S2 EP 3 - Leading Through Change: Silver Valley Unified's Approach to AI

In this episode of Fostering Futures with CAHELP, Athena Cordero sits down with Jeff Youskievicz, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for Silver Valley Unified School District, to discuss how one district is thoughtfully navigating the evolving world of artificial intelligence in education.

Jeff shares Silver Valley’s journey from early conversations about AI to building district-wide systems that support innovation, responsible implementation, and student success. The discussion explores how AI can be used as a tool to support educators, personalize learning, and help teachers regain valuable time while maintaining the critical human relationships that drive student growth.

The conversation also highlights Silver Valley’s work developing its learner profile and six core competencies: creativity, communication, critical thinking, collaboration, character, and continuous learning. Jeff explains how these skills connect directly to preparing students for the future workforce and why educators must help students become thoughtful, responsible users of emerging technologies.

Whether you're an educator, administrator, parent, or simply curious about the future of learning, this episode offers practical insight into balancing innovation with responsibility while keeping student learning at the center of every decision.

Highlights

• Jeff shares how Silver Valley Unified became an early adopter of AI exploration in education.
• Discussion of the district’s learner profile and Six Cs framework.
• Practical examples of how AI can support differentiated instruction and lesson planning.
• Honest conversation about educator concerns and overcoming resistance to change.
• Insight into building AI literacy for students, staff, and families.
• Emphasis on maintaining the human relationships that remain central to education.

Key Takeaways

• AI should be viewed as a tool that supports teachers, not replaces them.
• Successful implementation starts with small steps and intentional learning.
• Preparing students for the future requires skills beyond academic content alone.
• AI literacy is becoming an important part of responsible digital citizenship.
• Professional development and ongoing support help educators build confidence with new technologies.
• Human connection, relationships, and quality teaching remain irreplaceable.

Thanks for listening! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram | www.cahelp.org | podcast@cahelp.org

Transcript

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00:00:10 Intro 

The relentless pursuit of whatever works in the life of a child. 

00:00:18 Intro 

Welcome to Fostering Futures with CAHELP, a podcast dedicated to our relentless pursuit of whatever works in the life of a child. 

00:00:26 Intro 

I'm your host, Athena Cordero, inviting you to join me and countless others as we share our unique perspectives and expertise in the world of special education, behavioral health, social emotional well-being, and community. 

00:00:39 Intro 

Follow us on Buzzsprout, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. 

00:00:44 Athena Cordero 

Okay everyone, today on Fostering Futures, we get to talk to Jeff Youskievicz, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services with Silver Valley Unified. 

00:00:55 Athena Cordero 

This topic today, your AI journey in your district, I'm really excited about. 

00:01:01 Athena Cordero 

So I have questions, I think, as a host and as a mother of two kids, you know, in school. 

00:01:07 Athena Cordero 

But before we even get started, 

00:01:09 Athena Cordero 

Can you tell us a little bit about your role as assistant soup and maybe how you came to become assistant soup for Silver Valley? 

00:01:16 Jeff Youskievicz 

Sure, absolutely. 

00:01:17 Jeff Youskievicz 

As the assistant superintendent of educational services for the school district, I oversee everything on the school side of the house. 

00:01:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

So I supervise all the school sites, supervise principals. 

00:01:30 Jeff Youskievicz 

I oversee discipline, attendance, SARB, special education. 

00:01:36 Jeff Youskievicz 

I help with the ed tech part of the house. 

00:01:39 Athena Cordero 

Ed tech, okay. 

00:01:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

Ed tech. 

00:01:40 Speaker 1 

Yeah. 

00:01:41 Jeff Youskievicz 

I'm trying to think what else I, LCAP with that plays a big role, strategic planning in the district. 

00:01:48 Jeff Youskievicz 

I take care of the district strategic planning and I also oversee all the strategic planning at each of the sites. 

00:01:53 Athena Cordero 

Okay. 

00:01:54 Jeff Youskievicz 

So the same process we have the district, we do at our school sites and I'm there at every one of those meetings to help facilitate those meetings and help them along, which is a great experience because I get to hear a lot of 

00:02:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

my new things I might not always get to hear at all the school sites and what's happening and being able to support them in their journey as well. 

00:02:14 Jeff Youskievicz 

I've been in the district now for 13 years, came to Silver Valley. 

00:02:20 Jeff Youskievicz 

I had started in Adelanto. 

00:02:21 Jeff Youskievicz 

I was a 6th and 7th grade social studies teacher. 

00:02:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

Taught for seven years and swore up and down I would never ever get into administration and 

00:02:31 Jeff Youskievicz 

My boss, Jesse, was there with me on the golf course that day when we talked about it. 

00:02:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

And I think within a week I was enrolled in a program and had a job as an assistant principal at Harry R. 

00:02:42 Jeff Youskievicz 

Shepherd Middle School out in the old George Air Force Base. 

00:02:45 Jeff Youskievicz 

So I was principal for about 7 years. 

00:02:52 Jeff Youskievicz 

And then the job opened up in Silver Valley. 

00:02:56 Jeff Youskievicz 

I was actually the senior director of student services. 

00:03:00 Jeff Youskievicz 

Jesse had already been up there. 

00:03:02 Jeff Youskievicz 

And I had found out that position at opening, he called and said, hey, apply. 

00:03:07 Jeff Youskievicz 

I want you to apply for this. 

00:03:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

It will fit you. 

00:03:09 Jeff Youskievicz 

So I applied and luckily, I got the job. 

00:03:12 Athena Cordero 

Yeah, I don't know about luckily, but yes. 

00:03:14 Jeff Youskievicz 

No, it was luck, though. 

00:03:15 Jeff Youskievicz 

It was luckily. 

00:03:16 Jeff Youskievicz 

Luckily, I got the job. 

00:03:17 Jeff Youskievicz 

I'm very lucky to be there. 

00:03:18 Jeff Youskievicz 

And after three years of being the senior director of student services, I was promoted to assistant superintendent of educational services. 

00:03:25 Jeff Youskievicz 

still oversee the same things that I did as a senior director, but I was gracious to receive that title from the board and the confidence from that confidence from the board that they had in me. 

00:03:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's been an amazing experience working there at a small school district. 

00:03:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

We serve students out at Fort Irwin, the National Training Center, which is an honor to do. 

00:03:45 Jeff Youskievicz 

And then our families in the valley, what we call our valley, Yermo Daggett, Newberry Springs, just amazing group of students and families. 

00:03:52 Athena Cordero 

I agree. 

00:03:53 Athena Cordero 

I had the privilege of working with your district when I was a PBIS trainer with prevention intervention. 

00:04:00 Athena Cordero 

Shout out Cami Murphy, of course. 

00:04:02 Jeff Youskievicz 

Yes, of course. 

00:04:03 Athena Cordero 

Of course, that she's, you guys stole her away, but you know what? 

