Advocating for Equitable Urban Education with Dr. Sandy Womack

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

teacher success, student pass rates, diversity equity inclusion, urban schools, teacher retention, student persistence, DFW rates, social learning theory, community advocacy, educational leadership, student voice, teacher support, policy changes, teacher recruitment, student engagement

SPEAKERS

Sandy Womack, Speaker 1, Joi Patterson, Natalie Coleman, Audience Participant, Amy Vujaklija

Sandy Womack: 00:03

Because here's what I truly believe. I'm an educator, a heart always been an educator. I am pro teacher. I'm still a teacher. I believe that teachers want to be successful. They want to have high results. They want to have high pass rates. They want their students to walk out of their classroom learn. They said, I get I believe in my heart that they do.

Amy Vujaklija: 00:23

Welcome to our podcast, teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi I am Dr Amy V aclea, Director of educator preparation, and I

Joi Patterson: 00:35

am Dr Joi Patterson, Chief Diversity Officer. Our podcast addresses issues through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion, along with solutions for us to grow as educators.

: 00:49

So join us on our journey to become better teachers and leaders. So let's get into it. I

Sandy Womack: 00:58

want to introduce Dr Amy Vujaklija and Dr Joi Patterson. They are the CO hosts in their I think this is their fourth season now, their fifth season of teaching and leading with Dr Joi and Dr Amy. And it's available from wherever you access podcasts. We're excited to have them here today with our guest speaker, Dr Sandy Womack, who is with us today, all day, and is meeting with our campus. We have stakeholders that are here. We have students. We have high school students that are joining us later today. It's really exciting, but we are about to start a podcast episode, and so for the next 45 minutes or so, Dr Joi and Dr Amy will be interacting with Dr Womack, and there may be some opportunities to interact with you as an audience as well. So ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to our podcast recording. This is Dr Amy Vujaklija. Dr Joi Patterson and their guest, Dr Sandy Womack, welcome, and we look forward to learning a lot from today's session.

Joi Patterson: 01:57

Hello. Dr Joi, hello. Dr Amy, how are you today? I'm great. How are you?

Amy Vujaklija: 02:04

I'm excited,

Joi Patterson: 02:05

excited about what

Amy Vujaklija: 02:06

talking to Dr Sandy Womack.

Joi Patterson: 02:11

And this is our second time talking to Dr Womack, and it is still so it is the gift that keeps on giving. So when you go to the podcast, make sure you go, it's probably season two that we talked to Dr Womack. It was during the pandemic, and we have a list of questions. But while you were talking, kind of all my questions changed, and there was lots of food for thought, and it had me thinking about a lot of things. The one thing that a couple of things that I thought about, the first one is, don't expect what you don't assess. And I know you talked about P 12 performance, but we have to check our performance here as well. And it's not something that's and a lot of times, we assess our performance based on completers, how many students are persist, retain, graduate. But we also have dfws, you remember, you know what those are? These are actual ds that students receive, Fs and Ws, which impact their persistence rate. I always as an educator, I measured my success based on my students success. So if they were unsuccessful, I was unsuccessful as an educator, any of you want to be unsuccessful? So I think we all want to be successful in our career, and that's measured by our products, right? And our students are the beneficiary of all of our work. So once we start assessing and analyzing the DFW, which we hadn't done before because we were just looking at persistence and completion, those things, but DFW had a lot to do with that. So one of the things for diversity, equity, inclusion, our symbol, we have a heart and a mind, holding hands kind of over a book. So hearts, minds and knowledge. And you speak to that, and you really talk about the teachers, we expect them to have knowledge, right? We expect them to have the content. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they have the heart. And we first have to really, we really have to have the heart before we can put in the actions. And we have to want, we have to desperately want our students to succeed. So I do have a question somewhere in here. Dr, Amy, okay, I'm getting to that. And so when you wrote your first book, The question for you, what about your past, and especially as a teacher in your past, working in urban schools? What. Brought you to that passion of wanting to transform the urban school. That's number one. And then I have another question, where and how do we reach the point where urban schools and low performing schools are not synonymous? Because you talked about the zip code, right?

