This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
There it is Monday, Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk,
educated educators talking education.
Right away, the numbers 8557524842.
You know, it's on a Monday.
Somebody out there with some eagerness.
Jump in, give us a call right away.
What do you want to talk about?
Education, public education, democracy, advocacy.
You name it, Johnny Lupinacci.
We do it.
The thing is, is we are, you know, right now.
We are as far as we know.
The only five day a week commercial radio show
dedicated to public education and democracy right now.
Just wanting to put that out there so that people go,
wait, what's this Busted Pencils?
Busted Pencils, man, it is a daily radio show
where we get to talk about public education,
democracy, teaching, learning,
Friday night football, maybe even two,
all kinds of things coming up.
But, man, tell on about it.
And even in Finland, we talk about this in Finland.
How did people in Finland hear about us, Johnny?
The Civic Media app, dude, you know that.
Yeah, man, I'm just like, I mean,
there's people all over the country,
all over Wisconsin, right, listening to.
It doesn't just pop from your local
threshold radio station to Finland.
It's an odd hour of the day in Finland.
But, but yes, the Civic Media app is a wonderful way
to tune into all your Civic Media programming.
I guess while we're talking about all these things, Tim,
we got a big week ahead of us.
Oh, we do.
We're still reeling from the DNC lots to talk about.
All kinds of exciting action from educators
that'll be part of participating in the show this week.
We got, we'll preview and sneak a little bit of that.
But, hey, just a reminder for listeners,
this is the season.
I mean, it's really always the season and democracy,
but this is a big one, right?
It's like the playoffs leading to the championship
in November, be a voter.
Tuesday, September 17th is National Voter Registration Day,
plan to check your voter registration.
And be sure you're ready for November 5th.
I mean, that's the big game.
You were talking about Friday night football, but oh, yeah.
I mean, Friday night football is always gonna be here.
We're gonna talk a lot about how those kinds of,
you know, style words of our community,
are part of public education for sure.
But, man, when you start talking about public education
as the bedrock for a democracy,
and what are we doing in democracy?
Besides, you know, off of our civic duty
towards a government for the people, by the people,
but one of our main things, like one of our feature
in track activities is we vote.
It doesn't just go out and vote on voting day.
There's all kinds of getting good information,
having great conversations, you know, asking tough questions,
looking for transparency, honesty, accountability, right?
Looking at policies and then saying,
hey, it's time to go do our duty.
And part of that is to make sure we're registered.
So voter registration, national voter registration day,
September 17th, get out, you know, get out and vote.
I always like campaigns rock the vote,
because we're rocking here at Busted Pencils,
fully-led at Education Talk.
I gotta tell you one of the things I'm so excited.
I just got in the mail today.
My daughter, who is away at college full time,
she did what she's supposed to do without me,
even telling her she signed up for her absentee ballot,
and the fact that she can vote by mail.
I got all that today.
I was like, I called her up, I was like, lace.
What's going on?
She goes, oh, yeah, dad, I took care of that.
I went and did what I had to do.
And I was just like, yeah, but those are the examples
we talk about.
It's like, hey, guess what?
If you're away, you two can vote.
There are absentee ballots, vote by mail.
Figure it out what you said.
Go and dig that information.
Johnny, look at that right away, though, too,
as we put out the call, asking for calls,
Cindy from Appleton right away jumping in before we even
get to the stuff.
Cindy from Appleton, what's going on?
What's your question?
What's happening in your world?
Well, I'm a little concerned because remember what happened
with Hillary and the criminal the first time around?
One of the popular votes.
She won the electoral college votes.
And I'm very concerned that that could happen again.
Mm-hmm, good.
Yeah, are you worried, though, about that from the standpoint
of what we said, like low voter turnout,
or are you concerned?
I mean, what is the issue?
Because maybe that's the thing you guys should educate people
about is the electoral college and how it works.
Because I myself am not sure how it works.
All I know is whoever gets told about votes
wins the Coriol College, our electoral votes.
But to be honest with you, how they gather all these votes,
I'm still a little rusty on.
So that might be a topic for conversation.
