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Partnering on Early Education for Military Kids · Practicing Connection

• 0:00
  [music] Welcome to Practicing Connection, a podcast exploring the personal stories and collective practices that empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world.
• 0:17
  Here to start the conversation are Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch.
• 0:24
  Hi, welcome to the Practicing Connection Podcast.
• 0:26
  I'm Jessica Beckendorf.
• 0:28
  I'm Bob Bertsch.
• 0:29
  Our guests today are Lisa Sapp, school liaison specialist at Malmstrom Air Force Base, and James Yracheta, former Child and Youth Services Flight Chief 341st for Support Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base as well in Montana.
• 0:45
  Lisa and James were part of creating a transitional kindergarten pilot program through a collaboration between the Great Falls Public School District and Malmtrom Air Force Base.
• 0:55
  We're excited to learn more about this partnership, which fills a gap in the local education system by providing early childhood education for the community.
• 1:04
  Hi, James.
• 1:04
  Hi, Lisa.
• 1:05
  Thanks so much for joining us on Practicing Connection.
• 1:09
  Good morning.
• 1:10
  Good morning, Robert.
• 1:10
  Good morning, Jessica.
• 1:11
  Thank you for having us.
• 1:13
  So great to have you here.
• 1:13
  Maybe we can start by getting to know you a little bit better.
• 1:19
  Can each of you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
• 1:21
  Lisa, why don't we start with you?
• 1:24
  Okay.
• 1:24
  My name is Lisa Sapp.
• 1:26
  I am the school liaison for Malmstrom Air Force Base.
• 1:30
  Actually, next month will be four years in the seat.
• 1:34
  I had started in August of 2020, so this past four years has gone by pretty quickly.
• 1:40
  I'm from the Great Falls area.
• 1:40
  I grew up here, actually went through Great Falls public schools, left and joined the military, returned, became a teacher for Great Falls Public Schools, and then was hired by James to be the school liaison specialist here at Malmstrom.
• 1:57
  James, how about you?
• 1:59
  I've been working with the Air Force Child Youth programs in the management role for over 14 years and three years as a caregiver.
• 2:06
  Prior to that, had various roles within Air Force Child Youth programs, spent time in Alaska,[?] Japan, South Carolina, Montana, of course, just fulfilling these roles.
• 2:18
  It's been quite the journey.
• 2:18
  Back in 2020, I accepted a job at Malmstrom Air Force Base and one of the first roles I had was to select school liaison program manager for the installation.
• 2:29
  Lo and behold, Lisa was on that list and by far one of the best selections I've made as a manager.
• 2:35
  I love hearing that.
• 2:35
  Lisa, I think I'm going to direct this at you, but James, I would welcome you to fill in any blanks because I would love to hear a little bit more about Malmstrom Air Force Base and the Great Falls Montana community.
• 2:48
  It sounds like you both know a lot about both of those.
• 2:51
  Malmstrom has been here since the 60s.
• 2:51
  The mission here is intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs.
• 3:01
  While the installation is small, the missile field is the largest in the United States.
• 3:10
  We're part of 20th Air Force and under Air Force Global Strike Command.
• 3:15
  The three missile bases for the Air Force are Effie Warren in Wyoming, Great Falls, Montana, and Minot in North Dakota.
• 3:25
  We've had a long presence here in the community and long time to form those relationships and keep things going.
• 3:35
  Our mission is unique.
• 3:35
  Montana is the fourth largest state, we're something like one of the least populated states.
• 3:44
  The community surrounding the installation compared to some other areas of the world is quite small.
• 3:50
  We have Great Falls Public Schools serves around 10,200 students.
• 3:56
  About 11% or 12% of those are military-connected.
• 4:02
  Great Falls community is unique, whereas on one end of town on the east side, Malmstrom Air Force Base exists, on the west side of town, we also have the Montana Air National Guard headquarters.
• 4:13
  We have MANG.
