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Reimagining Out-of-School Learning: A Conversation with Daniel Santangelo | Childcare Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:21
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:25
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:27
My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today's guest is Daniel
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Santangelo, director of Extended Day and Enrichment at Walpole
0:34
Public Schools in Walpole, MA, which is southwest of Boston.
0:39
He overseas the development and implementation of high quality
0:42
out of school time programs that enhance student learning and
0:46
well-being. He collaborates with all
0:48
stakeholders to design and deliver engaging activities that
0:52
align with the district's goals and standards.
0:54
He is also the founder of Motivated, where he leverages
0:57
his expertise in out of school time as an educational
1:00
consultant providing guidance and support to private and
1:04
public school based enrichment programs.
1:06
He helps clients generate and maintain new programs, manage
1:10
and train staff, ensure quality control and continued education,
1:14
and improve program efficiency and outcomes.
1:17
Daniel has a proven track record of success in the Ed, tech,
1:21
education, private and nonprofit sectors with skills and
1:25
data-driven insights, stakeholder relationships, and
1:28
strategic growth. He has a bachelor's in arts
1:31
history from Bridgewater State University and a master's in
1:35
education, leadership and administration from Fitchburg
1:38
State University. Now, before we get into all that
1:40
good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
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To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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Add Back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the
2:12
Director of Out of School Time Learning with Motivated Daniel
2:15
Santangelo. I appreciate you making the time
2:17
to Share your story today. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
2:20
I'm excited. OK, so Daniel, let's start with
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what first attracted you to the field of education.
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So the first kind of job that I had had when I was in high
2:32
school was I worked for an after school program in Sharon, MA And
2:37
that ended up being I'd worked for the summer camp, I'd worked
2:41
for the after school program. I was in college and originally
2:45
I was a double major in marketing and psychology.
2:47
And I had it in my head that I was going to go, I was going to
2:50
be this, you know, master marketer for some big, you know,
2:54
company like Nike or something make millions of dollars.
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And then I realized I really don't enjoy doing this.
3:03
So I got it, but what I did enjoy doing, I had a great time
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working with the kids at the at the Atbridge school program.
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And so I kind of changed my trajectory and continue doing
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that through college. Eventually became one to one aid
3:20
for a student at in the kindergarten classroom.
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Went on to get my teaching license for moderate to severe
3:27
disabilities for K through 8. Worked as a a teacher at the
3:31
middle school level 4 year and that's right around the time
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that COVID hit. And right after that, an
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opportunity opened up where I can be a district coordinator
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for after school, and that just kind of continued on to the
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position that I'm in now. So what were you seeing in your
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work experiences that led you to start your own consulting
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business? So.
3:56
One thing that I noticed as a student.
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So growing up, I went to public school.
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I went to a charter school. I went to a private school.
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I'll, you know, throw different points in my kind of career as a
4:09
student, I guess. And at least for me, I was
4:13
always very bored in school. And then as a on the other end,
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as a teacher, I tried to make it a point to help students not be
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bored in school. And it was very difficult to get
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students engaged. That seems to be the biggest
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issue is how do we maintain the engagement?
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And that's not the fault of teachers, that's not the fault
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of schools. That's just the reality of the
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world that we live in. Pretty much everything is more
4:40
interesting than having someone talk to you all day long, right?
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A lot of students now, they have phones, they're getting updates
4:49
almost constantly. It's a much more digital world,
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much more stimulating world. And so for me, the question
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became, you know, rather than looking and, and focusing on the
5:00
negatives of the test scores are saying this, the engagement
5:04
levels are saying that I want to try to start taking a more
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proactive approach and, and understanding why we're having
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the issues that we're having that.
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And that's beyond engagement levels of students too.
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There's all kinds of issues like teacher retention.
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And if you really dig into stuff around that, there's teacher pay
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as compared to inflation rates over the last 20 years.
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Our standardized test scores compared to the amount that
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we're spending on education don't line up.
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And so I really wanted to dig into those and, and understand,
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you know, why is that? But once I had that
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understanding, help share that with all the stakeholders
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involved, parents and families included, so that communities
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and and schools and programs could start making more informed
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and more responsible decisions while still getting the outcomes
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that that they're hoping for with student engagement
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performance. So you make a good point that
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almost anything is more interesting than sitting there
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and having somebody talk to you all day.
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Do you have a a different model in mind?
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Well, if I had that, you know, I'd be doing, I'd be doing
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something a lot different, I think.
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But that's kind of what I'm, I'm looking at.
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I'm looking at different models. While I was in college, I had a
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professor, first education class I ever took.
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I forget his name, which it's too bad.
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I, I really wish I could remember.
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But first day of class, I walked in.
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He wasn't wearing any shoes. And, you know, everyone's kind
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of like, all right, like, that's a little weird, but who knows,
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You know, it's just, that's his thing.
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And then he pulled his shoes out from under his desk and whipped
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them at the wall. Everyone sits out.
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Whoa, you know what's going on? And he didn't say anything about
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it, didn't even address it. But he had everybody's
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attention. And he asked everybody, are you
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all paying attention? Everyone was like, yeah,
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because, you know, we're sitting on the edges of our seats, like,
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why did this guy throw his shoes at the wall?
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And he just went about talking about, you know, educational
7:15
theory and stuff and never addressed it.
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But from that point forward, I walked in every day, like,
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what's he going to do today? Right.
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So am I telling people to start throwing shoes at walls?
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No, I think the point of that is he found a way to get people
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engaged right away by being a little different, right?
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Being unique and being himself. And there was a video that he
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showed on the first day of class.
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It was an RSA animated video of Ken Robinson talking about
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education. Ken Robinson, he actually passed
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away a few years ago. I think he had cancer, but I
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really found everything that he had to say very interesting.
