Sheldon:

Welcome advocates to another episode of the leading equity podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their schools. Special guest today is brother Michael Essien is here with us today. Now I've met him through a good friend of mine, Joe Truss. If you're familiar with Joe, he does a lot of work on dismantling white supremacy culture in schools. He does some awesome work and him and I have connected. We talk all the time and he said, you got to have my man Michael on the show. So without further ado, Michael, thank you so much for joining us today.

Michael Essien:

Thank you, Sheldon. Appreciate you for allowing me to come onto the show.

Sheldon:

Pleasure is always mine. Now. You and I have been chatting briefly before we hit record. So I have a better understanding about you and yourself and what you do, but could you share with our audience a little bit about yourself and what you currently do?

Michael Essien:

Okay. My name is Michael Essien and currently I am a principal in the Southeast section of San Francisco. I've been in education now for three decades, 21 of those years, as a teacher in east Oakland and west Oakland, I taught algebra one, geometry, algebra two, trig, did that for six years. Then I became an education specialist where I did special education, taught resource specialist, and special day class for 15 years and decided to become an administrator. I've been an administrator now for the last eight years. And I started my own education consulting group called Essien Education Group where I try to support students, families, teachers, administrators, and districts in achieving equity, right. Transforming the existing culture to get different outcomes for black and brown students.

Sheldon:

Nice. All right, well welcome again to the show. You and I were,, I liked it when I first started doing the podcast, I used to have a set of questions that I run through with my guests, and now I've kind of switched things up and it just kind of like, what do you want to talk about today? And that's what we talk about. So that's kind of how things go these days. So I'm excited to chat with you about anti-racist discipline. So let's set the tone by, why don't you provide us with a definition of what anti-racist discipline is.

Michael Essien:

Okay. So when you look at education across this nation, there are all kinds of issues with disproportionality. Kids, black and brown kids have higher suspension rates, higher office discipline referrals, they have more D's and F's, high absenteeism. So there's just a general problem. And so when you start thinking about this equity issue, how do you address it? I've bought it down to anti-racist discipline and discipline, dealing with the interactions between students and adults at school when we were engaged in the actual work. The anti-racism part comes in, it's not about the definition, that we, there are two definitions. One is about around racism. We think of a person with the white hood over their head with holes in the front. We know that racist, right? We know that. And then there's the other kind where it allows black and brown kids to sleep in the back of classrooms during instruction time, right?

               The one I'm talking about anti-racist discipline is the second one. The one that's actually more subtle that has impacts. So when I say anti-racist discipline, we're talking about anything that involves dealing with children that will produce a predictable outcome based upon race. We're trying to interrupt that. And so allowing kids to sleep in the back of classrooms, using the Sage-on-the-Stage, pedagogy as your main delivery of instruction, where kids have to be quiet and listen to the teachers, these things produce racist outcomes, right? And we know this. And so for me, anti-racist discipline is about undoing and interrupting, the predictability of statistical outcomes for kids based upon their race.

Sheldon:

Let me, let's unpack that a little bit more because I could hear my listeners thinking, well, I, let's say his first hour of the day, and I have kids that tend to sleep in my class, or maybe it's right after lunch. And I have kids that tend to sleep in my classroom. It's easier for me to do my instructional practices if I just kind of let them do their thing. And then I teach the kids that are actually motivated that are engaged into the, the schoolwork curriculum that I have. So the question that I know, I have some audiences thinking, well, how is it racist that I allow students to sleep in my classroom?

Michael Essien:

Okay. So here's where my definition of racism, although there are multiple definitions as to individual racism. That's the white hood over the sheet. I'm the one that's letting black kids sleep in the back of classrooms. That is more of a system's thing. So we're talking about over time, right? And so my definition of racism, you don't have to have ill intent for black and brown kids. Just the decisions that you've make are decisions that produce the opportunity gap, that produce the kids, not being able to read at grade level, the kids not being able to solve math problems. Right? And so, for me, it's more of a system's thing. So even if you do have black and brown kids who are, they're tired, for whatever reason, whatever the case may be, maybe they don't have a stable home living conditions, right. Or maybe they don't eat breakfast in the morning, whatever the case may be.