• 4:13
  Great Falls as far as military student concentration is unique in Montana because there is no other city across the state that has as high of a concentration.
• 4:27
  Yes, I'll just add the plug.
• 4:27
  Lisa nailed it when she mentioned that Malmstrom is a unique installation.
• 4:34
  I've been working with seven other installations throughout my career and Malmstrom is unique in its own way in the sense that, you're right, it's out there and almost in the middle of nowhere.
• 4:45
  The partnership with the community is more impaired than ever because it's unique in so many ways.
• 4:51
  The project that we're talking about today is about a transitional kindergarten program.
• 4:56
  I'm wondering what exactly that means.
• 4:56
  What's the the transitional kindergarten program?
• 5:03
  Montana currently is one of the few states left that does not fund universal preschool for everyone.
• 5:11
  What that means is for the school districts who have the resources and the funding, is they have to allocate to provide that early childhood education, they have to take some government funding.
• 5:22
  They took some COVID funding.
• 5:22
  They fund from all over the place, special education funding.
• 5:28
  They can't legally call it preschool.
• 5:28
  What they do is they call it transitional kindergarten, and so that they offer it in a limited capacity, so it meets some of those government funding requirements.
• 5:40
  That's the best and simplest way I can probably explain it.
• 5:45
  What Great Falls Public School is able to do, they're the second-largest school district in the state.
• 5:51
  First is Billings, Montana to the south of us.
• 5:54
  As far as resources go comparative to all the smaller school districts surrounding Great Falls in the installation, they have the means to be able to have a building and then select students who meet a specific criteria in order to receive early childhood education.
• 6:12
  That's really interesting.
• 6:12
  I actually didn't know that there were some states who didn't fund Pre-K.
• 6:18
  This makes me wonder, given that it wasn't being offered anywhere around, how did the idea then for a transitional kindergarten program in Great Falls come about?
• 6:29
  What was that spark like?
• 6:29
  How did that start to happen?
• 6:34
  We have some other options outside of the public school system for Pre-K but they're all private.
• 6:39
  It has a cost of families with the exception of Head Start programs, which is another government-funded early childhood education program.
• 6:49
  I should start by saying that Malmstrom is also unique because we are a missile base, which means that we are heavy on missileers and security forces who tend to be demographically very young, so 18 to 25.
• 7:05
  They're either single airmen, or they're newly married and they have little kids.
• 7:09
  We're really heavy on elementary school, under four years old population.
• 7:16
  Where we found ourselves in 2020 when the world shut down, we have a child development center on the base, but they are limited in their capacity.
• 7:26
  There is really not enough spots to take care of all of our families.
• 7:32
  We were faced with a lot of the downtown programs not being available, and we had a long waitlist of families seeking care.
• 7:41
  What we learned, and what the Air Force always knew is that our military members can't focus on the mission if they're worried about what's going on at home.
• 7:51
  We were looking around going like,"Gosh, we have this wait list.
• 7:54
  What resources do we have?
• 7:54
  What partnerships do we have?
• 7:57
  What exists, and then how do we invoke that conversation?" Fortunately, the Superintendent of Great Falls Public Schools has really prioritized the base in regards to that community partnership piece.
• 8:12
  We had a relationship in place where we could go and make that ask.
• 8:17
  That's not a simple ask to make.
• 8:17
  We're asking you to allocate more money, and more funding, and teachers, and resources to support our families.
• 8:27
  They didn't hesitate.
• 8:29
  I think the support of the Military Family Support that came out around that time really ignited the enhancement of collaborations between Malmstrom and Great Falls Public Schools.
• 8:40
  Like we said at the time, there was a big wait list for childcare.
• 8:46
  Also the airmen still have to report to work every single day.
• 8:51
  All the stars aligned.
• 8:51
  We had a great partnership between our installation and Great Falls Public Schools.
• 8:57
  Though it wasn't an easy ask, both sides made it happen one way or the other.