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And I really dove into, I read all of his books, I watched all
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of his videos. And he had this idea that
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there's two pillars in education.
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There's the economic pillar, and then there's the more societal
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pillar. And you know, he explains very
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well how those two tie together. And ultimately his opinion was
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that the reason that education had become so disingenuous and
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not engaging for our students is because we had modelled it after
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the Industrial revolution, right?
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Everyone was broken up by age. It was all bells and whistles.
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Once you hear a bell, you go to this location, you do this job,
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etcetera, etcetera. And his opinion was that
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education as a whole had lost the ability to engage, you know,
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this the human spirit essentially, right?
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It was no longer this engaging thing.
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It was more of a, a rigid boxed out checks and balances type
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deal. I agree with a lot of what he
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says. You know, I, I, I'm kind of
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trying to form my own opinion based off of that, but
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definitely something that I found very interesting and that
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really influenced my kind of progression through my own
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thoughts and analysis of, of the system as a whole.
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So Daniel, define for us what is out of school time.
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It's before. Is it after and why is it so
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important? So out of school time is before
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school, after school school vacations, the weekends, the
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summer, anything that's not happening during, you know, the
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the scheduled learning hours of the school day, which would
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typically be, you know, eight to three, seven to two, whatever it
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might be. The reason that it's important
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is a lot of, and this is been pretty much agreed on for a
10:03
while in, in education. In order to get the best results
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in a in a school district, a a school community, you need buy
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in and engagement not only from the students, but from the
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community as well. Students perform better when
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their parents are more involved in their education.
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Students perform better when their community has different
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levels of support. First, families that might be
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economically disadvantaged, maybe both parents work and you
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need that extra level of support so that students can have
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childcare but also receive access to academic support
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outside of school, right? Homework help, tutoring, things
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like that. There's also the social piece
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and the communal piece of it where if you can create this
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identity and culture in a community where we value
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education, we value our students.
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Students internalize that and as a result, you start to see
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increased outcomes. So the benefit of out of school
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time is you have the social benefit and you also have the
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academic benefit for the students that extends beyond the
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classroom and create some more whole student approach is is how
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they would word it, right. So you're identifying the social
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needs of the student, the academic needs of the student,
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and also the communal needs of the student as well.
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So before we get into your consulting company motivated,
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I'd like to hear a little bit about your role in the Walpole
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City Schools there in Massachusetts.
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What is it that you do? So I started in Walpole last
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year, is my first full year with the school district.
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This is my second year. And so we run before and after
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school programs at 4 elementary schools in the district and we
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have about a little over 500 students enrolled in our
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programs. One thing that we're looking at
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in. Your program not meaning 500
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students enrolled in the school, but somebody who's enrolled in
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either before school or after school activities.
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Right. And those are students that are
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they're students in the district, right.
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They go to the the schools in the district, but a little over
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500 are enrolled in our programs either before or after school.
12:36
Gotcha. OK.
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And so one of the things that we looked at from last year coming
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to this year was how do we increase that community
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engagement fees and how do we relay the message to our
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students of, you know, what does it mean to be a good member of
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your community, an active member of the community, a supportive
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member of your community? And so we we built out a
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community engagement curriculum. So to say that we're working
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through this year where families can come in and tell us, hey,
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you know, we'd love to raise awareness around the subject,
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whatever it may be. So we're doing things like we
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have a Senior Center in town, so the students make Christmas
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ornaments and Christmas cards for the the seniors in the
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Senior Center. We have letters that we give to
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1st responders in town that the students can make.
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We do food drives. We do pay for good drives.
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We do a year long partnership with the Ronald McDonald House
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where students can bring in pop tabs.
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Those pop tabs then are recycled and I believe it's like a penny
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per pop tab or something like that.
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And all that money goes to the Ronald McDonald House charity.
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They help families that have medical bills they can't pay,
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that may need to travel for medical bills for their
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children, stuff like that. And so does finding different
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ways to, you know, get the students to understand the world
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around them and giving them the opportunity to participate in
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that. You know, it's all totally
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optional. We send out a newsletter every
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month to parents. We encourage parents to come
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into the program, see what their students are doing with, you
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know, in the program, but also with their friends at the
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program, right? So we're trying to create more
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intentional touch points where where families can get involved
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with their student so that it's not, hey, how was school today?
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And they're like, I don't know, right.
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It's they come in, they see that their student is building this
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tower out of blocks and they're like, wow, that's great.
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You know, and maybe they're doing it with their friends or
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whatever it may be. And for me, I think that's
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really important because the more the more intentional we can
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be about developing that relationship and creating those
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opportunities for parents to engage with their children and
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their their children's friends, I think that's really beneficial
15:03
to their overall development. So that's kind of what we're
15:05
focused on right now. You said something that really
15:08
struck a chord with me because I've got two boys who are 8 and
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10 and they're good kids, but everyday I pick them up from
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aftercare and I asked them, hey, what went on at school today.
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I don't know nothing what, what happened at aftercare.
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I don't know nothing. And like, I can't, like, I don't
15:27
have any idea what's going on inside those walls.
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I trust what's going on inside those walls because I know the
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administrators, I know the teachers.
15:34
My kids have gone there for years.
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If I ask the teachers what's going on, they'll give me a
15:38
picture. But yeah, I I can't really seem
15:40
to get a dialogue going with my kids about how they see the
15:45
their experience taking place inside the school.
15:49
Yeah, and I think that's a a big part of the problem, right, is
15:54
when we talk about engagement in the public school system and
15:59
before after school programs. The question that I have is how
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do you measure engagement? You know, do you have someone
16:05
walking around with a clipboard going?
16:07
Yeah, looks like they're paying attention, right.
16:09
Like, how do you know? You know, so it's a really, it's
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a difficult thing to measure. There's no standardized test for
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it. There's no magic formula for it.
