Today's guest Dr. Piedad Kaye has spent 40 years working in multilingual education – as an educator, researcher, and district leader. Most recently, Piedad served as Director of Bilingual, ESL, and Foreign Language Education for Mannheim School District 83 outside Chicago, where she helped build an asset-based bilingual and biliteracy program. Her research has focused on bilingual education, biliteracy, and the professional development of bilingual and ESL educators. And this past school year, Piedad retired after four decades in the field – which makes this a particularly special moment to have her with us. She has spent a career thinking about what multilingual learners deserve, what educators need in order to serve them well, and what it actually takes to build those systems in practice. And if you're listening to this episode, please subscribe to our newsletter! Just visit medleylearning.com/podcast to get all our latest drops, all the resources we discuss on the show, and so much more.
Piedad: We would evaluate every child one by one. It was what language is in the home? How are the parents communicating with the child? What I would do sometimes is I would call the home in the evening and I would hear what music was playing in the background, what TV was playing in the background, and I could hear the language of the home informally without letting the families know what I was doing. When you call the family and the recording of the voicemail is in another language, then you know there's another language in there, and we want to capitalize on that. But we want to set up the kids for success. The kids would come in, they wouldn't be speaking Spanish, they understood everything with abuelita, with uncles and aunts. This is a child that's prime for biliteracy. Brandon: Hey everyone. Hola a todos. I'm Brandon Cardet-Hernandez, and you're listening to Leading Multilingual Learning, powered by Medley Learning. I am so excited to welcome you to Season 2 of our show. We have a ton of exciting conversations ahead, and I'm really excited to introduce you to some incredible educators, researchers, and leaders who are pushing our field forward. Each week, we'll dig into the big questions shaping multilingual education right now. And as always, we'll get practical about what this work looks like for students, educators, and our communities. And one more thing, before we get started. If you're enjoying the show, head over to medleylearning.com/podcast and subscribe to our newsletter. We'll send you new episodes each week as they drop, all the resources we discuss on the podcast, and more about our incredible guest and other updates from Leading Multilingual Learning. So sign up today, medleylearning.com/podcast. Now, let's get into the conversation. Brandon: I am so excited to welcome an amazing educator and a dear friend, Piedad Kaye. Dr. Kaye has spent 40 years working in multilingual education as an educator, as a researcher, and as a district leader. And most recently, she served as the Director of Bilingual, ESL, and Foreign Language Education for Mannheim School District 83 right outside of Chicago, where she helped build an asset-based bilingual and biliteracy program. Piedad's research has focused on bilingual education, biliteracy, and the professional development of bilingual and ESL educators. And this past school year, Piedad retired after 40 years in the field, which makes this a particularly special moment to have her with us. She has spent a career thinking about what multilingual learners deserve, what educators need in order to serve them well, and what it actually takes to build those systems in practice. Welcome to the podcast. Piedad: Thank you for inviting me, Brandon. Brandon: I have wanted this conversation since we launched the podcast, and in my vision board of the podcast, I said, okay, I'm going to wait to season two because I knew you were retiring. And I was like, this will be a beautiful conversation to have with you once we get to do a little reflection when you're on the other side. So thank you again. Piedad: Mhmm. Brandon: So I always ask this question. This is an impressive bio. We've got the doctor, we've got 40 years, we've talked about what you've built in this incredible district and who I love, who Medley gets to partner with gratefully. But at the same time, there's a lot that you've been able to do that never makes it into a bio. So, what's one thing you wish more people knew about you and maybe even better, what's one thing that's not in this bio that you're just really proud of? Piedad: One of the things that I would say proud of is I understood the social-emotional state of children and their ability to learn. I would read from books, I would try to bring in safe spaces and create climates in the classrooms where kids felt like they belonged. However, it wasn't until the later years that I really was able to understand the depth of research that Dr. Marc Brackett brought to our field, and we were able to bring RULER to Mannheim 83. And he actually came in person. I don't know how I did it, but I convinced him to come and work with kids, and Marc spent two days with us. We rolled out RULER exactly as we're supposed to, began with adults, but he got an understanding of what our district was like and the needs that our kids had. So, very proud of his work, read his work. I'm a big fan. And of course I continue to follow him on the Yale site. Brandon: He's amazing and for our listeners who don't know, Dr. Marc Brackett, RULER, so check it out, a really smart solution for social-emotional learning, but also the books, Permission to Feel, dealing with feeling. This is some really good stuff around how to think about social-emotional learning at the importance of it, but also the way to build it into our systems. Piedad: That, and also because of the population that I have worked with, our parents sometimes struggle emotionally themselves. Being able to label 84 different emotions that a person may feel gives it the language. It's not just angry. Am I feeling frustrated? Am I feeling overwhelmed? Am I feeling just totally apathetic today? It's giving it a label and his goal is that by the time that kids finish the program, they're able to label the feeling themselves. Something that creates such internal self-awareness that will really be able to ingrain in kids the identification of that emotion and that feeling. Brandon: And then I'm going to say this because I know that you and I are both here. From a language development standpoint, the way we grow a young person's skill in language as we start talking about emotions as a way of of really building upon language, profound. Like I just think it's such an important way of thinking about the