Sandy Womack: 05:24

I would say a couple things. I think the passion came from from my exposure, my experiences. I saw so many of my family members who did not do well in school, but were some of the most articulate, some of the best mathematicians, some of the best chemists in the world, but yet did not, you know, gravitate to education because it just wasn't relevant to them. They didn't see the education and income actually correlated. And so I wanted to do something different. And after hearing Dr Ben and talk about all of these things, I felt like it could make a difference. Then learning about Albert Bandura, social learning theory, and doing that top five and see how many people, no matter what, business, lawyers, clergy, hey, when you did top fives, I did a lot of public speaking. It always says schools like schools came up. And so I was like, Well, if I want to change the conditions of my community in some form, fashion or way. I may not be able to do it through the coaching, because I was a wrestling coach and a football coach, but if I can reach kids, if I if I can reach kids, then I can make an impact on the future, because it's hard to change a made up mind. And kids are still moldable. They're still malleable, and if you fill them with the knowledge early on, I felt like it would be able to help them improve their options. I wanted kids to have improved options. I knew what it was like to come home and not have electric or not have water, or, you know, everything is out on the corner. You trying to tell your friends that we're moving when, in fact, no, we got evicted, and I knew that my mom didn't have a large degree of education as well too, so her employment options were limited. And when I say education, I'm not just talking about college, like one of my best friends, probably the wealthiest gentleman I know, owns about 15 houses and four apartment complexes, but he's a carpenter, and he understood early on that if he knew how to build a foundation, electronics, drywall, carpeting, siding, plumbing, he learned all of those things early on that education is in your head. You take it with you everywhere you go. And I began to understand that. I mean, we went to St Kitts, and he told me to say, hey, you know, you work with me as an apprentice so we can get these great rates at this hotel at the Marriott. So I'm like, Man, I don't know nothing about Carmen. You just said, Just follow me. I said, But Ben, we don't have any tools. He said, Don't worry about that. We went to different rooms in a hotel at the Marriott, and he told them, we need this it'll take that much time. We need this tool. We'll do and I'm like, This guy does have one too. It's education. It's in his head. So I wanted to be able to work with my staff and the community to help our children understand that you need to be able to read well, you need to be able to write well, you need to be able to speak well, but more importantly, you need to be able to critically think and have a skill set that's transferable, and education is knowledge. It's in your head, so you don't have to pack it in a suitcase. And how do I try to make that relevant to students as well as staff? That this is going to get these kids generational options, generational change, and they may not be summa cum laude or, Lord have mercy, as long as you graduate, but ultimately, they would have a skill, a certification, a trade, a craft or something on paper that would allow them to sustain themselves and take care of their families, and it was because of my experience as a kid and not being able to do that. So I think we all pull from our own places, and that's what I pulled from, and I saw it as a viable option, because I began to do better, and I was like, Well, you know, if I can figure this out, you know, and all I know is wrestling, if I can figure this out, if I can get them with this foundation in reading and understanding test taking vocabulary, because it's not that you don't understand that the vocabulary is different. Let me get you this vocabulary, and also understanding this vocabulary and code switching will help making it relevant. Those are the type of things that motivated me to say we can do this. And I wanted to do it because people said it couldn't be done. And so that that motivated me like, hey, there's a nominalist. It is. There a lot of people that are not but we can do this, and it's happening. So those are the type of things that motivated me. Dr Monroe, she really helped a lot, because she helped train me and give me a foundation in ways to turn around schools. And I wanted to make sure that the things that she was teaching me that I was able to use with my staff. And then, you know, she always talked about discipleship. You create disciples. You create apostles, you create more people to create the message. When she gave me that example, he said, Jesus changed the world with 12 people. One of them went on his team. I'm like, wow, I had never thought about that before. Like disciples went out and they spread the message. So how do you work with other people to spread that message so that therefore it's not such a heavy lift or your own. And those are the type of things like it went from from from me to we. How can we do this in trying to work on the attitudes and beliefs of people, those are the type of things. Dr Joi,

: 10:31

your passion is evident, and it's contagious, okay? And you talk about the we now. Dr Joi and I have done research on why educators stay and they ranked the reasons why they are in the classroom what they love most, and it's the bond with their colleagues. It's the impact on student learning. They love that about being in the classroom. There are things that they don't like about being in the classroom. And we all know pay is an issue, maybe resources can be an issue. But then we asked for them to rank what would keep you in the classroom? What is it that if you could have this one thing, you would stay, and they said, administrator support. Now you've retained teachers. You've worked with teachers, and you say we when you're talking about the staff, what does administrator support look like when we're talking about teacher retention and keeping them in the classroom, they love the students.

