Autism Education Built Differently - A special episode recorded with Breaking Out Of The Box

This week’s episode of The Polaris Connection is a little different and incredibly special.

Our hosts, Brad Broyles and Nathan Palmer, were invited to join Norrine Russell on her podcast, Breaking Out of the Box. The conversation was so meaningful, honest, and full of hope that we knew we wanted to share it with our Polaris community as this week's episode.

In this episode, Brad and Nathan open up about the journey that led to the creation of Polaris Academy, the challenges families face when traditional educational models aren't designed for neurodivergent learners, and the belief that every child deserves a place where they can truly belong. They discuss building schools around students instead of forcing students to fit into systems, the importance of individualized support, and why hope, possibility, and empowerment should be at the center of autism education.

Whether you're a parent navigating your child's educational journey, an educator, or someone who simply believes every child deserves to be seen for who they are, this conversation will leave you inspired and encouraged.

We want to hear from you! Follow us and leave a comment on our Instagram at ThePolarisConnection or reach us at Info@PolarisAcademy.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Friends, welcome to this episode of ADHD Autism and Anxiety Breaking Out of the Box. I can't tell you how excited I was to meet the two people who are our guests on the show for this episode. They actually interviewed me for their podcast a few weeks ago. And there are really no words that are adequate other than to say that I fell in love with these human beings and the work that they're doing and the energy that they have for so many reasons. And I asked them if they would come and visit my podcast and tell the story of Polaris Academy. And they kindly and graciously agreed to do so. And so we're in for a treat today and a heartwarming story of how family and friendship and autism have created the most miraculous school choice opportunity in Arizona. So grab your tissues, settle down in your chair. This is a great story because of great people. Okay, so Nathan and Brad. I know that Nathan, you're the one who's gonna need more of a minute to get your words together. So Brad, will you start?

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Fair, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

That's you know, if you know Nathan, that's not true. The guy is so quick. Um, and I've always been very impressed working with Nathan. We've um so I'm so sorry. What was the question? You kind of threw me off when you said that he's an attorney and he always has something to say, you know, and I say that with love. I say that with love. He always has something to say.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

I'm a recovering attorney.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So, anyways, uh you don't I don't get stumped that often, but that's not me. So, anyway, so I'm so I'm so sorry, Doctor. What was your question again?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

I was just thinking maybe at the beginning of the podcast you could both introduce yourself. And I thought maybe Nathan would be touched by these words, so I was gonna let you, as you know, the sidekick start by just saying, why are you involved? Who are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Uh, my name is Brad Broils, and um kind of one of the co-founders. I'm the CFO of Polaris Academy, and I do all the human resources of Polaris Academy. I'm kind of responsible of hiring all of our great teachers, our staff, help them with training, implementation, and make sure that they do it what we call the Polaris way. Um and uh we have a podcast for called the Polaris Connection, uh, like you said, and and the kind of our main focus is to reach out to our parents. Um, we when we started into the school system, we realized that there was a big void that parents wanted to understand what we were teaching, and we wanted to connect that through our podcast. So excited to be here. We're a big champion of what you do, Doctor, and we love we love being part of uh your your story, hearing what you do, and how your great impact in the community.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

All right, awesome. So, Brad, you're like the operations guy, and you make sure that what happens at school has integrity.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, I absolutely so and there's and there's another person that we need to mention too, Aaron Kasmerik, who's uh our COO, also a co-founder and a big part of the story of Players Academy and a big reason why it's successful. Um just definitely wanted to give a big shout out to him. Basically, kind of what I do is, you know, my background is in finance. Um, I was a special asset manager for a commercial bank during the downturn of the market. I have a master's degree in real estate development and a bachelor's in accounting and finance. So I really like numbers. I enjoy spreadsheets, I enjoy being with people. Um, and backgrounds mostly in real estate and business development. So when I when I was uh working at the bank as a special asset manager, I was a what you called the pooper scooper. So when things go bad, I had to go and fix it. So I would go and work with companies, get them viable again, either we would sell them off or they would, you know, be able to operate like they need to. Um so it was, it was actually a fun job. I really enjoyed it. Um, but uh, you know, shameless plug.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

He was also uh an officiator for college football and was even offered to be an NFL referee. So I mean it that's the he unofficially we kind of refer to Brad as Coach Brad.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, so I so I'm a big football nut. Um I really if you ever want to talk to a football nut, talk to a football official. And so uh um have that background. I coach high school football now, which I with my son, which I really enjoy. And um, yeah, yeah, that's and then six kids, uh, beautiful wife, just trying to do the best I can.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Love it, love it. All right, Brad, what would you say about Nathan? We're gonna let him introduce himself here.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Oh man, okay, here we go. Uh, how much, how long do you have this? Dangerous question. I am so excited for this. Oh man, how long can I go? Okay, well, Nathan, um uh all joking aside, I would say Nathan, Nathan's probably the smartest guy I've ever been around. And so there's an old adage. I don't know if I've ever told you this, but there's an old adage that I heard in business a long time ago. Find the smartest person in the room and make him your partner. And that's that's kind of been my experience. Now it's funny how we got connected. His wife, Darcy, and my wife, Dusty, were good, we're like best friends in high school. And so um, over time, then you know, Darcy marries Nathan. Um, I think even Dusty might have said that at one time that that you didn't deserve Darcy, or I don't know. There's something there.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

We're not gonna go down that rabbit hole. I think I've earned her respect now.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

You do. Um, and so, anyways, that's that was the original connection. So um, as then my wife and I got married, Darcy and Nate, you know, Darcy and Dusty stayed pretty close friends, and I always saw Nathan from afar, uh, very successful uh real estate developer, successful businessman. He he was in a few little things. Um, and I always had great respect for him. Well, then when I was building up my real estate um business, you know, I remember I was trying to do a deal and I like a real estate deal, and I and I kept bugging Nathan because I knew him. And I was like, hey man, here's this cool, you know, I found this opportunity, I really want to get involved with it. And Nathan, I took him out to lunch and he was like, Brad, when are you gonna stop talking to me as an investor and talk to me as a partner? Let's do this together. And that was kind of the genesis of kind of how we really started working together. I was like, oh, perfect. You're right, Nathan. Let's do this together. So we did a few real estate deals together, um, kind of formed a company together, and then um, anyways, um, a really good friend, Nathan is I I see all the behind the scenes that Nathan does, he's very caring. Um, I tease him a lot because he's an attorney, but was an attorney. But just a very kind, kind individual. I'm very excited to. I've always been proud to call Nathan a friend. Is that a good intro?