16:19
It's, it's more things like what you just said, right?
16:23
Like what are the answers that they're giving?
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If the answer they're giving is, I don't know, maybe they weren't
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as engaged as they could have been, right?
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So that's one of the things that we we try to address with our
16:36
newsletter is when we send it out, we send it out once a month
16:40
to families and we try to include pictures and we try to
16:44
tell them what we're going to be doing the next month.
16:47
So that way parents can ask their students, you know, oh,
16:50
did you do the Turkey Trot yet? Or did you do this or I saw a
16:53
picture of you doing that, You know, that way the student could
16:58
also still just say like, yeah, I don't, I don't know, you know,
17:01
who knows? But at least then there's the
17:03
opportunity to talk about specific things and.
17:06
And that is something that we found helpful in our home is
17:09
that at least the teacher for my oldest son, they sent home like
17:13
a weekly newsletter. Here's what we've been working
17:15
on, here's what we're going to be working on.
17:17
And so if I ask a very specific question of my son, like, hey,
17:22
how was that project that you guys did for social studies
17:25
today? He's how, how did you know about
17:28
that? And then and then that kind of
17:31
starts a little bit of a conversation there.
17:33
It almost feels like because I hear what you're saying, if I'm
17:36
asking the question and I'm not getting a very good answer,
17:39
could could be an indicator that they're not very well engaged.
17:42
It also could be that I could come up with better questions to
17:46
engage them, like something very specific.
17:49
What you know, how was that project in social studies?
17:51
Tell me about the math test that you took today.
17:54
Can you explain, you know, multiplication that you guys are
17:58
learning now, things like that? Would you, would you agree?
18:03
Is there something that could be done to sort of help prompt
18:06
parents to ask those better questions?
18:12
Well, that's actually something that I'm working or we're
18:15
working with with our staff on right now is my viewpoint of it
18:22
is more what could we do better as staff, as educators, as
18:27
parents, as opposed to asking the question of, you know, why
18:31
aren't our students paying attention?
18:33
My point of view is what are we doing that's not encouraging
18:38
them to be as engaged as they could be.
18:40
And I think like you just said, you made a great point because
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it's the same way with adults too, right?
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If you're not getting the answer that you're looking for, maybe
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that person doesn't have the answer, but maybe your question
18:54
is also being poised the wrong way, right?
18:56
You know, is there a better way you could ask that question?
19:00
Were you specific enough? Did you ask about the right part
19:04
of that question? Or was your question too
19:07
general? Right.
19:09
Like that's one thing that I found with students at the
19:13
elementary, high school and the middle school level, actually
19:17
the most at the high school level.
19:18
I'm a wrestling coach also at the high school.
19:21
You have to be very specific with high schoolers because
19:23
otherwise you're not going to get anything out of them, right?
19:25
They everything's just like, yeah, whatever.
19:28
I don't care this that the other thing, right?
19:30
But if you're as specific as possible, especially if it's
19:35
something that you know that that particular student enjoys
19:38
or is engaged with, you're probably 1000 times more likely
19:43
to get some type of answer because it's something that they
19:46
enjoy talking about. What have you learned from COVID
19:52
times and coming out of COVID times and maybe gaps that we're
19:57
seeing? So that's one opinion of mine
20:05
that not everybody necessarily agrees with, but I think it's
20:11
something that we need to spend a little bit more time looking
20:13
at. One thing that you started
20:15
hearing right away with COVID and.
20:19
I agree. It is the thing that happened
20:21
was learning loss. You heard about learning loss a
20:23
lot, right? How are we going to measure the
20:26
learning loss and, and all of this stuff?
20:29
Because a lot of students, all, all students were at home,
20:33
right, for varying amounts of time, but they were no longer in
20:35
the classroom. We had these Google Classroom,
20:38
Zoom classroom, stuff like that. One thing that I observed from
20:44
it was that I had some ideas prior to COVID around our
20:51
education kind of system. And what it was, was if you look
20:55
at the spending of our education system as a country from 1999 to
21:01
to 20/23/2022, we had a 1714% increase when adjusted for
21:13
inflation on educational spending.
21:15
It's a lot of money. We went from 6.4 billion in 1999
21:18
to 810 billion in 2021 at the same time.
21:24
So you would think then wow. We must be getting better
21:27
results. Must be right with that much,
21:31
that much increase in spending. Actually, what you see is, is
21:35
stagnation across the board in math for the United States, we
21:40
have not improved anywhere near the level that we we should
21:45
have. And you could say, well, maybe
21:48
the test got harder. You know, you should still see
21:52
some improvement if the tests are harder, right?
21:56
In reading, we've seen a couple decreases actually in our
21:59
performance levels. So I think one thing from COVID
22:04
was that that issue was a little exasperated, right?
22:09
It it came to light a lot quicker.
22:12
And because of that stagnation, the flaws in the system were a
22:17
little bit more highlighted, right.
22:20
And now the question so much isn't why was there stagnation?
22:25
It was how do we overcome that stagnation and recover what,
22:31
what there was learning loss. There was, you know, the social
22:34
piece of it that affected students and families, you know,
22:38
So now it's how do we make up that lost ground?
22:44
And for me, even more so, how do we make up that lost ground, but
22:48
do so in a way that's sustainable for, you know,
22:51
economically for our schools, our school districts and our
22:54
families without increasing spending excessively and in a
22:59
way that that isn't going to be sustainable for the future of
23:02
the district. Yeah, my wife is a speech
23:06
therapist in local school district for preschool age
23:09
children. And coming out of COVID that she
23:13
will echo, you know, a lot of the things that you're talking
23:16
about there because they saw more kids who needed special
23:21
services and more severe cases than they've ever seen.
23:26
And I don't know that it's quite tapered off yet.
23:29
And so I asked her, I said, why do you think this is the case?
