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Tammie McClafferty: A Lifetime in Education · Beyond the Break

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Beyond the Break, a podcast where we dive deep into the stories behind today's entrepreneurs, leaders, and change makers.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we uncover what it takes to build something that lasts.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond the Break.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: Sammy McLafferty, welcome to Beyond the Break.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: You ready for this?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm ready.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: Alright, well, today we're we're thrilled to have you here talking all things education.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we'll get into specifics about uh the county that you live in that we live in here, but we really am looking forward to hearing from you with your background as a teacher and your thoughts of ways to improve the educational uh system here in North Florida.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for for being here.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: So why don't you give us a little bit of background about what brought you into the educational world and what your experiences have been?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it goes all the way back.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um my brother and I both are teachers because my parents always said that was the way to go.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: The world needs good educators, and so I don't even know if I had a choice.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: That was just like you're gonna be an educator, and so it was just what we were gonna teach.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so I chose elementary education, and so my brother's a biology teacher, and so it was just what we were gonna do, and so um became a teacher, instantly got hired back in the same high school that I graduated from, small town in Pennsylvania, and then came back and started teaching there.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: So taught third grade for the longest time.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: That was kind of my safe spot.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: I always say that third graders are not so old that they have an attitude.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, um, and they can still get your jokes.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're not so young that they don't get your jokes.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a sweet spot for me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I taught there for years, loved it.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um really felt it was what I was called to do.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's what I'm passionate about.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then um I had my daughter, my first kid.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so then there's this moment, at least for a mother, where you're like, Am I gonna keep working and keep teaching?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna stay at home with the kids?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I really wrestled with that, but loved teaching so much, felt like I really, you know, felt like the Lord called me to that and wanted to stay in the field.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I had to start looking for a child care for my daughter.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of what led us down a different path than I think we expected in our town.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there were no really good child care centers back then.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I could find ones that I always say were academic.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: This is in Pennsylvania.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: This was in Pennsylvania.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they were academic, but they were missing the faith piece that we would have wanted.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: If I wasn't gonna raise her, we wanted it to be a place, you know, instilling values that we wanted.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or I could find these little ones that met at churches that had like sweet little grandmas singing Jesus loves me, but then they didn't have the academics.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And as the teacher, I was like, I gotta have both.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so the Lord just kind of impressed upon our heart to start one.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And definitely one of those.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: If I knew then what I know now, I don't know if we would have done it, but we did.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so we sold our house and bought a building and gutted it and renovated and opened up our first childcare center.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's where I discovered the love of business in education and understanding the business side of schools.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Before we knew it, um, we had franchised out and had multiple locations and thousands of students.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: And what age group was that?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So at that point, we were taking from birth to five.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then we ended up expanding and opening up our own kindergarten in there, and then we did before and after school, and it was really a blessing back when, because I had worked in our public school, I knew all the teachers at the public school.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when we began doing what we now call curriculum mapping.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we would say, okay, let's work backwards.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want these kids to have by the time they get to you?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And let me start working backwards and making sure that we're preparing these kids for you.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it was just this very, you know, amazing relationship between the public school and this, these child care centers that we had.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so they just exploded.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And before, you know, we were the fastest growing in the state of Pennsylvania.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: We won the largest grant.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: They flew all my staff to Disney World to train, and so it just became this amazing experience that we got to learn the business side of it.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we got to learn the legislative side of it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: So just seeing how impactful all of the state's laws that they were passing and legislation that was being passed that was impacting a small business owner and were impacting these families and these students, and um, it was just it was a wonderful experience.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so we did that for a very long time.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Very blessed to be in that, and then um in that time went back and got my master's in teaching, uh, specialized in reading, really kind of was what my focus was on, and then just through a circumstance life circumstances, we ended up in Jacksonville, Florida, which is a story for another day, another podcast.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was a really great, great story, and um ended up becoming a principal here at a school, so stepped into that role and learned the administrative side of it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: So you got the business side, the teaching side, and now the admin.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I felt like, man, I have this w really well-rounded understanding of education.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so practically I felt like I knew a lot, and so now I just felt like I needed a little bit more of the education side on that higher level.