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Kids Laugh During Shooter Drills—Teachers Speak Out (Full) · Solving America's Problems

• 0:00
  Sarah: Still rolling out the complete 2025 episodes, one a day.
• 0:04
  Alex: Welcome to Solving America’s Problems.
• 0:07
  A middle-school teacher just told the nation that her sixth-graders
• 0:11
  laugh and joke during active-shooter drills because they’ve never
• 0:15
  been taught how to handle fear.
• 0:18
  Another educator admitted she almost had a panic attack watching them goof
• 0:21
  off, knowing exactly what silence would mean if it ever turned real.
• 0:27
  Then a third veteran teacher revealed she’s ready to ditch her computer-science
• 0:31
  gig tomorrow if the principal will just let her teach health class again—because
• 0:36
  these kids cry the second a coding puzzle gets hard and nobody ever
• 0:40
  showed them how to breathe through it.
• 0:43
  Jerremy and Dave sat down with three frontline teachers who’ve clocked almost
• 0:48
  a century in classrooms combined, and what spilled out wasn’t another gun debate.
• 0:54
  It was something rawer.
• 0:56
  Jerremy Newsome: The people want to know, what are we talking about today?
• 1:00
  Dave Conley: In this episode of Solving America's Problems, we're tackling the
• 1:03
  complex issue of school safety from those who know it best, our educators.
• 1:08
  Today we'll be joined by three amazing teachers.
• 1:11
  Eric Stenlake, a seasoned educator With expertise in brain health and youth
• 1:16
  psychology, We'll also hear from Jennifer Weathers, A middle school teacher with a
• 1:20
  strong emphasis on the role of family and teaching coping skills and communications.
• 1:24
  And finally, Daniel Lysett joins us, a passionate advocate for community
• 1:28
  support in schools who have spent over three decades teaching and developing
• 1:32
  social emotional skills in children.
• 1:35
  And that's coming up next on Solving America's Problems, School Safety, From
• 1:39
  the Front Lines with Eric Stenlake, Jennifer Weathers, and Daniel Lysett.
• 1:44
  Jerremy Newsome: listeners from around the entire world.
• 1:47
  Welcome to today's special episode of solving America's problems,
• 1:53
  where we dive into one of the most challenging issues facing our society
• 1:59
  as Americans, which is school shootings.
• 2:03
  It's a topic that is Discussed in my opinion far too ill frequently But
• 2:09
  most importantly it is something that every single person is affected by when
• 2:13
  they see hear or read of this incident happening and as future president the
• 2:22
  number one focus for me is educational reform, but most importantly, ensuring
• 2:28
  that there's never a school shooting ever again in this beautiful country.
• 2:32
  And it starts with having amazing individuals come together and
• 2:36
  having discussions about it.
• 2:39
  So let me introduce three of our guests.
• 2:43
  We have Eric and Eric has been an educator since 1996, bringing
• 2:49
  a wealth of experience across various educational settings.
• 2:53
  Including work with at risk youth, public school students
• 2:56
  and private school environment.
• 2:58
  His career spans roles as a classroom teacher, athletic
• 3:01
  coach, and athletic director.
• 3:06
  joining us is Jennifer Weathers . And Jennifer is a dedicated educator with
• 3:14
  over 20 years experience also across multiple disciplines, including health,
• 3:18
  PE, media, and computer science coding.
• 3:22
  Currently, she teaches sixth grade computer science.
• 3:25
  At Fruita Middle School in Colorado with a career spanning diverse
• 3:30
  educational settings and student needs from high crime gang impacted
• 3:34
  schools to middle class districts.
• 3:35
  Jennifer has witnessed the complex issues facing today's students.
• 3:40
  Jennifer is so happy to have you here.
• 3:42
  And we also have Danielle and Danielle is a seasoned educator with 30 years
• 3:49
  of experience working across diverse teaching roles, including elementary.
• 3:52
  Preschool education or career as focused on supporting young parents,
• 3:57
  children involved in challenging home environments and those dealing
• 3:59
  with issues related to gang violence.
• 4:02
  I also like to call her Danny because Danny is someone that's very
• 4:06
  near and dear to my heart and is a absolutely incredible human being.
• 4:10
  So with the five of us here today, joining with us as well as my producer
• 4:15
  and co host Dave Conley, and I'm the host, Jeremy Alexander Newsom, and we're
• 4:19
  working on really solving this problem.
• 4:21
  So I'm gonna start with.
• 4:22
  a very open ended question for our panel.
• 4:26
  Whoever wants to begin to speak can go do that, and then we will start diving
• 4:31
  into some of the directional questions in a very fun and free flowing conversation
• 4:35
  that is going to address this problem.
• 4:39
  So the open question, based on your experience, how have attitudes
• 4:44
  and preparedness around school safety evolved Over the years,
• 4:51
  or have they evolved at all?
• 4:52
  Let's go there.
• 4:54
  Dave Conley: do you think, Eric?
• 4:56
  Eric Stenlake: Just right off the bat.
• 4:57
  Yeah, we do a lot of preparedness.
• 4:58
  Sure.
• 4:59
  We're doing drills.
• 5:00
  We're doing situational awareness.
• 5:02
  We're trying to get into the space that in the event of an emergency happening
• 5:07
  that we default to our training.
• 5:10
  You go to anybody in law enforcement, military.
• 5:13
  The number one thing is with their training is that they do it so they
• 5:16
  don't have to think about it and and that it just happens automatically.
• 5:21
  The attitude on that with staff and students is, wow, this is where we are.
• 5:27
  This is what we have to do.
• 5:29
  We need to do this all the time, every couple of months to
• 5:35
  make sure that we're prepared.
• 5:38
  Where does that leave us?
• 5:40
  as a school community.
• 5:42
  Jerremy Newsome: No, that feeling.
• 5:43
  Do you think it's, is that, is it fear?
• 5:45
  Is it frustration?
• 5:46
  Is it annoyance?
• 5:47
  Is it an understanding of why they have to do it?
• 5:51
  Eric Stenlake: Yeah, I think kids and staff, are definitely
• 5:55
  understand the why behind it.
• 5:57
  Is there fear going into that?
• 5:59
  Absolutely.
• 6:00
  Do the kids not take it serious?
• 6:02
  Absolutely.
• 6:03
  And they get into laughing and joking and goofing as a coping mechanism.
• 6:08
  And the adults are going, you need to take this seriously.
• 6:11
  You, you gotta be quiet.
• 6:12
  You have to do this.
• 6:13
  You have to do that.
• 6:15
  Because if this was real holy moly, right?
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  And so I think for the kids, mental survival through these training
• 6:24
  episodes they will go into a space of where they can find comfort.
• 6:28
  Yeah.
• 6:28
  Boy, I'd love to, you
• 6:31
  Jerremy Newsome: jennifer, what are you noticing being a current teacher?
• 6:34
  JennWXS-1: In my particular school I don't think we, I don't think we
• 6:39
  practiced the lockdowns enough as I was telling Mr. Conley last night.
• 6:44
  I know that we have a crisis intervention team, but as of right now I don't
• 6:50
  even know I know what I would do in my situation in my classroom and where I
• 6:54
  would go, but as an overall team, so far, none of that has been discussed
• 7:00
  and I don't know if it's because maybe.
• 7:04
  It could be the town that we're in where there's not a lot of like
• 7:07
  crime and violence and everybody's just complacent and comfortable.
• 7:11
  Know that it doesn't make me feel comfortable that we aren't
• 7:16
  practicing our lockdowns more.
• 7:19
  I know we have a lockdown, we have lockdown chills two
• 7:23
  times a year and that's it.
• 7:24
  Jerremy Newsome: Sure.
• 7:25
  JennWXS-1: And the times that we've had those lockdown drills, I've been
• 7:28
  at the school for three years now.
• 7:30
  It's just Mr. Stein, like I said, my kids don't take it serious and I one
• 7:36
  time almost had a panic attack because my kids weren't taking it serious.
• 7:40
  And I stood there in the middle of the room and I was thinking to myself.
• 7:44
  If this was a real situation and these kids aren't taking it serious, what
• 7:49
  am I going to do to get them quiet?
• 7:51
  And my mind just started racing.
• 7:53
  Like, how do I get them out, out of here?
• 7:55
  What am I going to do to get them quiet?
• 7:56
  What am I going to do to take them seriously?
• 7:58
  And it really upset me.
• 8:00
  It was really upsetting that they weren't taking it that serious.
• 8:04
  Jerremy Newsome: To Eric's point, it is awful that we even have to do it, but at
• 8:10
  the same time, I think there is relevancy to it, like you're saying, and the fact
• 8:16
  that we even have to have this discussion truthfully is probably appalling because
• 8:22
  I'm sure you all have either heard or are aware of this, but the amount.
• 8:28
  That this has even occurred is really appalling, right?
• 8:34
  So in 2023, there were 346 school shooting incidents across the country.
• 8:39
  So that's averaging one incident, per day.
• 8:43
  And then as of September 2023, there have been nine there have been 50 school
• 8:46
  shootings in the United States that year.
• 8:49
  So up until about a year ago.
• 8:52
  JennWXS-1: Yeah,
• 8:53
  sorry.
• 8:54
  Jerremy Newsome: yeah no, exactly.
• 8:54
  Huge numbers.
• 8:56
  JennWXS-1: yeah, I looked up some statistics as well, and you're right
• 8:59
  on the money, the statistics that I looked up, because I was just curious.
• 9:03
  So far, I know you said September, but the statistics that I saw
• 9:07
  was 58 school shootings in the U. S. so far just in 2024.
• 9:11
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 9:12
  Wow.
• 9:13
  Wow.
• 9:13
  Wow.
• 9:13
  Wow.
• 9:15
  And it's, it is as scary as a faculty, it's scary as a
• 9:18
  teacher is scary as a parent.
• 9:20
  Just the entire aspect of it is terrifying.
• 9:22
  And so from beginning to dive into it, Danny, I'd love to hear your perspective.
• 9:29
  Do you feel that this is a gun issue or is this a mental health
• 9:33
  issue or is this another issue that we aren't addressing at all?
• 9:37
  Danielle: You know me so well.
• 9:40
  I gotta tell you, as I hear all of you guys talking about this.
• 9:44
  And we're talking about a school which is a place right a place
• 9:48
  a location, and it sounds to me.
• 9:51
  As you're saying, we're going to have to deal with this.
• 9:55
  I think maybe we're looking at it a little bit differently, where maybe we
• 9:59
  need to start teaching the children, the school the people themselves, right?
• 10:05
  How to deal with, you were saying, Eric.
• 10:09
  How kids deal with it, they would laugh and giggle.
• 10:12
  And, they show that if we could, when it's not in such a high flight
• 10:19
  fight or flight kind of a thing, teach the children how to cope the
• 10:23
  coping skills, the coping mechanisms that we could use daily to help them.
• 10:30
  Along with right, keeping the school protected for sure.
• 10:36
  But I think it's go it goes hand in hand for sure that if we teach them,
• 10:41
  this is the reason why we're doing this.
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  And this is how you can deal with it internally, along with external.
• 10:49
  And then And Jen said, like her school system.
• 10:53
  So we're dealing with different school systems, big places, small
• 10:57
  places, people that don't think it's going to happen to their school.
• 11:01
  Oh, but guess what happened.
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  Then all of a sudden, it's your school.
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  You just never know, but that's somebody smart told me you plan for
• 11:11
  the worst and you hope for the best.
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  And that's primarily the way I view it.
• 11:18
  And all of that is right.
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  But I think we have to deal with the kids themselves.
• 11:24
  To help with this.
• 11:25
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah I know it's a beautiful piece because at some
• 11:28
  stage when you're dealing with.
• 11:31
  school shootings, you were dealing with stopping it.
• 11:33
  And again, it's always been my perspective and it will be part of my platform that I
• 11:38
  think going at it from a gun perspective.
• 11:43
  Is too divisive.
• 11:44
  Number one.
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  Number two, it creates too much animosity.
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  Number three, it splits people into too many different directions.
• 11:52
  But number four, it starts to remove our actual purpose, right?
• 11:57
  It removes the purpose of, all right, take guns aside.
• 12:02
  Imagine they didn't exist.
• 12:04
  How do we protect our Children because it could be guns, it could be cars, it
• 12:08
  could be drugs, it can be knives, the tool and the instrument doesn't matter.
• 12:12
  If someone wants to cause harm, then what really matters is how do we simply protect
• 12:18
  the Children and how do we make them safe?
• 12:20
  Not only feel safe, but to your point, know how to cope internally if and when
• 12:24
  something happens, because regards to the trauma or the traumatic experience,
• 12:28
  we all know as adults that we have to learn how to internalize, to heal,
• 12:35
  to move on, to cope, to understand.
• 12:37
  And if we start ingraining that and providing those directional steps to
• 12:42
  children, it's earlier and having more conversations about that, then we start
• 12:46
  healing the problem from the inside out.
• 12:48
  Eric, I'd love to hear your stand, your stake on that.
• 12:51
  Eric Stenlake: just ended with that healing from the inside out.
• 12:53
  It's my fascination, my goal, my desire as a teen and family coach besides
• 13:01
  what I do in the space of education and working with teens and families
• 13:04
  and helping kids to get to some of these places of self realization, self
• 13:09
  understanding, self emotional and mental regulation of thoughts and feelings.
• 13:15
  I think that we really do need to address this at a very deep level within the
• 13:19
  school systems in America because if we do not, this is going to continue
• 13:25
  to be a problem because we can, we look, we can look at silos of issues.
• 13:30
  You've got guns, you have this, you have that, you've got mental health,
• 13:33
  you've got past family traumas.
• 13:35
  We could unpack all of these different areas, right?
• 13:38
  And if we keep passing by on some of these real at the heart issues of what's
• 13:45
  going on with our youth from the littles on up through the high school kids
• 13:50
  and that we're not addressing those.
• 13:53
  And we're not facing what those are with them, not alone, that we
• 13:58
  are facing these with them, that we
• 14:00
  are supporting them
• 14:01
  in whatever it is they're dealing with, from social, socioeconomic,
• 14:05
  to bullying, to whatever these things that they're going through.