Sandy Womack: 11:48

That's a really good question. I would go back to when I would start off with those top fives. I would also ask, if you look in the book, it talks about get to know your staff. So I would have one on one interviews with my staff when I came in. So I became a principal. Like I said, at 29 years old, I was probably too green even know what I didn't know. But I always had been around people. I've been a people person. And so with that being the case, like when you have me here today, I sat outside and just watched the people come in. I wanted to see who was coming in the ages, the ranges, the dress, the style I just I'm a people watcher, and so in my first principalship, I brought everybody in. Nick span deal liked to play guitar. He was a social studies teacher. Chip was a former chef. You know, Jonathan Swint loved to play chess, and I got to know about them, because even in that top five, they talk about their schools, they talk about their families, but they would also talk about other things. And let's be realistic, when you're in low performing schools, it's a mindset. It's a belief, too. And so some of the staff members are fine. They hide in those schools, they actually let me hide here because the expectations are already low, so I don't have to worry about improving the scores here at all. I'm like, I can hide in these buildings unless you had a leader that's like, not under our watch. And it's difficult to evaluate a person out like, I'm in a union. I got such and such time, but when you're talking about retaining them, we had to find ways, collectively, and not I, but we like Myra, like I said, was the authority. So Myra ran our social committee, and everybody would give $20 to have jeans on Friday. Well, she started making us give $20 every month. I'm like Myra, that's almost $200 to wear some jeans, but she would use that money for us to have Christmas parties and to have spring flings and to do things that would make people want to be in our building because we were underperforming building where we're constantly under the radar, and so to do things based on that, but we also have money because our building was underperforming at the time. So, Nick, who plays guitar? Man, Nick, why don't you do after school guitar classes? So he helped me learn how to play my bass chip. Hey, man, you're a former chef. We got kids who want to learn how to cook. Here's a budget. We can start a Culinary Arts Club. Jonathan did chess. Hey, here's a supplemental for chess. So tapping into the things that they would do outside of school, because school is taxing, and I used a formula called five times seven. There are 24 hours in the day. You work for seven. Just give me your best seven hours, five days a week. The other 17 is on you. I just need your best seven times five. And we kept that poster plastered everywhere, five times seven, five times seven, because I know you have family, you have children. Some people are dealing with health care, financial issues. Your car might have brought there a lot of things, just day to day. Thank God. It only come one day at a time, and every day is not the same. But I just need you for seven, seven solid and then tapping into their interest. And I think. That helped. And then plus, Kyle had been there for 20 years, so he was good at helping me know, like, hey, this kid you talk about the s, 70% of the kids are failing algebra one. It's been that way for years. So we start putting data in front of everybody. There was never a discussion without data. When I say, never, never a discussion in our BLTs, our staff meeting without data, and that went to our force field analysis. What is our desired outcome, what is our current status, what's working for us, what's working against us. Let's put the data up here. Here's staff attendance this month. Here's student attendance this month. Here's our in progress, grade reports. Myra, it looks like 40% of the kids in your class at the quarter are failing. Chrome, it looked like 60% of the kids in your classroom are passing with a C or above. For the kids who are failing, what didn't they learn? And that would be my question, not you got 60% failing. What didn't they learn? Because when you going to reteach that, that means 60% of the kids in your classroom didn't get it. And we started having discussions to make it more of a profession, as opposed to, as opposed to personal. And we were able to, you know, retain several staff members once we start seeing success, success, breathe success. But we lost some staff members. We have to let some staff members go. And that wasn't just at Hartford. That's been in any school system I worked in, and I worked in six different school systems, Alliance, Akron, Canton, Columbus, Cleveland, heights, and I'm forgetting one in Cleveland. So you know, we tried to keep data at the forefront, create celebrations, start social committees, find out what the staff members were interested in, but being transparent and up front with our data, just like you said, Dr Joi, we posted it like, this is the pass rate. This is the failure rate. Here's the quarterly checkpoints and benchmarks, and those are the type of things we did, but I had to tap into other people's skill. I'm not good at the social committee, but Myra was really good, and she built the community, plus she was good, like build a development and fundraising. And

Joi Patterson: 17:04

I love how you call call their names too. One of the things that really, really disheartened me as an American is that all schools are not equal, and I'm not even talking about equity right now. I'm just talking equality. And you mentioned earlier that the better you perform, the more funding that was taken from you. That's by design. That's correct, because you were not supposed to be doing what you were doing. And when I walk into a school like in Gary Indiana, anybody familiar with Gary Indiana? I drove through Gary on my way to Chicago. So Gary Indiana used to have five booming high schools. As a matter of fact, when China came to the United States maybe 60 years ago to learn about the education system. They came to Gary Indiana. Wow. So that was the model system for the United States, and there's lots of documentaries on that. So today, Gary Indiana has one high school, and it appears that that high school keeps getting smaller and smaller in size because of the mold in the building. So we went from five high schools to one high school that keeps physically getting smaller because of the amount of mold. How does that even exist in America where our education system is so unequal, I want to know from you. Dr Womack, what resonates with you when you I'm sure you've walked through many schools that were low performing, so what was most upsetting to you and what was most hopeful for you? So I'll speak