SPEAKER_03 7:38

I um I'm at a loss for words, but thank you.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

You can pay me later.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

You know what's funny, Doctor. You you you kind of introduced this idea of Polaris and this this school and this thing that we started. And what you're not hearing in either one of our backgrounds is educational experience. Um and I find myself really appreciating the name of your story of your podcast, you know, breaking out of the box. I think it took people not inside the box to understand how we needed to break it. And so, what we are not as school professionals, we don't have a background in education. I mean, Brad, to kind of place all the pieces, I was just the dad with a kid on the spectrum that had this idea, which I'll walk you through in a second. Brad was the reason I stepped forward with it because he was the business acumen side to say, yes, Nathan, this is possible and it can exist in a business structure. Um, Aaron Kasmerik, who we mentioned earlier, was our academic resource of here's how you do this in a school setting. And those three pieces coming together is why it exists. And take any one of those out and it wouldn't. It was kind of a um, I don't know how much you believe in fate or what your religious uh backgrounds are, but this was something that I kind of felt called to do. And as we have walked down this path, it's something's just pulled us further and further along. So um I can't thank Brad enough. And it's uh, you know, my my my story, I don't know if you how if you even want me to jump into that or if we're just still in background mode, but my story was as far from education as you could possibly think. And when I stumbled across the idea that became Polaris, it just became all consuming and it's been a wonderful ride ever since.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

This is part of what I think makes your story compelling, though, right? Because there are a lot of people who are in the traditional box of education who don't have the skills that your leadership team does. And so they have a heart and a passion, and maybe they have an understanding for special ed or kids with autism, but it takes a lot more than that to create a successful school that is a business. And so the part that you've shared this morning is really relevant that the three of you came together with varying expertise and obviously realized you can bring in the education part, right? But not every person in education can bring in the business side. And so your story is unique from the beginning, um, in the sense of it starts with a really solid grounding for building an organization, for building a company, for building I'm gonna put this word out here because I think you know, we're not talking about business in the sense of profit before people, but there's a lot of regulations, there's a lot of finance, there's a lot of operations, and it's part of what makes your story unusual is how the three of you and many, many, many other people came together. So I want to at this point ask one of you to tell us what is Polaris Academy, right? Like give us, you know, the top 10 facts, help that person who's never heard of Polaris Academy understand where are you, what do you do for the kids, that kind of thing, if you can at least.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Yeah, Brad. Do you mind if I take this one?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Can I can I do um can I lay the foundation real fast real real quick? Because I think this is really, really important. For I just wanted to back up just before we get to that question, Doctor. Is when we were starting, when Nathan and I were doing real estate, we were building a bunch of stuff and we were building like self-work storage units, we had land deals that we were doing, we had apartment things that we were doing. I don't know if it was you or me, but we kind of felt like there was a void. We felt like there was something missing, like we could do more with our life, right? Like we can do, like it was good what we were doing. We were really, I felt like we were really successful. But I remember just kind of mentioned to Nathan, like, man, we can can we do something more? Like, can we build something that's better for the community? Like, it's great to do development. There's nothing wrong with that. I love it. But it was like, we kind of, I don't know, we were working together in this small office and we're like, man, can we do something? Like we were exploring different businesses and like what can we do? Um, and I didn't know the struggles that Nathan was going through internally as a father with an autistic son. In fact, three, four years ago, I didn't even know honestly what autism really was. I didn't understand the struggles that parents were facing. I didn't get that, but Nathan hit it so well. We we should say he masked it very well.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

We're good at that.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

And I didn't quite understand until Nathan kind of started opening up to me in the world of autism and his him as a family, as a parent. And there was just this drive. Like we just kind of got this drive, like we can do here. It is, there's a huge problem, and we can, we we want to help families solve something. We want families, and I and it was just like again, I kind of reach it as a friend, seeing my friend struggle that I didn't understand his struggle and his and his wife. And I'm like, we can do something about this. Um, anyway, now you can start.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