• 14:08
  If we can collaborate on this as an issue and begin to target them at a
• 14:15
  younger age, I think we're going to see that pendulum swing back the other way.
• 14:20
  If you will, on what our kids are going through and it doesn't matter if it's
• 14:24
  a it's if it's a high affluent, high income area or a low income area that
• 14:30
  doesn't matter when we can take the time to show them that we love and care
• 14:35
  that we're there to support is not about instruction is not about standards.
• 14:40
  It's not about some of these things that seem to be the prevalent forefront
• 14:45
  that it's about them as human beings.
• 14:47
  And how do we help them be the best humans they can possibly be?
• 14:51
  We're going to turn this around.
• 14:53
  Jerremy Newsome: Jennifer, I'd love to know your perspective on the
• 14:55
  mental health piece for the, for our children specifically on that topic.
• 14:59
  JennWXS-1: I think, just like Mr. Steinlich said, this is
• 15:03
  a very multifaceted approach.
• 15:06
  There are several different aspects to this, but.
• 15:09
  The biggest one that I've I hit home on is the mental health aspect of it
• 15:14
  because what I see and what I dislike and I don't understand it is why is
• 15:23
  especially at the school I'm at now, why is health not being taught in 6th, grade?
• 15:29
  I don't even know here.
• 15:31
  I need to look into it.
• 15:32
  I don't even think it's taught in 5th grade.
• 15:34
  And I don't understand that because I think a lot of these issues, mental
• 15:39
  health wise, like coping skills, emotional intelligence, behavior, behavioral
• 15:45
  intelligence coping skills, all that can be touched and talked about and
• 15:51
  dealt with, I think, in health class.
• 15:53
  And I just don't understand why that aspect is being taken out of schools
• 15:59
  and why it's not being taught.
• 16:01
  I know they touch on it in elementary some, like my stepdaughter she's in sixth
• 16:06
  grade, but she didn't have help last year.
• 16:09
  She doesn't have help this year and she won't in seventh and eighth grade.
• 16:14
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 16:14
  JennWXS-1: I just find it important and I don't understand why health.
• 16:19
  Is being dropped and why it's being taken out.
• 16:23
  The other aspect is I read in an article yesterday is that even
• 16:28
  though the help is being taken out because of funding issues, they're
• 16:33
  throwing that health aspect off on.
• 16:36
  Like social studies teachers or science teachers and trying to get them to, add
• 16:41
  that help aspect into their classes and it's overwhelming those teachers because
• 16:48
  they're having to pull in all these other aspects to teach and it's just,
• 16:52
  It's a struggle for those teachers.
• 16:55
  And that's another reason why I have 41 kids in eight classes.
• 17:02
  Every single class because we are short and an exploratory teacher,
• 17:07
  we are short a health teacher,
• 17:10
  Jerremy Newsome: wow.
• 17:12
  And that's, I'm just trying to put myself in.
• 17:17
  Your shoes and probably the teachers all across America.
• 17:20
  I'm sure feeling overworked and a lot of the policies that probably
• 17:26
  end up preventing this as well.
• 17:28
  Like to your point would also require some restructuring of teachers,
• 17:32
  either addition adding more teachers or some type of change, some type of
• 17:37
  implementation, because I would love that.
• 17:39
  I would love all your perspective on this.
• 17:41
  Thank you so much.
• 17:42
  One of my beliefs addressing either mental health or just communication
• 17:48
  is I do feel that children right now ages six to 16 across the United States
• 17:56
  and most likely even across the world.
• 17:58
  Not only experienced COVID and had the negative associations of, quarantines
• 18:03
  and so forth, so on and so forth.
• 18:05
  The ostracizing and the political issues that it's caused from that, but just
• 18:11
  having a class called communication where you sit these kids, you take
• 18:18
  the phones down, take the iPads down and have them in a, I don't know.
• 18:25
  I'm viewing as a circle, right?
• 18:26
  You're sitting around the campfire.
• 18:28
  And you're just having conversations.
• 18:30
  Hey, what's your mom?
• 18:31
  How's she doing?
• 18:31
  What is your mom's name?
• 18:32
  What's your last name?
• 18:33
  What's your middle name?
• 18:33
  How many brothers and sisters do you have?
• 18:35
  Tell me about you as a person having communications.
• 18:38
  What do you think you're, what do you think God looks like?
• 18:40
  Tell me what you think heaven is having religious conversations,
• 18:43
  having conversations, Because for two reasons, the way I see it, most of
• 18:49
  these school shootings, especially the large, what would be called mass
• 18:53
  school shootings, very often happen from children who are bullied, ostracized,
• 19:00
  made fun of, don't feel connected.
• 19:03
  They feel obvious.
• 19:05
  Anger, animosity, frustration.
• 19:07
  And my take on this is that probably could have been changed or redirected or brought
• 19:15
  to light or understood that at some stage, it's okay to feel that way if classes
• 19:20
  were designed and programs were instilled to just have conversation between kids.
• 19:27
  Is that a crazy viewpoint than L or am I just.
• 19:30
  Is that, is this doable?
• 19:32
  Danielle: Know what we're all in this, all this together and we're like, Jodi,
• 19:37
  you are, Jeremy, you are right on target.
• 19:42
  If we could get these kids to start communicating, to understand that
• 19:48
  there's feelings behind those words that they say that it's just not the
• 19:54
  awkwardness that they share sometimes of saying hi in the hallway, that
• 20:00
  they keep their, heads down, right?
• 20:03
  Some even the kids keep their mask on still, right?
• 20:07
  They just don't know how to look at somebody's eye or smile.
• 20:15
  They feel that awkwardness and yes, let's start a class.
• 20:22
  Let's
• 20:22
  start like that.
• 20:24
  Something simple, right?
• 20:26
  But then again, Jen says we're adding more to for the teachers and the
• 20:34
  teachers, God bless every single one of them because now they're not just
• 20:39
  the teacher that teaches education.
• 20:41
  They're the moms in some cases, the dads in some cases, the
• 20:46
  sometimes babysitters that have to
• 20:48
  stay after school because they're not picked up.
• 20:51
  They're the confidants.
• 20:53
  They are the, they're the magical workers.
• 20:56
  Same with the police officers that work at the school system.
• 21:02
  I think they are heroes to us as parents, as teachers, as administrators.
• 21:11
  We need to give them Some kind of support to I really feel that because
• 21:17
  that's another part of this triangle that we really need to set up of the
• 21:22
  students of the kids of school, the community, being the police department
• 21:29
  right to keep it safe, keep our kids in our administrators and teachers safe.
• 21:35
  We all have to be on the same page, and even if they could do the health
• 21:41
  issue part of it, I don't know, but wouldn't that be awesome if
• 21:45
  we could implement something like that along with like breath work,
• 21:51
  something Simple, like in the morning when you have your what do you have,
• 21:56
  Jen, in the morning you have your, I don't know, is it, you say stuff
• 22:02
  that their announcements, that you
• 22:03
  have a one minute meditation, one minute mental
• 22:08
  JennWXS-1: And
• 22:09
  Danielle: Awareness.
• 22:10
  Yeah.
• 22:11
  Yeah.
• 22:12
  Just to get them back because sometimes their life, their school is a safe haven.
• 22:18
  Some
• 22:19
  of them, that's where their panic comes in is when they come into school.
• 22:22
  Each child is so different.
• 22:24
  But if we give them time to acclimate to forget about what was home
• 22:29
  focus on at school or vice versa.
• 22:32
  Maybe that's something that we can work with and get.
• 22:36
  That the teachers, the police department and everybody right on
• 22:40
  the same page along with the kids.
• 22:42
  Yeah.
• 22:42
  Jerremy Newsome: yeah, Janet hit us with a magic pill.
• 22:44
  Just daydream with us for a moment as a teacher right now, so that
• 22:50
  you also can see both, you can be not only rewarded in the sense of
• 22:56
  children happy schedule is easier.
• 22:58
  How would you current as a teacher right now, if we're
• 23:01
  dreaming design the perfect day?
• 23:05
  For you and your students, so for teachers and the kids?
• 23:10
  JennWXS-1: I personally I have a degree in health and P. E. and exercise science.
• 23:15
  And that's what I started out in was help.
• 23:18
  And I was, I was even thinking about going back Monday and talking
• 23:22
  to my principal and be like.
• 23:24
  I can teach health.
• 23:25
  We need it.
• 23:26
  And if you can find a computer science teacher to stick in my place,
• 23:30
  stick me back in health because I think that these kids, they need it.
• 23:35
  The kids in my computer science class right now.
• 23:39
  It's if they can't even cope, if they had a, if they have a really hard
• 23:43
  time solving a coding lesson, they
• 23:47
  Down and cry and I would, my, my perfect day would.
• 23:52
  Start out in my health class and, we taught a lot of coping skills and mental
• 23:57
  health skills and breathing skills and life skills in health class and
• 24:03
  it would just make my day if I could, I would love to go back to health and
• 24:09
  help these kids learn how to cope only have maybe 25 kids a class, but I don't
• 24:15
  know right now if that's possible.
• 24:17
  I'd have to look into it.
• 24:19
  But my perfect day would the kids come in and, we have a moment of silence
• 24:25
  and I teach them life skills and communication skills, how to put their
• 24:30
  phone down and have a true conversation with somebody instead of being so
• 24:34
  attached to their phone all the time.
• 24:37
  Jerremy Newsome: Okay.
• 24:38
  You have my vote of approval on that one.
• 24:40
  I for sure.
• 24:41
  And Eric, thanks for being in agreement.
• 24:43
  I see you over there clapping, which is awesome.
• 24:45
  To tell me what resonated powerfully with you.
• 24:46
  My.
• 24:48
  Eric Stenlake: I am so aligned with what Jen was saying.
• 24:51
  Holy smokes.
• 24:52
  Because right now I am writing curriculum, neuroscience neuropsychology
• 24:57
  curriculum and brain health curriculum.
• 24:59
  That is going to be going out to the schools and the 25, 26 school year
• 25:03
  through the neuro encoding Institute.
• 25:05
  And I want the kids to know what I know.
• 25:08
  I want the kids to know how to be able to self manage themselves so that when they
• 25:14
  walk on campus, there is no anxiety, there is no fear of the unknown, that there
• 25:20
  is no depressed feeling of things that happened yesterday, that they're coming
• 25:24
  into a learning environment, safe, secure, capable, curious ready to take on what
• 25:30
  needs to be done that day for themselves.
• 25:33
  And that they leave and they go home and they're like, yeah, today was a good day.
• 25:37
  And that repeats every day over and over again because they Are at a high level of
• 25:43
  emotional intelligence as jim was saying they're at a high level of self management
• 25:48
  self control That these issues that we've had and seen in the past are continuing
• 25:53
  to deal with day after day that are driving educators out of their poor mind.
• 25:59
  I used to have a beautiful head of hair, but I'm bald now because
• 26:02
  I pulled all my hair out, right?
• 26:04
  Because I got these giant knuckleheads in there that just
• 26:07
  don't understand or have trouble focusing and being in the classroom.
• 26:12
  In that regard, and this is that way for them to be not just functionable, but
• 26:18
  thriving in a school learning environment.
• 26:21
  JennWXS-1: Yeah, because they're not
• 26:23
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah I think back to Jen, when you said like health class
• 26:27
  and your background and your degree again, my version of this world.
• 26:33
  Has because the school system failed me to the extent of I could have been
• 26:38
  and done so much better and learn so much faster and had so much more
• 26:44
  ability and access if it was available.
• 26:48
  And what I mean by that is I believe probably fifth grade to, senior year kids
• 26:55
  should be doing some type of physical activity for a minimum of two hours a day.
• 27:01
  Because I do not as a, I'm not a doctor at all, but I think that the vast majority
• 27:08
  of mental health is directly proportional to how much we're making kids be still
• 27:14
  be quiet, sit down, not do anything, not talk like you need to be talking,
• 27:19
  yelling, screaming, run around being wild.
• 27:22
  Being crazy and not taking a pill because you're seven.
• 27:26
  You don't have ADHD.
• 27:28
  You're seven, right?
• 27:30
  Like my three year old, like I'm not going to get my three year old
• 27:32
  medicine ever to calm him down.
• 27:35
  The kid is literally an actual tornado.
• 27:37
  He's a human tornado.
• 27:39
  So was I. So I want that brilliance.
• 27:42
  I want that energy and that shouldn't be contained.
• 27:44
  But again, When children learn, just like probably I would say adults, we
• 27:49
  learn our best when we're at a peak state of excitement, energy, vitality.
• 27:56
  We feel better.
• 27:57
  We feel healthier.
• 27:57
  We've moved.
• 27:58
  We've created naturally our dopamine, our serotonin, right?
• 28:03
  We've been outside potentially if it's the right weather.
• 28:07
  And we just feel excited about life.
• 28:09
  And in those moments, child can learn so much better.
• 28:12
  And you all know that they can learn so much faster as well.
• 28:15
  And so we don't have to repeat the same thing over and over.
• 28:17
  We can tell them one thing one time, and they can get it, especially
• 28:21
  if they're in the right state.
• 28:22
  And it'll stick a lot quicker because of the neuroplasticity of
• 28:25
  the repent, the repetition, the state that they're learning in.
• 28:29
  The happiness, their calmness, their alertedness, and then when they get
• 28:33
  home, they might are probably a much less spastic and rambunctious because
• 28:40
  they're so tired because they've been running and playing in PE for hours at
• 28:46
  a time before they learned something.
• 28:48
  Maybe that's just a dream world.
• 28:49
  Is that a dream world, Danny?
• 28:50
  Is that possible?
• 28:52
  Danielle: No, it's not a dream world.
• 28:53
  It's a world that we can make happen.
• 28:55
  I'm sure great people coming together just like this getting some great ideas going.
• 29:02
  And I believe we can do this.
• 29:04
  I really do.
• 29:05
  Jerremy Newsome: Eric, you said you were going to release some curriculum.
• 29:08
  How tell us more about that.
