David Haug: 0:05

I'm David Haug, Superintendent of Jefferson R-7. I'm joined by Mr. Alex Rouggly, High School Principal. We wanted to take just a couple minutes really compliment a lot of people in our district, our families, the staff of really partnering in a great process here. I know, going back to the start of the high school, back to Mr. Ruark years ago. I was blessed enough to be in that position for many years. You stepped in. We wanted to make the high school. Back to Mr. Ruark years ago. I was blessed enough to be in that position for many years.

David Haug: 0:27

You stepped in as we wanted to make the high school experience. You know we want it to be culturally great, but we also kind of a thought is that every student not every student can be the homecoming queen, but every student can take advantage of the programs we have to offer. And we spent a lot of time early on trying to match what was meaningful to our families to what we do at the school. And so I think it's important to involve yourself in the student-led conference process in the career planning, because, as I keep going down this path of looking back and I'm able to look at it from a different lens now and kind of somewhat as a parent too, about how happy I am to have my child either take certain things or look at the impact that I've seen other families have had by things we've had to offer. And that is really dialing into their last two years of school to make sure they can maximize what we have. And that's why I think, as a parent and a student, really pay attention to what we have and that's why I think, as a parent and a student, really pay attention to what we have to offer and try to take advantage of it.

David Haug: 1:28

Okay, and I'm going to give an example here ACT yes, we want to do great on the state standardized testing, but state standardized testing is difficult because those tests change like seems like every three years. I know it's probably more, like four or five, but they've changed multiple times in my almost 25 years of education. But the ACT has always been constant, plus the ACT. You see it all the time. What can it do for a kid, for scholarships?

Alex Rouggly: 1:56

Oh, it can be a huge, huge deal for a student with scholarships and the amount of different monies that they can earn towards a college scholarship and their degree and just the different phases and parts of the ACT that, based off of sub scores and things like that, they can help out with with monies that go towards the scholarship at the next level.

David Haug: 2:17

One of the things we've talked about. We don't really share this openly. We do a lot of internal review to make sure our kids are where they're at. But we did a huge study in 2017 of small schools with enrollments probably small schools in Missouri of 220 to 380, to see where Jefferson was performing the ACT and year after year there were four schools that kept popping up and these other four schools do great things and we hold them in the highest regard.

David Haug: 2:45

But you look at like in St Louis, you've got Maplewood, Brentwood and Valley Park and between the four of us we're all like right there with those test scores. In fact, I'd put up us against anybody in the state of Missouri. Well, the data would say it Okay, and that's not an accident. Where I take a lot of pride is, you know, we don't have those financial resources that some of those St. Louis schools have. Where they have, you know, multiple, you know more counselors, more teachers. For those smaller kids, their class sizes are generally a little bit smaller than ours just because of the nature of the school finance part of it. But our staff had committed a long time ago to really embed the ACT prep and try to be experts in the field with reliance on certain things, and I know last year you guys did a big sort of you know reinvestment in that.

Alex Rouggly: 3:27

Yes, yeah, we had a company through ACT actually it was called the AIM program and they were able to meet with our English department, science department, math department and we took time for that professional development opportunity for our staff members to dive into the ACT and take just little bits and pieces of what they learned from that professional development opportunity and implement it in their classroom. And it's like I told them, if you find one little detail that helps us out, helps our students out from ACT prep standpoint, it was a win and it was a win for our staff members and, again, like I said, our ELA teachers, math teachers and also our science department as well. And you could kind of see it a little bit, you know, with the end results within those different content areas of the actual ATCT test. You know from a class of 2025 standpoint and we're hoping for years to come.

David Haug: 4:25

We also saw a little bit of a carryover into our state testing as well, you know, creating those habits, and we also took the philosophy years ago that at some point to get certifications in this world you're going to have to take a test. So if we can prepare our students early, at least test-taking strategies, it may not be the ACT, it may not be the EOC, but if they're developing those skills when time is on the line and money's on the line to get a certification, whether it's into, you know, automotive, whether it's to be pass an LSAT, whatever it is in your life that you've had a lot of prep for that. So that's why we wanted to make that look really meaningful for our staff. I'm gonna close the ACT discussion but I'm gonna bring up this.

