As we reminisce about the incredible progress and achievements of the Jefferson R-7 School District, we were honored to be joined by the man who's been at the helm for 13 years, Mr. Clint Johnston. From our very first high school graduation to implementing one-to-one technology, we discuss the challenges and successes that have shaped our district. Most importantly, we delve into the vital role that relationships and community involvement have played in making Jefferson R-7 the thriving district it is today.
We also took time to appreciate the mentors who have influenced our lives and careers, and the importance of paying it forward by mentoring others. Mr. Johnston shares his experience on how he navigated the uncertainties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how we've managed to provide mental health support for our students and staff during these challenging times. Through it all, the resilience of our Blue Jay Nation shines through.
As we wrap up this heartwarming episode, we send well wishes to the Blue Jay Nation and look forward to the future growth and success of the Jefferson R-7 School District. Join us as we celebrate our accomplishments, learn from our challenges, and prepare for the exciting future ahead.
As we reminisce about the incredible progress and achievements of the Jefferson R-7 School District, we were honored to be joined by the man who's been at the helm for 13 years, Mr. Clint Johnston. From our very first high school graduation to implementing one-to-one technology, we discuss the challenges and successes that have shaped our district. Most importantly, we delve into the vital role that relationships and community involvement have played in making Jefferson R-7 the thriving district it is today.
We also took time to appreciate the mentors who have influenced our lives and careers, and the importance of paying it forward by mentoring others. Mr. Johnston shares his experience on how he navigated the uncertainties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how we've managed to provide mental health support for our students and staff during these challenging times. Through it all, the resilience of our Blue Jay Nation shines through.
As we wrap up this heartwarming episode, we send well wishes to the Blue Jay Nation and look forward to the future growth and success of the Jefferson R-7 School District. Join us as we celebrate our accomplishments, learn from our challenges, and prepare for the exciting future ahead.
Well welcome. This is a new medium for us to try to communicate with our community in a little different level. I don't know if we're trying to get up with the times, but we think some direct you know, face-to-face contact with things going on the district will be a healthy thing for us. I'd really like to thank Stevie holding housing for her work and thoughtfulness going into this, and really we're in the infancy part of this, this projection back here of the painting. It's not quite finished yet. It's gonna look sharper as time goes along, but we just felt like it was time to get this out and go move forward with podcasting here at Jefferson R7.
Speaker 1:Over time we'll be doing short form and long form. Podcasting, sometimes just to let our district know what's going on, will be a short form, for maybe just some quick event notifications, and today is going to be a long form though, and so really the intent today is to get to know our staff better or just the way we operate in the district, and I can't think of a better person. And before I introduce him, he and I both know that the success of Jefferson R7 is not about one person and it's not just about one group. It's been a district that's been in existence since around 1949, with the addition of a high school for the first graduating class in 2013. Those things don't just happen without others, but I can't think of a better person to do our version with, given all the technology where we are today with our. We work together for 12 years. This is his 13th year in the district, but Mr.
Speaker 1:Clint Johnston. It's kind of it's kind of odd because we're down to our last couple days and you know it's. It's kind of like that point of the year when we need a break. But when we come back from that break here in the short future, you know you're not going to be there and that's going to be a little different for me. So, welcome. First of all, thank you.
Speaker 2:I appreciated the opportunity when you asked me to do this and, quite honestly, it's been good for me because, david, it's given me a chance to really go back and think about the 13 years 12 that you and I've been together and all the things that we have accomplished. And, quite honestly, some of the things that we did that didn't go as well as we'd hope they would, and you know we we learned to take those situations and grow from those opportunities and but yeah, so we're looking at a chance to to reflect on 13 years. And when you asked me to do this, i just want you to know it was an honor and I want to give a shout out to Stevie as well. Mrs Hohlinghausen does a great job with our technology in the district and I just can't wait to see where we're at, you know, two years, three years, four years down the road because of her leadership and what she's doing to bring more information to her community, and this is the vision that she has with you and a little bit of discussion with me when she came on board, and it's just exciting, but to be here and be the first one is it's an honor.
Speaker 2:You know, i'm not going to tell you it's not because I truly believe in this district. I tell people all the time, you know, i found my home when I came here. I've loved every minute of the 13 years that I've been here. It's not always been easy, but leadership isn't easy. You know. Sometimes in leadership you're put in positions where you have to. You make decisions and as a part of that, sometimes it's not decisions that everyone's going to agree with, but you come to a place and you hope when you leave, it's better than what it was when you got here, and I think we can say that Jefferson R7 is better than what it was when we arrived 13 years ago.
Speaker 1:I agree, and and it was in great shape when we came here.
Speaker 1:It was I think that's that's my hope. Moving forward is that we can build, keep building on what's been established and move forward now. So I'm going to treat the first question sort of like our interviews okay, when we come in. So I've read your resume. Actually I'm lying, i, from talking to you, i kind of know what your history is. So you start as a teacher at Kelly High School baseball and basketball. You're just baseball, baseball you went. Then you went from there to teach at South Iron. From there you became a middle school principal at Arcadia Valley yes, high school prints back to high school principal at South Iron for five years. Five years went to bunker as superintendent for four years three or four, yep, three or four years, four years. Then from there, there to Popper Bluff as a CFO four years this assistant superintendent of district administration of finance okay.
Speaker 1:So my wife and I said what's CFO? as I said, chief financial officer. Okay, that makes sense. So wasn't CFO, you had a different title. Well, i had all the finances.
Speaker 2:You get a title because you were. I was responsible for all the facilities vocational programs, food, transportation, grounds, buildings but in the end I was responsible for the further budget and then came here 13 years here.
Speaker 1:So the first question we ask in our interviews is why are seven?
Speaker 2:because of its potential. I'll never forget when I came in for my first interview and the board at the high school. I drove in and it was in the middle of winter, it was in January and I drove down 61 and it I could see the school setting off to the left of the highway as I was driving in and I pulled in and I came in and I pulled up to the facilities and I saw the facilities and had a chance to to really just drive into the facilities and and just look at everything from the standpoint of what it was and the fact that there wasn't a city or an area, it was, it was, it was the community school was the fact that the school was everything if it happened. As I was doing my research about Jefferson R7, i could see that the school was where it was happening and and the other thing was is I was sitting there and looking at it and going through the interview process and and and during the schools and seeing everything was the possibilities no different than this, this wall behind us. It was the blank canvas that it started in a white wall and the school district was a white wall.
Speaker 2:It was transitioning, it had one year of ninth grade students in it. There were 70 kids in that class and looking at where it was going to go over the next three to five to eight to ten to thirteen years and what those possibilities were was just endless if we could get through the events that and the challenges that were in their face right there. At the point in time when I came in and at that time it was all about the financials the financials were challenging but you know you, once you found your way out of those challenges with the financial implications, the sky was the limit and man it was just. It was just one of those things where it started to take off and we started to add people and to have a chance to hire as many people. As I had a chance to hire it one time, i had hired or promoted over 95% of the people in the school district here and and quite a number to imprint those cultural and climate expectations of what our seven was about.
Speaker 2:Because Jefferson is a school district predicated on relationships. The community thrives in being involved and and those relationships are so important and and I could see that in the interviews with the board members and how involved they were in the school and I could see that in the district as I, as I got here and things started happening and in from that it was just okay. Now where's this thing gonna go? did I know it was gonna become what it is now? absolutely not. No one could have projected that we would have seen as many of the successes that we're gonna talk about in this podcast over that 13 years. But that wasn't because of me. That was because of all of the people that we were able to to add to our, to our ship. You know, i start every year.
Speaker 2:I'll talking about the staff, about you know, people that you add to the ship and being ready for that journey, and it's like a cruise ship. You put everything on the ship, all the people on the ship, all the supplies on the ship, and then you pull away from the dock. You want to be on the ship, you don't want to be swimming after it. But the most important thing is, everyone played a role and sometimes you pull the oars, sometimes you hold the rudder and you want to add people. That brings you know oars to the boat, not drills because when they bring drills to the boat, bad things happen.
Speaker 2:Your trip gets real short.
Speaker 1:It does, i guess, unless it's a metal boat. Then it'd be hard. But we're gonna go back to the old oars and I'll leave it to you.
Speaker 2:Let's look at it before you ship and leave it at that.
Speaker 1:I don't disagree with you. I think one of the advantages of being at Jefferson you and I both have been worked in small schools, rural schools, a lot of our lives and then to come here and be kind of had that rural feel without you know a town and you are the center of attention, but also kind of the nice parts to be that you know 40 minutes from Bush Stadium if you want to go watch a cardinal game and and to be close to some other activities for it, for your families and for your, for your kids and school and all that. I think that's kind of some of the missing. Yes it, small school life is different than large school life and we had a long talk about that yesterday with our area superintendents at a meeting and just the differences and I'm very thankful, i'm grateful to be here, i know you have been, so that kind of gets us through the YR7. So part of the unique part of Jefferson was the fact I I kind of look at the history and I'm not talking about high schools that get split off in a district where a high school is talking about the true addition to a K-8 district. I think Jefferson again through many people.
Speaker 1:Being a part of this Jefferson high school has really been off to a great start with academic extracurricular. It's been a been a great start. That being said, when you got here I think so I was here with juniors and you were here with freshmen and sophomores in the building. Is that correct? yes, okay, so kind of walk us through that timeline of coming into a district. I can tell you, the first year I was here there were juniors. I was cutting grass in the spring. I thought you know, it's kind of nice not to have a graduation ceremony and better enjoy it for one year because we were getting ready for so kind of talk about that timeline of the high school and then getting to that first graduation ceremony well, there was a ton of energy as we added each class to the high school.
Speaker 2:You know, when we first started at the high school and I got here was interviewing, there was four classes in the high school and so there were all the extracurricular opportunities were being done from staff members that were in the Dambi Middle School and by classes you mean just four class for classrooms?
Speaker 1:yeah, i was rotating yes four classes gotcha.
Speaker 2:So, like all the extra curriculars, the shop, the band, a lot of those events that was in the schedule were being brought over from shared staff from the Dambi Middle School and you had your your course that were being taught by the four teachers that had been hired. So we in the second year was responsible for hiring the next round of teachers, which was going to be for core teachers addition, and then you were going to be looking at some of the extracurriculars your fine art staff, you know, your practical art staff, your business teacher, your fax teacher, your librarians and in those situations. So it was unique because, again, there was no blueprint to what it was going to look like. In some ways that was scary, but in other ways, if you, you know, if you put together a plan and and you knew what that plan was going to be, and you, i remember the first thing that I did was I I went home after I was offered the job and I started to think about what was the graduation going to look like three years out? how are we going to get there? how are we going to take the things that I had seen at other schools that I'd worked in and you coming on board and Mark Ruark was our principal at the time and we had all worked in other schools and I remember having those conversations with our leadership team at the high school about getting ready for the sophomores and what that needed to look like and getting ready for the juniors and our first prom and getting ready for the first homecoming and getting ready for, you know, our first homecoming parade and getting ready all those things that so many times in schools that you are a part of that you move into. Those traditions and those expectations were already established. We created those and so it was really fun because we did a lot of that work as an administrative team, but we made it a focus on allowing the students to work with us to tell us what they wanted to have happen for that experience to be special to them. So when we got to each of those events, we were receiving a lot of feedback from our students and our and our and our staff. That resulted in some really engaged and high participation events.
Speaker 2:I remember our first homecoming parade and I'll never forget it. You know we came from the high school over to to Danby down Blue Jay Way and you know I'm thinking, okay, we're gonna have this homecoming parade. We've got three classes and are we going to have anyone that's going to show up? and all of the kids are standing out there from all the other schools, but it's in the middle of the day and here's all of these parents that are along the side of the road and, and, and you know, then we started adding more and more and more and more, and now that we've gotten to a point where we're, you know, years past that, 2013 bringing our first graduating class, now year 11 of that. You see now kids coming back, you see their kids, now that graduates, kids who are now in school that are in the floats, you know, with the elementary kids that are in the play, the parade and the and the and the lower ends, and that's really it's unique to see that and and so to watch the high school grow was special.