Thank you, Cindy.
That's a great question.
And that's true because it is kind of,
I mean, we could talk about it and we can get into it.
But it is certainly not logical when you think about how
fair voting ought to really be, right?
You think about, hey, vote for a representative,
the popular vote counts, right?
But the electoral college, I think Tim, probably you
and I both agree, needs to go away.
But it's a fair place.
And it's a fair place for exactly.
Like Cindy was bringing up to kind of be,
it's supposed to be a safeguard.
Is that what we're like?
I'm like they say it's a safeguard.
It's the protection against, it's the protection against
the uninformed masses voting too much.
Right.
So let me give a little, a little quick definition
of the electoral college because I think Cindy is right.
We should talk about this because one, we have some trauma
around it.
We've been like, hey, 40 of the voters have voted.
But yet, that's not, that didn't determine the winner.
What happened?
One of those, it's happened a few times in my voting
lifetime where I've gone to bed pretty, pretty excited
because I didn't exactly know exactly how the electoral
college worked the first time.
And remember that?
There's an Al Gore election, Tim.
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
And it was like a totally different.
I had to check my, you know, self-pinch myself.
And be like, wait, am I still sleeping?
Did something happen?
It sure did.
But we can get into it.
But the quick kind of way to think about it
is the electoral college consists of 538 electors, right?
A majority of 270 electoral votes is required
to elect a president.
Different states, right?
So your state has the same number of electors
as it does members in its congressional delegation.
So you have one member in the House of Representatives
plus two senators, or one for each member
in the House of Representatives plus two senators, right?
So the states have different numbers of electoral,
what do we call electoral voters?
Electors.
Electors, electors.
So different states have different numbers of electors.
And there are 538 total electors.
And the majority of 270 electoral votes
is required to elect the president.
So you're asking, why is Johnny saying this
because don't we go a vote and they count up all the votes, right?
It's that's why we see the state map
when the election's going on, right?
Because they're going to say, hey, this state has gone
to this candidate, this ticket.
And that means this many electoral votes.
Are our individual votes contribute
towards possible electoral votes on the table, right?
And so Cindy's call is really important
because now high population areas
could be swinging a particular way and go a particular way
and not necessarily determine the presidential election
because it's determined on electoral votes.
Now, if it's a blue wave, let's call it that,
or what do we want to say?
If it's a brat election, right, then we got nothing
to worry about because it's not close.
If it's close, this is where the electoral college,
and this is what Cindy I think is referring to,
has had a different outcome than the popular individual votes.
And this is why so many people, myself included,
say things like, I think this electoral college thing
has got to go because, let's say, we are democracy.
The people have voted.
It's clear, right?
It's not even like we need a recount, it's that close.
It's clear.
Absolutely.
And that didn't do enough electoral voting.
Electoral college is one way, and I'm going to go a little
opinion, a law of fact, is one way to rig an election,
but not quite rig an election.
It's just like in there.
In case it's close, don't worry.
It's a subversion.
It's a subversion of democracy in that sense
when you're talking about popular democracy.
And yeah, you know more about it, Tim.
Yeah.
And you need to talk about the electoral college
because we do all have some trauma around it.
Thanks, Cindy, for calling and bringing it up.
We got L.A. Tom on the horn.
I bet you he could tell us too about the electoral college.
What's up, Tom?
You love the electoral college?
Well, first off, guys, I'm a joyful democracy warrior,
just like our soon to be president and vice president are.
And I would like to say that, you know,
the other guy is just another serious candidate
for the presidency.
And we really need to be honest about that.
He's not serious about democracy.
He's only serious about Project 2025
and him being a dictator.
And I would recommend everyone watch the Handmaid scale.
If you want to see your future,
if we get him in office,
because that's really what it's going to look like.
Yeah, in terms of electoral college,
we need to get rid of the electoral college.
There is.
They play California, which are the largest state in the union.
And it doesn't really matter,
which way our votes go, which is really quite ridiculous.
Also, like Johnny was saying, you know,
basically it's the number of health representatives
that you have and your two senators
that make up the number that comes to the electoral number
of votes.
