Creating Structures for All Stakeholder Voices with Darcy Fernandes

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Darcy Fernandes has been working in K-12 education for 25 years. She started her career as a social studies teacher. Ms. Fernandes then moved to become principal of Roosevelt Middle School in New Bedford where she stayed for 5 years. Her major accomplishment in this position was establishing the Amigo Center for parent support with particular emphasis in interpretation and care for ELL families. In addition, Ms. Fernandes began a program called Bridges with the President of Bridgewater State University, 150 students each year received college readiness training and academic support in math, science and ELA. Students recruited for the program were identified as at-risk students. The program is still in existence today. Ms. Fernandes is now the Superintendent of the Athol Royalston Regional School District where she is working to turnaround two schools within the district. Ms. Fernandes has spent her career working in districts with high numbers of low-income families and many of the districts she has worked in have had a high number of minority and ELL students. Ms. Fernandes has come from a background of family members who have advocated for civil rights. It is her honor and privilege to continue this legacy. She is not afraid to speak up for the rights of individuals even when it may not be popular.

Treat the Root of the Problem
One of the biggest misconceptions Darcy hears about helping low income students or students of color is to keep providing resources and funding without trying to fix the root of the problem. She sees this as inefficient because racism and inequity are continuing to harm multiple schools, teachers and students for every ONE that is supplied with resources. In her mind, it’s a matter of dismantling these structures of oppression if we want things to change for the future. 

Although Darcy attended an integrated elementary school, the systems were not set up to support the needs of all students. She remembers feeling ‘othered’ along with other students of color. There was a lack of care that went into teaching BIPOC students compared to white students. It wasn’t until college that she had a teacher who wasn’t white. There was no one that she could relate to in a sense. 

“So for me, I went into education with the understanding of ‘what were these structures about and how could I work to change them?’ so that more kids feel inclusive in school.”

We Can Fix This Together
Darcy has found through her work that time and time again, there’s a disparity in the funding that schools receive. The schools with white students that come from middle to high class backgrounds typically receive more money than the schools with lower income students. Not to mention, there are AP classes and college level classes being offered only to certain students without any opportunity to help other students master the skills needed to take those courses. Another issue that’s been identified is the lack of inclusivity in textbooks and the lack of diverse thinking. There is always more than one way to approach a subject or event, so why only teach one way of thinking? Being a teacher or school leader who wants to help their students of color shouldn’t stop at the school level. We need to embrace an activist role in order to really take down the structures that hold back many of our students. This means advocating for better policy on a district level or a community/city level. So if we want to bridge the gaps and create better schools for everyone, these are some of the issues we need to focus on. 

Sharing leadership and involving the community to become part of the solution was a no-brainer for Darcy. She started with having instructional leadership teams go to various schools to observe what was working and what wasn’t. These teams would then meet to talk about what needed to be changed. Recently, she has invited any teacher, student, family member, or community member to join the district's strategic planning process. She believes that giving everyone a seat at the table makes it much easier to figure out why things are happening the way they are. It is also good to have multiple perspectives on a matter so that the plans made in the future minimize the bias. Deciding how to teach during COVID building closures was one example of how the community has collectively decided how to move forward. 

“We found a really good solution that worked for everyone. And we kept the majority of our kids engaged the whole school year because of that.”

What is the Data Telling You?
When you pay attention to the data, it tells you a story. It shows you who’s benefiting, who isn’t and so on. Each person in a community will interpret it differently and that’s why we need multiple perspectives at the decision-making table. It’s possible to use those different ideas to form a plan that will work for everyone; a plan that incorporates multiple pieces and voices is just what a school needs to help it’s students thrive!

To dive deeper into learning how to engage students, I have great news! You can register for my free 1 hour masterclass HERE or below. For more, check out my Curriculum Boot Camp course or the “Just the Protocols” module now so you can create your own project-based units grounded in justice in no time at all!