23:32
She's like, kids were in isolation for a long time.
23:36
That's not good. And especially in the lower
23:39
income school district that she's in, you know, a lot of
23:41
these kids would have been spotted earlier on is needing
23:45
help that didn't get noticed that, you know, now they're 123,
23:51
you know, years older than they would have been when they would
23:55
have originally gotten spotted and sort of directed towards the
23:58
resources that were available. So I'm kind of curious, Daniel,
24:02
from your point of view, you know, do you have ideas on what
24:07
can help close that gap? Yeah, so there's a, and this is
24:14
a where I spend a lot of my own kind of time personally looking
24:18
at a lot of these issues. And I had the grand idea of, you
24:22
know, I'm going to write a book and I'm going to make this book
24:24
super easy to digest and, and you know, it'll be a New York
24:28
Times best seller and all these parents are going to buy it.
24:30
I'm like 3 pages and I, I, it's, it's very tough.
24:33
So. Don't give up, Daniel.
24:35
We need this. Book yeah, I'm, I'm not going
24:38
to, but you know, it might take me about 30 more years to get
24:42
there. So when I, when I look at the
24:48
issue overall, I try to look at it as a system, you know, and,
24:51
and what are the different pieces of the system?
24:54
And I think a big piece, and you've been, we've been seeing
24:57
this in the news a lot the last few years is teacher pay and
25:01
teacher attention. So if you look at teacher pay,
25:08
same thing from 1999 to 2022, the average pay nationally and
25:12
there's all kinds of variables for it, right?
25:15
Different cost of living in different states, but the
25:17
average teacher pay was around $57,000.
25:21
By 2022 is around $66,000. So you look at that, you're OK,
25:26
teachers getting paid more. That's a 16% increase over 23
25:31
years. At the same time, inflation
25:34
increased by 80.6%. So you had a 16% increase in
25:41
pay, but you had an 80% national increase in inflation.
25:45
So teachers real, real money, right, are actually making less
25:49
now than they were then. Quite a bit less from what
25:52
you're describing, yeah. Yeah.
25:54
And you look at the rising cost of higher education at the same
25:59
time, if I'm looking at it from a cost value analysis as an
26:05
individual that wants you into education, it's not very, you
26:08
know, it's not very lucrative, especially given the fact that
26:12
the raises are not keeping up with inflation.
26:16
And so you've seen a lot of school districts address this
26:19
and a lot of states try to address this in the last year or
26:21
two, which is awesome. I'm glad that it's getting the
26:23
attention that it is. And, you know, there's different
26:26
approaches to it. I'm not well versed enough to
26:30
sit here and and give a Ted talk on that.
26:32
But, you know, the fact that there is a honest effort to
26:36
address that I think is important.
26:41
At the same time, the highest level of teacher turnover is
26:45
within the first five years of an educator's career.
26:50
So you're having these young people come into the field and
26:53
then you're having them transition out relatively quick.
26:59
And so, you know, I think we really do need to look into that
27:02
and, and address that. On the flip side, we also have
27:06
to be mindful school districts don't have an unlimited amount
27:11
of money to pay teachers. If they are going to increase,
27:17
you know, their capacity to spend, that's going to directly
27:19
affect the families in that community.
27:22
You're seeing a lot of places try to pass override, override
27:27
votes in towns, right? So that they, the amount of
27:30
property tax will go up and schools will then have more
27:34
funding. That's one approach.
27:36
But you know, like I said, it's important to keep the community
27:40
in mind too, right? We don't want to put too much of
27:42
A burden on our families. So it, it's a, it's a very like
27:49
sensitive and, and complex issue.
27:53
But I do think that looking at a teacher pay is a good place to
27:58
start and looking at, you know, the budget of the district as a
28:04
whole or the budget of the program as a whole.
28:07
And, you know, asking a a very honest question, which is are
28:11
there ways that we could make our spending more efficient?
28:15
You know, are there things that maybe we can go without for a
28:17
little bit to be able to maintain some type of smaller
28:23
increment of pay scale increases over a longer period of time?
28:30
And, you know, that's a difficult thing to do and it's a
28:35
difficult conversation to have, I think for community because of
28:43
by and large, my what I've kind of found is that a lot of
28:48
parents, a lot of families don't understand the education system,
28:53
right? Most people don't really know.
28:55
They just think, Oh yeah, it's a school.
28:57
My kid goes there, they learn and then, you know, they come
29:01
home and that's good. But there are a lot of factors
29:06
that go into that, a lot of funding sources and and so
29:10
finding a way to get people to understand that, be more
29:13
educated in that and make more informed decisions is I think, a
29:17
a very important first step. So we kind of touched on this a
29:24
little bit before and I, I want to dig a little bit deeper and
29:27
see if maybe you've got any thoughts on this, because I, I
29:31
don't think anybody would disagree with you that being
29:34
able to attract the best teachers possible is nothing but
29:38
great, right? The, we, we all had teachers
29:42
that we thought were amazing growing up.
29:44
We all had teachers that we couldn't wait to get away from,
29:47
maybe scarred us a little bit growing up.
29:50
And I'm sure that, you know, the same continues to exist today.
29:52
You've got good people, great people, and not so great people
29:56
in every profession. And teachers is an especially
30:00
important one, right? Because they are, you know,
30:02
educating and, you know, helping to inform and and helping to
30:05
raise the, you know, the next generation.
30:08
So attracting great teachers, yes, 100% on board.
30:12
What can we do? Let me know sign me up.
30:15
But it also feels to me like there needs to be a bit of a
30:19
fundamental change in the way that we approach education.
30:23
I mean, I forget the exact line that you used.
30:26
Like, nothing is more boring or uninteresting than having
30:29
somebody talk at you all day. As grown adults, we feel the
30:33
same way as kids who are, you know, they need to be moving.