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So just very blessed to go back and get my doctorate in education and learned in that it was a doctorate in organizational leadership of education.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, really how to lead an educational institution.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: That was the degree, and it offered me the opportunity to get into the college level, so I became a professor and I was now training up new teachers, which I absolutely loved, and then became a director at the university.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, just this very academic trajectory that just kind of was my career and um loved every aspect of it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So learned even like admissions.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I was the director at the university, I had to deal with admissions.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So again, working backwards to help high school kids on what admissions officers are looking for at universities, I was now able to go back and say, okay, this is what you need.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so just being able to see how that all works together, it's just been, you know, part of my life.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, what a great background.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: You're you're so well-rounded in all aspects of that.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, one topic that is confusing to the public that I wanted to hit on today in the in the way that in the state of Florida and other states is you hear about the voucher system and charter schools.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: So can you give a summary of how this really works?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because um, you know, sometimes people feel like it sounds good.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: I get to choose where my kid goes to school, and as a taxpayer, the money follows the kid.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: But can you explain what the devil is in the details and what does that mean to the budgets of the school systems and what else happens?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think it's it's very eye-opening.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: We always laugh that you always see these new initiatives come forward during election year.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, legislators or people running will come up with new initiatives in the year of an election to just make it sound good.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so vouchers, although they've been around in some form for a long time, it's been more recently in Florida, it's been more recent in Florida that we've seen this universal school choice and these vouchers have a hundred percent the money follows the kid.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is just a an extra step.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think it stemmed from a political race and it sounded really good.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: You as the parent have the choice, you should be able to choose wherever you want your kid to go, and you're paying taxes, so the money should follow the kid.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And all of that is somewhat true from the 10,000-foot level.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: But what wasn't factored in, and this is where it gets frustrating because it's like, man, how did you not have educators speaking into this?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like somebody should have asked somebody about this before you just passed this law.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's usually the case.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: It it really is so frustrating.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: But you let's take it simple in simple terms.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: You get$10,000 per kid, and we're rounding figures.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: But let's say you get$10,000 per kid.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: That had always gone to the public school up until this new voucher system.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: The public school is required by the state to provide busing.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to pay for the buses, pay for the bus drivers, everything that goes with that.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: We have to provide a cafeteria with breakfast and lunch and after school meals to provide for any kid, any child that would need that or want that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: We have to provide nurses for the schools.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: We have to provide ESC, we have to provide counselors.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can go on and on down the list of the requirements that a public school is mandated, and they should.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: We should provide all that, but we're required to.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So when the public school was getting$10,000 a kid, it was to cover all of that.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: All the infrastructure and the insurance.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Correct, which is a I mean, a big part of our budget is the busing and the cap, which we wouldn't trade that for the world.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: They are crucial.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Your kid couldn't get to school without them.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we need them, we need to pay them better.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: But that money goes to them.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: When they've made this universal, the money can follow the kid.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And again, there's always an in-between, but let's take the extreme.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: You are choosing to homeschool your kid, which you absolutely have every right to, and it's an amazing we've come so far in homeschooling.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: But as a homeschool parent, you're gonna get that same ten thousand dollars that the public school got.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to provide busing, you don't have to provide a cafeteria, you don't have to provide ESC teachers, you don't have to provide a nurse, you don't have to provide an extra, you don't have to provide any of that.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you're getting the same$10,000, but we're not requiring you to do the same thing that the state is requiring the public school to do.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do the same testing, you don't have to do end-of-year assessments.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: All of that is mandated by the state for the$10,000 over here.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: But now we're gonna give a homeschool family the$10,000, and none of that is mandated.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so you start to see this just discrepancy in the amounts of money that's given and how it's impacting.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, you'll hear all the terrible stories of you know, these homeschool parents that take the money and buy a new kitchen and take their kids to Italy and all the things.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, there are those situations.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: But but back on the public school side, the what I see the problem is they've lost one student here, one student there.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not enough to close a building.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's not enough to s to cancel a bus route.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a death by a thousand cuts.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: But it ends up hurting their top line.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like in in North Florida and St.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: John's County, it's like$23 million, is not in the income statement now, correct?