Speaker 2:It really was a fun time because it wasn't a situation where we we were going to do anything that was going to bring harm to our students, but we were about making every one of the decisions that we made the best decision to create the best outcomes, to make a long-term impact on our climate and culture as we transition from a K9 to a K10, to a K11 to a K12, and I think that was the thing that I enjoyed most about that transition. Now, from an instruction standpoint, curriculum, putting lockers in the school, yeah, crowd purchasing textbooks, purchasing chairs there were a lot of things that we did not have, that we had to have, and so there was a lot of work that came with that. Building athletic schedules, you know, i mean, i remember our first when we had sophomores playing a football schedule, of which we only played a JV schedule. And, and you know, i remember you know our girls basketball team, the first district basketball we played in with our girls basketball team. They went down. We played in that district. We didn't win, but we competed with sophomores and then with juniors, and I remember how excited our parents were that. You know we competed in that environment even though we got beat by teams that had juniors and seniors and, wow, what an experience.
Speaker 2:I remember when we had our first baseball experience when we went to Chaffee and they were hosting districts and those kids went down and we got beat three to one by Chaffee, who went on and did very well in the state tournament, and how proud our parents and our community was of our student athletes and our coaches in the way we represented our school district and you could see that there was a ton of pride which kind of went back to YR7, but that pride was creating a lot of what I call little moments, of which all of these younger kids were looking at these older kids that were setting a standard and saying, man, i want to be like that student, i want to be that kid in band that is playing trombone and playing, you know, on the football field and as a football player, and playing tuba and then you know playing baseball and it was just a. It was a really neat experience at every level to watch that all work out in the way the high school grew. Now the the.
Speaker 1:The pinnacle of that was the first graduation yeah, before I get to that question, i do remember my sister coming in to watch our first homecoming parade and I kind of stood up there at the top of the hill where it kind of you know would wind down, and she was up there with me and she said she goes it's and keep in mind my we've been educated, my parents are educated, so we've been ton of homecoming parades and I've run them off and been there as an administrator coach all the way through. But her comment was she was I've never seen so many people so genuinely happy and that was kind of a. I think that was kind of a culmination of things and it was kind of a neat moment. And those are things. I think that sometimes and you and I sometimes they'll kind of think of the high schools new, and it really isn't anymore. We're ten years in. But though that's, we hold on to those memories.
Speaker 1:So the actual graduation ceremony itself I I will say this I know there were a lot of people working really hard, but the cherry on top was getting Andrea Hemp I can't hear from Kingston to really tie a lot of those loose ends together for us to make sure that was a seamless ceremony. But you know that was a unique situation too, because you had the governor here that evening. It was the first graduation.
Speaker 2:I let you take it from there. You know, i don't recall much of the graduation because it went so fast. I remember, before the graduation, the photo that we took with all of the staff and the students with the. We gave all the kids a medallion for the first graduating class and I remember all of the kids up in the stands when we take our senior graduation photo and we still do that and and all of the kids there, but we had all of our staff around the students and that was a big deal. Matter of fact, we still have that photo in our, in the conference room, next to the high school, your office, the high school principal, next to mr Rugley's office.
Speaker 2:And you know, i remember that night as being special because we invited all the former superintendents that were a part of the Jefferson R7 school district and the crowd was just. It was just huge. I mean it was a big group of people, tons of energy, tons of excitement. We had had a great year with our senior year. We had competed, we had some really good test scores, we had some things going on with, you know, coming off of the fine arts with the MMEA event a couple years of earlier, and then the kids had done some more stuff with that, we had had a lot of really good things that I thought was was leading up to a graduation. And then you and I had a meeting, and I never forget this meeting when you and Mark and I were together and you made the statement to me is that you know, and I appreciated this was we want this to be an experience where we look like we've done it before and and that was our goal as an administrative team was to make it an event that it looked like we had done it before and if we could get to that point where everything was organized and structured and all the way down to the, to the, the huge flag that was behind the, behind the stage area. And then, as far as the event itself, you know, governor J Nixon was here. I was seated beside him. It was, it was it was just a borer because there was so much happening. It was it went so fast and and then we got to the end of it.
Speaker 2:And then I remember, at the end of the graduation event, a lot of schools, they walk their students out after the graduation and the kids go outside and when they do that, everyone just kind of disperses out of the gym. And we chose not to do that. We chose to leave our students in their seats and let everything just kind of go organic and the students kind of found their families and they just stayed in that area. And I remember standing up on the stage afterwards as the governor was departing and talking to him and watching everything and just standing back with you and with you, know, mr Rueark, and watching all of that how much of of a again a happy moment, a celebration, to watch all of those kids interact with their parents, and it was like, okay, this is what it was supposed to be and this is what.
Speaker 2:And it was a joyful event for me it was, it was exciting. There was an energy like I'd never seen in a graduation because it truly, at that point, was all leading up to that moment. They turned their tassel, they threw their hats and we dismissed them and the place was just alive with energy and that was. It was special and it was really, really enjoyable to see that from a superintendent standpoint, because at that moment it was like, okay, we've arrived, we are now a K-12 institution, we have accomplished a goal, and now where?
Speaker 1:do we go from here? and and I think that's one of the listen our outdoor ceremonies have been great the last couple years, but I think that's the one thing that people didn't understand about the indoor ceremony was at the end when everybody would kind of converge down with their kids. I mean it was, it was a really a special time and just the energy in the building and there's something to be indoors at that point as well, and that that changed with COVID. I mean it is what it is, but that was a special time. Two things about graduation we only forgot to bring the diploma covers out once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so some of the behind scenes that you can't see is that we get up there and Kelly Beckard, the board president, looks over at me and and I think you were still kind of walking in and he goes hey, where are the diplomas? thankfully nothing had started yet. I don't know, mr JohnsonI ran back there and down the hallway. You know, i think as a building principal you're always just you're tired, you're nervous, you want this to go so well for the kids. We had the biggest laugh down in back. I was almost in tears, laughing like how could you forget the diplomas?
Speaker 2:it was funny and it was one of those deals where you know it could have gone so many ways but the way it went, it was, it was, it was. You know, board president walks in, all the board members are there and and, and he looks at us and he says where's the diplomas that? you look at me and I look at you and we take off running and you know we got through it, and probably one of the one of those behind the scenes, memories that I cherish the most, because at the time, you know, we're both thinking, goodness gracious, one of people thanking us.
Speaker 2:You know we're responsible for running this school and and we can't even remember to get the diplomas up on the stage, but we, you know, we made it work, but, yeah, we're both running down the hallway to get them and and both of us are just dying laughing and I think that's educational humor that too many times people don't see, you know, and I mean, and people are gonna see this podcast and it's gonna be the first time they're gonna be like well, what year was it that they didn't have the diplomas up there?
Speaker 2:you know, but it was it was.
Speaker 1:It was to this day. On graduation day. I take a picture of the table and I do send it to Kelly and thank him that we haven't missed it since.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that that was. that was a good moment in regards to to Andrea and and you know, not just Andrea but Mrs, mrs Runsey at the at the counselors, and Suzanne Richardson before her man. they played such a huge role huge.
Speaker 2:They work hard and they were so hard that we getting all of the stuff to the finish line. And you know the senior awards the night before and the way we do that in the baccalaureate, which is strictly student-led, you know to have those events the way we do it and to have a graduation ceremony that, quite honestly, 70 kids, not an hour, you know. And indoors, whether it's indoor or outdoor, we get through it. Everybody's excited. The kids are the ones that's doing all the speaking. You don't hear a lot from the superintendent, you don't hear a lot from the principal. You hear a lot from, you know, the kids and their input. We get those diplomas to them and you know they graduate and that's that. That's that that threshold of that benchmark of preparing and moving on in the next chapter in life.
Speaker 1:The other memory from graduation is there was one year where a young man had thrown his hat and got caught up in the rafters and if you know Clint just a little bit, he gets a little bit wound up on occasion he's like oh, we got to get the lift out here, we're gonna do this and you give me a football. I get that down and less than five shots. So three shots later we had that captain that we had to do any extra effort. It was a lot of fun, but just things.
Speaker 2:You were up I think you won't forget no, up high and stuck right and you know they always throw them high and that's that energy, but I'll miss that.
Speaker 2:I think it's the things that y'all miss, as the superintendent, is the graduations and those kids that, all of the work that you know, those kids not not the kids that you know that are gonna be successful, but some of the kids that didn't necessarily have the best road right to success and and yet they found their path. And and they found their path because of the investment of some great teachers or and support staff, or a cook or a secretary or a nurse or a great counselor that just spent the time with them and invested with them and got them to that finish line. And and you see so many of those kids now out when you're out at Walmart or you're having dinner and you see they come up to you. This is my wife, this is my husband, this is my family. I just want to thank you for not giving up on me.
Speaker 2:You know that's what it's all about and I'll miss that because our graduations were truly a special event. I you know. You said this I agree with you in your statement when you were the high school principal and we both live it as central office staff now. You don't get do-overs with graduation. No, you get it right. You make sure you cover every detail and and, and if you do that right, it really sends everyone home at the end of the year with a really good taste in their mouth about your district.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, i enjoyed listening to that. We haven't talked about that in a while. You have the high school. That's finished. You have. What I think was kind of unique during that time was not just getting to the graduation of behind-the-scenes meetings we were having, and I think you stated it. Well then I'm gonna turn over to you. Really, between that time period we'll say 2014 to say 20, you know, later in those teens is really when we became a real true K through 12 district And I want you to kind of elaborate on that, because you've mentioned that a couple times and I don't disagree with it. But the cosmetic graduation ceremony was awesome, but there were so many things that were building towards the future at that point.
Speaker 2:Well, i think the thing that I tell people you know it's easy to climb the mountain one time is sports reference. You know, you look at people that are sending to that opportunity of trying to win a championship. Our graduation was our championship. I know, yes, i agree, and you played college football. You understand that I. You know I played college baseball. You know we all were working towards trying to get to that moment. My thing was about halfway through the junior year, with the first graduating class, i began to really think about what is going to happen between the graduating class of 2014 and where we needed to be three, five, 10 years down the road.
Speaker 2:So if I could interject here for a second, What Mr Johnson is alluding to is that, and I'm going to start with this subject.
Speaker 1:First is the college credit expansion at Jefferson High School. So if you could imagine, in the morning we might be planning for the graduation. In the afternoon We were all meeting with Jeff Coast president, myself, you, suzanne, mr Rourke all going over there to look at what we could do to expand these options for kids And I think that that's kind of a I don't mean this in a bad way, it's kind of taken for granted now, but that was a huge deal getting that on board.
Speaker 2:It was. And you know, one of the things I hated the most was our first graduating class did not get a chance, did not, was not provided a chance to have those college course experience. Right, we had so many things that was going on that we could not really do a whole lot more because our plate was full. Our staff was working, we were humming everything that needed to be done to get to that graduation, but we were having those meetings to get ready for that college transition opportunity. And that's where the tuition sharing event came from, when we designed with Jeff Co and opportunity for all of our students to have a shared tuition event where the parents would pay a third, we would pay a third, the college would pay a third And if the student scored a 27 or higher on their ACT then we would reimburse them for their third and that the events would, the college experience would be 100% free for the student. And my mindset for those thoughts and the what way I wanted to create a true eight semester high school experience for kids And you were becoming the high school principal.
Speaker 2:At that time, mr Iraq was getting to a point where he was going to retire And when I came to you and we talked about that. You know, we talked about how, so many times, with the number of credits is required by the state of Missouri, a kid that is really focused gets into the middle of their junior year, into their junior year First part, they they've got all those credits, they've attained all those expectations. And so for a senior year, in some ways, in some situations not necessarily a coast event, but it wasn't an event where you were really challenging a kid to get them ready to step off of your boat or a springboard to get them ready to go into higher ed.
Speaker 1:I agree with you And ironically, this weekend, just out of the blue, my dad, we were spending some time to go there on Memorial Day here and he just said do you guys have any kids taking PE more than once a day as seniors? I said no, that that went out after the first, i think, senior class and it's it just was the evolution of getting to the high school. And I think, if I look back at my high school career, really there wasn't a whole lot going on in my schedule And I think that that's what we were looking at is to say what makes us a true full four year experience, the full eight semester, and I think that college credit plus at a small school you're just limited on what you can offer with your staff just by sheer numbers. And those, those classes that we were able to put together from Jeff Co not only filled gaps but also kept pushing that bar higher. It makes sense, it did And the outcomes.
Speaker 2:by doing that we created another level of energy coming off of that graduation with the fall semester, with those kids being able to enroll. So we were looking to enroll those kids and we were actually enrolling those kids in the spring when we were getting ready for graduation for the following fall. Where is that gone from? you know, it started for a few classes, some on site, some out there, to now we've got the 61 hour program or the program degree and we have the 42 hour program. And, to be quite honest with you over the evolution of that, our total goal was we wanted every high school kid to have an opportunity to have a college course experience before they graduated from high school. We did that because we knew if we could give them that exposure.