               It is our job as educators to become investigators. We need to find out why those children are falling asleep in the classroom, and then come up with plans to address that because it's not, our job is not to just teach kids who are motivated. Our job is to teach every kid that comes through that building, comes into our room because by law kids are mandated to attend K-12 education. And so it's not about taking the easy way out. It's not about just the kids who happen to be motivated. We're also responsible for those children who may, for reasons that are beyond their own control, also need us to be in their corner and supporting them.

Sheldon:

Okay. Okay. So that makes more sense to me. And again, I could just hear an email coming in next week after, this publishes. So I just wanted to clarify that. So, okay. So what I'm understanding is, and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I interpreted from, from your response is when we don't actively pursue or try to find out what story is being told, like why our students are sleeping and we just kind of allow those things to happen. We're perpetuating a racist mindset because typically we see that black and brown students are looked at as not being, as being lazy maybe, or not performing as well in the classrooms. And so if we don't do our due diligence in working to get our kids involved and engaged in staying awake in class, then we are perpetuating those stereotypes. Is that where you're going with this?

Michael Essien:

Yeah that is correct. And we contribute to the opportunity gap. So there's a second piece of this. So, if the kid is sleeping in your classroom, right. And we do an investigation, find out why they're sleeping. A kid who's tired, it's hard for that kid to focus. It's hard, even if you wake the kid up, how attentive as a kid going to be on your lesson? So the other piece of that, there's a backside to that, right?

               The kid might be sleeping in your class and find out, but how do we hold the kid responsible for the learning that they missed? Does that kid have to come in after school? Does that kid have to actually do come in early in the morning? Does that kid have to maybe come in at lunchtime? How do we as adults still hold the child responsible for that learning? Because if we don't, I can tell you right now, we know the statistical data, that over time that we are going to see children who are exposed to this over a long period of time, they're going to become the people who participate in the school to prison pipeline.

               They're going to be the ones who are the dropouts, right. They're going to be the children who don't have opportunities to certain jobs because their reading scores are low or their ability to be critical thinkers. This is something that we know, right? And I don't know if you have time, I can give you just a brief story. When I was the assistant principal, I was finished, the homeroom was in, people were in and I was walking back to my office. I cleared the hallway and there was a young man that was already seated in the main office. And so instead of me just going back to my office, I stopped next to the young man what's going on. And he shared the story that he was sick and he had thrown up and he was going home. They were calling his parents.

               And so I could of left it at that, but I got a little nosy here. It's like you sick so what do you mean what's going on? And it's like, well, I have some hot Cheetos and some coffee this morning and I throw up. I okay. I was like, so what did she eat before that? The young man shared that he hadn't eaten, and this was Monday morning. He said he hadn't eaten the entire weekend. That was the first thing he had to eat. So what did I do? It's like, well, you're not going home. Come with me. And I pulled him into my office. I made a phone call. My school is located near a lot of eateries. The restaurants whatnot. So I called over, ordered him a sandwich. He said he wanted something to drink. I got him a Gatorade. So I ordered it.

               I went and picked it up. He ate half of it in my office. And this is when I saw that there were real things. The kid said, well, can I say the rest of my sandwich? And he only drank Gatorade. And my Gatorade? I said, well, it's yours. You can do whatever you want. So he said he saved it. And why was he saving it? He was taking home for his brothers? Because his brothers didn't have food over the weekend as well, right? So then we're okay, good. And so once he did that, I said, and now it's time for you to go back to class, right? You need to go learn, need to do these things. And then I ended up setting up since I settled with lunchtime detention. I hired him as my monitor to help me during lunchtime two days out of the week. And we have lunch together, right?

               And what was he supposed to do with doing that lunch? Not only eat lunch, but he had to bring his homework. And then I would help him with his homework during the lunchtime. This is the stuff that I'm saying, how do you interrupt the anti-racist outcomes? Like this was happening to a kid. And it had nothing to do with him. It was beyond his means. And here it is, as a person who is at the school site to have some responsibility, I'm going to make sure that I address those issues and make sure that that kid does not become a statistic, right. Something that's predictable. This is what I mean by the anti-racist discipline. Not the one where people tend to think, oh, are you calling me racist? Well, if your behavior produces outcomes for black and brown kids, it's racist in a system's way, not racist with ill intent for black and brown kids.