• 29:10
  Number one.
• 29:11
  And then number two, tell us how hard is it to change
• 29:15
  curriculums in certain schools?
• 29:17
  Eric Stenlake: Yeah so I said a couple minutes ago that I'm also a
• 29:20
  a life coach for teens and families.
• 29:23
  So I hold a license through the Neuroencoding Institute
• 29:25
  with Dr. Joseph McClendon.
• 29:27
  And I hold a brain health license through the Amen Clinics with Dr. Daniel Amen.
• 29:31
  So I'm taking what I've learned there and putting that into curriculum
• 29:37
  based on a very simple poem.
• 29:40
  As I think, so I feel.
• 29:42
  As I feel, so I do.
• 29:45
  As I do, so I have.
• 29:48
  And having that be the foundation of understanding that everything
• 29:53
  we do starts with a thought.
• 29:55
  From that thought and that feeling, we turn that into action.
• 29:59
  And like you're saying your son is the human tornado.
• 30:02
  High creativity, right?
• 30:05
  His prefrontal cortex is absolute fire, low evaluation.
• 30:10
  So it seems like a great idea.
• 30:12
  Let's go do this.
• 30:13
  And then, Oh, maybe that wasn't such a great idea, but he is on
• 30:17
  fire and running and running.
• 30:19
  And right now is we get to that end of looking at what we have and
• 30:23
  saying, wow, did this work out?
• 30:26
  Yes or no.
• 30:26
  And why?
• 30:27
  And going back and understanding that I can simply pause and think
• 30:32
  about why that thought is there.
• 30:34
  Why that feeling is there.
• 30:36
  How can I recognize that?
• 30:37
  How can I change that to understand what I need to do differently to,
• 30:43
  to pursue and push my own success?
• 30:46
  Thanks.
• 30:47
  And then how that goes into the classroom of having those curious
• 30:53
  and crucial conversations with those kids that, just curious.
• 30:56
  I'm checking in with you today.
• 30:58
  Are you going to do any work today?
• 30:59
  I'm just, it's Wednesday and I noticed you haven't done anything all week.
• 31:03
  Are you going to engage at all this week?
• 31:05
  Nah, Mr. S I'm good, bro.
• 31:07
  Okay.
• 31:09
  And are you going to get the results that you want with this?
• 31:14
  Oh, but we've got to have, we've got to start having these conversations.
• 31:18
  We've got to start having the place of which we can go into.
• 31:22
  And Jen was saying, having this be a part of the curriculum of which it doesn't
• 31:28
  matter what class we're in, I can talk the language of this neuropsychology
• 31:35
  and brain health in whatever class, whatever situation, whatever moment.
• 31:40
  I'm using this language all the time with the kids all the time and they
• 31:44
  understand it and they know it it helps to bring them back into their
• 31:49
  center Into their peace their calm their love their joy their happiness
• 31:54
  And they understand how to be in their presence And not worry about things from
• 31:59
  the past and not things the depression the anxiety of the future of things that
• 32:03
  they can't control That they can control them and in that moment in that situation.
• 32:08
  They have the power to make You choice and change for them that's going to help
• 32:14
  drive that behavior for their success.
• 32:16
  Danielle: Eric how old is this curriculum fixed for the, what's
• 32:21
  the age group that the curriculum,
• 32:24
  Eric Stenlake: Great question.
• 32:25
  I am designing this for age 11 to 18.
• 32:30
  Danielle: we
• 32:30
  need some young curriculum too.
• 32:32
  JennWXS-1: good.
• 32:34
  Eric Stenlake: That's my, this is my starting point.
• 32:35
  We'll bring it down as young as preschool pre K.
• 32:38
  Jerremy Newsome: Love that Dave.
• 32:40
  Dave Conley: What I'm wondering is there was a before and there's an after.
• 32:45
  There was a time before Columbine and Uvalde and Parkland.
• 32:51
  There was a time before daily shootings.
• 32:56
  Shooters are boys.
• 32:58
  They're young boys in their teens.
• 33:02
  What happened to them?
• 33:05
  What's going on?
• 33:06
  JennWXS-1: Look at the divorce rate to families and that little boy not having
• 33:12
  a true mentor and leader in his life.
• 33:16
  Where he just feels lost, and then you also have social media, which is.
• 33:21
  I will never understand putting a smartphone.
• 33:25
  In the hands of a nine or a 10 year old, they don't need a smartphone,
• 33:30
  but they all have access to social media and it's all in their faces.
• 33:35
  And so I think, like I said before, I think this is a multifaceted approach and
• 33:42
  there are a lot of puzzle pieces to it.
• 33:45
  And with those little boys, I know divorce rate has gone up in families and.
• 33:51
  They just don't have a true leader or a mentor to somebody to guide them
• 33:57
  along with all these other things, they're going on in their lives.
• 34:02
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 34:03
  It's Random statistic, but I think it's 85 percent of individuals in jail
• 34:09
  and prison have one thing in common and it has nothing to do with social
• 34:14
  economic, has nothing to do with the race, has nothing to do with religion.
• 34:16
  It's did they have a dad,
• 34:18
  JennWXS-1: yes,
• 34:19
  Jerremy Newsome: It's if you do not have a dad, you're 85 percent
• 34:23
  likely to go to jail or prison.
• 34:25
  According to the current statistics, it was like that to your point.
• 34:28
  There are obviously so many puzzle pieces.
• 34:32
  I'm very happy that we have really quite similar feelings and perspectives
• 34:37
  on the internal portion of how to solve this problem, how to solve
• 34:44
  this issue that America faces.
• 34:46
  I think we all can agree that there's absolutely some level of mental
• 34:51
  health, mental clarity, communicable skills, And the healing capacity of
• 34:58
  an individual through trauma so that they don't have to express their
• 35:02
  anger and frustration in this way.
• 35:05
  Semi colon.
• 35:07
  However, when they do feel this way, what do you think we should
• 35:13
  start doing if that ever happens?
• 35:15
  And so should every school be outfitted with something?
• 35:18
  Do teachers all carry guns?
• 35:21
  Do we have, Armed security guards, every single school.
• 35:25
  Let's start just thinking through in the event that we do whatever, and there is
• 35:30
  still something, maybe it's not a child.
• 35:32
  Maybe it's an adult.
• 35:33
  Maybe it's someone who just wants to do harm at this stage.
• 35:36
  What should we do or what are your opinions?
• 35:38
  And we'll just have these, those fun conversations because that's all
• 35:41
  also some level of importance because there are, when's the last time
• 35:47
  you heard of a shooting at a police station or a community firehouse?
• 35:52
  It doesn't happen.
• 35:54
  So Eric, what's your take?
• 35:57
  Eric Stenlake: Yeah boy, oh boy, that's a that's a big one I think what's coming
• 36:02
  to me on this one is that for the last 14 years, I've had the privilege of working
• 36:08
  for a company called Franklin Covey and doing professional development workshops
• 36:11
  for teachers all over the U. S. And I can honestly, as you were saying that, it
• 36:16
  was popping up in my mind, the schools of which I walked up and went, yeah, okay.
• 36:22
  Why?
• 36:23
  Because I saw how hard it would be to enter this campus, and other places that
• 36:32
  I go to, I go, my word, gosh, the school I work at, it's what's up next to an
• 36:36
  elementary school, it's completely open.
• 36:38
  There's a park at the other end of campus, public park.
• 36:41
  There's a ball field public park on this side of campus.
• 36:43
  It's completely wide open.
• 36:46
  I think we can look at that.
• 36:47
  I've been in New York City and walking into schools and there's a police
• 36:50
  officer sitting there checking IDs.
• 36:53
  Fully armed and therefore there for the school.
• 36:57
  There I've seen the gamut across the country.
• 37:01
  And yeah, what is the solution on that?
• 37:04
  What makes sense to pour in billions and billions of dollars to build new
• 37:08
  schools, to have them be fortified if you will, that they're non, non,
• 37:15
  you can't get into them because they're like closed institutions.
• 37:20
  I don't know.
• 37:21
  That's such a great loaded question.
• 37:23
  Jeremy,
• 37:24
  Jerremy Newsome: It is it's a big one.
• 37:25
  Jennifer what do you think initially in right now would make you feel
• 37:28
  safe from, again, let's just say from a physical standpoint, the no
• 37:33
  longer internal compass of the child, but now the actual school itself.
• 37:38
  JennWXS-1: what would make me feel safe inside of the school that I'm in?
• 37:43
  Jerremy Newsome: Oh, not specifically, but just as a teacher from the teacher's
• 37:45
  perspective, what are current protocols and, or what do you think could be added?
• 37:51
  Two schools for overall safety.
• 37:56
  JennWXS-1: I know the school that I used to work at when I first started teaching
• 37:59
  the small town in South Georgia we had that school locked down like Fort Knox.
• 38:04
  When you came in the front door, you actually had to go through 2 set of doors
• 38:09
  and those 2 sets of doors were unlocked.
• 38:13
  by button at the front desk.
• 38:16
  And then when you walked in that second set of doors, you actually
• 38:19
  had to go through a metal detector.
• 38:22
  We had I would say at least six resource officers there.
• 38:27
  And they were always roaming the hallways.
• 38:30
  You could always like I personally had a walkie talkie in that school.
• 38:34
  So if anything ever happened I could always get in touch with a resource
• 38:38
  officer through my walkie talkie.
• 38:41
  And so I felt very safe.
• 38:43
  And even some visitors when they came in, they were not
• 38:47
  allowed to roam the hallways.
• 38:50
  They were escorted to wherever they had to go.
• 38:53
  They had to show a driver's license and then we had to print them off a pass and
• 38:58
  all the exit doors to the school all the way around the school were always locked
• 39:03
  and checked by the resource officers.
• 39:06
  I felt really safe at that
• 39:09
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 39:10
  JennWXS-1: There were outside cameras.
• 39:13
  There, there were probably in that entire school about 60, 60, 70 cameras.
• 39:19
  parking lot, outside, inside, every single hallway.
• 39:24
  And and I don't feel unsafe at the school that I'm at now.
• 39:28
  We don't even have half as much security as the first school that I worked at.
• 39:35
  We have only have two resource officers and no metal detectors, but I don't feel
• 39:40
  unsafe at the school that I'm at now.
• 39:42
  But what concerns me Is that because there's not a lot of violence in that
• 39:50
  town and nothing bad has ever really happened, which worries me because right
• 39:56
  when you think something's not going to happen the very next day, you got
• 40:00
  somebody walking up on campus with a gun.
• 40:02
  It can happen at any point in time.
• 40:04
  That's something to think about to
• 40:06
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 40:08
  Now, what do you think?
• 40:10
  Danielle: Cool.
• 40:11
  Schools are buildings, right?
• 40:13
  And if you have the experts come through, because every school,
• 40:19
  like Jen was saying, and Eric, every school does it differently.
• 40:26
  I don't know if it's a criteria that you have to meet so many different things.
• 40:31
  That you can implement into schools.
• 40:33
  I know they have a money or some of them even get grants that help them
• 40:39
  with making those things happen, right?
• 40:43
  The metal detectors and the cameras I, and some look into it.
• 40:49
  And some, like you say, they're little communities and they think they're safe.
• 40:54
  I
• 40:56
  Jerremy Newsome: yeah it's, there, there's a very interesting blend, right?
• 41:00
  It's a blend of, you use the term, jim Fort Knox, it's definitely a blend
• 41:04
  of as much security as we can have.
• 41:08
  And being unique and creative and our thoughts around that, having
• 41:14
  probably, hopefully some type of government intervention slash the
• 41:17
  government awareness that, hey, this needs to be a number one concern.
• 41:21
  We need budgetary creations for this protocol.
• 41:27
  And then also the blend of not making it feel scary or extremely
• 41:33
  secure, like a prison or a jail for the children that go there.
• 41:39
  And there it's a unique, it is unique blend.
• 41:40
  And so we've had conversations in the past with incredible men that have military
• 41:46
  background or have security background.
• 41:49
  And right now there's a lot that's happening with some schools.
• 41:53
  Where it's focused on LIDAR detection.
• 41:58
  It's focused on the perimeter being controlled and and monitored by not
• 42:06
  necessarily artificial intelligence, but robotics in the future.
• 42:11
  We even have that.
• 42:12
  We even heard the word drones thrown around where I was like, Oh my goodness.
• 42:16
  That is.
• 42:17
  I didn't even know that was, even in my field of awareness
• 42:21
  that it's wait a minute, schools can also be protected by drones.
• 42:24
  Of course, terrifying again, to even think that we need to think about that,
• 42:29
  but to the point of there, there does need to be some type of installation and
• 42:37
  probably every school in the country.
• 42:40
  Where you have at your disposal, something that is a standard.
• 42:44
  You mentioned walkie talkie, Jen, imagine you hit a button and all of the glass
• 42:50
  and the entire school either becomes opaque or someone can't see into it.
• 42:54
  It becomes fog or there's some type of metal shield that just drops
• 42:59
  on every single window instantly where the schools become outfitted
• 43:03
  with the ability to be armorized or become a lot more safe instantly.
• 43:10
  And that is public schools, potentially private schools, potentially charter
• 43:14
  schools, some unique standard where it does provide more security.
• 43:20
  If it's not police officers that are there did you call them?
• 43:23
  What are they called?
• 43:23
  Resource officers.
• 43:25
  JennWXS-1: resource officers, school resource officers.
• 43:28
  Jerremy Newsome: So as a school resource officer, if it's not a school resource
• 43:31
  officer, potentially we began working more with our servicemen and women
• 43:35
  after the, after they retire from one of the armed forces, you have a
• 43:41
  retired armed forces, officer that gets.
• 43:45
  Awarded or rewarded to work at a school and one of their professions
• 43:51
  and jobs for a period of time is to keep the overall public safety of that
• 43:55
  school is their top concern as well.
• 43:56
  All things that we can openly think about, but there are certainly
• 44:00
  solutions because I am sure there are a lot of schools that do not have
• 44:06
  that level of security and capacity.