Speaker 2:Well, i don't know one in my family's ever gone to college. No one, it's not. I'm not expected to go to college. Well, let's try it and you might find success. And if you find success, then that led to them being able to not necessarily be forced into going to college. I don't think every kid needs to go to college, no, but it gave them an exposure opportunity to allow them to find their path, find their way to do something that they might not have ever thought about doing, and doing it in a way that it wasn't going to financially break the bank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to be clear that we the one thing we did have in place, it's always been a great partner for us as ATS. So we've had kids over there since the inception of the high school. When they were of age, basically the junior year, they could go over there and start earning those career and technical credits, college credits, through the ATS, and we had that kind of as a backbone for us. It was really filling that senior year and then it's kind of kind of stemmed down from there, but that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Now I think we have to give a shout out to Jefferson College, i mean they took a they took a huge flyer on us.
Speaker 2:When I sit down with Dr Kibisky and Dr McCaffrey, who was a part of the instruction at that time, you know, when we presented that to them, man, they saw that as a win-win win. And when we were a kid, it was a win for our school district, but it was a win for them as well, because they were going to see some of our best students come into their college, which was they could see that bolstering some of their performance scores as well. Right, very rarely in public education or in the public sector of our jobs you ever find a win, win, win. Most of the time there's a lot of win, losses, yes, and we had that. Have that opportunity. The college was winning, We were winning, the families were winning. And then, lastly, i'll never forget it, i was at a junior high national honor society event And we introduced the program that spring And I had a grandparent come up to me afterwards that lived in our district And she said I want you to know I've been paying taxes in the school district for years And I've not had a kid in the school district the whole time, but for me to be able to see that you're taking my tax dollars and making these opportunities available to these children, my grandkids, my nieces and nephews that are coming up.
Speaker 2:Now I can see that the dollars that I've been providing is being used in the most efficient way to help these kids in our community, bolster the success for our kids, and I can't thank you enough for doing that. Wow, that was a aha moment for me because I didn't expect that. I expected the families of the kids to be excited, but I never thought that we would get that kind of feedback from people who didn't have kids in our school Right.
Speaker 1:And that was a that was pretty exciting.
Speaker 2:You know we receive a lot of constructive criticism from folks from time to time, but to receive that, that positive feedback, was pretty important. And I knew we. I really felt like at that point we were hitting on something that had the potential to take off. So that was the first thing that we were looking at from 14 on that. I really felt like it was huge. And you know something else that you know that you and I talked about at length and we have here in front of us, i think, is the technology, the one to one initiative that you know Wayne, don John and his team with the technology, the building principles, putting that together was epic.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's no way to describe it. That was my next segue. Really, without the technology in the one to one, i don't know what the college would be, as the college experience or college potential there for the credits would be as robust as it is now.
Speaker 2:You know there are situations where kids are taking an actual you know online course where they're communicating And other times it's you know asynchronous.
Speaker 1:I think that's the right term Other times we actually had had teachers come in, but the Chromebooks starting at the top with college credit and going all the way down, that was in 2013 when we looked at rolling that out. So kind of go through that because that was we were one of the first districts to do a K-12 in the state. It wasn't just there were some districts of time doing it at their high school or for certain grades at their high school, but to go K-12 and talk about that process.
Speaker 2:Well, it started with the building principles having a lot of confidence in their budgets with me. We had found our stride a little bit financially at that point and we had come out of some of those financial challenges. But one of the things that we did with our budget is that we worked with our building administrators to pool resources at the end of the year that were not necessarily they were committed resources at the building level but we had not utilized every penny of those resources at the building level And by doing that we were able to take a pool of money and, working with the board, to initiate the purchase of the Chromebooks and the interactive boards that we put in at Platten. We didn't bring the technology, the one-on-one technology, to Platten right out of the gate, but we brought the interactive boards to Platten and Telegraph and then the Chromebooks to the high school. And the reason why we did it in that format we wanted our students at the elementary grades to start to have that engagement with those mediums of instruction that the technology was going to bring at the younger grades. And then knowing that we were going to close the gap from both ends was creating an evolution of the growth of that technology because there was a significant need in the high school because of the college tuition one-to-one. We had to get that growing and growing and going. And then we needed to grow it from Platten and Telegraph so that we were bringing it forward and moving it up.
Speaker 2:So when Mr Don John came to me, he told me he said there's no way we can do this with the budget that we have in the district for technology. We had $34,000 for a total budget for technology. And so I told him I said well, i want you to put a budget together And, as people know, i'm kind of a numbers guy and I focus on money and focus on the budget and everything. And I began to work with the board and we started putting together a plan And we did a comprehensive engagement. I'll never forget we had a TAC committee, which was a technology group, and those people came together. There was board members, there was community members, there were kids. You were on that committee.
Speaker 2:There was a ton of people involved And we looked at multiple devices over a period of time And boy oh boy did we find a lot of good, bad and ugly that we were able to work through in order to choose a device that we thought was going to serve our needs. So when we got to the point of making the selection, the selection process and the commitment to the financial resources went a lot smoother than I thought it would because of the engagement of all of the people that we had with the board and the students and the staff and yourself and making sure that we were making the right choice. And again, i think that goes back to our seven choosing things. That involves the community and getting their input and getting parent input and getting staff input and getting administrative and getting student input, and so we rolled that out and it took off. And again, just an epic ton of energy, great experience, and you probably know more about the day to day successes of that than I do. It's a building principle of what was going on back.
Speaker 1:I just remember the anticipation of doing it full time in the fall of 2013.
Speaker 1:So, if you can imagine, during that time we're trying to get ready for the first graduation. Well, i had a group of juniors working in the background on this one to one, and they were fantastic. Jacob Hill, claire Welker, was it? Sod Malik Yep And goodness, i can see his face Baseball player. They shot that video and, i apologize, i can't remember his name. They put together a video. They went down to every grade level and they were just fantastic working with the kids and Jacob Hill was such a unique talent to do that.
Speaker 1:I kind of felt like that if people could kind of see it and also know that they could see some high school kids that were okay, comfortable with it Really, by the time we got to the fall. I do remember one point that summer from a technical standpoint, i was like the only one in the building myself and Lori holding house And I was on a Chromebook and I was going room room. I said, wayne, these things don't work. I said that there's not enough internet or like I don't know what I'm talking about. What we found was what he found is that our routers were turned up so high that it was confusing the machines, so we had to learn to turn them real low so that we'd only hit on one machine, just little things like that. And then we would take the teaching staff. We came back that fall, we practiced it room to room to make sure it was working and everybody all 20 could get on or whatever it was.
Speaker 2:As teachers were the ones that was moving from room to room Again and all the little stuff that we did with that was just such a unique experience. And number one, bring that many people together and get people to buy into it was huge. But I think the way that we did it, our staff saw the value of that return. I love the videos. I don't know if I remember the videos the kids would disappear, yeah, and we were using some really old. There was the ghost of yes.
Speaker 1:So the irony in that is that we hadn't even had a high school graduating class yet which was funny on its own.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, we were working through it and good things were happening because of it. But again, just a shout out to the staff and the students for being willing to take that risk. And so then we roll into here, it comes, and we get to the fall of you know that, we roll that out with that junior class and we get to the high school 2014 and it takes off and it hits and it works. It worked because we did all of those trial and errors.
Speaker 2:I know Mr Don John spent literally hours on you over at the high school Wireless access stuff, a lot of time behind the scenes making sure that we had all the stuff that we needed. And once it got going and then we started seeing these kids finding their niche. And the kids were, they were getting to their junior and senior years and they were like well, i'm taking a full college slate, i've got 16 hours or 14 hours. That was a great feeling because at that point I knew one to one was going to take us to a new level of success over the next three to five years that, even though we had experience in 13, it was going to be bigger Right.
Speaker 1:Yep, one. One last thing before we kind of transition to something else here to light up the night. That actually happened. Like the year, the scene, the first graduating class would have been juniors to try to. I remember the energy behind that because there was such a passion by many parents and community members about giving the kids a Friday night football experience and our budgets are not allowed that time to put those lights up and to have had. I don't think people, i don't think a lot of people know, particularly as time has gone on, that the lights of the football and baseball field. There's was never a public dime to the construction. That was all private donations, donors, businesses chipping in, kind of go through the light up the night. That was a. That was another great moment for, i think, for us just to see that for the community well, i think it was a.
Speaker 2:It was a movement that was so organic. I'll never forget it. We were a facility in up in Festus Tanglefoot was the restaurant that was there and we were sitting there one night with a group of us and we had our first experience with the sophomore year of football and they were all Saturday games and we were coming into our junior year and looking at our junior season and you know the bleachers at that time would, or they're now, the high school bleachers for the baseball. You kind of forget how small those 400 seats there and then we were. We are. Our football games even with just sophomores were. We were everywhere. I mean, people were coming out in droves for the stuff that was going on at the school at that time.
Speaker 2:And so we put together a group of people and the board of education was a part of that and and our goal was to simply light up the night. Our goal was to have a Friday night football experience and we came together one night. We had met at Tanglefoot it was after a football game and on a Saturday and we were sitting there talking and then we scheduled a meeting back in the in the room. They had a conference room in there and there was a whole group of people from the community and I'll never forget. Steve Floyd, former board member, left the room for about five minutes and walk, walk back in and he said I'm all in and I want this to happen. And he handed me a check for $2,500 and he said you said it's gonna take a hundred thousand. He said so now we need 97.5. And in six weeks we went from having nothing to having a hundred thousand dollars and preparing for us to put lights on the football field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was incredible, and back at it.
Speaker 2:It was. It was a great experience. I always use mr Larry Blaha. We love the conversation.
Speaker 2:He gave me a list of everything that I would happen that he said two things would never happen in our time of me being superintendent Jefferson our seven. He said one thing. He said they'll never be lights on this football field during the time that I'm here in this world. And he said I hope someday that we'll be able to play golf at the golf course next to the school district. So I, the first year, we did the light up the night. Larry and I was there that night and I personally went and saw him out, he and Debbie, and we stood together and I said well, i said there's number one. I said we're playing lights under the you know football under the lights and he said, yeah, but we haven't made, we haven't made that golf course. Last year, when we had our first golf event down at the golf course here next to Crystal Highlands, next to the school district, i sent Larry a text and I said we're playing golf at Crystal Highlands and he said, okay, you can retire now and it was just it's.
Speaker 2:It was great to see so many people in our community come together and say I want to support that, i want to see that happen, because we couldn't have done it with the resources that the district had. We were, we were way short of the hundred thousand dollars and to make that happen, and so we, you know we got a lot of outflow from good good Gray Sack and was able to get that going. You know, we worked with ATG Sports who specialized and actually built the facilities Don Bollinger and he gave us some directions and got us in touch with the people with the lights and we brought the lights in, got those up and finished that and we didn't just knock that out immediately. I'll be done if we didn't turn around, it's okay, we're done. Now let's get lights on the baseball field. And a year later you know we've got lights on the baseball field and you're right, not a penny of those items, which was, you know, over two hundred thousand dollars at the end, came out of district reserves, is a heck of an accomplishment.
Speaker 1:That on its own was a heck of accomplishment. So we're gonna roll forward just a little bit. We talked about a lot about the high school, high school, high school but really around 2015 we start looking at things a little differently as well. Continue that growth of a K-12 district in the addition of a preschool and a bond issue. In 2015, every kid counts.
Speaker 1:I a lot of fond memories of that for me, just being a high school principal and seeing ever the energy throughout the district and energy through our community and all the pride that came along with that. So you had the preschool three up. The three areas that I remember and you can, you can add on if I'm forgetting something here is the preschool, the PAC slash shop area, the performing arts what has become to known as the performing arts center at the high school, and then also, more probably really the thing that we've benefited from the most, is the safety components, the changing of the fronts of the building in some cases, how people enter to kind of really give that extra layer of security, and just with the changing times. So those are the three areas.
Speaker 2:Go ahead well, i think you have to go back to coming out of the first graduation in the August of 2013, when we ran the bond issue and failed. We thought we were on top of the world. We thought we were, we were doing things at a level which we really had made our path. And we were. We were going to do some great things and we had the ideas of the things that we wanted to do with the every kid counts that pass in 2015.