And I can change every 10 years because of the census
if people don't actually sign up with the census.
There it is.
You know, right there, a little extra added to that Johnny
Lupinachi, your little civics lesson.
Yeah, and that is, hey, guess what?
Social studies educators, we always will dig deep into this.
So Cindy, L.A. Tom,
thanks for the calls really getting us started off on that, Johnny.
So let's play a game real quick,
because this is fun.
I like to do that anytime we're learning.
We had a great recap of that from L.A. Tom,
the electoral college, right?
Allocations are based on the census.
So it is based on the populations and states, right?
So we, how are electors determined, right?
So we said that we had that kind of formula, right?
Of how they were determined, but,
but how does it become unequal, right?
So how many are in California?
How many votes?
Tim, we know California has 54 votes, right?
Right.
The California gets 54 votes.
So at the end of, right?
At the end of the elections,
tallied up, they say California has gone this way.
That's 54, right?
A lot of people are electoral votes based,
but it's a little more complicated
because it carves up into sections.
But let's talk about, for listener out there,
because a lot of you are in the great state of Wisconsin.
How many electoral votes are in Wisconsin?
Got it, Lupinagia.
That's a good question right now
to kind of keep people on their seats right there.
I mean, I know a listener's not,
you're going to find out, stay tuned.
How many electoral votes are in the state of Wisconsin?
Because we are the worst upon your days.
We are the insect in your ears.
We crawl, we crawl, we crawl.
We're all over you.
We so cease to see us through our days
on precious and so few.
We know we're probably out of town.
But if this sky no longer blue,
we bring the dawn on our own.
I do, we crawl, we crawl, we crawl, we crawl.
We're all over you.
Oh.
I was a teenage and I'll kiss looking for revolution.
I have the style, I have the ambition.
Read all the offers.
Everybody knows there's a revolution
when you're a teenager.
You're looking for it.
It's busted pencils.
Holy, let it education talk.
Educated educators talking education.
Johnny just shared with me.
We call it the Twitter ex the Twix.
Johnny, I did not know that that's
what the kids are calling Twitter nowadays.
Twix.
Yeah, I've been hearing it too.
And some of the socials, you know, we've said it to him.
We've stumbled and said, we got to tweet that out.
Or, you know, what do you call it?
What do you, what a great kind of thing
to call a post on Twitter was a tweet.
But the kids these days, my students have said, oh,
you mean a Twix?
And I thought that was interesting.
Little spin and morph on stuff.
So if you tweet something now, I guess it's called the Twix.
You can put it in a Twix.
I mean, who knows if that sticks.
I just, just hearing it from the youth.
We love that.
And Jenny was there too, going like, whoa, check that out.
I don't know, Twitter ex, you mean that doesn't sound right?
The whole ex thing.
Yeah, tweet was such an awesome thing
when they had it, you know, and threads, threads are out there.
But yeah, now it's a repost, but I do kind of like that.
Twix, although I wonder what Twix, the candy company
would be saying about that.
I think they might have a little bit more to say about that.
OK, Jenny, Tom, yes.
Wisconsin, the referendum.
Who wants to be the first person to say, like, so what
is a referendum when that happens?
When I see somebody's yard sign saying vote yes
on the referendum, what does that mean?
Why?
What's happening?
What's going on?
I'll let Tom go with this.
And then I'll talk about some of the historic gold data.
Sure.
And I think you almost have to start with the history.
In the 1993, 1994 school year, revenue limits
were enacted in the state of Wisconsin.
And there are revenue limits are based
on a per pupil amount of money.
And it's increased over time, but Act 10 was mentioned previously.
But since around 2010, the per pupil funding
under a revenue limit in the state of Wisconsin
is about $3,000 according to the Wisconsin Association
of School Business Officials behind inflation.
So as that's progressed year after year,
school districts the only way in Wisconsin
to increase your funding above this revenue limit number
for both operational costs or capital construction costs
is to go to referendum.
And on an annual basis in the state of Wisconsin,
you see more and more school districts
that are literally surviving from referendum to referendum.
