The Bethel School District Presents Podcast

Episode 177: Strategies that help all students

On this week's podcast, we’ve got everything from lactose-intolerant cats to game-changing first-grade teaching strategies! We sit down with a first grade co-teaching team to explore how pairing physical motions with vocabulary words creates a cognitive superpower in young learners, boosting both social and academic language success. --Transcript-- This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio. Doug: Hey everybody. I'm Doug, that's Conor, and you're listening to the Bethel School District Presents podcast, the only podcast that promises you amazing educators, interesting interviews, and more in 15 minutes or less or the next one is free. Conor, we are once again in tiny chairs, this time in a first grade classroom with Dena Mariano and Brianna Kangas, two educators I wanted you to meet because we have been working on a video showcasing the work that's going on in this very classroom. But before we get into that, you know how we do it, we have to have useless trivia, Conor. Why don't you kick us off? Conor: Okay, I will, and my useless trivia is—I'm gonna admit it's sub-par this week, but they can't all be winners. Doug: This is a strong start. Conor: So Douglas, esteemed podcast guest, did you know that neutron stars pack more mass than the sun into a sphere only about 12 miles wide, making them extraordinarily dense. So, NASA says, quote, "A sugar cube-sized amount of neutron star would weigh about a million tons on Earth." Dena: Wow. Doug: What? Brianna: Oh, my. Conor: Wrap your head around that, Douglas. Doug: That's, man. Conor: And my, my source is baked in because I said NASA says, and we trust NASA, don't we? Doug: I noticed that, well done. Well, Brianna, let's go over to you. Do you have a sugar cube-sized piece of useless trivia for us? Brianna: Sure, I don't know about sugar cube-sized but uh it was interesting and I didn't know it. Uh my source comes from the Charlottesville Cat Care Clinic. Conor: Love that source, by the way. Brianna: There's a tongue twister for you. Yep, all that alliteration. Did you know that most cats are actually lactose intolerant? Doug: What? Conor: I had no clue. How is that possible? Brianna: I know. I feel like I grew up watching The Aristocats movie. That was one of my favorite films growing up. And there was always these scenes where they drink the milk and the cream and I feel like that was always a thing with cats, but no. Doug: I had no idea. I grew up with Bugs Bunny and and Sylvester was always drinking milk before he went after Tweety and— Conor: Those are great documentaries, too. Doug: Yeah, that's also a good source. Well, Dena, over to you. Your useless trivia for us. Dena: Ooh, okay. Mine, mine is in honor of something I love. Did you know the unicorn is the national animal of Scotland and April 9th is National Unicorn Day? Conor: Well, Doug, round us out. What do you got this week? What's your useless trivia? Doug: Well, I was watching Castle Rock, which is a series based on the Stephen King universe last night. In one of the episodes, one of the main characters is selling a house to two new characters who are only in it for just a second. They come in, and the guy happens to mention that there's dandelions in the yard, and dandelions came over on the Mayflower. Brianna: Interesting. Conor: What? So, your source is a fictional TV show? Did you, did you care to like, at least Google to see if that's true? Dena: Fact check it. Doug: Okay, so I did fact check it and I went to the Smithsonian, I went to National Geographic, and the New York Times even had an article, and this is true-ish. Dandelions are not native to the United States. They did come over from England because they are very easy to grow. They were a source of greens, they were used for medicine, and they were also—and this is a side piece of useless trivia—because they bloom so early, good for honeybees, which are also not native to the United States. And that is two pieces of useless trivia. Dena: We might be able to add that, Brianna, to our— Brianna: —to our instruction— Dena: —as we're talking right now, teaching our kiddos about the American uh independence. And so we were talking about friends coming over on the Mayflower, so— Doug: Fantastic. Dena: There you go. Conor: What? Doug: Let's talk about that and I'm curious just to set the stage what hand sign you're going to use for honeybees because it's specifically honeybees that came over. There were other types of bees here, but honeybees were not here. Brianna: So, we need to be very specific that it's a honeybee. Well, I would make like a little bee with my hand, buzzzz. Dena: But then honey, I'm like— Brianna: But honey, I'm like, I don't know, a little twirl of honey. Doug: There's hands swirling around. Yeah, it's— Dena & Brianna: Honey bee. Dena: There we go. Doug: So, this, Conor, is why I wanted to bring you here and introduce our audience to these amazing educators here. Dena, you've been here for 27 years in the district. Dena: Yep. Doug: And Brianna, you have been here for 3 years, and you both work together. Brianna, you are an MLE, Multi-Lingual Education teacher that works all over the school. And Dena, you teach first grade here. So, Brianna, when you're in Dena's classroom, just to connect the dots, you both co-teach. Tell our audience what does that look like and, more importantly, what kind of student growth are you seeing because of it? Brianna: Yeah. So, co-teaching can look a couple of different ways depending on what the lesson is. But, primarily, it means that there are two teachers in the classroom. They're equally sharing that instruction. So, sometimes that looks like that we are both up in front of the class, both leading instruction, both jumping back and forth between each other. Sometimes it might mean she will take a group of students and I will take a group of students. She might be re-teaching and I might be pre-teaching something. But, it can look a couple different ways in the classroom when we're teaching together. Dena: Yeah, and sometimes you're leading the class, but I may be crouched down supporting some particular students. So— Brianna: —or she'll be reading the read aloud and I'm up in front leading the class with our motions that we've created for our vocabulary words. Conor: Which is really interesting and we've already got a little sneak peek of this, but could you explain a little bit more about these hand signals because this is not sign language you're teaching them, it's something different, right? So, can you tell us what is that about and what are they getting out of it? Brianna: Exactly. So, we typically come up with motions or gestures that go with our vocabulary words that we're learning. So, we're explicitly teaching vocabulary words that the students are going to encounter in the read aloud and that we want them to be able to utilize when they're speaking to each other about the content. And there is an official term for these gestures that we do with vocabulary and it's called TPR or Total Physical Response. It's actually a GLAD strategy, which is a language acquisition strategy. GLAD stands for Guided Language Acquisition Design. But, when you pair a motion with a vocabulary word, when you're saying something at the same time your body is doing something, there's something that happens in your brain that's going to help you remember and connect that word. So, it gives another access point to that word and another way for students then to communicate and recall that word later on when we're reading it or utilizing it when we're speaking. Dena: And it helps not only our multi-lingual learners, but all first graders because all of our students are learning language. We're all here at school learning new academic language. So, whether you're learning English for the first time or you are a monolingual English speaker, you're still learning that new academic language. So, Brianna and I co-plan in order to facilitate that co-teaching, and we are able then to embed those language support strategies throughout the instruction. Doug: And that's amazing for learning vocabulary, but the next step, of course, is then putting those words into thought and answering questions and things like that, and learning writing. What you all told me last time was that you will see students at their desk making the hand signs as they're remembering the vocabulary word as they're writing. Tell us a little bit about that, and then also tell us about your multi-lingual students who aren't ready to write yet but are able to give oral presentations. Dena: Well, one of the things I've really learned from working with Brianna is the importance of the oral language practice, or rehearsing orally. Um you can't write what you cannot say. And so uh in the past, in my teaching practice, I would have kids a little mini-lesson and then go to write. And now, I've definitely switched because I've seen the real impact that oral language practice has on our kiddos. So, every day we're practicing how we're going to, let's say, for example, structure our opinion, and it's all oral practice. So, by the time they get to that point to write it, they don't have to worry about the structure of the opinion writing, we've practiced that. They don't have to worry about the vocabulary, we've practiced that. They don't have to worry about the temporal or transition words, we've practiced that. They can really just focus in on the mechanics of writing. And then I have kiddos who aren't yet able to write, but they are still able, through that oral practice, to practice first grade writing standards and communicate their learning. Brianna: And then they're also, at the same time, building that academic oral language structure through that practice. And then when they are at that point where they are able to independently write, they've already practiced those grade level expectations for writing, and that skill will just transfer. So, they're practicing that skill orally and then once they're at that time when they're able to produce it in writing, that skill will transfer to the writing piece. Doug: Yeah, one thing I'm loving about listening to you both speak about this, we're talking about teaching first graders and you're using words like "temporal" and all these different