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Are Charter Schools Saving Kids… or Destroying Public Education? What Parents Need to Know 🎓 · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I had to tell my wife that I might be
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: losing my job, and the pit in my stomach was like, yo,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I'm never again gonna be in this position where I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: can't take care of my family.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: How did you get here? Like walk us through the transition.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I got a bet on me. She like, we not
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: making a big enough impire. She's like, I want to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: open my own school, happy wife, happy life. I was like,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I have no idea what that means, but hey, let's go.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I get a call from the investor. He said, no
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: matter what this balloons to, I'm gonna make sure that
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: this school is successful. Thirty million dollars later, he stroked
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the check.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: What makes charter schools different than public schools?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Charter schools are public school.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: So why doesn't just every school become a charter school.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: You're trying to get me in trouble, man. Let's keep
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it real. They were supposed to come in, learn these
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: specific skills, and then go work for somebody. So when
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a charter school comes in and says, nah, if you
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: want workers, somebody work for me.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: Kids can have their phone, that means that artificial intelligence
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: AI potentially will be allowed in your school and you.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Have to teach productive and responsible usership of all of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: these new innovative technologies that are coming. When you walk
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: through the hallways, it's wealth Boulevard. The kids will go
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to their parents and say, don't buy me Jordan's give
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: me money from my stocking. I can get you at
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: three four years old, and I keep you until you're
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: an eighth grader. You literally would be a half a
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: million dollars.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Welcome back, EYL special episode in DC just of Columbia
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the Park. Thank you to gracious hosts at the park
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: for having us. Man. This is going to be a
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: special episode. When we talk about financial literacy, that's something
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: that's near and dear to our heart for obvious reasons.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: And our guest today really is living that, living financial
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: literacy and so many different aspects. So Shamaria killed James,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: thank you for joining us. CEO of Equity Now, which
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: is a financial literacy nonprofit organization. Also the head of
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: a charter school, Yes, sir. Also a seasoned investor.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Seasons a lot to live up to. I'm not here, brother, No,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: that's a lot to live up to.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Entrepreneur and just you know, an overall champion.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: The things that that we talk about a lot, as
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: far as like really you know, educating people on finances
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: and making smart decisions with the money.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: So thank you for joining us. Appreciate littli thank you.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you all for having me. Mayar doing great,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: amazing work. So I'm humble and honored. And y'all have
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: combined culture with financial literacy and y'all may being smart cool,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: So it's pretty dope. Thank you for having me here.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: It's a pleasure.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I feel like we might have met a few years
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: ago standing right now literally literally literally talking about education.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Just see this thing come full circle to have visions
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: that are lined. I'm excited about this conversation. I appreciate
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: it absolutely.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: So let's let's let's start at the beginning. And you're
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: from Buffalo, New York. Yeah, at the home of the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Buffalo Bills, Buffalo Wings and Briselda, the Trinity, the Wings.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Which ones first? Is it Bills first? Yeah?
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Ah?
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Because Wings is right there.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I'm a little disappointed right now.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say Wings, Wings, Bizelda Bills, you know.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: But okay, but coming from Buffalo, and how did you
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: get here? Like walk us through the transition from then
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: to now.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Ooh, good question. Man. I came home one day. I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: was working for UPS United Parcel Service and this really
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: really really strict culture, and I had to tell my
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: wife that I might be losing my job. So before
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I could tell her, she had told me that she
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: was student teaching and she might lose her job. I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: just want to escalate. Just about a house. Just had
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: a kid who was two years old. Shout out to
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: my son, Shamairie a TAJ, and the pit in my
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: stomach was like, yo, I'm never again going to be
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: in this position where I can't take care of my family.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Like it was literally a low point, like this is
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: not good.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: How long ago was that?
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, this was like two thousand and eight.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: It was like oh eight. So I was like I
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: got to do something. So ran back to school real quick,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: got my master's, told wifey, we're gonna be good. The
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: job continued, both of our jobs continued, and then I
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: just went out there and said, let's see what it
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: looks like. So long story, let's along with that. We
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: saw DC because I was coming to Howard home coming
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: shout out to Howard, and I just saw black excellence
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: in DC, and we would literally drive here back in
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the days when you had the little fixed TVs on
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the back, basically taping them on the back seat. We'd
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: come here, you're going with the head rest, you know
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: what I mean. So we both agree, wife and I,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: let's go to Chocolate City. Let's let's go to d C.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: So we packed up. But a company they were looking
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: at me Nestley to come down, so they just gave
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: us a big package. Wifey cam As she ended up
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: working for DC and our careers just kind of took
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: off and then working we were like, we're not making
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a big enough impact. So then that's when we started
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: looking outside of what we were doing on a regular
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: day basis. But we moved here in twenty ten, brought
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: our kids with us, didn't know a lot of people
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: in the area, and then just said let's see how
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: we can do this thing.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you brought up something that I actually expressed when
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: I left d C last howar home coming? Obviously we
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: travel a lot into a lot of cities.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Love Atlanta.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Something different here, there's something different here, and it was
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: about excellence, but it was also professionalism too, sure, right,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Like we would hear eating lunch and it's a group
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: of thirty lawyers, right, twenty doctors at the table. Talk
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: about that initial impact and how it felt and inspired
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: you when you got here.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: So the crazy story, two crazy stories.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: My wife gonna kill me, but.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: That I went to the grocery store and a black
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: lady jumped out of Eventley with a bonnet and them
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: little shoes that they wear when they go get their
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: feet done slippers.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, bru.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, anywhere a black queen feels comfortable like that,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I have to be there. I just I got to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: be there. So then, exactly what you explained. When we
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: moved and I just started to see the professionalism and
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: going to meetings at Howard and things of that nature,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: being suited and booted tie and everything. I said, Okay,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: I was living on what's called odin in Maryland, so
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Oldinton is a different mix. I'll just say that it's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: not Chocolate City. So I started inquiring about Prince George's county.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So me and my wife we went. We take pictures
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: every year. So it was Christmas and this little black
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: kids on a skateboard where all these big houses were at.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So we just following them. He looking back at us,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: like why is this crazy people following us? But I'm
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: like again, I'm like this young black dude on a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: skateboard with these huge houses, I have to live there.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: So then we ended up buying our house in Prince
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: George's County and then networking with you know, folks like
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: one hundred black men, folks from Howard University, and the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: professionalism was just crazy and it continues to be today.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: So you didn't have any connections to DC, you didn't,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: So talk about that because that's a major part of success,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: as well as far as leaving your hometown. A lot
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: of times people you know, they get burdened down when
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: just staying with it's from and it could be a
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: small town, it could be a big city, but it's
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: like the fear of leaving is stopping a lot of
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: people from actually achieving success. So talk about that is
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: as far as the actually overcoming any psychological barriers, not