• 44:09
  JennWXS-1: It's funny you said that because about the military aspect
• 44:12
  because my, I'll never forget him, my principal of the first school that I
• 44:17
  worked at was a retired army colonel and he just, he, I worked really close with
• 44:24
  him and he had a plan for everything and that school it involved a lot of
• 44:30
  drugs, a lot of gangs, but that was one thing about that school I didn't feel
• 44:35
  safe because, I didn't feel unsafe.
• 44:37
  Because of him, because he had plans set in place.
• 44:41
  And that's one of the things that he did, like in our staff meetings,
• 44:45
  he would go over those plans with us and, it's like you use in trading
• 44:49
  sometime, Jeremy, if, and then, and that's what he would do in meetings.
• 44:54
  If this happens, then we're going to do this.
• 44:58
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah having the having the teacher preparedness which has me
• 45:02
  wanting to follow up more, Eric, on what you said earlier, and I apologize
• 45:05
  for not remembering the exact term, but you said that you worked with.
• 45:08
  teachers to help them in something.
• 45:12
  Tell us a little bit more about that.
• 45:14
  Eric Stenlake: that's within the scope of leadership and culture development.
• 45:19
  Jerremy Newsome: Sure, sure.
• 45:20
  But even in that specific aspect, that means that you are doing the outreach
• 45:24
  to help teachers outside of school.
• 45:28
  They're getting poured into from outside resource, AKA
• 45:31
  you and the program around it.
• 45:34
  But even to that degree, do you feel like it can be something.
• 45:39
  Something more securitization implementation from a teaching
• 45:43
  standpoint from an outside resource as well, like a military professional.
• 45:48
  Eric Stenlake: Yeah.
• 45:48
  I think it's a great it's a great discussion point.
• 45:50
  And I think there's definitely a possibility for that.
• 45:53
  Is it as a way for the campus to be more secured is to have those.
• 45:59
  Those people on campus, where they come from through what agency that
• 46:05
  they're coming from that's going to be the question of the school resource
• 46:09
  officers are, is it a military contract?
• 46:12
  Is it a law enforcement contract?
• 46:14
  Something of that nature though, which in our school, we've got,
• 46:17
  we get, two or three people on our campus based on the size and numbers
• 46:21
  that we have of kids and staff.
• 46:23
  How that plays out, I definitely see that would definitely be beneficial because I
• 46:28
  can tell you right now, our school, the middle school that I'm at, they we split
• 46:32
  a resource officer between, I think.
• 46:34
  They've got three or four schools.
• 46:37
  So who knows where in South Orange County they are at the given time
• 46:42
  that anything should happen because they're not going to be there.
• 46:47
  And we're going to be, we're going to be on our own left to get as many
• 46:50
  kids inside as quickly as we can.
• 46:53
  And that's actually the conversation that some of the teachers are having
• 46:56
  of we're going to do the best we can.
• 46:57
  And what we can't do, it's just out of our control.
• 47:02
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah,
• 47:04
  Dave Conley: wondering, so how do you, so my, I think my sister teaches in a post
• 47:09
  Columbine school and the design of that is it's weird walking in because there's
• 47:13
  I don't think there's any corners in the entire place and the doors are different.
• 47:18
  How do you all balance, not freaking out the kids with these drills and
• 47:24
  the environment the fortress that you want to protect these kids in and
• 47:31
  the cathedral that you want them in.
• 47:33
  Jerremy Newsome: it's gonna be a fine balancing act.
• 47:35
  Yeah, it will be.
• 47:37
  It'll be a fine balancing act.
• 47:38
  And I think ultimately, if me, when I went to school, this wasn't, there
• 47:46
  was no police officers at my school.
• 47:48
  And that was a career day, police officer would come in and you get
• 47:52
  to meet with the police officer.
• 47:54
  But I think having children be very comfortable having discussions with
• 48:01
  the resource officers or the military professionals that are on campus, having
• 48:06
  them come up, having them put their hand on the gun that's in the holster or that's
• 48:11
  unarmed, or that is there for a safety instruction so that they don't see this
• 48:18
  person as an entirely separate entity, but someone that is there for their
• 48:23
  safety, someone that there, they can have a conversation with someone that they're
• 48:26
  not terrified of, that they can know that they're there for their protection.
• 48:32
  And just having those conversations with them, I think also will make it from a
• 48:37
  child's standpoint, make them feel safer.
• 48:40
  And.
• 48:41
  Make them feel loved and seen.
• 48:45
  What do you think,
• 48:46
  Danielle: that's such a, that's such a great idea of putting the armed forces
• 48:51
  and giving them the opportunity to help out or however you said it, it
• 48:56
  was perfect because I think they come back and sometimes they don't feel as
• 49:01
  though they had the purpose, right?
• 49:05
  It will give the kids, too, an opportunity to get close to those people.
• 49:12
  And a lot of the Actually are like in the parking lot or the football games.
• 49:21
  So that's another opportunity that they I could see is where that
• 49:24
  would be a perfect way of using the armed forces in the community.
• 49:32
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah that's a great point.
• 49:33
  And Dave has mentioned that in a previous podcast episode where a lot
• 49:38
  of the times when we think of school shootings, we really do think of the.
• 49:42
  The initial thought that will strike most parents is the covenant school
• 49:47
  in national Tennessee or the parkland, like the big, scary mass shootings,
• 49:51
  multiple people and it's terrifying.
• 49:54
  But the vast majority of the school shootings are also and more
• 49:59
  obviously single incidences where it could be a violence related.
• 50:05
  Like you said, it can be in the parking lot, it can be at
• 50:07
  a football game where it's not.
• 50:10
  It's more of a revenge, angry tactic Dave, versus a Everyone's
• 50:17
  just no, it's just me and you.
• 50:18
  I don't really like you very much.
• 50:19
  So I want to make sure that you feel pain.
• 50:21
  Dave Conley: Yeah.
• 50:21
  So the difference between a disagreement between when, between a couple of
• 50:24
  folks and it's outside the school and the mass shootings that we see.
• 50:28
  So there's like this hidden one that we don't see and then, the headline grabber.
• 50:33
  Jerremy Newsome: But the ones that you, the ones that we don't see,
• 50:35
  to circumvent or to re circumvent what you mentioned earlier, this.
• 50:40
  This is like we have a, we have it pretty much nailed down the
• 50:45
  archetype for who is going to be bringing a gun to school to use it.
• 50:52
  so Dave, do you feel there should be some level of more focus on that archetype?
• 50:59
  Whereas we don't specifically need to be training or berating, 13 year old girls.
• 51:06
  But we need to be focusing on the 13 year old to 16 year old boys and
• 51:10
  have them start conflict resolution.
• 51:13
  Dave Conley: A hundred percent.
• 51:15
  And that goes back to the first question I had for the group here, and
• 51:19
  I heard, yeah, so totally social media.
• 51:22
  I've heard lacking a mentor and like we're medicalizing our
• 51:26
  kids to really high degrees.
• 51:28
  There's a lot of medication that's going into these schools that, that
• 51:31
  before and after I'm still stuck on.
• 51:34
  Like, where is the, before we, before I think about solutions, I really
• 51:39
  want to hear more about the problem, internationally this isn't happening even
• 51:44
  in, in countries that have lots of guns.
• 51:46
  This isn't happening and they have social media, right?
• 51:50
  There is a problem with guns in a sense that like the kids are
• 51:53
  getting the guns from somewhere.
• 51:55
  But like what else is going on?
• 51:57
  Like I feel like we're missing something and it feels like there's
• 52:00
  a crisis in boys, in young men.
• 52:04
  And I
• 52:04
  see you nodding, Jen, what, what's what's on your mind for these young boys?
• 52:08
  Yeah.
• 52:08
  Because you see, you all see them early too, And,
• 52:11
  JennWXS-1: I totally agree.
• 52:13
  It's, I keep going back to multifaceted and I don't want to get all stray away
• 52:18
  from the topic, but there's just so many aspects of this that need to be dealt
• 52:24
  with from mental health to family to.
• 52:31
  Divorce rates, and the food that we eat, to how much is actually being put
• 52:40
  on teachers these days by the state.
• 52:44
  Because I can tell you right now, and I think that's also a big part
• 52:48
  of it too, I do more paperwork than I actually do teaching.
• 52:56
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 52:57
  JennWXS-1: with that paperwork goes back to, I don't know if Danielle, if
• 53:03
  you and Eric have noticed this, but I have more kids this year on medication
• 53:10
  with an IEP or a 504 plan than I can even count on my fingers and toes.
• 53:19
  And so it hit me the other day at the emails that I get.
• 53:25
  For the IEPs and the 504s.
• 53:28
  And I know in one particular class, I have I have 41 kids per class,
• 53:33
  but in this particular class, I have 20 kids that are on medications.
• 53:39
  They have an IEP and they have a 504, and I have to find a way
• 53:44
  to accommodate all these kids.
• 53:46
  And I'm just ready to pull my hair out because I can't
• 53:51
  rearrange every single kid.
• 53:53
  I can't put every single one of those kids at the front of the class.
• 53:58
  I
• 53:58
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 53:58
  And tell me Jen, so you can remind me what is IEP and 504?
• 54:03
  JennWXS-1: An IEP 504 is like special accommodations for the child depending
• 54:10
  on the severity of what they have.
• 54:14
  They could have a learning disability
• 54:16
  Yeah.
• 54:17
  A lot of kids I have to move to the front of the room so that they can
• 54:21
  focus on the teacher or whatever.
• 54:22
  A lot of kids, I have to find a place for them to go.
• 54:25
  So it's not loud so that they can focus.
• 54:28
  And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, I have 41 kids in a class.
• 54:32
  It's going to be loud.
• 54:34
  How do I accommodate this kid?
• 54:36
  And then you have to do all this paperwork and you have to go to all these meetings.
• 54:41
  And I just I'm upset because I don't feel like I have time.
• 54:48
  And then my planning periods are cut short.
• 54:50
  So I don't really feel like I have time to teach because I'm
• 54:55
  just doing paperwork all the time.
• 54:57
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 54:58
  Danielle: when you have that many students that have the IEP do you get a helper
• 55:04
  JennWXS-1: I knew you were going to ask that.
• 55:07
  I was just, I went to an in service last week and I was asked that last week.
• 55:12
  And no, I do not have any assistance whatsoever.
• 55:17
  Dave Conley: well, and you're being asked to do everything.
• 55:20
  You're being asked to do kind of everything, but teaching, right?
• 55:23
  Like you're asked to be a stand in parent.
• 55:25
  You're asked to be a disciplinarian.
• 55:27
  You're asked to now be a, a protector, right?
• 55:30
  You're dealing with, post COVID kids that are already behind your like
• 55:34
  all of those things are happening.
• 55:36
  Then you have paperwork on top of it.
• 55:38
  I, I think about what we ask of like our emergency personnel, what
• 55:42
  we ask of our police officers.
• 55:44
  It's like anything, but what they were hired to do.
• 55:47
  Like you were hired to be a teacher, right?
• 55:50
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 55:50
  That is wild.
• 55:52
  When you're saying like paperwork, I just didn't imagine the
• 55:57
  ignorance is bliss part of me is.
• 55:59
  I just thought that someone would do that for you because that's not
• 56:03
  your job, but nope, apparently not.
• 56:08
  JennWXS-1: Yeah, we do more paperwork than anything and to
• 56:10
  circumvent back on Dave's question.
• 56:14
  I think, other governments, other countries, obviously their education
• 56:20
  system is way different than ours and I think it's a lot less.
• 56:26
  Paperwork involved possibly.
• 56:28
  I, it's something I would have to research and look into, but our education
• 56:32
  system is just, it's really suffering.
• 56:36
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 56:37
  Yeah.
• 56:38
  I think a lot of it has to do with America's military spending.
• 56:42
  Just from the fact like that's our number one, that's our
• 56:45
  number by all by a long shot.
• 56:47
  Like it's not even close.
• 56:48
  America's defense spending is our number.
• 56:50
  Like we are the, Military industrial complex.
• 56:53
  Our smallest military is bigger than every single military in
• 56:58
  the world, almost combined.
• 57:01
  The U S annually spends.
• 57:02
  We do spend a lot on education, both federal and state levels totaling, let's
• 57:06
  call it 800 billion in recent years.
• 57:09
  But for fiscal year 2024, the department of education
• 57:12
  requested a 90 billion budget.
• 57:15
  And I think with that 90 billion, where is it going?
• 57:21
  What is it being used for?
• 57:23
  Can't, can we do more?
• 57:24
  90 billion.
• 57:25
  Yes.
• 57:25
  That absolutely sounds like a lot, but when we, it is Eric, you're
• 57:33
  shaking your head, like, why do you not feel like it's a lot?
• 57:36
  Eric Stenlake: no I don't feel it's a lot.
• 57:38
  I don't feel it's enough because when you break that number down on the allotment
• 57:41
  per student that each district gets.
• 57:45
  It's dollars a day
• 57:48
  to that the district is spending for that one child in terms of supplies and books
• 57:53
  and care for that child and, to Jen's point, maybe in her district they need
• 57:57
  the funds elsewhere and so they're not going to have a one on one student or
• 58:01
  they're not going to have a case carrier that has, 10 IEP kids on it that they
• 58:06
  can float from class to class and help the kids with accommodations and, and
• 58:11
  while they're expecting, the rest of us to do that openly and to take the time to
• 58:17
  teach the class and do everything else.
• 58:18
  This is why we're stressed out and burned out.
• 58:21
  But yeah, no I firmly believe that budget has to increase.
• 58:26
  It has to increase.
• 58:28
  We've got it.
• 58:29
  We've got to put more money into teacher pay teacher retention.
• 58:32
  We've got to put more money into per capita how much we spend on each
• 58:37
  student to ensure that the teachers that we have enough of supplies and
• 58:42
  trainings and things that we need in order to give these kids the best
• 58:47
  education experience that they deserve.
• 58:50
  Dave Conley: Where, so where is the money going in the sense
• 58:52
  that like school budgets are.