Yeah, I sorry. I can talk accolades of my respect for everybody that's jumped in on this cause, but to answer your question directly, Doctor, what what is Polaris? What makes it different? Um, it all started with a frustration. Um, and that sounds a little odd. I was my wife and I were looking for school options for our son. We had tried homeschooling, we had tried public school, and and each one came with its own set of challenges and concerns, and and it was always like we're trying to fit the round peg into a square hole or vice versa. Like it just, there was always something missing. In homeschool, it was too hard being the parent and the provider at the same time and wearing so many hats. It was tiring, it was overbearing, it was straining the relationship. And frankly, we weren't qualified to deliver everything that he needed. In public school, we loved that he was around typical peers, but around third grade, when he became aware of his differences, he kind of self-isolated. And so we we most autism parents have this wish that if we just stick our kid with the quote unquote normal kids, they'll just figure this thing out. And it's this pipe dream we all have that we what we just want, we just want the autism to like go away. We just want to stick them in the normal and let them blend and they'll assimilate somehow. And that doesn't happen. It's it's they are different and unique. And the more we try to make them not who they are, the more we struggle with developing them because we're not addressing the real issue. And then we looked at private schools. And the private schools in the world of autism, you know, it's a spectrum for a reason, it's a wide range, and it was a struggle finding, even there, a spot where he fit, where he belonged, and and where it wasn't just um a form of glorified daycare, or where, you know, the people didn't set their expectations lower because it was special ed. Like it was just it was frustrating. And we found a spot we thought he'd get accepted, and we'd gone through like this four-month process of getting ready and going through interviews, and at the end of it, we got denied. And I was livid. And I just remember I can tell you the exact parking spot where I was standing when I looked at my wife and said, you know what, that's it. Let's just do our own. And it was set out of frustration. Uh, I didn't, I don't think I was even serious, but that seed got planted, and I couldn't stop thinking about, well, if I was to do one, what what would that look like? And Polaris started on this idea. It's a what-if. And all these players, Brad, Aaron, and so many others I could list are what's made the what if possible. But the idea was this what if, what if in one spot, just at school, you could combine ABA resources, speech resources, occupational therapy resources, all the traditional and non-traditional supports our kids get that I had to go so many places to find. What if I could just bring them all together in one spot? Because our our single biggest frustration, Doctor, was that we always felt like we had to sacrifice one thing to get another. Like in school, to get supports, we had to pull him out of class, which would isolate him from friends, put him one-to-one with the provider, and that was on the provider schedule, not the schools. So he was sacrificing class time, sacrificing friend time to get these resources, but that caused their own problems because he was missing core learning time and he felt isolated and he felt called out, like here's the kid going for his class, and everybody's watching him, so it's hurting his self-confidence. And even all the one-to-one therapies are a little bit of an issue. You know, the I love that intensive therapy can be helpful, but when you pair a child one-to-one with an adult in early early years and you do that consistently, they almost learn to be antisocial because their safe space is one-to-one with an adult. And so we watch our child start pairing with his teacher, or with the principal, or with the coach, or even the janitor, but not his peers. And we go to the park, and instead of talking to kids, he talks to parents. And and I've talked to so many parents that have kids on the spectrum. They're like, Yeah, my kid too, my kid too. And autism is not an inherently antisocial condition, but the way we treat it embodies antisocial behaviors because we are separating, we are isolating. And but but what do you do? Because that's the only way to get these supports. So, like, I'm always giving up this thing I want for this thing that I need, and it's tiring. And then to not have that happen, you have to stack all that stuff outside school hours, which makes for 10-hour days, and I can't do extracurricular activities with my other kids. And doctor, I see you nodding. Like all these parents, we have these shared pain experiences where you know I can't get everybody in the same room. And even if I want these supports, I have to qualify for them because and I have to get assessed. And then either the state or my insurance company tells me what I can and can't have. And then that limits what the providers can and can't do. And so I'm having to abdicate, no, but this is what I want, but this is all I get. And eventually they age out, and you don't even get those supports anymore. And at the end of the day, you just are in this constant fight. So the what if was what if you don't have to qualify for services? What if insurance didn't have a say in what you can and can't do? What if ABA support wasn't limited to just medical necessity and they could just use ABA techniques in any aspect, educational, social, vocational? What if what if, what if you could sit down a teacher, an ABA specialist, a speech path, and an occupational therapist all in one room, and together they would cohesively craft an academic and therapy blended plan that they would all execute together in collaboration. And what if, what if you could do that in a group social peer environment and not one-to-one isolationist? That's the what if. And the answer to that what if is that is Polaris Academy. How we did that was we just hired all of these individuals, academic and therapy combined, and we made them one cohesive staff that doesn't rely on insurance, that doesn't rely on any state Medicaid program. It's all funded within the confines of what our education system allows, so it doesn't cost parents anything more than any other traditional school. But what they get is this comprehensive, all-in-one thing that they don't have to be assessed for, they don't have to qualify for, they don't have to advocate for. They get everything their kid needs in one spot, and they get to be part of the process and bringing it to life. That that is the so what of Players Academy.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Now, I want to highlight something that's important. Take all the great energy that Nathan has at his background and everything. Now he brought that to our office and saying, This is what I want to do. And I'm like, what's autism?

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Yeah, no, so so hang on.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

That's what he had to work with.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Just let me compare and contrast, right? So, but but but but that's an important piece. And Brad, I don't think Brad realizes how important his involvement was early on. So, Doctor, here here my wife and I are we're like, is it one, is this even possible? You know, is this something because no one's done it that way before. Every other school I've found uses traditional approaches. They have these supports maybe at the school, but it involves pulling your kid out. And you only get those if you qualify and they're subsidized through the state. Like we all know that system. And it's it's not that it's bad, Doctor, but it's broken. Because whenever you whenever you isolate or separate your kid, well intentioned or not, it tells them something's wrong. Like you can't do that here. You don't belong with that group. And the very nature by which we deliver these supports in a traditional model ingrains a sense in them that they're different, that they don't belong together, that they're not part of the group, that something needs to be fixed with them. And I think that part of it's broken. Uh, one of one of one of my students just the other day is like, Mr. Palmer, we need to make a new shirt, and it needs to say uh it's normal to be weird. And so, if nothing else, we've normalized that process. So, so to Brad's point, I I bring in this idea like, hey, I have this idea to start this autism school. You know, like he said, we had been talking about what's something more we can do. And to his credit, he doesn't say, Nathan, I don't know what I'm doing. Nathan, that's not a field I can do. Like he doesn't bow out. He like jumps in headfirst into this world he has no idea that he's getting involved in. And his only question is, Great, tell me what that means. And if and if that's not a sign of like faith and trust in a friend, I don't know what it is. But but but his question was so funny because Brad's question was, what even is that? Um, Aaron Gasmerick, who was our school director, who, by the way, did not have professional background in special needs education, and I didn't want him to. I wanted him to bring the traditional academic experience to these kids to find out what they're capable of. And then I had another professional just in the autism world, but without any academic experience, just to say, let me bring my expertise. And it was that blended group, and each of them asked a question. Here's the irony. Brad's question was, what is autism? What is ABA? What is speech?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