Continue the conversation below in the comment section and join our community of educational visionaries on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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TRANSCRIPT
Darcy Fernandez has been working in K 12 education for 25 years. She started her career as a social studies teacher. As she developed in the profession. She began taking on teacher leadership roles which included social studies department chair, apparently liaison, community service learning coordinator and after school program director. While community service learning coordinator. MS Fernandez school was recognized nationally as a model for service learning. After teaching for 13 years, she was hired for her first administrative role as an assistant principal in Broxton. Her second year, she was appointed in turn principle of the building where she converted the school from a traditional junior high model to a middle school model. The school was in turn around and by the end of her third year, the school was the highest scoring middle school in the city and was no longer in turnaround status and moved to become principal of Roosevelt Middle School in New Bedford, where she stayed for five years. Her major accomplishment in this position was establishing the Amigo Center for parent support with particular emphasis and interpretation and care for E. L. L. Families. MS Fernandez began a program called Bridges with the president of Bridgewater State University. 150 students each year received college readiness training and academic support in math science and L.

00:01:05
A. Students recruited for the program were identified as at risk students program still in existence today. As of july 2013 MS Fernandez became the Assistant Superintendent of Randolph Public schools. A designated level four school district Mr Hernandez along with principals teachers in the superintendent worked diligently to turn around the district implementing a data decision making process, incorporating teacher leader coaches in schools. The result of the work with the district was removed from level four status. MS Fernandez is now the superintendent of the Royal Stone Regional School District, where she is working to turn around to schools within the district. She continues to support the work of recruiting and developing teacher leaders across the district, as well as using data to improve student learning and instruction. MS Fernandez believes all Children can learn and all families want what is best for their Children. Fernandez has spent her career working in districts with high numbers of low income families and many of the districts she has worked in about, had a high number of minority and L. L. Students. MS Fernandez is a constant advocate for the disenfranchised while in New Bedford, she earned the honor of Woman of the Year from the Standard Times while teaching.

00:02:05
She was awarded semifinalist for teacher of the Year and received the Teacher of the Year award for community service learning from the state of massachusetts. MS Fernandez has come from a background of family members who have advocated for civil rights. It is her honor and privilege to continue this legacy. She is not afraid to speak up for the rights of individuals, even when it may not be popular. Hi, I'm lindsey Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities take brave action to make those dreams a reality and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a pro principal superintendent instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader and if you enjoy nerd ng out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the time for teacher ship podcast, let's dive in Superintendent Fernandez, welcome to the time for Teacher ship podcast.

00:03:23
I just read your professional bio, but could you just add anything else that you'd like people to know about you and your leadership? I guess the one thing that I would add and you could probably read into this through my bio is ultimately my goal as a superintendent has always been to serve low income and high minority students in the state of massachusetts. And so I, I take my job very seriously and I see myself more as a missionary spirit in promoting equity across the state. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that and I think that speaks kind of to the next question that I had this idea of reimagining or transforming education from the way that it's always been done. What dr Bettina love describes as the dreams grounded in the critique of injustice or broader known as freedom dreaming. And so I'm curious to know what the freedom dream you hold for the field of education is. I know you spoke to it a little bit there in your intro. Is there anything else you would add to that dream? Yes, I think for me we have spent a lot of time in schools working around the problem and not working at the problem.

00:04:27
And what I mean by that is we have a tendency to want to put resources towards low income students, students of color to support them. But the root of the problem is really in the sexism, racism so forth and so on. And we have to change and do a paradigm shift. I believe that to be true, where we really are doing a lot more work in schools on people understanding ISMs, understanding how school structures promote a lot of ISMs and that we have to be able to break those structures down in order to get more equitable schools for all students. My definition of equity is very simple. You have to support the needs of every individual child playing simple regardless of color creed, whatever that's our number one goal. And you can't do that when your structure is so rigid, it won't allow for flexibility. I know you're doing some really cool stuff with shared leadership if you want to just kind of dive into the call that you issued for students, families, teachers, staff, and community members to actually be a part of an inclusive and representative structure.

00:05:34
So you're just kind of going right to, here's what this could look like. Let's reimagine it, we're doing it. So I'm curious to know what was the mindset shift that enables you to take that approach or to be able to get people to buy into that. My mindset approach really is just based on my own historical uh timeline. Um, I was a student, I went to school um starting in kindergarten, I was the first class to be desegregated. So I went, I was supposed to go to a segregated elementary school, The principal of the school who was very creative told the town the boiler couldn't be fixed. You got these kids go into the regular elementary school and it worked. But when we arrived there, we were all in a small cluster from our neighborhood. So basically all the minority students were on Rome and all the other kids were in the other room and we didn't experience the best situation when we first got into school, people kind of saw us as the others and we would go by classrooms and we were very wrote and we were not uh getting tasks in class that really would help us to critically think, and often times we're told things that didn't make us feel good.