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: So the schools just are right now the way it's built in public schools, the schools just have to deal with it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: We just have to deal with it.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what's happening is parents will say, I think I'm gonna take this money and try homeschooling.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like we did COVID, we survived it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll start, they'll get all that$10,000, and then two months into it, they'll be like, Heck no, have them back, and they'll bring the child back.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we have numbers, I mean, in the hundreds last year alone, started homeschooling, took the money, decided it wasn't for them, sent them back, and because we're a public school, we're mandated and we want to take that child back and train them, but we didn't get any of the money for it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: So now we've serviced those hundreds of kids and didn't get the money.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so the oversight of this is where the issue is.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so I tell people often, you absolutely should have a choice to go where you want.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I we've talked about this prior.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I come from a very competitive family.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: We, you know, sports is part of who we are.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, competition makes you rise to the top.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I have absolutely no problem with the, hey, let's make a really good choice out there so that we choose the best school and that the public schools have to step up and be the best that we can be.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm good with all of that.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: It just needs some oversight to it, which is where I think we struggle.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the again, the good idea, these details, like maybe make the payments uh quarterly to the to each of the private schools or the homeschooling as well.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then another wrinkle that is not small is opening the doors to these outside charter schools, right?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: Talk about that, because this is mind-blowing to me.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And again, we're thankfully we're in a really good district that's not running into this yet.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: But if we don't adjust it or alter it, we're gonna run into it sooner rather than later.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: But new legislation is passed that says that there's 150 empty seats.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you take a school and say the school is built and the school can house 500 kids, but this year your enrollment's only 250.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then that on paper says you have 250 empty seats.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, you have to shift everything that you have in the public school to one side of the building or to one level, like you can, however you determine it, and the other 250 seats have to be given, just handed over to a charter school.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: They don't pay rent, they don't pay rent, and they get that whole voucher.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: So those 250 kids that will join that charter school because they have the choice, you can go wherever you want.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna choose this Montessori school or this ESC school or whatever the charter school, and they're amazing.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: We have charter schools in our county that are out of this world, so they're great.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: But now that charter school can move into our public building, utilize it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: We have to oversee them.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we still have oversight today.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: For all the costs.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And all the costs, and they get all the money.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: Rent-free.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Rent-free.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Tuition covered in excess.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: And the burden is beared by the public school.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now there is, you'll hear some legislators push back a little bit, there is a maintenance, there's a separate bucket of money from the state that deals with some maintenance.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so they give you a little bit of that money if you house a charter school.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it's meant to be for the wear and tear of the building that the charter school is using.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: But you don't get any of that voucher money.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: That all goes to them, and you and we are the custodians of those charter schools.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the public school is responsible for that charter school, but we get no money for it.
• 14:08
  unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's unbelievable how how much of a runaway train this is.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: It is a runaway train.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think the concepts are all very good.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, when I try to educate people on it, I'm like, listen, there's a way we can have the best of both worlds.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: We just kind of had this great idea and we threw it out there, and now we're like, oh wait.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's where we have to come back and say there are some plans, some conversations, I should say, out there about how to do this better.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's, you know, they're cooking around, is it as far as the vouchers go, like, okay, if it's 10,000, the public school gets 10,000.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you do a private school, you only get six thousand.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you do homeschool, you only get three, you know, or and there's conversations about based on your tax income.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are, you know, if you generate this much revenue, okay, you don't, you shouldn't have to get the voucher.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: We'll reserve that money for families that need it.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because we've seen so many families that have been doing private school paying, and it's been fine, but now all of a sudden they're like, well, I'll take the money, that's great.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Which it's the way they're doing anything wrong.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way it's set up.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: But there is definitely conversation about how to tweak that.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and then we have to have oversight because right now there's just millions and millions of dollars in the state of Florida that's unaccounted for from the vouchers.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the parents took the money because the kid left, and you don't have to show an expense report.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: You can spend it on what you want.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we had neighbors move in next to us who have been homeschooling their three kids up north, and they kept their house up north and said, why wouldn't we come down here and live in the sunshine and take$30,000 a year for the next 10 years, pay off our house up north, and then go back?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: So they're just they literally were already homeschooling and just are now homeschooling from here because they can get$30,000 a year.