strategies. All the work that goes behind the scenes, I just want our audience to appreciate that teachers put in each and every day, no matter the grade level, to make sure our kids are really achieving their absolute best. Conor: Well, the one thing that's really obvious talking to you even for this short period of time is you both have amazing energy and a huge passion for teaching. Can you tell us a little bit where both of you got your love of teaching and your desire to be teachers? Dena, we'll start with you. Dena: Well, my both my parents uh were educators. Uh my dad started out in uh high school teaching math and then coaching and worked his way up to eventually uh superintendent of the Yakima School District. Conor: Wow. Dena: And then my mom worked with uh adults with developmental disabilities. And so, I've just always kind of grown up around helping people. And I knew that I wanted to go into a career to help people and seeing that role model of my parents doing that in such a way, I was inspired. I knew that I really wanted to work with um kiddos that maybe needed a little something different, a little something more, and so I went to school and got uh certified as a special education teacher. So, that's actually where I started. Now, this is another area in which I can grow that love and passion and my my skills for meeting, again, unique needs of students. Conor: That's awesome, and it's so great that you're able to kind of tailor your specific skill set to the job you're doing, and it sounds like you're having a pretty good time doing it. Um Brianna, what about you? You you're in a a a little earlier stage in your career, but you're, obviously, in love with this job, I would assume. Dena, your parents were educators, and I know at least one of your parents was an educator, as well. Can you tell us about that? Brianna: Yes. So, actually, both of my parents were also educators. So, my mom was a teacher for a long time. She taught French and then music, and then she became an administrator, and was an assistant principal and is now a principal. Um and my dad has taught high school and AP Chem for the last 30 years at the same school. Conor: Wow. Brianna: Yep, I think he's planning on retiring next year, so we're getting close. But, I grew up with a lot of educators in my family, as well. But, I kind of had the opposite experience of Dena where I had a lot of people in my family in education and I said, "Nope, I'm not gonna do that." Uh so, when I went to college, I loved French in high school and my mom spoke French, and so I wanted to be able to learn and speak with her. And so, then I ended up majoring in French and international relations in college. And I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do after I left, but I always knew that I wanted to study abroad and live abroad. And so, my French professor recommended a program where I could live in France, but I would be teaching English in a school over there. And so, I moved to France after I graduated from college and I lived there for a year, and I was a an English teaching assistant in a French middle school. And as much as I tried to not love it, I loved it. I absolutely I absolutely loved it. Basically, this was an equivalent of if a student here was taking, you know, a a French class or a Spanish class or Japanese at school, and so they were acquiring language, and I loved seeing the connections that students made between French and English and how much growth they were able to make in that time that I was working with them. And so, when I came back home, I knew that I wanted to teach in some capacity and I knew I wanted to teach and work with students who were bilingual or multilingual. So, then I got my master's in education with an emphasis in teaching multilingual learners, and I've been at Shining Mountain now for the last 3 years and— Dena: —She is fabulous. We're glad she's here. Brianna: —it's been it's been the best. But, this is not this is definitely not the path that I thought I would take, but I'm happy that I'm here and I love it. Doug: Well, we are happy that you're both here and your students are, too. Let's talk about student success. Do you have a student success story that stands out to you from your years teaching? Dena: So, we have this one student, uh a newcomer to the United States. And Brianna did a wonderful job working with uh the student helping this friend learn a lot of vocabulary needed just to function as a student uh here in class. But, as the year went on, the growth that we were able to see with this kiddo is amazing. Went from maybe just pointing to a picture to answer a question, a yes or no question, to now speaking and using those vocabulary words and motions on their own. Brianna: And we've seen growth in both social language and academic language, so language kind of falls into those two buckets, social language is like the language that we use for kids like recess talk, like what you would use on the playground. And then there's academic language, and the growth that we've seen with this student not only in that social language, which is typically what students will develop first, but in that academic language, those complex sentences with rich vocabulary related to our content, has been has been huge. Conor: That's so cool, and that must be such a satisfying feeling when you've worked with a student for so long and then just see him kind of blossoming into this success story. And, Brianna, as a multilingual person and as someone who teaches this, what are some of the benefits that a student like that can look forward to as, you know, they're building this amazing base of bilingualism, how is that going to help them in the future? Brianna: Being multilingual is such a superpower, I mean, for a couple of different reasons. One, there's a lot of brain research around being multilingual and how it strengthens your brain. There's different neural pathways that are strengthened and created when you are acquiring and learning another language. And so, it just makes your brain super strong, and it helps you be able to learn and critically think as you're developing those second languages or those other languages. And then just being able to communicate with more people and build relationships, and different opportunities are open for you when you're multilingual. Doug: I love that. Thank you both for everything you're doing for our students here at Shining Mountain Elementary School. Your students are lucky to have you both, and thanks for joining us on the show today. Dena: Thank you for having us. Brianna: Yeah, thank you. Doug: Absolutely, thank you again, Dena and Brianna, and we will be back next week with a brand new episode.

Episode 176: State-of-the-art welding and athletic excellence

On this week's podcast, we explore how Bethel is preparing students for life after graduation, including a new state-of-the-art welding class! We also highlight the success of our Unified Sports teams and the positive impact athletics has on a student's GPA. As always, we'll include a bit of wit and trivia at no additional charge, exploring the surprising midwest origins of a global icon and the Guinness World Record secrets that Seattle holds. --TRANSCRIPT-- This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio. Conor: Hi everybody. I'm Conor, that's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District presents podcast, The Only Educational Podcast That Matters, and we have a fantastic show. Doug, I want to knock your socks off here, but we only have three shows left this season. Can you believe that? Doug: I can't. After this week, only three left to go. And then it's summertime and you and I will be kicked back on the shores of Spanaway Lake with root beers in our hands and smiles on our faces. But there's a lot of ground to cover before that happens. Today we're going to be talking about impact fees, our Superintendent’s Student Leadership Council, athletics, and a brand new welding program that's coming to the new Bethel High—that is worth hanging on for. But first, of course, we're going to start with useless trivia and Conor, I'll kick it to you. Conor: Well, thank you there Doug, and what a show we've got lined up for you. But first, let's get into some useless trivia. Mine's especially useless today. Doug, did you know that Barbie—the doll Barbie—isn't just Barbie? Her full name is actually Barbara Millicent Roberts, and she's from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin. Doug: No way. Conor: Turns out Mattel, which created the doll, wanted to give Barbie a bit of a backstory, make her feel like a real person. So they teamed up with Random House in the 1960s to create a series of novels that flesh out that backstory. In 1961's Here’s Barbie, we learn she's the daughter of George and Margaret Roberts, and she lived in the fictional town of Willows. Her first name, Barbara, isn't random—that's the name of Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler's daughter, and kind of creepily, Ken was her son. Doug: Oh, that's real bizarre. Conor: Yeah. Doug: Well, I didn't know she was a Midwest girl. I would have guessed she was from New York or something like that. Conor: No, she's straight out of cheese country. Doug: I love it. Conor: And and my source on that one is Smithsonian Magazine. Doug: Wow, they're really doing hard-hitting journalism over at Smithsonian. Well, my useless trivia this week is about bridges and Conor, did you know that the world's longest floating bridge is in Seattle? Conor: I did not know that. Doug: Really? Did you know that the world's first and second longest floating bridges are actually in Seattle? Conor: I did not know. Doug: Well, I was going to go farther because it goes to four. The world's four longest floating bridges are all in Seattle and this—well, one through three is due to Lake Washington being 200 feet deep with a further 200 feet of soft silt below it, which would make a suspension bridge very complicated, very costly. And so this all goes back to Homer Hadley. I love people named Homer. This is 1921, and his idea to have a floating bridge was laughed out of civic meetings. It wasn't until two decades later with the support of Lacy V. Murrow—yes, brother of Edward R. Murrow, Lacy was a director of highways—that they finally secured the funding through the New