00:04:07 Athena Cordero 

She's awesome, so I totally get it. 

00:04:09 Athena Cordero 

I think on a previous episode, I remember telling Jesse actually that you two, from my first experience coming to work with CAHELP, were like, 

00:04:20 Athena Cordero 

I felt like you guys had t-shirts on under your regular clothes that were like superhero I heart kids. 

00:04:26 Athena Cordero 

Because you can just see it, like beam off of you too, you and Cami, how much, how invested you are in kids in general, no matter what it is in your role or just something that you can help with. 

00:04:38 Athena Cordero 

I sincerely mean that. 

00:04:39 Athena Cordero 

You guys are great. 

00:04:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

Oh, thank you. 

00:04:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

We appreciate that. 

00:04:41 Athena Cordero 

So send my love back to you. 

00:04:43 Jeff Youskievicz 

Definitely will. 

00:04:45 Athena Cordero 

Okay, so you have been in education for how many years again? 

00:04:50 Athena Cordero 

29 years. 

00:04:52 Athena Cordero 

And so you have seen some things, okay? 

00:04:55 Athena Cordero 

One or two. 

00:04:56 Speaker 1 

One or two things. 

00:04:57 Athena Cordero 

One or two things. 

00:04:58 Athena Cordero 

And now here you are, you get in your role, you get to do what you called ed tech. 

00:05:04 Athena Cordero 

Okay, and for as long as I know and even having the chance to work with your district, you've been very interested in innovation. 

00:05:12 Athena Cordero 

Anything that you could do to bring something new, try something new into your district. 

00:05:16 Athena Cordero 

I remember sitting in some of those meetings hearing he wants to get 

00:05:19 Athena Cordero 

into something that nobody else is doing, you aren't afraid of that. 

00:05:23 Athena Cordero 

It was very interesting for me to watch because in education, I feel like things move slow sometimes, but you had a way of moving it along, which I thought was very cool. 

00:05:34 Athena Cordero 

And we're gonna talk a little bit about that today and the AI journey that you all took to where you are now. 

00:05:40 Athena Cordero 

So first, 

00:05:42 Athena Cordero 

Just let me know, how did this even start? 

00:05:44 Athena Cordero 

Like what conversation happened in your district or with you guys to say, okay, let's look at this. 

00:05:50 Athena Cordero 

We're curious about how to implement AI. 

00:05:53 Jeff Youskievicz 

So it started actually Jesse was at a superintendent's meeting. 

00:05:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

And in the meeting, one of the superintendents got up and was talking about AI and the journey, Jerry Almendez. 

00:06:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

down in Santa Ana, he was talking about the journey that they were taking in AI. 

00:06:09 Jeff Youskievicz 

And Jerry and Jesse were very good friends. 

00:06:12 Jeff Youskievicz 

And Jesse came back and he came to me and he's like, Jeff, we're going to miss the boat in this and we're going to get behind. 

00:06:19 Jeff Youskievicz 

And for Jesse, that's, he doesn't like that. 

00:06:23 Jeff Youskievicz 

And neither do I. 

00:06:24 Jeff Youskievicz 

mean, that's for us one thing like you had mentioned we pride ourselves on, we like be on that leading edge of things. 

00:06:29 Jeff Youskievicz 

We like driving innovation. 

00:06:32 Jeff Youskievicz 

And you know, a lot of people don't like change. 

00:06:34 Jeff Youskievicz 

I don't mind change. 

00:06:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

I'm not going to say I like it, but I don't mind change because it helps mix things up. 

00:06:39 Jeff Youskievicz 

It makes you look at what you're doing. 

00:06:41 Jeff Youskievicz 

What can we do better? 

00:06:42 Jeff Youskievicz 

What can we do better for kids? 

00:06:44 Jeff Youskievicz 

What can we do better for teachers? 

00:06:46 Jeff Youskievicz 

So Jesse came back and he talked to me and he says, you know, we need to get on this initiative and we need to start working on bringing AI into our schools, working with our teachers and eventually getting this down to our students. 

00:06:58 Jeff Youskievicz 

So beginning of that journey, we reached out to Dr. 

00:07:01 Jeff Youskievicz 

Saba Kidwai. 

00:07:03 Jeff Youskievicz 

And we brought her to the district, and this was about three years ago. 

00:07:06 Jeff Youskievicz 

We brought her in and we did a full day of PD with her on AI. 

00:07:11 Speaker 1 

Okay. 

00:07:12 Jeff Youskievicz 

Talked about Spark. 

00:07:13 Athena Cordero 

Spark, what's that? 

00:07:15 Jeff Youskievicz 

I knew you were going to ask that and as soon as it said as now I can't remember. 

00:07:17 Athena Cordero 

Of course, because I asked you. 

00:07:18 Athena Cordero 

It'll come to you, but I will conjugate. 

00:07:22 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's a process of creating a prompt in AI to help you get what you want. 

00:07:27 Jeff Youskievicz 

And I can't remember the acronym. 

00:07:28 Jeff Youskievicz 

The county uses it. 

00:07:31 Jeff Youskievicz 

And I should have thought before saying it. 

00:07:32 Athena Cordero 

It's all right. 

00:07:34 Jeff Youskievicz 

It'll come to me, hopefully. 

00:07:37 Jeff Youskievicz 

But she worked with our staff and we invited all our teachers and we invited our classified staff to come and learn about AI. 

00:07:44 Jeff Youskievicz 

And we started simple just using ChatGPT. 

00:07:48 Jeff Youskievicz 

And from there, it's just grown. 

00:07:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

And we coupled this with the following year, we started looking at a learner profile, Jesse. 

00:07:59 Jeff Youskievicz 

got an idea, he said, let's start talking about this. 

00:08:01 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let's talk about what we want our students to leave here with. 

00:08:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

And so we partnered with NCEE, National Council of Education and the Economy. 

00:08:11 Athena Cordero 

Okay, I wouldn't have remembered that one. 

00:08:13 Athena Cordero 

You got it. 

00:08:14 Athena Cordero 

Okay. 

00:08:16 Jeff Youskievicz 

And they came in and the original intent, we were going to work on PLCs, professional learning communities with our administrators. 

00:08:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

And it turned into this, let's look at how we're preparing our students for the future and let's shape those professional learning communities around that issue. 

00:08:34 Jeff Youskievicz 

And that's how it started. 

00:08:36 Jeff Youskievicz 

And again, that was right after, about a year after Jesse came back and said, let's start with AI. 

00:08:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

So we paired those two things together. 

00:08:43 Jeff Youskievicz 

So looking at what we do to prepare our students for the future and then using AI tools to help us on that journey. 

00:08:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

So we spent 

00:08:53 Jeff Youskievicz 

a year creating our competencies, which we call our six Cs. 