That's excellent.
Jenny, did you want to throw in some of that part?
You were going to layer onto that, thanks, Tom.
Yeah, I mean, with the districts being largely funded
with that combination of state and local property taxes,
these mixes of revenues, when it's local property taxes,
it really creates a disparate situation in the state
to where wealthier communities are able to invest more
of their local dollars into their schools.
So it kind of exacerbates those joy gaps and opportunities
for kids.
And then also we've just seen a dramatic increase
in the number of school districts that have been having
to go to these local referendums around the state.
So in the spring, there was about 103 referendums
between the February and April ballots.
And they pass it about a 60% rate.
And for this fall, now we're expecting
to be about 54 referendums, so a little bit less.
It is a presidential election year.
So in these odd number elections, or even number,
they're more likely to pass, right?
And so that type of thing, voter turnout really
has an impact on school referendum outcomes,
but we have seen a decline in that percentage.
People have self taxation fatigue.
And our school doors have become really hotbed places
for these conversations about what the taxpayer is getting
out of your public schools without thinking about how important
it is for the community to be pouring into the schools,
because what's in the schools but are kids, right?
In the future.
So people's conversations have really taken a turn away
from kids in schools and opportunities to learn.
And it's become like a very political conversation
around taxation and what we're getting.
And just one other thing, underneath that hard cap
of a revenue limit, each school district in Wisconsin
is funded on a mix of local property taxes
and state funding to get to the revenue limit.
And the really interesting thing about that mix
is that it's not necessarily an accurate picture
of the community.
So the school district that I serve
has one of the highest percentages of students
on free and reduced price lunch in the state.
We just certified next year at 70%.
But in the funding formula, we look wealthy
because we have a lot of property value,
we really just have a lot of property
where a large geographic school district
that serves a relatively small student population.
We have a lot of property value behind each student we serve.
So that creates an inequity in how we're funded.
So our local taxpayers this year
are funding 78% of the revenue limit.
And only 22% comes from the state.
And in other districts in the state,
that number is inverted because they
have less property value behind each student they serve.
And I know that's somewhat complex,
but it's also part of the story.
Yeah, I mean, just that concept right there
told me a little bit about that.
I mean, gotta tell you, it's the first time
I've heard about that, the kind of reverse property
versus the number of students, number of students,
versus the property.
As you talk about that, tell me a little bit more about that.
I need to help me get more of understanding.
Sure, so school districts have this hard revenue limit
that they can only raise money up to that revenue limit.
And it's kind of like a glass of cola
you'd get at a fast food restaurant.
Cola would be the good stuff that comes from the state.
And the ice is local property taxes.
So each district in the state of Wisconsin
and they're over 420, has a different mix of local property
taxes and state funds to reach that hard cap revenue limit.
In districts like ours that have a lot of property
behind each student, we have about a million and a half
dollars behind each student we serve get penalized.
Even though our student population is very poor,
we get penalized in the state funding formula
because we look like a very wealthy school district.
On that too, just putting that out there,
I mean, has there been discussions to say, like, wait a minute,
this shouldn't be this way.
I mean, it sounds as you're talking to me,
Tom, it sounds like, wait, well, then let's fix that.
In when revenue limits were enacted in 1993,
the 1993, 1994 school year, then governor Thompson
said that they should be reviewed and revised within five
years and we're still waiting.
Hmm, busted pencils fully, let it education talk,
educated educators talking education.
Yeah, check it out, though, too.
We're talking to Tom and Jenny, Wisconsin Public Education
Network, Referendum.
Yeah, it's one of those things that we need to learn so much
more about the socials.
Yes, Facebook, Twitter, busted pencils.
More when we get back.
The number, when you were up,
when you wanted to set the world on fire.
When you were up, then you wanted to set the world on fire.
When you were up, then you wanted to set the world on fire.
I was a teenager, a kid.
I was a teenager, a kid.
I was a teenager, a kid.
I was a teenager, a kid.
MUSIC
Uh, one of my favorite rise against songs,
Miracles, busted pencils fully, let it education talk,
educated educators talking education.