Sheldon:

Okay. So to me, this goes beyond the idea. A lot of folks will say, oh, well, this is my implicit bias and all these types of thing. And again, stereotype and all that. So to me, this is looking beyond the subtle stuff. And you've mentioned it a couple of times, it's subtleties and it's not the blatant all out. I got a, I'm burning a cross, but I'm storming the capital building armed. That's a whole nother conversation. I guess I got off topic, but that's not the blatant stuff, right? But it's more of the subtle things that against stereotypes society has perpetuated. Am I subtly doing those things as well? Let me ask you this question, Michael, because, okay. We mentioned sleeping in class as just allowing kids to sleep in class can be a form of, perpetuating a racist approach to school or classroom management if you will. What are some other things that maybe we could think about as far as being anti racist disciplinarians in our class?

Michael Essien:

So I do think how we look at instruction. One of the things that we did at my school site, the sage-on-the-stage. Sage on stage is where at the secondary level of teaching sixth grade through 12th grade, it's a little more like a lecture model where all of a sudden kids need to sit still and listen to the sage, the wise teacher speak on the content that they need to know. And then it becomes the student's job to take notes. Right? Well, many of our students don't respond well to that, but, that's not even how they're hardwired, especially with the energy that they're exposed to because they're going through puberty or just whatever the case or people just have this different way of learning. The sage-on-the-stage model of education requires kids to do some specific things.

               One, you need to sit still in your chair. Two, you need to focus in on the teacher and three, you need to take notes. What happens if I just don't vibe with that and anything that I do inside of the classroom that does not conform to the expectations of the behavior for students in the sage-on-stage model, that becomes something that you have to regulate. This is where the discipline comes in. And so we got rid of sage on stage. We do project based learning. Project based learning releases kids to solve real problems in their community that are connected to standards and content and skill development and healthy conversations. If I walk into a classroom and I don't see just all-out conversations, taking place within groups, for me, that's a problem, right? So then there's this change in a dynamic. So there's, that the instruction that we use, and then it's also then how do we deal with conflict more times than not when conflict occurs? Because whenever you put any two humans in any space that you have any type of rule, conflict is going to happen.

               So then how do you regulate conflict? And the regulation of conflict has to be around restorative practices. You have to restore the relationship. And the reason we say restorative practices, as opposed to consequences, people who are locked in the community. You're not going any place, you're going to be in this community for 180 days. I am not trying to punish you. I am literally trying to rebuild the relationship. Now, there might be some steps that you might need to do to repair that relationship. For instance, you might have to come in at lunchtime to do a variety of things. Like you might have to do a PowerPoint around, why you got into a yelling match with a student in the classroom.

               But anything that we decide that the person's going to do, it's about repairing the harm that was caused so that they can remain part of the community. More times than not consequences, further divide the individual, separate the out from the community. And that tends to be more around the black and brown kids. They're the ones who tend to be separated from the community. And then that makes it over time, that makes it racist discipline because the discipline policy or practices, tends to identify and single out black and brown kids and that is a problem. That's where we have to address the issues because that's where our opportunity gap lives. That's where our higher suspension rates increase office discipline referrals and that can be changed.

Sheldon:

I love this. Now here's the question that I have because I see this happening a lot where, when we have cultural differences. So let's just say you have a teacher who doesn't identify with the same identification, or background experiences as their student body. And a student's response is interpreted as a form of disrespect as a sign of blatant insubordination, but it's not necessarily the case, but a teacher interprets a child's response as a means of defiance. How are you able in your experience to help teachers understand the differences in culture? So that way, when we have those quote unquote conflicts that you mentioned, it's resolved in a way to where the student doesn't necessarily lose classroom time, because they're not sent out of the classroom, but they are, they can remain in a classroom and still continue their learning.

Michael Essien:

Great question. So I do believe that when you think about education, you literally have a convergence of beliefs, values, experiences, whatever the case may be. They're all over the map. What can't happen is we can't allow the individual values and beliefs of adults to dictate how they interpret policies, rules, and procedures inside of classroom, right? There has to be a way for the school to say, this is what we stand for. This is how we're going to interpret the behavior of kids in classroom. This is how we're going to respond to that. And then how do you, as a site administrator, as a teacher, how do you begin to build the capacity of adults to calibrate around this definition of what we saying, what we say we value at the school site and then set PD so that we can help adults move towards that.

               Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to get adults to view and respond to behavior in the same way that is consistent with developing children. It is consistent with reducing the implicit and explicit biases. And what I mean by that, if we're going to talk about writing referrals. Well, the first thing at the top of the list, when we talk about writing referrals, and we're going to remove the, if you wear a cap in my classroom, you're going to get a referral. No, we're going to hold it and the reason we're going to hold that conversation is what does wearing a cap have to do with learning instruction, right? That's a personal, that's somebody's personal beliefs and values that is different than if we're saying that that person's wearing a cap because it's gang related. Then I can say, well, you can't wear that cap because you're representing a gang, but that has nothing to do with caps that has to do with somebody representing a gang.

               If we're trying to create a safe learning environment, then we know the people who participate in these things. And so we don't have to act as if we don't. So then we began to look at rules and regulations so that we can calibrate adult behavior in responding to things that students do, right? I will just give you one other example. I remember we were really health-conscious at my school site and kids who be coming into school, they stop off at the store by this big old thing of fruit punch and hot Cheetos and walking into the building. And I had a couple of teachers that were taking the fruit punch from the kids saying it wasn't healthy. They shouldn't have the sugar at the beginning of the day. And all of that, you know something, as you talked to me and you say, it makes perfect sense, right?

               But the reality is this kid just purchased that. And you just took something from that kid. And then a kid is cursing you out. And then you sent that kid out on the referrals. We got to unpack all of this, this is problematic, right? And it's like being able to say, Hey, look, I understand you're thinking of the kid in the best interest, but this is around how do we then turn this into a learning opportunity over time, you can't, and I'm telling, I will tell her that you can't take stuff from kids that they purchase, right? Even with good intent, you have just harmed the relationship. And now there's some real emotional feelings, and then it's going apply in the classroom and you're going to write more referrals, right? Because this kid's going to be even more disrespectful to you. So then we have to repair that harm, right? Get things back. And then I have to deal with the policies.

               You can [inaudible 00:19:46] show up in faculty meeting saying, you can't take stuff from kids. Even if you think it's in their best interest. When we're talking about food, when we're talking about things that they've actually purchased, this is around literally building an environment that is responding to the needs, the developmental needs of children and not responding to what adults value and believe, right? That's a completely different thing.

Sheldon:

That's hard to do though. You got a lot. That's not, a lot of us as educated, that's not how we were brought up. We were told in our classrooms, we were told, this is how you're supposed to, this is how you supposed to respond. And it was based off of the teacher. So a lot of teachers teach the way that they were taught. So just to say, remove your personal beliefs and values and all that with your kids is a tough call. How do you help your teachers really break that?

Michael Essien:

So I'm into data more times than not, especially in the context in which I find myself as leader in education. Education has really blamed the teachers for the outcomes. And that's, for me, it's unfair to blame the teachers for the outcomes of a system that was not designed to educate kids so that everybody can go to college, right? That's not how the system was designed, right? And so being able to have honest conversations, using data, I tried to talk to some teachers when I first arrived as a assistant principal, I realized that, hey, my kids need to read. I tried to get the teachers, the school site council to purchase this reading program, right? So that we can assess all kids and we get kids books. And I went to the school site council and I got shot down. Oh, we tried that. It failed. Right?

               And I was like, I was, I left the meeting. I was really upset that the teachers couldn't understand what I was talking about, but it just so happened that the district itself, they purchased the program for assessment. And so we were able to assess all the kids anyway. And then I showed up at the faculty meeting since as assistant principal, the principal then allowed me to do all kinds of things in meetings. I showed up with the data and I just showed the teachers, the data from the reading outcomes, from the reading assessment, and then teachers, when they looked at the data and I said, you guys need to tell me the story they started talking about, oh man, we need to do sustained silent reading. The conversation was completely different when they saw the data, because the data is the real deal. This is what's happening, right?

               And so I learned, and that was my first year as an administrator. And I learned that when we're going to hold this conversation, you need to back into this conversation by showing the data. And so when I talk about discipline, I show up with the discipline data and teachers get defensive, but it's like, I'm not here to make sense of it. You have to tell me what the data means. And then when you engage in this real conversation about the teachers making meaning of data, that allows us to bring in beliefs and values, right? That allows us, that we're now traveling into the conversation around how we think about students is determining how we discipline them. And that gives us the opportunity to do things. We have book clubs that we are engaged in and so we've studied some pretty amazing books. We did 'Courageous Conversations About Race.'