Deal. So the longest floating bridge in the world is the 520 floating bridge—it's over 7,000 feet long. Number two is the Lacy V. Murrow Memorial Bridge, that's I-90 eastbound. And the Homer Hadley Memorial Bridge is I-90 westbound—that's number three. Conor: Wow, very cool. I did not know that. But the question is: where’s number four? Doug: Ah, thanks for bringing it back. The fourth is the Hood Canal Bridge, actually over 6,000 feet. Now technically it's the third longest, but Washington State DOT lists it as number four. I'm not really sure the politics behind that, but I'm sure there are some. And for the train fans out there—hi Dad—the East Link light rail was just completed this year and this is the first time—another first in history—that a light rail system was built to cross a floating bridge. They had to design these special track bridges that can flex in six different directions to keep the train on the tracks, and it was built on the existing westbound I-90. My sources this week are Sound Transit, Washington State DOT, Atlas Obscura, and your favorite, Guinness World Records. Conor: Wow, lots of sources for a jam-packed little bit of trivia there Doug, but we do have a very jam-packed show as well. So let's get right into it. Let's talk some budget. Doug: Yeah, we reported from issues from the state that are impacting our budget here in Bethel, that includes transitional kindergarten funding, local effort assistance, and of course our levies, which passed this February. Thank you, voters! Conor: Today we're going to be talking impact fees. This is a fee that's imposed on new construction sites and simply put, it's just not enough. Here's Superintendent Brian Lowney. Brian Lowney: President Young and I penned a letter, sent it off this week to Pierce County Executive Dammeier, encouraging the Council to consider charging higher impact fees, which are the fees for new construction in Pierce County. Those offset the costs of the new students that come along with new construction. Currently, the the money that we receive in impact fees doesn't even come close—for each new residence—doesn't even come close to putting in a portable to house the students that we receive, let alone classroom spaces in buildings that are conducive to learning. So um, wanted to let you know that we were working on that, on advocating on our behalf—our school community's behalf—on impact fees. Doug: And like all budget items here in Bethel, money from impact fees are critical because each dollar impacts our kids. Conor: And speaking of which, here's senior Leslie Covarrubias on what the vibe is at our high schools right now. Leslie Covarrubias: As we get closer to the end of the year, you know, seniors are buzzing, they're ready to graduate. They're everyone's wrapping up final projects, and as well as this is like the last week of AP testing, students are also finishing up their AP exams. Thankfully, I did mine last week and I'm done. There's definitely a busy atmosphere right now as everyone's so excited to just get into summer and many are just super excited to just move on. Doug: Along with being an amazing senior, Leslie has been part of our Superintendent's Student Leadership Council for years, and they recently held their annual dinner. In fact, Conor, I can tell you I went to this dinner—the food was fantastic. The Pierce County Skills Center's culinary program made all that. And at that event, the SSLC presented their concerns and even had some ideas for the school board. They had round table discussions and really got into it. Here's Leslie again. Leslie Covarrubias: The SSLC dinner was absolutely fantastic. Students talking with you guys, we felt very closely connected and it was actually very, very organized this year. I was completely impressed. Dinner was also amazing, by the way. And it was just really brought us an opportunity to get closer with you guys, as well as to share our concerns and actually feel heard. So I also want to commemorate you guys for showing up and being there and listening. Conor: Well, Leslie's heading off to Seattle University this fall and she and the rest of her SSLC team members are leaving behind an amazing legacy. Here's school board director John Manning. John Manning: This is my first time attending one of these and it was truly impressive to see how they could articulate concerns and the passion that they had behind that. Doug: The students did not shy away from heavy topics at this. They led discussions on things like staff diversity, multicultural programs, the need for interpreters for students, and like I said, they brought practical solutions to the table, requesting updates to advisory that included real-life skills like financial literacy, resume building, and interviewing. Conor: Absolutely. And director Terrance Mayers said student voice is incredibly valuable for the board as every decision they make does impact students. Terrance Mayers: If you want to go fast you go alone, if you want to go far you go together. You know, our our students, they speak the truth, and I just love every moment of it. Conor: Every one of those amazing students had an interest in leaving the district better than they found it, making it better for the next class. Doug: Well Conor, let's switch hit here and change up the infield and maybe get ready for some hoop time. Conor: Nice transition Doug, you are obviously not a jock. But let's talk some sports and as we mentioned before, they are levy funded, so we never miss a chance to say thank you voters. But Doug, what's what's on the sporting agenda right now? Doug: Well, let's kind of recap the school year. It's always fun to see how our teams are doing throughout the year, but there's a lot more to athletics than that. Here's Bryan Streleski, he's our director of athletics and security. Bryan Streleski: It's really important to remember that two-thirds of our athletes are not on the varsity teams that play in any of our sports, whether that's in our middle schools or high schools. Two-thirds of our kids are playing on sub-varsity, which means they're developmental. We're trying to make them better, trying to help them improve, to get better every single day. Conor: Sports help students prioritize growth and academics. Not only do their graduation and attendance increase when involved in one or more activities, but the GPA jumps as well. Here's Bryan again. Bryan Streleski: The GPAs for our student-athletes is significantly higher, almost a half of a point higher for our kids that are involved in athletics every single day. Those kids are performing in a classroom at a higher rate than every other kid in the general population. So it's super important for our kids to maintain those grades. They gotta be eligible so they've got to do it that way to stay eligible to participate, but they're not just staying eligible to participate, they're excelling in the classroom. Doug: Sports can also help students foster friendships, there's community pride there, and there's tons of opportunities for our kids to participate. Conor: We recently added girls flag football, so we are always moving forward. Bryan Streleski: This year we added a girls wrestling tournament, so they wrestled in a girls wrestling tournament at the middle school level. The high school's been doing it for years, the middle school were able to do that this year. So they had a place they got to compete with their same gendered students and be able to compete. Our biggest thing was get those girls on a podium so their friends want to come out and wrestle with them. Doug: And another aspect of athletics we love to highlight is our unified sports teams. That's where our special education students and general education students team up—they're on the same teams playing all kinds of different sports. Conor: Yeah, it's such an amazing program. They get to play basketball, cornhole, e-sports, track and field—it's awesome. Bryan Streleski: Last week we ran our Mike McDonald Invitational, which is our district championship kind of what we call it for our track meet. We had seven heats of the 100 of unified. We are lining up unified kids they are a part of our general population, our varsity track meet, we're timing them. They're moving on to the district tournament next week and elite tournament just like we are. I was with one of our Bethel coaches today and she was talking to me—we have the most unified athletes moving on out of our regular season into the league tournament for track and field. It's phenomenal. It's great for kids, it's good for our students with special needs, it's also great for our partner kids to learn and grow and understand how to work within a community. Doug: And before we move on to our final topic of the day, we'd be remiss if we didn't hit a few athletic highlights and since I've proved my jock-ular expertise earlier, I'm going to kick that to you Conor. Conor: Well thank you Doug, and it was a heck of a year for Bethel athletics. Not only in team sports, but in individuals and some of our former superstars are really shining out there in the world. Vea Iaone, who was the pride of Graham-Kapowsin High School, helped that team win the state championship a few years ago, was the number 14 draft pick in the first round of the NFL draft. It's amazing. Congratulations Vea. And can you believe it Doug, little old Bethel School District could potentially have three NFL starters at the beginning of the year. Doug: I couldn't believe the draft was on broadcast TV this year. Conor: It's big, big business. Doug: I'm missing out. Conor: So, some other highlights: GK had the number two ranked softball team in the state this year. Bethel High School's unified basketball team won the state championship. Doug: Let's go! Conor: And Cedarcrest Middle School was really shining—they came through with four league championships this year, so well done everybody. Doug: That is amazing and everybody includes 4,817 students at our middle and high school levels. They participated in athletics this year. It is a huge opportunity for those kids—increases GPA, increases attendance, increases graduation rates. We love it and again that's all thanks to our voters for supporting that levy back in February. Our educational programs and operations levy is the backbone of our athletics program. Thank you, voters. Conor: Hear, hear. Thank you