Speaker 2:We did it in August of 2013 and our community did not support it and that was a tough night for me when that happened because we really felt like the graduation, we reached that point of success and and I really felt good about where the district was at more, we were going with the one-to-one and all the things that was happening and the board said let's run the bond issue. We ran the bond issue. It required a two-thirds vote because it was an August election try and we missed it. We scored a 63 and change. I went home sick that night. I was so upset with myself as a superintendent because I felt like number one the resources that we had spent to try to get that pass in the time coming into the school year.
Speaker 2:That year and for it to fail was was was a terrible leadership issue on my part, and so the board wanted to come back the next April, which was it have been in April of 14 and I said, you know, started talking about that. We really want to go in November and I said we're not doing. I don't feel we should do that. I think we need to demonstrate to our community that the resources that they're providing us is being used in a manner that is what they want those resources to be used for for the educating of our children education or children.
Speaker 2:So we took two years on that and and we spent some time and did some really comprehensive engagement with our community and started talking to our community about the things that they wanted to see, and that's where the safety came out of being. The first thing was that all of our parents were very concerned, as we are, that the world that we live in now is is ever changing when it comes to school safety, and so, again, we are probably a little bit ahead of other schools around the state. We made that priority number one changing the entryways, changing locks, changing meal, putting film on our all of our glass at the front of our building that is designed to provide safety from from bullets and and and guns and gun safety, if that ever had an experience that happened which we hope never does.
Speaker 2:But we made all those modifications and so safety became the focal point. And then we looked at the preschool, and the preschool came out of the CSEP, which is the comprehensive school improvement meetings that we had every year, and all of our parents, because of the nature of our community, were driving to work and they didn't have any place for their kids, and our preschool was really small at that time. It was housed in one of our buildings and and then there was a need. It was a justified need and our parents wanted our students to have a place to come to school for their preschool. So we designed a preschool with that. And then the other thing was that we knew that at the high school, when we were looking at the PAC edition and everything, all the high school was there, but we did not have the performing arts and all of the other pieces for the high school, and the gymnasium became the area where all of your fine arts productions and your theses being events. We used the church for the first event or the first play over here at Good News Community.
Speaker 2:But we needed to complete that component, and so that became our focal point of completing the high school, putting the preschool together and creating the safety. We ran that in April of 15 and slam dunked it. Community got behind it, pulled that together, spent a lot of time. I spent a lot of time. I visited 13 different performing arts centers, from Springfield, logan, rogers to all over St Louis, metro, southeast Missouri. Designing and working with Vince Eversault, who was our architect, putting together our plan because we knew we didn't have enough money to do everything that we wanted to accomplish with the money that we had. We had 7.2 million dollars is all we had and we knew we were gonna run out.
Speaker 2:So we put it together and we were successful to value engineering, in the process of which we selected the companies to do the safety components first, got that done. Preschool was second built a four classroom preschool facilities with a gymnasium, which also took a lot of pressure off of our gym at Telegraph, which allowed us to have the cafeteria be the cafeteria and not a cafeteria, with the gym on the other side and kids eating with, you know, physical education. And then the last thing was putting the performing arts center together. Originally our performing arts center, we hoped that we would have 400 seats.
Speaker 2:I remember that and I remember vividly having a conversation with you saying David, we cannot make this facility 400 seats because if we do that we're not gonna be able to put your whole high school in this facility. That's, that's frustrating five, six, seven years down the road when we grow into it. We've got to have a bigger facility. So we you and I had kind of set a goal of 650 to 800, knowing that, man, that's gonna be a long shot. So we did it the way we did it with the safety and then the preschool, because by doing those two and value engineering, we knew how much money we had left over, right, and that's where. When we got to that point, then we went to work to make that performing arts center in the shop everything that we wanted it to be, and we were able to put 652 seats with an overflow capacity of another 150, with 800 seats in there wow, and a stage that's designed for 150 kids on the stage. It's a.
Speaker 1:It's a really heck of a small school vine art facility when you get right down to it and really a lot of the great events we've had in there just a lot of great memories from that whole process really was, and going back. What kind of excites me a little bit about trying to have the class of 2013 back for reunion this fall is a lot of those have not seen that that used to be the old parking lot and I kind of bring that up because when I got there in 20 I think it was 2011 was the fall of 2011. If you would walk down to where the band room is now. The choir room was actually the weight room. It was supposed to be a choir room with the weight room. They didn't have enough money to finish the weight room, so that's one of those parts that kind of got pushed down there.
Speaker 1:I remember I think it was you and myself and Tom Shirley went down this I think he had a sledgehammer, just went right through the wall. We go in and we're like, well, there's a whole room down here ready to be built for, but nothing was in it. It was just kind of the way.
Speaker 2:The weight room didn't exist and we had a sheet rock room and Tom took a sledge hammer down and and beat a hole in the wall and we stepped through and we had to put all the HVAC in, we had to put the lights in, we had to finish that out. There was nothing in.
Speaker 1:There was nothing show of a facility.
Speaker 2:So, but and that allowed us, by doing that, to then allow the choir to be able to have the choir room band room in the choir room could do what they needed, and it completed the high school. The performing arts center completed the high school, and not only that. I think the thing that I'm most proud about the performing arts center is that number one. There's a dirty shop there. Kids can get their hands on a project. Yes, and I think that we know we we went through a time in the early 2000s up to about the 2010, 2015, where everyone needs to go to college. No, that's not true. There are trade jobs out there now where there are people that, if they're good as a electrician, a welder, you know, a tradesman working with woods, you know there's opportunities for those kids and we are giving our kids those opportunities.
Speaker 2:In that shop. They build all of those cast designs and everything with what's going on, and then they bring all the props right straight across into the to the stage area and man, oh man, we have had some phenomenal spring musical and play events. That just just just was you just sitting on watching. I remember watching dr Sue Suzakal a year ago, i guess now, with 60 kids from elementary to high school to spring play, and I'm sitting there watching that and I'm just like this is why we did this right and you know the casting, all of the stage props, everything that was going on with Cassie and Tessa, peter and Mike Herman, who was the shop teacher, now mr Bosler, who is the shop teacher, all the things that they, they did and all of their sacrifices to make such great props and great background so that those students that wanted to explore those desby and events had a place for them to shine. And, man, they have really been bright stars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, been cool it's been a great process. The thing we kind of got to a point there around 2017 I think it was a graduating class of 2017 we had a young man that was interested in the service Academy.
Speaker 1:You and I had never had a student prior to that year. I don't even know if I was aware of any that had even tried. Honestly, i mean, you don't, you don't just. They don't just call you and say, hey, would you like to join? you have, there's a pretty pretty. It's a very rigorous process. In order to get into, you have to get an appointment by your area representative at the United States Congress sent an appointment. There's an appointment that comes with that.
Speaker 1:You and I knew the young man and I remember having a conversation with you about if he doesn't get in, it's kind. I feel like this is on us. I feel like it was a real test of the rigor of our high school at that point and everything that went along with that. On the backside we've we've now have two that have been appointed, a third and another in the Coast Guard Academy. I know Brennan, brenner East was the first one kind of go through that process because we we really we saw a different angle, that not just creating the opportunity but does our high school match up to the rigor of what those service academies are expecting?
Speaker 2:well. I think that that that event really solidified the, the understanding that what we were doing in our curricula design at the high school was meeting the needs for all students to succeed. We felt good about our our college tuition shared program, kids with a a's. We had students that were already enrolled in doctoral programs at UMKC. We had students that were in Mizzou. We had kids that were at Missouri S&T, missouri State. You know, ole Miss. I mean there's banners over in the counselor's office, all over the place wash you, you know. But we really step back and said, okay, if we're gonna do this, our, our do. We feel like that. This kid is ready. With Brennan and number one did we do what we needed to do as a district to get him to the, to the finish line and I'll never forget yourself.
Speaker 2:Myself and some of the staff at the high school really did some comprehensive investigations. We sat down I sat down with Donna Hickman who was out of Jason Smith's office. Representative Jason Smith's office spoke to the representative. Jason Smith, had conversations about that process and really tried to gather as much information as we could to be successful in preparing him for the interview. His resume stood up, his ACT scores stood up but his, his interview process and the rigor of that process of whittling it down and being compared against every other kid across the nation for those appointments. We really took a lot of time to find a plan to be successful with helping those students get there.
Speaker 2:And I'm honored to say that, that he was selected, and I'm more honored to say that you know he was in the top, you know 3% of his graduating class at Colorado Springs. He's now, you know, university Purdue studying to be a rocket scientist. We always say you know you're gonna grow up as smart as a rocket scientist. He actually is gonna be a rocket scientist. He's doing his dissertation thesis on propulsion and with jet engines and you know he's he's, after he finishes his degree, is probably going to get an opportunity to fly, test piloting for for the Air Force and and what a great accomplishment of that. But not to devalue the importance of what we did in that process, if a kid wants to travel that path, girl or boy, we needed to do what we were good at in order to help those students get there so then, along comes the second young man, and then the third, and then the fourth.
Speaker 2:Now and and you know it never gets easier, but we had done it before and we knew what we needed to do Bradley Glass being accepted to both the Naval Academy and West Point. Yes, wow, you know, i was just excited.
Speaker 1:His first, i think representative Smith, congressman Smith's first one that had been accepted to two academies right from the Southeast Missouri region and so you know I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2:You know I don't know about you. I was just excited to have a chance to go to college and you know you're looking at these kids and they're going to the Naval Academy and then are the brightest minds of of the world that they're associated with, and and both of those young men have been successful. The young man that's in the Coast Guard is is absolutely doing a great job as well, and then we've got another one that has been, you know, going into the Coast Guard and a lot of it's not just the military appointments. You know people don't know this about me, but I'm a military brat. My grandfather fought in World War two, my other one fought in the Korean War. My dad fought in Vietnam. My uncle fought in Vietnam.
Speaker 2:I was brought up in the military way and you know, unfortunately you know, or fortunately, you know, depending on how you look at it been a military kid. There's a lot of expectations in the way in which you do things, and I always tell people, when it comes to being a military member, you know, those sacrifices give us the liberties that we all take for granted. You know, memorial Day was just this past weekend, monday, was a lot of people see it as a day off for me. I I got photos of my dad's grave and my grandfather's graves and those flags that. You know that in the sacrifices that they made and when you're in the military, you know every military member sacrifices all, give some and unfortunately, some give all. But you know supporting these kids, the military appointments and all of our students that go into the military and watching those kids come back, i'll never forget. You know we the first student that came out of the military academy or the military. You know when he came home and nobody knows this, but when he he went into the army, went to boot camp, he came home. His mom and dad invited me over to his house that night. He got in about 11 o'clock and I'll never forget I was there just to see him and how proud I was of him for what that young man did. And I'll remember.
Speaker 2:I remember all those military appointments and I really applaud what you did at the high school creating that wall for all of those military kids and having those names up on that wall for the branch of service that our graduates go into as graduates of Jefferson or seven. Now I don't want to devalue the k-8 graduates that have been in the military. I mean, you know, goodness gracious, they can't keep you gymnasium down here. Kent was a pilot, you know, in the Air Force and, and you know, went through the military academy.
Speaker 2:You know we have a long history of military presence from our community. But when you look at that, what you did with that and bringing those kids along, and seeing what these students have done with the appointments, it's probably the greatest honor for me as a military kid, a military son, because I got a baseball scholarship and I didn't have to go into the military. These young men and women make huge sacrifices and they wear those flags on their arm with honor and I'm I'm blessed to know every one of them and to know that what they're doing gives us the ability to have peace at home and put our heads on the pillow at night, and I think we should never take that for granted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that military wall. Debbie Runsey and myself kicked that around and then the class of 2021 came through and got that done and that is something we continue. I'll tell you. Share two quick thoughts about that with Bradley Glass.
Speaker 1:Debbie Runsey and I went down and watch Bradley, let his mom know and I tell you I looked at her one. We were both in tears and I said you're crying, i'm not crying. So it was moment Debbie and I had, but it was a special moment to watch with Brandon and I told Brandon this and it wasn't until he's after he was graduated from college. You know, i really felt I don't have pressures as a white right word, but I really felt like there was something to make getting that accomplishment and the gentleman from the Air Force Academy had come in in October. So the timeline is as you apply, you apply, you apply, they come interview in October. You don't find out till almost like early March, late, late February, when March seems like that's the kind of timeline, and as soon as the gentleman walks out, it's myself and Lori Heldinghaus and stand there and Brandon went back to class, nobody else in there. He goes. Hey, do you guys have a ceremony that you recognize these individuals. When they get, you know, they get accepted in the Academy because he, you know, he's gonna be accepted in all this.
