Sheldon [00:00:00]:

Welcome, advocates to another episode of Lead And Equity podcast. A podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their goes. Today's special guest is Hailey Spiro Bauer. And without further ado, Hailey, thank you so much for joining us today.

Hayley [00:00:18]:

Thank you so much for having me, Sheldon. It's such a pleasure to be on your podcast.

Sheldon [00:00:23]:

That's a pleasure's mine. You have me on your show, so I'm excited to be able to return the favor. So thank you so much. And I'll leave this link in the show notes, folks, for my conversation as well on Hailey's show. But before we get in today's topic, because I'm really excited about what we have. We're gonna be discussing some online options

Hayley [00:00:42]:

And before we get into that, I'd love for you to share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do. Yeah. Absolutely. So thank you again for having me. It's such an honor to be on this incredible podcast, which has quite the list of experts and expertise displayed every single episode you release. So as you said, my name is Haley Spearbauer. I'm currently the chief academic officer of Full Mind. And my career began actually as a teacher member America core member in the South Bronx at PS55 under the leadership of the Still Principle, Luis Torres. I continue my career after that as a teacher eventually a school founder and a school leader at Harlem Village Academy's in Harlem, New York. I loved the work that I did working in both the public school in the South Bronx and the public school public charter school in Harlem, but soon found that I grew a family and I needed to spread my roots a little bit wider than where I was currently living, and I found the organization formerly known as itutor.com, which is now known as full mine. And I've been there for 6 years supporting 100 of schools across the United States with virtual teacher options, and I love what I do here and work with some incredible people.

Sheldon [00:01:52]:

Alright. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for, again, for your time. And here's here's the thing. Back when COVID first hit, I did a whole like, I offered a free course on teaching online because a lot of schools, you know, we shut down, couldn't figure we didn't know what we're gonna do. We didn't know what a pandemic you know, COVID, all that kind of stuff was happening. And so we had a lot of schools that were doing full on online school, then we started seeing schools that were doing hybrid. situations. And now we're kinda at a place where we're seeing a lot more schools that are fully open more of the brick and mortar style when it comes to education. So someone who's listening to this might think to themselves, why in the hill? What I want to be considering online education, I wanna start there. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hayley [00:02:42]:

I think the people that are asking that question fall into a couple categories. Online Education, which what we did during the pandemic, the height of the pandemic is really emergency remote education. This was not a carefully planned, carefully thought out and implemented exercise. As you named, so many schools struggled to pivot their brick and mortar teaching into online learning and thankfully for folks like you, you offered workshops and opportunities for teachers and school leaders to adapt. But what we're talking about when we say online learning today is we're not talking about, in my case, full online learning to replace brick and mortar. It's a supplement to expand the school's capacity. So when folks are responding with the the statement, why would I want that? Well, one, Maybe it's right for your particular child. Online learning was in fact really beneficial for certain populations, students with disabilities, many different students was parents of disabilities. Parents of students with disabilities named that they found their child was more successful in an environment where they could be home, focus better, have less disruptions during their school day. You might also be saying, well, why would I wanna do that? My experience was terrible. As I named before, what we experience between 2020 or 2022, that was emergency remote schooling. That wasn't what teachers were train to do. However, we found that certain kinds of online learning, 1, allows schools to span their course registry to allows them to bring in teachers from other places if they might not have access to certain certifications. And 3, it also gives students an opportunity to interact with different types of people with different expertise that are beyond a 30 minute geographic radius outside of where they're school essentially located. So yes, you might be concerned hearing that there's still online learning happening, and we need to think and really span beyond what we know remote emergency schooling was at the beginning and and towards the beginning part of the pandemic.

Sheldon [00:04:41]:

Okay. I'm with you because My experience with online learning was terrible during the pandemic as a parent. Okay. And then 1st grader. My son was in 1st grade during that time, and, I mean, I when I tell you when I tell you, that was rough. k. So I I I totally understand that, and I love that I heard vacancies, and so I I wanna touch on that because when we think about especially a lot a lot of our schools that might be in rural places or they're in, like, the administration. They're intentionally looking for certain candidates. And so we do resumes and all that. It doesn't always come into our favor. So touch on as far as vacancies because we know there's a teacher shortage. What are your thoughts on how online education can supplement that vacancies that are out there.