What's occupational therapy? I had no idea.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Aaron's Aaron, my educator, his approach was, I don't need ABA. I don't need that stuff. I'm an academic, we can do all that ourselves. And Rachel Krupi, who was our first director of behavior services, our board certified behavior analyst, she's like, Yeah, Nathan, you're you're not crazy. I I have a kid on the spectrum too, and I wish this had existed when he was in school. Like, this isn't crazy, it's it's normal. Fast forward three years later, and Brad's question now is my question, because we're breaking the box of traditional service. We're inventing a new kind of ABA. And so I'm finding myself asking, wow, what can ABA be now? What can we make it? Because it's not what it used to be. Uh, same with speech and OT. We're we're by creating this cohesive group, we're blending neuroscience and behavior medicine. And we're we're essentially, I think I think we're inventing a brand new autism support through academics. Um so his question is now my question, which is the ironic part. Aaron's question of we don't need it now, he's like, no, Nathan, we need more. We need this support and that support. And like he's all in because he's seen the magic of what it what happens when now the academic teachers have these supports in class and what they can craft together. And Rachel, who's like, no, no, no, this isn't crazy. Rachel's like, oh my gosh, this is so crazy because it's taken off in a way none of us expected. So we're we've all like flipped scripts, but it it's because we're we're going down the right road, and Polaris has just become a movement. Uh, I mean, it's it's just in Arizona right now, but um I I can't I can't wait to champion this approach as much as I can to voices around the country. And it's just it's the it's I think it is the right way to educate not just the autism population, but just neurodiversity in general.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I can't even wrap my hands around what that would look like and feel like. I have two quick comments I want to make because I I don't want to take anything away from the two of you telling your story. But the first thing I want to say is the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry met last week or the week before, and one of the statements they issued after the meeting said something like this. I'm not quoting directly and I'm not gonna go find it, but it was basically like there is such a shortage of psychiatric providers, and there is such a need for behavioral support that we are issuing a statement today to say that we need to, yes, include ABA, but we also need to look at other behavioral supports. And the two that they mentioned by name were both um behavioral interventions supports that included parents and that were more based in kind of real life, because one of the things that often people want to know about ABA is is this going to generalize? So as the two of you are talking, and you're talking about sort of a new vision for ABA. And I think ABA as a field is you know grappling with a lot of serious questions about what from our past is valuable and what can we transform into to serve, you know, the kids that need us now. And I don't want to turn this into a conversation on ABA, but as you're talking, I'm just thinking what you are doing at Polaris Academy is completely consistent with this statement from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry who said we need more boots on the ground, day-to-day, in real life support for kids. And I'm sure that they said with disabilities or with mental health, but it certainly is applicable to kids with autism. And I'm just so impressed with the integration of that and your vision. That's one piece I want listeners to be thinking about is you know, when a lot of these school choice programs opened up, it opened a lot of places that were more of the same, right? But that's not what Polaris Academy is. I have one more comment, and then I I have a few, I have many more questions for you. I cannot imagine as a parent what it would be like for my child to have benefited both my children, my son and my daughter, to have benefited from a united, cohesive team of professionals. Because we had that experience you're talking about, where oh, well, now you get pulled out for counseling, now you get pulled out for your math disability, now you get pulled out for OT for handwriting, you know, and neither one of my kids ever went to a school that was specialized for autism. We did all the things. We did public school, we did private school, we did charter school, we did a different charter school, we did a different private school, but it was always the pulling out and you know the idea. I'm just sitting here kind of overwhelmed with emotion at the idea of my kid who could have benefited, and your kids at Polaris are benefiting from a leadership team that has a cohesive vision where people aren't like, okay, I'm gonna do 30 minutes of speech here, or I'm gonna do 20 minutes of speech here, or you're gonna come here and you're gonna practice handwriting, and then you're gonna go out on the playground and you're gonna be with your teacher. You know, like it creates this piecemeal approach to trying to not just educate kids, right? But to raise kids. And there are times I can think of where the different professionals had different agendas, even, you know, and so they don't they don't all play nice together.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

No, they don't. In fact, that's a whole big rabbit hole that we can speak forever about.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yeah, yeah. But at Polaris, that's that's the what if that you're saying, yes, we are we are implementing that vision and that goal here. Okay, I don't want to get too much in the nitty-gritty, but I want you to give, please, our listeners, a sense of so where is Polaris and who can attend Polaris and how many students are there? And you know, I just want to give people a sense of what the scope is today, knowing that when you're back next year, the scope might be double that. Right now today, summer of 2026. Where is Polaris located? Who do you serve? Those kinds of admission type questions.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

Sure. Um, so we started in Mesa, Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Um and we Which we call the Silicon Valley of Autistic Education and Development.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

Yeah, I we got a little lucky, Noreen. Um Mesa, Arizona was the first ever autism certified city. That as a city, their city officials went through a certification process for their public spaces, their staff to become an autism-friendly city location. Um I think Phoenix, Arizona has since done that, and some other kind uh cities nationally are starting to, but they kind of pioneered that that thing. Um and so we got lucky that we were in such a supportive area. And it began with a single building. It was a little 10,000 square foot office building that we renovated and gutted and rebuilt.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Um well, can I tell a little bit of that story? Yeah, yes. This is a funny, this is a good story. So again, our background is real estate, and I've always believed there's so I believe that there's a spiritual component on all things, in particular real estate. And I've always like, I always just kind of have this belief that if you're if you're a good person, you can inherit the land. Like you're you're there to do good, right? And so we're doing our research, and I I'm a research nut, and I'm like, okay, if we're gonna do a school, we need to make it simple for moms. And if I can find a building that was between like a target and a Costco, because when you do real estate, you always do what's called like you want to find out the like it's um uh what do they call it? Um no, I can't think of the word, the psychographic of the consumer. So we always want to think, okay, what's the what what is the experience of our consumer? And I was like, man, if we can find a police piece of property on a phone, where bombs already are by a target and a Costco, that'd be awesome. That would be super awesome. Well, all of a sudden, this and then the other thing. So I did my research and I figured out, like, okay, we really want to be in a 10,000 square foot location. Like it needs to be about 10,000, right? And it'd be great if we had expansion opportunity too. So we can start with 10,000. Um, and yeah, don't ask me why 10,000 works. That's a different story. But um, and then I was like, man, if we can find one, well, all of a sudden, just out of the blue, this beautiful property shows up on the market, 10,000 square feet between a Target and a Costco with a lot next to it that is perfect for expansion, which was being sold by two different sellers, but went up at the same time. Yeah, like that never happens.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