Sandy Womack: 18:57

from personal experiences that are going on right now. You know, I'm closer to 33 years in public education. Now in Ohio, 33 you can come out with unreduced benefits. So I'm closer to the end and to the beginning. And with that being the case, the 19 schools that I have in the current school district I work in, when I inherit the buildings, Ohio ranks you on the performance index, and your higher PR score is the higher your school is ranked when I took over these 19 schools, 13 and there are 3352 schools in the state of Ohio, not counting private schools, every last one of them is ranked based on their PR. 13 of the 19 schools that they gave me to take over were below 3100 that means they're in the lowest 10% of schools in the entire state. And so, you know, and I still haven't been able to get every school where I wanted to be. I'm not the principal in there. In 19 schools is a lot. So I'm trying to do the same thing that Dr Monroe taught me, create disciples, create apostles, create people who believe in what you're trying to do, so that therefore. They can duplicate that with their staffs, and that has been difficult. It's been a tough nut to crack there, and some of my principals, I like to mention them by name, didn't have to mention my school district, and so, you know, on a personal day to day. So I won't get into that. But with that being the case, we're also in the process of consolidating schools, and I go into some of the buildings, and I'm like, you know, you still had a urinals on the floor. As a matter of fact, we had pipes that have bursted a couple buildings today that I got calls about. We have schools that have boarded windows and they put in individual classroom heating units, but you never put ventilation, so it's below zero. You got an individual classroom heating unit in there, but there's no ventilation, so no it's like having your heater on in the window open. And so all of those things still exist today in 2025 and that's why I talk about that trio model, the school, family and community. The young lady over there, there was a doctor, she asked me about the politics associated with it. My principals understand that. See that they send out emails. They get in contact with operations. They get in contact with grounds and maintenance. They've done everything. They put in the work orders, but the things still don't change. And so we try to create advocacy like as a building leader, and I said this before, you are the leader of a multi million dollar operation. Carry yourself as such, because you are a CEO. You really are. So who are the people in the community who have the power, the authority, the influence, to make the changes that you know need to be made? But even if you speak on it, you haven't been able to do it. Hey, I put in the work order, that room is still cold. These units are not working. I sent in the information, nothing has changed. And so how do you work with community organizations, politicians, external stakeholders? How do you work with banks and corporations? How do you work with people in your community to advocate for the things that you know need to be changed, but nobody is willing to address because you don't have a political clout, the wherewithal, or, you know, you're not a best friend of a board member who you can get on the phone, underhand, like, Hey, listen, he ain't working at the building today. All right, we're going to take care of that right now, because that's a board member. How do you create that over the course of time, so that therefore those things that you see are unequal? As I said, you can't have a discussion about equity until you talk about the inequities. I drove through Gary Indiana, and I was just like, wow. I'm thinking Michael Jackson and Jackson Five. This is I was in Gary Indiana. I was like, whoo, this is not what I thought it would be. And that was just recently driving to my grandfather's house off of West 95th that was a few months ago. But I said that that, you know, you create that advocacy, because there's only so much you can do as an individual. You know, you you have to create followership, and that's difficult. It is. And I say this right now, public education is one of the last things has been, has not been deregulated and privatized to the point that is every school district that you go to. And this is something I think people think about. Our superintendent's budget is as large as the mayor's budget. The mayor's operating on a $1.5 billion budget. Our superintendent is operating on a $1.45 billion budget. So they're that close. He has over a million people. We got 47,000 kids. So that just lets you know about the economic viability, the division of labor and how much money goes into public schools now that money is being diverted to private schools, is being diverted to community schools, and in doing so, at what cost to the infrastructure to the public school? Because we have to take everybody. We can't say that you didn't meet the admissions criteria, or you are not of our faith, or you are not we don't have that option. And in pulling that dollars like this, I got three daughters. When I had one daughter, she'd get all the money. I got two daughters. They could split it. Now I got three, everybody looking, but they don't get the same amount, because it has to be split three ways. And I think I put a four finger, three ways. Oh, my goodness, I got a grandbaby now too. She's a girl too, Amina. Yeah, I got four girls now, and they're like, how you put money to Amina account? She just a baby. I'm like, yeah, it's a little bit easier to put in there. Y'all need big money. But ultimately, we have to find a way to advocate or produce a product that is such that everybody wants to be there. We have to produce a better product. I hate I'm not saying we do. We really have to produce a product that will let people say, look at the amenities that you have here. We see schools that don't look anything like this, like it's like Brick City. I'm like, This is who wants to be there, and how do you provide an environment that's esthetic? Pleasing to where kids and children want to come. And so there's a lot of things that we have to do collectively in order to make that happen. And I think it starts with the future educators of America, the people that we currently have, the people during year one through five, as opposed to, you know, 33 years into this sharing it, but hopefully give them to the people out of energy to keep fighting this good fight.

: 25:25

The connections with the community are so very important. And you talked about the connections and the relationships with your staff, with the teachers. How do students influence change? How did they influence that buy in from the teachers and even from the community?