00:08:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

For the Cs, they stand for creativity, communicator, continuous learner, collaborator, character, and critical thinking. 

00:09:05 Speaker 1 

That's heavy. 

00:09:07 Jeff Youskievicz 

It is. 

00:09:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

And when we came up this, we had a group of teachers, administrators that did this work. 

00:09:13 Jeff Youskievicz 

We worked for years, a lot of hard work that we worked together on. 

00:09:17 Jeff Youskievicz 

And at the end of the day, we came up with this. 

00:09:20 Jeff Youskievicz 

Everybody was very 

00:09:22 Jeff Youskievicz 

yay, we're done. 

00:09:22 Jeff Youskievicz 

It was like, no, this was the easy part of the work coming up with those. 

00:09:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

And so we then went into what each of those competencies look like in the classroom. 

00:09:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

So character for a kindergartner is going to look very different in 3rd grade, definitely, in 8th grade, and even into the high school. 

00:09:45 Jeff Youskievicz 

So we've spent this past year now working on what each of those competencies look like in the classroom. 

00:09:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

Again, there's a lot of hard work. 

00:09:53 Jeff Youskievicz 

We're actually meeting next Tuesday to finish that work up and then going to our learning model. 

00:09:59 Athena Cordero 

I want to just take a minute to really go into that just a little bit though. 

00:10:02 Athena Cordero 

You're right because it's not just the words. 

00:10:05 Athena Cordero 

You have to really explain what you're looking for when you say 

00:10:10 Athena Cordero 

what the expectation is or what the behavior looks like in the classroom. 

00:10:13 Athena Cordero 

I don't know if folks realize how difficult that can be. 

00:10:17 Athena Cordero 

You want somebody to go in and actually be able to see what that means. 

00:10:22 Athena Cordero 

You have to explain it really well, not just to the teachers, but to the students, to the kiddos. 

00:10:27 Athena Cordero 

When you're praising them for what they're doing, trying to correct what they're doing, that's a lot of hard work. 

00:10:33 Jeff Youskievicz 

It is, and it's not only coming up with what it looks like, but it's also. 

00:10:38 Athena Cordero 

Yeah, exactly. 

00:10:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

That becomes the next point because our superintendent and our board president, very data-driven. 

00:10:45 Speaker 1 

Yes. 

00:10:46 Jeff Youskievicz 

And we don't want to just use CASP scores to drive that message because we know we look at CASP scores and for us as a school district, we're the highest performing school district on CASP in the desert mountain region. 

00:11:00 Athena Cordero 

Congratulations. 

00:11:01 Jeff Youskievicz 

Well, thank you. 

00:11:02 Jeff Youskievicz 

Highest graduation rate as well. 

00:11:06 Jeff Youskievicz 

But we're more than that. 

00:11:07 Jeff Youskievicz 

And for us, the focus needs to be on not just a test. 

00:11:10 Jeff Youskievicz 

So it's making sure that we have data that we can share to show that yes, even though CAF scores might not show all the growth we wanted to show, we have data that shows our students are working hard, our students are growing, our students are achieving. 

00:11:25 Jeff Youskievicz 

So that's part of the next step in the next year when we talk about our learning model and we look at what that looks like in the classroom and what that instruction looks like. 

00:11:32 Jeff Youskievicz 

How are we also going to measure those skills? 

00:11:36 Athena Cordero 

Yeah, that's hard. 

00:11:38 Athena Cordero 

I mean, it's smart though, of course, to use multiple sources of data. 

00:11:41 Athena Cordero 

You don't get the whole picture when you only focus on one. 

00:11:45 Athena Cordero 

And that's an injustice, right, to everyone, teachers and students and families. 

00:11:50 Athena Cordero 

Very smart for you guys to look at it that way. 

00:11:52 Athena Cordero 

Okay, so with that, the six Cs, all the work that you're doing, where does AI come in? 

00:11:58 Jeff Youskievicz 

So AI comes in to the six Cs. 

00:12:00 Jeff Youskievicz 

So when we look at things like creativity. 

00:12:04 Jeff Youskievicz 

We've already started out that journey and our teachers, we're doing that and we call our teachers when we look at these six Cs, this is nothing new for them. 

00:12:12 Jeff Youskievicz 

Because you've been doing this all along. 

00:12:13 Jeff Youskievicz 

You've been putting creative elements into your classroom. 

00:12:16 Jeff Youskievicz 

You're helping kids build their critical thinking skills. 

00:12:21 Jeff Youskievicz 

You're helping them to learn how to collaborate with each other. 

00:12:24 Jeff Youskievicz 

This journey is now being much more intentional in our journey 

00:12:28 Jeff Youskievicz 

in recognizing these things in the classroom. 

00:12:30 Jeff Youskievicz 

But it's not just us as educators recognize them. 

00:12:33 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's having the kids recognize them and be able to talk about their own education, that metacognition. 

00:12:39 Jeff Youskievicz 

Talk about their own learning. 

00:12:41 Jeff Youskievicz 

This is how I learn best. 

00:12:42 Jeff Youskievicz 

I learn best by doing these creative things. 

00:12:44 Jeff Youskievicz 

I learn best by doing hands-on things. 

00:12:46 Jeff Youskievicz 

I learn best by reading. 

00:12:48 Jeff Youskievicz 

I learn, you know, auditory learners. 

00:12:50 Jeff Youskievicz 

So the AI fits in with that in how can those tools 

00:12:54 Jeff Youskievicz 

help support our teachers and providing those things for our students. 

00:13:00 Jeff Youskievicz 

That's the first part is getting our teachers to use these and model these for our kids appropriately. 

00:13:06 Jeff Youskievicz 

And then, okay, coming up with a framework, a policy we need in place to help keep everybody safe, especially our students in using these tools because we want them to use them in an appropriate way, which is what we're doing hand in hand with our learner profile work. 

00:13:21 Jeff Youskievicz 

We're working with the county. 

00:13:22 Jeff Youskievicz 

We're in the middle of, we just finished this year working with Sano Patel down at the county. 

00:13:30 Jeff Youskievicz 

She's come and worked with a different group of teachers and administrators to help us on our AI journey, teaching them about different tools, how to use those tools, but also helping us set our priorities and look at our policies and getting those in place. 

00:13:45 Jeff Youskievicz 

So we finished up a couple weeks ago on this year's work 

00:13:49 Jeff Youskievicz 

And now we're in the middle of getting ready for our learner, not our learner profile, but our AI work group 2.0. 

00:13:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

So in taking, continue to take those next steps and making sure we have the policies in place. 

00:14:03 Jeff Youskievicz 

And at the district level, what are we doing to make sure we're keeping everybody safe? 

00:14:09 Jeff Youskievicz 

as we move along in this journey. 

00:14:11 Jeff Youskievicz 

So it's going slow, and Jesse always likes to say this, going slow to go fast. 