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: being close to immediate family or friends, and how that
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: actually accelerated your life.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, good question, I'm going to take it back. So
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: when I first started investing in the market, it was
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: in four oh one k and it was a white mentor,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and I would like, do Chinese stocks in my four
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: on one K and I mean them y'all know that.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm speaking to the experts. But I had
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: such a high risk tolerance. I was like, Yo, let's see,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to pull this money until I'm sixty
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: five years old. Let's go, you know what I mean.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: So that same risk tolerance, I said, let's just take
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a chance. We I at that point where we were
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: at our income level. I was taking old newspaper and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: when we would have an email or whatever, that printed
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: out and I would shred it and I use that
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: to pack up the boxes because I couldn't really afford
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of wrapping paper and boxes of professional
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. But you know what I mean. That
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: risk tolerance for me was I got a better on me,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and I got to make sure that I'm providing something
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: different from my family. At the time, it was me,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the wife, my son, and my daughter. So I said,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I know, if I continue to do what I'm doing
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: here in Buffalo, what that ceiling is going to look like. Well,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I've seen successful black people in DC, and success looks
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: like a coloring. Success looks like a Bentley like, I
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: don't see those when I go outside at home. So
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: we just took that chance. And I'll say one more
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: thing when I got here, Just who you know in networking?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: A young lady who I had met when I was
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: at Nestley. She was really cool, man, she was so dope.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: We were tight. A lot of people didn't rock with her,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and she moved to another job, got me to move
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: to another job with her, became the bass, paid me
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars more than what I asked for. Was
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: then led to me going to another job which paid
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: me double just because we became friends. So just never
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: burn a bridge, man.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: No, that's important. So you got ups, we got Nestley.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out. Obviously your wife was student teaching.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Did she stay in education? And how to you lead
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: to being in education when you said you're going back
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: to school with Is that what you study though?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: How did it come about?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Good, y'all got the good questions, man, soa I ended
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: up getting my masters and got certified and lean and
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: six sigma methodology. You always loved finance, but as an engineer,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: my degrees and then my underrated is engineer, and I
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: needed to put it all together. So when wife he
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: came down, she came down as an assistant principle and
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: then came into d C and they promoted her to principle.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: So I left what was called I know the health
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: system as an engineer, where I was literally going in
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and watching surgeries and improving how people do surgeries. You
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: never imagine that the one thing that happens in surgeries
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the most is they leave a sponge or something in
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: that like that's literally what happens to most. But anyway,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: look you behind the glass watching that.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, you're in there. Yeah.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: OK. So as an engineer, I had a team like Ford,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and it was our job to follow the doctors, follow
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the nurses, the technicians, and watch the surgery and see
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: how we can improve processes. So at that point how
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Are University He was like, well, we have a hospital
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and you come on over here. So I said, okay,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: let me take this leap in this bound. So I
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: got to Howard University. Wifey is she's a principal at
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: this point in DCPs and I'm like, well, you know what,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I see the struggles of a students. So I started
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: teaching as well, so full time job Howard University doing
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: strategy process improvement, continues improvement, and then part time was
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: adjunct just teaching. So then I'm like, Okay, this education
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: thing is pretty cool. I like teaching regardless. Wifey was like,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: you know, this is cool, but DCPs, y'all know, DC
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: politics got a little crazy and she wasn't coming home
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: as happy as she used to be. I ended up
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: making a little bit of money in the stock market.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I said, just come home, just quit, like you're not happy,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: So she did. I was like, wait, we're supposed to
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: have a conversation. That was easy. Hold on. So we
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: started our for profit company, Equitable, Inc. And we were
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: going out doing consulting contracts all over California everywhere, teaching
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: all different types of continuou improvement, strategy education. And then
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: she came home one day and she was like, you
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: know what, man, FDEs She like, we're not making a
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: big enough impact. I said, okay, boo, what does that mean.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: She's like, we want to I want to open my
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: own school, happy wife, happy life. I was like, I
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: have no idea what that means, but hey, let's go, Like,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: let's let's try it once again. We're gonna We're gonna
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: roll these dice. Risk tolerance was crazy. So it's been
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: a journey. And that was in twenty seventeen.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So how'd you start Equity? Now? What is that? When
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: is that star?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Good question. So we were going through the process
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of applying for a charter school and I went back
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: home to Buffalo and we were sitting around all of
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: these folks and the young lady was talking about how
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: she was the founder of her school. But I was
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a little confused because she was no longer in the school.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: So me being me and my personality, I'm like, so,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I have a question, like, how are you
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: no longer the founder? She was like, well, I have
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a boy, and I did it for two years and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: then my board thought it was best for somebody else
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to take over. I said, but you started it. He
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: was like yeah, but my board. So I came back
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: home and I called all my lawyers, my CPA, and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I said, how does that not happen to us? Because
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I don't look good in stripes or orange, like, I'm
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: not going to start a school and then be ousted.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So Equity now became our non for profit charter management
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: organization to manage our charter school. So we own the ecosystem,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: so we owned the not for profit that manages it
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: as well as the actual charter school. And then for
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: wrap around services we have Legends Adventures because what we
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: found in our research is a lot of times you
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: have high absenteeism because parents can't get their kids to
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: school on time or they can't pick them up late.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: So we started before and aftercare as well. I want
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to get into the education piece. But you said something
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and it resonated with me so much.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: The idea of telling your wife you can stop for
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: sure something I resonated with because then during the pandemic,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I was watching my wife doing the same thing and
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: I'm like, look, it would be more benefit sure if
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: you stopped and came over here with us. Talk about
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: that moment for you on the personal side of like
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: I'm doing something and you know it might have been
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: a goal of yours, But from the other side of
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: your wife having that conversation.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: It was await it all over again, but flipped so
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: oh eight. We were in a position where we were
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: kind of stuck like whatever this man, the man tells
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: me to do on this w two job I gotta
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: do and I can't support my wife now twenty sixteen,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. I am not a stock technician by any
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, but with my wrist tolerance and
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: just having a gut, I mean, I got Amazon. My
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: dollar cost average at that time, when Amazon was like
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty bucks, my dollar cost average on
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Facebook was like twelve dollars. I got Boweling short, Like
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I went I just went crazy in the market.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So just seeing that and then just dumping money in there,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: living off of one salary, we were in a position
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: just lead, I'm not going to be in this position
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: where my wife can't be happy. A happy wife is
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: a happy household, and we're raising two kids that need
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to be able to see that. So for me as
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: a man, was like, well, just tell me what it
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: is that we need to be able to do or
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: that you want to do, because we're going to be
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: able to afford it. So I just had to make
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: sure the family was okay to that number. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And it was a beast.