00:06:45
And so for me, I've always wondered how the schools do that when I went up in grades, I had a parent at home who had a bachelor's degree. My dad was a foreman of a construction company, but my parents were really bright. I got into middle school, we had already been doing calculus at home and they had me in remedial math. Why is that, why is that? So my mother went down to the school and said, I don't know what's going on here. I understand my daughter might be struggling as a reader, but she's not struggling as a mathematician. So they moved me into algebra. So that was a good first step. But then they moved me also into advanced english and I started a class where we had this book called in a nancy where basically had to make corrections on the grammar from each page in order to go on to the next page. I never got past the first page and ultimately had a star chart in the class and they would put stars up every time you went to a new page. I never got a star all year and then they asked me to stay after school and all they do is give me the page again to fix no instruction. And and that didn't, that didn't feel right either.

00:07:48
What what, what is this about? This? This is straight going through school. I never had a teacher of color until I got to college. And so I didn't even have role models that look like me. So for me, I went into education with the understanding of what were these structures about how could I work to change them? So that wall kids feel inclusive in school, Some of those structures that we're talking about seem simple to people, but they can't exclude example. Right now, college courses are offered in high schools, You have to pass a certain test, you have to do X, y and Z in order to get the course. Wasn't that exclusive? So how do we fix that? It isn't a matter that we get rid of the college courts. It's a matter that we provide wraparound services for all kids who want to take that course regardless of where they're at. Right. Um, and so that's a structural change because now you're not saying, okay, if you don't pass test, you can't get in. What we're saying is you didn't pass the test, we need to provide you some more support. Here's what we can do and move ahead. So that's one example, Other examples really look at things like funding, um, in the districts that I've worked and that's one of the things I've looked at all the time.

00:08:57
And I always noticed that certain schools have more money than others, Certain schools have more kids who are not free and reduced lunch than others? And it's like, well why is this and why is the school without a lot of free and reduced lunch kids getting more money than the school Asprey and reduced lunches kids. So those are some of the structural things that really need to be looked at and thought about, um, as well as simple things like curriculum, I mean we have curriculum and I have kids who will go through their whole school career, never see themselves in a textbook. It's not acceptable. And also to have kids only see one way of thinking and a lot of it is Eurocentric not fair because the majority of our kids may not have a Eurocentric view and even if they do, they deserve the right to be exposed to other cultures and communities as well. So those are some structural examples that I could give you that I think really need to be looked at and repaired for schools to become more equitable.

00:09:59
Those are excellent examples and I appreciate to that you're also framing what the solutions are to them, not just naming the problems and challenges some of the things you spoke to. Then we get into other things like housing segregation and redlining and property taxes, funding education and so there's some things that some school leaders listening may say that's out of my control, but I would advocate like, well that's why we have to be activists as well. That's why we have to advocate for policy solutions. And so I think the role of a leader is one of advocating for things that aren't directly in the school and district control and then also creating policy that's inclusive that you're speaking to at the school level or the district level as well. So I appreciate you naming both of those. Right? It's so true. I mean this year I spent time at the state House talking about free lunch for everyone and that was one of the things that for me is very important because mass laws state of being get to start with the basics, right, food shelter and safety. So I've been fighting to get free lunch for everyone so that we don't have this issue of, do I choose to use my bus money today to eat or take the bus?

00:11:03
Do I? You know, it just, it should, that barrier shouldn't be there. So I, I fully fully agree with you there. I'm curious to know about specifically the shared leadership structures that you're creating for your strategic plan. Having worked at DC for with turnaround schools, I know that many times schools will kind of create these plans in silos without including students without including families or community members and you're doing that you're calling anyone who's interested to come be engaged in the strategic, So I'm curious to know, you know, what went into the decision to have that call? Was this something that you decided to do? Did you need board approval for it? I'm just thinking of the listeners who are like, oh I want to do that, but that's different from how we've done it. So how do I start it? Right, right. Um what I would say to you is a couple of things first and foremost as a leader. I believe the more voices you have, the more likely you are to get to the right decisions. And that's been my role since I've been here. Um when I started the first priority for me was getting teacher leadership in place in the district.