30:37
They need to be interactive, like having them sit down at a
30:40
desk all day and, you know, mostly anyways, be talked to and
30:44
lecture to. Yeah, it's no wonder that, you
30:49
know, maybe they're not engaged and some of them aren't super
30:51
excited to get up and go every morning.
30:53
Yeah. So the the simplest answer that
31:00
I could get to this is a lot, a lot of times if you start to dig
31:06
into this, you'll hear a lot of people talk about the
31:09
Scandinavian countries, right. And see, look at look at Sweden.
31:13
Sweden's students are performing so well, their teachers, you
31:18
know, the profession as a whole, to become a teacher there is the
31:23
same as becoming a lawyer here. It's a very in depth process.
31:26
That scene is like a very noble profession.
31:30
I think over the last four or five years there's been
31:39
discussion going on kind of nationally where people maybe
31:42
don't trust the schools, they don't trust the teachers as
31:45
much, you know. So maybe getting that discussion
31:50
a little bit more controlled and, and bring some respect back
31:55
to the profession publicly could be great.
31:58
But as far as getting students engaged, if you look at
32:03
educational theory, there's there's or at least when I look
32:07
at it, there's John Dewey and there's Howard Gardner.
32:11
And they discussed direct instruction, which is, you know,
32:16
2 + 2 = 4. Do that 100 times and then
32:19
you're going to know 2 + 2 = 4. Then there's the more holistic
32:24
approach, which is, you know, if you want to know how a tree
32:29
grows, plant a seed and watch it grow, right?
32:32
Make a garden, watch it grow, put your hands in the in the
32:36
dirt and, and really get out and engage with the world around you
32:40
and learn from the world around you.
32:43
I think that both of those are very important, especially for
32:47
different subjects. Stuff like math, science, you
32:50
want more direct instruction. Things like the arts and English
32:55
or language, whatever that may be, you probably want a little
32:58
bit more holistic of an approach.
33:02
I always hated standardized tests.
33:05
I was good at them because I just was good at taking tests.
33:09
Yeah, it's not because I necessarily was better at any
33:12
other thing. I just am a good test taker.
33:17
There's a real conversation going on and about standardized
33:24
tests and the benefit they have. And both sides have good points,
33:28
you know, But it's actually on the ballot today in
33:31
Massachusetts if we should get rid of standardized tests in
33:34
schools. If you're going to get rid of
33:39
them, that's fine. But I think if you're going to
33:42
get rid of them, there needs to be another way that we are able
33:46
to still kind of measure the retention rates of our students,
33:49
right? We have to know if what we're
33:52
doing is working or not. We have to have some way to
33:56
objectively or subjectively measure it.
33:58
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we can't just get
34:00
rid of it and say, you know, we'll figure it out as we go.
34:02
I don't think that's the appropriate response.
34:05
But what I do think is, is it's very important that we take the
34:10
time and think honestly about, you know, can we create
34:15
alternative pathways in education?
34:18
Because the system as it as it works or as it's working now
34:23
doesn't really work, right? We know that we've seen that.
34:27
If it worked, we wouldn't even be having the conversation,
34:30
right? So project based learning I
34:34
think is awesome. I think it's really great.
34:36
I think it's amazing if you can integrate different subjects
34:42
into the same type of project, right?
34:45
If you're doing a project, say you're, you're building a tower
34:49
or a bridge or something like that, right?
34:52
Can you have students sketch out that right?
34:56
There's your geometry, there's your physics.
34:58
When you actually build the tower, can you have them write
35:00
out a proposal? Can you have them do a budget,
35:03
right? How much is this going to cost,
35:06
right? That kind of thing.
35:08
Can you have them come up and do a presentation on that?
35:12
Explain to the rest of the group why they chose to build it this
35:15
way, right? Articulate their thoughts into
35:18
words. So now you're getting into
35:20
English standards, you get into language standards, you get into
35:22
math standards all through one assignment.
35:25
I think that's really great. I think if we can find a way to
35:30
kind of create an ongoing student portfolio where let's
35:34
say you start that portfolio in second grade and that carries
35:38
with you and now you're in 10th grade, your 10th grade teacher
35:42
can look at all the work that you've done since 2nd grade,
35:45
right? Measure, you know the progress
35:50
that was made, see where the errors were, see where the
35:53
improvements were. I think that's one way that
35:58
would really benefit a lot of students.
36:05
How sustainable that is in terms of, you know, the logistics of
36:09
it, I don't know. That's well above my pay grade.
36:13
But if I get there, at some point, I'll put it in the book
36:17
and I'll share it with everybody.
36:20
And then the other piece of it too, is you're seeing a huge
36:25
kind of resurgence in what they're, they call CTE, career
36:30
and technical education. A lot of families, a lot of
36:34
students are really showing interest in that.
36:37
And the last time we saw that was probably in the 50s.
36:42
It was actually Allentown or Georgetown, PA.
36:48
It was in Time magazine. They had a six page spread on
36:51
it, right? The, the high school opened up a
36:54
soda shop that because that's what people used to do back in
36:58
the day and say, I guess they drink pop.
37:00
And so the kids would go in there, they'd work in the soda
37:05
shop, they could come in, they could buy it.
37:07
They, they built a garage on campus.
37:10
And that was just, you know, part of their curriculum was
37:13
students could, could opt in to do that.
37:18
And we're seeing a lot of transition back towards that
37:20
right now, which I think is interesting.
37:24
And I think what's most interesting about that is those
37:26
students are engaged, right? Because they're choosing to do
37:29
that. They're still learning, they're
37:32
still gaining the tools they need, but it's their choice to
37:35
do it. So how do we increase, you know,
37:40
student choice in what they're doing and their own kind of
37:43
autonomy in their education is very important, while also still
37:48
making sure that we do have some level of standards there so
37:53
that, you know, we can kind of ensure that at least a a certain
37:57
level of ability is met by the end of their their tenure
38:05
through the public school system.