• 14:19
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• 14:21
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• 14:23
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  Speaker 1: Limitations, terms and conditions apply.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So it's still about financial literacy versus financial wellness and
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: financial education.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good, good, good, good good question. So came out
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: teaching financial literacy a bit, and if you're literate at
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: something that means you can read it, right, but big
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in my engineering experience, you have to have an experiential component.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: So just because you can read it doesn't mean you
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: can apply it. So we started shifting towards an experiential
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: piece and called it financial education. I believe that we
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: were the first to call the financial education, but you
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, I couldn't trademark a common name.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: So financial education was big for us for two, three, four,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: you know, five years grinding and it still is. But
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: as I went on my own healing journey and spiritual
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: connection between me and God, I started to think about
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the things that impact you from a trauma person. Right,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: because just because you can get five hundred thousand dollars
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: does not mean you can manage five hundred thousand dollars.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So if you're not spiritually grounded and connected with whatever
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that means for you, which now moving into the wellness piece.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Like I was told I had champagne tastes in beer pockets,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: let's traumatize it. Champagne is nice, beer is disgusted. Like
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: how many times have kids heard money is a grown
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: full conversation? Right, So all of those things that happen
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: within the culture and other cultures being said to kids
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: become very traumatizing, and then you make decisions based off
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: of that because you're not well, because you don't recognize it. Right.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So my dad one time was a little upset with me,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: so he took the heater, he took off of the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: little thermostat off and he left turned it down. So
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: to this day, I'm never gonna be cold. I'm gonna
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: spend everybody's money I need to spend to make sure
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I'm warm. Tied to financial education. If I don't recognize that,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that's a piece of me of wellness where I'm gonna
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: spend whatever I gotta spend to make sure that I'm warm.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So wellness, that wellness piece is what are those trauma
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: events that happened to you that then now show up today?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And how you use your money? What are those money
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: habits tied to you not being well? So that's the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: difference between wellness education and literacy. That's the alignment.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: I always talk about literacy being able to read and
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: write absolutely, but we need to graduate to financial fluency absolutely,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: being able to speak it, understand it applies absolutely. That's
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: important when you're developing education.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: It seems to be obviously it's a catchphrase now a
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: lot of people are talking about it and how.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Do we incorporate it? But when you were doing it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: What age demographic were you thinking that you were going
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: to apply this for and how were you implementing it.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: Was it like a core piece of the curriculum or
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: was that an elect How did you do it?
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: So I have a mentor, Thank you for the question.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: A great question. So I have a mentor who I
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: met and just helped me build my portfolio. So it
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: was four of us in the basement. We turn our
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: basement into the war room. So I come downstairs and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: my wife, my guy from college, and my sister in
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: law that grinding on the application, thousand page application. I said, Ao,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I like to invest. Why don't we teach the kids
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: how to invest? Wife is like, great concept, write it
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: up and present it to the team. I'm like, damn, Mike,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you can me talk about a little later, you know
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: what I mean. So they were like, all right, this
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: is good. We always knew we were gonna have a
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: K through eight, but now I had to figure out
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: how do you teach a five year old financial education?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: How do you how do you teach these concepts? So
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: it obviously has matured over time, but the base of
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: it is when you walk into a Legends charter school,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: what's your favorite elementary school teacher, Miss Job, Miss Job.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So Miss Job classroom is also Facebook but is also Meta.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: So at six years old, you know that the classroom
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: is called Facebook, but the stock symbol is Meta, even
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: at five years old, so you do know Miss Job,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: which we traditionally know Miss Joe. But every single class
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: is named after a public company and has a chart
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: with a QR code where the kids, because the kids
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: can have their phones in our school, scan the QR
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: code and see live how that stock is doing. We
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: introduce it with our workbook manipulatives at kindergarten as they're
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: coming in. So a lot of schools, you know, as
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you will know, there's the core classes you know, math, ela, etc.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: That are the testing grades once you get to third grade.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: So we inserted a financial education class, so in order
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to come through our school, you have to take financial
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: education period. So we're weaving it into when you walk
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: through the hallways, it's Wealth Boulevard, his financial education Lane,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and our kids you'll say, hey, money don't grow on trees.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: They'll say, yes, it is. It's actually a commodity because
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: it's paper, and that's what we instill in the kids.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Scenario school Legends charter school, so that school.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Is basically the primary focus is business and financial literacy.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: My wife would argue, you know, say yes, but so
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: she's rigorous liberal arts. From an academic perspective, we say
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: that you can get a private school education in a
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: public charter school. So we have two languages, Latin as
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: well as Spanish, and she's big on reading. She was
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: a reading specialist, so she's huge on reading. If you
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: pick up that iPad, you better know how to say
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: some of them letters on there. You teach the kids Latin, yes, yeah,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: we Latin is the root of all the languages.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Does that help you learn English better?
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Help you learn everything better? English, math, everything with those
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: words being the root and as you process and you
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: know that different language. Some of the smartest people in
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the world are fluent with multiple languages, and Latin is
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the base of pretty much all of them. So it's mandatory,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: not at upper level, right, we're not. That's not kidder.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: You your k through eight the eighth grade terms to
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: be your first graduating senior class.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing, and this is something that's interesting. Yeah,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and your insight is gonna be pretty profound. Sure, the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: kids are learning. How are we teaching the teachers?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Right, because a lot of the teachers from our experience
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: have said this is great, I'm learning with the kids.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish I had this. You hear that from
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of the adults. I wish I had learned this.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: I would How are you preparing them for the school
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: year ahead?
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Really good question. So as more of the academic side,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: my wife would be the one to answer this question
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: much more lucid than I can. But I see it
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: because running back end of it. But so first off,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: it's a few different things. Financial education. I'm serving an
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: entire community, right, so I have financial education coordinator and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I also have a growth specialist. So what we do
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: is we anybody in the school, we hold free classes
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: where you can come into the library and Equity Now
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: is going to give you financial education, financial literacy all day,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: like please do four one K and if you have
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: any questions, come chop it up with us. Then another
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: piece is so typically one of my wife's design school
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: design is I want to an expert, not necessarily a
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: pure teacher, but if you an expert, you cold that math,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: you a Natsaw scientist. I could teach you how to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: teach I do we do you do? Right? That's that's
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that's a methodology I could, I could, I could get
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: you on those methods, right, but I need you to
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: be cold at your craft. So therefore, when I teach
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: you I do we do you do? And you're in
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: front of those kids, they're learning as well as we departmentalize.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: What that means is just like the high schoolers go
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and switch then go to day lockers, kindergarten, they go
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: to day lockers, they go to the thesess, they straight transition.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Because what we feel is we're gonna do this podcast
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: for a hour. After about an hour, y'all gonna be
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: done with me, like as nice as we've been on it.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Right now, Okay, it's tying to wrap it up. What
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: kid wants to sit with one adult for the entire
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: school day, right, So we have an expert teacher and
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: all you have to teach to that student is math.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: You don't have to teach them math and reading and Spanish.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: So we broke that right out of the gate. How's
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the scheduleing? Look?