• 9:03
  Because of that, 18 families are now able to receive that type of support each year.
• 9:09
  Montana, because we are not a universal preschool state, we're in the red.
• 9:14
  In order to change that, the state would have to fund Universal Preschool.
• 9:19
  That, however, was not a barrier for Great Falls Public Schools.
• 9:22
  They didn't look at this report and say,"Well, it's not going to turn green if we do this, so what's the point?" They said, "Well, this is within the look of our control and we want to help." If anything, COVID provided a lot of opportunities for the community to come together and pool our resources, and troubleshoot issues in creative ways.
• 9:43
  This report exists.
• 9:43
  We're still in the red despite the TK program now being up and running, but we're inching closer towards the the finish line of getting that universal Pre-K next legislative session, let's hope.
• 9:56
  [chuckles] It sounds like the wheels were in motion already, but do you feel like COVID was a little bit of a catalyst people were a little more willing to come together, or how did that play a part?
• 10:07
  I think it was already in play, but like I said, the stars aligned, right?
• 10:12
  Lisa Sapp came on board.
• 10:12
  We had a mission support group commander also take command around that same time, who was really passionate with education because he had kids of his own, and also knew that that was one of the five factors.
• 10:28
  sorry, just to help me out with that, five to thrive.
• 10:31
  -Five to thrive, yes.
• 10:31
  -Yes. Nailed it.
• 10:33
  You know, as part of the retention of airmen throughout the Air Force.
• 10:36
  Again, everything aligned, we had the partnership already there, but I don't think it was where it needed to be, but again, Lisa took the role.
• 10:43
  Our former MSG Commander took his spot and once [?] was in place, the idea started rolling.
• 10:51
  Yes, the catalyst that we needed to make those unique incentives happened.
• 10:57
  What I will say is sometimes things happen and it's a catalyst for change.
• 11:03
  COVID was definitely a negative thing, but it did have some positive results for us because it forced us to look at situations in new ways.
• 11:12
  Our MSG commander at the time, his name is Colonel Carnes, and he went by his four rules.
• 11:20
  Not necessarily rules, but ideas for partnership were luck, skill, relationship, and timing.
• 11:28
  We're in the middle of COVID.
• 11:28
  We're coming out of the other side, 2020, we shut down in the spring, and then by the fall, 2020 going into 2021 school year, things were virtual hybrid.
• 11:43
  It was messy.
• 11:43
  It's the worst time you want to go to a community partner and say,"Hey, I know the school district is a mess right now, and everybody's scrambling to try and figure things out, but, hey, can you help us out too?" In the world of education, you have to realize, unless you've actually worked in the trenches with these folks, they're answering 150 questions even before breakfast.
• 12:06
  By 11 o'clock in the morning, they've already had three meetings and four parent phone calls.
• 12:12
  At every single level of their organization, at the district level, at the building level, in the classroom level, everybody's plate is overflowing.
• 12:23
  Now, we're throwing everybody into a virtual,"Teach online now, and just pivot and do this and do that." Now Mal,strom comes to the table and say,"Hey, can we get some help with our Pre-K?" They didn't even hesitate to question any of that, and that is because at their core, they want what's best for kids and they view the military as an important community partner and they understand how it's going to help the mission.
• 12:59
  All of these things, we had an MSG commander who had a background in public affairs and understood how important the community piece was.
• 13:08
  We had a flight chief who had come in and he was ready to do whatever it is that I asked him to do.
• 13:14
  He was my absolute wingman.
• 13:14
  If I needed to elevate or network or pivot or I needed him to do this, he didn't question.
• 13:22
  He just did it.
• 13:22
  Then the school liaisons what our job is, it's vast, and it varies, but we're responsible for the footwork.
• 13:32
  I'm writing the emails and the proposals and I am setting up the meetings and I'm trying to do all of these things, but it's a team effort at the end of the day.
• 13:43
  All three of those pieces are so critically important.