00:14:16 Jeff Youskievicz 

And that's always one of the issues, if you go too fast, you're going to lose people along the way. 

00:14:21 Athena Cordero 

Okay, so I have to ask though, because what you've laid out, it sounds very exciting. 

00:14:28 Athena Cordero 

It sounds like a great way to appeal to the brain, you know, like understanding all of what comes into it. 

00:14:36 Athena Cordero 

But sometimes it takes the heart a little longer to get on boards. 

00:14:41 Athena Cordero 

So with all of the information, you mentioned some tools that you guys use. 

00:14:47 Athena Cordero 

I want to get into those too. 

00:14:49 Athena Cordero 

But how do you, like, you know, what was the maybe some resistance like, some concern on everybody's behalf, staff, you know, how did that go? 

00:15:00 Athena Cordero 

How'd you guys approach that? 

00:15:02 Jeff Youskievicz 

We're still approaching that. 

00:15:04 Jeff Youskievicz 

We're still working on that. 

00:15:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

Like with any initiative that you have in the school district, you're going to have your early adopters, those folks that jump on board right away. 

00:15:11 Jeff Youskievicz 

We have those and they're very excited about using those tools and they've become our experts, so to speak, that we point to that our principals lean on in staff meetings to say, hey, can you come and present to the staff how you use, for example, DIF it? 

00:15:24 Athena Cordero 

Okay, what's that? 

00:15:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's an amazing program that's standards based. 

00:15:30 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let's say you're going to, I'm a social studies teacher and I'm going to teach about the Islamic Empire. 

00:15:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

So I can plug in standards from 7th grade social studies and it will give me a reading passage for my students. 

00:15:42 Jeff Youskievicz 

And so I don't have to use a textbook, but it's on me to make sure the information in there is factual. 

00:15:47 Jeff Youskievicz 

It will also give me questions. 

00:15:48 Jeff Youskievicz 

It will give me vocab. 

00:15:50 Jeff Youskievicz 

It can give me the same passage in a different language if I have an English language learner in the class. 

00:15:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

And there's many different languages. 

00:15:59 Jeff Youskievicz 

It can differentiate that passage for me. 

00:16:01 Jeff Youskievicz 

So if I have a 7th grader, but they're, and we see this in many classrooms, they're not reading on grade level. 

00:16:06 Jeff Youskievicz 

There might be one or two grade levels below. 

00:16:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

Okay, I need to make sure, you know, you get the same information. 

00:16:12 Jeff Youskievicz 

So write this at a third grade level. 

00:16:14 Speaker 1 

Adjust it, yeah. 

00:16:15 Jeff Youskievicz 

It will adjust it to a third grade level. 

00:16:17 Speaker 1 

Wow, that's awesome. 

00:16:18 Jeff Youskievicz 

And it will also help you build your lesson plans. 

00:16:21 Jeff Youskievicz 

And it makes it a little bit easier for teachers. 

00:16:23 Jeff Youskievicz 

Like if I was going to be out for a day, I can go into different real quick. 

00:16:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

I need this lesson for a day. 

00:16:28 Jeff Youskievicz 

So that way I can have it ready very quickly. 

00:16:30 Speaker 1 

Right. 

00:16:31 Jeff Youskievicz 

But it's an amazing program, especially using differentiating for our students with special needs. 

00:16:35 Speaker 1 

Oh, perfect. 

00:16:36 Speaker 1 

Yeah. 

00:16:37 Jeff Youskievicz 

So in using tools like that, and we have, like you said, we have people that they don't jump on board. 

00:16:43 Jeff Youskievicz 

They take a little more, they take a little more time to get excited about it. 

00:16:48 Jeff Youskievicz 

So in cases like that, it's just a matter of working with them and listening to them. 

00:16:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

Okay, what is stopping you from doing this? 

00:16:54 Jeff Youskievicz 

What's, and most times, what's the fear? 

00:16:56 Jeff Youskievicz 

And sometimes that fear has changed. 

00:16:58 Jeff Youskievicz 

Sometimes that fear might be, I don't know because I'm not good at this and I don't want to get into it. 

00:17:04 Speaker 1 

That's a big one. 

00:17:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

It is a big one. 

00:17:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

And it's, you know, well, I've been doing this for X number of years and what I do is just fine and I don't need to change. 

00:17:10 Jeff Youskievicz 

Okay, well, let's walk beside them, listen to their fears and do everything we can to alleviate those fears and, you know, show them these tools, how this can help you. 

00:17:20 Jeff Youskievicz 

Because one of the things we looked at when we started doing this during AI is what can we do? 

00:17:25 Jeff Youskievicz 

What can we do? 

00:17:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

to make your life easier. 

00:17:27 Jeff Youskievicz 

As a teacher, how can we give you time back? 

00:17:30 Jeff Youskievicz 

Planning lessons, building tests, all those things take a lot of time out of their day. 

00:17:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

But let's look at some of these tools, how ChatGPT or Gemini or Diffit can help you with that planning. 

00:17:43 Jeff Youskievicz 

Because like I said, as a 7th grade teacher, having to differentiate stuff for my special needs kids in my classroom, that wasn't easy for me. 

00:17:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

It took me a while to learn how to do that. 

00:17:52 Jeff Youskievicz 

And even after seven years of being in a classroom, 

00:17:54 Jeff Youskievicz 

It still was a bit of a struggle. 

00:17:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

I would have loved to have the tools that teachers have in the classroom today. 

00:18:01 Jeff Youskievicz 

Back when I was in the classroom would have been, you know, I would have been able to be a better teacher for those students. 

00:18:11 Athena Cordero 

Shows the educator as the expert, just having more resources available to them in a much more demanding environment. 

00:18:19 Athena Cordero 

Student learning has changed so much. 

00:18:21 Athena Cordero 

What we know about student learning has gotten bigger. 

00:18:25 Athena Cordero 

We understand a little bit more. 

00:18:27 Athena Cordero 

And you're right, the things that can be time consuming, if you can use a really good resource and still be the expert to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to, I can imagine the amount of time that it gives back 

00:18:38 Athena Cordero 

for the things that teachers feel like they're being rushed to do in the classroom. 

00:18:44 Athena Cordero 

Okay, so the experts, the ones who are ready to jump on, are kind of helping you lead the charge to show an example of how it can be used. 

00:18:53 Athena Cordero 

For the ones that are still maybe a little bit more apprehensive, how do you help them? 

00:18:59 Athena Cordero 

You said walk alongside them, but what else do you guys do? 

00:19:03 Jeff Youskievicz 

We also give them training. 

00:19:04 Athena Cordero 

Good. 

00:19:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

Yeah. 

00:19:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

The first year we started this, like I said, we brought in Dr. 

00:19:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

Saba Kidwai and she taught us the SPARK process. 