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's tough, right yeah, because I would imagine most
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: K through five because both times in their disciplinaries, they're
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: K through six right, and then you get secondary education,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: and so those people obviously learn the core the core
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: subjects math, ela science, social studies. So you're looking at professionals,
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: especially from the highest you're doing this. You don't even
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: have to worry about anything else.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: How has the staff come in, like are they recepted
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: to that? So when we started in twenty twenty, it
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: was COVID like we literally shovel in the ground we
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: about to do our opening, and the governor at that time, Hogan,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: said you can't have more than three hundred people. So
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: our first two years was year and a half was
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: all virtual. So that next year, when we actually have
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: folks in person and they could actually see what it
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: looked like, I'm gonna be I'm gonna keep it a buck.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: It was. It was tough because it's a whole different
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: mental model. But when individuals see how the model works
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and you say, wait a minute, All my planning period
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: is only math. My planning period is out, must work out,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: but but I need you to be a subject matter
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: expert at it, and that schedule is going to be tight,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So I need you to be tight inside of this
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: window of what you're teaching, so our retention is great.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And plus we have my wife gonna kill me because
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I'm probably get it wrong, but we probably have I'm
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a look over at Sophia, You're gonna look away. I
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: think forty percent black male educators in my school. Yeah,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: it's national averages. It's like three and a half or
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: something like that. It's incredible, Like you could you see
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a black male educator on every hallway you go, every
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: single hallway, whether it's math, whether it's drama, whether it's science,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: financial education. We for real are black school that it
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was Miss Joe. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt, exactly why,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: no doubt, good questions. The process of starting school, bro,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: it's tough, so it varies depending on where you're at.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Maryland Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maryland is one of the hardest
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: places to get. It's like thirty one out of thirty
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: two in order to get but you have to apply
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: for a charter, which is the application process. So you
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: apply to get a school and then you go through
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: this capacity meeting where they show you what you did
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: wrong and then they make a decision. So I was
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: actually in I was actually on Google's campus and they
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: denied us. I came back. My wife was at the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: bar with an old fashioned and chicken wings, and I
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: was like, uh oh, something's wrong. I said, hey, boo's good.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: She like, they denied us, but I have a plan.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: So when she talked to him, she said, hey, listen,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: let us know whatever you didn't like in our charter application,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and we'll rewrite it and do it again. So we
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: literally did one thousand page application twice. We did two
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: capacity interviews but the one thing that they couldn't refuse
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: was we want a million dollar grant from the state
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: before we were approved for our actual charter. But the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: process is, you have to apply, you have to talk
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: to the community, you have to get signatures. It's a
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: it's a very long process.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Forward the building.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Ooh good, we're getting too the money. Questions into the money.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Let's let's get this a little war so to keep
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: it a buck, keep it a band. We met this
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: developer wife. He did some research. I'm not gonna say
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: they name, and they sold us a dream and they
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: helped us. Let me not, let me not knock them.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: They helped us and we were looking at different buildings
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and the way they would process it is. They came
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: in and say, hey, we will buy the building for you,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: charge you some points, and then sell it back to you. Well,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I don't have ten million dollars to buy the building
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and renovate it to start a school, so let's go.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: So on our anniversary, we were in Vegas and that
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: was when what's Homeboy named from the Pelicans who don't
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: ever play big Boy? I can't think yeah Zion, So
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: that's when he came out. It was our anniversary. It
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: was an earthquake and we kept getting told no. Our investor,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: who we had at the table or they had at
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the table for us, walked away from the deal. We like, man,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: it's the end of the conference. We said one, two, three,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go. So I gave my pitch to this guy.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: He was like and the guy behind him said, let
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: me see. He said, so you won a million dollars.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I said, yeah, we got we won a million. He
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: said you have your charter? I said yes. He said
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: all right, So he came back. We had a conversation.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: He brought a couple investors. One investor walked out. The
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: next investor came to my house, interviewed us, at the
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: crib at the war room and said, Yo, I'm gonna
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: pull up.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: He was from New York.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: He said, I'm gonna pull up and I'm gonna walk
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: through the school with you. Walked through the school, he said,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: how much do you need? We found a building. I said,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the building seven. I think we're gonna need about twelve
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: to fifteen total. He said, I like what you're doing.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do fifteen. The developers started acting flaky. I
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: did not know that he was in this one call
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: that I was on. I'm I'm human. I'm thinking it's
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: just me and the developer, and they got him kind
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: of on the phone. I don't know if they were
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: being shady or what. I'm not gonna say they were
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: being shady. I'm going off. I cuss it earlier, like
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm going here. I had just watched I had
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: just finished watching Pablo Narcos, like, I'm I'm going off
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: on this dude, like I'm this is I'm going in.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Wife's patting me on my leg, like calm down. So
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: about an hour later, I get a call from the investor.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: He's like hey, I'm like, Hey, what's going on?
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Just had this call.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: You know things are gonna be okay. We got a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: couple hiccups. He's like, I was on the call. I
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: was like, oh shit, oh oh. He's like, I love
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: how you handle this. This is you and Natasha School.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: They don't run your money. You run your money. He said,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: No matter what this balloons to, I'm going to make
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: sure that this school is successful. Thirty million dollars later,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: he stroked the check. Stroked the check. Wow, But how
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: is he?
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: How is it?
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: What's in the film by Swinedale? So you made seven
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and a quarter of thirty MS for the next fifty
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: years unless I refinanced because my call was coming up
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty seven. So bods yeah, yeah, public public bonds. Yep, yeah.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: So you make seven and a quarter off thirty MS
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: all day. I'm gonna take that all day if I
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: got it sitting in the bank, especially if I believe
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: in the individuals who are putting everything together. But that's
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: where the financial education came in, because I'm sitting down
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: with these folks and I'm listening, and what's the trade off?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Because other deals were they had a piece of a business,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: they had equity, they were looking at enrollment, Like, Nah,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: these fool's not gonna have a hand in our pocket.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: He came in and said, listen, if you're building my building,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: here's how much I'm gonna make. We're gonna go to
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the bond market and make sure y'all had enrollment. Make
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: sure y'all do good. Year two we won Charter School
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of the Year congraduations on that.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: Talk about enrollment, right, that's one of the things obviously
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: coming from public school teaching.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're here all the time. Charter school's ruined education
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and charges.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: I was always proponent, like, if it's specialized education, if
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: they can have, you know, the wherewithal to do things
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: that we can't provide in public we should, you know,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: I'm all forward.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: What's that selection process? Like, what is it rument like
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: for your care? Yeah? Good question. So the first thing,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: same thing I told the current administration charter schools our
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: public schools, is that my main charter schools our public schools. Right,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: So the division between traditional public schools and charter public schools.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Democrats have put a veil over our head. Yes, I
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: said it, I'm gonna say it out loud. Democrats have
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: even the NAACP called for a moratorium on charter schools.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Why if you moratorium charter schools, I don't have a
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: black charter school, right. So the first thing is the
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: marketing of it. We are public schools, so we're not
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: taking public dollars away from traditional public schools because we
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: are charter public schools. That's the first thing. Second thing,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: enrollment is our hustle, right because oftentimes just the nature
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of it, based off of how traditional just how schooling
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: works in this Country'm gonna go ahead and roll my
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: kid at the closest school next to me, right like,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: just why would I drive all the way across town, Well,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: drive to my school because you're gonna get a private
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: education for free. For that was my commercial. So the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: lottery itself, enrollment, we don't control it at all. So
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: what you'll hear is charter school's cherry pick. I can't
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: cherry pick. I can't pick your kid over your kid.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: The county actually runs the enrollment process. So whoever they
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: give me is who they give me. Now, the next
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: thing that they'll say is, well, you kick the kids
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: out that you can't have in your school. Well, A,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I don't, but be if they do something where it
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: warrants them no longer being in our school. That's the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: same thing you do. So there's this divisive language that
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: individuals use, and it becomes polarizing because now it becomes
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: a talking point. Oh, charter schools just kick kids out.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: We've been over six years. I've never expelled a kid. Now,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: if you hit somebody, you're gonna go home. We're gonna
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: have a conversation with your parents. But I've never expelled
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the kids. So and Roman is our hustle. I have
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: to get nine hundred kids times my perpeople allocation in
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: order for me to keep my budget to be able
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: to run my charter school.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: So when you say, okay, but if five thousand kids
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: apply and only one hundred get in, how do you
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: determine a hundred that get in?