Sandy Womack: 25:47

So I had a friend by the name of Mark favors. Always I give credit where credit is due. Mark used to work for the Democratic Party. Came to Canton, Ohio when Barack Obama was running for president. President Obama was supposed to speak at my school, but the gymnasium was he wasn't president. Then he was just running. He was a candidate, but our gymnasium was too small, so as a result of he went to a local high school in Canton. But Mark said, Hey, listen, I wasn't able to get candidate Obama to your school, but what about bringing a group of kids to New York? I was like, What are we going to do in New York? We're going to we going to go to the Statue of Liberty. We're going to get on the subway. He says, No, we're going to take them to Albany. I said, to do what he's like, so that they can understand how lobbying works. We're going to take them to Albany, New York. And yes, we're going to go to cordoza School of Law. We're going to go to Columbia, we're going to go to Staten Island Ferry. But we're going to take our kids to Albany, New York, so they can understand how the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government work, and they can become advocates for themselves. Eye opening, they said in meetings where they talked about rent reform, so our kids began to understand that vocabulary that we were talking about, carbonated beverage dispenser, improving my currency and capital. Why it's important to say so, who are your constituents and what does that look like? All of that language became relevant to them. And so when they went back home to Canton, after being in New York City and Canton only got 70,000 people. They're like, if we can do this in 8 million people, we definitely can go back to Canton, and those children became advocate. They went to city council meeting and said, Hey, listen, you tore down our pool. We at least want a water park. What is the budget for Parks and Recreation? They begin to ask the right questions. How is that budget being allocated? I didn't have to do that. Our children began to do that. And every year for five years, we did the New York Civic Leadership Academy. We met. We went to the Adam Clayton Powell building. We went to Bill Clinton's office, where you could push a button in the wall open up to take you into the office. I'd never seen anything like that before. We went to Cardozo School of Law, and no students began to become advocates for themselves, because they understood the process, and we called it the three P's, and the politicians, I think it might have been Carlton haste. He said, You got to remember these three P's, and it's really four. He said, the first thing you do, he said, you call somebody on the phone, you document it. The second thing you do is you follow up on paper, you document the next thing you do is show up in person, you document it, and if you don't get the results you need, on the phone, on paper, in person, then you begin to protest and you organize in a way. So our kids became familiar with the American political process, recognizing judicial, you know, interprets the law, legislative, makes the law executive is responsible for enforcing the law. They learned it, and so they became advocates for themselves. It's like Dr Monroe said, creating disciples and people who understand who now can share it to other people and knows of the type of things. And I've always looked for student voice, hey, we don't just want your qualitative data in regards to or quantitative. 40% of the kids are on the DFI list or DFW list. Let me talk to the kids in the class. Why aren't you learning that what's going on in the class? Well, he doesn't give us opportunity for homework, or I'm not interested in what's being taught. Or 60% of this grade is based on test, and you give that feedback to your teachers. Because here's what I truly believe. I'm an educator, a heart always been an educator. I am pro teacher. I'm still a teacher. I believe the teachers want to be successful. They want to have high results. They want to have high pass rates. They want their students to walk out of their classroom learning. So again, I believe in my heart that they do. I think somewhere along the way, because of all of the standardization teaching to the test, not for it makes it difficult. And if they have not found a technique or strategy that they can use to make what they're teaching relevant, then therefore they become frustrated. And when they become frustrated, they begin to normalize these low. Performance and begin to look at outside entities as the reason for it, and that becomes difficult, which is why you got to get everybody working together under a common goal and a shared vision. We have

Joi Patterson: 30:13

so many great questions. So here's my last question for you, and because we have a diverse group in the room, we have P 12, educators and administrators, we have higher ed faculty and administrators here. What would you say to Educator Preparation faculty? So higher ed faculty because we are preparing the educators for P 12. So what would you say to us about how we should be preparing candidates for achieving student success in urban schools?

Sandy Womack: 30:53

First of all, I'd say, did you have to let them know it can be done? You have to take them to places where it is being done. They have to see examples of these schools of success. Because, you know, he who tells the story first normally tells the story best, and we don't have a chance to control the message. In many cases, it's the story of the low performing, the underperforming. So you have to take them to pockets, where people get a chance to see that. I would say that would be the first thing I was talking to the gentleman as a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, who's on your staff, who's the head of the educational leadership department, the EDD degree. And, you know, my wife has a PhD, but she had to get administrative license. She had to take that test three times, so have to start looking at the gatekeeper assessments, because you need to have a certification. I want my doctor to be licensed. I want my dentist to be licensed. I want my teacher to be licensed. I licensed. But have to start looking at a test where you see that, in some cases, with the article in educational week magazine talking about this, that people are passing the bar at higher rates than they passing the practice exam, and that's amazing. Like, wait a second, I spent all this time in school to get this certification. Now I can't pass this practice exam knowing that in charter and private you don't have to have, you don't have to pass the exam. So why do we have a certain set of rules for public education, which we don't have in some of the other entities that we do? And so in doing that, I would say, take them to places where it's being successful, where it's being done, and not just on state tests, it might be the CTE programs, where people are coming out with the certification in carpentry masonry, as I said, my best friend, licensed carpenter and a contractor, and find ways for them to be successful, but let them see it. Because seeing is believing. Where can I take our students to where they can see pockets of this success and then therefore try to duplicate it. That would be one thing. And I would also say, you know, make sure you got the right candidates. Because for some people, you know, the attrition rate for teachers in urban schools and the turnover rate before year five is phenomenal. So you have your youngest teachers getting your toughest assignments. So who are the mentors that you place with them when they walk out? So if I'm going to govern State alumnus like I think one of the members here said, Hey, I'm GSU alumni. Hey, place them with a GSU student so that therefore they get a chance to shadow and begin to see we have field experience, you got to do your student teaching, but actually get in there early to say, hey, if this is what I want to do, and we got to start talking to our legislators about making sure people have a livable wage so that you don't always see your strongest not your strongest teacher, a lot of coaches moving into administration so that they can take care of themselves and their family. Like I had to work two jobs when I was a math teacher, and so when I became an administrator, helped me take care of myself and my family a little bit better, but at what cost to the classroom? I wish I could have taught a little bit longer, but I couldn't have a livable wage. I might have been out here looking at the same thing my dad was talking about, like, you got to weigh that out. And I'm like, Man, I'm a teacher. So how do you find a way to increase through policy, through policy, pushing state legislators, finding senators and congressmen, representatives who believe in what we're doing at that level so that they can put things in the policy to ensure that we have teachers for the future, because if there's no hope for the youth, then there's no hope for the future. And we got to find a way to do that. So advocacy, advocacy,