And I was like, Talk about the power of intention, right? I mean, it was it was it was sublime.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

When we we both went there, we're like, this is the place.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

And not only that, Doctor, but just to again, whether you believe in fate or not, we have the gall to say we're interested in buying this thing. We don't have the funds to do it. We didn't have any money. Um, and on a handshake, this I'm just gonna call him our North Star supporter comes out of nowhere and offers to buy it for us without loan terms, without contracts, just on a handshake to get us started.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

And and and and really, you're not telling the story of the why, because we're I could show lots of side stories. But when Nathan shared his vision, because again, Doctor, you talk about vision, and I agree with that. I've always believed I have a concept that I believe in called you know, strategy, uh culture will eat strategy for breakfast. Okay. I always believe that. If you have good culture, if you have a good vision and and you work with good people, good things happen. And so Nathan shares his vision, and we didn't, I didn't know, but I guess you know, this this individual, his son was autistic. And he's like, wow, if we had a school like that, that would make a big difference. What can I do? And again, he becomes our North Star. Um, but anyways.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

Yeah, this this was someone that it was a mentor friend of mine that I would bounce ideas on that I was just I actually called just ask, am I crazy? Like I I this I'm not an educator, this is not my field. Should I should I even be doing this? I I was just asking him for the it's gonna be okay. And what I got five minutes in was Nathan, I'm in, what do you need? And and I was like, I'm not soliciting. He's like, I know you weren't, but this is something I want to support. And so there are so many things like that happened that made this possible, Doctor. Like our principal.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

I was gonna say, can you tell the Aaron Casmeric story real fast?

SPEAKER_03 35:01

I'm gonna do an aside just to kind of yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Okay, because there are a few people out there who are a little bit like me. I want you know, I want to sit here all afternoon and talk with you about the story. But I want somebody to walk away knowing okay, started in Mesa.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Sorry, the what? Yes, start in Mesa, 10,000 square foot building. We started with a hundred and kids, 110 kids. That was our capacity. Uh we filled up in the first few months. And I I I wasn't sure one that this was gonna work. Like Brad modeled it, but on paper is one thing, and practice is another. Um, I wasn't sure that combining these staffs was gonna produce the result we wanted, and I wasn't sure how many other parents out there had my story. So we started with that capacity up to 100, 110 kids, uh, and we hit it so fast, faster than I ever thought possible. Um, and so we realized we need to work on expanding. So we did. We started drawing plans for that lot next door to double the size, add another 20,000 square feet on top of the 10. And in the middle of doing that, one of the local public schools uh became aware of what we were doing. And what was so gracious is they did not see us as competition, they saw us as collaborative. And that started a dialogue where they actually allowed us to come onto public school campuses, which had space I never could have gotten in the private realm. I mean, a private development we know, but there's nobody that develops privately that leaves five acres open for a baseball field. You know, that's just not something that's cost efficient in the private development world. So the school says, we we've got these junior highs and they're not filled to capacity. Um, if you'd like, we will rent you out space. And so they leased me 25,000 square feet at not one, but two campuses. So we went from 10,000 to 60 um in a year. And we're just finishing developing those spaces now, and they both open this fall. So we have been running at 110 student capacity for a year and a half with 200 kids on a wait list, like double our capacity, just waiting for a seat. And this fall, we are the reason we're so excited before the show started. Why I'm like out of breath, is because we've been developing 50,000 square feet over the last six months, and it's been a ride. And and so we will now have room for not 110, but for 450. Right. Um, what's good and bad about that is we're already 80% filled and we haven't opened yet. Um, and so we are now talking to other school districts that have heard our story um and even looking at locations in other states potentially. So what started as an idea has turned into a movement. By the time we do this next year, we might be talking about the next two. So our goal is to get to a thousand kids in the next two years and then see where it goes from there.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Yeah. And then on top of that, too, this needs to be mentioned. We started a um last year, we started what was called Starlight B uh Academy, which is an early learning center to kind of work with the little kiddos of um of early um intervention from preschool kinder and first grade. And then we also we had a loud voice that wanted us to get involved with more of an ABA clinic. So we do have uh what's called Starlight Behavior. We got into um one-to-one ABA therapy to prepare them as a titration into an academic setting, which has created a very unique challenge that I didn't understand. That now we do. So we kind of have so right now we have five locations, three Polarises, one Starlight uh Academy, and uh and then a Starlight Behavior.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Near pre pre-K through 12.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Our junior high high school opens this year. So my son, when we built this, was in eighth grade. Um, last year we extended it to ninth grade because I'm not kicking him out of the school we built for him. Um and now and we're fully accredited, we can issue state recognized diplomas, college prep. I mean, it we're we're we're a legitimate educational facility.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Well, and I feel like this story has had so many spiritual components. Like I always tell so another part of that, another other than the expansion expansion, but we talk about cohesive. We talk about working with like-minded individuals and professionals. And that is really hard. And it's mostly because since I champion more of like our human resource hiring, you mentioned something before, Doctor, that I just want to touch back again, is a lot of these wonderful professionals, they really think it through the lens of what they have their degree on. And to bring them together, and I didn't know this before, but there seems like, and I and I, and we just we found so many good unicorns when we first started that now that as we're hiring and training new staff, that's really our secret sauce is our staff. Our staff are incredible and they're able and they're cohesive and they want to work together, which is really, I didn't know this until I got in the middle of it. That's really not the norm that you see out there. Typically, your BCBAs don't really work well with your occupational therapists. The occupational therapists really don't collaborate with speech therapists, and and speech therapists really don't collaborate with teachers, and that stuff doesn't exist. When we got into it, I thought, oh, that makes a lot of sense. Let's just collaborate. And I guess I got into it very naively because as we hire staff, I see that, and I'm like, okay, if you can't collaborate with other professionals, then you're not a good staff member at Polaris Academy. And so we really screen our staff people well. And the great thing about this movement, and I like how Nathan calls it a movement because it really is, we've had these wonderful professionals reach out to us on their own and say, wow, we see what you're doing. This is exactly why I got into the field the first place. How can I get involved? And it's been absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