again voters. And let's dip into our final topic of the day. We're hitting welding, Doug. Tell us about it. Doug: Well, if there's one thing I know more about than welding, it's athletics. But Bethel is launching a welding technology class. It's going to be at the new Bethel High School, and it's going to expand access to high-demand skilled trades pathways for our students. Again, at the new Bethel High, and that's another chance for us to say thank you voters. Conor: So Doug, we toured the dedicated welding classroom, we've both used the VR welding equipment, and actually watched you somewhat succeeding in actually welding something. I don't think you caught anything on fire, if you did it was well after we left. Doug: [laughter] Conor: But it looked—the mask looked hilarious on you. Doug: I appreciate that. And with impressive welding equipment, you need a great curriculum. And so our school board has recently approved a new curriculum that'll make sure students are learning everything they need to know—that includes welding safety, blueprint reading, measurement content, all kinds of big stuff. In fact, this one curriculum is going to tick the boxes on multiple of our strategic plan goals. It's going to expand career-connected learning opportunities, increase access to high-demand career pathways, and strengthen college, career, and life readiness for our students. Conor: That is very, very cool. Doug: Yeah, it's going to be huge and board director Roseanna Camacho agreed. Roseanna Camacho: We went and did the Bethel High School uh tour and saw the welding room and oh my lord, that is going to be amazing. It was pretty amazing. What's going to happen at Bethel High School with any student that comes through this program starting next year is just state-of-the-art. Conor: So just to clarify Doug, is this only at the new Bethel High School? What about the other high schools? They getting a program? Doug: It's a great question and they are not at this point because the cost is incredibly high. The only reason it's at the new Bethel High School is because it was part of the bond. Thank you voters! This dedicated welding classroom is all thanks to you. Let's hear from the expert Jeff Johnson, our Director of Career and College Readiness. Jeff Johnson: The equipment that was purchased was included in the the construction costs and I have to give a big shout-out to our construction team. They found a way to help us really outfit the shop with industry-quality equipment. When I was there yesterday, some of the the workers were in there saying that this shop is nicer than the ones that they learned in at their community colleges or technical schools. So um, it really is industry quality. Conor: Yes, huge, huge shout-out to our voters. You are watching the 2019 school construction bond in action right now. Doug: Absolutely. This is going to be a huge opportunity for our students. They will cross the graduation stage not only with their high school graduation but with enough certifications and certificates to get them the job that they want right out of high school. Conor: Well, great show Douglas. We'll be back next week with a brand new one. We are talking with two teachers, one a 27-year veteran, another in her third year of teaching. See you next week.

Episode 175: Cultivating curiosity in the library and the garden

On this week’s podcast, we hear about a grueling four-and-a-half-mile trek up an ash field that resulted in a mountain summit and a vow to never do it again. Plus, we learn how students are getting dirty, finding caterpillars, and taking ownership of their very own garden, as well as what books we should be reading this summer. As always, we’ve got useless trivia where we find out why you should always cite your sources, even when they come from a dusty, centuries-old book. --TRANSCRIPT-- This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio. Conor: Hey everybody, I'm Conor, that's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District presents podcast, the greatest podcast in the history of mankind. And we are on special assignment today. We're on location at beautiful Kapowsin Elementary and we're here to speak with teacher librarian Amy Dalin, who is a superstar out here, and we have a lot to talk about. But before we get into that, as we do, we always do our trivia—useless, sometimes useful, mostly useless. So Doug, you're my sidekick, why don't you start us off with some useless trivia? Doug: Well, I'm glad I picked mine because I didn't know we were recording in the library today. We just said pick a quiet spot and turns out your classroom is a quiet spot as teacher librarian. Mine is on the history of magazine publishing in these United States. The first magazine published in the United States was in 1741. There are actually two of them. They were kind of competitive. Andrew Bradford, his debut magazine American Magazine came out first, and he beat one Benjamin Franklin to the punch. Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine—terrible titles both of them. These came out three days apart with Bradford's beating him to the punch. Of course, you haven't heard of them because they didn't last very long. And so the first mass-circulation magazine that you would have heard about is the Saturday Evening Post. That came out in 1821 and printed until 1969. That's my useless trivia, Conor. Top that one. Conor: Yeah, I only read the National Enquirer, so I don't know about any of these other ones. But no, quality piece of useless trivia there, Douglas. Mine is animal-related. And while most people know there are packs of dogs and schools of fish, Douglas, did you know that a group of lemurs is officially known as a conspiracy, or a group of ferrets is a business? How about a parliament of owls or a flamboyance of flamingos? Yes, I could go on and on, and I will as a matter of fact. How about a bloat of hippos or an ambush of tigers, a shrewdness of apes? And you might be wondering who comes up with these wacky names? Doug: Who does make these up, Conor? Conor: Well, many of them can be traced back to 1480 from a book called The Book of Saint Albans, which was a landmark English book covering hawking, hunting, and heraldry. Source on that one is Mental Floss. Doug: Just a fantastic bit of alliteration at the end. Do you, Amy, in the Kapowsin library here have a copy of The Book of Saint Albans? Amy: I do not. I don't think we do. Doug: Oh, bummer. We gotta get you a copy. We gotta write off for one. Amy: I bet it's a great beach read. I'm sure the elementary kids will really love that. Conor: Well, Amy, thanks for joining us first, and let's hear your little bit of useless trivia. Amy: Okay, when I read the email, I really thought it was useless trivia about myself. Conor: That works too. There are no wrong answers. Amy: So, I'm really double-jointed in my elbows. So like, my elbows like, just completely bend inwards. Conor: So for our listeners, I'm gonna have to have you show us and then... oh my god, that is frightening. I wasn't gonna go that far, but... is it painful? Amy: No, it looks like it should be, but no, it's not. It's just the way that it works. Doug: I love—well, that's your source. I didn't give my source actually, my source was Texas A&M by the way for my magazine trivia. We do like to source our useless trivia, and that's our contribution for the kids out there. Always cite your sources. Doug: So Amy, driving into Kapowsin Elementary, if people haven't been out here, it's right out on Meridian. You take a left on 264th, which is much farther than most people go, and there's the little Kapowsin Elementary school here that does amazing things for kids each and every day. And I pulled into my parking spot and Mount Rainier is basically sitting on my dashboard. It is beautiful today. It's blue skies, a couple of clouds just over the mountain. I had to take a picture, which is why I was late coming in, sorry about that. Appreciate Conor setting up everything in my absence. So our first question for you, when's the last time you've been to Mount Rainier and have you ever summited it? Amy: I have never summited Mount Rainier. I have been—we went a few months ago. We go to Mount Rainier a lot. We have a pass, and that was one of the first things that I noticed when I came to Kapowsin was just the view. Like, it is absolutely stunning here. I have summited Mount Saint Helens, and we summited that last year, last summer. Doug: Really? Amy: Yes, and I don't think I'll ever summit a mountain again. Conor: So, I have never summited a mountain and I hope I can say that for the rest of my life. For our listeners, what was so difficult about it? What made you not want to do it anymore? Amy: I definitely think we should have prepared more. I was like, oh, it's four and a half miles, like, we can do it. Doug: That sounds like just a hike. Sounds easy. Amy: Yeah, and I was like, that sounds easy enough. And then we get up and the last like two miles is all like ash fields. And so then you take one step forward and you slide three steps back, and it's just the entire way up. And then we got up to the crater and I was so excited, and of course it's like clouded. Like, we were like in a cloud. So you just like look in front of you and there's nothing. Like, and I was like, I'm so glad I did this today. Totally worth it. Doug: You got a good podcast story out of it. Amy: We do. Doug: It absolutely was. Well, Amy, you are a teacher librarian here at Kapowsin. How long have you been here in this role, and have you taught anywhere else in the district? Amy: This is my second year here as a teacher librarian. It's my second year as a librarian in total. I did teach in a different district, and I was actually a high school science teacher for three years before I made the transition to the library, which... Conor: To the greatest district of all time. Amy: In a great district. I really enjoyed it. Conor: I love the job of librarian. You're—one, you're around books obviously, which is a great benefit. One of the cool things about your job is you get to lead your school's Battle of the Books. Can you tell us what that's like? Amy: Yes, we actually this morning had our school battle. We had three really amazing teams. The kids did such a good job. And it's fun because yes, I have these kids in class, but it's fun to like get to see them