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: They do. I don't the county. So whoever runs the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: actual lottery is what they call it, they make the decision.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: So Prince George's County, no matter where you live in
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Prince George's County, you apply to my school, they say,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: all right, five thousand years apply random lottery. Here's the
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: hundred that get in. Once it's that buck. Once it's
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: that hundred. Now I come in and I start. Always
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: a random lottery, Always a random lottery. He says, you
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: were the charter school of the year. Yeah, congratulations again,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. What comes with that, right? Do you
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: get extra funding? Do you get extra grants?
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Notoriety or is it just like a plaque you get
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: to put in front of the school when people walk in.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Got another riots as far as in America?
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Or charter school in Maryland, Charter school in Maryland, Year
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: in Maryland.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, charter school in Maryland, Charter school of the year.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: But yeah, notoriety, notoriety, and our financial education and programming
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: is unparallel and unmatched. Like there is literally nobody in
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the world, I'm say, doing exactly what we're doing. Now.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: There's individuals obviously that are teaching financial education. My good
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: buddy in Pittsburgh has an entrepreneurship school and he's teaching
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: financial education incorporating in that. But we're doing shark tanks
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: giving money away to the scholars. We have a curriculum
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that's a K through adult curriculum that we have inside
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: of the school, that we sell to other schools, that
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: we sell to community groups, and that we teach to
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: our community for free. We're in Buffalo, we have some
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: interest in New York City. We are in Atlanta. So
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: we have our curriculum and there's nobody doing exactly what
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: we're doing inside of a charter school. The community piece
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: is important. Yeah, that bye is important.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: Are you available to the community that the school sits
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: in or or is it just the school community meaning
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: the parents families of the actual students.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: How does that work? How do you use that dynamic
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to your advantage? Yeah? Both, and so we are one hundred.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: We have like Parents Square and things of that nature
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: where we communicate. So we have this program called Open
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Fund Invest Donate, and the donate is the key piece
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: because then this capitalistic country. Capitalism has done a lot
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of bad things to black people period, right, But again,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: depending on who you're talking to, it becomes polarizing and
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the individuals say that money is the root of all evil. No,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: people are the root of all evil, who are bad people,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and then money enhances that personality, which then goes back
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to teaching financial wellness, so then you're not a jerk
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: when you become rich. So our program is Open Fund
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Invest Donate because we teach stewardship as you open an account,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: you fund your account, you invest in that account, and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: as you start to accumulate wealth, you now donate to
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: individuals in need. So that is one of the major
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: programs inside of our school, programming that is predominantly for
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: our children and families. But we've started to incorporate that
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: into our curriculum because we have all the way from
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: a K through adult curriculum that goes outside of our
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: school that we have online.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: So what makes charter schools different in public schools? As
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: far as you're able to have different curriculum, you're not
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: held by the same standards.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: One of the lessons inside of Legends Charter School, one
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: of the first lessons is who you are? Right like
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: black brown? What? No, You're Haitian, You're Jamaican, You're Puerto Rican,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: you're Dominican. We control We have one hundred percent autonomy
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: over our curriculum. So these little babies that I'm looking at,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: these five and six year olds, we're going to talk
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: about bringing you up not just with financial education, but
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: we have a saying Legends is who they are and
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: who they will be.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: But so you said it's the same, you said it's
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: the same as a public schools.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: It's the same as a public school from a funding perspective.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: But it's not the same of a public as far
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: as the restriction. Absolutely, So a lot of people are
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: saying it's not fair.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I'm on ey l. So my first my first response
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: is gonna be life ain't fair. Fair is a place
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: for they judge pigs. But maybe we shouldn't say that,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: don't you know? Clickbaity on that. But I guess when
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you look at it holistically, it's not fair because individuals
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: from a democratic process, not democrats, but a democratic process
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: are not allowing for more charter schools to level the
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: playing field. So there's more charter school there's more Success Academy.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I'm fairly certain that Success Academy in New York City
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: is bigger than a traditional public school system in New
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: York City, Right, So is that fair to say? What
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: do you mean they have more students Success Academy, Success Academy?
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: What is Success Academy.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a really well run school in New
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: York City. They have they have multiple schols possible. I'm
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: gonna look it up. More students, I believe, more, not
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: necessarily more schools, per se, but they're servicing more scholars.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So if you're gonna look it up, New York City
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: has a million, eight hundred thousand. Now I'm success Academy
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: is day right there.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: So why doesn't just every school become a charter school
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: and there's no more public schools?
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: You're trying to get me in trouble man, y'all, y'all
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: gonna bring me to the team. Mat the market gonna
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: save you. I don't worry about it. We have we
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: the culture, including some other individuals, have an emotional connection
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: to traditional public schools. That's the public school I went
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: to that they shouldn't get rid of that, that there
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: is this tie to it. But let's keep it real.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: The uh school system that is failing. Our students are
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: doing what they were originally designed to do, like they
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: were supposed to come in, learn these specific skills and
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: then go work for somebody. So when a charter school
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: comes in and says, nah, you college or career ready,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I'm naha. If you want work for somebody, work for me,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: or work for yourself. Like literally, right now we're looking
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: like the economy is a k right now. Right, those
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: who are wealthy are becoming ultrawealthy, and then those who
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: are not are struggling. The delta in there are those
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: who are entrepreneurs if you know, to not have this
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: W two income or to have the W two income
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: but also have entrepreneurship, we teach something DEI, diversity, equity
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and inclusion. I'm looking at the camera as well. I'm
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: gonna say first, I am not saying I'm not a
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: proponent of diversity, equity and inclusion. That's not what I'm saying. However,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: our DEI is dollars equity and invests because those who
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: know financial education and are financially well and know how
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean y'all know this. I'm not saying
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: something that you don't know how to maneuver tax laws.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Entrepreneurship W two is the highest tax income. So on
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: that k are those who are growing in their wealth
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: is because they write and shit off. It's because they
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: buying and they're non for profit traditional public schools, no
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: shots fired. That's not how they were originally designed at all.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: So you brought up the it made me think about
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: this administration and pretty much to try the eradication of
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: that and our history. You being the CEO and founder
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: of a school being very firm about who you are
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: and who you're teaching.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: How are you combating that? Yeah, So I was at home.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I believe either myself or my wife was getting an award.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: We were in Buffalo, it was late. We got to call,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: probably about nine o'clock and they say, hey, we're gonna
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: get on the conference call because everything that's going on
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: at the administration. We said, cool. Now. What preceded that,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: probably about two weeks ago, is we got a call.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I said, hey, the name of your company is Equity Now,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: and they are literally just taking bots and going and
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: looking fast forward back nine thirty at night in Buffalo,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: New York, found out we lost a million dollars rip
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: from us through the AmeriCorps program. What we have is
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the Equity Now Legends Fellows program, where we have eighteen
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to twenty five year old adults that service kids. So
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: I grew up in a household where we struggle. My
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: parents argue a lot. When I got to school, I'm
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: thinking about my parents' argument and if it's going to
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: be the same when I get home. I can't focus
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: in class or the teacher either got to kick me
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: out or take away from everybody else. What we have
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: at Legends is these eighteen to twenty five year olds.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I can talk to the students, bring them out and say, hey,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: how's things going on? So how is this impacting us?