               We did 'For White Folks Who Teach In The Hood And The Rest Of Y'all Too.' But the one that was really big when we started talking about interpreting behavior, 'Push Out the Criminalization Of Black Girls.'.

Sheldon:

Yeah.

Michael Essien:

My teachers, which are predominantly white, we got to see and read around the behavior of girls being interpreted in a way that causes adults to punish them. And when we read that book in the book club, we didn't read the book from an intellectual perspective. We read the book and we were talking about, what does this say about our practices, right? What does it say about the data at our school site? And we engaged in this amazing conversation around if I'm doing this, when I see a young lady roll her eyes, I don't know the extent of the challenges this young lady has.

               She's just communicating disagreement. It's not disrespect, right? So being able to have adults explore their behavior, as it applies to the data is how we get into these conversations around changing culture, right? You have to have a specific plan to do that. And then what are you having people look at to self reflect on what they are doing? And this is where those books come in. That's very important. And we tend to choose books that are connected to race because of our data. Our data is so racialized that that's why we choose to focus in on race.

Sheldon:

How did you get into the book clubs? Is that something that is managed? So do you have all your teachers go through it or is it a voluntary club?

Michael Essien:

So just two [inaudible 00:24:42] voluntary. So I can't force anybody to go to the book clubs, but the people you do have to be strategic as an administrator. The individuals that I talk to and about the book clubs at the very beginning, these are people who are committed to this transformative work. They were already doing some of the things, now those, those individuals happened to also be on my leadership teams, right? So I didn't have to have everybody in the school participate. Those individuals who were on the leadership teams, who were in the book club, when they went back to those leadership teams, the instructional leadership team, responsible for instructional practices at the school site, the culture club, the adult culture that is responsible for producing student outcomes, the grade level collaborations. We had individuals going back to that, those spaces with this information, posing questions around how our own experiences, our own beliefs and values could be contributing to the data that we're seeing.

               Because it's about asking the questions, what is my role in this, right? Or why am I interpreting the child's behavior in this way? These are the things that adults in the building need to wrestle with because this is where we can co-construct something that's going to be beneficial, not only to the students, but what we found out is it's going to be beneficial to the adults because now we have fewer problems in the classroom. Now that we do all of these things. So teachers can spend more time teaching as opposed to discipline, right? Managing behavior, right?

Sheldon:

Do you believe that you can actually manage behavior? Cause I've heard a lot of folks say, you don't manage people. You can't manage people. What is your take on? Can you manage students?

Michael Essien:

I think it's what you would, what you mean by manage, right? If managing students is interpreted, me, the teacher in the classroom sitting over saying, no, you can't do that. No you to do this. No. It's like, it's going to be too difficult. And matter of fact, you'd burn out at the end of the, I say by the middle of the first semester, you're going to burn out, trying to manage kids. When we say manage, I guess the structure of things, right? This is, this is where, this is where I go back into talking about project based learning.

               If I'm doing sage-on-the-stage instruction, I have to manage behavior. I literally have to be responsible for 32, anywhere from, it depends upon your state. Anywhere from 30 to 38 kids that is taxing. And if I change it from sage on stage to project based learning, I just have to do the introduction of stuff, release kids to do the work, And then the ones that I feel might need some additional support I can provide the support as I roam around because I'm now the facilitator and it's not managing in terms of you need to stop doing this. You need to stop doing that.

               If a kid is actually doing something inappropriate, I don't have to come over and say, stop talking or sit down. I can literally engage in a conversation around if you're talking. It's like, oh, so where are we? Are we discussing such and such? Are we, are we past phase one or two of the project? And this is where like, oh no, we're not okay. I just want to make sure like, Hey, just want to remind him to stay on task. Cause we have a deadline for this and I can move on. That is completely different than saying, Michael, I need you to stop talking.

               If you say something to one more time, I'm going to, that's warning number three. And you're going to be out of here if I say something to you again, you can engage kids around, well, do you need some support? Are there questions around what's happening? Is that why we're not on task? Cause I'm here to ask questions if that's not the case. Oh, okay. Well just stay focused and keep it moving, right? That's managing is not about controlling, but about creating the environment where kids can exercise agency themselves, right? That's the job of the manager, not micro-managing but creating an environment where students can actually exercise agency and make decisions around their own educational development or completion of the project itself.