• 58:56
  The number one expense for most states but usually by a long shot and, I know
• 59:03
  in talking to some teachers are like we got a lot of administrators, but like,
• 59:08
  where, like, where is this money going?
• 59:10
  If it's not getting to the teachers, it's not getting to the supplies.
• 59:13
  It's not getting to the student.
• 59:16
  Where is it?
• 59:17
  And okay, let me ask it another way.
• 59:19
  Where would you put it?
• 59:20
  Like I hear teacher pay and teacher, and I'm also hearing from Jen, you need a lot
• 59:25
  more teachers, but where else would you put this to benefit the kids the most?
• 59:29
  Danielle: After school programs, I think that would be a great thing
• 59:33
  to add to the curriculum of children or even before school, because a lot
• 59:39
  of parents are leaving kids are by themselves early in the morning when
• 59:45
  thoughts of whatever happens, right?
• 59:48
  We're still talking about school shootings.
• 59:51
  If you had a big brother, big sister program.
• 59:55
  Something that the kids would feel comfortable coming in early or
• 1:00:00
  staying in over at over school.
• 1:00:04
  Jerremy Newsome: Keep this in mind though, Dave, that a lot of the funding that
• 1:00:07
  you're referring to for state budgets also is considered or grouped into the
• 1:00:12
  higher education and Pell grants as well.
• 1:00:16
  So not all of it is going you asked Eric, where's it going?
• 1:00:20
  And he's bro, I have no, like the hands up.
• 1:00:22
  I don't know.
• 1:00:23
  Dave Conley: Like, where is it?
• 1:00:25
  Jerremy Newsome: So it's in a garage
• 1:00:27
  somewhere being lit on fire.
• 1:00:29
  Eric Stenlake: Right.
• 1:00:30
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, a lot of that is individual states going to, the grants
• 1:00:35
  and Pell grants and scholarships for high school students into colleges.
• 1:00:40
  So keeping that in mind, that's a whole different conversation
• 1:00:46
  for an entirely different
• 1:00:47
  podcast.
• 1:00:47
  Dave Conley: yeah.
• 1:00:49
  Jerremy Newsome: Cause that one's a big one.
• 1:00:49
  And that's obviously one, again, my main focus is reform because Eric
• 1:00:53
  and Jen I really truly do feel like you were speaking to my heart and
• 1:00:57
  my overall mission of why I am doing what I'm doing is because I truly
• 1:01:03
  believe we either need more teachers.
• 1:01:09
  But I think if we do restructure the schools in the way that my vision has
• 1:01:16
  us doing it, where you have a lot more running around P. E. health time, a
• 1:01:23
  lot better food, and you have the best teachers who are paid significantly
• 1:01:29
  more are able to instruct many more kids at one particular time on one
• 1:01:36
  particular subject and you are not made to teach the kids to memorize something.
• 1:01:42
  You are teaching the kid the point of learning that particular thing and the
• 1:01:46
  point of studying it and understanding it and seeing it at different levels.
• 1:01:50
  And you're teaching creative thinking versus topics.
• 1:01:54
  And if you have less teachers, potentially teaching more kids, but
• 1:01:59
  those teachers are supported much better and also have higher pay.
• 1:02:07
  That to me probably begins to instill because I, you don't have to make.
• 1:02:14
  A face did, but I'm sure there are some teachers that don't want to be there.
• 1:02:18
  And there are some teachers that do want to be there and the ones that do
• 1:02:22
  like you and the ones that truly love the mission and the purpose behind what
• 1:02:31
  you do, giving those teachers, those additional rewards, not only monetarily.
• 1:02:38
  But the rewards of teaching things that you want to teach
• 1:02:42
  that inspires you as well, right?
• 1:02:45
  Wow that's pretty wild.
• 1:02:48
  Cause that, that, that
• 1:02:50
  Dave Conley: hey, Eric.
• 1:02:52
  What role, and this might go around the panel here what role today can
• 1:02:58
  communities and parents what can they do today to get involved and to make
• 1:03:04
  for safer environments at schools?
• 1:03:07
  Eric Stenlake: For a safer environment.
• 1:03:09
  I thought you were going to say, what can I do to get involved?
• 1:03:11
  And I'm like, oh, they can go in and they can read to the kids.
• 1:03:14
  And then when they get them to school, the parents go, great, you're on your own.
• 1:03:17
  Good luck.
• 1:03:17
  Goodbye.
• 1:03:18
  And they don't do anything.
• 1:03:19
  And same with high school.
• 1:03:20
  Parents aren't involved unless your kids are in sports.
• 1:03:24
  To help with the safety end of that.
• 1:03:27
  I don't know about you guys.
• 1:03:28
  Danny and Jen, we've got campus supervisors.
• 1:03:31
  These are minimum wage paid positions of which they patrol the campus.
• 1:03:38
  They are unarmed.
• 1:03:39
  There's nothing they help out the office.
• 1:03:42
  They go get kids out of rooms when kids are misbehaving, things of that nature.
• 1:03:47
  Is there a way to get them involved in the safety?
• 1:03:49
  Can they advocate?
• 1:03:50
  Can parents stand up and say, listen, we're looking at our campuses and
• 1:03:55
  we need to be proactive on this.
• 1:03:57
  We need to take measures.
• 1:03:59
  Proactive measures, we want to see what the game plan is here.
• 1:04:02
  What's your plan a, your plan B, your plan C, your contingency plans.
• 1:04:07
  Could they be involved in that?
• 1:04:08
  We were talking earlier about military.
• 1:04:09
  Can we have somebody come in from.
• 1:04:11
  1st responders and say, we're going to put together contingency plans.
• 1:04:16
  I know for us, if we're outside and they say lockdown, it's a scatter.
• 1:04:21
  It's like cockroaches when the lights come on.
• 1:04:23
  These kids don't know where to run to and they just start going all over the place.
• 1:04:26
  They know they have to get to a room, but now they're in fight and flight.
• 1:04:30
  Or some kids going into freeze and numb.
• 1:04:32
  And they don't know what to do.
• 1:04:34
  So maybe there's some better ways to look at contingency plans and
• 1:04:39
  build a better system around that.
• 1:04:42
  Dave Conley: Jen, I think you mentioned, it's okay, what is our plan, right?
• 1:04:45
  It's there's gotta be a communications plan somewhere with Family, right?
• 1:04:49
  And like, where, where are the parents in asking for, the, what's the safety plan?
• 1:04:54
  How do you keep my kids safe?
• 1:04:56
  I think is like my number one question, right?
• 1:04:58
  JennWXS-1: That's, now that is one thing that I can say good about the
• 1:05:02
  school that I'm at now is on all of our committees that we have, which the
• 1:05:07
  crisis team is one of our committees.
• 1:05:09
  We are required to have a parent come in.
• 1:05:14
  And be on each one of those committees, we have to have a parent.
• 1:05:20
  And I think it's also required that we have.
• 1:05:24
  Somebody from the community, so it could be police officer on the team.
• 1:05:29
  Maybe somebody from the community, or, the local rec center on
• 1:05:34
  the health and wellness team.
• 1:05:36
  We have to have somebody that is a requirement.
• 1:05:39
  So we do have that parent involvement at the school now, and it was also
• 1:05:45
  that way at the last school that I was, that I worked at in North Carolina.
• 1:05:50
  And so I can say that about my school is that we do have
• 1:05:54
  a lot of parent involvement.
• 1:05:56
  Danielle: Do you see a
• 1:05:57
  lot of
• 1:05:57
  JennWXS-1: even
• 1:05:58
  Danielle: though?
• 1:05:59
  JennWXS-1: ma'am
• 1:06:01
  Danielle: Jen, do you see a lot of difference when the parents are involved
• 1:06:05
  with the students and the teachers?
• 1:06:07
  Do you see a big difference with the kids?
• 1:06:10
  JennWXS-1: this particular school.
• 1:06:11
  I do.
• 1:06:12
  Yes.
• 1:06:12
  And at the last school, I did.
• 1:06:15
  We even have parents that have gotten certified to be substitute teachers.
• 1:06:20
  So I would say yes.
• 1:06:22
  Now, at the very first school that I worked at, because it was a low
• 1:06:26
  socioeconomic school and it was, very game driven, a lot of drugs and stuff.
• 1:06:32
  I would have definitely said no.
• 1:06:36
  We weren't required to bring people in from the community or
• 1:06:41
  parents in from the community.
• 1:06:42
  And I think the school would have been better if we had done that.
• 1:06:46
  And the kids.
• 1:06:47
  But the other aspect of the first school that I worked at is the,
• 1:06:52
  we had retired Air Force three retired Air Force guys that came
• 1:06:56
  in and they ran our JROTC program.
• 1:07:03
  And so that helped massively with our kids at that school.
• 1:07:08
  That was huge.
• 1:07:10
  That was the biggest program that we had, and majority of those
• 1:07:13
  kids all went off to the military.
• 1:07:16
  That was pretty big in that school.
• 1:07:18
  It was it was very effective, and I think also because my principal was a retired
• 1:07:25
  army colonel, so he was big on military.
• 1:07:27
  He was big on structure.
• 1:07:29
  And the other thing that he implemented into the school that
• 1:07:32
  was very successful is with the kids going through the ROTC program.
• 1:07:37
  Is they could go through a pilot program where they actually learned
• 1:07:42
  how to fly a plane, a real plane.
• 1:07:45
  And they had a simul a flight simulator in the ROTC room.
• 1:07:50
  And I was there 15 years.
• 1:07:52
  And in that 15 years, I think we had at least 12 kids that
• 1:07:57
  learned how to fly a plane.
• 1:07:59
  And they got their pilot's license by the time they were in fourth grade.
• 1:08:04
  Feels pretty cool.
• 1:08:05
  Jerremy Newsome: You're going to start getting into the thing that, that I
• 1:08:07
  also could see implementation of very easily in our school system which is some
• 1:08:15
  level of martial art training for both men and women to the extent of, and it
• 1:08:21
  might be a little bit personally biased.
• 1:08:23
  But let's just call it jujitsu.
• 1:08:25
  And, Brazilian jujitsu is very much the art of, first of all, inner
• 1:08:30
  connectivity, interconnectedness, because you are right in that person.
• 1:08:34
  There's no more personal space it's gone.
• 1:08:38
  So now the awkwardness gets removed from the situation.
• 1:08:42
  And then number two.
• 1:08:44
  It teaches every man and woman that you're going to lose at some point.
• 1:08:50
  And so it's an ego crusher, which is awesome.
• 1:08:52
  One of the best moments of my adult dad life was seeing my 13 year old son,
• 1:08:57
  Gabriel get tapped out by a girl at a at a tournament and he started crying
• 1:09:02
  because he lost and I was like, Hey man, You tried and he got zero trophy.
• 1:09:11
  There was no, Hey, you still nothing.
• 1:09:13
  It was like, you lost buddy.
• 1:09:15
  Like this girl beat you.
• 1:09:17
  He thought he was going to beat her, but she was better.
• 1:09:20
  And that's the other third part is that it is a skill that truly
• 1:09:24
  doesn't embark on strength.
• 1:09:27
  So where it's not a male dominated sport, because it is a technique
• 1:09:32
  And speed and ability and agility sport where the strongest person
• 1:09:37
  very rarely wins, actually.
• 1:09:40
  So saying all that to say cause I can talk about jujitsu forever.
• 1:09:43
  I think having some form of sport that's not football for our boys, for our girls,
• 1:09:53
  for individuals to understand what it means to Lose for what it means to be
• 1:10:01
  an act out in an aggressive stance.
• 1:10:04
  and still lose, have the ability to understand and talk and feel and know how
• 1:10:10
  to work out solutions, know how to work out problems, know that the vast majority
• 1:10:16
  of mil marshallee are trained individuals.
• 1:10:20
  The fighting propensity decreases dramatically.
• 1:10:24
  Like the amount of times I was in a fight as a teenage boy was weekly.
• 1:10:30
  And then as I started doing more and more martial arts, I started realizing very
• 1:10:34
  quickly that I didn't know how to fight.
• 1:10:37
  And that there were people in the world who knew much more
• 1:10:40
  than me in this particular realm.
• 1:10:42
  And I love to practice and I love the martial art of that inner knowing,
• 1:10:50
  that inner peace, that calmness, that stillness, and after going through
• 1:10:55
  that, the anger, if you will, the rage monster that probably lives in
• 1:11:00
  almost all teenagers, but definitely teenage boys starts to dissipate.
• 1:11:05
  Because you also have an outlet to act it out.
• 1:11:08
  But at the same time, you also are aware that there is different
• 1:11:13
  levels to the game and that you're not the coolest person in town.
• 1:11:18
  So that's just a, an implementation piece where I just think really
• 1:11:21
  restructuring so much of our schools.
• 1:11:25
  Does allow for mental health, physical health, awareness,
• 1:11:32
  happiness, peace, joy, prosperity.
• 1:11:35
  Danny, you mentioned breath work.
• 1:11:37
  You guys mentioned meditation.
• 1:11:38
  Jennifer, you mentioned silence, a moment of silence where shoot, not a minute.
• 1:11:44
  Let's try an hour.
• 1:11:45
  An hour of silence is challenging for most adults, right?
• 1:11:49
  You mentioned the word life coach area.
• 1:11:51
  Like I'm a life coach as well.
• 1:11:52
  I work with men and women of all ages on many different pieces, but the aspect of
• 1:11:56
  just sitting in silence and listening to whatever you want to listen to whatever
• 1:12:02
  intelligence or universal or God energy that you need to tap into just to listen,
• 1:12:08
  because in silence, we hear the most.
• 1:12:11
  And teaching and implementing that.
• 1:12:16
  You do this and you start solving a lot of the root issues that cause
• 1:12:21
  potentially aggression at the house.
• 1:12:24
  You start solving a lot of the problems that face the the family unit, I believe.
• 1:12:31
  I'm sorry.
• 1:12:31
  I think it does eventually translate.
• 1:12:33
  Wait, what do you think, Eric?
• 1:12:35
  Eric Stenlake: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:12:36
  And I think we have a lot of those big connections in activity, in action.