• 15:54
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this is eye-opening.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: Because it did, I I have to tell you, I thought it sounded great.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, you go, you get to choose where the money goes, but the the schools and the and the taxpayer is still stuck with all the fixed costs from a business standpoint, and nobody and everybody can live rent-free in your facility, which didn't cost millions to build or maintain.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: And even then, a wrinkle is they could still participate in the after-school activities, right?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: Whether it's theater, sports, arts, you get all that coverage.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we're paying our coaches out of the public school funds.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you can come in and participate in all of that, which is great.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: We love that.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: But there's a cost.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: There just has to be a balance to that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: So right now in Florida, we operate state and county basically school boards.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: Is this fixable?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: Can the county itself fix it, or is it have to are these laws, are these rules Tallahassee-based?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: These are Tallahassee rules.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: These are Tallahassee rules, which part of the push at a local level is we have for probably the first time in a long time, we've got to start being more aggressive, more outspoken, more demanding from a local level at the state level, because they're just making things up down there.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, what in the world?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like who who had this conversation and didn't think through the repercussions of it?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: So who represents at the state level, who represents St.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: John's County or Broward County or Brevard?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like who represents do they have, do we have representations?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we do, and what what is crazy as I'm learning, as I'm navigating this campaign, which is all the stuff I don't think I knew as a parent.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I just I didn't understand it as I walked into this world.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, we actually pay at the public school a lobbyist who works for us and is the voice of our county.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, who is that?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: They need to be speaking louder.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how in the world are we not screaming this at the Tallahassee level, especially in St.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: John's County?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: We are still the number one county in the state, and we have been for a while.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Academically.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, academically.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I keep telling people, if you're the number one county in the state, you would think people would look to you and say, okay, you guys are doing well.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing better than everybody else.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: So what are you doing?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: And let's learn from you what's working, what's not working.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: No one asks us.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: No one cares.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's unbelievable.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's not until it's broken will we care.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: And because right now people move here for that reason.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: And people care about the future of our kids.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: We all say that.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: But uh right now it sounds like we're not budgeting for it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I mean that's putting a lot of onus on Tallahassee that they're not doing things right.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: We've got our issues in county-wise, too.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we still we have to look at that budget and say, okay, wait, we're we're still not doing if you if you run the numbers even with the vouchers, because we have so much growth in St.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: John's County, even last year with all the vouchers and all the kids that were leaving, we still were up a thousand students.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we're still seeing increased numbers.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a part of this that we have to look at our own budget as a county and say, okay, maybe we're not managing it as well as we could.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And in the past we didn't have to really worry about it because we just had money coming in.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now that it's tighter and the voucher money's going, we have to look at this and say, okay, is there ways we can reduce our cost?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because we have maybe spent more frivolously in the last couple of years because we've had the ability to.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas now that it's going to be tighter, we have to say, okay, let's tighten our belts, like we would with anything, even in your personal finances.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, things are tough.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a little bit of we have to look at ourselves and say, okay, maybe we could have done a better job with our budget.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, part of this is vouchers, part of this is all of that.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a part of it that we have to say, okay.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that's what I'm thinking as a as a taxpayer.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: Our energy in Florida should be directed at the state level to fix some of these massive details that we just highlighted, the partial, not 100%, the rent or not.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: So we need to direct our energy there first, right?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: And then now you uh you've you've looked at this problem and you've decided to try and fix it as well.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: So let's get into that.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: And this is what I love that Tammy, you're running for the school board, correct?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: So tell me what sparked that interest.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of us complain and talk about things, but you're actually trying to do something.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: So tell me about that path.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think my background, obviously, it's it's kind of what I do.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I really tell the story.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: It really was my daughter in high school at Nice High School, um, is what kind of got me leaning in this direction.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: She had an opportunity in a class to write a paper, it was a social studies class, and she knew her teacher did not align with her political beliefs.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just say that.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty evident.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so she decided, she came home and said, Hey, I think I'm gonna write a paper, and there's no hiding at this point, that I would lean conservative.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so she came home and said, I want to write a paper, and she throws it out there.