Is it a miracle we're talking about here?
This grow your own partnership with
Edgewood College, Madison Metropolitan School District,
grow your own special education teachers,
getting them in there in the classroom fully ready to go.
Nancy, you could talk about a little bit more, too,
about the candidates.
And we were doing the break,
anybody getting the bonus content,
they already got to hear some of this.
But you're coming into, you know, the question is to when,
how does somebody potentially approach,
do they approach you if they're interested is, you know,
tell me, I'm just wondering,
and we're going to do this before you guys leave here
at the end of this segment.
We're going to give you a lot of time.
But just even right now, if there's somebody out there sitting
and going, I didn't know about this.
And I would like to like Nancy, how do they get started?
Absolutely.
So there's a couple of different ways to get started.
One of them is to reach out to me,
Nancy Moll Center at the Madison Metropolitan School District
in student services.
I have an email.
I have a phone number.
Happy to provide it.
And, or they can also apply to work at the Madison Metropolitan School District.
If someone has a bachelor's degree in any field,
they can apply to our special education,
CC teacher pool.
And then they can let our human resources department know
that they have a bachelor's degree.
They want to become a special education teacher.
They work with me to sign up for the Grow Our Own program
in Madison so that they can get reimbursed for their classes.
I send them the information about the Edgewood College Accelerated Program
and get them in touch with Mike.
And he gets them set up there.
And then before you know it,
they are teaching as a special education teacher,
making a teacher salary.
They are taking classes at Edgewood.
And the way it works in Wisconsin is that a person
on a provisional license has three years to finish.
So they can definitely finish a lot sooner than that.
But the state gives them up to three years.
They can work as a special education teacher that entire time.
And I would say approximately half of our special education teachers
in the Grow Our Own program with Edgewood College right now
started out as paraprofessionals in our school district.
And so they got some experience and then somebody said,
hey, you'd make a great teacher and we got them into the program.
See, that's the part too.
I love this, you know, Johnny,
you know this one.
I come at this.
The whole idea of the teacher shortage.
You hear this in there.
It's like, where are our next teacher is going to come from?
Well, you know, they're right in front of us.
They're with us every day.
They're in our schools.
They're there, which is said before these innovations
in these partnerships,
a lot of people were there saying,
but I don't have time.
I can't take classes during the day.
I'm working at the school full-time.
I can't take off.
I don't know that I can ever afford it.
But what I'm hearing in, and again,
this Grow Grow Your Own program is, is that,
wait, we're addressing the that you're concerned.
Well, guess what?
You can have a full-time job with us.
How's that going to work out?
You know what, you need classes?
Well, we've got a partner in Edgewood College.
We can get you the classes accelerated full-time online,
you know, that way too,
so that you don't have to quote,
misclass different times,
you could take them when you're able to put them together.
And then you've got together,
then the whole idea of then a mentored support system
of people in their supporting these candidates
as they go through.
And they have up to three years.
And Mike, you're saying the end of this,
then, is special education licensure?
And do they also get a graduate degree?
Yeah, I mean, we've built up multiple pathways.
One leads to licensure only,
which is, it turns out to be 24 credits,
eight three credit courses.
And then it's a 30 credit master's degree program.
So a good number of the candidates
that take this pathway are interested in the master's degree
because the system sort of reinforces
and incentivizes a degree of that nature.
I know Madison does.
And I know we've been given a lot of focus too
to the need, the critical need,
and special education.
This particular partnership
that we have with Madison and his offer
to any other schools across the state
includes candidates out there
that want to become elementary education license.
So elementary or middle candidates.
Secondary, which is now grades four through 12.
And then also in Madison,
we have ESL bilingual partnership,
similar kind of program,
which gets at all of the needs there.
Well, there it is, the bell.
Every day on busted pencils,
that bell rings and you know what it means to him
and listener, I know what it means.
Today's democracy and action recognition.
We always choose every day
some recognition of democracy and action.
Core democratic values in action and education.
I gotta say it's a no-brainer.