outside of class and know their personality a little bit differently. And it's incredible to see these kids grow and get excited about books. That's why I became a librarian is I just, I saw a lot of kids just not being excited about books, and I was like, that's what I want to do. Doug: That is fantastic motivation. So at what point in your life did you get inspired to get into the field of teaching and librarianship? Amy: Yeah, I went to WSU and I got a degree in biology, and it was my senior year and I was like, what am I gonna do with a biology degree? And I had become a nursing assistant and I was thinking I was gonna go that track, and then I just really did not like it. And my grandmother was a teacher and I've done all these things growing up, and I had a wonderful high school social studies teacher, Mr. Hodis, who has now since passed. He really just inspired me to go into education. He was a rock during some really hard times in high school, and I wanted to be that for other kids. So I got to teach for three years for a high school and I loved every minute of it, and now I'm here and I've loved every minute of that too. So, I love education and I think it's a great field. Conor: That's amazing, and we love having people who love education being in our district and the ones leading our students. Conor: And I can only assume as someone who's chosen profession is to be among books that you love books. I'm gonna put you on the spot, what's your favorite book of all time? Children's or otherwise. Amy: A book that I constantly go back and reread would probably be Pride and Prejudice. I just love, love, love that story. Like, I could read it over and over again. It is just... I'm such a sucker for romance books. So... Doug: That's one I've never tackled even when Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out, I still didn't... it still didn't get me. So, Conor you a Jane Austen fan? Conor: I've never read any Jane Austen books. I've seen lots of adaptations. I should read it. So Doug, while we're talking books, let's go around the horn. What's your favorite book of all time? Doug: The first one that comes to mind is John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. I love the scene that he sets and the characters and just the whole idea of that row, which is still there, I guess in Monterey you can visit it, but it's now changed from an old cannery at the end of the road to the aquarium. So that's a place I still want to go. I love Doc and all the different characters. Great book, great read. Conor: Yeah, I know you're a Steinbeck head because you've also—you've name-dropped him a couple of times on the pod. Doug: I have, because Travels with Charley is also one of my—one of my favorites. Yeah. Conor: Conor, over to you. You started this mess, now you gotta finish it. What's your favorite book of all time off the top of your head? Conor: I'm going to—it changes constantly, but since we've got kind of semi-problematic old white guys, I will go with Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I've read it many, many times and as anyone who has visited Paris or wants to visit Paris, it's a very romantic idea of what that city is all about in a very romantic time. So I'll go with A Moveable Feast. Doug: That's a pretty good pick. I just read that last year actually, and I will say it's aiight. Conor: Okay, so not really the Doug endorsement on that one. The review is in. Doug: Well, Amy back over to you. It is getting to be the end of the school year here. We're not going to count the days, but what is it like for a teacher at the end of the school year? The kids I'm sure are getting squirrelly, the teachers are getting excited, and you still got stuff to teach. Like, what—what is that like for you here in the library? Amy: Yeah, I always like to say my classroom management style is like controlled chaos. Like, we teach little humans and they are hyper, like all the time. And I think that was a big adjustment from high school where the kids like don't talk to you and they're just like on their phones like heads down, but then you come here and they like want to be with you all the time and that was like a huge adjustment. And so I just love to say like controlled chaos. Like, we will be doing activities, but it'll probably be loud, and it'll probably get a little crazy. We like to take the kids outside to read sometimes, like when it's really beautiful. Just like, we have bins of books and I'm like, let's just go out, sit down on the grass and enjoy some sunshine and read some books. Doug: And put a book in your hand. That's—there's nothing better than that. Conor: Well, as if you didn't have enough to do, you are also in charge of running this school's very cool garden and the garden club. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Amy: Yeah, we have a really unique opportunity here. We have this beautiful garden out there, I don't know if you guys saw it when you guys drove in, and it was taken care of by a former employee who had retired and there just was an adjustment and a movement, and I have a science background and they were like, "What do you think if you started a gardening club?" And I was like, "Yeah, that sounds so fun," thinking like 10, 15 kids would like want to go out there. And then more and more and more permission slips got turned in and I was like, "Oh no." Now we have 70 amazing kiddos who joined gardening club. We had gardening club yesterday. Talk about controlled chaos, that is a great group of kiddos who are just really passionate and like... but they sometimes they finish so fast and they're like, "What's next? What's next?" And I just love that they like want to be outside. And I love that they want to be outside, they want to get dirty, they love finding bugs. Like, that is their favorite things. Yesterday they found caterpillars and they thought that was like the coolest thing they'd ever seen in their whole life. Amy: And so it's been great. We've had lots of community outreach. We've had, you know, people donate soil and seeds and their time. We've had lots of family volunteers. Yesterday the kids made seed bombs that are currently drying over there for our staff appreciation. Like I said, we're just taking it one day at a time. I think it's a little chaotic out there, and they planted yesterday for the first time, the seed starters that we did and we'll see if they survive, but they did it on their own and that's what's really important is that that is their garden, that is the Kapowsin students' garden, and I'm just more here to make sure we're all safe. Doug: I love—I mean what a great hands-on opportunity for the kids to get out there and you said get dirty and just get some of that energy out and then also learn about how how nature works and finding those different bugs and all those seed—seed bombs did you call them? Amy: Yeah, they're called seed bombs. They're literally paper, like wet paper, and you put seeds in them and mold them, and then you let them dry and then you can literally like chuck them in your yard and they grow great plants. Doug: That's awesome. So it's like wildflowers and things like that? Amy: Yeah, wildflowers. The different colors are different seeds, cause I didn't want staff members to be like guessing what's going to grow in their yard. Doug: I was wondering about that. Yeah, so for our listeners we're looking at a table over there's a—there's a white sheet down for the drying and then just pink and blue and purple and green and yellow. I mean honestly Conor it looks like spitballs from when I was in school. Amy: They really do. Just add some seeds to it and look what you can grow. Conor: Exactly. Well that's very cool. And to wrap things up today since we rarely have the chance to speak with a real-life librarian, can you give us a couple summer reading recommendations either for kids or for adults, whatever strikes your fancy? Amy: Ooh, okay. For little kids, our Children's Choice Award books are being voted on this year, but The Bakery Dragon is probably one of like my top favorites. It is so beautiful. The artwork in it is beautiful. Great for young kids. For like middle-aged kids, Four Eyes is a graphic novel that is amazing and that's actually one of our battle books. And for adults, I just think if you have a book that you want to read, just read. I am a firm believer in reading what you want. Project Hail Mary just came out in theaters and that is an excellent book. I would recommend that one. Doug: I—I can also recommend that one. Fantastic book. And we'll go around the table again here real quick. What is a book, Conor we'll start with you, that you saw yourself in as a young lad? Conor: So I didn't get serious about reading until I was in my late teens, early twenties, kind of college age. And the first book I remember reading where it wasn't that I saw myself but it kind of inspired me was Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. And it's about a young—an older writer and a younger writer. I identified with the younger writer at the time, now I identify more with the older writer when I read it. But lovely book and it definitely sparked my interest in reading and writing. Doug: Interesting. That's—that's a good pick. Amy how about you? Amy: I don't know if I necessarily like always see myself in her, but I like destroyed reading the Nancy Drew series. Like all of them. And she's you know, this young girl that's like blonde and just smart and funny and very nosey I think. And so I definitely saw myself in Nancy Drew a bit growing up. Doug: Fantastic. I read a lot as a—as a young kid. We—my mom used to take us to the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh and we'd get out whatever 10, 15, however many the max books you could get and I would have them all done in a week over the summer and really like that. So the ones that really I saw myself in was Encyclopedia Brown was a big one, and then Ramona and Beezus had a friend whose name was Henry Huggins, and I saw myself in him too, which is a—that's a deep cut for the Ramona and Beezus fans out there. Conor: Well this has been a really fun conversation. Thank you so much again to Amy Dalin for joining us today, teacher librarian extraordinaire over at Kapowsin Elementary school. And we are going to be back next week with another great episode. Thanks for joining us.