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: She says, On abortion.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, honey, like, is this the class you want to do this in?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we know, like, I mean, I love that you want to be bold and that's great, but like, is this really the class you want to do this in?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Yes, and I don't want to do it from a faith perspective.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have watched my own personal friends have an abortion, and the impact that it has had on them has been life-altering.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to look at it from the mental health perspective of young women in high school who have abortions.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, like so.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: She wasn't taking a stance on the topic per se.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: She was pursuing the storyline.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: She was taking a stance on how bad abortion is on the mental health of young women.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that it's better not to have the abortion because the mental Health is so bad.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: So she was taking a stance against abortion, but not from a biblical perspective as much as it was the mental health perspective.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're like, okay, like just be prepared.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so she wrote this great paper and she turned it in.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, my husband and I both looked over and we're like, okay, let's go.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And took a deep breath because I'm like, oh, what's gonna come of this?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um the very next day I get a call from the teacher and it popped up on my phone, and I thought, oh no, here we go.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he Clafferty, da-da-da.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I just wanted to touch base with you.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Your daughter wrote a paper.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I just wanted to tell you what an amazing paper it was.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then he paused.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, It is no hidden secret that her and I probably disagree fundamentally on most things.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And even on that paper and its topic, we can probably say we disagree.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: However, her writing and her passion was evident, and I love that she was bold enough to do that.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I would like to talk to you about asking her to start a young Republicans club at the school.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: He said, We have a young democratic club, and I'm the teacher for that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, he was very outright about you know who he was, and he said, but we don't have a young Republicans club.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I think she'd be great at that.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah who does this?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's what education is about.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I got off the phone and I looked at my husband and I'm like, that is what public education is supposed to be about.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can have different ideologies, you can have different beliefs, you can have different political backgrounds, but what was in the best interest of your student was that you saw something in my daughter, even though you disagreed with her, and you elevated her and gave an gave her an opportunity to lead.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's what education was about.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it sounds like you would support someone who disagreed with you as well.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was that's that's part of what we're supposed to be teaching the kids, right?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's how to disagree well and still love people and hear people out and be firm in your convictions and your beliefs.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my husband's a pastor, like we're pretty firm on what we believe.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: However, even from a faith perspective, God says love your neighbor.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, how how do we teach the next generation to do that well?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And this teacher did it.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, man, that was so powerful for us as a family.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: She started the club.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: From that, she ended up launching the Turning Point Niece, the first one, ended up getting really involved in Turning Point, met Charlie Kirk.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just had this trajectory to her life, ended up going into it, had an internship in DC.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we can track all the way back.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it came from a high school teacher that saw something in her and elevated her to leadership.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it was that moment that I thought, you know, we've gotten away from that in education.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: We've gotten away from just teaching people character development and life skills like that.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so that really was the catalyst.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And as we walked down that path, and I watched my daughter kind of go down this path and choose a life kind of with this, I remember just sitting there one day saying, Okay, Lord, like how how can I use the gifts and abilities that you've given me and the background that I have to help help do that for others.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And at that point, my kids are now all out of school, so I thought, okay, maybe this is the best way for me to do it.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I need to step into this world.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so here I am.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I love that.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: So we we I love that story just because the I remember when I was in middle school, I had a teacher, and we had to take both sides of a of a of a trial jury.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it was, you know, it was interesting to look at it from both directions, and you had to really state the case in both directions, which I think is very eye-opening.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um now we talked earlier about so much of the financial pressures that are hitting.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: So, what can the school board do in general about curriculum, you know, what and with the in uh with AI coming on board, where do you see the school board going in the next five or ten years?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um we probably need to look at the structure of our school board and even our school.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I don't know how quickly this will happen, but um as you and I were talking before we went on on camera, um we used to be a school of you know 17,000 students, and now with this massive growth, we're a school of almost 56,000 students.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're the largest employer in St.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: John's County.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have over 6,500 employees.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: This little school has become a machine in this county.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: And with how many board members?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we still have five board members.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the same five board members that were overseeing the small little school is now trying to oversee this machine.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um still one superintendent.