00:19:11 Jeff Youskievicz 

I remember what SPARK said. 

00:19:13 Jeff Youskievicz 

So it's an acronym. 

00:19:14 Jeff Youskievicz 

It stands for Situation, Problem, Aspiration, Results, and Kismet. 

00:19:21 Athena Cordero 

Kismet. 

00:19:22 Jeff Youskievicz 

Kismet. 

00:19:23 Jeff Youskievicz 

How did you, how did we get started? 

00:19:26 Athena Cordero 

That's a really nice way of saying how did you get started? 

00:19:28 Jeff Youskievicz 

So it's a prompt that we, it's a 

00:19:30 Jeff Youskievicz 

way of putting in information into an AI tool to help you get what you want and what you're looking for out of that tool. 

00:19:37 Jeff Youskievicz 

And so providing them professional development around these tools so that helps lower that anxiety level around what this does and what it can do. 

00:19:48 Jeff Youskievicz 

And also alleviate some fears. 

00:19:50 Jeff Youskievicz 

So we started that a couple of years ago. 

00:19:52 Jeff Youskievicz 

We had one day. 

00:19:53 Jeff Youskievicz 

Last year we did a three day AI symposium. 

00:19:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

We had Dr. 

00:19:58 Jeff Youskievicz 

Kidwai come back out and work with us. 

00:20:01 Jeff Youskievicz 

She was our guest speaker for the day and she also ran several breakout sessions for us. 

00:20:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

And then we had Sonal Patel and her team from the county and there was four of them. 

00:20:14 Jeff Youskievicz 

that came and did different breakout sessions and staff got to choose what they went to. 

00:20:19 Jeff Youskievicz 

So as certificated staff and classified staff, actually having our front office and classified staff come because for them too, they do all that. 

00:20:27 Jeff Youskievicz 

There's a lot of work that they do that using some of these AI tools could definitely help benefit them in making their jobs more efficient. 

00:20:34 Speaker 1 

Absolutely. 

00:20:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

So providing that PD and giving them tools and then also listening to their feedback. 

00:20:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

And one of the things they talked about last year after our training is they loved the training, but they were tools that we weren't necessarily using as a school district. 

00:20:53 Jeff Youskievicz 

Like we don't necessarily, teachers can, but as a district, we're not, we don't promote, when I say we don't promote, but we're not tied to like school AI or classroom AI. 

00:21:03 Jeff Youskievicz 

We're not those ones are using, but the ones with the main ones were hard, we do use. 

00:21:09 Jeff Youskievicz 

This year's training is going to be about those tools. 

00:21:11 Jeff Youskievicz 

So looking at ChatGPT, Gemini, Diffit, Notebook LM, and there was one other one. 

00:21:20 Athena Cordero 

You know, I think to be honest, I think it's kind of smart to start off that way because you go in with no preconceived, you know, ideas about that. 

00:21:32 Athena Cordero 

Whereas someone going into going, we're talking about ChatGPT today and I already feel like, 

00:21:37 Athena Cordero 

Going into a training with that kind of, restricts your willingness to see what it can do for you. 

00:21:44 Athena Cordero 

But going in hearing about things that the district doesn't use and what it could do, I feel like that's kind of a smart approach because now there's no, you know, the bias is a little less. 

00:21:54 Athena Cordero 

And then now the second round going in like, okay, I know about chat, what could it do for me? 

00:21:58 Athena Cordero 

I think that's actually a smart way to do it. 

00:22:01 Athena Cordero 

And it still leaves the educator in a space where they feel like they're in charge, not like the AI is 

00:22:08 Athena Cordero 

No, it makes absolute sense. 

00:22:10 Jeff Youskievicz 

And that's one of the fears that, teachers have expressed to us is using it. 

00:22:16 Jeff Youskievicz 

Part of the fear was it's going to replace me. 

00:22:18 Athena Cordero 

Right, exactly. 

00:22:19 Jeff Youskievicz 

AI is not going to replace our teachers. 

00:22:21 Jeff Youskievicz 

They're the ones that are going to be in the classroom. 

00:22:23 Jeff Youskievicz 

They're the ones leading this instruction. 

00:22:25 Jeff Youskievicz 

So how can they best use these tools to get the most out of our students and help them achieve? 

00:22:30 Athena Cordero 

And even in this process, you know, 

00:22:34 Athena Cordero 

interviewing so many different educators. 

00:22:36 Athena Cordero 

The piece we come back to is AI cannot replace the relationship. 

00:22:40 Athena Cordero 

There's nothing that can replace the relationship between the students and each other and the students and the teacher. 

00:22:45 Athena Cordero 

Even if you tried, it's just not gonna happen. 

00:22:47 Athena Cordero 

You're not gonna get the same results as you would with the actual human connection, right? 

00:22:52 Athena Cordero 

So for any of the teachers, you know, thinking about this, there's no way to replace you. 

00:22:57 Athena Cordero 

There's just no way to replace you. 

00:22:59 Athena Cordero 

Okay, so 

00:23:00 Athena Cordero 

What about students? 

00:23:03 Athena Cordero 

and looking at training them on some of these things, have you guys hit that point yet? 

00:23:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

We're getting there. 

00:23:10 Jeff Youskievicz 

That's the next step that we're going to be taking with our work group 2.0 is now that we've come up with the policies for the district and making sure that we keep everybody safe, how do we roll this out to our students and creating that AI literacy piece for our students and making sure that we're teaching them to be responsible and respectful 

00:23:29 Jeff Youskievicz 

using those tools because a lot of those students are already using them. 

00:23:33 Athena Cordero 

Of course, I mean, school is not the only place. 

00:23:37 Jeff Youskievicz 

They're already using these tools, right, wrong, or indifferent. 

00:23:39 Jeff Youskievicz 

They're using them. 

00:23:40 Athena Cordero 

Exactly. 

00:23:41 Jeff Youskievicz 

But it's on us to make sure that we're teaching them the right ways to use us and being responsible and using them. 

00:23:46 Jeff Youskievicz 

And in the same token, teaching our parents because parents have some of the same fears. 

00:23:50 Athena Cordero 

Of course. 

00:23:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

And making sure that we support them as well through parent nights, AI literacy nights working within the community to making sure we're teaching them how to use these tools and what we're showing the students. 

00:24:00 Athena Cordero 

Yes, okay, so me as a mom, I gotta stop you right there, all right? 

00:24:06 Athena Cordero 

I go back to this example from when I was in elementary school, vocabulary homework, or, just trying to understand how to spell words still. 

00:24:17 Athena Cordero 

And me asking my mom, how do you spell? 

00:24:19 Athena Cordero 

And her telling me, go get the dictionary. 

00:24:21 Athena Cordero 

And me looking at her like, how do I know how to look this word up if I, you know, don't even know how to spell it? 