• 13:46
  If I really want this, that's okay, but I also have to have that buy-in from leadership, and I also have to have that buy-in from my flight to kind of drive these partnerships forward.
• 13:58
  James, I'm wondering, as Lisa said, the school district was really ready to step forward, but it sounds like maybe that's part of a broader relationship between Malmstrom and the Great Falls community.
• 14:10
  Are there other partnerships?
• 14:10
  Are there other collaborations?
• 14:13
  Was there kind of groundwork that helped set the foundation for this particular collaboration?
• 14:18
  You know, Bob, I don't think so.
• 14:18
  We had things that we wanted to do and we had discussed and we're still to this day continuing to work on those different ideas, but I think that was probably the biggest one that that really took that partnership and that relationship off was the transitional kindergarten program.
• 14:39
  Yes, easily.
• 14:39
  We're working with the high schools right now for a job shadowing opportunities for different various areas on the base.
• 14:47
  not just for our Junior Air Force[?] but for the kids who are looking for [?] opportunities after high school or childcare opportunities.
• 14:55
  Yes.
• 14:55
  No, that was that's probably the biggest thing that we focused on at the time, because again, it wasn't an easy lift, it was an easy, yes, but to get to where we initiated that character almost two or three years ago now, it was a lot of work on this end.
• 15:14
  She did the heavy lifting, I just, whatever she needed, I was like, "Let's do it, let's set the meetings up, let's go." whether it was with a group commander, installation, wing commander or whoever it was, we were making that happen.
• 15:27
  Prior to my coming into the position, the school liaison role had been left, not intentionally left vacant but the previous school liaison had been multicast into other parts of child and youth in other areas.
• 15:43
  There was a period of time where there wasn't a lot of activity from the office.
• 15:48
  When I came in, those partnerships really had to be rebuilt a little bit and reestablished.
• 15:57
  This could have been awkward but fortunately, it wasn't because the folks at Great Falls Public Schools are just so great.
• 16:06
  I used to work for them, and I left that position to go take another one.
• 16:12
  Now I go to board meetings, and I'm talking about base stuff instead of doing special education in the classroom, which is a hard role to fill.
• 16:22
  They could have been resentful, and they could have made things difficult, and they didn't have to cooperate, but they did.
• 16:29
  It's because it's not personal, it's about the big picture.
• 16:33
  I left on positive terms, knowing that I was going to go into a role where I was going to have to work with these folks.
• 16:40
  They're great folks but they have their own needs and their own objectives.
• 16:44
  Now I have to come in as a community partner and continually make demands upon them to ease local policies and practices within the school system to make things easier for our military families to navigate.
• 16:58
  I'm not the only community partner they have to contend with.
• 17:00
  There's other organizations that are also doing the same thing that also have needs and are advocating for their student populations.
• 17:09
  I'm one of many voices at the table that are just saying,"Hey, we need something from you." That is a reciprocal relationship, so inversely, part of building, and rebuilding, and cultivating that relationship is doing stuff for them whenever possible.
• 17:26
  That's hard to do in the military because we have so many limitations on what we can and cannot do.
• 17:33
  You look for opportunities to highlight your partnership, to highlight the good works that they do and that makes continually coming to the table and asking for favors much easier.
• 17:45
  I cannot reciprocate to the degree that they've supported us but I can do what's in within my power to make sure the community and our installation leadership and Air Force knows that we have true partnership with the school district and that they are doing the good work to support our military families.
• 18:06
  Lisa, I would add that you were reciprocating by helping them to address something that they care very much about.
• 18:13
  You guys have both gone into a little bit of what your role was.
• 18:17
  I would love to hear a little bit more about your specific roles in making the partnership happen.
• 18:25
  When I hired Lisa, I was still in a different position at a different installation.
• 18:31
  I was down in San Antonio as an Air Force Services Center employee.
• 18:36
  We call them the dreaded inspectors.