Hayley [00:05:31]:

I have never lived in a rural place. I'm gonna name that because the experience of rural I education is very, very unique, and I know that only now because of the work that I do in online education. I will give you a quick example. So actually on my podcast, I hosted the former head of the gear up program in the state of Montana, and he shared 2 two anecdotes for me about living in Montana 1, Yellowstone has really changed what it's like to live in in Montana. If you watch that show, there's been an influx of people wanting to live there. So still rural, but a very, very big change over the past couple years of what the population looks like. And that's just a fun fact, not as much an anecdote related to online learning. But two things. 1, when he was a superintendent, he had to get a boiler certification to fix his boiler. Why did he have to do that? 1, freezing cold in the winter in Montana, freezing cold, so cold below negative double digits that he could not get his kids in the building if the boiler broke. and it did on many occasions. So him as the school leader principal, the superintendent, had to get a boiler certification so we could physically fix the boiler, and his kids could go to school. That's how remote we're talking. There was no one within a 5 hour radius that could come fix it. So what does that mean for teachers? Anytime they posted a job, if they got one applicant, who had the proper certification? That was a win for them. But on 4 not one applicant for a job to teach children and shape their lives doesn't allow them to screen for quality. So that you know, speaking of equity, like, we want our children to have the best possible education and so many schools get that. But due to the rural nature of schools in the middle of Montana, you don't get that choice. And so what are schools like that doing? What are leaders like that doing? They're looking for other options, and there's many different options that they might consider, but one of the ones that we see more and more free And I'm I'm talking our our exact organization has been supporting triple, quadruple, 5 times as many schools this year as last year with this particular issue. are finding organizations that have state certified teachers in their repository who can join their community and teach virtually Now they have a choice. They can screen for quality. They can screen for years of experience. They can screen for a whole variety of factors like many other have the option of doing every day. Bring in a teacher for some or the full day for some of the year or the full year to teach the students in that community, the subjects that they are interested in taking, and that they need to take in order to have a full CV when they graduate -- Mhmm. -- a full number of certifications so they can pursue post secondary opt options of their choosing. Now are these Live instructional or ace or asynchronous or synchronous courses? Well, I have strong feelings about that. It is absolutely synchronous. These are people that are teaching the full 6 hours or 6 classes a day. They're taking office hours. They're doing small group instruction. They're meeting in the team member meetings at the school, you want, in my opinion, you want a synchronous future. Good. Good. Good. Okay. Okay.

Sheldon [00:08:41]:

What's going on? What's going

Hayley [00:08:43]:

on? You have to ask.

Sheldon [00:08:45]:

Gotta ask. Okay. Alright. So here here's the thing. As as I was I was listening to what you're saying and and I live in rural Idaho. k. And and so where I'm at, it's it's very common for me to hear about, like, the local school district here having vacancies and, again, trying to find those, quote, unquote, you know, non stem related courses that that are or, actually, trying to find the stimulated courses, and they're they're having a hard time finding a science teacher or math teacher because a lot of these folks that are graduating from the university out here, I mean, they they can make a lot more money working outside of the educational realm. And even when I was on the reservation, we were having some challenges with, 1, trying to find indigenous staff first to fill a lot of those content areas, but then also just finding folks that were willing to work on the reservation as well. So I I could see so many benefits to providing some opportunities for online education.

Hayley [00:09:46]:

I you know, I love the examples that you just gave. It it's just so interesting because education is so valuable. It's so important. We need education. We need students need education as part of if they deserve education. They deserve excellent education, and there are so many factors that limit that from happening. There are systemic factors. There are geographic factors. There's you pile them on top of each other becomes harder and harder if you're in that particular bucket of wanting to give your children the very, very best. And give your children being your own blood, children being the children in your community, being the the children you and not being able to do it. And I wonder, you know, one of the things that that I like to talk about a lot and think about a lot is what happens if, you know, the members of that indigenous community that you worked lived elsewhere. Didn't live in Idaho anymore. Lived in Nevada, but still wanted to teach. If they teach virtually they can. You know, they can still teach their where they grew up, but not necessarily live there for reasons that are their own reasons to explore. Right? But I I think that really, like, moving the kind of what you believe education to be, the pandemic should have allowed us to do that. The pandemic should have allowed us to think, well, what else can I do? How can I think outside the box? What can we keep with us or tweak from the emergency, you know, pandemic response and have for our community to make it better.