Joi Patterson: 34:33

and I know what you're saying is true, because actually Amy and I put an immersion program in place, and we had secondary teachers go into an urban school, and the goal was that they would be there for more than a year, go directly into student teaching and get a job there their first couple of weeks, they wanted to leave. They were scared. There was a fight at school, and they was like, Where have you put us? You. We don't belong here. They wanted to leave. A year later, you couldn't get them to leave. And it made a difference, because even as a student teacher, they didn't have to ask anyone where the copy machine was, where this was. And so being able to stay there and become employed really helped them to be not only ready, but they love the students, and it made a huge difference. Well,

Sandy Womack: 35:24

I know some states were even looking at residency. So if I'm an educator, we will build apartment complex and houses and things of that nature, and you get it at a supplemental or cost, so that therefore you can make livable ways, but you'll be able to all types of things to attract people to the profession,

: 35:45

we're going to open it up to a question. We have any questions from the audience that we could ask. Dr Womack,

Audience Participant: 35:58

so I really loved hearing about your supporters and convincing doubters, showing them the data, pulling people along. What advice would you give to educational leaders about handling perhaps people who are more obstructors? What advice would you give them?

Sandy Womack: 36:17

The truth is easy to remember, so whatever discussion I'm gonna have with you as a naysayer, I'm gonna come with data on this day, on this time, on this situation. Here's what we tried to do, and just remember the truth is easy to remember, and you have to, you have to advocate for your students at all times. It's an occupational hazard. It's tough. I've had to let go quite a few administrators, some people you know were like elders in my church. It was deep. But I looked at the numbers, the graduation rate at this school is been 54% as I told you, I have 13 schools that were ranked below 3100 and I got near you, got a graduation rate of 51% for the last three years you are leading this school, sir, I understand what's going on, but leadership matters, and having a tough conversation with data and say so what needs to change? And have it, because I'm not going to be walking around uncomfortable and you as comfortable as the day is long, like I can't do that, and the pressure that we get as educators in order to improve is deep. But I've always said at this point, I won't say always, well, I could be about about 45 I said, Listen, I'm not going to be walking around here uncomfortable. And I got principals with teachers who are they're comfortable with the current levels of performance. And how do I do that? I start straight with the data. Here's what the data says, Here's what it suggests. And I asked four questions at all time, what does the data show? What does the data suggest? What story is not being told? Like, tell me something about this, because it may be something I don't know. You know, you got 50% of your staff members that out on absenteeism, on family medical leave, all right, that's a story. I don't know. Final question, so what? Now? What? So what we gonna do? And that's tough, and some of it is not always data. It may be personal issues, responsibility. We call it conflict, unbecoming of a professional educator, whatever that situation is because at the end of it, every two weeks, that check is going to come and you're going to have benefits in health care. But my kids, they don't. And so with that being the case, yeah, this is almost personal. How you going to be comfortable? Your check just came this Friday. You didn't took your kids on vacation. You got braces for everybody in the family. 70% of the kids in your class are failing. What does your data show? What to suggest? What story is not being told? So what now? What now? That's a cookie color template, but I use it in most discussions that I have, when I have to have a discussion about, hey, this is not working for us. What needs to change. And I tell you what, in my 30s, that was harder to have. But as I'm getting closer to the end than I am to the beginning, those conversations are much easier to have, especially if I've worked with you for two three years, like first year, like, unless you're egregious, I'm trying to work with you. Let's get it together. Second year, you figure it out. But by year three, if I'm seeing this, then we got to sit down and figure because, hey, what are your interests? What do you like? What do you do? Hey, what are your top fives? I've used all these things. Here's our desired outcome, here's our current status. But after about year three, very similar what they were going to do to me. We need to see these results so that in this impacting kids. It's tough, but those are the type of things that I try to do, because you gotta have it, if not, your supervisor become looking for you like, hey. Doctor Jerry, we this is what's happening. I hope that answered the question.

Natalie Coleman: 39:55

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Doctor Coleman, here, secondary education and. First of all, I heard you this morning. I told you that I love your story, but more importantly, I love how you present it. And I could go into that later, if you care to know what I mean by that, because you present it very well in a way that's not braggadocious about, if that makes sense. So I love your journey to this space, and so I'm not a recruiter, but we have, we have very low numbers across secondary education here as far as individuals who want to be teachers. And so I've asked a lot of my brothers, why did you ever become a teacher? And this is probably in the last six, seven years. And he said to me, why would I go back somewhere where I was mistreated, where I was told I'm this, this and this, and I was like, Wow. I never thought, because I love school. I mean, it was it was things happen, but I love school. So I want to know what's your advice? One, well, first, I want to know your best experience with black boys, like, what's one thing that will always stand out to you? Like you change this person's life, or you change the group, or you implemented a program of some sort. They worked. And then also, how do you get African American males to understand you will be a superhero if you become a teacher, that's how, that's what I you're going to be a superhero, yeah, so just programs, or the best experience you had with black male students, and then how you get them to come become educators?