• 18:36
  We go out to different installations and inspect the Chinese programs to make sure it complies with different public laws and Air Force laws and so forth.
• 18:47
  I had accepted the job at Malstrom but COVID hit so I was still stuck in San Antonio.
• 18:49
  My boss at the time was like,"Hey, man, one of your first response was you didn't hire a school liaison program manager." I had never stepped foot into Great Falls.
• 19:00
  I had no idea what it was like, never even stepped foot at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
• 19:05
  You mentioned east installation is different even though we're all Air Force.
• 19:09
  I had no idea.
• 19:09
  I looked at the applicants, I saw that Lisa had a lot of experience within education system.
• 19:16
  I know that's probably the most critical piece to a school liaison program manager is that education.
• 19:22
  We can pick up the Air Force requirements, that's no big deal.
• 19:25
  You can look at it, refer to it.
• 19:25
  No, it's not an issue.
• 19:29
  Well, I knew the hard part was like,"Hey, I need somebody who's going to have that experience." Are we working in the school?
• 19:33
  Who knows Great Falls really, really well?" That way that makes that transition a lot easier, and to build off that partnership.
• 19:44
  That was the first big thing.
• 19:44
  Again, I was walking in blindly.
• 19:47
  I don't know what Great Falls, I knew I was going to move there in two months or whatever.
• 19:51
  They allowed me to.
• 19:51
  Also to add, I didn't know what the partnership was like at the time either.
• 19:58
  Lisa, the lady who was filling out the position, she still had it.
• 20:02
  I was working with her at the time.
• 20:02
  She was School Liaison/Youth Program Director.
• 20:08
  She helped me as much as I could to understand what the environment and climate was like between Mount Strumet and Great Falls, but I didn't know to the extent until I stepped foot and really dove in with Lisa to start working some of those initiatives around August, September time frame.
• 20:26
  One of the first things that happened when I came on in 2020 is that support of Military Families report dropped, and our director of staff reached out to the superintendent and was like,"Why do we have an F on our report card?" Nobody knew anything about this report, how it was scored, even that it was on a curve.
• 20:45
  All of these things, little details, we had no idea.
• 20:48
  Our superintendent took it really personally.
• 20:51
  One of the first things that I had to do as soon as I got into the position, mind you, I didn't have a computer yet, I didn't have a work phone.
• 21:00
  I was operating off my own personal cell phone, making all of this, trying to set up meetings and do all.
• 21:06
  I knew nothing about the Air Force side.
• 21:08
  All I know is education.
• 21:08
  I, fortunately, had a really great MSG commander who was very easy.
• 21:18
  We got in front of him and had a good meeting with the MSG commander first to say, "Okay, these are our immediate needs right now as far as education and childcare." COVID happened, and we had no idea the reverberations and the impacts this would have, the school system being shut down, and our military members not being able to go out and trying to find care, and then also try to protect ourselves from this illness that was spreading.
• 21:48
  There was just so many things happening at the same time.
• 21:53
  Then there's this report, and we got a bad grade, and our Great Falls Public School Superintendent Moore, which today is his last day, he is retiring, so congratulations Tom.
• 22:04
  He wanted to talk about this report, and what does all of this mean?
• 22:09
  This was a few meetings.
• 22:09
  Talked to the MSG first and,"Okay, this is what our needs are.
• 22:15
  This report is here.
• 22:15
  We need to go meet with them and calm everybody's nerves because this on top of everything else was just the cherry on top." We're looking at the categories.
• 22:26
  There's mental health, there's graduation rates, and all of these things.
• 22:33
  Just looking at it, just going like, "Okay, where are our problems right now?
• 22:37
  What can we fix right now?
• 22:37
  We have a need for childcare.
• 22:41
  We also have this report that says we need universal preschool." Then it became a conversation where now we could go to the district and say,"This is really where we need your support.
• 22:53
  This report exists, and I know you got a bad grade, and I'm sorry, but right now we have to set that aside and look at our immediate needs as an installation.