Episode 174: Freshmen mentors, budget battles, and AI

On this week’s podcast, a freshman tells us how a 9th Grade Success program changed her first year in high school. She also shares how she’s paying the impact of that program forward. We also dive into some sobering news regarding legislative budget cuts that could impact the district by nearly $30 million over the next three years. Plus we talk tech and learn about the future of AI in our schools. As always we've got useless trivia where we'll find out which iconic children's author coined a common insult. --TRANSCRIPT-- Doug: Hey everybody, I’m Doug, that’s Conor, and you’re listening to—and I just fact-checked this with both ChatGPT and Google's Gemini and a couple other off-brand AIs, but we are, in fact, the greatest popfast in the history of the world. That’s what they told me. It sounds fantastic. You’re listening to the Bethel School District Presents Podcast and we will be talking about artificial intelligence—and no, I’m not just talking about Conor here—but later in the show, we’ll be talking about AI and how it’s impacting our staff and students. We’re also going to be talking about a unique way that Graham-Kapowsin High School is welcoming freshmen; we’ll be hearing from one of those freshmen later in the show also. And before that, we will talk about some legislative changes that are really muddying the waters for the future of our district. But first... boy, that was dire. We do have to do useless trivia because we are contractually obligated to do that. So Conor, let me kick it to you with all those words from that intro. Conor: All right, Doug. I fell asleep in that intro. And let me just tell you, my intelligence is real and it’s spectacular. So, Douglas, did you know that we owe the word "nerd" to Dr. Seuss? Doug: Really? Conor: Don’t answer that. It’s true. Just let me tell you. Doug: It was a rhetorical question. Conor: I didn’t want you to actually answer. The first documented appearance of the word "nerd" was in Seuss's 1950 book, If I Ran the Zoo, describing a small, grumpy-looking creature. Before that, if you were a bookish, nerdish-type person like Doug, people would just call you a square. Doug: Oh no, that’s worse. Conor: It’s much worse. And my source on that is the American Heritage Dictionary. Doug: That’s a great piece of trivia. I love If I Ran the Zoo. Read that to the kids growing up. "If I ran the zoo," said young Gerald McGrew, "I'd make a few changes, that’s just what I’d do." And you can verify for our audience, off the top of my head. Conor: He was not reading that. I don’t know if that’s good or bad that he knows it that well, but... Well, my useless trivia goes back a little bit farther than yours. We’re heading back to 1776, Conor, and settle in because it’s another long piece of useless trivia from me this week. The short version, if you want to listen to that and then skip ahead, is as the American Revolution was getting underway, a lead statue of King George III in New York City was melted down to produce bullets for the Continental Army. Conor: Well, that’s pretty cool. Fitting. Doug: Well, the story goes back to July 9th, 1776, and a group of 40 soldiers tore down a statue of King George III. And this is no small feat, mind you. This is a 4,000-pound statue of King George on horseback, mind you. They pulled it to the ground, broke it into pieces with the intent of taking it up to Connecticut and turning it into musket balls. They made it most of the way and then they were attacked by British loyalists who stole about half of the statue and buried the pieces so they couldn’t be used. Now, the other half did make it to Connecticut, it was melted down, and it made 42,088 musket balls that the Continental Army definitely used in the American Revolution because archaeologists have found the musket balls and compared them to pieces of the statue—the ones that were stolen and buried—that are in museums now. And the chemical makeup is exactly the same. If you want to see one of those pieces for yourself, the New York Historical Society has the tail; it weighs 200 pounds. There’s another piece, a left hand and forearm fragment, that actually sold at auction for $207,000. And that is my useless trivia. Conor: Wow, that is fascinating. And you may have beat your own record for the longest bit of trivia, so congratulations on that, Doug. And who might your sources be on this little nugget? Doug: Well, this nugget comes to you from a number of different places, obviously: Mental Floss, the Gotham Center for New York City History, and the Fraunces Tavern Museum, which is a pretty cool one. Conor: Well, thank you again, Doug. Great piece of trivia. And if we have any time left in the show... Doug: And we actually do have a jam-packed show today. We’re going to be talking about our budget, we’re going to be talking about AI, we’re going to be talking about what it’s like to be a ninth grader in our district right now. But let’s get going first with budget talk. So, as we all know, we recently passed our two very, very important, much-needed levies: the Educational Programs and Operations levy and our Tech levy. So with those passages, you may have thought, "Okay, everything’s going pretty smoothly with our budget." That’s not exactly the case, and Doug’s going to tell us more about that. Doug: Yeah, the levy money’s actually okay, but as we talked about as we were running those informational campaigns, one thing our community benefits from with the passage of a levy is called Local Effort Assistance. And for property-poor districts like Bethel, LEA is really important. It’s designed to help us keep up with property-rich districts, and we get more than $12 million in annual state funding that only triggers when local voters approve district levies. So, like we always say, thank you voters. But unfortunately—I should have said that in the past tense—because $12 million is what we used to get. The legislature has made some changes and is cutting back on the very assistance that we rely on. And it is going to be a really big deal. Here’s Christine Donnelly, our Chief Financial Officer. Christine Donnelly: There is an impact into the future years as well, up to about almost $30 million over the next three years. Doug: So that is obviously sobering news, but the good news is we’re not standing still, neither are the other districts in our area. But Doug, what can people do if they want to make their voices heard in this situation? Conor: Well, one thing they can do is contact their legislators in Olympia. That’s who has changed the budget and that’s who needs to hear from you if this is something that you want to see changed back to the way it was. There is a website; there’s too many slashes and dots and all that kind of stuff to put it here, but if you go to bethelsd.org/news, you can find the story. Just look for the picture of the capitol in Olympia, click on that, and you’ll find the link right in there. Or if you know who your legislators are, send them an email, give them a call, light up the phones, because they need to hear from you. Doug: Well, moving on to our next big topic today, we’re talking about what it’s like to be a ninth grader in our school district right now. And I know things are a lot different from when we grew up, Doug. I can picture you now in ninth grade: a long glorious mullet, black Van Halen shirt on, and I’m sure things were very easy for you back then. That’s not always the case today, though. Times are a lot different and our ninth graders have a lot more challenges than we did. Isn't that right, Doug? Conor: Yeah, it sure is. You’re halfway right, and I’m going to let listeners figure out which part of the mullet or the Van Halen t-shirt was correct. But for freshmen today, they are facing a different set of challenges, and that’s why schools like Graham-Kapowsin High School have a Ninth Grade Success program that is really making changes, especially for freshmen like Ever. For her, the backbone of her high school experience was programs like the Study Support. Ever: Study Support was very helpful. I was able to go in the morning because some kids aren’t able to go after school. So having these things during school are like very helpful for many students. Doug: Absolutely. And Study Support is just one of the many, many programs that GK has put in place recently to help ninth graders thrive. Here’s Ever again. Ever: There’s after-school ELA help, and math help, and science, and it’s like... it’s really helpful because you’re able to focus on that certain subject and you’re really able to talk to the teacher personally instead of doing it in front of a whole class, because I know some kids, they’re scared to talk in front of a whole class. Doug: The goal of this Ninth Grade Success program is simple but essential: it’s to keep students on track to graduate. Principal Kevin Zamira said that ninth grade is the foundation for everything that follows. Kevin Zamira: So it starts at ninth grade. You have to keep them on track. It’s easily the most pivotal year of their high school career. Doug: So the really good news here is that appears to be working. The 2023-2024 school year, only 57.5% of freshmen were on track to graduate. That number has skyrocketed. By the second trimester of this school year, it’s reached 79%. Now, this Ninth Grade Success program is doing amazing things because of amazing people at the building. A team of 20 teachers at Graham-Kapowsin High School is tirelessly working to help students master the real-life skills that they’re going to need once they cross that graduation stage. These are skills like communication, confidence, and critical thinking. In fact, the same ones you’ll see highlighted in our district’s Portrait of a Graduate. Let’s hear from Ever again. Ever: All these things, all these resources, have helped me prepare for 10th grade and all the grades going on to that. Doug: So what I really love