00:12:06
And so what we created was instructional leadership teams at each school and then those teams come together as a district instructional leadership team to discuss matters happening within within the schools. So that was the 1st 1st step in this. And what I found was these teams really became very informative to me on what changes we need to make to have more students be successful. And and so I cherish that from that. What I began to understand was when we were looking at data and what were people saying they weren't necessarily matching. And I wondered why And I said we've got to get more voices at the table to be able to figure out why do we see things so differently. So we began the process uh developing avenues in which for parents to have a voice through surveys, through meetings so forth and so on. Strategic planning. The way in which it works is every five years you're supposed to revise your strategic plan. The process for strategic planning has changed over the years, it used to be you keep the strategic plan exactly what it is and over the five years you you know, you put those things in place.

00:13:14
The problem with that was something wasn't working and you knew it, you kept doing that right? So now it's a more secular situation where what we've done every year, every year, I review the data for the district with the community and talk about what's working. What's not, here's what we're gonna change in the plan, here's what we're going to keep. So that has really worked. We've seen great progress in our district from it. And so when it was time for the five year review, I said we've got to make sure all these voices are included. So I sat down with the school committee and said, can we do this, Can we go ahead and put a process together that allows any community member who wants to be part of this to be part of this? They said, absolutely. So the structure we're using is first of all, we put out a letter to everybody in the community, parents, community members, business owners and said, would you like to be part of our strategic planning process. And so is there a specific section you'd like to look at? So we have five segments to our strategic plan. So people could sign up for each one of those areas and what we've done is we've structured it.

00:14:18
So tonight, what I will do is I put together, I think it's a 14 page document called the Strategic Plan Progress Report. It's been email to all of those people who have signed up. They have a chance to read it. They also have a sheet that says, what are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? What are our threats and what are our opportunities and what we're asking them to do is to go through this and begin listing those up so we can hear what they're seeing. So tonight, at the board meeting, I'll actually present this publicly. So anyone in the public can watch it. People on the committee will be able to ask me any questions about the report that they have. And from there, the committee groups subcommittees will then meet, they will go through those, those sheets on the opportunities, threats strength and say what's highlighted here is concerns and what's higher here is something we're doing well at from there. They're gonna create a survey to put out to parents and community members asking them what what do we need to do here? Here's what we know, what are some things that you think we can do to try to uplift in the areas were struggling and what things do you think we could stop and move on to.

00:15:27
So a survey will go out to every community member um in the district and ask that question and they'll have an opportunity to hear in on that. And that will come back to the committees in june, they'll go through all of that. All of those surveys, the section that's about them and they will come to conclusions. We think this should stay, we think they should go in here and this is what we think should be new activities from there. I will then put all that information together in a strategic plan and present it to the school committee in july. And I want to note that on our committees, our students as well. So we've made sure their voices are included in this process so that they can talk with their pairs and bring back information to the committee to so so we're really excited about it. We believe it will really get to the heart of everybody thoughts about the school district and we'll be able to move forward. And the other nice thing about it is they'll have a whole host of data tonight to look at. So it's not just Miss Fernandez is saying this is what we should do. Here's the data, here's what I think now what do you think and that's the other fun part about it because I tell people all the time I can look at this data over and over and over again.

00:16:35
But we all have bias, right. Um so I need multiple views to make sure we get it right. And so having all these people have an opportunity to look at it and think about it is gonna have a huge impact on the outcome of the new new plan. Once we write it. Yes. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Thank you for all of that detail. And the research supports that to my research is in shared leadership and student voice within shared leadership in schools and time and time again. We found that shared leadership structures produced better results. They produced better results for kids. When we talk about equity, a lot of school leaders in the past year or so. I've really started asking me that question as a coach and pd provider, you know, how do I create equitable policy. And I've always said, right, it's more about the process than whatever policy you come up with. So I love that you're just living that out. I'm curious to know to from my research or brain is asking all these questions. So in terms of the amount of interest, do you have a sense? Now, at this point in time, I know you're still kind of in the process of creating the committees.