38:08
Daniel what? Role, if any, Do you think AI
38:12
either has an education today or should have in the future?
38:18
I don't know. AI is an incredible thing.
38:27
It's, you know, Thomas Jefferson came out when when moving
38:32
pictures, right? I think the movies first came
38:36
out and he said, you know, this is going to revolutionize
38:38
education. Not Thomas Jefferson, Sorry,
38:42
Edison. Edison came out and said that
38:45
and he was like, textbooks are going to be gone.
38:47
He wrote, he wrote a whole article in it.
38:50
He's like, textbooks are gone. We're not even going to need
38:52
teachers anymore. I think he was a little off the
38:56
mark on that one, right? But there's a great book called
39:01
Failure to Disrupt that kind of goes into this, right?
39:05
Every time there's a new technological sort of
39:10
advancement, we get really excited about it.
39:12
And we're like, this is going to change the way everything works.
39:18
And we tend to overreach a little bit in our in our hopes
39:22
and our anticipation of that. The role that AI plays in
39:27
education right now, there's some really great stuff.
39:33
You know, the Khan Academy is, is using AI pretty effectively
39:37
in terms of tutoring, right? And that could be a great way
39:44
for students to get a little bit of supplemental help with those
39:48
things that involve more direct instruction, right?
39:52
This is how it works. The system doesn't change,
39:56
right? It can analyze where you made
39:58
the mistake. On the flip side, like I said
40:03
earlier, the the areas that we've seen you know the most,
40:08
the biggest dip in terms of standardized test results are
40:12
reading and writing and reading comprehension.
40:16
I'd be very wary of using AI in that area, especially because of
40:22
the results that we've seen. Right, so now we're going to
40:25
make it even easier for people to not even write an essay, but
40:29
turn in an essay. You know, you don't have to read
40:33
the book anymore. Even when I was in high school,
40:35
you know, you could go on SparkNotes, you know, and what
40:39
happened in chapter 2 of A Tale of Two Cities and, you know,
40:43
would give you the highlight points and, you know, your
40:45
teacher would look at it and they'd go, well, I'll give you
40:49
AC because I know that you didn't read it.
40:50
Right now, teachers are putting in essays from students into
40:57
like a reverse AI, you know, system.
41:03
And it says, yeah, no, this is an AI essay.
41:06
And then students on the other end now can write an essay on
41:09
AI, put that AI essay into a different system that humanizes
41:13
the AI essay. And so it's kind of this like
41:16
more of attrition right now where it's like, and is it?
41:20
This is always how students are is they work harder to not have
41:24
to do the work, you know, like it's like, but.
41:28
We want the shortcut now, right? I want, I want it easy now.
41:31
I, you know, and, and as human beings, we're like this.
41:34
Even as grown adults were like this.
41:35
We don't always see like what the benefit would be for us down
41:38
the road, right. They, the students looking for
41:41
the shortcut now just want to get done with it because it's
41:43
boring. And they want to, you know, go
41:44
play video games. But they, they don't realize
41:47
that they're losing out on a skill that's going to be helpful
41:49
to them later on. Yeah.
41:52
Yeah, but isn't, you know, I mean.
41:55
Well, I think the ability to consume and synthesize and
41:59
understand information is going to be important in virtually
42:04
anything that you do in life. So even though you might be able
42:08
to, you know, get a shortcut on a book report, you're, you're
42:12
not sort of building that that mental skill, that mechanism to
42:15
be able to do that with information that's going to come
42:18
at you in a different format down the road.
42:20
That that's my take on it. Yeah, no, I, I don't disagree
42:24
with that at all. What I think is often overlooked
42:28
though, is, you know, it's, well, I asked you to do it this
42:32
way, you didn't do it this way. And so, you know, you're wrong.
42:38
I think a big piece of the puzzle and part of the problem
42:42
here is, is critical thinking. And so AI is not going away, you
42:49
know, and this is one thing that I kind of struggle with as I, as
42:53
I'm getting older, you know, I'm almost 30 now.
42:55
So, you know, yeah, getting up there.
42:59
And so, you know, it, I think of I had a, a teacher in high
43:06
school, math teacher, huge guy, just big, loud, you know, force
43:14
of nature man. And he would everyday, he would
43:16
say if he called on you and you gave him the answer that wasn't
43:20
good enough, you had to come up on the board.
43:23
You had to explain to everybody as you did it out loud, how you
43:26
got to your answer. And he said, you will not
43:29
participate in mindless memorization.
43:31
In my classroom everyday, same thing, you will not participate
43:33
in mindless memorization. And then I would go home and I
43:38
would open up to the back of the book and I would just write the
43:40
answers in because that's where they were.
43:43
And I kind of see that as, you know, AI for kids now, right?
43:49
They know the answers there and they're going through, if you
43:53
think of it on one way, you could say, well, they're taking
43:58
a shortcut, right? They're not doing the work.
44:01
If you look at it and from a different perspective, you could
44:03
say, well, they're using the tools that are in front of them,
44:08
which later in life, I mean, I use AI, you know, that's I do.
44:14
I use Google all the time. I just Chat GPTI think it's
44:17
cool. I think it's interesting, and it
44:20
synthesizes data way quicker than I ever could.
44:25
So am I saying that students should not do their work?
44:27
Absolutely not. I'm not saying that they should
44:29
do their work. It's important they do their
44:31
work for the reasons that you just said.
44:34
But there is a piece of it that I think it's important we try to
44:39
find a way to not so much encourage, but more, you know,
44:48
relate to students. I understand why you're doing
44:51
this. And if we can turn that into a
44:53
positive somehow where it's, you know, the students using this
44:59
technology, that's not going to go away.