about this story is that Ever is kind of paying it forward. Not only is she taking advantage of these programs as a student herself, but she recently went over to Frontier Middle School to help eighth graders there prepare for their own leap into high school this coming fall. She and other freshmen showed them how to manage Gradebook and use all the other resources that are available to them. Here’s Ever one more time. Ever: The teachers are very welcoming to if you need help in any class; you can just always talk to them. And my communication skills have really improved. Conor: Well, I love the change this has made for Ever and a lot of other freshmen, and it’s because of the hard work of teachers and staff members at GK that care about the students and they’re willing to change and evolve to make sure students are headed in the right direction. And this program is evolving, too, and it’ll soon be moving on to the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. So we’re going to wrap up this episode by talking AI and tech, which is on the forefront of everyone’s mind these days. And we are thrilled to be in a district where we’re able to offer students one-to-one iPad use—thank you voters for that tech levy support—but with all that technology comes some potential problems, and one of those is security. Doug: It sure is. We live in a time where cyberattacks are not only frequent, they’re a multi-billion dollar industry in themselves. Our technology department isn’t just managing devices; they’re literally building a digital fortress so our students and staff can operate safely online. Here’s Chief Technology Officer Mike Christianson. Mike Christianson: The weakest link—and this is why we’re focusing on people—is humans. So we could be Microsoft with as much money possible to build cybersecurity systems and the right person clicks on the right link and data is lost, right? So we have to try to close that loop on having people make good decisions with their internet usage and checking our email. Doug: And it’s not just a kid problem—not at all. Adults can make mistakes too, which we both know because we were actually the victims of a little friendly phishing campaign that our sneaky tech department recently sent out. And so Doug, as you probably remember, we get these emails and they say, "Hey, you’re a pretty swell guy. Here’s a free Starbucks card. Go get yourself a coffee." Now, I don’t know about you, Doug. I like free coffee. It was awfully hard not to hit that link and collect it, but I didn’t, because I’m a genius. Conor: Well, I’m proud of you. I will say it was extra devious that they sent that at 3:00 PM right when I needed an afternoon pick-me-up. That said, that’s one cool thing they’re doing. We also have new MDR systems that detect and shut down malicious activity the moment it appears, and we even hired a white-hat hacking company to try and break into our system and they couldn’t do it; the digital deadbolts were locked. So it wouldn’t be a tech talk if we didn’t talk about AI, artificial intelligence, and the question remains: how are we as a school district going to use AI now and in the future? Here’s Mike Christianson. Mike Christianson: To AI or to not AI? And that’s probably the wrong question. It’s more of like, when to AI, not if to AI. We also know that AI can’t replace a teacher. It doesn’t replace good instruction. It’s not going to replace critical thinking, right? So we want a responsible, ethical, and intentional use of AI. Doug: Mike also told us that staff will be getting more training on AI in the very near future. Mike Christianson: We’re working with teaching and learning to develop a PD plan. It’ll be rolled out with guidance for students, staff, and teachers for summer training in August. We’re also going to be utilizing these late starts to continue that learning throughout the year and providing guidance on how we use it as a tool again. An intentional tool when it’s necessary to make sure that it’s enhancing instruction or learning. We feel it's an essential tool for folks to learn, our students to learn, but in a way that’s responsible, safe. We also have a deep concern for student data protection, and so we’re working within our Google for Education ecosystem, which we have signed contracts, data privacy... our data doesn’t get used for their learning model. So we’re really going to be focused on Gemini as our main tool for our folks here, so we can make sure we continue to keep everyone in a spot and we can stay out of the "any new tool that just pops up and please us the best" and as soon as you put your name in there, it's already sold your data to someone else. Doug: Obviously, we live in a very complex digital world, and our tech team’s making decisions that will help ensure that technology remains a tool for growth, not distraction. And this work, as we’ve mentioned many, many times, is only possible thanks to our technology levy. So thank you once again, voters. [Outro Music] Doug: Well, thank you everyone for listening. As always, you can find more information about all these topics at bethelsd.org. And if you like what you heard, even if you didn’t, be sure and share the show with a friend. We’ll be back next week.

Episode 173: How students are giving back to staff

This week we witness the incredible impact of student leaders at Spanaway Lake High School. From launching inclusive Unified social events to honoring teachers with year-round appreciation events, they are redefining school spirit through service. Along with these inspiring stories, we also dive into a wild Useless Trivia segment featuring Air Force One and a 25-foot wave of molasses. --TRANSCRIPT-- This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio. Conor: Hey everybody. I’m Conor, that’s Doug and this is the Bethel School District presents podcast, the greatest podcast in the history of mankind. And we have a wonderful, wonderful show for you as per usual, but before we get into all that, it wouldn’t be our show if we didn’t give you a little useless trivia. So Doug I know you got a good one there, why don’t you get us started? Doug: I do have a good one this week and I’ve been sitting on this for a couple of weeks kind of fleshing it out because the first piece of it I’ve had for a while and then I kind of dug into it with a little bit of vertical curiosity if you will. So this is Air Force One trivia and also some presidential trivia all wrapped into one and here we go. Doug: So the very first president to fly ever, to fly to leave the earth is none other than Teddy "Bully" Roosevelt and he flew in 1910. The first president and I know all you historians out there are saying, "Well he wasn't president at the time, he was a former president Conor." So the first former president to fly in 1910, he flew a Wright Model B and that is like the Wright brothers plane, feet dangling, that kind of plane. Three minutes and 20 seconds above the earth. The bulliest experience he ever had. Conor: Well that doesn’t actually surprise me. I think of Teddy as being a bit of a risk taker, a bit of an adventure junkie, so that actually tracks. Doug: Absolutely, he lived that strenuous life and would it surprise you to know that the first president to fly when they were in office was also a Roosevelt? FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the first to fly in office and one of his first flights to keep with that strenuous life was over a U-boat infested Atlantic Ocean to go and meet Winston Churchill at Casablanca. That's not a bad itinerary. Now his flight time was definitely a little bit longer. Four days Conor, of flying. That is 44 to 55 hours inside of a plane with at least three, it might have been four stops along the way for fuel. Conor: Well that actually does surprise me. I would have thought that there would have been presidential flights long before that, but that just shows you how relatively new all this flight technology actually is. Doug: It absolutely is and my last fun facts for you today are about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike has two presidential firsts when it comes to flying. He was the first president to have his pilot’s license and the first to fly under the call sign Air Force One. Conor, I’m going to need you to ask me why that is. Conor: Now, why is that Doug? Doug: Well done. So at this time the president flew under whatever flight number the Air Force called it. So he was actually flying on Air Force 8610 over, I think it was Richmond, Virginia, and Eastern Airlines 8610 was in the same airspace and the tower gave them a call and just said "8610, you’re cleared to land" and two of them responded. So almost a crash and after that, Air Force One became Air Force One so this would never happen again. And I have a lot of sources for all of this information. A few of them are the FAA historical archive, the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, the New York Times, White House Historical Association, and Popular Mechanics. Conor: Well that’s, those are all great Doug. And I gotta say, Air Force One has a much better ring to it than Air Force 8610 so I’m glad they went with that. Doug: Absolutely. Well I think it’s time for your useless trivia sir, what do you got for us? Conor: So my trivia is ground level this week. So Douglas, did you know that in 1919 a giant storage tank full of molasses burst open on the streets of Boston sending a 25-foot wave of molasses pouring through the streets at 35 miles per hour? The tragic event came to be known as the Great Molasses Flood or in some wittier circles, the Boston Molassacre. Conor: Sadly, stop laughing Doug, 21 people were killed. Doug: Oh man, you couldn't have led with that instead of the Molassacre? Geez. Conor: So these poor 21 souls were killed, 150 more were injured. Residents actually claimed that on hot summer days even decades later, you could still smell syrup in the air. And my source on that