00:24:27 Athena Cordero 

But she's like, no, sound it out and look at the page. 

00:24:30 Athena Cordero 

And there was a lot of learning, you know, in that for me. 

00:24:33 Athena Cordero 

And now I struggle sometimes because 

00:24:35 Athena Cordero 

If my kids don't know how to spell a word, they're just gonna ask Google, ask, you know, Siri ask, and I'm going, man, there's a lot of skill building that I got from that they're missing. 

00:24:47 Athena Cordero 

So this does actually make me a little nervous. 

00:24:50 Athena Cordero 

I feel like we're not exercising the brain as much as we used to. 

00:24:54 Athena Cordero 

What would you tell a mom, you know, or dad or grandma who has that same kind of fear? 

00:24:58 Jeff Youskievicz 

So that's one of the things that we've talked about in the school is exactly what you just said. 

00:25:07 Jeff Youskievicz 

The great thing about being a teacher in the classroom, you still control those things. 

00:25:12 Jeff Youskievicz 

We've come up with, we've come up with a matrix on a scale of 1 to 5, one being absolutely no AI, 2, 5 being go use AI. 

00:25:23 Jeff Youskievicz 

You have to use AI. 

00:25:24 Jeff Youskievicz 

teachers get to still choose and decide how to do that. 

00:25:28 Jeff Youskievicz 

And so part of it is doing assigning some of the same things that you just talked about. 

00:25:32 Jeff Youskievicz 

You're going to have to learn how to do the spelling. 

00:25:34 Jeff Youskievicz 

You have to learn your sight words. 

00:25:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

You're going to have to do some of that stuff still because AI is not going to teach you how to do that. 

00:25:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

So those skills that you're talking about, yes, we're still going to need to do a number of those things to build student skills. 

00:25:46 Jeff Youskievicz 

And the AI is not going to teach them sounds. 

00:25:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

that's got to teach them the rules of sound like, as they do as they do in the school in the classroom and making sure that they know why words are spelled a certain way. 

00:26:02 Athena Cordero 

Right. 

00:26:04 Athena Cordero 

And I think too, I probably struggled a little bit with 

00:26:11 Athena Cordero 

knowing the answer to something and knowing why that's the answer to something, right? 

00:26:15 Athena Cordero 

To me, those are two totally different things. 

00:26:17 Athena Cordero 

One is just memory, which is awesome. 

00:26:20 Athena Cordero 

I know that this is the answer. 

00:26:21 Athena Cordero 

But if I can't tell you why that's the answer, to me, I'm missing a huge part of the learning experience. 

00:26:27 Athena Cordero 

So that was a struggle for me. 

00:26:29 Athena Cordero 

But I have seen 

00:26:32 Athena Cordero 

AI push my kids to ask more questions though, and to be more curious. 

00:26:38 Athena Cordero 

And for me, I'm going, okay, that makes me feel a little bit better. 

00:26:42 Athena Cordero 

It is actually making them want to learn a little more from what they're getting in that short amount of time. 

00:26:48 Athena Cordero 

So it does feel like it maximized it for me. 

00:26:51 Athena Cordero 

I'm still a little nervous about it. 

00:26:54 Athena Cordero 

But I also know that in the job force and where we're headed, 

00:26:58 Athena Cordero 

It is good for them to know how to use those skills, build those skills and know how to adapt to a workforce that includes that. 

00:27:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

And that's something we're still doing in the classroom. 

00:27:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let's take for example, math. 

00:27:09 Athena Cordero 

Okay. 

00:27:11 Jeff Youskievicz 

Over the past few years, working with our teachers, we have an outside consultant that comes in and works with our teachers. 

00:27:17 Jeff Youskievicz 

And one of the biggest things she's been working out with our teachers and getting them to understand the importance of math talk. 

00:27:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

Getting the students to talk about math, using the math vocabulary, using those words, and then being able to have them tell you how they got the answer. 

00:27:38 Jeff Youskievicz 

They need to be able to show the work exactly what you just talked about. 

00:27:41 Jeff Youskievicz 

They need to be the ones that can say, this is how I understand this. 

00:27:45 Jeff Youskievicz 

And then as a teacher, okay, how can I support you in that learning? 

00:27:49 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let's look at your learning path. 

00:27:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let's look at how you're doing this. 

00:27:53 Jeff Youskievicz 

Got it. 

00:27:54 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's, make sure there's no flaws in it. 

00:27:55 Jeff Youskievicz 

Make sure it's, they're getting there correctly. 

00:27:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

But there's different ways to get there. 

00:28:00 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let's talk about that and get students to talk more about those things is the key to this as part of, as part of being a continuous learner, as part of that critical thinker? 

00:28:11 Speaker 1 

Yes. 

00:28:11 Jeff Youskievicz 

Understanding, you know, my own thinking, this is why I got it and this is how I got it. 

00:28:17 Jeff Youskievicz 

And in the same token, 

00:28:22 Jeff Youskievicz 

I know how to do this because I just know it. 

00:28:25 Jeff Youskievicz 

And when the child asks, well, I don't understand there, how did I get there? 

00:28:31 Jeff Youskievicz 

I'm not sure either. 

00:28:32 Jeff Youskievicz 

This is how you do it and just do it this way. 

00:28:34 Jeff Youskievicz 

Cause I've said that a couple times in my kids. 

00:28:36 Athena Cordero 

I just know that's how you do it, right? 

00:28:37 Jeff Youskievicz 

And that's exactly right. 

00:28:39 Athena Cordero 

Yeah. 

00:28:39 Athena Cordero 

Okay. 

00:28:40 Athena Cordero 

All right. 

00:28:40 Athena Cordero 

So I'm a little less stressed, you know, thinking about it, but there are some things 

00:28:46 Athena Cordero 

that I probably just need to let go of as someone who grew up, we won't talk about how long ago, but I learned things like proper handwriting and cursive and how to write a letter, and stuff like that. 

00:28:58 Athena Cordero 

Do I just need to let go of those things, Jeff? 

00:29:00 Athena Cordero 

Like, is it over? 

00:29:02 Jeff Youskievicz 

I don't think you necessarily do. 

00:29:03 Jeff Youskievicz 

We have a lot of different tools now to do those things. 

00:29:06 Jeff Youskievicz 

You know, we talk about writing a letter. 

00:29:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

I think I'm older than you. 

00:29:09 Jeff Youskievicz 

I'm pretty sure I'm older than you. 

00:29:13 Jeff Youskievicz 

But I remember doing those same things in school. 

00:29:14 Jeff Youskievicz 

And when I was in grade school is the years and the poring over the paper of writing cursive and getting it absolutely perfect for my 3rd and 4th grade. 

00:29:24 Jeff Youskievicz 

Mrs. 

00:29:24 Jeff Youskievicz 

Fantozzi in 3rd grade and Mrs. 