45:01
But building that into a process that encourages them to think
45:04
critically and take that information and do something
45:08
else with it, I think that could be pretty beneficial.
45:13
So rather than if I'm hearing you right, Daniel, rather than
45:17
trying to hide or run away from some of these tools, it's like,
45:21
hey, this is a tool that's going to be here and continue to be
45:25
here going forward. Let's instruct them on the right
45:28
ways to use it and leverage this to help make their work and
45:32
their output better. Yeah.
45:34
And a lot of districts are doing that where they're coming up
45:37
with, you know, standards built around responsible use of
45:43
technology. And AII haven't seen any, you
45:49
know, electives or classes that are, are kind of built out
45:53
around using AI. But I think that that could be
45:57
an interesting angle to take with these students.
46:02
And honestly, a lot of them could probably teach a lot of
46:04
the teachers more about it, you know, and, and again, that could
46:07
create a very intentional touch point where then, you know, a
46:11
real relationship is being built between the teacher and the
46:15
student. If there's a way to get the
46:17
parents involved, right? You know, 'cause technology,
46:25
the, the rate in which technology is growing and
46:27
improving is, is only going to be more and more astronomical
46:31
year over year. I can't even imagine where it's
46:35
going to be in the next 10 years, right.
46:37
And, and how that's going to affect our schools.
46:40
But I think that, you know, we do need to embrace it to a
46:45
degree, but we need to make sure that we're being intentional and
46:48
responsible and how we do that. And the more that we can involve
46:52
and encourage our students to be a part of that process, the
46:55
better. Let's shift gears now and I want
46:58
to hear more about your consulting business.
47:00
Motivated. Tell me what it is that you do
47:03
there. So well, actually speaking about
47:06
AI, one of the things that I tried doing and luckily I have
47:11
some friends that know how to code, so they were able to help
47:13
me with this. But I went into AI and I said,
47:16
hey, ChatGPT, build me out the code to take APDF and turn it
47:23
into a spreadsheet like Google, Google Sheet or Excel
47:27
spreadsheet. And it shot me back within, you
47:30
know, a minute, some language that I don't understand.
47:34
And so I sent it to one of my friends and I said, is this
47:36
feasible? Does this work?
47:38
He said almost, he fixed it up. And so one of the things for
47:43
after school programs or child care programs is if they're
47:49
going to accept funding and depending on what state they're
47:52
from, they need to follow very specific guidelines on how to do
47:56
that. And if you're not familiar with
47:59
those guidelines, they can be very convoluted, very difficult
48:02
to navigate. And there's not a lot of people,
48:08
they really have an understanding of those because
48:10
the standards for those are different than the standards
48:12
from the school day. And so I put that system out and
48:18
now it's very easy for me to navigate any of the 50 states as
48:21
take the PDF and it transfers right into a spreadsheet.
48:24
And most of them are pretty similar.
48:28
But then I can look at that, you know, I can say here's exactly
48:31
what you need to do to get licensed.
48:33
Here's what you need for your staff.
48:34
Here's what you need for your facility.
48:36
Here's what you needed. Some states require that you
48:39
have a two year operating budget on hand before you're even
48:42
licensed, right, so that they can make sure that you're being,
48:47
you know, economically responsible and your your your
48:50
program isn't just going to close and then leave all these
48:52
families without childcare. So that's kind of one piece of
48:58
the service that ioffer. The second piece is that out of
49:02
school time programs are fundamentally different than
49:05
programs during the day. They tend not to be academic
49:08
programs, right? We tend not to have a curriculum
49:10
where it's you have to do XY and Z.
49:13
The goal is to keep students safe and to keep students
49:16
engaged and to build out and build on what was taught during
49:21
the school day in that more kind of holistic, engaging and less
49:26
structured environment. And so that's kind of what I
49:30
offer to all these other programs and districts and all
49:35
of anyone that may be involved in it is I can give you a model,
49:42
a template for staffing, for pay scale, for everything that will
49:46
work. I can also help you navigate the
49:49
licensing should you choose to get licensed.
49:52
And then, you know, I can also make sure that over the first
49:55
year or two years we're checking in, we're creating PD
50:02
opportunities for your staff. If you are having trouble
50:06
finding staffing, let's talk about that.
50:07
Let's talk about ways that we can increase your reach, that we
50:11
can target certain candidates. If, if you need a certain
50:16
candidate for a certain position, how do you communicate
50:19
with families, especially for programs that aren't affiliated
50:23
with a school district, they may not understand the language that
50:28
families are hearing from the school day, right?
50:31
And you want that language to be the same.
50:33
You want to make sure that your staff are responding to students
50:36
in the same way. And So what kind of acting as a
50:38
liaison for these private companies that may not have that
50:43
vocabulary? So those are the three kind of
50:46
biggest areas that I tend to help people navigate and consult
50:51
on. And so the folks that you're
50:54
consulting with, are they typically public schools,
50:57
private schools, they fall in a different bucket.
51:01
So a lot of them would be for profit startups that might run
51:06
after school programs. That's something that you're
51:08
starting to see that sector is starting to grow as districts
51:13
try to navigate through the loss of funding from COVID, they may,
51:18
it may be more economically feasible for them to outsource
51:21
an after school program, right? So that's one area.
51:26
Public school districts, I don't tend to work within a consulting
51:29
capacity too much because if they're doing it in house, they
51:31
have someone like me who works for the district already.
51:37
And then the other piece would be like nonprofits like the Boys
51:39
and Girls Club, YMCA, stuff like that.
51:43
If they're being brought into a district as a vendor or if
51:48
they're running something on site or opening up a new
51:51
location, you know, then I would come in and help make sure that
51:55
they're dotting all their IS and crossing all their T's for their
51:59
licensing and things like that. So you talked a little bit about
52:05
one of the things that you could help with, you know, if you're,
52:07
if folks are having trouble staffing there out of school
52:10
time program that you might be able to help there.