Sheldon [00:11:13]:

Got you. Okay. Okay. I I got more questions, and this is what I do. So I I got more questions. Here's the thing. I I used to be sped director. And as a sped director, you know, you got IEPs and one of the challenges. Again, thinking about from my experience where I couldn't I had a hard time getting a school psych to come out on arrest. But, you know, unfortunately, where I live, you know, there's there's all kind of thoughts regarding the the community that I was serving. Now just put it that way. Well, this is and so it wasn't always easy to get folks to come. And so I'm very fortunate. I gotta give a shout out to doctor Joel Wilconagra and doctor Jennifer Gallup. They were very off and and they are very awesome. And with the work that they have been doing on a reservation, I was able to get them to come out. And they readily came out and provided special ed support and also the school psych psych the school psychology support as well. However, one of the challenges that I had was occupational therapy and some other the speech language pathology were some of the ones that I was having a hard time getting campus support. So I I'm just curious, in your experience, what are are are those I don't know. Exiliary type of services? Are those available as well online?

Hayley [00:12:33]:

Yeah. And and my organization phone line doesn't actually provide them, but there are amazing organizations that do these related services that allow again, you're talking about someone who doesn't necessarily need a full schedule in your building. And so these folks might not be able especially in rural areas to drive during a school day from one location to another to get a full complete Ross for. And so there's companies. There's one named presence learning that does that where they have related service options that are online. They're they're one of the biggest ones and well known best known ones. to do that. And I think that it's an incredible solution, not just for rural schools, but I, you know, I have friends that are related service providers, and they spend Half their day driving. When they could be, we could be increasing their allowable service hours on a given day. They be could be helping more Eakins, which lets be honest. They love to people love to do. Right? Like, if you're in this profession, you probably really love it because it's a tough one to stick out. if you don't love it. And so why not expand the ability for them to do that and help more children on a regular basis instead of having to drive from location to location

Sheldon [00:13:41]:

Okay. And then I I I wonder about the affordability when it comes. Because, again, I I I can think about, like, sometimes it's like, okay. We wanna offer courses such as we wanna be a competitive school. Right? But I'm in a rural area. So maybe I'm in a situation where I wanna provide

Hayley [00:14:00]:

advanced placement courses or international baccalaureate courses or dual enrollment type of courses to my students. But, again, I don't have a certified teacher to be able to provide those type of opportunities. Have you seen, like, some of the rural schools that you might be working with being able to offer those courses? and I tell you the smartest thing I've seen -- Mhmm. -- because it's, you know, it's the same thing. You also might not even have enough students depending on how large your community is, You may have 3 kids that want AP Chem, 3 kids that want AP Physics, one kid that wants computer engineering, and you wanna be able to give them what they want. Because -- Okay. -- let's be honest, kids behave best, kids are most successful when they're studying the things that they find important that they love. But you can't do that with only that many students. Right? So the smartest solution that I've seen that has come organically from schools that I've been researching and learning about and meeting in different you know, while I travel the country doing my job, are schools that are doing teacher share options. So maybe they're sharing their teacher with other rural schools either in their state in their region, maybe not at all, but they're planning with other schools to implement for school year, let's I'll just go back to that example, AP Chemistry, and they get 3 kits from one school district. They get 5 kids from another. They get 6 from another. That's a way to make it even more affordable that I think is genius that also allows you to tailor your course offerings to the individual unique needs and interests of the students within the building.

Sheldon [00:15:29]:

I didn't even think about the enrollment size. I was thinking more on the the staffing side, but you make so much sense because I can't tell you how many times I've had Eakins in my principal days, right, when I've had a student one student that wants to take this awesome and amazing class that I didn't offer at my school or, you know

Hayley [00:15:50]:

just blew my honestly, you just blew my mind on that one. But I'm I'm telling you the I learned so much about the unique pain points of schools because, again, I didn't grow up in a rural area. So this idea that I'm talking about is really about a rural. But can I tell you another use case that I've seen that is really smart? Again, English language learners are in many communities, their populations are growing and growing as more people come to the United States. and they enroll their kids in public schools. And so there are places though where there aren't high populations of English language learners yet and they are just growing, but they're small enough that they need to do a teacher share so that they can provide adequate English lang or multilingual learners the term I actually prefer. multilingual learner supports for their students, but they can't do it in their particular community, whether it be rural or not. I'm actually thinking of a use case suburban environment in New York. So they're working with other schools within the state and they're bringing them together to have an English language learner or a Tiesel certified teacher supporting the students. And I think that's also brilliant because we know these are needs. You know, you see it you named another vulnerable population before students with disabilities. You know, large pop each school can pretty much depend on a certain percentage of their of their community having a disability. But, again, thinking about every child with a disability is not the same. There are a wide number potential diagnoses that a student with disability may have. And thinking of them as individuals versus a collective and how you support individuals versus a collective, when you think about online learning or remote options, you actually can better service individuals versus just this broad collective, which actually doesn't define anybody, even 2 students with ADHD percent completely differently in a classroom. Mhmm. So, you know, I I like the idea what I like and what I've always liked about virtual learning is that you can actually personalize and differentiate for unique learners instead of thinking them as categories because lots no two kids are the same. Anywhere, at all.