• 23:02
  How do we get our military members back out into the field?
• 23:05
  How do we alleviate some of the fears that they have leaving their kids?
• 23:10
  They don't have care.
• 23:10
  All of these things are just out there." We had a meeting with the MSG commander up to visit the superintendent and his assistant superintendents and say,"Okay, we have a waitlist of--" I can't remember how many kids were on the waitlist, but it was enoughto fill a classroom.
• 23:30
  We just said,"All we need from you, if you were willing to try and work with us, is one classroom in your TK program so these children on the waitlist can have a place for care." There was silence at the table, and we're looking at each other, and we're absorbing.
• 23:50
  This is not an easy ask.
• 23:50
  "I need your money, I need your manpower.
• 23:53
  I need your time.
• 23:53
  Please give all of these things to us despite getting a bad grade from the Air Force on this report." There wasn't really any hesitation.
• 24:01
  They knew it was what was needed for the mission to continue.
• 24:08
  They knew it was what was needed for our military members to know that their child is taken care of so they can return to the field and continue their operations.
• 24:18
  This is all within the first three months of me being hired.
• 24:23
  I was like, "What did I do?"[laughs] This is scary, but at the same time, though, very purposeful work to see an actual problem and to be able to work within the community to solve it.
• 24:38
  That's rare and very, very cool.
• 24:42
  It's really interesting to hear all of these things that came together.
• 24:45
  Then I'm reminded of what you mentioned about your commander saying the four things about partnerships and one of those being luck.
• 24:52
  What potentially was a negative in terms of the grade on the report, provided a little bit of that spark to get the partnership going.
• 25:03
  100%.
• 25:03
  The timing, you would think COVID would be the worst time, but actually played into our favor.
• 25:10
  I had a relationship with the school district.
• 25:12
  I knew the superintendent.
• 25:12
  I used to work with him.
• 25:16
  His assistant, Superintendent Heather, used to be my principal.
• 25:20
  I had that relationship.
• 25:20
  We were lucky to have an MSG commander who really understood the community piece.
• 25:27
  We were lucky to have a flight chief to really understand and speak to the programming needs that were missing.
• 25:35
  Fortunately, all of us, I think were skilled enough to negotiate a pathway forward that benefited everybody.
• 25:44
  Yes, luck, skill, relationships, timing.
• 25:46
  I'll never forget it.
• 25:48
  James, are there other lessons that you learned about installation and community partnerships through this process?
• 25:55
  Yes, a couple sticks in mind.
• 25:55
  One of them, it's possible.
• 26:00
  Each installation and community have their own needs and wants.
• 26:05
  I think the important thing is to just really work with those community members, both sides, whether it's installation or the community are willing to give and help out, whatever they can do because we know one can't exist without the other.
• 26:19
  That's number one.
• 26:19
  Then number two is people want the best for the military youth and the airmen.
• 26:26
  It's not going to be easy by any means, but if you have the right people in place with the right intentions, I mean truly anything is possible.
• 26:35
  I know this is-we're only talking about the transitional kindergarten program right now.
• 26:40
  The things that Lisa and team have in place for military families and youth, it's only going to help not just the installation, but also Great Falls as well.
• 26:51
  It's doable.
• 26:51
  It may look differently at wherever the installation is at or wherever they're trying to overcome, but it's very much possible.
• 26:58
  Just got to get a little creative sometimes.
• 27:02
  I will add to that.
• 27:02
  Any school liaison going into the seat, one of the first things you need to do is first of all get your bearings.
• 27:11
  The next piece is identify what your program supports currently and then who your community partnerships are.
• 27:20
  Make sure that you do immediate outreach to introduce yourself, set up a meeting, don't have an agenda straight out the gate, just a meet and greet, get to know,"If you need anything, here's my contact information." The hard part about the military is the lack of continuity.
• 27:39
  It's our strength and it's also our greatest weakness.