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Right out the gate we lost a million dollars. Now
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: we had the power of the governor of the state
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: of Maryland, the power of AmeriCorps, and we all collectively
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: sued and we got to back about eight hundred thousand.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to always be unapologetically me right. But
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: at the same time, when they asked us to take
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: a look at the things on our website, I'm not
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: changing my company name. But if it says DEI, take
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: it out, that's cool. Don't say de I. Because at
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, if I sit down, if
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: y'all sit down and interview me, and y'all want to
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: bring me into your job versus somebody else, y'all are
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: more likely to hire someone who you can connect with
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: than someone that's not. So my mentor said, it don't
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: matter what is on your website, Sumard, you are the
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: black and brown person that's hiring, So just continue to
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: do with your daughter. But it's it's been.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: It's been an uphill.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Battle curriculum as well. What you mean curriculum in terms
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: of how we teach history? They can't tell, can't. Yeah, now,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: what they could do if they found out completely what
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: we did is try and restrict funds and it could
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: come after funding. But yeah, right now, knock on what
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: we've we've been pretty okay.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: So what's the typical day in your school?
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Good question?
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: And was the school year the same as a regular
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: school year or yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because some charge
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: school go school in the summertime.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah so no, we so we follow what's called the
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: PGCPS calendar, Prince George's County Public School System Calendar. A
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: typical day is the only difference between what you will
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: find at a tradition. Not only, but the major difference
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: is that you'll find is transitioning, the departmentalization, the subject
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: matter expert teachers, the financial education class because every every
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: scholar goes to a financial education class, and we also
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: have drama and Latin. Other than that, I got the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: same little wild little babies running through the hallways. Uniform No,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I don't believe in uniform. Uniform is pipeline in prison. No,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: shots fire to anybody got a uniform, Please don't play
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: that over and try and cut it up, y'all who'll
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: be stilling stuff from Instagram? No? We like, why am
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I going to put you in a uniform?
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Is it a pipeline?
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: A prison uniforms? What are you wearing in prison uniforms?
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: For me? It's a training ground here. So here's the
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: thing about. So if I have a teacher and I
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: want you to worry about math, and I put that
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: student in a uniform, that teacher is now worried about
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: that checklist in your uniform, your son's uniform. You don't
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: have your belt. So now I have to have provisions
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: and standard operating procedures for my teachers to look out
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: for a student not wearing a uniform. And then I
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: have to have standard operating procedures for what discipline looks like?
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Why where what you're gonna wear? What's your metrics compared
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: to public school? Your public school counterparts?
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: We blowing them out the water. We are when you're
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: talking about our county. I don't have the exact numbers. Yeah,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I don't have the exact numbers.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: And math reading and all that.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Absolutely we're outperforming.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: Were, I mean, huge proponents for educational reform. We can
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: see the industrial model of how school was built in
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: design is not working for our community. And what you're
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: doing is combating that. You said something earlier, and I
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: know all the kids in New York City for sugarn
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: love it. Kids can have their phones. Yes, that means
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: technology is allowed in your school. That means that artificial
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: intelligence AI potentially will be allowed in your school.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: New York City is trying to figure that out. A
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: lot of school district is trying to figure that out.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: How are you guys using the I guess the the
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: freedom to create and innovate using these technologies to your
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: advantage in your school.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Really good question. So again I keep saying I'm gonna
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: keep it a buck. A lot of it boils down
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to what does and does not make sense. Adults make
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: things really complex that then creates problems for children. So
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: if I'm gonna and I'm not knocking nobody who locks
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: up phones. But again, just like the uniforms, right, if
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to lock up their phones, now I gotta
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: have an insurance policy. Now I gotta have a system
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: by which to lock up the phones. Now I have
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: to have. I got to pay somebody to manage locking
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: up the phones. So as opposed to a closed system
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: of locking things up, we want scholars to be open.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: And we're a financial education school. I want y'all children
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: to be talking about their stock portfolios on their phones
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: when we're doing our stock simulation. We have what's called
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: a March market madness challenge. I think I said that
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: right justin. And what the kids do is they literally
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: battle by grade level of who can open up the
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: most stock accounts. So if I take their phone, you
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, then they're not looking at it.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: So we have to make sure that what I tell
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: my Enterprise Technology Solutions team that's my tech team for
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: y'all to do, y'all base job is not enough. I
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: need you to be rapidly ahead showing me what the
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: trends are so I can make sure that I stay
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: ahead of these kids.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: So we obviously have testing and things of that nature.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: So what do we need to do to make sure
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: that we're good? But as this new technology comes in,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: we're not gonna be able to stop it. AI when
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: the calculator came out, everybody lost their mind. It's the
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: new calculator in a sense, So teach these scholars. Don't
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: write your paper in AI. When you owe school, I'm
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: to show my age encyclopedia. You want to learn about Wales,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: You pull the encyclopedia out, you flip it to w
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: You learn about Wales, and then you write your paper AI.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: The same go in, learn about whales, stop there and
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: then write your paper. Don't tell Chad now with all
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the information, and write my paper. So you have to
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: teach productive and responsible usership of all of these new
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: innovative technologies that are coming up. And that's what we do.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Assistive technology. Assistive technology.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: What is the difference you think between a charge school
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: or private school?