Today's democracy and action recognition
goes to this Grow Your Own team,
Michael, Amy, Nancy,
all of the folks working together in the group.
That category right there,
that Grow Your Own category.
Yeah, Amy, Nancy,
Mike, you guys are our democracy.
And Johnny, you back, Amanda, finished that up?
Yeah, man, I mean, I didn't know that I went away
so I don't know what happened here.
But, you know, core democratic value,
democracy and action today is common good.
The team coming together,
citizens should always work together for the good of all, right?
Everyone in the government that makes laws,
good for all.
So here we have a partnership
between so many institutions and moving parts
that is making it possible
to bring great folks into classrooms.
And that's what every kid in this country deserves.
It's a really great teacher.
So having that kind of resource and teamwork around that,
that is democracy and action.
Nice.
Congratulations, team.
You guys get the democracy and action award,
Boston pencils.
Amy was wondering too,
like when the candidates,
there's also, you had talked about this during the break,
a commitment too to also saying, like, you know, diversity.
Yeah.
And talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, so in Madison and across the country,
there's just a strong belief in understanding
that kids deserve to see themselves represented
in the teaching forces and the teachers that teach them.
And so historically,
we have had a largely white teaching population.
And we found through some of these
grow your own programs,
we've been able to diversify our teaching force,
provide opportunities for education,
for people who maybe have been marginalized in the past.
And so it's just really been a great boon to us
to be able to have a more diverse teaching force in Madison.
And we really believe that that
partnership where paraprofessionals or SCAs
are able to then get teaching license,
that will further diversify our teaching force.
Yeah, and see, that's the part too.
I talked about this.
You know, some of the early work,
when I was at Edgewood College,
we were trying some grow your own programs.
And we really were coming at this
from the idea of saying,
well, if diversity is a goal,
well, then guess what?
The students and the families
and the people who live in our communities,
well, there's already a diversity there.
How do we provide those, our residents,
our people who already work here,
our people already live here?
How do we give them the ability
to come into a classroom?
Because if we're looking to create the classroom of teachers
that look like and have the values
and see the world the way our children do,
well, then they're already right here.
They're already in our districts.
They're already our, as we point out on this show,
they're already our neighbors.
Nancy, is that sound about
kind of what you guys are trying to do here?
110%.
Yes, we have, as you said earlier,
amazing people already in our community,
already in our schools,
not only our paraprofessionals,
but also family members.
And we have students,
well, I'm going to say this differently,
former students who graduated from one of our Madison High
schools that come back and they work as paraprofessionals.
And then they want to become teachers
and then we can support them to do that
through some amazing partnerships.
So yes, 100%.
We, you know, Madison is an incredible city.
And we know that we can fill the needs
that we have in our schools and our students
with the people in our community
and we're just trying to support them.
You know, I think it's important to start the interrupt.
I think it's important to note
because I know that you had an interview
with our current superintendent
who was superintendent of the year last year
that he actually started out
as a paraprofessional in our district.
Yeah, I was going to say,
yeah, we had Joe Gothard on a few weeks ago,
you know, brought him in there.
In fact, he was the second time
I'll bust the pencils.
I actually was able to interview him back in 2018
when he was at St. Paul and got that.
But now that he is back home
and talk about truly a grow your own home story
right there, grew up in Madison,
graduated from a Madison High School,
then comes back as a paraprofessional
and then gets his teaching license,
goes to Edgewood College,
gets all of his administrative licenses,
serves as a principal,
serves as an administrator,
goes up to St. Paul to become the superintendent
and now this year comes all the way back.
That's a grow your own story right there
if you've ever heard one Nancy.
I see you got some enthusiastic nodding.
Absolutely.
We're so thrilled to have Dr. Joe Gothard back
in Madison as our superintendent
and he inspires, right?
He inspires our staff
who think about what they can become
and how they can help impact
positively the lives of students and families
in our school district and community.
You made me think of one other thing
that too as you were talking about this
from the grow your own.
You're saying from coming like
our kids are graduating high school
and Amy and Mikey maybe you might want to talk about this.