Speaker 1:And I'm like what do we do with this information? so we, lori and I, ate that we did. We never breathe a word of it until probably you and Bren and I were sitting down at a table a couple years ago. But I had a little bit of, i guess, relief at that point. I'm like I don't want to say anything because that process needs to play out. Just, you just never know. But she not kind of like what do we do with this?
Speaker 2:so I slept a little better that night, i'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1:And the crazy thing was.
Speaker 2:You didn't even tell me no, i didn't tell you nobody knew.
Speaker 2:So you know, that kind of frustrates me. I learned that now. I knew that before. But you know, i think that again, that's that part of our school district that you're most proud of is trusting those experiences and knowing that. You know, i remember telling representatives Smith and and when you make those recommendations as a superintendent and I'll be honest with you you have to make those recommendations. Yes, those aren't recommendations that you make lightly. You don't take those recommendations lightly because if they go and they don't succeed, then it marks you in terms of future situations and success of those kids. So I remember telling you, you know, and I didn't know if the kids and they never know if they're gonna get in or not but I told you when, when he went through it, if he did not get in that I don't know that I would ever have another student. That would be quality.
Speaker 2:I agree with that, but the other side of that one of the student that I was talking about a while ago that came home in first boot camp. Well, brennan Hall came home from that boot camp.
Speaker 2:I was just proud of him absolutely you know, and I remember sitting around the pool, you know, and him coming in and how proud he was of that uniform and and, and you know you look at those situations of what those kids are doing, wow, you know. I mean again, you know it's a great experience. We have great kids. Some of our kids do really well in the in the curricula, academia side of things, but, man-oh-man, our kids do well when it comes to when they get into the military and they succeed. So we're proud of that and I think that's probably one of the accomplishments that, as a superintendent, i've said I'm most proud of. Is these those students that choose to go that route?
Speaker 1:sure, we're gonna segue into another area here and it's a lot in our media today, but I think I'm just gonna start with the conversation. when I we talked about what the struggle is sometimes at a high school And really just students in general that are struggling with mental health.
Speaker 1:And there's a frustration that comes along with that, that really our skill set as a high school principal and a counselor. We can really help the family to a certain point And sometimes those services exceed what we're able to provide. And prior to this and what I had described to you at the time was like it's like we're trying to work with a family to get them here And at some point you're working with the family to help them find another avenue. There just was a lot of frustration because they would call and get appointment three or four months later. There was no communication between the school and the end.
Speaker 2:So it's almost like we get them here.
Speaker 1:It's almost like they had to start back over here and try to build that back up. And so part of the process was you looking at it and saying what can we do to help streamline that? I think it's core which became the evolution of the intervention specialist through the Comtree Grant and then the mental health services. Now, And before I turn this over to you, what I feel like. When I left as a high school principal, I felt like that we were getting to this point with the kid And quickly it was getting over here and moving forward And I think that was my greatest joy in seeing how this played out for families, to give them hope, to get them into the services they need And I'm saying that as a district summary and a very small, concise nutshell. I think that's the greatest thing that I see from this. So mental health it became a passion for many in the district. You had worked with several organizations in Jefferson County and we're better off for it.
Speaker 2:Well, we got to a point in the district where mental health was kind of the thing that I was going to be looking at as my. That was going to be my final chapter of my superintendency, not just for Jefferson R7, but for Jefferson County, the state of Missouri, the region. I saw it as a complete and total failure of children when kids were put in situations where they were not able to find any support until they became a case number either in DFS or the juvenile services. And to me that's not leadership, that's a reactionary event where we have people that are having problems and we don't support them until they get to a point where those problems get so far out of hand that they no longer fit the norm of what's expected of them And then we intervene, usually in a punitive capacity, and that bothered me.
Speaker 2:So, you know, with the help of some really, really strong people again surrounding myself with strong people, you know Judge Darrell, missy, steve Horn, who was a juvenile officer who was coming to work for the district and was our interventionist. He was a juvenile officer for Jefferson County. Steve worked with our district. He was as frustrated with the fact that the kids were all being identified and served numbers before we were helping them, and so Steve and I sat down one day after it was just one of these conversations and we said you know what if we started with a blank canvas and there was nothing except for the fact of what we're trying to do to help the kids get into an environment to attain help, as compared to waiting until they are forced to have and receive help, and we created a funnel analogy where we talked about kids getting into the funnel and then redirecting them out of those funnels to the off-ramps of the services that they need.
Speaker 2:Now the reason why I say that is because mental health is not a situation that only impacts a small percentage of our world. I will tell you that. You know, in December 15th, when I lost my father as a superintendent of schools here, i had a great team of people around me that lifted me up and was there for that episodic event, because I was struggling as an individual when my father passed.
Speaker 2:My father was very important to me And I don't count myself as a strong person but I count myself as a mentally pretty solid mindset And I was having a tough time with that, you know, because he played a huge role in my life, and so you know, it was about that time, from 15, 16, and coming on up, we started talking about that, steve and I was talking about that six years ago.
Speaker 2:We initiated, back in 17, the process of introducing, through some resources, with a grant from Comtree, steve coming on board to becoming an interventionist for our district, and our goal was to get all of the services of Jefferson County and the St Louis Metro region on paper so that we could figure out how to use those services to help families. And then once we figured that all out.
Speaker 2:As a part of the grant, we were supposed to share it with the other schools of Jefferson. County And we did that And out of that has spawned one of the greatest accomplishments for me as an individual.
Speaker 2:Of the context of the Aspen program, which is now, with the help of Jefferson County Health Department and the school districts Jacqueline Brown, kelly Vollner, all of those individuals working with us, we have now created an online platform for individuals to be able to go in, whether it's a student or an adult, and do an assessment of where you're at with your mental health and then begin to help you route to your service providers of insured services, uninsured services where you can go, and to try to get help from people so that you're not sitting in a queue someplace for six to eight months before you can see somebody.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what's huge. I think that's what it boils down to is that when you're a parent and your child's in distress, you're not always thinking in term but you just want to get to help. I think that's where Steve has been so valuable and is to create those pathways and guidance into that and take some of that stress or pressure off the parent to at least get them started. And I think it's been such a So it's been a real asset to the district for sure.
Speaker 2:We got that going and things are starting to take off and Steve and I went over to Granite City, illinois, and there was a company over there that we were to because we had heard about it.
Speaker 1:We didn't know much about it but they were providing services in Jefferson.
Speaker 2:County Chestnut was the name of the company, chestnut middle and old systems And so we met with them, came in contact with a gentleman, jim Wallace, and started a relationship with him And from that with he and Sue Curfman and Comtree and the hospital, with Eric Ammons, who's the president of the hospital and really just started a grassroots initiative of getting services on paper And then helping a parent when a parent has a situation to say we don't have the answers for you, but we have a place you can go to start finding some answers as you're working through that And not do it in a context where it's confrontational. My goodness, we live in a world right now where it's so confrontational, everything is so maximum, there's so much noise. And I feel like this program has been successful because it's been about proactive engagement with parents to say we think that there's some things going on. I know my child is having a lot of problems. We don't know what to do. Well, let us try to work with you. We'll work with you, we'll help you find services and from there then start figuring it out. And it's taken off and other schools are using it now And we got some grants through the health department with Jefferson County and the Aspen platform. You know there's there's over a half a million dollars in grants that was put behind that And that platform is now up and running.
Speaker 2:And for the last two years we have had a back to school safety summit involving mental health. We're having another one here in January, on the 17th, for all of July. Excuse me, july the 17th. I'm retiring, don't worry about it, i'm still going to be there. They asked me to come back.
Speaker 2:I don't know why, but in July, on the 17th, all of our administrators and our counselors from the schools around Jefferson County come together and we talk about mental health and how we help those kids and how we help our staff. And that was kind of a bonus, a bonus game. I never realized that not only were we helping our kids, but we also were helping our staff. And boy, one of the staff could go to Steve and and they were, you know, it really kind of took some of that, some of those layers off of the staff to help them navigate their physical challenges or their emotional challenges or their mental challenges.
Speaker 2:And let's face it, we all have. We all have our events. I don't care how good you are, i don't care how strong you are. We all experience those moments where each of us need a support system. Some of us have great family support system, some of us don't. Some of us have great friends, Some of us don't, you know, but in the end this is just another layer that I think of something special that we do that has really benefited our kids and our staff.
Speaker 1:I'm going to segue from that kind of along the same lines and kind of line it up here that I always kind of look like as a building administrator. My first year many years ago, I was gas. At the end of the year I was on like a 10 month contract or something like that, But there was a whole month I didn't even show up to school, Like I just got away from it. I was like, how is this going to work for me going forward? I kind of started to look at it like a bucket of water. You start the year, your buckets empty And as the year goes on you're taking on issues, concerns, worries, everything that you've got as an administrator, and the bucket starts to fill up By the end of the year. It's usually pretty full. So what are you doing at the end of the year? to kind of tip a little bit out to get to the end of the year and then kind of recover in the summer.
Speaker 1:This, the business as an administrator, is full of challenges. It is what it is. You kind of have to just accept it and just know that things aren't going to be fair And if you're a true leader you'll find a way out of it. It's kind of summarizing that quote. I would really like it, But I think what was hard in this business and we're still feeling the effects of it, you know you talk about all the different challenges was COVID.
Speaker 1:I remember standing on the parking lot because I understand that there's some habits that even even students who don't want to be at school every day or struggle to get there Some day, they do kind of crave that consistency. And on March 17th 2020, when I saw those kids drive off the lot, i had this sick feeling like I just I think we're at the very, very tip of a very challenging iceberg. It's coming that we don't going to know how, because in my mind I'm like trying to do two weeks of math. There's not a case in Missouri, yet We take off two weeks. There's no cases. It's going to take like this wasn't, we weren't going to come back. That's the way I felt.
Speaker 1:If you were truly looking at you know how viruses work and everything and get on the doctor, but talk about and I'll say this, i felt for you and other superintendents because of all the different demands you were having placed on you and no clear answers to that path. You how did you say that There was no good decision? There was just a decision, something to that Like it just taking the information that you had in front of you, knowing that the best thing we had to do was try to get the kids back in some way, shape or form, but also knowing the guidelines and the rules and the concerns associated with that virus. That's a challenging time. I mean that I remember thinking in terms of that bucket analogy when we got to early August, i looked around the room and we were still trying to figure things out. This has been August of 2020 going. Everybody's buckets is completely tipping over right now And that was just the start of a really challenging two years really with it.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, the 17th was a dark day for me as a superintendent. The kids went home in March of 2019 because we were in meetings the day before with the Jefferson County Superintendents and health department and the county executor and all of the parties involved with Jefferson County, and I'll never forget this. And you know, there's a lot of really, really bright people in the room and talking about everything that was going on And I was listening and taking it all in and they were talking about the virus and what was going to happen and how it was going to continue to spread and everything that was going with it. And I was listening to everything And I don't take credit for much, but I remember a statement that I made in that room about three quarters of the way through the meeting. They were talking about closing schools and everything that was going with it, and I made a statement at that time. I said, ladies and gentlemen, closing the school is not going to be the issue That's.
Speaker 2:I remember you saying. The issue is going to be figuring out how to get us back in school, either at the end of this year, at some point or next year, and I wish I was not right with that. That is one statement that I will take full responsibility for that was correct in the fact that it was the most gut wrenching, meat grinding experience of my 21 years of being a superintendent of schools and being the central office. Because, you're right, there were no right answers, there was just the answers that you had for the situation that was in front of you at the point in time of which you were dealing with it. That graduation that year. You know we planned five graduations that year before we got to that graduation ceremony.
Speaker 1:What you mean is that we had sent five, four, we sent five in all five were approved and for them turn around like a week later, said no, with the new guidelines you can't do that Right.
Speaker 2:So we would, we would try to do what we needed to do submit with the guidelines that we had, send it in, get it approved, and then new guidance would come out and then we would have to start over. And so we didn't get to graduation that year. Until when was that? I mean, it was July, july, okay, july, and so, and that was the origin of the outdoor graduation, and you know, i'll never forget how you know, as exciting as graduation was for the Jefferson R7 School District from 2013 to that point.
Speaker 2:That one was the probably the saddest experience in the fact that I knew what our graduation experiences were. And then I had to watch what we had to do in order to get a graduation. We created pods on the field, you know. I remember. You know we had a student that brought the diploma up and you know we allowed the students family to bring a member up to present the diploma to them, just because we were trying to contain the experience of hands shaking and germ exchange and everything that went with that.