00:17:39
How many people were interested or or what kind of interest did you get from the various groups? Does it look like everybody? Every committee will have multiple stakeholders on it. It's probably close to 35 people that have signed up to take part in the committees. And there are a lot of people who are interested, but they couldn't put the time committed in. That's why tonight is so important because the community in here, secondly, the committee is gonna send out surveys to everybody. So now, even if you couldn't make the committees, you can give me information via that. So the good news is that'll happen. And same thing with our teachers besides information tonight. I I've been meeting with our district instructional team and gone over all the stuff. I'm gonna go with the community tonight. They're going back to the teachers and saying, okay, let's go through this and they're doing the same process as the committee. So they will go through and look at the report, fill out the chart, send that back to me. Um we'll do, the survey, will send it back to all the teachers, bring it in. So the good news is whether you take part in the committee or not, each segment, you will have an opportunity to put your voice in.

00:18:46
Uh And what we have found is this has really worked and where we saw it really work, believe it or not, was when that started happening with Covid. We were in a situation where we were like, what are we gonna do? It? We're gonna be open and we're gonna be closed. What are we gonna do? So we decided to put out a survey to families, asking them the question. We got over 400 surveys back and we were a 50 50 split, half one of the school closed, half one of the school open knowing that we had to come up with a solution that really would help both both sets of parties. And what we ended up doing was we offered in person learning to all our students. So we've been open all year and we offered, uh, streaming from the classrooms for those families who didn't feel comfortable bringing their students in. So we found a really good solution that worked for everyone and we kept the majority of our kids engaged the whole school year because of that. And it was those voices that we had, that made a huge difference because there was a clash going on. Well, I want this now, I want that we were able to find a happy medium that everyone um felt good about and, and that was extremely important because we have a lot of kids, they can't learn online.

00:19:53
Um, what we're finding is some kids who thrived in the regular classroom are thriving online and some kids that aren't doing well online did much better in the classroom. And so it's given parents, even that understanding, like some of my parents, they started out, all my kid's gonna be online, they're like, oh, it's not working, we're gonna flip him back in. So it really gave parents that opportunity to choose and this goes back to need, it's not fair to families to say, hey, I know you have to, to people working in the household, we're not gonna have school, you figure it out right? That's not right either. So this really allowed everyone to figure out what was best for their family and so I'm hoping the strategic plan will do the same thing. Um it will allow us that opportunity to hear from, from our families uh more clearly what's going on. We also did this just about a month ago, we did another survey where we called families directly. We picked our families who normally we don't hear the voice from and ask them direct question via telephone because we realize some of those families they don't have access to into that, they don't have those things.

00:20:55
So we had to find another way to outreach to them. So we actually get on the phone and ask some questions directly and we have that information now to use to help with the strategic planning. So all of this is going to really make a difference, wow, that's incredible. And I love how thoughtful you were about right, if someone doesn't have internet access or they don't know how to fill out a google form or something for a serve, We have to find these other means of connectivity and I mean 35 people signing up, I think that's amazing and also in line with what I found in the research of typically the leadership teams, you know, if they're around 15 people, you kind of max out there above that. It gets a little unruly in terms of I now have 50 people in a room who are trying to have a conversation. So 35 across five committees actually sounds really wonderful. And I'm I'm wondering too, have you provided any guidance or do you are you planning to provide any guidance around having students in meetings with? I'm sure there probably will be mostly adults on the committee and then there will be a few students just to make sure that, you know, everyone's voice is heard.

00:21:58
I know that student adult dynamic can kind of be tricky to navigate. What's your suggestion for groups as they kind of get into those committees. Um The good news is we've set up a protocol that all committees will follow. So it's going to make it easy for the person doing it. And secondly, I picked a principle from each school to lead because they know kids, right? So if they're sitting in a room, they're gonna make sure those kids are drawn in. And so before the first committee meeting, they've already gotten the protocol that we will follow. But but prior to the first committee meeting will discuss and make sure what are the protocols we use to make sure everybody's voice is heard. And so we'll give them some strategies. So for example, charting is one of the ways in which I've always tried to hear everybody's voices and basically I give them these little yellow seats. I asked, I haven't put the information down and stick it up on the board. So everybody's voice is heard. And then what we do is have the group put commonalities together. What are the commonalities that we see rather than people talking at one another and feeling as though this isn't gonna work.