• 27:43
  When you have folks who-- We have installation commanders for two years, that's it.
• 27:49
  Really, the first three to six months are dicey because they're still learning their role.
• 27:54
  Then the last six months are really dicey because they're looking ahead to the next place.
• 27:59
  For the community, our community partners who aren't military, a lot of them are there for long periods of time.
• 28:06
  They have seen leadership come and leadership go and program managers come in and programming managers leave.
• 28:13
  It's a constant rotation of characters.
• 28:15
  It's easy to let those relationships slide because if there's not somebody there to immediately pick up the torch and carry on, then things taper off.
• 28:27
  Assess the health of your program, assess the health of your partnerships, and that gives you a good starting place to see where you need to go.
• 28:35
  Then once you have an assessment of what your needs are, what your program covers, where your gaps are, then you can go to your community partners and say,"Hey, this is where we can intersect.
• 28:47
  This is where we could support each other.
• 28:50
  This is where we can make change and make things better." You know, the military is hard.
• 28:55
  Our continuity piece, it's a struggle.
• 28:59
  It's such a struggle.
• 29:01
  A lot of our program managers of our helping agencies are spouses of military members.
• 29:08
  They're in the seat for two to four years, and then they're gone.
• 29:12
  Then we have to go through the hiring piece.
• 29:14
  Anybody who's ever applied for a federal job knows how long it takes to get onboarded.
• 29:19
  There's those gaps.
• 29:19
  Then trying to find people to fill in the gaps.
• 29:23
  It's always a slippery slope of trying to keep things current and keep those relationships, keep cultivating them, and making them a priority.
• 29:33
  It's so hard.
• 29:33
  The military in itself is a unique organization that has unusual impacts on the community.
• 29:42
  We don't operate like other organizations do.
• 29:46
  We have very strict rules and regulations regards to what we can and cannot do.
• 29:52
  Sometimes when they come to us and ask us for support, we can't.
• 29:58
  If you have that positive relationship with them that you can explain to them,"This is why we can't." and they accept it.
• 30:04
  They don't have hard feelings, but if those relationships don't exist prior and they come to us with an ask and we say no, well, then they're like,"Ugh, I don't want to deal with them anymore." There's a lot that goes into it.
• 30:16
  We place unusual demands upon communities and we have unique needs and circumstances based on what our missions is.
• 30:28
  I think the key takeaway is for leadership and program managers, schools don't sound like a big deal until they are.
• 30:36
  COVID was an unusual circumstance.
• 30:36
  Thankfully, we had the right people, we had the right place, we had good timing, luck, skill, relationship, timing, again, to navigate that.
• 30:49
  It's easy from a leadership perspective to be like,"Oh, it's just the school system.
• 30:54
  That's not that big of a deal." Yes, I guess that could be true until something big happens and then it is a big deal.
• 31:01
  Then you want to be proactive and have those relationships in place and then not be left sweeping up glass per se, trying to work things out with folks that aren't familiar with each other.
• 31:17
  We're going into our third year of the transitional kindergarten program.
• 31:21
  It's no longer a pilot program.
• 31:21
  It is a program.
• 31:24
  What Great Falls Public Schools is able to do, they have seven classrooms now.
• 31:30
  One of them is allocated specifically for children living on the installation.
• 31:35
  It supports 18 students and 4 of those spots are specifically for students with special education needs.
• 31:42
  They have onsite speech therapy, occupational therapy, school psychologists, behaviorists, all in one location.
• 31:52
  Our families now have access where previously they would not have qualified.
• 31:59
  We're going into our third year, we hope at some point to grow the program.
• 32:04
  Great Falls Public Schools has taken it upon themselves to provide this, all of the heavy lifting really for the creation of the hiring of the teacher, the paraprofessionals, the materials, the busing and transportation costs, all of these, they have allocated these resources specifically to us to support the mission, and we are incredibly grateful.