00:29:25 Jeff Youskievicz 

Wagner in 4th grade. 

00:29:26 Athena Cordero 

Man, and you remember their names, so that cursive made an impression, right? 

00:29:33 Jeff Youskievicz 

But our teachers still do that. 

00:29:34 Jeff Youskievicz 

it's still an important thing to be able to teach them how to write cursive. 

00:29:38 Jeff Youskievicz 

And that's still a focus for our teachers. 

00:29:41 Jeff Youskievicz 

But letting go of it, I don't think it's necessary letting go of it. 

00:29:44 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's just, it's the same concept, but we now have updated tools to do those things. 

00:29:49 Jeff Youskievicz 

Because most people don't write letters anymore. 

00:29:50 Speaker 1 

They don't. 

00:29:51 Speaker 1 

Yeah. 

00:29:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

They write e-mail. 

00:29:52 Jeff Youskievicz 

Or they send a text message. 

00:29:54 Jeff Youskievicz 

And we know kids with, and even adults with text messages, abbreviations, everybody knows what those look like. 

00:30:02 Jeff Youskievicz 

But we also still talk about the importance of writing handwritten notes and the meaning behind a handwritten note and how much that holds for somebody like you've done something for me and you're writing that, writing those thank you notes. 

00:30:15 Jeff Youskievicz 

People don't think very much about those, but it does mean a lot. 

00:30:18 Jeff Youskievicz 

You see a handwritten note still. 

00:30:20 Jeff Youskievicz 

So still keeping those skills is still very important and it's just now we have different tools to help with that. 

00:30:25 Athena Cordero 

Okay, so I feel a little better. 

00:30:27 Athena Cordero 

I'm gonna I'm gonna sit with that one about the curse of them. 

00:30:30 Athena Cordero 

I feel a little better. 

00:30:32 Athena Cordero 

Okay, so what if I'm, you know, educator, you know, a district, a task force, a committee, somebody listening to this and I'm going, all right, let's see what we can do. 

00:30:42 Athena Cordero 

You know, how do how do we try this? 

00:30:44 Athena Cordero 

Where would you suggest they start? 

00:30:48 Jeff Youskievicz 

Small. 

00:30:49 Athena Cordero 

Okay. 

00:30:49 Jeff Youskievicz 

And they don't have to dive, you know, headlong into creating, you know, 

00:30:54 Jeff Youskievicz 

a whole big lesson, just ask, like with ChatGPT, ask a simple question or put in a statement, I am a third grade teacher. 

00:31:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

I need help with students at, you know, who are three grade levels below in math. 

00:31:11 Jeff Youskievicz 

I need to teach them the standard. 

00:31:14 Jeff Youskievicz 

Can you give me a hands-on lesson that will help me with my students understand this concept at their level? 

00:31:22 Athena Cordero 

I like that because even just starting with playing around with how to prompt it is something you could do in a staff meeting. 

00:31:30 Athena Cordero 

just give them 10, 15 minutes to try different prompts and share out how they put it in, learn from each other. 

00:31:36 Athena Cordero 

That's a really good place to start. 

00:31:38 Jeff Youskievicz 

And that's exactly where we did start when we started a couple of a few years back is let's just look at the prompt you wrote and what did it give you? 

00:31:47 Jeff Youskievicz 

How can you refine this prompt to give you more or did it get and asking that question, did it give you what you were looking for? 

00:31:53 Jeff Youskievicz 

Yeah, great, great prompt. 

00:31:55 Jeff Youskievicz 

Or no, it didn't. 

00:31:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

Okay, what was left out? 

00:31:58 Jeff Youskievicz 

What are you looking for that it didn't give you? 

00:32:00 Jeff Youskievicz 

What you need to change, what you need to add to that prompt to give you what you're looking for. 

00:32:05 Athena Cordero 

So I think that's a great idea. 

00:32:09 Athena Cordero 

You can learn from each other, see where it can go wrong, right? 

00:32:12 Athena Cordero 

And see where it can go very right, you know, for what you're trying to make it do for you. 

00:32:17 Athena Cordero 

Were there any challenges or lessons learned that you could share for folks like, hey, we found out this and if we could go back, we would do it a little differently? 

00:32:27 Jeff Youskievicz 

Starting sooner. 

00:32:28 Athena Cordero 

Okay. 

00:32:29 Jeff Youskievicz 

Definitely. 

00:32:30 Jeff Youskievicz 

And in terms of the way that we started our journey into AI, looking back, I can't think of a different way if we would have done it differently other than maybe trying to get more people to come and explore and getting people because 

00:32:47 Jeff Youskievicz 

we have teachers been teaching for, 30 plus years and they're, they might be afraid of technology. 

00:32:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

They might not be that tech savvy. 

00:33:00 Jeff Youskievicz 

And I understand that and I get that, a lot of, like you said, beginning of the podcast, a lot has changed in the classroom and, in the span of 29 years, let alone the past 10 or five years. 

00:33:11 Speaker 1 

Very true. 

00:33:12 Jeff Youskievicz 

How things have changed for our teachers in the classroom and our students. 

00:33:15 Jeff Youskievicz 

So just making sure that we hear them out in which we've done, but being a little more intentional and hearing and getting to the root of what their fear is of using that tool. 

00:33:27 Jeff Youskievicz 

And as opposed to, well, that's just not how I do it. 

00:33:31 Jeff Youskievicz 

And, okay, let's talk about that a little bit. 

00:33:34 Jeff Youskievicz 

And try and doing our best to alleviate those fears because we still have those fears. 

00:33:38 Jeff Youskievicz 

And I get it. 

00:33:38 Jeff Youskievicz 

You know, we see with AI the things that could happen with AI. 

00:33:45 Jeff Youskievicz 

And, those fears are justified and I understand those fears and, making sure we don't leak personal identifying information, is another big fear. 

00:33:55 Jeff Youskievicz 

And understood, but what can we put in place to help alleviate those fears? 

00:34:00 Jeff Youskievicz 

What protocols and guardrails can we put in place to help you with that so it doesn't become an issue? 

00:34:06 Athena Cordero 

Yeah. 

00:34:07 Athena Cordero 

You know, it sounds to me if I were, as a parent, you know, someone in the classroom has worked with kids, 

00:34:14 Athena Cordero 

If I had to really sit down and digest this in a way to make myself feel a little less apprehensive, I would probably think about it the way I would any other thing change milestone, for kids driving terrified when I thought about my teenager driving. 

00:34:31 Athena Cordero 

But it was time, and it's not something I wanted to hold her back from. 

00:34:35 Athena Cordero 

And 

00:34:36 Athena Cordero 

she does it now. 

00:34:37 Athena Cordero 

And I don't think I don't think twice about it. 

00:34:40 Athena Cordero 

I still worry. 

00:34:41 Athena Cordero 

But of course, she's going to become a driver, Athena. 