Speaker 1:We went up and measured the bleachers and it was like we can only get like maybe four people per family if they're making us go by the math here of what's on the bleachers.
Speaker 1:So we came up with this concept to actually put the graduation speakers on the bleachers have a stage down below where they would pick it. And then that morning we got up and that was a beast of a day. It was awful, But it was probably like 83 degrees of like 530 in the morning. I might be over exact, but it was you are.
Speaker 1:We were. we brought all the custodians and maintenance and set that thing up, measured it out, I think we had like, so they got to bring seven plus one. I just remember getting to the end of that And just having again. I thought the kids in the families did a great job, that I just kind of felt empty for the whole situation.
Speaker 2:Mike it I felt empty in the fact that we put ourselves in a very, very great situation to get the graduation done. I felt like I wanted to acknowledge the success of those students and, because of the way in which things had to be, we were not able for that interactive engagement like we have always had when it came to graduation. And that was kind of the microcosm. That was a snapshot of what COVID was to our district in the way that it worked out Coming back with the A and B and you know the kids were here two days and class size arrangements and minimum distances and trying to make sure that we gave the kids a chance to be here. Fortunately we had the one to one technology, so we were able to continue to engage. Our staff did a really great job of finishing from the 17th of March 19 to the end of the year and then trying to get to graduation the 27th.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's look at an administrative timeline from our standpoint. It's July the 25th. We should have been already a month into preparing for the boat to depart for the next school year And we were still working with the county trying to celebrate the biggest event of our school year for those seniors, and so I remember that night it was 100 degrees when we were there at the stage and doing the graduation. We got done, everything was taken care of. We celebrated, fireworks display, everyone beautiful night on the field. It worked out. The kids had a great graduation experience and then thinking okay, we start school in 18 days. And not only that, we had to have a return to school plan. We had to have a multiple meetings with the board of education, coming up with a plan not a plan threshold levels, everything that was going on. And by then, at this point, the political portion of COVID had taken off.
Speaker 1:It wasn't as bad, and I'll get to. I remember the year after the summer 21,. we had some attorneys in to do their annual school training. We hosted it that year And I asked a question. I said we got a break last year because I think people were just happy to get their kids in. When you start looking at the whole scope of what was going on in the country, i said we're not going to get that break this year, and I remember their look on their face. They said you know, we haven't thought of that yet, and I think that played out to be very accurate.
Speaker 1:I do want to go back to two things on the 2020 year, though. The one neat thing about the graduation deal we had some parents that wanted to do the and I thought was a great idea to go to take a parade to each We. Actually, i came to Mr Johnson. I said what if we flipped it and just had our graduate stand? and that ended up being a really everybody been cooped up so long. I forget how many hundreds of cars we counted that night and seeing people come through. So we did provide that form. So there were some neat moments that I don't want to say it was all bad. There were some neat And the art signs you remember the art signs originated out of that That we're still doing.
Speaker 2:And, and you know, I drive around now this year and I saw graduate yard signs around the district And you, you know you came back with that idea and said, hey, we need to get these signs, We want to put these signs in front of the kids because even though we're a small community, they may not know every kid's name. We want the kids. So we did that And that was a big deal And so there was some good that came out of that, with the parade and the kids celebrating it, And again our community stepped up because that experience that night when we did the parade drive through.
Speaker 2:there were tons of people that did that, Kids that were graduating that just drove through and was hitting the horn and waving at him.
Speaker 2:Just hey, great job, we're proud of you And that was, that was you and I. Again we're standing up on the hill in order homecoming location, you know, watching it and seeing it all happen And it just that was an unfortunate time, man, and you're right, the first year we got through it with COVID, with the A and B, and. But when I say the political stuff was starting to take off, you were starting to see some of the things that were going through.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, it was the origins.
Speaker 2:The origins were starting. You were starting to see an encampment of mindsets And so we got through that first year of the year of returning And I'll never forget. You know. We thought, okay, we're back to school. We got through October. We got through the first semester, we got back to the second semester. Things were working spraying down rooms, wiping things down, custodians, exhausted teachers. You know sanitation, you know I. You know hand sanitizer was probably the word of the year.
Speaker 1:I remember talking to the teachers and said you got such, you are an extremely high paid NFL quarterback. You've got to develop a pocket in your room and don't leave it Right And because if you go down we don't, we can't go to school, right. And that was really when we talked about the A B days to kind of give insight to that meeting. I remember sitting next to Miss Bosler in a meeting and we were just kind of doing some math. I'm like you know, we've got to think at this differently, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:If you're a large school district would say, a thousand kids in your high school and your football team gets DQed because of the COVID, say 70 kids in your team, it's 7% of your building You can still move forward, but we have over 50, 55 kids in our high school team out of 300. Well, the math isn't there, like your whole building is basically, and there were times during the year it just felt like a ghost town in there. It was it's you know my passion for not for reducing suspensions, for looking at alternative ways, and it's almost like I think what became a taxing thing on me was just the idea that we were just casually placing kids on two week suspensions because of this. I think that's what really started to wear me out, because I know the importance of having kids at school. I think week three football that year probably did mean more of.
Speaker 2:I mean, there was a student in another school district that came in and played two plays at the end of the game And we're out, And our entire football team was out for 10 days And I was like this can't happen. You know, none of our kids became positive, None of them had any interaction. We had the video, we watched it, but yet we were putting a situation where we had no choice.
Speaker 1:It's no fault. It was a terrible time. It was no fault of anyone else.
Speaker 2:I mean, they had to follow the rules that they were given, and I think that's the thing that is the most frustrating. You know, we had rules, rules changed. We had new rules, rules changed. You know, part of the job is making the best decision that you can make when you know what the expectations are. But when things were changing as fast as they were changing, it was just a. it was just a.
Speaker 2:it was a very unfortunate period in my time as superintendent here because, you're right, i felt like students were putting situations at no fault of their own, where they were pulled away and they were like I didn't do anything wrong, right? And yet I can't be at school. and I want to be at school because what's happening in school has given me a chance to be successful. And so we got through that next year. and boy, we thought okay, we're through year two, a year and a half, we're going to come back for the next year And it surely can't be as bad as the year before. and boy, oh boy, it was tough.
Speaker 2:And and you know, listen, you know, as a superintendent, i get it. you know I live in a world where I know that you know, there's going to always be people with alternative opinions and their opinions won't match my opinions. And you know we had a lot of board meetings where there were a lot of upset people that just saw it differently And I never expressed my personal feelings of what I wanted to do one way or the other. To this day, people have no idea how I feel about COVID. That wasn't my role. I had to be apolitical. I could not be one side of the other than it was exhausting.
Speaker 1:It was exhausting. It was exhausting.
Speaker 2:But my job wasn't to side with who's right and who's wrong, whether it was the right side or the left side, or what we should do or what we shouldn't do. Mask, no mask, you know, there was just so much going on in year two.
Speaker 1:Well, and it really became our theme in our meetings was what can we do to keep the kids in school? And then, when we had those opportunities to provide those events for the kids, to give them some sense of normalcy, we had to pray to one year, like at 7.30 on a Saturday morning, just just as the best we could do. It wasn't ideal, but it was the best we could do And we put a 10 outside of the high school.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 2:We rented that 10 for the whole for the homecoming dance And the thing was as the kids said. You know, and I'll never forget this, i had a meeting with you and our leadership team at the high school And I remember, as we were coming back in year two and we were talking to our students and it's funny, i listened to the adults a lot. You know my job is I have to listen to the community, but I learned more from listening to our students and any other group that I engage with And you would say the same thing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Our students know what's going on and they're bright young men and women. We sat down with them and our students said Mr Johnson, we don't care what we have to do. If we got to wear a mask to get back to school, get mask, we'll wear them. Just get us to school. Just get us back in school. Not a b days not half of us here, not half of us there Get us back to school, let us have school. And I'll never forget we're in year three and we had kids that were freshmen sophomores going to be junior high schools, that had not experienced any high school events, right. So dances no. Homecomings, no. I mean we had kindergartners that did not know how to use the water fountain, right.
Speaker 1:We had to have water fountain training.
Speaker 2:Crazy. And we had to have water bottles, folks, i remember we had, we had we put in the the flows for the water because we didn't want to use water water bottle fillers.
Speaker 2:And I go over to Platten and Mrs Bouser calls me and says Mr Johnson, we've got a problem. And I said what's the issue? And she said well, our kids don't know how to fill the bottles in there, sticking their heads underneath the bottle fillers trying to get a drink. And then, as funny as that is, folks, it's crazy as it sounds you learn through the process of being exposed And we had kids that did not know the basic fundamentals of the things that was going on And we lost two and a half years of what I call face-to-face engagement with phenomenal teachers working with great kids. That really has pushed our kids back And and it has impacted our students to this day. I think it's had an impact on some of them Absolutely.
Speaker 1:There's no way you could avoid it. I think one of the things we did right though. I remember sitting there that Sunday night it was the 15th of March And we came to get on a Sunday night going hey, this is unprecedented at what we're about ready to do here potentially. And I remember sitting there with the principals and our kind of our immediate administrative team and the theme came out that if we have to go out, we have to. We may have to adjust the way we look at some of our grading, but we need the kids need to finish the year as best we can and do the very best we can, because I think once you drop that standard and say it doesn't count, that's a mentality And I think even with that, it's been difficult to get people performing at that high level again across the board because some bad habit like I go back to the bad habits were formed And we're still trying to recover from it.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think I want to commend our teachers and all of our staff, and again Wayne Donjohn with the Technology Department, zoom meetings, the invention of Zoom, the invention of Google Hangouts. You know I'd sit in, i'd stop by a Google Hangout with kindergarten teachers and all the kindergarten teachers and they're doing their number counting. You know they're doing all the things that they were doing with the teacher remotely And I was like holy cow. This one to one thing is so much more important than we ever realized, because the face to face engagement wasn't what it needed to be, but there was still an engagement that gave those kids feedback that helped them overcome those situations. Now, the other side of that was we had kids that were living out here that didn't have Wi-Fi Right.
Speaker 2:We had kids. That you know. I mean, we were struggling. We had kids. That was driving up to our parking lots. We were opening up you know, putting you know stuff on our buses. We parked buses out strategically so people could come, if they needed to, to hit it as a hotspot Man. We were just. I remember We were on fire and just flying in a thousand directions.
Speaker 1:I remember that Thursday before because I was like they just sent the MBA home. That's a big deal. Yeah, this thing could be real. So we actually sent a survey out. In the event, we are out for a period of time, do you have Wi-Fi access? So we had already started to do that legwork on Thursday before Sunday to get ready for who knows what was going to happen.
Speaker 2:And the magnitude of the decisions that we were making, at the speed in which we were forced to make them.
Speaker 1:You couldn't think it all the way through.
Speaker 2:I mean people were and listen, that's what we get paid for, that's what my job was. I learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes. I'll own every one of them because of the fact that you know I always tell people this job is the job everybody wants on the 15th and the 30th of the month. The other 28 days that was going on with those months with COVID was no fun And we were running as fast as we could go.
Speaker 2:We were having meetings every day and trying to have meetings spread out six foot distances, cubicles, everybody in masks, wiping everything down, coming up with the plan to return to school. And you know, in the end we did the best we could with the information that we could in our hands And to this day I'm proud of the accomplishments that we were able, because people said, you know, it's not just to survive, you want to thrive in the middle of chaos, if you can. We were trying to thrive in a survivable moment And in a lot of situations I still feel like we were able to succeed, but we had to change the way that we looked at what we were doing in order to come up with the best way instead of the what I would call Blue Jay way of doing what we did.
Speaker 1:I'm done talking about COVID. Thank you for your tolerance.
Speaker 2:If you're watching this and know that, you can probably see our body language. We're glad that we're on this side of it, compared to where we were in 2019.
Speaker 1:So, changing subjects again, one of the things I've enjoyed this year's part of the transition is coming in with a bunch of questions and just picking your brain, and I know that at one point I had. I came in, i said, all right, if, if I were you me being you right now, knowing everything you've known about the resources we have in this district, specifically from a physical standpoint, talking about the age of Platon, talking about the traffic issues we have in the morning, what would you do if and I'm not, i didn't say don't you know, don't worry about the money, just what? what would you do?
Speaker 2:Let her up. Well, the first thing was is that you know we were. We were prepared a year ago to consider a bond issue that we were going to bring forth in this April to to the public, which was going to be about $10 million to address the safety issues of egress and incoming traffic to our school. So we all know that Platon is was built back in the 50s and and has some things with it.