00:23:00
And obviously in the technology world we would use jam board. Right. And, and do the sticky note process that way. But that's some of the things I'll talk to the principles about um, that should really help to make sure all those voices are part of it and the good news is the high school principal and ask for volunteers from the students. So he, he's gonna pre work with the students as well. Go over the, go over the materials, talk to them about it before they go. So they'll be pre alerted and kind of already be thinking about what some of those solutions are before they go into a forum with the adults. So that should help to make a huge difference. I really like that suggestion of the sticky notes too because whether it's digital or paper, it also kind of anonymized is a little bit and so there is that value that if someone was skeptical about a student voice, there's that equity of value or equality of value. Maybe in terms of everyone has this posted here, all these ideas are valuable? And I love that you have the protocol already in place ahead of time. So committees. No, you're not just diving into these really challenging conversations with no community agreements and protocols because that could be very challenging.

00:24:10
You compiled 14 pages of information to present to the board this evening and we're recording this in May 19. So this will air later. But tonight you're going to present that at this point in the progression of bringing this all together for the strategic planning committees. Has there been anything that has either surprised you been really exciting as you're kind of putting all this stuff together? What's something that resonates with you? There are a couple of things interesting. The data tells such a story in the data. We have everything from m cast data, benchmark testing data, attendance data, graduation rate, our culture survey results from students And it's just been amazing to look at it and see how it all unfolds and there's some very positive things in our data um, that I think the community will be really happy about. Example as a district in every court area. M cast. We have gone up at least eight points, if not 8%ages or more, which has been incredible. In addition, the culture survey shows the kids really feel like the teachers care for them.

00:25:14
What's interesting is they don't necessarily care for each other. So I'm like okay we gotta really dig into this some more and say why is that why is it that they feel like like the teachers are really good, they care for them, but yet when they're with each other they're having problems. So that's one that really intrigued me. The other thing intrigued me is when we d aggregate the data, we're not seeing the progress, we'd like to see with our special ed students that we're seeing with everyone. And so that's something we're gonna have to really think about when we go through, go through this process. And the other interesting thing will be what other people see because like I said I could look at the data 1000 times only see in a certain way what's really going to be exciting for me is to see what other people are picking up and thinking um as they review and decide about the data. Uh So I'm really excited about that, but for me I'm kind of a data nut. I always find it exciting and helpful to me and really making my decisions. Um So I'll be really curious to see. We don't just have hard data here.

00:26:17
We also have anecdotal data that's always interesting to see how people interpret the anecdotal data as they look at it. So for example, I was gonna put in a strength with the amount of budget has gone up, but I said depends on who looks at it as to whether they think it's gonna be a strength or not right? I think it's a strength because we have more money but the townspeople might be saying wait a minute my tax going up. So you know, so some of those perspectives in people's individual context is going to come out in this as well. So it'll be really interesting to see how that rolls out with our community to things that I'm thinking about. Their one is your expansive view of data, right? Qualitative quantitative. We're looking at survey and perception data as well as numerical grade and testing data, which I think I think when we don't have all those data streams available, we don't think about all those things as relevant. Important data. We then just already bias our interpretation because we're only getting a small slice of what's available to interpret. And the second thing is just how amazing it is that your response was, how other people are going to interpret it is what's exciting for you.

00:27:24
I mean that is the sign of shared leadership right there. That is amazing. And so I guess as we kind of moved to wrap up, one thing I'm curious to know is for other leaders out there. What is one thing that you would recommend that a district or school leader could do as soon as they end the episode to really get the ball rolling in something like creating a shared leadership committee or even more broadly just being their best leader self. I think the first thing has to really be to look at your structures and say, do you have a place for everybody and if you don't have a place for everybody to have a voice, that's a problem. So example, I'll give you every year I go to schools and I interview focus groups of students, right, because I want to make sure they have a voice. So I put that in my structure. So the first thing I would say is, where is your straw pictures and your opportunities to hear from all your different stakeholders? And if you don't have that, that's one of the first things I always suggest is that you get them and you really take a minute to list out who are the stakeholders, because sometimes we can miss groups and we don't even realize it, right, um and and run that by some people in the community and ask them all these, all the stakeholders for this community, because sometimes we don't realize there are certain stakeholder groups that have a different context.