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Oh man, you shot you man, so without firing shots.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Because I have some great relationships with private schools. I'm
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: actually working a private school where they are going to
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: hold slots for my students. But just speaking on the facts,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: not firing shots. I we have to have a certain
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: level of certification, degrees, et cetera to bring a teacher
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: into my schools. Private schools do not. That's one right there,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Like we can finished the kindversation right there, But then
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: that level of autonomy that is much more loose than
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: public school charter schools. I have a five year contract.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Every year. You asked about our numbers. If I don't
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: hit my numbers, they close my school. There's no such
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: thing as a private school, no such thing for the
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: private school, no such thing for traditional public schools. So
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: charter to private, we are offering the same high level education,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: but you don't have to pay for it now. Private
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: school for how we have conceptualized over the years. Private schools.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: The network is crazy. We were talking off camera about
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: investments and how dope it is in the networking. You're
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: going to have some pretty high level good folks. You
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: want a network at a private school, and that's a
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: good thing and it's a good benefit. I have a
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: mix in my demographics. I literally have kids getting picked
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: up in Bentley's and Maserieties in seven series, and I
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: also have scholars that are being dropped off in ubers
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: and their parents. Is four kids in a two bedroom house,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: But that's a that's a that's a microcosm of a
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: real world. Right, Like, you're not going to a school
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and it's going to have one hundred percent of the
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: student population who parents are fortune five hundred they making
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: multiple six figures, and then when you go out into
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the world, that's not what exists. No knock the private schools.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: I'm only talking about my school, right, So those are
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: some of the differences you.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Come from corporate and now working in education. I wonder
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: what similarities do you see in how you're running a
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: school versus how you would as an exact in the
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: corporate world.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I should have had my wife hair for this world,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: because she might have she might have punched me on
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: on this one. So when I came in, I tried
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: to especially from a higher education perspective. Like so higher
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: ed and corporate we always talk about institutional effectiveness, right,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: So institutional effectiveness is our means by which we have
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: key performance indicators, and here's how we measure this, and
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: there's a certain way that we do that. There is
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: a similarity that is cold so I call it a
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: strategic plan and an action plan. As you'll know, they
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: call it a school improvement plan. So those similarities are
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: all the way throughout. So one of the biggest things
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: for us adjusting and I'll say my wife being a CEO,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: me being a CEO, is that language piece you know
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: when you start talking about love languages, that communication. We communicate,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: but did we comprehend each other? Because I call it
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: action Plann, she call it school improvement plan. But there's
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: tons of synergies. What gets measured makes progress. And literally
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: in corporate was GE bottom ten percent they fired? That
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: was the GE model, Jack Jack Walsh, Jack Welch. When
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: you start looking at charters, if you don't make it
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: within that five years, you going. So there are a
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: ton of similarities between corporate and inside of the charter
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: school ecosystem.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: So okay, so Equity now, right, your company, the school
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: you have that that's the component that works with the school.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Good good good one. So Equity now is the non
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: for profit charter management organization that does all of the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: back end anything that you don't think about when you
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: went through school lights, our tu units. Right now we're
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: working on our bond deal. I'm having these long meetings
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: with these investors who want to come in and refinance.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: We do all of that dirty work. So my wife
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: shout out to the CEO Atasha James. All she has
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to worry about is academics. I got your bag. Both
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: you you just worry about academics and school performance and
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I got everything else. That's one, and then two is
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: the delivery of our as an education managed organization, the
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: delivery of our financial education curriculum. So it's our job
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: to provide what the K through a financial education curriculum
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: looks like, our scope and sequence, our manipulatives if we're
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: adding AI or gaming gamification to it. Those are the
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: two things that we provide too. Legend charter school, and
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: then it runs on completely autonomously. I don't get involved
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: in their board, their board meetings or any of that.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: I feel like I know the answer, but I'm asking anyway,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: when you have a level of success that you're having,
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: it feels like the natural thing is like we should
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: plan another school. So is it on the vision board
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: or are we saying we've got something that's so great here,
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: let's continue to make this great for pg CON.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so breaking news. I think I said probably about
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: two things. My wife is gonna kill me about where
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: we decided to go early. So let's go to the
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: business side. So corporate the corporate question. If I go
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: with a high school, that means I take one hundred students,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: and then that one hundred students, I take that per
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: people allocation, and let's call it a million dollars, but
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: it cost me three million dollars to run it. I'm
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: two million in a whole. I can't. I can't. I
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: can't run like that. I can't provide quality education to
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: my children and families in that large of a deficit.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Plus my wife's specialty are the littles. So what we
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: just I to do is we are now looking to
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: go preschool through eight and then consider all of that
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: mess I was talking about with private schools when you
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: asked me the question, consider a private high school. The
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: reason why is if I can get them once they
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: stop peeing and pooping on themselves, like you got to
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you gotta go to the bathroom on your own. I
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: can get you at three four years old and start
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: instilling financial education and literacy in you. And you're understanding
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the concepts and just hearing the stock market and things
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: of that nature at four years old, and I keep
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: you until you're an eighth grader, you literally will be
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: a half a million dollar literally literally. So we want
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: to start early earlier. So we're looking to purchase a
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: couple daycares and turn them into early learning centers to
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: you know, to multiply and then on the back end,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: take a look at what a private high school will
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: look like. I'll say really quick high school. So proud
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: of my students. One of the local high schools, A
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: bunch of our students went there and yesterday, I believe,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: for all this stuff that's going on with ICE, they
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: did a walkout and some of our students, our graduates,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: were actually in there. What they signed, so it was
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: just to give them love. So that's our plan to
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: go early and then think about what it looks like
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: on the back end. Something tells me, correct me if
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: It makes a lot of sense because pre k is
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's strenuous, especially coming from a parents' side.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: If you can't afford it, if it's not full day,
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: it could be whole thing. But the other part of it,
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: knowing that you're in the market and you're watching that
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: these new accounts of being created for kids who were
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: born this year, that feels like it's aligned and kind
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: of how were you looking at it like this?
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: So we so white House don't look at this and
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: trying to shut this down or anything crazy. We did
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: this long before then. So I have a mentor who's
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: donated over one hundred thousand dollars to our school. So
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: we give away was called the Roger K. Struther. So
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: when we opened in twenty twenty, your children applied for
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: the scholarship. We did our open fund invested donate program.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: You opened up your custodio account, and then we gave
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: you two hundred five hundred one thousand dollars in your
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: account and we track it all the way through. So
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: we so ready, Yeah, we did that. Yeah, they sold
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: the model perhaps perhaps allegedly maybe, but it's a great
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: model because now you are six years old, you have
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: a custodio account and it doesn't matter if you're putting
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: five dollars in it. You're six years old, right, and
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: now you learn the concept of pay yourself first. So
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I've taught you, at five years old, the adult concept
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: of pay yourself first. Then I can teach you the
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: adult concept of automated with a system, because now I
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: can sit down with the child and the family and say, hey,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: to make sure this comes directly out your paycheck. I
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: give you a real quick story. I had a child,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: a parent come. It was a pseudo complaint. They said, hey, listen,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: they said. You know, I went to Target and I
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: pulled out my car and my daughter said, is that
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: a charge car, a credit card or a debit card?