Speaker 2:But from my standpoint, safety of traffic through our campuses is a big issue And, quite honestly, 61 dueling hollow interchange, with three schools dumping on to dueling hollow the way that they do, creates too many left and right turns in a congested, tight area for us to successfully navigate everything that was going on And the need for the fact that it's 61 in the morning and in the afternoon we have an exorbitant amount of traffic that is coming into that turn area both north and south on 61 for about a 30 minute period and then it goes to nothing. So you know we had been working with the Missouri Department of Transportation, we had been working with Jefferson County, we had done surveying down there, we had looked at everything and there's certain criteria that have to be met for stoplight down there for the state and the county to put a cost share match into it And it doesn't meet those standards or 13 standards, and we only met one of those kind of understandable.
Speaker 1:Like you know, i live kind of south of the county there and driving up 61. You know you come up here anytime during the day and there's really no it's those, it's those moments between about 705 to about 730, 35. And then at the end of the day, even isn't completely because you don't have all that morning traffic at that time, but you're also you have a state highway where people are zipping down. I guess years ago the change to 45. It was a big deal and I was going to go to that.
Speaker 2:You know we were successful of getting the change man. I caught hack for this too. I mean, there was a lot of people that weren't happy because they moved the 55 speed limit to 45 from the J pad ambulance shed all the way down to the golf course areas where you entered the golf course And I worked with Mo Dodd and Jefferson County to get that reduced, just because we had so many people at 55 speed limit that were running 65 and 70 through here. And you know it was like what are we doing? you know, i mean, and we had multiple accidents and it was just, it was a challenge.
Speaker 2:So you know, you and I spent a lot of time talking about the roads and so in April we were talking about we're going to run the bond issue for this year for 10 million and the objective was the second entrance to the high school, a travel corridor paralleling road behind Danby that would go behind, attached to Blue Jay Way, go up to the high school and and really have three inbound and outgoing roadways from the campus. And, unbeknownst to us, the Fed started to adjust the interest rates And we started talking about the context of recession and inflation and cost and everything coming out of COVID and all the things that families were dealing with and, in good conscience, as a superintendent, i could not recommend to the board of education that we take on $10 million more debt in our school district the taxation standpoint in April of this year not everything that we were dealing with And so we took a step back, and I'm glad we did, because the economy has been very challenging.
Speaker 2:It's had an impact on families And we know that we still have the same problems that we have. but we did not want to put a burden on our community members and our taxpayers for that process And also during that period of time we had one of our largest taxpayers, which is down the road with the power plant. that came forward Uncertainty, uncertainty that said we don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:And they're a major taxpayer.
Speaker 2:So if we're going to tell somebody we're going to do a no tax rate proposal in which we're not going to be looking, we're going to extend the amount of tax because we're adding years to the payments rather than adding to a tax rate, and then turn around because if something would have happened down there, with the uncertainty of that leading to the fact of us telling them that we were going to have it and then have to raise the taxes because of something that was beyond our control, that would have burned a lot of collateral that I feel that we have gained over the 13 years that we've been working together from a financial standpoint of our taxpayers, trusting the board and the administration to use the resources provided effectively. So we chose not to do it. Now, all of that in mind, with you coming in as a superintendent, the egress at Danby and Dooling Hollow to 61 is a problem. It is a major issue. Our community knows that If we went out today and said we're going to run an issue for safety to put a new entrance into the high school and put a stoplight which we would have to pay for at Danby, at Dooling Hollow and 61. And I have no doubt people would support that in our school district, because everyone whether you have kids in our school or you're going to work or you're coming from work knows what that's like in the morning to pop the hill down before you get to the golf course turnoff and cars are lined up all the way. And then you're coming 61 South and you're popping the hill up at the cut a quarter of a mile into 61 South and you're running into stage traffic. So that is something that we know, that our community is fully aware of.
Speaker 2:Now other things that go with that, other pieces of that, things that you are going to be working with going forward, the use of the land that the district has in the district. What do we do with Platten? What does that look like? One of the things you and I have spent a lot of time talking about is that leadership is not looking at next year. We have to prepare for next year. Leadership is looking at five years out, 10 years out, 20 years out, 30 years out, And I think that you and I have had a lot of discussions with the Board of Education and I commend you with the work you're doing with the CSEP development and the facility's discussion about looking at where do we need to be five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, because this school district is still going to be here.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of neat Some of the pictures we have in our offices when we look back and there's the four buildings that were in this district And then you come together into the Platten building in the 50s And then the district has always been moving forward. I think you just have to make sure that you're transparent at every possible level And I think that was a big deal with pulling the bond issue off the table is to say we'd like to do this stuff but we would not be acting in good faith, given the uncertainty of the local finances And how dependent we are on those. And then things have changed And there's some potential out there And I think what you're going to see going forward is a lot of the work that's kind of been laid out there some surveys around the district of what soils are out there, where we could go to do some site planning, and then also how the roads function. Here is start engaging our community in those discussions Because, be honest, mr Johnson, you say it a lot, we're not the smartest people in the room, but if we can get some other people to give us those ideas or we can start pulling them together, not only are you saving money, you're creating better opportunities.
Speaker 1:I think the high school PAC was the perfect example. To be able to tie that into those existing bathrooms at the gym and to run that lobby out was a huge cost savings to that whole facility. And you talk about the maximum use of dollars And that took a lot of people sitting around a table looking at every option, every option.
Speaker 2:Well, i'm going to miss this part. This is the part as a superintendent, i'm going to miss the most is the construction finance side of it, because our school district is on the front end of what I'm going to say is going to be an explosion of growth in the next decade to two decades, there's no doubt, and here's why We know that James Hardy is coming And they're going to be on the north end of the district. We know that the I-55 six lane expansion from Peevely to 67 is going to be coming And then that's going to turn even further, a little bit further down 67 to the top of the hill at CC. So when that happens, it's going to give more opportunity for home building and development in the southern end of the county to continue to go, and so I know that. As I look forward, i see that And I want to paraphrase one of the guys that was a he's a giant who we stand on his shoulders in our district. He was a former board member that in the EveryKidCounts in 2015, spoke on the video. His name was Bill Nosh And Mr Nosh was just a remarkably great human being on so many levels And he, and Gerald Dean, was responsible for taking care of the Platinum School down here at AA. But he said in a video for us one day when we were talking about the EveryKidCounts and I'll apply to where we're at going forward for the next decade He said you're either moving forward or you're going backwards.
Speaker 2:And the reason why is because if you're not moving forward, you're standing still And other people are moving past you And I sat there and I listened to that And I thought what a visionary comment for him to make on this video. And he was one of those people that just was so embedded into Jefferson R7. He lived it, he had the property out here, the notion property. He and Gerald Dean were just great people. But it still applies And he was on the board in the 70s If you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards, and so when you look at what's going on in the district and moving forward, we have to keep moving forward. We have to plan to be successful. Benjamin Franklin said it best. He said you either plan to be successful or, in the absence of planning, you will plan to fail. And that's where it's at. You have to come up with a plan to be where you need to be and get ahead of it And part of that planning too, is not just the physical sense, it's the, i think, jefferson.
Speaker 1:we go back to the original comment about why Jefferson has got such a unique culture here. If you're planning, if you have another set of houses, come in. that bumps your population. you're still trying to keep your culture moving forward. It's been established here And that's one of the great things about Jefferson. It's not we have wonderful facilities here, but at the end of the day, culture's what drives the place.
Speaker 2:Well planning is proactive Population explosion is reactive.
Speaker 2:And we as a district me being a taxpayer in the district, a homeowner in the district, you being a taxpayer, Stevie being a homeowner district we need to make sure that we are working to be proactive in our planning, because you never want to be in a situation where you're reacting to population explosions, because when you get to that point, it will become extremely volatile. It will become a max-bin narrative of which there will be people that will want to do it the way it's always been. There will be people that are moving in, that want to do it the way that they did it from where they were coming from, and then it becomes very confrontational. So I think it's important what you're doing with the CSEP and the facilities planning and what the board's doing, and it's important for the community to be immersed and involved in these discussions about what we're doing with our land, when do we build a new building to replace Platten And what Platten would become if that happened. Because in the world of discussions, in my world and I've shared with you, you say well, what would you do if you were me? We have a couple things that we can do with Platten. I think that are pretty important And I will offer this as a suggestion, because these are discussions that Board member that the administrative offices could go there, the preschool could go there, and I would love to see the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department use that facility as their southern satellite location, from a safety standpoint of them being able to use that building, a portion of that building, for a satellite location for their and we've talked to the sheriff about those narratives and what could possibly be looked at.
Speaker 2:But in order for that to happen, you got to have a building built that needs to be built for four grades and it doesn't need to be built away from our campuses. It needs to be built on the land that we already own so that we're using the land, we're not having to add to it. The good thing is is we have land, there are land availabilities and you've got options that you're going to be talking about with what land options we have and what are the best options and what can we do in order to get there. But I see it as a narrative with the Board and you have not talked to where you would build a campus, another building that would accommodate four class sizes and then you would use Telegraph Dambi in the high school and you would have to modify the high school because the high school needs a cafeteria expansion. You and I know that.
Speaker 2:So you would expand the high school and then, as the high school came on, then you could add the classrooms to the end of the area where you have the science on the lower level or the history and English on the lower level and the upper levels were all the sciences. They would just come off the end of that and that would accommodate by putting another 12 classrooms in, because when the original idea was the lower level would be the shop area, but by putting the shop down with the PAC you don't have to do that. So now you got six classes below, six classrooms above. Now you've got a high school that would accommodate 700-800 kids.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you said everything you did, because that's all the notes I did take early in the area and say anything different. No surprises. No surprises is a good thing, right, a little nervous there. There you go. Two more Thanks for sticking with us here. if you've made it this far, you can't get to this point in your career. You and I both can't without mentors, and this goes beyond Jefferson R7. What are those mentors prior to R7? that meant a lot to you. I know the names, but I want you to kind of reflect on that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Well, i think growth in this profession, when you're by yourself, is about having people around you that will support you, and I've been very fortunate in the fact that I've had great administrators that have worked for me. I've had a great staff. I've had boards that were willing to work with me and give me a chance to be successful and support me, And I think the community as a whole has played a role in our success. But for me as an individual, i have to give shouts out to some people that are pretty important to me. Dr Cherry Adams hired me wow, 27 years ago as a young principal at a middle school at Arcadia Valley And he took a shot on me And I told him I remember the interview, i remember the question. I told him, i said I don't have all the answers, but I said I promise you I will work as hard as anyone has ever worked for you And to this day he still tells me that And he told me a lot and taught me a lot about becoming an administrator and showing up and working and the sacrifices that you have to make in order for you to ensure that you're building and then, at the district level, your districts are successful. He's still to this day. I can call him anytime and he's there and he takes that phone call and he played such a huge role.
Speaker 2:Dr Bob Buchanan, former superintendent at Syxton, taught me in my first finance class I'll never forget it EA 690. And he told me he said you got the potential to be a good one from his financial standpoint as a superintendency. He said you look at things from a financial standpoint and he gave me a lot of really good advice. Mr Doug Funk at South Iron was my superintendent there and he was just a remarkable person small school superintendent, wore a lot of hats and taught me a lot about wearing those hats and was there for me when I went to Bunker and gave me a lot of advice and gave me ideas and strategies to navigate how to deal with small school issues, because a lot of times small school issues are big issues in the eyes of the community but in the context of what's going on at the state level or federal level, at the big picture of education, they're not as big as what you might think they are. So you have to be cognizant of your climate and your culture and your community and what their mindset is And then you know, working with that, i want to go back to my sixth grade teacher, joe King, just taking a kid that really had a lot of problems and not a lot of focus and giving me the time and building that relationship.
Speaker 2:He's on my list of five. You know I always talk about making somebody's list of five. He created a time for me in a place that gave me a chance to learn what it meant to be an adult, as a sixth grade kid, a young adult, rather than just being an idiot. And you know I had a lot of energy. I still have a lot of energy.
Speaker 2:I had an anger management problem when I was in sixth grade and you know I was highly competitive and I didn't like losing and Mr King really slowed things down for me and really made it make sense. You know, dr Mike Johnson at Popper Bluff, superintendent of schools. He was my principal. I'm my superintendent at Kelly, giving me the opportunity to get into education and then you know, going forward from there. And then the last guy I want to talk about was my high school basketball coach, larry Morgan. You know the things that through this day. He was my coach. He became a principal.