I mean, it's you are so right about how out of the box this is. One of you mentioned, you know, the name of my podcast, Breaking Out of the Box. You know, and that for me is such a frustration because I think people do have a box. And, you know, in my experience, there's a lot of pretty rigid boxes in education. And these kids go here, and this teacher does this, and this school does this. And, you know, I'm not saying kids with autism are all more different than kids with Down syndrome or with, you know, learning disabilities, but I'm gonna say what has been my experience, which is that kids with autism can really be uniquely different from each other. And having that collaboration where you have three or four professionals who see this student, this child from multiple angles and then bring it together is so important. And and this is not today about Russell coaching, but it is something that's so fundamental to what we do at Russell Coaching for the same reasons that you all do it at Polaris Academy. We had kids come who they'd had speech therapy, they'd had occupational therapy, they'd had tutoring, they had a school plan, they were, you know, seeing a medical professional, they were seeing a therapist, but the picture wasn't coming together in a holistic way. And so very early on, I made the decision that we were always going to be willing to be the team lead for a student, we were going to be willing to reach out to the psychiatrist, to the ARNP, to the therapist, to the school. Because even though, you know, coaching in many ways could be seen as sort of the lowest person on the totem pole, I was determined that we were going to at least bring everyone together. And I think that that has been super valuable for us as an organization because people have come to better understand what it is that we do with academic, ADHD, executive functioning coaching, but it has also changed the relationship between the professionals in the students' life where we do that. And I just can't imagine, again, as a mom who has been through so much advocating for kids, having that in place at Polaris and how reassuring that would feel. You know, you have kids and you think, I'm gonna. fight with my kids about dessert and curfews and behaviors. I did not think I was going to be fighting for my kid with everyone else. And that's a lot of what it felt like was even though people were polite, it still felt like fighting. I I know we could be really polite and call it advocating, but there was a lot of fighting that was going on. I'm fighting to get this IEP, I'm fighting to get this service, I'm fighting to get the records of when did he actually see the therapist at school? I'm fighting to get better symptom control with medication.

SPEAKER_03 44:34

And so we it's funny you touch on that. So one of the first things when we did our policy manual, which I know that sounds really boring, but give me a second to explain why I'm going there. One of the first sections we wrote was who is our client and our educator right off that well that's our that's the kids. That's who we serve is it no our client is the parent. That's who we serve. And when you think in business you you have to your your clients are buying something right so then what is the product we're offering? Well the product we're offering is their kid. We're delivering a service through them but they the parent they are the client and so everything we do is for them that advocacy piece you know that the IEP world as well intentioned as it is I think is broken. That you have to sometimes hire a professional to advocate to get things on a form is is wrong. And I also hated how IEPs only focus on deficiencies. So to your point having all these people together the parent doesn't have to come and advocate the parent gets to be involved in the process and all the supports are there. The reason you're so successful doctor, that hub bringing people together, you and I are doing the exact same work and we're taking the load off the parents from having to be that bridge, making sense of all these things out there. And that's where this parent advocacy piece comes from when they just get to come and be part of the creative process and tell us what they want as our client so we can deliver. It's not advocating it's the customer's always right and how can we help you? And you know one thing that I really love that we did our very first year we we always we wanted to replace the IEP I just I not because it's bad to look at accommodations, but because how it went about it I thought was broken. And we replaced it with something we call an SEP or a student empowerment plan. And the first section of that plan doesn't look at the deficiencies. It instead recognizes what are the proficiencies of your child, what are their strengths, what are they good at? Because if we can't find and focus on that, we're already doing something wrong. And a step further, how are we tailoring their academic experience to support and grow it? So we're setting goals not just for deficiencies, but for strength building because otherwise you're only like it's just this negative connotation. Now yeah there's limitations and yes we can set goals around that but not at the expense of forgetting about targeting strengths and building on those and progressing those. So yeah it's a parent first approach and that's maybe that's what the outside the box is right is it it took a parent it took parents to come in and say this is for us not just for our kids and and and the kid is who now we're all focused on helping.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Well and so interesting right you could make an argument if you wanted to have a radical conversation that public school the client is the state now we don't have to get into that because that's not what today is about. But the idea of the parent being the primary stakeholder because here's the thing right we also as the parents of kids with autism we do know our kids we know our kids right and I was never about to let that go by the wayside you know I took my three inch binder with pictures of Ethan with me to every single school meeting um and I didn't have a lot of confidence but I had a lot of determination and you know we made it work up through you know the first half of sixth grade and then it just wasn't possible to make it work and we started homeschooling. But to your point what made homeschooling work was we did start with my kids' strengths. My kids are both great readers my kids both love to accomplish things my kids do not like to watch videos my kids do not want to color maps right and I was able to take their very high abilities their spikiest highest ability in reading and writing and translate that into okay so how are we going to use those strengths in our home school so that they can get a college prep education because that's what they needed right exactly but we had a dreadful experience in fourth grade where the fourth grade teachers used videos to teach and they did not want my son reading books and they would take that book out of his hands and make him watch the video.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

