of the mystery around this event as a whole has to do with the fact that I had the audacity to be upset and to be angry and frustrated that I was being treated this way. And yeah I dropped. A couple F bombs because I was furious. I cared deeply about Denver public schools and what we provide to kids and families and to be treated that way. A as someone who was respected by the Board of Education, like I. Carrie Olson sent me flowers after the district, let me go sorry. After I was forced, resigned, or whatever the district calls it. Like this is president of the Board of Education sent me flowers. I had multiple conversations with board members after the fact. And of course, they were only getting one side of the story from the superintendent and from the head of hr Edwin Hudson. But, it was. It was a shocking transition to say the least. Did any of them express concern or say they would look into it or try to do anything to defend you? Yeah. More than one of them. Carrie Olson being one of them, mentioned that aligns with some concerns that they're hearing. Within the district on employee treatment and the culture that the district was morphing into. Scott Erman offered to be a reference for me which, didn't take him upon that offer. And to be frank, it was because I didn't need to. I had a deep reference list. And it, it was just interesting to me that you could offer to be a reference for someone who w was essentially forced out in the way that I was, and treated in the way that I was. And some people would say you were leaving the district anyways, so what does it matter? It's about how we treat people. And that's really what it comes down to is, it's how we treat one another. In the end, did you get any severance and did you get any time or were you out that day? No. So they actually negotiated with my attorney to give me till the following week to reconsider. I had already made it clear to the district that I would not be signing but the district extended that deadline to the following week. And then the following week I was technically finally, officially fired. And my access was cut off. But I think one of the things that I just will reiterate here is even after that, that second week when I knew I was leaving the district, when I knew I wasn't gonna sign the severance agreement that had the NDA and the ban on employment I was trying to help. The superintendent's office and the chief of staff's office prepare for a board meeting that next week. So I was updating the chief of staff. I was updating our board liaison. I was trying to get them all of the information that they needed. I was writing a script for Sochi for the meeting because she required a script for all of the Board of Education meetings so that she could facilitate them. And I did that until the day they cut my access off the next week and then sent A-A-D-P-S security guard to my house to collect my computer. I am just now realizing as you were chatting, Robin, it reminded me of news that broke last year when, will Jones, who was the former head of communications for the district, broke the news that the district had been asking people to sign these NDAs and he took a stance against them. And actually it was April of 2024 that DPS did April 18th specifically. Maybe the day before it confirmed that they did use these non-disclosure agreements basically confirming what was. News to many people, even though it was not news to a lot of the folks who you had worked with previously who had been put in, again, those similar positions being said, being given this document that essentially said, you can either have severance or you can and sign an NDA or if you don't sign the NDA, you don't get your severance package. Not to mention that what was ultimately offered to DPS employees who were impacted by later phases of the reorg? The severance was measly. It, it was days, it was a matter of days, severance not months. And you'd be required to sign that NDA for, I don't know that I would sign it for 14 days severance. But, everyone had to make their own decision. And and since. I just wanna say, since you mentioned Will Jones, let's also point out that because he wouldn't sign the N day, he was bounced outta his job too, after years of loyal service to DPS. So that's worth mentioning. We're running a little long, so I just wanna get to a couple of things before we finish. One is I'm interested in first of all, you filed a civil rights complaint that. Was not upheld. And if you wanna just talk about that a little, it doesn't mean that your case didn't have merit, but yeah, I think as you described to me, most of these don't make it, but just talk about that a little bit. Yeah. So when I first decided to. Move forward with the Colorado Civil Rights Division complaint. That's what CCRD is. It's essentially a complaint to say, Hey, something happened here that's not okay. And then, and I would like help investigating it. So I worked with an attorney on that whole process and, my objective, let me go back. My attorney told me very early on. That the chances of the CCRD finding on my behalf is extremely low. She mentioned that for employees filing a complaint they find with the employee something like. Okay, I'm sorry. And they fi Yeah, they find for the employee, like with the employee, so that would've been me less than 5% of the time, which means they side with the employer 90 plus percent of the time. And so I knew, and please don't quote me on that. I'm on the podcast, but don't quote me on that number. There's definitely a, an actual figure that I don't have off the top of my head. But I knew it was an uphill battle. I knew this was a long shot, but I was committed to, I wanted the district on record. I wanted them to go on record and say their version of what happened. And, ultimately they did not side with me. And it was purely out of evidence. It was a very much hearsay based encounter. And basically there just was insufficient evidence to, to actually prove that there was intent in malice in the way that the district treated me. But there's a lot of paperwork, which is great, which you shared with us. And you, and I remember you telling me, you said that there were some just blatant lies told by the district in their paperwork. Can you give a couple of examples of the most egregious ones? Yeah, absolutely. I think I, I think one of them in particular was