This program specifically right now
we've been talking about
are for people who already have a bachelor's degree
and they're going to get into a graduate program.
Is there any talks or thoughts
or innovations on the way that might be saying
okay what about somebody who doesn't
have a bachelor's degree yet?
What are we going to do about them?
Absolutely.
Go ahead Mike, you go.
No, I was just going to quickly say that
that's that's coming to fruition here.
We've been in the process.
Our team Dr. Lukey has spearheaded that effort
in the division of that and coming out
with a program for just that candidates
that want to work with children in the classroom
that do not have a BA.
So on an undergraduate degree
try to have a learning format
that allows a combination of some on campus
but as well as online.
That had discounted great
through these partnerships.
And we hope to have something like that
ready for a serious launch
in the spring semester of this school year.
Nice Amy, you had some thoughts on that too.
Yeah, I mean I just think that it's an amazing opportunity
to help students who maybe traditionally
wouldn't be able to pay for straight out college.
They're able to come and work with us
and do some partnership with Edward
and then become teachers like they want to be.
Wow, so much going on there.
Just think about this.
It's so exciting because you know
this is say the innovation in the partnership
bringing people together.
So now I'm out there.
Listeners are out there.
They're going, I want to know more.
Where do I go?
Where do I find out stuff?
I'm going to start go around the
around the horn and everybody says,
so Nancy, I know you gave us some things.
We're going to put it in the podcast.
But Nancy, where do they where?
Where do they go to find you?
I come to the Madison Metropolitan
School District website and they
search for Nancy Mulfenter student services.
They will get my email address,
which is NF Mulfenter M-O-L-F-E-N-T-E-R
at Madison.K12.wi.us
or they can apply to work as a
paraprofessional or S-E-A special education assistant
or special education teacher.
And in Madison, we also help reimburse classes
for people to work toward their bachelor's degree.
So Mike, I'm looking forward to that partnership
coming soon with Edward.
And I got Mike's email here.
We're going to make sure we have that Mike and you said,
you've got a little bit of some literature
that we're going to put in the podcast right out there.
And Amy, you've got your email put in right here.
So the chat is ready.
Man, you guys, Amy, Michael, Nancy,
grow your own Edgewood College,
Madison Metropolitan School District.
You guys are truly busting pencils.
Johnny and Tim breaking it down when we get back.
The podcast sees around us turn
harder into life because we are the miracles.
We help it all the time.
We're not scared of what surrounds us.
We're not fighting for a sign.
We are the miracles.
We are the miracles.
We are the miracles.
Hey!
Yeah, it's there.
There it is.
Plus the country's fully let it.
Education top.
Educated.
Educators talking.
Education Wednesday night.
Educators amplified in the house.
Teacher Halley joining us.
Trending news.
Talking about student loan forgiveness.
And then, oh, yeah, all of this cell phone.
We had a little bit of a conversation, too, where it's like,
okay, teacher Halley, you're saying.
And even I think about this, it's like,
I think maybe it's a little bit of,
or maybe even a lot of regulations.
And I'm talking about the regulations that,
that I typically think of on when we should be giving access,
particularly in school to cell phones.
But teacher Halley, you and teacher Joanna actually
addressed this a few years back.
Explain to us your cell phone policy in the classroom.
Yeah, you know, so we're always advocating for
how can we have our public schools promote regulation
and the well-being like the whole child
as opposed to just their academic self.
And so, right, one of the things that we saw is a distraction
and prevents children from being in the present moment
and actually being regulated is the cell phone, you know,
because the cell phone is constant notifications.
It's constantly going off.
It's, you know, friends from this class, you know,
fighting over this thing and it's just constant, right?
And the never-ending scroll.
Like it is, it is made to be addicted, right?
And it is made to dysregulate you ultimately.
And so, what we decided was, you know,
well, you're just going to turn in your cell phone
and not even turn it in.
More like you're just going to put your cell phone away
in this very structured, predictable way.
So, we would tell students, you know,
like you're choosing to come to this program
that the number one priority is your nervous system regulation
and something that really dysregulates you is your cell phone.