Sandy Womack: 41:31

Okay? So I'll talk about programs right now. As I said before we started this thing called the real League. So it's called region three, extracurricular, Extended Learning league. And there's, like, some videos. If you go to my LinkedIn, or if you go to Instagram, you'll see it's called the real League. It's a video. And what it is, is it was an intramural sports league. Very simply this, we knew sports in the inner city is big, and it wasn't started by me. One started with me and a few of my principals, and we had Esser money, and so since we had that extra money, we said, hey, let's start a basketball league. And we started an intramural basketball league for females and males, and it ended up becoming a cheerleading League. We had more cheerleaders than we had basketball players, but every and there's a lot that I can go on because this is just recent and fresh in my mind. And it's also do, I'll get into it. And so every Saturday all of my elementary schools, all 14 of them, started a real League. Man. We got 1500 to 1800 parents coming out every Saturday to watch their kids perform. The cheerleaders are out there performing. And in order to play, your grades, attendance and behavior, have to be on par that week. Can't be in the principal's office, couldn't be an in school suspension. Got to be in school all week long, and you got to go to study table. So in order to play on Saturday, you have to do all of that. Well, there are only, like 14 slots on the basketball team, but the cheerleaders, like 30 slots out there. So it ended up becoming almost a cheerleading competition as well as basketball competition. We did this for three years, and every last one of those schools improved, what's called their value added and gap closing academically at the elementary because we started choosing to read, I mean, to read naturally program, kids had to participate in it, and parents came out. And so now community agencies were able to come out every Saturday because, like, we got all of these parents coming out. So the hospitals, the clinics, the men's groups, all start coming to these games on Saturdays. Now, once the money was gone. Now we don't have the money for the league, but Nationwide Children's Hospital, and I'll mention them, say we'll fund soccer, because we have a group in Columbus called the crew. And so there it became a part of it. I wanted to keep basketball. I really wanted wrestling, but they didn't do wrestling, but basketball is what they did, and that had been successful. That New York Civic Leadership Institute with Mark favors and all of the state legislators in New York who even helped us when they were trying to close the building by writing letters of support. That was a great example. We started wrestling clubs, because that a lot of knucklehead kids who was getting in trouble, and so therefore I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna teach you how to wrestle, because I was a knucklehead kid, and it got me to college. So those are the type of things that I think have been successful as well as, and this is a controversial topic here, but it's easier to tell the truth because we were able to generate revenue and economic funds, and people wanted to support us for different things in different school districts, if our kids made the honor roll or the mayor role, you got $10 you got $20 so therefore we could associate Education with income. And so we start paying the kid. If you make the honor roll and you make the merit roll, when we get to this nine week assembly, guess what? You got $10 coming? Well, bro, I need you to put in $200 and put it into our PTO organization and such and such. So I can pay these kids when they make the honor roll, the mirror roll, after a while, people look. It like, hey, we don't want to necessarily get money, but we'll buy jackets and coats and tennis shoes. So they begin because, you know, I work in high poverty schools, and your tennis shoes is like your car, so, you know, you got some Jordans on. That's a Porsche. And as a result of it, we heard start working with people to make donations in order to support academic achievement. And those type of things have been things that I say are really successful. The M Sam program, minority student achievement network in Cleveland Heights brought me out here to Evanston, Illinois, to see some of the top performing schools. All of those type of things have helped create student advocacy and student voice, because they had to put conferences together. So it's so many success stories that go on. I lost a lot of kids though, you know, I lost diamond, I lost Anthony Moore, I lost Kelvin Moore, I lost tan, I lost Mikey Sieber, man, Portia, Patrick Carpenter, since I've been in Columbus, we've lost, yeah, we've lost, I've lost a lot of kids in the schools that I worked in too, and that's that that's devastating. I never want to get to a point where it's like callous is on my hand. They just there's part of the job. And so we've lost a lot of kids due to violence in the communities, and that's the truth, just being real. But there's been, I would say, more successes than there have been been losses, and we have to find a way to tell that story. How did I get into education? The money I made as a first year teacher was three times the money that my mom was getting on the SSI check. So I thought that was long money when I signed a one year $24,000 contract. Listen, I saw what my mom put on that FAFSA, $821 a month. No wonder we getting evicted, no wonder we getting kicked out. No wonder the gas is not on. Now. Wonder you putting the telephone in my name, you know, and then don't pay the bill, and I gotta pay it when I get grown, to get my own phone. But once I saw that, and they talked to me about $24,000 not recognizing FICA STRS, all the stuff was going to be taken out. You know, I didn't know that when that that much was going to be taken out, that that was money to me, because I was broke. We were broke my I was economically destitute. But with that being the case, that that was a lot of money to me at the time. It helped me take care of my grandmother, helped my mom with some different things, but eventually that wasn't enough to take care of. Hey, I want a roommate no more. You know, I'm on my own apartment. Alright? I want this 2006 I want a 2016 and I had to find a way to let educators know that I couldn't just say this is a calling. I need you to do this for the kids. Listen, I told you a month well, I don't know if you're grown G, R, O, W N, on and why you need to be grown, because the first of the month is going to come for the rest of your life. Every first them bills is going to come. How are you going to take care of yourself and your family and sustain it, you know? And so I said, hustle. How you sustain the life you expect? And that's what I started talking to kids about. I said, this is your hustle, man, this is how you sustain the life that you expect. And so what does that look like? Well, I practiced 12 hours a week to wrestle a six minute match, and I still was tired. You got to put in the work, and you got to love this. So when you talk to people who you're trying to recruit into education, I think you have to take them to the schools and show them success as well. And we have to become our best marketers. It's a lot of teachers telling teachers, like, Listen, man, but I had to do this all over again. Ain't no way I would, man, listen, not at that school, bro, it's another way that you can do this, and your money gets better if you do such and such,