they say that they had already drafted these severance agreements that were going to be offered to employees who were impacted by. The restructuring or the reorganization and that the language that was in my severance agreement, the one that I did not sign that had a ban on employment they said that was standard language and that would be in the severance agreements that any employee would receive. Obviously we know that was not true because. Others were able to be rehired or reapply for roles immediately within the district. I was the one, I was the only one that had a do not hire clause in my severance agreement. But in addition, I think some of the other ones, just the tone of the district's. Stance on me as a human. They portray me as aggressive. How many dog whistle politics words can we throw in for how women who have a voice are portrayed in spaces. But it was that I was aggressive and I was, hysterical. That's my favorite one is hysterical, which the fact that they had the audacity to write that down is, did they say nasty woman? Like Trump likes to say. And the funny thing is Alexis, you know me. I don't think that anyone has ever used the word hysterical to describe me. In fact I think I'm oftentimes calm to a fault. And maybe could use. Some more emotion in how I portray things, but yeah, they basically said that the ban on employment clause in that severance agreement, which they can't deny remember, because Edwin Hudson's signature is notarized. They basically said that do not hire clause was only after, added after I tried to essentially blackmail them because of the comment that Marrero made which is just. Just not true. But those are a couple of the areas that stand out to me as just blatantly wrong, right? And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted them to have their feet to the fire and have to put on paper and in a recorded interview what their version of events was, because it was just wrong. To come back full circle to the one, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on, I don't know if you know anything about, if you still have close connections inside and what the, what you hear about the current culture inside DPS. If so, I'd like to hear that. But first, but then I'd also like to hear your thoughts about, the fact that the, this board. Prematurely because they don't need to do it now are seriously considering, and I think it's likely to happen extending the superintendent's contract, just, less than half a year or about a half a year out from a board election. That could change the composition of the board. Yeah. Oh, where to start on that one? Loaded question, Alan, but absolutely. One of the big flags for me was that he didn't do, they didn't do a full performance review of him in that first cycle. They let him do a self-evaluation, which I don't know about you, but I don't think I've ever had a job where my only evaluation was a self-evaluation. Especially for a role that's as important as superintendent of Denver public schools. Where do I get that job? Just I evaluate myself. And that was always really become president of the United States. Wow. That is true. That is true. But that was always extremely concerning to me, like that we're not, we are. Denver public schools, like we have so many different communities and constituents that we're responsible for serving and to not even have a holistic performance evaluation of our superintendent. And not to mention the gender dynamics at play when. For those of you that remember the evaluation that some of those same board members did of Susanna Cordova where they raked her over the coals. This is where I will, I will be a historical moment. A combination. Yes, I was livid and I was the opposite of calm, cool, and collected when I saw the the hypocrisy there. Oh my gosh. I think one important detail, I've written about this on Board Hawk, but I think a really important detail is throughout that evaluation. She was referred to as Susanna. They never said even Ms. Cordova, or she wasn't Dr. Cordova yet at that point, but you would never see them calling Dr. Marrero, Alex in a in an event, in any document. So that's telling as well. Yeah. And you know this at a time when Susanna, for those of you that remember Susanna Cordova took a self-inflicted pay cut. When we were going through the teacher strike in DCTA negotiations in order to meet budgetary requirements. And then you have this new superintendent who comes in and immediately wants a contract extension and wants to negotiate a higher salary. I do have one, one more question for you, Robin, if you're comfortable answering. Yeah. What advice would you give to women who are working in DPS and maybe experiencing a culture right now that is very much male male driven, and potentially harmful to women? What advice would you give those those women working at DPS? I had the unique opportunity, I. To be put in a situation where I had to put my values, where my mouth are, not my money, where my mouth is, but my values. And I would encourage everyone to do a check with yourself on what are the values that are important for you in a work environment. And be clear about what your boundaries are, but also ask the hard questions. The, this is gonna sound a little bit ironic, but the worst that they can do is tell you no. And I think that the more we continue to ask the hard questions and push the right conversations, then maybe some of that will see through but also, keep your head up. I, it's so hard to give advice in a, from a mindset that is very different now having. Been outside of the district for a while. And so I can deeply empathize with the challenges that many Denver Public Schools employees are going through right now as they feel a disconnect between what they hope for the district and what the actualities are. Thanks so much, Robin. Thank you so much for your time and let's just hope against hope that some members of the school board will listen to this and take it to heart. But I don't really harbor any illusions that they will. Thank you so much for your time. The worst they can, the worst they can do is say no. That's right. That's right. Thank you so much, Robin. We really appreciate your time and your courage in coming forward and talking about this and we will see everyone at our next podcast. Take care everybody. Thanks. Bye. Thanks. Thanks, Alexis. Thanks Alan.