Sheldon [00:17:55]:

Absolutely. And and so as I'm thinking, like, you said, like, multilingual learners, for example. Right? Often, you know, we we tend to have maybe someone that can support Spanish speaking individuals. But from what I'm hearing, there's opportunities if I have a child that speaks Mandarin, or if I have a child that speaks another language, I can tap into the resources online and be able to match up A teacher. And even if it is that one student, I could possibly get that connection made so that our students, again, thinking from an equitable standpoint, our students are able to get the support that they need. Raise your hand if you'll buy that book, buy Docs Shell Hill Akins. put your hand up. Looking for an engaging speaker for your next event? Whether it's webinars, workshops, key notes or one on one coaching, I'm here to help you. Our students live in 2 different worlds often, the norms in their community and then the norms within their school. and they often aren't the same. For more information, go to leadingequitycenter.com/consulting or click on the link in the show notes. and let's work together.

Hayley [00:19:11]:

A teacher or an interpreter. Right? Because we have a school in New York State. I'm thinking of another one in New York State here. that has over 150 unique languages in their district. So really tough. Right? Like, if if the family, you know, first of all, if the student sorry, the student is in the school, and they have really limited current current English language proficiency, you need someone who's going to be able to support them to navigate the space that they're in. So having someone be an interpreter for the student virtually in a virtual classroom allows them to access content in a way they otherwise wouldn't have.

Sheldon [00:19:46]:

Now I'm gonna shift gears just for a a brief second. And if this is not an area that you're comfortable or or have knowledge behind. I totally understand. But I'm just curious when it comes to funding, let's say, again, thinking from a rule school standpoint where maybe our budgets are a little bit tight. Are you familiar with some opportunities to find scholarship or or support maybe through a grant? that maybe they could apply for. Do you know anything about those kind of opportunities?

Hayley [00:20:13]:

I do. I I'm most familiar with gear up and Trio as long term grant opportunities that allow for incredible programming for students all over the US. We've seen really successful gear up in trio implementations in states like Alaska and Montana and just incredible that have let have resulted in really long lasting partnerships with individual districts as well. Typical funding sources come from federal grants Esser grant right now is one that we see a lot obviously of implementation funding as a funding source. We see from HR budgets directly from a school. Right? You have schools that are using your HR budgets to help fill vacancies. But then you have things like gear up and Trio. We've seen my brother's keeper as a grant source. We've seen a whole variety of options that really do fit the category. Now it depends on what you're using it for. Right? If you're using it for teacher vacancy, My brother's keeper is probably not the best choice. Mhmm. But you might be using for after school tutoring intervention, and you might be using it for like, a social and emotional mentorship paired with some academic after school homework help. There's a whole variety of federal, state, and local grant sources that because we're working with state certified teachers, there's a lot of different ways you could implement the solution to solve the particular pain point.

Sheldon [00:21:33]:

Shout out to gear ups, Avids, the trialed educational talent search, That was my that's where I used to work in TalentSearch, and I did Upper Bound 1 summer as well. So shout out to all of those programs for the amazing work that they're doing. I'm I'm really glad you mentioned that. Now I would consider those more on the out of school opportunities as well. Would you agree?

Hayley [00:21:57]:

Yes. That is completely accurate.

Sheldon [00:21:59]:

Okay. Alright. So -- From at least -- Say what? From at least how I've seen it, that that completely fits with my understanding as well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But they're great programs. And, again, they're they're great programs. So if you do have those those access to those those organizations, those programs, Those that that's what I would definitely recommend. Alright. You are listen. First of all, you are blowing my mind, Hailey, so I appreciate your time on this. Thank you so much. bring the fire. Look at what we do. So okay. Here's here's the thing. Let's shift gears a little bit because, you know, we we often talk about summer slide. We talk about, you know, one in keeping our kids engaged beyond, you know, your typical course here, you know, just like a lot of kids they're in school all year, and they're not necessarily trying to be in school in the summer as well. And so we we see a lot of that, quote unquote, summer slide, which That's a whole another podcast of my own opinion of that term. Anyway, anyway, I wanna I wanna touch on maybe some summer opportunities that we could provide. I mean, this is this is gonna air in June ish. So