And so, you willingly are going to put it in the bag
that has your name on it and they would put it in a lock box
and then they would get it back at the end of the day.
And honestly, students reported that like at first,
they were like, huh?
Like, I got to give this up.
Like, what do you mean?
This is my lifeline.
Like, this is my IV.
How will I operate in life?
And, you know, very quickly though, they liked it.
They liked the break from it.
They could feel a difference.
And so, to me, it's not a foreign concept
to think to do this.
And then, right, like, you're hearing more
and more I'm hearing from schools
how big of an issue cell phones are.
And so, I do think it's going to take a lot of education
and a lot of carefully crafted ways of communicating this
to parents and children.
You know, who will go through this?
Like, I wouldn't recommend saying we're banning cell phones
or we're restricting them from your use.
I think it has to be more of a marketing of
or looking for you to feel well.
We know more and more from research
that kids are more anxious and depressed than ever before.
We know from the research
that cell phones tighten your anxiety.
They heighten your depression, you know.
And so, these are ways that we want to build connection
in our schools is by having face-to-face connection
not through your cell phone.
And, honestly, I don't know if schools will be able
to articulate something like that.
I'll offer one more thing too.
I was actually talking to a teacher
who it's their second year of teaching.
So, they're Gen Z
or maybe a really old millennial, whatever.
But they're young, right?
And, you know, I was talking about potentially
the school that he teaches in.
They are going to try to limit these cell phones
and came up with this whole cell phone thing
and all these, you know, what's going to happen
if you have the cell phone?
What's the consequence?
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, and the conversation was around that.
And then he was like, okay, I'm going to be honest with you.
When I was in college, I was really like,
well, I think we should have the cell phones
and we just teach kids how to use them responsibly.
And he's like, and then I entered the classroom
and I was like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Like, this is like beyond his level of like,
like, holy cow.
And we got into the conversation about how,
right, developmentally, for these kids' brains,
so I'm talking probably from like 10 years old to 18.
Like literally, these children's brains can't handle it.
So it's not just like a learning opportunity
or like a teaching moment, they are addicting.
And it would be as if we were handing out vapes
in the beginning of school to be like, here's a vape.
And there's a vape.
And then being like, why are you all addicted?
Like, they walk in with their cell phones
and it's just as addicting to their developing brains.
So there's nothing wrong with them.
But it was interesting to hear this really young teacher
being like, it's insane.
Like, he's like, I would try to teach around it.
He's like, I teach a media class.
And so it just lend it into it and how like,
they can't get away from it.
It is literally like, honestly, like crack cocaine.
It's they had addicting to the brains.
And so yeah, that's why I'm a proponent from this,
but done in a way that helps parents feel empowered,
that helps them feel like, yes, I can support this,
that helps students feel like I'll feel better by doing this.
And so I don't know.
I don't know if that's what will happen,
but there is my cell box on cell phones and schools.
I love it.
I got to tell you, I forget about it developing 18 year old brain.
I know.
57 year old brain, it's really anxious when my phone.
And I know the same thing though.
It's like, he said, it's like, I got to put it away.
But then there's this weird, as you said,
it's in a ditch and when I do, when I do put it away,
a feeling like something's missing.
And then I'm about to quote, miss out on something.
And I remember a few times over the years where I've either,
you know, broke my phone, lost my phone.
And I truly had to go a few days without it.
And I started feeling better.
I started feeling better without my phone.
I know.
I know.
I feel the same way.
Like my husband would be dying right now if he heard me.
I've been addicted to my phone this whole summer.
And I know it, you know, but it's like, right?
It's addicting.
And it's like, I don't have it near me.
And then I'll be like, oh, I better check my notifications.
And so, right, imagine being 16
and taking that all on.
It's a lot.
Yeah, it is for sure.
Busted pencils fully let it.
Educators amplified in the house.
Everybody listen or callers, man.
What a night.
What a night.
Lots of technicalities there.
Got to love it though.
We're always in there tomorrow night.
Man with constant public education.
Network in the house.
Special guests.
Teacher Ali, thanks for Busted pencils.
Good night, everybody.