00:28:39
We could say parents, but within parents this in our particular community, special education parents are are pretty active here and so you want to make sure you have an avenue for them. So to really think that out and sit down and put together a chat for yourself about where are these voices coming from? And if you see places where there is not, there's no place for them, then it's your responsibility to create that space and remember, you don't always have to be there, which as long as you are providing the space and someone to facilitate and have an avenue to get the information back is what's most important because I can't be everywhere all the time. But I have a host of people who I know are responsible for each of these groups and I use them. So this strategic planning, I'm not on any committee, but I'm gonna pop into each committee and I'm gonna listen for a little bit but my principles will bring that information back to me because I can't run them all. And so it's also thinking about who can you get to lead to help bring these collective voices back so that you are constantly in touch with them and not allowing yourself to forget about one of them.

00:29:45
And so that would be my advice to any leader listening to this podcast. I actually have a worksheet that kind of speaks to what you're talking about. So I can link that in the show notes too, if people just as a starting point because like you said, each community is going to have different stakeholders and we got to see is everyone included in this list. So I love that starting point. I'll link that in there. One of the things that's really fun to ask at the end of the podcast I always ask because the people on here are always lifelong learners, they're committed to professional growth. What's something that you have been learning about lately? Equity has been the major focus, I mean, with all the current politics um in the United States, it's very much been a focus of mine, and in in a big part of that focus is exactly what I told you with this paradigm shift. How do we go about eliciting conversations from all aspects without putting blame on anyone, right? Because when you go into a conversation about racism, about, you know, anything that's controversial, if you don't find a way to help people come together, they'll just go further apart.

00:30:52
And so a lot of my work has been, how do I do that and how do I ensure that we stick with it? And it's not something that's a one time wonder, because that's not gonna be helping anyone right. All it's gonna do is we had this flash in the plan about equity for a year and we're right back to doing what we were doing before. So the other question for me is really in my reading is about how do you sustain this over time? And some of that goes back to what we were just talking about that, Oh, she's leadership piece is an embedding it over the long term is key to this process. Uh And so that's a lot of what I've, I've been doing. Um, And I've been working not only here at the school level, but I've been working with the Mass Association school superintendents and the state on this. So one of the things that I worked with the state on is, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called influence 100. And one of the things we're doing is we have over the next 10 years, were trying to recruit 100 superintendents who are equity minded. They have a two year internship.

00:31:53
People can sign up, they have a two year internship, they have an opportunity to learn what it means to be an equity leader. Uh, and then they have an opportunity, hopefully they have opportunities to get into positions. And in that recruitment we're looking for all types of people, but we have a focus on bringing in more minority candidates as well. Because when you look at Massachusetts, I believe the numbers, about 36% of our students right now are minority. So we're getting to that 5050 slot, but only 4% of the population of superintendents in Massachusetts are of color. And so this is some of the work we're doing to try to make a difference in our state and working through that process as well. That's amazing work. And I can, like if there's a link to that, I can add that to the show notes too. So people can investigate the state website you should be able to find influence 100. They're perfect. Go on to M. A. S. S. Uh, they should have a statement about anti racist work. They will be launching the actual plan for the plan, um, at the spring convene on May 27th, but they have a statement about anti racist work they'll be doing and you can pull that off the M.

00:33:03
A. S. S. Site. Oh, great. Thank you so much. And the last question is, I know people are going to be like, I want to follow what Superintendent Fernandez is doing. I want to be in contact. Is there anywhere people can connect with you or follow what you're doing in your district? Right? They can always go to our district website. My email is there, um, and they can feel free to go through that. The other thing I would say is that if they are part of the massachusetts Association of Superintendents School Superintendents, I will be at the May 27th convene and talking about some of this. Um, I will also be at the M. A. S. S. Leadership, some are convened, so I will be available there and we're in the process of building a website where people will also be able to tie in to some of this work through M. A. S. S. So it's, it's coming, it's definitely coming. But anytime people can feel free to email me or call me. My goal is always, if it's about kids and about making sure that they're getting what they need.

00:34:04
I'm more than willing to talk to people. Superintendent Hernandez, thank you so much for talking to me today. Oh, no problem. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening. Amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me at lindsey Beth Alliance or leave a review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it until next time leaders continue to think big, act brave and be your best self.
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