Speaker 2:When I was a principal, then he was a superintendent. When I was a superintendent he was my peer. And yet you know, dr Adams and coach Morgan is still Dr Adams and coach Morgan I don't call them Terry and Larry, they are coach Morgan and Dr Adams because I have too much respect for them And I hope that anyone that sees this video, if they happen to come to it, knows that they played such a huge role in my world and I hope that anyone who's out there working in leadership right now are working to become young leaders. Bill Walsh coach Walsh from the 49ers wrote a book on coaching and he talked about your coaching tree and how we serve as a, as a trunk for those people that go up into the tree and being that solid root structure and trunk for those individuals to be successful.
Speaker 2:And it's really weird because now, 31 years in, i have a lot of young men and women who have worked for me who are principals and superintendents, and assistant superintendents and they call me, and so you pass that knowledge down, that craft knowledge, and you always make time for those people. You and I have had 17 months together.
Speaker 2:Now we've had 12 years together, sure A little different A little different in the last 17 months and what we've done, but that period has been about transitioning and building a plan and planning to be successful and you having input on that plan and working and, as I've told you, no matter where I'm at, god willing. You know, everybody knows that I've. You know I still have leukemia and I don't know what my world is in the next 10 years, 20 years. It's an unknown, but I'll always be there for those people because I know what it was like.
Speaker 2:I know what it was like to eat the ground and be thrust into a situation. I always tell the people, the superintendents, he's like getting a drink out of a fire hydrant you're going to get some water in your mouth but you're going to get a lot of it all over you and it's going to knock you off your feet. And it's true. I mean, you know that, you know what's coming and, and you know what, i'm most honored to the fact that you still want to do it. You know and, and you know I was scared to death of it my first year and 21 years later there's still days I'm scared to death of it.
Speaker 2:It's a respect and it's a healthy respect for a profession that is beyond the philosophical abilities of any individual.
Speaker 2:There's no one in the world that is capable of doing everything that needs to be done to be successful as a superintendent, but you have to break it down and breaking it down into small situations, using your mentors and being a mentee mentor. being a mentor, that's the one thing I'm going to do in retirement. I'm going to keep mentoring people. I'm going to keep working with those people because I know what it's like and I know that I think I still have a little bit to offer to help them as we go through it, just like those people that are retired still take my phone calls. So shout out to those mentor individuals and those people that have guided me, because there was a lot of need and a lot of guidance that they provided is very important to me.
Speaker 1:Last, question of the day, and this is a selfish one. You're like our favorite memory, you and me, and I'm going to share one, but I'm going to let you go first.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, why don't you share? first, because I have a million of them, but I will you go and then I'll know I don't want to share the same one I really think.
Speaker 1:for me it was the fall of 2017, in the opening of the PAC. You had the eclipse. You had just so many things going on at that time, such an energy in the district, but it was probably our greatest disagreement was whether we were in school that day.
Speaker 2:It was. So our greatest memory is also our greatest disagreement. David didn't want to come to school. that day I felt like we needed to be in school from the safety of the kids, because they were projecting there was going to be 100,000 people in our area that was coming in because we were at the absolute perfect location for the maximum blackout. So I'll leave it there and I'll go back.
Speaker 1:So we had kind of gone back and forth all summer and getting all these planes together and then really kind of boiled down to the timing of it. You're putting kids on buses while it's still going on. It was going to be a big issue. So we ended up taking the day off. But what we did was is we spun it around that Friday before and in like March or February earlier, we had bought, like every kid, those glasses which I may or may not have used in a picture. I forgot to pull that picture out of my favorite pictures. I'll get to that in a second. So we decided that in order to kind of initiate the PAC, we're going to do this presentation. He's going to do the old school eclipse. We had the thing hanging from the stage. Then I kind of did the do when we dropped the thing and we did a presentation, like a computer generated what was going to look like and everything just had a great time with it.
Speaker 1:I think what people don't understand about this business is we have a very professional I think healthy professional relationship, but we don't we don't socialize outside of this. This is one of those exceptions You enjoy came over, my wife's family was up and we just had a great time. But I just really enjoyed when everybody else had gone inside. Towards the end There probably wasn't you know that much left and the eclip I'm sorry I'm sticking my hand too far out It was just kind of closing up. I had my camera out there but just the just us sitting there talking about just different things. That's my favorite memory because that, but then everything that happened around that was just a really special time. If I had to put it into one, that's it. And real quick, there's a picture my wife got of us And keep in mind I'm taking pictures of this eclipse.
Speaker 1:Clint's sitting there looking at the eclipse like this with his glasses on. I'm looking up at it with no glasses, but I am trying to adjust the telescope at this point. But Joyce in the background looking at it has the biggest smile, like David's an idiot. Because he's not. He's staring at the sun. I've been told there's any damage. It's like 40 years out, so I'm not worried about it.
Speaker 2:Well, i hope I make it 40 years out, but that that was a fun one. You know and and Dr Hauke shared with you that you know one of the things that, being a superintendent, you're on call all the time, and I've always told everyone and I say this tongue in cheek, but it's true When you're a superintendent, Jefferson.
Speaker 2:R7, it's kind of like Mayberry And you have you're the Andy Griffith, you know you're Andy, and so you have all of the pieces of of. You know Mayberry 101, from Barney to Otis to Gomer and Goober and Floyd, and you know Mrs Johnson or Pickle program, and so there's a lot of times that you don't get to interact. You interact with people all the time but, you said earlier, i've always kind of pulled myself away from those situations because people need to be able to have their, their lives and not, you know, superintendent, walk up and you know your people. People are like Oh, there's, should I be this, should I be doing that? It's not my place, you know, and so you have to distance. But you know that day was a special day. I'm not going to tell you that. That's one of my favorite memories as well, because of the fact that you know we were able to just separate our obligations of our lives and enjoy it from a standpoint of everything. I would tell you.
Speaker 2:Another special memory for me that you don't even realize is the role that you played with my son when he came here his senior year and and being his principal and, and knowing that he was coming from an environment in a school district.
Speaker 2:He chose to come here a senior year and everybody you know was excited because he was going to be playing ball and basketball. And he was going to be playing, you know, baseball and you had played football in high school and you and I talked about it and Ryan wanted to play football and Ryan was a senior and I told him my son, i just don't think you should do this. At that time He was going to play college sports for baseball and basketball. Really want to be a baseball guy and you you gave me some real good advice about you know, being a non football guy, being put in a situation. He could find himself in a situation where he could get hurt and impact. As it turns out, he goes to you know school on an academic scholarship and doesn't even play sports in college. I wish I would have let him play you know. It turned out he didn't.
Speaker 2:So, being one of those parents that let your kids play every sport. I'm glad that's your best memory. You know you shared with that.
Speaker 2:But you know the way you helped me as a dad was important. Yeah, because you know I wasn't the superintendent then I was a father and you know, and you know it, there was a lot going on. You know there was. He was successful and you know he had a thousand points and he one point had the most points you know in a single game. You know, and done some things in his time here, he was pretty successful, but it was frustrating because he was always Ryan Johnson's son of superintendent of schools And the point was is that, and what you don't know is that Dr Haug is the son of a phenomenally talented and statewide recognition, recognized Hall of Fame football coach And David had gone through that and David lived that world And so David really shared a lot of those experiences with Ryan and me to help us work through that year And that was pretty important.
Speaker 2:So that was on a personal level. That was a very important memory to me because I got to share that year with my son and it was a. It was a lot of fun to be in that And I've never shared that with you, you know. So you asked me to think about this question. This was a question that I spent a lot of time on a personal.
Speaker 2:Now on a professional level, i don't have one because there's a million Eliminating ISS at the high school. my thoughts when you came in to say you want to do that, thinking there's no way that you can't do it, And we did it.
Speaker 1:I get you. I can buy a teaching position. You won't spend a dime. You're like now I'm listening, I'm listening.
Speaker 2:You know, the first graduation you're rolling, that was epic, and I've used that word, you know, because it's a big word, and the role that you played as the athletic director and then being willing to stay with me through the 12 years And some challenges. Oh yeah, there were some challenges, but I think that the greatest member of our professional relationship that I'll take away is that we didn't always agree. Yeah, and I think that I've always said you, as a superintendent, are never the smartest person in every room or every conversation. You have to trust the people who work for you And you have to. You have to see things in them that they don't see in themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's the eclipse thing. Like, at the end of it, it was just you and I and we were able to just talk about the. I think that when we had those disagreements, at the end of it we were able to just talk about things. You know, it may not always been and it wasn't. it's not like it's every day and there's a huge. it's just I don't know about this And I'm not sure if this is going to work, but that's what you have to do to get get things moving forward is try to vet everything through Well and you go back to where you came in as a as the athletic director and what you.
Speaker 2:You know where you were coming from and some of the challenges you know. I will tell you. If it wasn't one, it has to be one. A is when I got all the stuff stuck in the tree when we were moving at your house And I still have that book that your wife well, i, you know, i don't know. You know if we should or we shouldn't.
Speaker 2:Short version of it is that you know the kids in our outside plane and we don't even have Eli they throw Frisbee up on the tree, frisbee gets stuck in the tree and Mr Johnson is going to try to get the stuff out and I'm just taking whatever is available, as we're loading stuff on the truck and throwing it to try to get the Frisbee out of the tree And before you know it, we've got about 20 things stuck up in the tree Little scrawny tree.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 2:I mean it wasn't a big tree at all And and and Mrs Howe comes out and looks at the tree and looks at me and looks at David, is like, what are we doing out here?
Speaker 1:I mean what is?
Speaker 2:going on.
Speaker 1:So that absolute tears at that point, And we David's laughing.
Speaker 2:I'm embarrassed, you know. Natalie's having a blast, she's laughing, we're having a big old time and Sherry's a little bit concerned about what in the world have I gotten myself into with this guy as a superintendent who's hired my husband to work for him and he's throwing everything up in the tree. So that was a pretty good memory. But you know, when you, when you think about all the things that we've done together, going from that and then watching you know Natalie grow and Kate grow and then Eli being born and the challenges of that situation and and you know the health is scared that we went through, and then to see him now with his talent and all the thing that he does, and Ryan and Kayla where they were when I got here, and there's been a lot of successes on a personal level that we've seen in each other. But you know I'll be honest with you, i've been blessed because I've had those same relationships with all of my staff, whether it's watching Alex and his family or Tina watching her three kids and what they've done. And you know Delana, you know Ross when he was here, you know all the teachers that were here and their children and see their children graduating from their school or their graduating from other schools, and then they come in and we hire them as teachers. Or they come back, or they become doctors, or they become pharmacists or they become you know counselors or bankers, lawyers. It's been a blessing.
Speaker 2:You know, 13 years has gone by really fast and I've been here long enough that I've seen a lot of my kids kids now in school and you don't. The average superintendency in the world right now is about 3.2 years. It's the length of it. So to be here for 13 years, with some challenges and with some adversity, and to overcome that and it made me a better person has allowed me to be the luckiest man in the world and I'm blessed to have worked with you. I can't wait to see your success as a superintendent. The board has made a great choice and you know the chapters that you're going to write. Going forward is going to be interesting because you know somewhere down the road there's going to be a podcast with the next guy or lady that's sitting here with you talking about it, and I hope that you can share so many of the things, because this is always about the district. Yes, i agree, it's never been about me and it doesn't make any difference if you go back to you.
Speaker 2:Know, mr Dunbar or Terry Scander Red or Mike Parnell or Tom Gensler, wayne Brower, myself all of those individuals played a role in the advancement of the district to get to where we are today. and now it's my obligation to turn the baton and the keys over to you and know that you know our students are still going to be successful and, as it says on my shirt, we're a school district with a proud pass and I think we have a bright future Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us. Look for some future ones, and I certainly thank Mr Johnson for joining us today and Stevie, if you're behind the scenes getting this ready. Thank you, and have a great day.
Speaker 2:Closing note if you've taken the time to watch this whole thing, God bless you, because this has been a long podcast.
Speaker 1:I hope that you've laughed a little bit and I hope you tell us right now, before we close it, how long is it.
Speaker 2:Two hours and 17 minutes. Two hours and 17 minutes, so we've covered a lot of time here. Folks, hey, take a break. Maybe get yourself a beverage and go out and put some stuff on the grill and hang out, and, if you do, give me a call and I'll come over and we'll have dinner and catch up on any of the things that we've left out, if you have questions. Oh my gosh, god bless all of you in the Blue Jay Nation. Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of it. Thank you.