And you know I I I want to be careful to to parse a distinction here because I'm not and I want to be really clear for for anybody listening I'm not anti-public education and I'm not anti-public educators. In fact if anything I can tell you all the educators I've met um it takes a passion to want to influence the lives of kids and the more and more I talk to educators regardless of what field they come from they all share similar concerns that there are constraints in the systems they operate in that dictate what they can and can't do. And so public education as a system is designed as generalized education for everybody. And frankly I think it's unfair to expect the level of differentiated education we need for our kids from the public model. They're not built and equipped for it. And it's not that they don't want to do it it's that frankly the edict they have to educate everybody just doesn't allow for it. And while the IEP was our best effort to say given the tools we have these are the tools we can use to help what we've looked at is no you you just need different tools. And these aren't tools that a public system could ever integrate on a global scale it's cost prohibitive. So it allows us not to be again we're not competitive with but we bring something different to the table because we offer our teachers resources they didn't have in that setting. And so not surprisingly most of our teachers have come from public education. And I love that because there are there are academic benchmarks and proficiencies there that I wanted to bring to our kids' experience but now equipping them with all these additional resources and abilities to differentiate education Noreen it has been so cool to watch what they've done with their craft given the freedom to explore and to innovate these people are the best people I've ever met in my life and so I I I I believe in educators I think that they've just been handcuffed in a sense on the things that they're able to deliver in a traditional public model. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 51:45

I am a hundred percent in agreement with you when I meet a person in education public private charter whatever it is that person almost 100% of those people individually care and they are knowledgeable and they know but the system and I can differentiate this from what what you've said but in my mind yes the system is broken and the system is quickly going bankrupt but the people the people are assets and resources and the heart of it but when you are in a broken system and one that's going bankrupt that's a hard tension to hold i i feel for educators yeah yeah and you know it was interesting it changed our perspective when we were working with Mesa Public Schools on these lease agreements we were able to go behind and kind of peel back the onion and see kind of behind the scenes and I'm my hat's off to those public school entities they do have a challenge because they're trying to meet the needs of the masses and some of them are progressive and some of them still want to do the same thing that they did back in the 1990s. And like Nathan said when we saw their what they were they looked at us more as a collaborator and not competition. And we're not competition we're collaborators. We wanted to bring these resources to Mesa public schools to those students and Mesa was like we see this value too we're looking ahead we can't keep doing education like we did 20 years ago and so it does take those type of school districts that think ahead what's the next 20 years going to look like in those school districts what how can we better give resources to parents and how do we better outreach to the community of our neurodivergent community or special needs communities and you really need those type of school districts that think ahead and I'm really grateful for Mesa Public Schools to do that. And and what we want to do is kind of be that champion that's one of we have many causes but that's one of our causes is like hey here's what we can do to these type of school districts and how you can think ahead and and and reach a population that frankly you really can't reach right now because you just don't have the resources.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Right, right absolutely um and I think it's our background that made some of that possible because I again I'm not a career educator neither is Brad and so when Aaron the career educator would say this is what we do we got to go yeah but why do we do it that way? And same thing from a business standpoint he well why do you do that this way? And the the behavior health support, right, but why do we do this this way? And it was in answering those questions we found ourselves going, because that's just how it's been done and we've got to say then what can we do that's different and and so this we we joke we're we're constantly in this startup mode. I mean we're we're now going three years in and every year we're finding these new things that are possible with this blended support staff. And so I we're just we're just growing into this thing like what's possible next year? What new boundary are we going to break next year? What new integration are we bringing next year?

SPEAKER_00 55:09

And it's just been uh it's been a ride that's been one that has been the most fulfilling I've ever done it it it has and and kind of one if I can share a quick little story about a parent that made a big impact in my life as we're doing Polaris Academy we were in first year and we just started um this we were at a an activity with the kids and I was just talking to the parents like hey how's this going on a one-to-one basis and this one parent came up to me and he's like you know when I was raising when I was growing up my mom would rule by the choncla and my dad would rule by the belt right so then he had kids and what did he do? He ruled by the belt and he ruled and his wife ruled by the chunklet what's that mean that's sandals in Spanish yeah well you you know yeah just for all those chonas mean sandals in Spanish right anyways um and then he and then he had an autistic son and that approach didn't work anymore and he knew it and he didn't know what to do and he's like I knew I had to change my parenting approach and I didn't know what to do and there came Polaris Academy and he says the one I'm really grateful about Polaris is it taught me how to be a father and and that was kind of the start of like that really hit that really hit me hard and kind of started like we need to reach these parents better. We need to we need to share our resources better. We need to be more collaborative. We've got to be better in outreach and that was kind of the reason why we started the players connection that that had a huge impact on me.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

I'm like okay how can we work with these parents better because we can do more absolutely I mean that makes perfect sense that your primary stakeholder is the parent because that parent of a kid with autism needs support and they need something that works for their child right but they also need support and education I mean I remember you know sending Ethan to school thinking school will know school will take care of it right and you guys are starting to find a way for school to be able to offer a true partnership and leadership in educating parents and supporting parents I never felt supported as an autism parent. I felt supported as a parent at that school like we love you because you're at our school but as an autism parent I never felt that way and so that's why I think what the two of you and all of your team and your investors are doing is so very revolutionary because you know I know the lay of the land a little bit you know my son turned 18. I have been becoming an autism expert for you know a good 13 years. And I know it's out there and because of my business I also know what's out there in states that have school choice and I just know that what you're doing is incredibly innovative. And I think it is in large part because you have what we would call in academia a multidisciplinary team, right? You have people coming at this from lots of different angles, not just people in the box trying to recreate the box in a different color. And so you know as we wrap up today I just want to say how deeply impressed I am with your work and then I want for the two of you to provide the information where people can go to learn about first Polaris Academy and then also Polaris Connection. So can you do that?