00:34:44 Athena Cordero 

You're like, that's what's going to happen. 

00:34:46 Athena Cordero 

And I'll do the same when my son is ready to drive. 

00:34:49 Athena Cordero 

I think this is just one of those things that you need a minute to kind of wrap your mind around and see the benefit of it. 

00:34:55 Athena Cordero 

And then, like you said, really think about what you can put in place to make you feel more secure, safe, and to see what it can do for you, basically. 

00:35:04 Jeff Youskievicz 

Right. 

00:35:04 Jeff Youskievicz 

And to use your analogy of driving. 

00:35:08 Jeff Youskievicz 

Don't want to see your age, but you've been driving for a while. 

00:35:10 Athena Cordero 

Yes, I have. 

00:35:11 Jeff Youskievicz 

Compared, like me, compared to our kids. 

00:35:15 Jeff Youskievicz 

So encouraging those parents to go out and explore those tools themselves, which hopefully they are, but making sure that they go out and see, okay, let me check out Canva. 

00:35:25 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let me check out, let me check out what this does. 

00:35:27 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let me check out with chat or Claude or whatever, fill in the blank AI tool that is out there today. 

00:35:36 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let me see what it does. 

00:35:37 Jeff Youskievicz 

Let me see what it can do. 

00:35:39 Jeff Youskievicz 

And let me see, you know, let me start learning those things. 

00:35:42 Athena Cordero 

And maybe sitting with your kids as they go through it, I'm still amazed at 

00:35:49 Athena Cordero 

three to five years old can pick up grandma's cell phone and show grandma what to do on there because not because of the time that they really spent, but because of how they are observing the world around them at, three, four, five years old. 

00:36:04 Athena Cordero 

They just are good at it, naturally good at it. 

00:36:07 Athena Cordero 

So I think I would probably try it like that too. 

00:36:10 Athena Cordero 

The same way I taught my kid how to drive, I'm sitting next to her. 

00:36:13 Athena Cordero 

I could see myself sitting next to my son, sitting next to my daughter and going, show me how you're using 

00:36:18 Athena Cordero 

how you're using the AI, how you're using chat, how are you doing it, so that I can walk alongside them. 

00:36:23 Athena Cordero 

I guess the same way you guys are doing, you know, walking alongside educators to get this in place. 

00:36:28 Athena Cordero 

Okay, all right, I'm a little less upset about some of it. 

00:36:31 Athena Cordero 

I think I have some things I want to try with my own kids now. 

00:36:35 Athena Cordero 

Okay, for the sake of, you know, the conversation, you gave us a lot to think about. 

00:36:40 Athena Cordero 

You named some tools in there that folks can go try. 

00:36:43 Athena Cordero 

Is there anything else you want to share or point folks towards that can happen? 

00:36:47 Athena Cordero 

help with this AI piece in schools and learning. 

00:36:51 Jeff Youskievicz 

I think the biggest thing that I can point to is don't be afraid and just start. 

00:36:56 Jeff Youskievicz 

somewhere. 

00:36:57 Jeff Youskievicz 

And because that's what we did. 

00:36:59 Jeff Youskievicz 

And we started with some of our administrators because we've also asked our administrators to do these same things. 

00:37:05 Jeff Youskievicz 

As teachers, we tell our students, don't be afraid of failing. 

00:37:07 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's okay to make a mistake. 

00:37:09 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's okay to fail because that's how you learn. 

00:37:12 Jeff Youskievicz 

That's been our approach with AI with the adults is 

00:37:16 Jeff Youskievicz 

We need you to start doing those things. 

00:37:18 Jeff Youskievicz 

And guess what? 

00:37:19 Jeff Youskievicz 

It's okay to show that vulnerability of making a mistake because you're going to learn from it because that's what we expect our students to do. 

00:37:25 Athena Cordero 

Very true. 

00:37:26 Jeff Youskievicz 

We expect them to do the same thing. 

00:37:27 Jeff Youskievicz 

So why should we be afraid and why should we not model that plug there? 

00:37:31 Athena Cordero 

It's better said than done though. 

00:37:32 Jeff Youskievicz 

And it is, and I get that. 

00:37:35 Jeff Youskievicz 

But it's okay to do that, show that vulnerability. 

00:37:38 Jeff Youskievicz 

And I think it's just get started. 

00:37:40 Jeff Youskievicz 

Pick something, pick one thing and just 

00:37:43 Jeff Youskievicz 

start down the road of getting it done and let's see where this takes us and what we can do with it. 

00:37:49 Athena Cordero 

Well, I'm going to say for anyone listening, just from what I'm hearing from you right now, what I'm learning is also be okay to fail and allow your folks, like tell them that. 

00:37:59 Athena Cordero 

Let them know we're not going to get it right the first time. 

00:38:01 Athena Cordero 

Maybe that's okay. 

00:38:02 Athena Cordero 

We're going to learn together. 

00:38:04 Athena Cordero 

Even just setting the tone that way, I think would make educators, parents 

00:38:10 Athena Cordero 

a little less stressed about going into it and just starting, that's helpful. 

00:38:16 Athena Cordero 

It takes a little bit of the edge off, the pressure off, and it shows flexibility. 

00:38:20 Athena Cordero 

Yeah. 

00:38:21 Athena Cordero 

Okay. 

00:38:23 Athena Cordero 

I have some things to write down to go check after this myself that I want to look at. 

00:38:27 Athena Cordero 

Thank you so much for coming and talking to us about this. 

00:38:30 Athena Cordero 

We'll have to get you and Cami here maybe together. 

00:38:33 Jeff Youskievicz 

One of these days. 

00:38:34 Athena Cordero 

Yeah, we'll have to get you and Cami here together. 

00:38:37 Athena Cordero 

Other than that, please send all of our love back to Silver Valley. 

00:38:40 Athena Cordero 

You guys are doing a really, really good job. 

00:38:42 Athena Cordero 

You're always on the edge of something for as long as I've seen you guys, and I appreciate that as a parent. 

00:38:48 Jeff Youskievicz 

Oh, thank you very much. 

00:38:49 Jeff Youskievicz 

We appreciate your guys' support as well. 

00:38:51 Athena Cordero 

Awesome. 

00:38:52 Outro 

Before we wrap up, we want to remind you that if you or someone you know is facing a crisis, help is available. 

00:39:00 Outro 

You are not alone. 

00:39:02 Outro 

If it's an emergency, please call 911. 

00:39:06 Outro 

For immediate support, you can reach out to the crisis and suicide hotline by dialing 988. 

00:39:13 Outro 

Remember, taking the first step to ask for help is a sign of strength. 

00:39:18 Outro 

Stay safe, take care of yourself, and take care of each other. 

00:39:23 Outro 

Until next time, be well. 

00:39:26 Speaker 1 

See you next time.