Sheldon:

Michael, I consider you as providing a voice in leading Equian and it's fairly been helpful for me. As you have just talked about what it means to be an anti-racist disciplinarian. I don't even know if that's what we really have. I don't like that term, being an anti racist disciplinarian. I obviously, that's not what the theme of this show was about. It's just more of having anti-racist practices with the way that we support our classes, I think is ultimately kind of what the overarching theme is. But I love to kind of give you an opportunity to share any final thoughts of advice that you would like to share to our listeners.

Michael Essien:

Okay. A couple of things, one around the phrasing anti-racist discipline. I tend to use language that's connected to how people are talking about the subject. If I walked in and I told her, oh, we're going to build relationships now, what the hell are you talking about? They don't want to deal with that, right? Okay. We're talking about discipline. Like I know people are like, yeah, cause I need to, because I have discipline problems in my school, right? Okay. Well, these are some of the things that cause discipline problems. And let's talk about how we address those things with building relationships.

               So that's what the language piece is, right? It's it's for identifying with what people are using as the language to shape the work that they're doing. Now, my advice for people, one adults that you really need to be open to the possibility that the outcomes that you are getting at your school site in your classroom are because of how you were raised and your own experiences and your beliefs and values that you need to be able to think and pause, how am I contributing to the problem or the outcome and the data.

               That's the first thing I would say then two, actively seek feedback from others who may not think like you, right? One of the things that's real prevalent around the implicit and explicit biases is you tend to have your, own kingdom inside your classroom or inside your school. You tend to do whatever you want, right? And so then your things that you're inclined to do will show up and kids will call you out on the kids will say, you're not fair. They will bring up all kinds of things. And then you think that the kids are inappropriate and wrong. How could they not call me fair, I love all my kids. Well, invite other adults to give you feedback, to look at what you're doing in your classroom and give you feedback and pick adults who don't necessarily think like you, right? Because feedback is important.

               And then the last thing I will say that is we read Chris Emma's book 'For White Folks and The Rest of Y'all To Teach In The Hood Too.' So we started called generative groups. I strongly suggest that all educators, I don't care what your position is, whether you're the administrator, a counselor, or a teacher, get a cross section of students to give you feedback on how you're doing your job. Those would be the things that I would suggest.

Sheldon:

And that could be some harsh realities come out of that, those student groups and feedback.

Michael Essien:

Absolutely.

Sheldon:

So you got to have some thick skin on that too. I would add that too to that conversation because what we think is going on in our schools. And we think our kids are all good. And then we get that feedback and it's like oh my God. Yes.

Michael Essien:

The vice of two and three, two is getting other people to other adults that give you feedback that don't think like you. Getting feedback from three, getting feedback from children are connected to one, which is being open to the, you are possibly the reason that the data is happening, that your beliefs and values, right? So those three pieces of advice are connected to each other. And so hopefully teachers should not have thick skin. Even though, we do know that they are burnt out from initiative fatigue with district trying to all the different things. But at some point in the core of your work, you have to get other people to give you some real meaningful feedback so that you can make some adjustments.

Sheldon:

I like that. Michael, if we've got some folks that want to connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online.

Michael Essien:

There are multiple ways you can reach me. One, you can visit my website Essien Education Group.com. That's where I offer workshops, presentations, whatever the case may being. See some of the things that are going on with me, you can stay in contact with me on Twitter. Follow me at Michael C Essien. And I have a blog inside the mind of a principal.com. You can actually go there and get the latest blog I'm working on one right now, random acts of equity. So these are ways that you can get in contact with me. If you're on Facebook, please come and join Essien Education Group. It's a private group on Facebook of educators. And we don't believe in positionality inside of Essien Education Group because we really need to hold real conversations and positionality gets in the way of holding real conversations. So please come join me in any of those spaces so we can chop it up and try to become better educators.

Sheldon:

All right. So we'll definitely leave auto links in the show notes. So folks can connect with you. Michael has truly been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.

Michael Essien:

I appreciate it Sheldon, and best of luck to you, bro. Thank you.

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