David Haug: 5:01

I found it pretty cool years ago and we brought in our groups to train our staff. There's's several different ways to approach ACT Prep Find a program, put the kid in it, let them work independently. Or if you train your staff, then you kind of have different types of experts in your building and always have the students talk to their teachers. You know, some of the simple things can boost your scores pretty quick by our staff helping them right away, but I always felt like our staff really enjoyed it on some level and I think it almost made them better teachers as well, or at least gave them a different confidence. Did you sense that?

Alex Rouggly: 5:32

Yes, I absolutely did.

Alex Rouggly: 5:34

And just by follow-up with our staff post the AIM professional development opportunities that they had, I was able to follow up with our staff members and we just talked about some of the things that they were able to learn and gain from the process and they were pretty excited to utilize some of the techniques that they had learned and information, valuable information, that they learned from that professional development opportunity.

Alex Rouggly: 5:58

And again it all goes back to they're excited to do what's right by kids right and that's why we're in this business and for them to be excited to just again maybe gain one thing, maybe gain a lot of things, because we had some younger teachers in that professional development opportunity with AIM.

Alex Rouggly: 6:15

They took a lot from it. And you know one thing also and I hope I'm able to do this in this podcast but we brought in a couple of our English teachers Nicole Boyer, two summers ago to just talk with them and talk about and she was a very valued member of our high school staff, very well respected, and we brought her in just to go over some things that she did in the classroom and I know that our ELA department was able to gain a lot of knowledge and confidence in what they pushed forward with their students in the 24-25 school last school year and those little things are just so important and ultimately, if our students are able to gain that, that information that they've gained, and put that forward and put that through with with what they're doing and later on in life whether taking a test or or a job skill or something like that it was a win for everybody.

David Haug: 7:08

Absolutely, and I think it's more than just bringing them in and people telling our staff what to do. They really owned it and I'm sure we had some staff that were still part of the original group. They had already trained our group. So there's now multiple layers of looking at it that way and we want to keep sustaining that. So I did want to also bring up the whole college credit concept. That wasn't the first graduating class. I think there were five college credits available and immediately the next year Mr. Johnston, Mrs. Richardson and myself went over and met with Jefferson College. We were the first in Jefferson County to put the third, third, third program in. You really need to look at that.

David Haug: 7:46

As a parent, I understand that maybe some universities maybe won't accept all that credit. A lot of it in our public universities are. Our Missouri Legislature has done a good job for helping protect those libraries to help transfer work. But I think first and foremost we always looked at it, even if you couldn't use it in college. It was our way to small school to keep challenging our kids. You know, students that have a 27 or higher in ACT effectively don't have to pay for any college credit.

David Haug: 8:10

I've always been blown away at the number of kids that go across the stage and I've always mixed about them having a two-year degree. But over time, what I've noticed our kids are doing and this, I think, is apparent, what you really need to hear. I was actually talking to my daughter about this the other day. I spent four because I transferred for football. I spent four and a half years in college, came out with a specific degree to do a specific thing, whereas our kids are now looking at getting their undergrad done earlier. So think about the financial savings on the back end at a very, very minimal cost. Again, I go back to this concept of it's. More than just this is what we do. It is trying to make that value for families and you now get to see it firsthand. What is your experience of that college credit stuff?

Alex Rouggly: 8:56

Yeah, it has been amazing to actually, like you said, see it firsthand.

Alex Rouggly: 9:01

I'm a firm believer that if our students have the opportunity to earn college credit and it's been amazing from the standpoint of we have some staff members that are also certified to teach those college credit-based classes that's getting better for us too, it is, and it has grown here the last couple of years and for our students to already have that relationship with our staff members, and then all of us have a great relationship with Jeffco and I see it as a great opportunity for our kids.

Alex Rouggly: 9:29

But I also see it, like you were saying, as an opportunity to, to be honest, allow our students to have less college debt whenever they move forward through their first two years of college or four years or wherever that might be, because it allows them to have a step up on a potential competitor or things like that, in order to be successful and I want to bring in my goal is to bring as many opportunities for our high school students as possible.