Sandy Womack: 48:49

and we have to do a better job of marketing to our customers, or as Mount Union did grow your own, have a great experience while you're in School, because just like you said that, brother said that, you know, hey, why would I go back to something? I had a teacher that lied on me. I'll never forget it. In the fourth grade, took me home, told my mom that I said this, this and that not acted up, but she didn't added a whole bunch of mustard to it. I'm like, I didn't do all of that, but my mom gave me a spanking, and I never forgot it. So when I became a principal, I remember when teachers would come in with statements, and I'd be like, hold up, hold up, hold up. Okay. What happened? Yes. And this kid said, Okay, I got it. Let me talk to the student. You're gonna take their word over mine. I remember when my teacher told a story on me. I'm like, so grown people tell stories too. I would say, let me get some student statements. Let me do some things differently so I can find out what really happened. Give me some time to investigate this. I'll get back with you. You're not going to listen. Nobody did. We're going to figure this out. You go back to your class. I'm in my office. You got to teach. I got to run a building. And so you know, you have to find a way. It to work with them from where they're at, man, work with them from where they're at and find out what skills they have and tap into it. Like I played trumpet, all right? I never wanted to be a music teacher, but I could play trumpet, so that might have been something that would have interested me. Like, hey, you could be a music teacher. I want to be a wrestling coach. You have to tap into the skill set that the individuals has. Because Ben could be a construction management or a carpentry teacher in our building, but he'd have to get a master's degree and get all of these other certification. But this guy's a master builder. You know, you may be interested in auto mechanics. Hey, we need people to teach auto mechanics. You may be interested in coaching. Hey, we need coaches so tap into the interests that are already there. You like fashion design, hey, you can do that and teach. And so those are some of the things that I would suggest. Is find out what their interests are, tap into them and let them know that it's a viable option. And in the long run, your money may start off slow, but we got to push policy, because if we don't keep teachers. We can forget it. We gotta find a way to recruit and retain teachers and tap into a lot of them who want to be coaches. I got into because I went to coach, but then Dr Ben came and I found out I couldn't teach African American Studies anywhere like they ain't teaching that. Nah. My coach said, but you can coach, Sandy, and if you can coach, you need to be a teacher. And I'm like, Well, none of my coaches was teachers in my school, but it's like, yeah, but you'd have a better option to do that. And I began to do research. I'm like, oh, so teachers get first options on coaching positions in schools. Never knew that. I guess nobody wanted to coach a book through high school. So we have firemen and people worked in the mental health services facilities and security officers and everybody, but ultimately, tap into what they're good at, what they're interested in, and let them know that you can pass this on to the future. Man, you know, somebody did it for you. Nobody stands alone, and that's what I say. But we got a lot of work to do. Dr Lohman, we got a lot of work to do. Got to pay him more too you definitely, we definitely gotta find a way or housing, student loan debt relief, something that's going to say to balance out what I may not make in my salary, you're going to help me with subsidized housing. You're going to help me with property tax or down payments. You're going to help me like a VA or a GI Bill. You're going to help me with something like that? Thank you. Those would be the things, and that's going to take legislators. We have to advocate for ourselves. I'll stop here, but I want to say this. I was a legislative intern for a representative in the state of Ohio. I'll never forget what he said. He said, Sandy, teachers are wimps. I said what he said, The only time we show up is when it's going to affect our STRS or something that's going to take place in regards to our retirement system, but in regards to policies on this part, he said, I said, Why would you say that? He said, Have you ever been to a State Board of Education meeting? I said, No. Why would I go? He said, who makes a decision in your district? Said the school board, he said, So why wouldn't you go to a State Board of Education meeting? They make the decisions for the state. And it was eye opening to me to hear the perspective of somebody who was an elected official on us. We have to be able to advocate, to say, hey, you give this much to corrections. You're giving this much to joint Medicaid oversight committee? You know, you gave this much to early childhood education. When are you going to allocate the funds necessary so districts are not just relying on property tax value. You know, our federal Title One funds coming in and they're being dispersed. We have to become informed enough to advocate for ourselves, and maybe those are some of the things I'll do as I get closer to the retirement age, is to be able to advocate for what is necessary to ensure that you have a viable teaching force. Because we have to advocate. We have to penitentiaries. Advocate the jails. Advocate medicine is advocate. We have to advocate.

: 54:04

Thank you so much. Dr Sandy Womack, I appreciate everything you've said today. We have loved this conversation, and I can't wait to have another one on teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi, thank you. Thank you for listening to teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi. Visit our website at G, O, v, s, t.edu/teaching, and leading podcast to see the show notes from this episode,

Joi Patterson: 54:41

we appreciate Governor State University's work behind the scenes to make publishing possible. Stay tuned for more episodes with Dr Amy and Dr Joi you.