• 32:30
  I have really enjoyed hearing about this.
• 32:32
  We always love to close with asking you if there's a practice that has been helpful in your work or to you individually that you would be willing to share with us.
• 32:40
  What keeps you going in your work?
• 32:44
  For me, I think you have to love working with people.
• 32:50
  You have to want to have those engagements.
• 32:53
  You want to look on the installation and off the installation for opportunities to intersect and support programs using collaboration.
• 33:04
  Collaboration is so important.
• 33:04
  I'm an office of one.
• 33:08
  I'm one deep.
• 33:08
  I can do things by myself, but it's certainly not as fun.
• 33:13
  I'm constantly looking to other helping agencies on base or other programs on base to see where we can collaborate and support our military families and children.
• 33:25
  In the same breath, I'm also looking to the community to find new and interesting ways to engage with students in the school systems, and open up and demystify the base a little bit and bring them onto the installation, and show them what's out here.
• 33:41
  That is what I love about this job.
• 33:41
  I have a lot of freedom and a lot of autonomy and a lot of opportunity to build things from scratch.
• 33:52
  The TK program was one of them, and it had some really positive and meaningful, and impactful results.
• 33:59
  These children who wouldn't have access to early childhood education now do and now bringing high school students on to do job shadows and navigate the base and learn what's out here.
• 34:12
  Then see what other, if they are not interested in joining the military, how they can have a job and a career living and working in Great Falls.
• 34:20
  At the base, I'm not a recruiter, but I'm maybe a civilian recruiter.
• 34:26
  I like building things, I like collaborating, and I like working with others.
• 34:33
  I mean if those are three things that you like too, this job would be great for you.
• 34:38
  What about you, James?
• 34:38
  What keeps you going in your work?
• 34:40
  What's a practice that you employ?
• 34:43
  Yes, just working with others.
• 34:43
  Then specifically for the TK program, it was a long process, but to finally see it happening and still continuing to happen to this day, I think that seeing the results and doing so much work and seeing the impact it's having for our youth, number one, and also number two, the installation.
• 35:05
  Again, Malmstrom is very unique in the sense that it can't close.
• 35:10
  We have an important job over there and having those ICBMs ready to go at any moment's notice.
• 35:16
  Then like you said, working with everyone, be open to ideas.
• 35:20
  There's no bad idea that's going to benefit our military youth, our installation, our local communities, and just be willing to do the work wherever's needed.
• 35:31
  Just keep that end goal in sight, and yes, it'll be good.
• 35:36
  I think one last thing I'll add is, in order to get folks on board, in order to get our school systems on board, look for ways to leverage military and Air Force resources to not only support military kids but to support all kids.
• 35:52
  That is a good way of approaching new ideas and new partnerships with school systems.
• 35:57
  Lisa, James, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
• 36:01
  Thank you for having us.
• 36:03
  Lisa Sapp is a school liaison specialist at Malmstrom Air Force Base, and James Yracheta is a former Child and Youth Services Flight Chief at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.
• 36:16
  To learn more about the transitional kindergarten program partnership, check out the link in our show notes.
• 36:21
  [music] That's it for this episode.
• 36:38
  Thanks so much for joining us.
• 36:40
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• 36:45
  We'd also love to hear what you've been thinking about and what's inspiring you.
• 36:49
  You can share that with us by clicking the Send Us a Text Message at the top of the description of this episode.
• 36:55
  If you're listening on a computer, you can email us at practicingconnection@oneop.org.
• 37:01
  We can't wait to hear from you.
• 37:03
  We'd like to thank our co-producer, Coral Owen, our announcer, Kaylin Goebel, Maggie Lucas, and Terry Meisenbach for their help with marketing, and Nathan Grim, who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast.
• 37:14
  We hope you'll listen again soon.
• 37:14
  Until then, keep practicing.
• 37:17
  [music] The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense, under award numbers 2019-48770-30366, and 2023-48770-41333.