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: Because they all have different interest rates? And I was like,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: where they learning this at? And we said, ma'am, you
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: brought your kids to Legendsire to school with financial education
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: provided by equity. Now this is what we do. So
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: we we're forcing the kids will go to their parents
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: and say, don't buy me. Jordan's right, like, don't give
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: me money from my stock account, give me open up
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: my customer. They're pressing their parents to do things that
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: we almost never even heard of it at a time.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: So how did you How did you end up investments
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: with education? Talk about your experienced it.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I saw y'all boys. Look, I just got
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: goosebumps when you said that. I again, I saw y'all
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: on Good Morning America and I was like, this is
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: what this is. This is match made in heaven. But
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: we were still building, like I had to put a
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: school up, you know what I mean. So when I
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: finally got the opportunity to kind of get things settled,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: I said, I got to get to invest Fest and
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: we came with our T shirts. We have T shirts
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: that say Nepotism is our birthright and equity looks like me.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: So we came with our T shirts. I think we
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: sold five T shirts. We only seld five T shirts,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: but the experience, Man, I'm a Gemini, I'm a made Gemini,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: and I'm big on energy in my spirituality and all
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: money and good money and all people at good people
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: just because they're doing good things. However, in vest Fest
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: and everybody there and credit to y'all because it's top down,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: it was I mean literally, it was so much love.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm bringing my whole team next year. So
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: we looked at the sponsorship packets. I went to my
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: finance team and I said, we might need to do
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: a little more with donations so we could pay a
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: little more. So the next year, I brought my entire team.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: We had a booth. I did my podcast, Expediting Change
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: to find it on YouTube. I probably interviewed twenty thirty
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: people on the podcast. Y'all did the book signing, so
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: it was crazy. It was literally y'all would do y'all
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: book signing. Y'all have a line wrapped around and then
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: they would see my lights and they come right.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Over to me like it was.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: It was perfect, but the energy was just love. So
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: I had to make sure that my community, my team,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: those who I support, actually could see the power, because
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: when you hear about invest FST, it's one thing, but
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: when you actually go and you see it, it's like
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: going to a work conference. You get there and you
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: want to hype, and then you get back to the
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: job and everybody like, what are you talking about? You know?
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: So I told my team, yo, this is crazy. So
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: I said, Okay, y'all think I'm crazy. Everybody gone. So
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: we'll be there this year as well. We'll be there
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and Walger, y'all moved it up though, right, yeah, yeah,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: we'll be there a little bigger stage.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: A workshop.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: So I did a workshop.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: What'd you teach on the workshop?
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: We called it Money Power Purpose and y'all listen. We
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: talked and they said, well, it might be two or
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: three hundred people in the workshop power Policies. Eight hundred
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: people later, people were sitting on the floor, so people
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: must have been telling people to come into it, so
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: they had to bring security to stop them from coming in.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I said, okay, I'm gonna say that I'm that good.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that I'm not good. But really, y'all crowd,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: who y'all bring just they are yearning for the information
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: we learned from that. I appreciate it.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So and that's not
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: a bad thing though, like right, like you, because if
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: I had a bigger room and it was only twenty
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: people would be oh. But the experience was amazing. Money power, purpose, well,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: we talked about I told my story about how hustle
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: and I did things that my mom wouldn't necessarily be
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: proud of because my struggles with my trauma regarding financial wellness.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: But I wanted to get to the bag and I
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: talked about We talked about because Justin he was there
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: on stage with me. We talked about Tulsa. We talked
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: about owning your own story based off of what wealth
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: means to you, because what wealth means to you, to
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: you and me are three completely different things. One of
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: my biggest things with wealth is love that I received
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: from my family. I had nothing to do with income, right,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: But if I'm not whole, then I'm not getting that love.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: And if I don't have that love. It's not fueling
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: me to go out and get the bag. So that's
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: what we talked about on stage was money power Purpose,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure we're gonna we're gonna run that
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: back money Power Purpose to update it version your father.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, how does this feel in terms of legacy? You
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: know the school number, I'm assuming the kids are ten?
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, well my kids so my kids twenty one
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: and twenty five five, I'm I get eight. So how
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: does this look from a legacy side?
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Are they involved in the business or are they figuring
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: out their own spaces?
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: A little bit of both. So fundamentally believe nepotism is
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: their birth right right, like who else what I give
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: a contract to if it's not my son my daughter,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: some I am related to as long as they're qualify.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: So both of them work for each organization. My son
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: works for Equity Now the nonprofit, and my daughter works
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: for Legends charter school. So I'm my son's boss and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: my wife is my daughter's boss. And shout out to
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: my daughter. She recently did the entire planning of the
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: event that brought Governor Wes Moore to the school. Amazing.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: She oh he is solid, solid dude. She planned the
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: whole thing. So from a legacy perspective, it is I'm
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: never going to force you into what I believe you
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: should do. Because he also biertends like, do what makes
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: you happy and know that we're planning over here, that
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: there is something that ultimately is for you to take.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: And my daughter, we were in Puerto Rico, me and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: my wife, son and daughter. We were at dinner and
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: she looked up and she said, I'm twenty one, I'm
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: a graduate from Howard. I'm a party a little bit.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: So I said, whoa, WHOA, that's privileged. She said, you
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: taught me to be privileged. I said, well, what am
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: I supposed to do? Like in the transition, She said,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: you better write something and then bored by laws that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: and I get ready that that seat becomes mine and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I said, waiter, can you give us another bottle of wine?
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: But from a legacy perspective, they know and understand that
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: we're that we're building and we're really big on community.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: I'll say, we're also building a ten acre compound in
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Fort Washington, Maryland where all of our family we're building
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: seven houses and a community house. So they understand that
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: we're all connected and nepotism is their birthright as long
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: as they're qualified to do the job. Awful, Appreciate it, man,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: keep up the great work.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it's impactful. Appreciate it so well. What do
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: you want to leave the audience with? Like, tell them
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: all the information saw its Equity Now and then even
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: in school anything else you have coming up.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Absolutely love that. Thank you for the opportunity. Everything can
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: be found on my website Shamari James dot com, s
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: H O. M. A. R. I. James dot com, No Spaces,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Equitable Inc. My for profit Equity Now, my non for profit,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: as well as my podcast. You can donate to the
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: non for profit. We do take donations. We love it
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: and please pull up on us. At the end of
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: the day, it's not just about money, like yourselves. When
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: these scholars and other individuals, even twenty thirty year olds,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: when they see you, they can believe it is what
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: they can become. Right, So, if you want to see
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Shamari James dot com. We have an entire community. It's
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: called Equity Now, the Network Equity nowthnetwork dot org.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: Join us.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: We about eleven thousand members strong. More love. We had
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: about three hundred and fifty members. We came back from
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: a vestvest we jumped to ten thousand members. So all love,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: so please Shamari James dot com. I do coaching. We
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: have a curriculum. We have kid workbooks as well as
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: we have a financial education curriculum for children and families.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: You have ladies and gentlemen. We'll see you guys next week.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Please please,