• 26:49
  unknown: Wow.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was one superintendent back then, it's one superintendent now.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's a major business.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a major business.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: So Dr.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: Aspen's running this major business.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: He is running the largest business in the county.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's something.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: You don't normally think of it that way, but that's and you have to think those five school board members are completely in control of 56,000 souls.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Plus 6,500 employees on the backs of five people that are part-time.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and so what's happened because of this growth is I think both the school board, you know, 40 Orange, the administration at 40 Orange, the they've lost the ability to be able to focus on the things that are most important.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: The academics, the excellence, the character development.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's there, but they can't focus on that as much because they're focusing on, oh my goodness, we have to build another building today.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, we have to build another building today.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we just keep popping up buildings.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you'll hear around the community there's this really big anti-development movement.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, slow the growth, stop the growth, which we can all agree we would love to see the growth stop because it's just been insane.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: You'll hear a lot of people in the debates, especially with the school board, how are you gonna stop the growth?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep pushing back, saying school board can't stop the growth.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: We are mandated by the state that if a student walks on our campus, we have to service them.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I can't not build a building.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: If the kids are there, I have to build a building, which is more money, more budget, more resources, more of our time.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: But we can't say no to that.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there is argument that we can put more pressure on the developers, we can make the developers pay more money towards the school, which is where we have to start doing that.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: We have to start saying to developers, okay, great, you're gonna build another development.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: If the county approves it, that's up to the county commissioners.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: We don't deal with that.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: But you're gonna have to pay larger fees, or you you're in the building business, you build us the school.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like there has to be more of that conversation between the schools and the developers as we continue to grow.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, we can't stop the growth.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: We are mandated by the state.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I remember when a few years ago when things were really cranking in Palm, the the middle school is the K-38, and Linda Richardson was saying, I just have to build 15, you know, exterior classrooms, and it was early August.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: She had to staff up teachers with like two weeks' notice, and had all because all those people registered for class in such a short time frame.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the turnover of teachers, the movement of our administrators, our principals, because we're building schools so fast that we'll take a seasoned principal, which that might only be five years, but we're calling it seasoned, and we're saying, hey, listen, we need your experience, so we're going to move you to the new school because these are new kids and new families, and we need somebody with experience at this school.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we're moving our principals around faster than we should, or that's good for them and for the students.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have time to build relationships with the students, which back in the day, your principal, you knew your kids.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like you watched them go from kindergarten through fifth grade, and you knew them.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: When they graduated fifth grade, it was personal to you as a principal because those were your kiddos.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're having to move administration so quickly because of all the growth that we're not seeing those relationships being built, which when you don't have a good relationship between a principal, your staff, your students, that's where you get into discipline problems because there's no relationship there.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: When you know your principal and you get called to the principal's office, that's a big deal.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, your principal is.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's we're seeing the trickle-down effect of it's causing some behavioral issues in the classroom.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, so the growth is impacting the school.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for us to be able to manage this, we've got to look at a different system in some way.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's great.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think with your background of running businesses, running educational systems and universities, I th I think you have a lot of great background to do it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: And and what I love and what we love on Beyond the Break is people that are seeing a challenge, like paddling out through the rough surf in the in the ocean.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's what you're doing here to make a difference.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: So we I wish you the best of luck.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: Not just because it's our community, but I think it's thousands of kids, 56,000 kids that are going to be relying on you and the school board as well.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: So well, good luck.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for coming in today, of course.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for having me.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: Bye bye.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in to be on the break.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation brought you value, make sure to like, subscribe, and hit the bell so you never miss an episode.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: We've got more real stories, sharp insights, and powerful turning points coming your way.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time.