Hayley [00:23:05]:

what what are some thoughts there when it comes to summer programming? Well, first of all, I have a lot of feelings on Summer's slide as well, which I'd be happy to talk about one time. But I'm gonna just bring, like, my own experience first. Right? So when I was working in New York in schools, I was really, really involved, and we we didn't actually offer summer school for the grade the grades that I was at at the current the current time. And that changed over time for a variety of Eakins. But in the in the first implementation, especially when we found the school, I was obsessed with kids just having excellent books in their hands that were high interest. And we built out by both the elementary and the middle school level. this incredible program where we brought kids to the local bookstore, let them pick out, x number of books that they could then take home with them, and then we also bought hundreds of books where they could book shop in our school building as well. Right? So, like, basically spent a month preparing for this idea that you're going off on summer. You might not wanna read, but the best way to get yourself to read is to pick the book that you are most excited the books that have the the topics you're so eager to read. And so I am very, very, very interested in how to engage kids in the summer during the summer. In a manner that, like, fits to what age they are, what their interests are, how to keep them excited. And I think it goes back to the statement I made earlier about, like, engaged kids, behave, better, perform, better, etcetera. So, like, what's the best way? I I'm obsessed with books. I was a reading teacher for a really long time, so that's one way. The other way I know is to get them involved in science. Like, I I don't know a kid that hasn't seen a chemical explosion and been like, I'm not into that. Like, chemical explosions are cool. Learning how cooking is science is cool. Mhmm. There's a show on Netflix. I don't know if your kids watch it Sheldon, but called Emily's Wonder Lab and it's this NASA scientist named Emily who wanted to make science experiments for kids but make it really real and she's since produced a ton of books. She's a huge science nerd. I love it. But, like, you need to bring that to kids' lives. Like, you need to have them with their hands on science. That then doesn't feel like learning, but actually is so much learning and could potentially provide future career paths for a student that didn't otherwise know that you know they were as interested in animal dissection as they could. They did realize afterwards. So, like, I've seen some really, like, exceptional summer programs be built hands on learning in the summer that allows students to have the experience of engaging in learning in a way that isn't overt and as didactic as sometimes can be when they're in a school building in a classroom

Sheldon [00:25:49]:

for 7 hours a day 8 hours a day, whatever it may be. This is gold. Okay, folks. I hope y'all were taking notes and listening. You know, Hailey, I thoroughly have enjoyed this conversation. I really have enjoyed just the the insights that you've been bringing have really you know, got my mind thinking about a lot of things as well. And so as a person who's working, or as a person who's worked in rural areas, in in all different types of areas. And and I we we you know, obviously, we don't wanna limit it to just rural, but even just opportunities where you're looking to provide that course for maybe that one student.

Hayley [00:26:24]:

It looks like there are some opportunities that are out there I'd love for you to take us home maybe with your final thoughts that you wanna leave with our audience. Yeah. I think for first of all, this has been so much fun. don't often have the microphone in the other direction where I'm being interviewed, and I love it. It's it's a whole different of mine. So thanks for having me on to do that. I think for me, I still am really concerned about how we as a society have forgotten a lot of what we learned during the pandemic. And I don't even need this from an online learning perspective alone. I think a lot of folks were surprised by, you know, the the one fact that I I cannot forget is, like, how often people being interviewed about the pandemic or, you know, some kids get all their meals at school. I had no idea. Right? Our country has our country has some systemic inequality baked into the system of education. And what the pandemic did was it shown a light on it and a lot of folks already knew about it, but some folks didn't. and I'm worried that we're we're forgetting about that. And so for me, you know, online learning is N Avenue to expand equitable options for school districts around the US. There are many, and I just don't want us to forget what we were what we saw and what a lot of people were, like, woke them up to see. for the first time. And so for me, I would say that that would be how I take this home is, like, I am confident that your audience here is is listening because they're interested in thinking about equity and education. And I hope that they can remind others of that in the inequities that exist that they may have forgotten about now that where a lot of folks have moved on from the pandemic world.

Sheldon [00:27:58]:

Thank you again for your insights. And, yes, it's it's always fun. I I really appreciate your time. If we got some folks at 1 to connect with you. What's the best way to reach you online?

Hayley [00:28:10]:

Yeah. The best way to reach my podcast which I had Sheldon on is to to go to Podbean or Apple and look for learning can't wait. And the best way to find full mind, formerly known as iTRUDA, is to go to full mind learning.com.

Sheldon [00:28:25]:

Absolutely. Alright. Well, Hailey, it has truly been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me, Sheldon.

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