Alex Rouggly: 10:01

You look at really, I you know you go back to the beginning, where you had five credit-bearing classes, and then you look at I think it was 2014 where we jumped up 232 credits that were gained by our seniors. Then you look up to about 2019, and you're in the 700 to 800 credits that were gained by our seniors. And you know, last our class of 2025 was at 993. We had class of 2023 that was 1,023 credits that were earned. And I guess, in the grand scheme of things, the big picture, I just see it as an opportunity for our kids to have a leg up on what their goals and aspirations are to be and for them to have a head start and get into where they want to be through the opportunities that we have at Jefferson High School.

David Haug: 10:53

Yeah, it kind of goes back to that whole deal. Yes, you want kids to have the experience of having a high school from a social standpoint and all the great things, all those learning lessons that come from that. But ultimately if you're being pushed and there's a core set of opportunities for you that can matter when you're 26 years old, that you maybe shaved a year off of college expense. I always worry about our kids and I don't know if we've done a great job in this generation the amount of debt they're going to inherit from our national level, how difficult it is for them to get into a house. I heard the median age of getting into a house now for first-time homebuyers gone. I think it was around 2005, and I could be wrong. In that year it was 30 years' age. Now it's 38. That's not good. And the amount of debt it takes just to get a car college. I think you really have to look at this opportunity.

David Haug: 11:42

And segueing to the next level of this is about, uh, I'd say, six years ago Mrs. Runzi and I really started to dive into for so long it was go to college, go to college. I'm not saying college isn't great, but there's also a lot of opportunities out there for our workforce. There is tons of opportunity there and tons of opportunity to avoid that debt, and so we are proud to say now I know these numbers change a little bit once the school year starts, but we have our largest class that was enrolled. I think there were 30 students enrolled to go over to ATS. Full disclosure. That may change A kid decides not to go or something happens but our budgeting purposes last year was the largest number and I know that wasn't an accident because we have been really pushing that for several years. When are we taking the kids over to ATS to take a look?

Alex Rouggly: 12:31

for several years. When are we taking the kids over to ATS to take a look? So we take, we start that early and that throughout that process can be their their sophomore year, junior year, and they also Suzanne Richardson, who we know well, has done an amazing job with her team in basically advertising and pushing out the ATS program at Jefferson College and they have multiple nights that they they allow students who are interested in ATS to go out College and they have multiple nights that they allow students who are interested in ATS to go out. I was able to go out to one a few years ago and just the way that they put everything together and the opportunities that they offer our students, whether it be, you know, biomed they've started a new EMT program health sciences, advanced carpentry, welding, electrician, welding Electrician you know it's just heating and cooling.

Alex Rouggly: 13:13

There's so many opportunities and we talk and Renee Richardson and Debbie Runzi have been great at having those productive meetings with our kids to talk about ATS and what it can offer and what it can offer and again, it's one of those things that if it allows a student who you know, it is a great. There are so many needs out there with carpentry, electricity, plumbing, heating and cooling, to where our students can go out there and get again a head start through the area technical school out of Jeffco and make great money and have so much success and not have any college debt. And again, what it provides is an opportunity for our students to have a head start as they go into life itself post high school and I couldn't be more excited about what Suzanne and her team has done and what our students are continuing to push and get better at in attending that area technical school at Jefferson College.

David Haug: 14:15

I know we get excited talking about this, but there's a lot of certifications with the ATS. But I did want to close with this that I see great things in our county right now at a very granular level. There's been more meetings the last year and a half. Laura Warner over at working with the county and trying to connect those resources, bringing industry together and schools together. We've had a lot of great discussion and one of the things that comes up is there's a specific need in the workforce for people just to go to work and those skills will set you apart in life.

David Haug: 14:51

We always talk to students like you're not quite sure what you're doing. Look at a trade, because the trade can also open up. You know, sometimes those trades will also pay for you know education later in life as well. Or as you go through working on your degrees, they want those advanced degrees there as well. But really getting a feeling of the county, of what's needed, I see lots of great things there for our kids.

David Haug: 15:12

Again, our job isn't always just to follow policy and get kids Listen. We look at it every day as what opportunities can be great for our kids, whether like the cell phone stuff we just talked about to help them be better people to find those job opportunities. But I know you guys have continued and Renee Richardson's a wonderful yes, absolutely Couldn't be any better. But it also starts down our middle school too with some of that career planning, specifically in the eighth grade year. I can't recommend enough Get involved, see what we have to offer and take advantage of it, because the debt your child's going to have to face in the future and the expense of things if we can help them.