• 1:12:41
  And so by being in the sports and being involved in that high action
• 1:12:46
  I know for me when I'm out, when I'm on my runs I, I love getting
• 1:12:50
  to that place of that runner's high and boy, do I have the clarity that
• 1:12:54
  just comes over and the thoughts.
• 1:12:56
  And I'm like, wow, here it comes.
• 1:12:58
  Let's open it up here.
• 1:12:59
  Let's bring these ideas, bring these thoughts.
• 1:13:01
  And I think that would be great for the kids to experience.
• 1:13:05
  In terms of the family unit, really, how do we level the playing field?
• 1:13:10
  Because I think we have families of all different dynamics, all different
• 1:13:14
  constructs, and how do we level the playing field so that, and it's not
• 1:13:20
  that everybody's getting chovy, but that kids are getting opportunity.
• 1:13:25
  And I think that's the golden ticket to me right here.
• 1:13:28
  How do we get
• 1:13:29
  these kids opportunity to put them in front of the I'm going to reject you.
• 1:13:35
  I'm going to go into the ROTC, or like we have here we have the Young
• 1:13:39
  Marines here in Southern California.
• 1:13:42
  We got that group because we're right here by Camp Pendleton.
• 1:13:44
  What do we have that we can open up as opportunity for kids to be involved?
• 1:13:49
  That's, that I think is, even if my home life is horrible, And I don't want to
• 1:13:56
  go home at the end of the school day.
• 1:13:59
  What outlet do I have?
• 1:14:02
  What
• 1:14:02
  can I do with now all this built up energy
• 1:14:06
  that I need to do something constructive with?
• 1:14:09
  Jerremy Newsome: So if I totally agree and if those.
• 1:14:13
  Programs are requirements in school,
• 1:14:18
  Right?
• 1:14:18
  If the ROTC is a requirement for school and the leaders of ROTC, I
• 1:14:24
  don't even know if I would do well in an ROTC right now, like the pushups,
• 1:14:27
  the sit ups, the paying attention, the sitting still the, obviously the
• 1:14:32
  no phones, the being able to listen.
• 1:14:34
  On demand essentially, right?
• 1:14:36
  If that was not an option and especially it wasn't a paid option,
• 1:14:40
  but it really was a requirement, Eric, do you feel that if everyone had the
• 1:14:45
  opportunity, yes, but essentially the mandatory requirement to go through
• 1:14:49
  that, does that begin to allow more people to experience that opportunity?
• 1:14:53
  Okay.
• 1:14:53
  Eric Stenlake: Yeah, I believe it does.
• 1:14:55
  When you look back at where education was and what was offered.
• 1:14:59
  Throughout the course of the school day, home mech, shop wood shop,
• 1:15:02
  all of these things I remember kids being in ROTC in, in high school.
• 1:15:06
  And that was only a couple years ago.
• 1:15:08
  And absolutely.
• 1:15:10
  And where can we help get them involved?
• 1:15:12
  Because they are going to thrive, they're going to have those
• 1:15:16
  kids that thrive in the ROTC.
• 1:15:18
  That's just what they needed.
• 1:15:20
  And then these kids are going to thrive over here.
• 1:15:22
  This is just what they needed.
• 1:15:24
  And they're going to learn the soft skills and they're going to learn the
• 1:15:26
  management, self management, and be able to tap into their their greatness
• 1:15:31
  and their empowerment in those spaces.
• 1:15:33
  And I think that's the why behind the importance of creating this
• 1:15:38
  opportunity space for them.
• 1:15:40
  JennWXS-1: But I think that also goes back.
• 1:15:43
  Eric and Danielle already touched on it.
• 1:15:45
  That goes back to our state with them cutting our cut.
• 1:15:49
  That's why teachers are quitting.
• 1:15:50
  You're cutting our money.
• 1:15:52
  We're not being funded enough.
• 1:15:53
  Eric said it himself.
• 1:15:55
  And then Danielle we because our funds are being cut.
• 1:15:59
  We don't have those afterschool programs.
• 1:16:02
  How freaking cool would it be?
• 1:16:04
  Like you said, jujitsu.
• 1:16:06
  If we had the funding, we had the afterschool program and you could bring in
• 1:16:11
  somebody from a local YMCA or rec center or something to teach that jujitsu to
• 1:16:18
  keep the kids off the street, to help them mentally, physically, emotionally, because
• 1:16:24
  I'm sure jujitsu touches on all of that.
• 1:16:28
  I think that would be wonderful if more schools had programming like
• 1:16:33
  that, but we're just, that's the other reason why teachers are quitting,
• 1:16:36
  mental burnout and they don't feel supported and they're not being paid.
• 1:16:40
  Jerremy Newsome: Sure.
• 1:16:41
  Yes.
• 1:16:43
  Yes.
• 1:16:43
  I'm with you.
• 1:16:44
  100%. I agree.
• 1:16:45
  And I know, and I've always known that is one of the main challenges
• 1:16:52
  that not only face the schools, but just face what's going on in the
• 1:16:55
  schools is the budgetary constraint.
• 1:16:56
  Because again, we, I'm going to continue to pour in more time, energy, and effort
• 1:17:01
  into understanding where some of this money is going, because realistically.
• 1:17:07
  I have heard from so many individuals that are on in schools now, like you
• 1:17:16
  three, we don't have the money for it.
• 1:17:19
  Like the school doesn't have the money.
• 1:17:21
  The schools are always cutting budgets.
• 1:17:25
  And I remember probably what, five years ago that there was a nationwide budget cut
• 1:17:30
  and that nationwide budget cut essentially affected drama, music, and art.
• 1:17:38
  I was like, let's teach more science and literature, which everyone hates.
• 1:17:42
  Not really, but cause the school says, I'm talking about failing
• 1:17:44
  me when I was in fourth grade, I had an amazing history teacher.
• 1:17:50
  And this history teacher made everything come alive for me.
• 1:17:54
  It was Mr.
• 1:17:54
  Potter.
• 1:17:55
  He made everything come alive.
• 1:17:56
  It was so fantastic.
• 1:17:58
  And he was just the best history teacher.
• 1:18:01
  And I loved history because of him.
• 1:18:03
  And I still love history to this day.
• 1:18:05
  And I walked up to him one day in class and I was like, Mr. Potter, I want to
• 1:18:08
  be a history teacher just like you.
• 1:18:10
  And he went, Oh, you don't.
• 1:18:12
  And I was like, yeah, I do.
• 1:18:14
  And he goes, no, you don't.
• 1:18:16
  I was like, why?
• 1:18:17
  He goes, you're not going to make any money.
• 1:18:20
  And I never heard that before.
• 1:18:23
  I thought teachers were like loaded.
• 1:18:25
  And so I asked him, I'm in fourth grade, right?
• 1:18:28
  I was like how much do you make?
• 1:18:30
  And he said 39, 000 a year.
• 1:18:33
  Now, granted, when I was in fourth grade, that was 1436 but 39, 000 for
• 1:18:41
  any age, any profession at really any point pre 1930, isn't great.
• 1:18:48
  That's a low number.
• 1:18:50
  And I even knew it then I was like, Oh yeah, it's not that much money, dude.
• 1:18:54
  Like 39, 000 is not a lot.
• 1:18:56
  And then he went through all of his, daily routines and that he was spending, he was
• 1:19:01
  working 60 hours a week every single week.
• 1:19:05
  And then his summer break, he was like, During my summer break, like
• 1:19:08
  everyone thinks that we have a super long, amazing summer break.
• 1:19:11
  He goes, our summer break is really?
• 1:19:13
  Like ultimately two and a half weeks because you have
• 1:19:17
  the closing of everything.
• 1:19:18
  You have the reopening of everything.
• 1:19:19
  You got the planning for everything.
• 1:19:20
  The moving of everything.
• 1:19:21
  It's we think That's a society that, Oh, dude, teachers get three months a year.
• 1:19:26
  They get all these vacations.
• 1:19:27
  It's bro, that's when they're doing all of the tests.
• 1:19:29
  That's when they're doing all the grading.
• 1:19:31
  That's when they're doing probably all the paperwork.
• 1:19:34
  We, and I would love to pay teachers more.
• 1:19:38
  Danielle: would love it too.
• 1:19:39
  JennWXS-1: That
• 1:19:40
  Danielle: many teachers that take it right out of their pocket.
• 1:19:42
  They just have no, that's what they love.
• 1:19:45
  They love that and for them to do what they need to do.
• 1:19:50
  I was one that took it right out of my pocket, right?
• 1:19:53
  Because I wanted to make sure that they had what they needed.
• 1:19:56
  So yeah,
• 1:19:58
  JennWXS-1: I pay for so much stuff out of my pocket because there's
• 1:20:01
  just not enough money to go around.
• 1:20:04
  But, talking about budget, that was 1 of the school that I was
• 1:20:07
  at last year was an 8, 9 school.
• 1:20:09
  It was just 8th and 9th grade.
• 1:20:11
  And that's 1 of the reasons why that school they, that was a scary time.
• 1:20:16
  We got called into a staff meeting around Christmas.
• 1:20:20
  And walking into that staff meeting and we saw the superintendent walked
• 1:20:23
  in, we knew something was wrong.
• 1:20:25
  And he walked up into the staff meeting and he said, we hate to
• 1:20:28
  tell you this, but this whole entire staff has just gotten fired.
• 1:20:32
  We were like, what?
• 1:20:33
  And he was like, yeah, basically he's this school will be closed
• 1:20:37
  at the end of the school year.
• 1:20:38
  And you all have got to go out and find new jobs because we don't have the
• 1:20:42
  budget to support this school anymore.
• 1:20:45
  Yeah.
• 1:20:46
  Jerremy Newsome: wild.
• 1:20:47
  David, do you truly feel that there is the ability for this country to
• 1:20:52
  properly pay for our school system?
• 1:20:54
  Dave Conley: Yeah, everything's a choice, right?
• 1:20:55
  Everything is a choice.
• 1:20:57
  And I'm going back to, like, where's this money going?
• 1:21:00
  That's the, when it, it's not making it to the teachers.
• 1:21:03
  No teacher should have to be paying for anything.
• 1:21:06
  And teachers need to teach, right?
• 1:21:08
  So that's going to mean, staffing it.
• 1:21:10
  That's going to mean adequate pay.
• 1:21:11
  That's going to mean retention.
• 1:21:13
  That means.
• 1:21:14
  All of that money needs to start there.
• 1:21:17
  The teachers are the ones that are actually with our kids day in and day out.
• 1:21:21
  So I, there's no other choice, right?
• 1:21:24
  That there are choices that aren't that is is the problem.
• 1:21:29
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 1:21:29
  Can one of you three, five minutes or less, can you teach me and Dave on the
• 1:21:36
  hierarchy of a school in the sense of, so you mentioned the superintendent.
• 1:21:40
  I don't know exactly what that means, but ultimately.
• 1:21:44
  The board of education, like where is all the administrative costs going
• 1:21:50
  Dave Conley: and it's different in different states, right?
• 1:21:52
  JennWXS-1: Yeah.
• 1:21:53
  Dave Conley: Or is it about the same?
• 1:21:54
  I don't know.
• 1:21:55
  Danielle: I think maybe even different in different school systems, school district.
• 1:22:01
  Jerremy Newsome: really even different school districts will be different.
• 1:22:04
  Okay.
• 1:22:05
  So who who is the principal, does the principal make a lot of choices and
• 1:22:09
  decisions around the budget of the school?
• 1:22:11
  Eric Stenlake: Yeah I'll hop in.
• 1:22:12
  Yeah, principals do get to do that.
• 1:22:14
  There is a trickle down to the teachers.
• 1:22:17
  They can ask for things.
• 1:22:18
  There's.
• 1:22:19
  They could be told we've got this amount in the budget.
• 1:22:22
  It could go to there's a person that deals with budgets.
• 1:22:25
  I'm going by my school.
• 1:22:27
  There's a person that deals just with budgets and can say
• 1:22:31
  how much each teacher can get.
• 1:22:33
  There's overhead and all that stuff that gets put into that pot if you will.
• 1:22:39
  From the principal, you've got the course of the hierarchy of the district.
• 1:22:44
  Ours is quite large and I know all the way up to the top of the superintendent,
• 1:22:50
  I know his salary is somewhere around 350, 000 400, 000 a year to be the
• 1:22:56
  super and then we have how many assistant supers who are all paid?
• 1:23:03
  And then you have department heads at the DO and they all get paid
• 1:23:09
  and then they have assistance.
• 1:23:11
  And so when you're looking at the levels of the multiple levels that come down
• 1:23:16
  to a school that finally trickled down to, and this is what I said before,
• 1:23:20
  this is why our kids are only allocated, what, five, 7 a day and it's up to
• 1:23:26
  us to say, get yourselves to school.
• 1:23:29
  And we don't say it's so that we can collect your ADA, because if
• 1:23:32
  you're not in your seat by, nine o'clock, we're not going to be able
• 1:23:35
  to claim full ADA for you and get the funding for your warm butt in a seat.
• 1:23:41
  Don't get me started.
• 1:23:42
  Holy moly.
• 1:23:45
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 1:23:45
  JennWXS-1: the other reason why our, that school was closed last
• 1:23:49
  year is because of what Eric said.
• 1:23:51
  We didn't have the kids in the seat.
• 1:23:54
  We didn't have the butts in the seat.
• 1:23:56
  That was another 1 of the reasons why the school was closed and
• 1:24:00
  that's another reason why.
• 1:24:02
  I have 41 students and 8 classes.
• 1:24:07
  Jerremy Newsome: Because the school gets rewarded for more kids.
• 1:24:13
  JennWXS-1: But it's in the seat
• 1:24:14
  Jerremy Newsome: whoa.
• 1:24:15
  Wow.
• 1:24:17
  JennWXS-1: and
• 1:24:17
  Dave Conley: that's the wrong, that's the wrong incentive.
• 1:24:19
  That's
• 1:24:20
  No.
• 1:24:21
  Danielle: The education is the transportation now being budgeted
• 1:24:27
  with the school and with like you said that there's less students.