SPEAKER_03 58:54

Yeah uh fortunately they're the same place uh Polarisacademy.org that has all the information about our school our program our podcast it's all ingrained in in one thing even our early learning center the there's resources there um that that that's the general of it the Polaris connection you can find on all major streaming platforms you know Spotify Apple Music we're we're out there uh we'd love to have people subscribe and it really is uh it really is that parent resource it's not uh for us it's a it's a passion project um and it's all about just bringing awareness to this and and wonderful guests like yourself Noreen that we've had on and others that just specialize in normalizing what has been an abnormal experience and and just letting us know that there's there's success out there and there's reason for hope and there's reason to believe that that we can do more there is reason to believe okay let's wrap up the podcast today both of you tell me two things that you would love for the universe or however we want to refer to that what two things would you love to show up on your doorstep to help you further this mission what do you what would you want to have do you need an investor do you need a particular specialist what do you need if you could say I have a magic wand and I want this I want each of you to tell me two things you want for Polaris Academy well I'll start first if that's okay um the what's been on my mind this is just things that's on my mind lately right we went from a staff of 30 people to 60 people now we're gonna have a staff of over 120 employees um and we're and we and we have a lot of interest to go to different places um I don't need like and we have a lot of interest of people who want to work with us which I love and I'm grateful for and I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:51

And I always tell staff like I don't need a BCBA like I don't I can find a BCBA but what I need is like a Rachel Krupi for example who's our director of B I need that personality I need that person who has love and drive and purpose just as much as we do. I can find an occupational therapist I can find these speech therapists but I but we need people who believe in our vision and our mission. So in our in our handbook we have this as our vision and I and I'm so proud of it and I believe it you see these words that says empower, navigate elevate these are the three driving um you know mission vision that we stand for. And it says in our in our handbook that my driving purpose and I always tell staff when we hire you I I want you to memorize this and if you would say it anytime anywhere I will just give you the biggest high five that our driving purpose is to empower navigate elevate everyone within our environment like that's what we stand for. You know I can if you if you're a great person who has love and passion for uh making a difference in this life we can help you learn the skills but I need those people so that's what I would yell out to the universe if we can have more people with these driving love and and purpose driven um individuals like it took us like we left really successful careers to move forward in this driving purpose like Aaron Kasmerik he did not need to be with us as our direct as our chief operating officer he was retired.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

Like he was already going to live in whole I don't know what he was going to do knowing him he was going to follow he was going to follow a reggae band forever probably but he but he could have like he he did not need none of us needed to do this we did it because we love we it's a passion project for us we want to make a difference and we need people who have the you know have their drive their driving purpose is to empower navigate elevate everyone within their environment okay you need people okay Nathan what do you what what do you want what are you putting out to the universe you know doctor I find myself in this weird spot thinking about your question because the the inclination is for me to just say we need funds and we need spaces right though those are the easy two right because I need I can't serve more kids if I don't have spaces to serve them and I can't have the spaces without the funds to develop them. And when I say funds we don't we don't just occupy an existing school in fact we don't look like most normal schools and we didn't touch on this in the podcast but we we remodel our spaces specific to the neurodiverse population. I mean we do a heavy amount of autism architecture integration which we could do probably an entire podcast on just the architecture of making the space itself accommodating for the style of learning and teaching that we have and it's not cheap to do. So like the my my go-to was I need space and I need money and because there's no shortage of kids and families but but the second I had that thought it's funny I just had this impression that's going to be taken care of like we we we have operated so much on faith on this mission that if I like I could get that that'd be fine but the broader mission of Polaris is I really even if we knock this out of the park and we become you know the gold standard I will never have enough room inside of my walls to service all the kids that need these resources. I need other people doing what we're doing. So if I could answer that question at my core honestly is I want awareness. I want people to know what we're doing. I want people to know why we're doing it. Frankly I want everybody even comp competitors to know how we're doing it because I need them to do it too. There are more kids than I could ever reach even in my most wild successful dreams we're gonna be successful. So I don't want to ask for something that I think I already have I want others to jump on board and to do what we're doing and to follow our lead. So I want awareness. The second thing and maybe this is a selfish thing I'd love prayers. I think there's a power in intention and I think the more people that are rooting for our success the more the cards will continue to fall in our favor and the path will continue just to be laid out for what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

So I don't know if that's a little bit too out there on the request but um honestly if I'm if I'm gonna be true to our purpose it's awareness and prayers no absolutely be true be authentic be real um thank you both so much for having done that for the last hour sharing your stories sharing your stories that don't fit in the traditional box of we developed a school right um I am deeply deeply impressed with the collaborative team you've put together and the vision you know that's I think where I find so much value in what you're doing. It's not more of the same right it's a revisioning of what can we offer to families with autism that will work for them. The vision is why I wanted you to come on the podcast and I am deeply thankful to you for taking so much time on a Saturday our listeners aren't going to know that we record on Saturday but I'm gonna say it on a Saturday in the summer you came and you gave an hour and a half of your time to tell the story of Polaris which is going to be a story that revolutionizes how we educate students with autism and and how parents feel about school and their kids with autism. Nathan Brad thank you so very much for coming on my podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

Our pleasure Noreen thank you for having us thank you for sharing the vision thank you for what you bring to the field frankly I mean as much as you've championed our story I can echo yours um the more and more I've been in this field and I think you share my sentiment a lot of us were thrown into the world of autism I say this a lot you know it wasn't by choice we can choose it after the fact but it wasn't our initial go to and for all the others that jump in willingly that were not thrown in but make themselves part of this cause I can't thank them enough. So I appreciate you and everything that you do