52:13
What? What kinds of levers have you
52:15
seen people pull to bring folks in and and retain them?
52:21
So pay is one of them, right? There's a couple different
52:27
models that you could use in terms of the staffing, because
52:30
of the hours that the programs typically run.
52:34
They're they're a little different, right?
52:36
Sometimes they're from 7:00 to 9:00 and then three to six or
52:39
something like that. And a lot of people don't really
52:44
want to work 3 hours a day, 2 hours a day, or a split schedule
52:48
of five hours a day. So then the question becomes,
52:52
you know, is there a way that this person can become a full
52:55
time staff member, which benefits them because now they
53:00
have a more stable income and benefits the program because now
53:04
you have more consistent staffing, right?
53:06
So it's easier to control any variables that you may have
53:10
because you have the same person or people working in the morning
53:13
and the afternoon, they're using the same language, they're
53:16
performing the same way when you train them, you have more
53:19
control over, you know, the techniques that you're using,
53:22
things like that. So that's one approach.
53:25
The other approach that I've found is pretty useful is
53:31
looking in the area around where the program runs and reaching
53:36
out to colleges that have education programs, especially
53:41
if you're working with a school district that creates a built in
53:46
incentive, right? You come work at this after
53:49
school program. I know at some point in order
53:52
for you to graduate, you're going to have to do student
53:54
teaching. So is there a way we can work
53:56
with the school district that when you approach the point
53:59
where you have to do student teaching, we can get you into a
54:02
classroom to do your student teaching because now you're
54:04
already on site, you're getting your student teaching done and
54:08
once you finish, you know that during the day you're already
54:11
there to work the afternoon or whatever, you know you're there
54:14
in the morning. Vice versa.
54:17
The benefit of that is you also have employees at that point
54:21
that are getting the most up to date best practices, all of that
54:25
stuff in real time. They're gaining experience,
54:28
You're gaining staff members that have a more in depth kind
54:33
of insight to the field. Typically you can pay them not
54:37
as much as a licensed teacher at the point, right?
54:40
But then if they do get their license, they do stay in the
54:43
district. Now you have someone who's a
54:45
licensed teacher who can work at your program and then creating
54:48
those pipelines and relationships with the the local
54:52
colleges so that you every year you continue to get that
54:56
staffing because you know that the you know that college isn't
54:59
going away. Daniel, completely shifting
55:04
gears, what's a fun or interesting fact most people
55:07
wouldn't know about you? A fun or interesting fact most
55:12
people wouldn't know about me. I'm a pretty open book, Anthony.
55:22
What's a fun or interesting fact I don't know about you?
55:26
Fun or interesting fact? You don't know about me.
55:27
Well, you know that I recently started golf.
55:29
I mean, you know that I'm not that good at it because we've
55:32
touched on that earlier. You know that I coach wrestling.
55:36
I have a six month old daughter. Congratulations.
55:40
Yeah, that's pretty fun, very interesting.
55:44
Are you sleeping yet? Is.
55:46
She sleeping? Yeah.
55:47
Since, like, we, we everyone asked me that question.
55:52
And it must mean that I'm very lucky because she just has slept
55:57
through the night almost consistently since she was born.
56:00
That's awesome. Yep.
56:01
You're one of the anomalies. Good for you.
56:04
That's what everyone keeps saying, yeah.
56:06
So that is a very fun and and interesting fact right there,
56:09
you know? I just have one more question
56:12
for you, Daniel, But before I ask you, I want to let people
56:15
know the best way to get in touch with you.
56:16
What would that be? The best way to get in touch
56:20
with me would be if it's for consulting purposes.
56:25
They could look me up on LinkedIn, I'm pretty active
56:28
there. Or they could send an e-mail to
56:31
my consulting e-mail address which is a SOST
56:37
consulting@gmail.com. Great.
56:41
Any reason people might want to contact you for your Walpole
56:44
City Schools position? The work that you if yeah, if
56:50
they wanted to reach out to me for that or if they just had any
56:54
questions and and they think that I may be able to help them
56:56
with their program. You know, I'm always willing to
56:59
help people. That e-mail address is D Sant
57:02
Angelo at Walpole dot K12 dot MA dot US.
57:07
We'll have both of those e-mail addresses in the show notes
57:10
folks, as well as link to his LinkedIn page.
57:13
So last question for you, Daniel.
57:16
What do you think the big changes are that are coming to
57:18
your space in the next couple of years?
57:23
Specifically for the out of school time space, I think one
57:26
thing that you're going to see a lot of is, and this will tie
57:32
into school districts as well. I think what you're going to see
57:36
is just kind of a fundamental change in the approach of the
57:40
entire model and system. You're going to see a a pretty
57:47
active push for community engagement, which I think it's
57:51
great. You know, more family
57:53
involvement. I think that you're going to see
57:56
an increase in need in these programs year over year.
57:59
We're seeing more and more students and more and more
58:02
families need these services. And so as that continues to
58:07
grow, you know, you'll see more opportunities for both private
58:10
and public child care before and after school.
58:15
And I think you're going to see hopefully a more intentional
58:24
attempt at partnerships between companies like, you know,
58:29
Mathnasium, Kumon, stuff like that, those tutoring services
58:33
and ways that they can push into these programs, whether it be
58:37
digitally or or in person to help students kind of deal with
58:41
that, that learning loss from COVID that we talked about.
58:46
Well, Daniel, I want to be the first one to thank you for
58:48
sharing both your time and your story with us today.
58:50
I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
58:53
I had a good time. Folks, that's a wrap on another
58:56
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
58:58
Thanks for learning with us today.