one, which I can't believe I didn’t know this, this feels like it should be common knowledge, the Molassacre, is boston.gov, the city's website. Doug: Man, that is a wild story. And you certainly have a penchant lately for bringing us stories of things exploding all over cities. Thinking back to the whale in Oregon that blew blubber chunks, your phrasing. Conor: Raining blubber chunks. I’ve got a niche. Thank you for bringing that to our listeners' attention. I love the Molassacre, very sad that people were killed though, hate that part. And let’s turn to the business of the day Conor. I am forever seeing on Facebook the leadership students over at Spanaway Lake High School doing all kinds of cool stuff even towards the beginning of the school year as the weather was turning cold. They had hot cocoa out for the bus drivers, just all kinds of giving back and I love that about their group. And you actually headed over there intrepid reporter that you are to interview Anthony, Felicia, and Millicent more about what the leadership folks do. Conor: So Anthony, you are the ASB president here at Spanaway Lake High School. So I figure you’re as good a person to ask as anyone. For people who aren’t familiar with leadership class, can you give us a little rundown on some of the things you all do here? Anthony: Well, in leadership you kind of lead the entire school in a way by planning all of these school-oriented events. Anything like spirit days or fundraisers or anything that kind of involves the students, we’re the face behind that. If you ever want to be within a community, leadership is definitely a great place for you. Conor: Well Felicia, leadership class involves a lot of behind-the-scenes grunt work. Setting up chairs before events, cleaning up after events. What makes you want to keep doing all this stuff and showing up for your peers? Felicia: Well that part is definitely not pretty and not fun, but it’s definitely worth it when you see people who actually enjoy being here and kind of appreciate the work that we put into all of this because yes, sometimes the posters will get torn down or assemblies won’t go as well as we would like them to, but there’s always people who walk out of here thinking "that was really fun" and as long as we touch someone, that’s one more person who enjoys it here at Spanaway Lake. Conor: That’s such a fantastic attitude and yeah, I’m sure a lot of times that work does go unnoticed, but not always. I’m sure people do notice it. Millicent, for those who have been listeners to the podcast, this will be a very familiar guest because she’s had her own podcast, she’s been a guest on our podcast. One of the great things you guys have been doing is called the gratitude cart. You wheel it around school giving staff members snacks and coffee. So where did that idea come from and why do you think it’s so important that you’re able to show staff members that you appreciate them? Millicent: So essentially the gratitude cart was something that culminated through one of our squads in leadership. We have several different squads that focus on improving different aspects of the school and one of those is the faculty squad. And basically we just thought that teachers deserve to be recognized more than just the one week of the year during May which is teacher appreciation week. It should be something that’s year-round. So sprinkling in things like the gratitude cart or like staff lounge takeovers and other fun things like that show the staff that we’re thinking about them throughout the year consistently and not just once every single year. Conor: And I know they absolutely appreciate it. I’ve heard that actually from staff members here, so another place where your work is not going unnoticed. So Anthony what out of all the events you guys have worked on your time here, what’s been the most fun thing that you’ve either worked on or planned or been a part of? Anthony: My personal favorite event is one that I actually founded here at the school is the Fall Festival. Once every year we invite communities and small businesses, either student-owned or just owned from the community, a chance to come in and kind of cultivate an audience with others and a chance to raise money and just generally get out. A lot of our clubs will struggle with funding, so offering a lot of these students chances to see each other or third space and raise money at the same time is a great opportunity. And on top of that, you get to do a whole bunch of fun stuff. Last year I got pied I think 27 times in the space of two hours which was pretty fun. Conor: Wow, that sounds incredible. It sounds like a fun event. Felicia, what about you? What’s been your favorite one? Felicia: For me, I would say it’s been S-Lake's Got Talent. It’s our very own talent show that we host here where we have our very own students audition and show off their talents so that they could kind of flex on all of our students and show how cool they are. And I think that it’s really awesome and I was lucky enough to be able to co-host with Eliza this year. And it’s just really nice to see our students break out of their shell and kind of put themselves in the public eye even though usually it’s the popular people who are there, so they get a chance to be on stage, have a mic and just show off. Conor: All right, what was the most memorable performance that day? Felicia: The most memorable performance that day, hands down, was our very own local rapper here at Spanaway Lake, Inspector Goofy. He had his crew come onto the stage and it was just very hype and it felt very community. Our leadership also did a surprise sing-along and that just really touched my heart because it felt like we were really connecting with the audience this year. Conor: Very cool and shout out Inspector Goofy, I’m sure he was on fire that day. Millicent, what’s been your favorite thing? Millicent: Oh so personally my favorite event that we worked on is our Unified Prom. This is an event that started within leadership and has now expanded to be more staff-involved as well. And essentially for this event, what we do is we partner up with our unified students and give them the prom experience that some of them might not be able to get like we would. We decorate the commons, we bring food, we dress up nicely as we would for any other event and we just have a good time with them and honestly I found that that event was more fun than some of our own dances. And it also gives us a way to show our unified students that we see them and think about them in ways that other schools might not always. So yeah, I think it’s just overall just a really good event. It’s also good for making connections with the unified students since often times they’re off on one side of the building and we don’t really see them interacting with the general student population. So yeah, I think it was just really fun and yeah. Conor: Yeah and I’ve definitely seen the photos from that from last year and it’s such a cool an event. It’s so cool that you guys are able to help with that. So we always like to ask seniors and and anyone in high school really what your plans are after school. So I’ve got three very talented students here, I’m sure you all have big plans. So I’m going to go around the horn again and ask you, Anthony start with you, what are your plans next year and what do you want to be when you grow up? Anthony: Next year I plan on being in Seattle with a few roommates in an apartment. I’ll be going to Seattle Community College and transferring to UW Seattle. I’ll be double majoring in Business Analytics and Communication as well as minoring in Music Education to continue to let students know that they can express themselves through music. It’s something that I grew up with and I think it’s really important that other people can grow up with it as well. And in the future I want to be able to own a cafe where others can create these like connections and friendships and find each other through it while also just enjoying a third space because it’s not really common to have those anymore. Conor: That’s a really great point, we’re severely lacking in third spaces here in this country. So that’s good on you for trying with that. Felicia, you’re only a junior here so you have a little more time, but I’m sure you’ve been thinking about it a little bit. What do you want to do when you get out of these hallowed halls of Spanaway Lake High School? Felicia: Um, I’ve always grown up thinking that I would go into the medical field and follow in my sister’s footsteps, but as of recently I found interest in doing things that kind of associate with cosmetology. So I’ve enjoyed doing other people’s hair, cutting my own hair, I don’t know if you guys know, but I’ve also done our president’s hair most recently and I’ve also learned to do my own nails. And once I get out of here I’m hoping that I could start up a little mini business on the side so that I could make some money while also trying to become a CNA. Conor: Nice, that’s those are all great plans. Millicent, we’ve talked a little bit about what you want to do, but remind our audience what your plans are for after high school. Millicent: Uh yeah, I plan to attend WSU Pullman and study multimedia journalism. Um, I haven’t exactly decided what I want to pursue a minor in, but I’m deciding between political science and creative writing because journalism is something that’s important to me and I believe that the people deserve to be informed about what’s going on in the world, but to have it done so in a way that is factual and transparent and yeah. Conor: Love it. Well those are all amazing plans. Well thank you all for joining us and we appreciate having you on the show. Leadership Students: Thank you. Doug: Well thanks again to Conor for the fieldwork and especially to Anthony, Felicia and Millicent for chatting with us today. We’re going to be back next week with another great show. Thanks for listening.