• 1:24:33
  So did they cut busing?
• 1:24:35
  Really?
• 1:24:38
  Eric Stenlake: Yeah.
• 1:24:38
  We're in the the pretty heavily populated.
• 1:24:41
  We have a couple of buses that come because they are bringing
• 1:24:44
  low income students from a particular area to the school.
• 1:24:48
  Otherwise I drove my kids to school every day from kindergarten through till they
• 1:24:55
  started driving somewhere in high school.
• 1:24:58
  And if you wanted to pay for a bus, it was.
• 1:25:00
  I think it's up to almost a thousand dollars a year now if
• 1:25:03
  you want your kids to ride a bus.
• 1:25:05
  JennWXS-1: I think that,
• 1:25:07
  Jerremy Newsome: bonkers.
• 1:25:08
  JennWXS-1: yeah, I think that's tied in with, the busing is tied in with
• 1:25:12
  the superintendent and like his budgets that he has to manage a district level.
• 1:25:18
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 1:25:20
  It's fascinating to see the web of the the changes and the tweaks and the adjustments
• 1:25:26
  that are at least available because.
• 1:25:30
  It also seems to me that the problem is, and we all know, right?
• 1:25:36
  Extremely multifaceted, but there are also probably pretty easy tweaks
• 1:25:42
  and adjustments that haven't really been focused on by an administration
• 1:25:46
  especially a government administration.
• 1:25:47
  And so again, that's my whole purpose and campaign is to change the educational
• 1:25:52
  system, to re to reinvigorate it, to transform it, to transcend it,
• 1:25:57
  to elevate it, to shift it to where.
• 1:26:00
  There's more opportunities.
• 1:26:01
  There's more money, there's more safety.
• 1:26:03
  And in the in the awareness of if we, as a country start shifting to
• 1:26:13
  that as our primary concern, I've talked to every single parent every
• 1:26:19
  parent I've ever talked to is an agreement that the education system
• 1:26:22
  hasn't truly undergone scrutiny.
• 1:26:27
  And a change and a revitalization in a long time.
• 1:26:32
  And so it does, it just seems, it seems crazy.
• 1:26:36
  Yeah.
• 1:26:36
  It seems interesting to me.
• 1:26:39
  And the reason it seems interesting is because again, just from the standpoint
• 1:26:42
  of superintendents, the the S the school board, you obviously have a school
• 1:26:50
  districts, district superintendents, state board of education, state superintendent,
• 1:26:55
  commissioner of education, state department of education, U S department
• 1:26:59
  of education, like the hierarchy is And so for someone to care so deeply about this.
• 1:27:07
  I think is probably the only way it changes and you have to get almost
• 1:27:12
  like this union level of striking where it is everyone gets behind a
• 1:27:20
  central mission to create this shift.
• 1:27:24
  And the shift will be dramatic.
• 1:27:27
  It needs to be dramatic.
• 1:27:29
  But at the same time, it's probably pretty easy.
• 1:27:34
  if it is easy as, let's find ways to use our tax dollars more
• 1:27:40
  appropriately, so that teachers get paid more, police officers get paid
• 1:27:44
  more, first responders get paid more.
• 1:27:48
  Those cohesive units begin to work together to keep everyone more
• 1:27:53
  safe from a community standpoint.
• 1:27:57
  And the schools themselves are a place that is To Dave's point, fortified,
• 1:28:04
  but also beautiful and friendly and exciting and inviting and luxurious
• 1:28:09
  and enticing and a wonderful place to learn because the teachers are happy.
• 1:28:14
  The students are happy.
• 1:28:16
  And there's never a school shooting ever again especially a mass shooting.
• 1:28:21
  And I think just having not only conversations like this, but having
• 1:28:26
  people that come together to know that it's a problem and to start inciting
• 1:28:31
  the change is extremely important.
• 1:28:35
  And the last 10 or 20 minutes, I think one of those changes that we haven't
• 1:28:40
  talked about in depth or really discussed at length, but has been mentioned
• 1:28:46
  by all three of you is the food.
• 1:28:49
  JennWXS-1: Oh,
• 1:28:50
  Jerremy Newsome: Now,
• 1:28:51
  Dave Conley: for those just listening, we just had an entire group of
• 1:28:54
  people just start shaking their head.
• 1:28:56
  We're like, Oh, my God.
• 1:28:58
  Jerremy Newsome: What is happening here with the food gin?
• 1:28:59
  Why the verbal
• 1:29:02
  disgust?
• 1:29:03
  JennWXS-1: it's just God awful.
• 1:29:06
  It's awful.
• 1:29:07
  I know my three step girls they refuse to eat at school.
• 1:29:10
  It's just that bad.
• 1:29:12
  It's, I don't even know where to start.
• 1:29:15
  Eric and Danielle might, but I don't even know where to begin on school nutrition.
• 1:29:20
  It is just horrid.
• 1:29:21
  Jerremy Newsome: All right, Eric, teach us
• 1:29:23
  Eric Stenlake: I'm coming from the brain health perspective, if I may.
• 1:29:27
  And my lord have mercy, when you look at the list of ingredients that are on the
• 1:29:33
  back of those packages, that those kids are going out for break time and eating
• 1:29:38
  this breakfast cookie, With all these artificial preservatives and colorings and
• 1:29:45
  this and that and then they get more at lunch and then they get more and yeah, and
• 1:29:48
  now they got their bag of this and they're eating that and they're drinking Cokes And
• 1:29:52
  we're wondering why they can't sit still.
• 1:29:55
  We're wondering why they don't have the ability to comprehend,
• 1:30:00
  to intake and solidify into memory content that's being put in front
• 1:30:06
  of them because they're putting into their bodies, neural disruptors,
• 1:30:09
  JennWXS-1: Process garbage.
• 1:30:11
  Eric Stenlake: process, garbage, oils, seed oils, all these things
• 1:30:14
  that are neural disruptors.
• 1:30:16
  So the eat this, they come in after break.
• 1:30:19
  Or lunch and they're just, heads are spinning around like
• 1:30:23
  this and they're so off kilter.
• 1:30:26
  And then I'm supposed to help teach them something that's going to take
• 1:30:29
  brain power and concentration and focus and energy to put into that.
• 1:30:34
  Or the kids aren't eating like Jen was saying, so now they're, they don't
• 1:30:37
  have fuel in their tank, so they can't drive their vehicle and they come
• 1:30:41
  into class and they're near sleeping because they don't have anything,
• 1:30:45
  haven't put anything in their bodies.
• 1:30:47
  And they have a few of themselves
• 1:30:49
  Jerremy Newsome: what was the term?
• 1:30:50
  Neuro neural
• 1:30:52
  Eric Stenlake: neuro disruptors, so
• 1:30:54
  just disrupting the neural connections in the brain.
• 1:30:59
  Jerremy Newsome: So are there certain foods that do that more
• 1:31:01
  than others to your awareness?
• 1:31:03
  Eric Stenlake: Yes.
• 1:31:04
  So anything with the artificial flavorings and colorings, the dyes, the yellow, reds,
• 1:31:08
  blues, all of those things, speed oils, for sure your sunflower, your staff flower
• 1:31:16
  all of those palm oils seed oils that are in the foods and the preservatives that
• 1:31:22
  are there to keep that food from rotting.
• 1:31:24
  Preservatives that are on the packaging all of that is a contributor.
• 1:31:29
  Jerremy Newsome: So Jennifer, do you, you're, I'm assuming you're
• 1:31:34
  allowed to bring in your own food and you just eat your own food.
• 1:31:37
  Can you walk us through what that looks like from a
• 1:31:40
  nutritional standpoint for you?
• 1:31:41
  Do you interact with any of the school lunches or is that
• 1:31:45
  something that you do on your own?
• 1:31:47
  JennWXS-1: The kids can bring in their own lunch and I do see majority of
• 1:31:53
  the kids bringing in their own lunch.
• 1:31:56
  It's just like Eric said, I was about to chime in.
• 1:31:59
  I don't even know if our lunch staff even.
• 1:32:02
  If they cook lunch, I'm very surprised.
• 1:32:05
  I know they don't cook breakfast.
• 1:32:06
  I know everything at breakfast time is packaged in plastic.
• 1:32:12
  Everything.
• 1:32:12
  They go through and they get, I know they get one thing of whatever
• 1:32:16
  they put out and every single thing that they put out is in packaging.
• 1:32:21
  We have a snack
• 1:32:22
  Danielle: COVID,
• 1:32:24
  JennWXS-1: ma'am.
• 1:32:25
  Danielle: let's start with COVID.
• 1:32:27
  And then it
• 1:32:27
  just kept on going.
• 1:32:28
  JennWXS-1: I don't, even at my last school in North Carolina, it was the same way.
• 1:32:33
  And I was at that school throughout all of COVID and they were doing a
• 1:32:38
  packaged foods at breakfast time, like package, like little pancakes
• 1:32:44
  and packaged, sausage links and.
• 1:32:47
  And there are even the frustrating thing.
• 1:32:50
  It's like there are even microwaves in the lunchroom for the kids to use
• 1:32:55
  if they want to heat up their food.
• 1:32:57
  so I don't I bring my own lunch to school as well.
• 1:33:00
  So
• 1:33:02
  Jerremy Newsome: Is it is it is it free to eat lunch at school?
• 1:33:06
  JennWXS-1: Yes, it is free.
• 1:33:08
  Jerremy Newsome: Okay.
• 1:33:08
  JennWXS-1: Yes.
• 1:33:10
  Jerremy Newsome: Gotcha.
• 1:33:10
  JennWXS-1: my school it is.
• 1:33:11
  Jerremy Newsome: Sure what about you, Danny?
• 1:33:14
  Like in your thoughts on the food, how much we all know
• 1:33:18
  that it's extremely important.
• 1:33:18
  We've all heard that the gut is the second brain.
• 1:33:21
  So to Eric standpoint, like if you're putting food in there, that's not
• 1:33:24
  terrific, you're probably you're if your second brain isn't awesome,
• 1:33:27
  your first brain probably sucks.
• 1:33:29
  So now you have two brains.
• 1:33:30
  You're like, ah, I don't like this.
• 1:33:33
  Where do where does someone start with better nutrition, Danny?
• 1:33:39
  Danielle: This is something that I do know that parents are excited
• 1:33:43
  because the kids get a breakfast now and a lunch and it's free, right?
• 1:33:48
  That lets them understand that they think their child is getting
• 1:33:53
  something healthy for their body.
• 1:33:56
  That is not always the truth, as these guys have talked about Eric?
• 1:34:00
  It fills their belly, but that's primarily where it stops, right?
• 1:34:08
  It doesn't heal their brain.
• 1:34:10
  It doesn't it doesn't heal their body.
• 1:34:13
  It fills it, right?
• 1:34:16
  Makes it comfort food.
• 1:34:18
  But then, Like Jen was saying, all these IEPs, all these special
• 1:34:23
  things, everybody on medicine.
• 1:34:25
  We are feeding our children.
• 1:34:27
  Why are we doing this?
• 1:34:29
  Feeding our children all these drugs, right?
• 1:34:32
  All these uppers, all this sugar, right?
• 1:34:35
  And then all of a sudden, oh, I've got an ADHD child.
• 1:34:39
  Oh, you think?
• 1:34:40
  Let's put a pill on that too.
• 1:34:43
  JennWXS-1: Let's mandate it with a pill.
• 1:34:44
  Danielle: yeah.
• 1:34:45
  Yeah, understanding that the school feel as though they're doing a service for
• 1:34:52
  the children, giving them their meal.
• 1:34:56
  But in reality, that we have to understand that we have to start giving the children,
• 1:35:03
  substance something that is going to fuel and help their body, not just to fill it.
• 1:35:09
  JennWXS-1: The other thing that I have heard when it comes to the lunchroom
• 1:35:12
  staff is, They they have parameters from the state where they have to
• 1:35:19
  provide certain things, whether the kid picks it up and eats it or not.
• 1:35:25
  And a lot of things that, the parameters and a lot of things that they're having
• 1:35:28
  to provide, the kids, Won't eat it and they and but they're forced to have to
• 1:35:35
  put it on their plate, according to the state, even though the kid won't eat it.
• 1:35:39
  So then you've got all of these things that the kids won't eat that are going
• 1:35:44
  in the trash every single day, like bananas, apples and I could go on and on.
• 1:35:52
  And I remember at the school.
• 1:35:54
  I was at North Carolina.
• 1:35:56
  It's like when I would be on morning duty, I would look and I was sitting
• 1:36:00
  here thinking, there are 60 apples, fresh apples in this trash can, because
• 1:36:07
  you're forcing that child out of state parameters to put that stuff on their
• 1:36:12
  plate and they're not going to eat it.
• 1:36:13
  And this all goes in the trash.
• 1:36:16
  Eric Stenlake: Because it's tied to what?
• 1:36:17
  Money.
• 1:36:18
  JennWXS-1: But
• 1:36:19
  Eric Stenlake: Everything that goes on that plate is a piece of money.
• 1:36:22
  And so they're basing that money off of this ridiculous
• 1:36:25
  thing called the food pyramid.
• 1:36:27
  One of the most, nonsensical,
• 1:36:30
  Jerremy Newsome: There's no way they still teach the food pyramid dude.
• 1:36:33
  JennWXS-1: unfortunately, yes, they do.
• 1:36:38
  Danielle: one.
• 1:36:39
  The wrong one.
• 1:36:40
  Eric Stenlake: the wrong one.
• 1:36:41
  We know because we're in a space of which we're, we understand why
• 1:36:45
  the food pyramid doesn't work, but they are putting things on our kids
• 1:36:48
  plates based on the food pyramid.
• 1:36:52
  Jerremy Newsome: Fascinating.
• 1:36:53
  Fascinating.
• 1:36:55
  Wow.
• 1:36:57
  Yeah.
• 1:36:57
  You're, you did the money symbol, right?
• 1:37:00
  For the listeners, like everything is tied to money.
• 1:37:02
  One of my mentors, Jesse Itzler.
• 1:37:05
  Has openly asked the CEO of Kellogg's to do an interview because many of the the
• 1:37:13
  cereals are labeled as heart healthy.
• 1:37:17
  And Jesse Itzler is please.
• 1:37:21
  Tell me how you put that label on your box and he's offered 100,
• 1:37:27
  000 cash just for the interview and he's not even a podcaster.
• 1:37:33
  He just cares about his kids just like every other parent in the world and
• 1:37:37
  he knows and he's done the research and he's looked up the ingredients.
• 1:37:40
  He goes, these are not heart healthy at all.
• 1:37:43
  And, Kellogg's general mills, it's a very long list, but the vast majority.
• 1:37:49
  Of cereals that we put out in schools or maybe even hotel
• 1:37:54
  boardrooms where, you know, anyone's eating those aren't healthy.
• 1:38:01
  We're even remotely, right?
• 1:38:02
  We're talking 36 to 48 grams of sugar per serving, which is like three Cokes.
• 1:38:12
  It is unimaginable amount of sugar.
• 1:38:16
  And there's been so many studies.
• 1:38:19
  That I'm aware of that sugar and cocaine.
• 1:38:22
  Are so closely related, right?
• 1:38:25
  They're so closely related and it's almost identical as far as the receptors
• 1:38:33
  to the brain and actually what happens.
• 1:38:35
  And there are some scientists and gut health experts and biome experts
• 1:38:38
  that have said sugar is as bad.
• 1:38:43
  And if we don't start realizing that soon, we're going to
• 1:38:45
  continue the poison in our nation.
• 1:38:47
  Wow.
• 1:38:49
  JennWXS-1: The
• 1:38:49
  Eric Stenlake: A hundred percent.
• 1:38:50
  That addiction is housed in the same pleasure center in the brain.
• 1:38:54
  So whether I'm eating high amounts of sugar and I need more and more,
• 1:38:57
  or I'm going after cocaine or meth or whatever else, it's the same,
• 1:39:01
  it's the same area of the brain.
• 1:39:03
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 1:39:04
  Wow.
• 1:39:05
  Danielle: Need to start farms at school, right?
• 1:39:08
  So we can start growing our vegetables and our fruit and have the kids learn how to
• 1:39:13
  do it, dig in the dirt, learn all these skills, and then turn around and eat them,
• 1:39:18
  Jerremy Newsome: yeah, sure.
• 1:39:20
  Dave Conley: Thing is about this.
• 1:39:21
  This whole discussion is about school safety and We've covered a lot and
• 1:39:25
  what I'm trying to figure out is what's going what's, what's going right in
• 1:39:31
  because, you don't have the time, we don't have the money, we, we're not
• 1:39:35
  teaching the skills needed because we don't have the teachers there's we're
• 1:39:40
  feeding them garbage, we're, all of these Things are, there's a lot to fix here.
• 1:39:45
  So what's going right.
• 1:39:46
  What do we need to be doing more of that?
• 1:39:48
  We're already doing.
• 1:39:50
  If anything, what do you think, Eric?
• 1:39:52
  Eric Stenlake: Listen, I'm going to speak for the teachers that I know
• 1:39:56
  they're the most beautiful souls and the beautiful hearts of people I've ever met.
• 1:40:01
  And we're in it for that reason.
• 1:40:03
  To bless the lives of others.
• 1:40:06
  To help kids get love, see love, and experience love that maybe
• 1:40:11
  they don't ever get at home or from other areas of their lives.
• 1:40:16
  And to freely be there to support kids.
• 1:40:20
  And it's not, to me, it's not about.
• 1:40:23
  The curriculum that's important, but it's more important for me to stay in that
• 1:40:29
  heart of service and love for these kids.
• 1:40:32
  And and that's the space that I know I'm in and as well as my colleagues,
• 1:40:37
  Dave Conley: jen, anything to add?
• 1:40:38
  JennWXS-1: I totally agree with him.
• 1:40:40
  I think, I've been in 4 different school systems and the education
• 1:40:48
  family, I still keep in touch with, a lot of those teachers that I worked
• 1:40:52
  with in the past school systems, especially my 1st school system.
• 1:40:56
  Because it was like my 2nd family.
• 1:40:59
  And I can honestly say, like Eric, that the teachers that have decided to stay.
• 1:41:07
  And that are in it and they pull money out of their own pockets.
• 1:41:11
  They are truly there to love and care for those kids that you, look
• 1:41:16
  at me, I've been in it 20 years.
• 1:41:19
  And so I pull from my pocket every single day.
• 1:41:22
  If a kid, I have kids coming up to me left and right, can I borrow a dollar?
• 1:41:26
  And I'm like, yeah here's a dollar.
• 1:41:29
  Or school supplies.
• 1:41:31
  And so we're truly in it because we love and care for the kids
• 1:41:34
  and we want to be there for them.
• 1:41:36
  Jerremy Newsome: And that's what's going which thank you as well.
• 1:41:39
  That's always been a profession that's been near and dear to my heart
• 1:41:43
  because Danny knows this, I back to the fourth grade, I always wanted
• 1:41:47
  to be a teacher, always wanted to be a history teacher specifically.
• 1:41:51
  And I didn't even realize until three years ago that I actually
• 1:41:54
  am technically a history teacher.
• 1:41:57
  I just teach the history of the financial markets.
• 1:41:59
  And I teach individuals how the financial markets work.
• 1:42:03
  And I teach specifically mostly adults, but I have taught kids and I have seen how
• 1:42:07
  fast and quickly they learn and can learn.
• 1:42:10
  And what is going right is that we are, and we do have the greatest talent
• 1:42:18
  pool to choose from because we're in the greatest country in the world.
• 1:42:21
  And the greatest country in the world have the greatest problems in the world.
• 1:42:24
  You can't be in a position of greatness and not have the most eyes and the most
• 1:42:30
  fingers pointed at you So to get political for a moment have any three of you?
• 1:42:37
  Spent time Learning or reading or hearing more about kennedy
• 1:42:41
  his make America healthy again.
• 1:42:44
  Is that something that any of you either support or believe
• 1:42:47
  will actually come to fruition?
• 1:42:49
  Eric looks like a knife for you.
• 1:42:51
  JennWXS-1: Go ahead.
• 1:42:52
  Eric Stenlake: I was gonna, I was gonna say personally, I have not read
• 1:42:55
  it or seen it, but just hearing those words to make America healthy again.
• 1:43:00
  A hundred percent.
• 1:43:01
  Danielle: Exactly.
• 1:43:03
  If anybody would jump on that bandwagon, right?
• 1:43:06
  Yes, support it for sure.
• 1:43:09
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah that's, that's something that he's he was campaigning for
• 1:43:13
  and I, again, I just think it's a, it's an important aspect to, to focus on this
• 1:43:19
  is this being one of those large pieces.
• 1:43:22
  Because in his, what was the term, Dave, his decommencement speech,
• 1:43:30
  where he's steps down as running for president and gives his allegiance
• 1:43:36
  essentially in support to Trump.
• 1:43:38
  He said that the food that we're eating is killing this country.
• 1:43:42
  And he goes, that's something that we need to address.
• 1:43:44
  We need to fix.
• 1:43:46
  And I'm just happy to know that it's in the upper levels of government.
• 1:43:52
  There are definitely people that are aware of this.
• 1:43:54
  Cause also Kennedy jr. Is like every other politician, 60 plus white dude,
• 1:43:59
  but at least the guy is jacked and isn't healthy and can do like 10 pull ups, at
• 1:44:05
  least we have that because that's also the thing that we need in leadership
• 1:44:08
  is we can't only have people that say it's important, but we can't And they
• 1:44:12
  have none of the, what you would call physical characteristics of health and
• 1:44:19
  regardless of what side of the aisle anyone stands on, I think we can all
• 1:44:23
  agree that the majority of our past.
• 1:44:27
  Presidential candidates, nominees or specifically presidents.
• 1:44:32
  But many of the other aspects of government, we are not focused on
• 1:44:37
  having health as a big priority because to begin to wrap up, I fully do agree
• 1:44:43
  that as we focus on health, physical health, mental health, you at the
• 1:44:50
  core will begin changing the internal composition of the American populace.
• 1:44:56
  And when you start focusing on the internal core of the American populace,
• 1:44:59
  you then start working on the absolute.
• 1:45:03
  Almost mandatory construction of what the American future is built on, which is the
• 1:45:10
  education, the educational system and the health and well being of our Children.
• 1:45:14
  And so when you make that the obvious distinctive priority, then you have
• 1:45:19
  to then say, how do we not only make our nation healthy, but how do
• 1:45:23
  we keep all of our Children safe?
• 1:45:25
  And then you start now focusing on changing and reinvigorating
• 1:45:29
  the educational system.
• 1:45:30
  Mhm.
• 1:45:30
  Which goes back to the point of the entire discussion, which was really eye opening.
• 1:45:37
  I just want to say thank all three of you for giving us your valuable
• 1:45:40
  time, all of your education.
• 1:45:43
  Combined, you're all almost at a hundred years of educational background
• 1:45:49
  and of knowledge and of resources.
• 1:45:51
  And as one child that did make it out of the education system to know
• 1:45:56
  how valuable our teachers are, thank you for all the lives that you did
• 1:46:01
  impact, the ones that never told you.
• 1:46:04
  Because they might not have known how to tell you they might not have known that
• 1:46:08
  you were valuable and it might have taken them to be a 25 year old man to say, wow,
• 1:46:14
  that 4th grade teacher really did change and impact my life and gave me such a
• 1:46:19
  beautiful shift of what's possible taking.
• 1:46:22
  Taking a portion of education that most people generally would deem as boring
• 1:46:27
  and put his energy and time and passion into it to invigorate someone that is
• 1:46:33
  going to run for president of how broken his face was when he told me of how
• 1:46:40
  much money he made and how poor he felt.
• 1:46:44
  And I just want to say.
• 1:46:46
  From one person to teachers that are here, the really the healers that
• 1:46:51
  are here, the caregivers that are here, the parents that are here.
• 1:46:56
  Thank you for your time.
• 1:46:57
  Thank you for your service.
• 1:46:57
  Thank you for your generosity.
• 1:47:00
  Danielle: Thank you, Jeremy.
• 1:47:01
  JennWXS-1: Thank you, Jeremy.
• 1:47:02
  Jerremy Newsome: Absolutely.
• 1:47:04
  Love and blessings.
• 1:47:05
  Thank you for being on the podcast.
• 1:47:07
  Thank you so much for listening to this podcast.
• 1:47:10
  Thank you for being a part.
• 1:47:12
  of solving America's problems.
• 1:47:14
  We are focusing and dealing with one of the most egregious problems and
• 1:47:19
  that is helping and elevating and changing and shifting the educational
• 1:47:22
  system to educational reform.
• 1:47:24
  And most importantly, in this episode, we dealt with how to stop school shootings.
• 1:47:28
  Danny, Jennifer, Eric, it was a pleasure.
• 1:47:30
  Thank you so much for your time.
• 1:47:32
  Dave Conley: Okay.
• 1:47:34
  Alright, so what did you learn?
• 1:47:36
  Jerremy Newsome: What what did I learn?
• 1:47:37
  I learned that this is probably going to be the focus of so many of our
• 1:47:44
  episodes, Dave, because it seems like.
• 1:47:47
  When we continue to talk to more and more individuals that are in
• 1:47:53
  and around the educational system.
• 1:47:55
  We have, we've had military experts that focus on prevention in schools.
• 1:48:02
  Then you have teachers.
• 1:48:04
  That are saying is a budget issue.
• 1:48:08
  There's going to be so much to unpack here and to really find out the initial
• 1:48:14
  problem, potentially the Genesis, potentially the root problem that we can
• 1:48:19
  start addressing, knowing exactly what it is it going to require a lot more
• 1:48:23
  deep diving, which I'm excited about.
• 1:48:25
  That's obviously the point of this entire podcast, but most importantly,
• 1:48:29
  I'm also excited because it seems like.
• 1:48:33
  When we find that problem that we truly directly specifically solved, there will
• 1:48:39
  be an incredible domino and ripple effect that a lot of people will get behind and
• 1:48:43
  champion and really see to the forefront.
• 1:48:45
  Yes.
• 1:48:47
  Dave Conley: man I learned, we, it came up over and over again as this
• 1:48:51
  is multifaceted like this, and this is where I'm hearing it from you
• 1:48:54
  too, is it's like there's a lot here.
• 1:48:58
  And I also, that came back to our first conversation on this as
• 1:49:02
  we're talking about bulletproof desks and robots and drones.
• 1:49:07
  Come on, no way.
• 1:49:10
  I, that's, there's already no money.
• 1:49:14
  And if we're saying we're going to be making these fortresses with, I don't know
• 1:49:19
  where that money's going to come from.
• 1:49:21
  Now I hear you.
• 1:49:22
  It sounds like quick, a quick fix.
• 1:49:25
  And, it's oh, our schools will be safe if we just get some
• 1:49:28
  robot dogs that will be trolling.
• 1:49:30
  And I'm like, oh, come on.
• 1:49:31
  We're feeding our kids garbage.
• 1:49:33
  There's no after school classes, divorce, lack of mentors, money's not making it
• 1:49:38
  to the kids, we're over medicalizing the kids just not having enough
• 1:49:41
  teachers, all, so many things, right?
• 1:49:45
  And there's, no, no wonder we have a crisis.
• 1:49:50
  We're making our kids crazy.
• 1:49:52
  Jerremy Newsome: I think if we are to truly create an actual real
• 1:50:00
  tangible solution, it does start with conversations like this.
• 1:50:04
  It starts with listeners.
• 1:50:05
  Like you, it starts with you all sharing your thoughts, your opinions,
• 1:50:09
  your feelings, and your feedback.
• 1:50:12
  If you want to be a guest on this show, if you want to be someone that helps us with
• 1:50:17
  your insights and with your thoughts, make sure you contact us and reach out so that
• 1:50:21
  we can hear your voice and make sure that you are also part of this conversation
• 1:50:24
  because we are solving America's problems.
• 1:50:29
  Thank you for listening.