work. SEL as a tool for deepening self-awareness and interpersonal skills and intrapersonal skills, but also language. And I'll also say like as a dad, that work has really shifted how I think about my role as a as a parent. Piedad: I think also it brings to the forefront the fact that it's not separate. It's not a separate curriculum. It's a way of being and it's a way of feeling and it's a way of navigating your day throughout your everyday life. So it's not a separate curriculum in itself. And it's integrated into everything that we do and it's who we are. Brandon: Well, I will just say this. I'm glad you shared this as your what was missing from my bio, because it's not every day that the person who's overseeing multilingual education in a district is also trying to bring in social-emotional learning programs and strategy as well. So, yeah, good for you. Piedad: We worked it really well because then we brought in the special education director and we were able to all bring it in together because that's the way the district works, as a team. Brandon: Amen. All right, I'm going to dive in. Are you ready for some questions? Piedad: Of course. Brandon: We've been doing some questions so far, but let's go a little deeper. I know if folks are, you can't see us, but I'm like so excited for this conversation. My hands are tapping each other and and Piedad is mocking me on our video. Just kidding, but she's, we're connected. I want to talk to you a little bit about the journey 14 years ago when you walked into Mannheim 83 and saw real potential to build something different, but also a current reality of where the district was. Take us back to that moment, if you can reflect for us. Like, what did the bilingual program look like when you got there, and what was the gap between that and what you believed was possible? Piedad: So that was a really exciting opportunity because the then superintendent, Dr. Kim Petrasek, she called me when I was in another district, and she said, Dr. K, we need, we need somebody like you in this district. Um, I want to build biliteracy. And you, you're the person that came to mind. So I went in, I interviewed, it was a big table full of people. And so I started talking about the work that I had done with Kathy Escamilla, the research that I had read. And so she said, what we have right now is a little bit of a hodgepodge. There are some kids that are going through to third grade and then they're going transitioning into English only. Um, there are other types of biliteracy that have been adopted here and there, but do not consider translanguaging. She didn't use those terms, but she kind of let me know that there was a separation of the languages, English only, Spanish only, whereas in order to maintain a true biliteracy program with fidelity, you do have to have the language separation, but you also have to have the translanguaging piece as the child, child's mind naturally drifts from one to the other. And that communication should really be fluid and integrated into content and whatever the the teaching is at the moment. So I interviewed with her and the whole team, and then the school board met me. Um, they wanted to bring this position to the core of cabinet. It was not, it was not a position that was going to be a sidebar or housed at one of the schools. She wanted this position to be a true cabinet central office leadership position because she felt that I would be able to work and collaborate with district leaders in other fields in order to bring it all together. So, I left the interview and I said, you know, thank you for the opportunity and, and then when, before I I even got to the car, she texted me and she said, can you come back for a second interview? I need to ask you some more questions. And I did. And she said, you're going to create this, but you're going to have to feel that there are some teachers who are going to be resistant. I don't want you to think that it's going to be a panacea for you. And I already knew that because I've been in the field long enough. And I began that way. So, um, this was about, maybe March, and then of course, the contracts for administration start in July. So I had time to prepare and I let my other district know that I was leaving and was able to transition out and prepare the person who followed me to continue that job. Um, going along with good to great because I always believe that you leave somebody who's going to be even better than you. Amen. Yes. So, then I began by meeting all the teachers. Um, there's 52, uh, at the time there were maybe, maybe 50. I I didn't add that many, but, um, there were 52 teachers that I work with and I said, uh, this is what we're going to do. And then I got some calls like, um, during the meeting, calling out like, when was, when was the last time you were in a classroom? And I would say, well, actually, I go in the classrooms all the time. I believe in this. I've seen it work. I know the researchers. I said, when I came here to the United States, there was no biliteracy. This is the way to teach content and language at the same time, because what they did for me is they would take me out of class and teach me English, but I was missing all the content. So, that's what I wanted to remedy and we've created together, everybody, the amazing teachers I work with, the administrators, the superintendent's vision, was to build a true biliteracy program. And I'm always happy when Kathy Escamilla, Sue Hopewell, Manuel Escamilla, Olivia Ruiz, figure it all, the creators of Literacy Squared say to me, you truly did it with fidelity, because that's what we wanted. Brandon: Mmm. Shout out to Kathy Escamilla, who was a former podcast guest as well and I sometimes say, I think she like shudders when I said it, but I was like, one of really the foremothers of multilingual education and and biliteracy as a way of deepening language development across our languages. Piedad: Amen. Oh, it was when I saw her research, I just thought, this, this is the way to to really not cheat kids out of content while they're learning the language, because it was done so incredibly choppy. This just integrated and so I believed in it. It took me a while to get it going. That first year was not easy. There was a lot of training and a lot of, um, talking to people and explaining what we were doing and sharing it with families. So I had a lot of community involvement in this, uh, explaining to them how the program was going to look and made sure not to call it bilingual curriculum, but we called it curriculum that is biliteracy based because we didn't want the community to think that it was a different curriculum than what was being taught to other kids. The language has to be very precise. Brandon: Did you, I'm really curious about this because at least for many of us, some immigrant families like my own, the focus is often, learn English. And you're here and we want you to learn English and there, I suspect for many folks, but tell me if I'm wrong, I don't know the community, it's a paradigm shift for a lot of parents to be like, okay, this both can matter and it both can happen at the same time. Did you have to get families on board? Piedad: There were some families. In the beginning years, there were families who, and I'll never forget this one gentleman, he called me and he goes, Hey, Dr. K, if I wanted my daughter to keep speaking Spanish, I would have just stayed in Mexico. So, what I told my teachers was, if you have any hesitation, you have the parents talk to me because I wanted to explain to them and I didn't want to put my teachers in a position where they had to defend or or present any program to families. I would say the first year, Brandon, I got maybe maybe 20, 25 calls. Uh, and it was reduced as the years went by. The problem was, you begin as a cohort, right? 90% Spanish, 10% English. And then some of the families that said, well, we don't want them in bilingual, and I would have to respect that. I would say, I totally respect it. I don't want them in, if they would say I don't want them in biliteracy, I would say, fine, then, you know, we'll have ESL, strong ESL support, because we wanted all our kids to succeed. I never took it personally, ever. Uh, but I was a very strong proponent of the program. I did face consequences from their decisions when they wanted to put their kids in biliteracy in second grade, and we had to make the hard decision of saying, well, at this point we can't because the peers are already readers and writers, and I can't provide, I can't provide this kind of a challenge to our teachers. Um, so, we circumvented that a little bit because the parents were so upset and they said, well, we didn't know. And I said, all right, so we did some summer work where we prepared literacy, uh, in Spanish and had the kids able to join a later cohort. But it was never as great as beginning on day one. And then now, when I left, there was years where they were the opposite is what, why can't my child get into biliteracy? And then I would have to explain that because there had been no other language in the home, there was no foundation. And I explained that in biliteracy, the child didn't have to be a speaker, but if they had the receptive language, they have the phonetic awareness, they have the understanding and the nuances of the language. So with my teachers, we would evaluate every child one by one. It wasn't like a general here, if you pass this, you do, you you get in. No, it was what language is in the home? How are the parents communicating with the child? Oh, maestra, he doesn't speak. He only speaks English to his brothers. And so, what I would do sometimes is I would call the home in the evening and I would hear what music was playing in the background, what TV was playing in the background, and I could hear the language of the home informally without talking, without letting the families know what I was doing. I always gave all the families my phone number so they could call me any time. And then another sign is when you call the family and the recording of the voicemail is in another language, then you know there's another language in there and we want to capitalize on that. But we want to set up the kids for success. The kids would come in, they wouldn't be speaking Spanish, they understood everything with abuelita, with uncles and aunts. This is a child that's prime for biliteracy. Brandon: Eres asombrosa. You are incredible and intentional in your leadership and I'm thinking about so many things you said there. I hope our, our listeners are holding on to. I heard, you know, a decision when there is, particularly in the early days when we're trying to build buy-in, that like, I'm not going to place that labor on my teachers. I'm going to be the one because I can help communicate it best. And I'm sure in turn you were modeling for them how to build um, some clarity around why this matters and how to have those difficult conversations with families. You know, to your point, like eventually you build so much momentum, the quality is good, that then people are like, I want to be part of it. And that's fantastic. Piedad: The families would, uh, of course, we had the BPAC, which is the Bilingual Parent Advisory Committee, and they would talk about their, the kids were able to go home, communicate with the grandparents. The language was brought back. And of course, I was there long enough to watch kids graduate and go on to college, right? So the the families would tell me how incredibly fulfilling it was that they lost, that they lost that mindset of subtractive bilingualism and became additive. Another thing that happened that was amazing for our, uh, bilingual teachers is they became stronger in their instruction because a lot of my teachers were born here. So we did Spanish lessons for teachers, we brought in Dr. David Nieto, who's a linguist from Spain, and he works here at the university and he was able to come in and give them lessons. And our teachers would say, their Spanish and their language and their bilingualism and biliteracy grew exponentially as well. So the valuing both languages became a culture in the district, and then the monolingual teachers were also very supportive. I I didn't want anybody to create a separate mindset of us and them, because that's how it had been when I was a teacher. It was always, your kids Piedad, your kids Piedad, your kids. And and and then we're, we we used to say they're all our kids, right? But nobody really internalized that. Well, now they did. Our teachers would say, you know, uh, my monolingual teachers would say, Dr. K, I have a student that the mom always picks them up and she's always speaking in Spanish and I think this would be a perfect candidate. So the mindset of the monolingual teachers was also of that value and that was huge. Brandon: I'm smiling. The listeners can't see, but I'm really moved by what you said. I talk a lot about, uh, one of my favorite parts of education, which is when we are in true parallel process with our kids. And I think one of the great parts of district leadership is when we are in parallel process with the educators. But hearing you really intentionally grow the language skills of the educators on the ground in parallel process with young people growing their own language skills, there's something magic that happens because the, the, the adult is also feeling the tension of learning and that offers empathy and a different type of curiosity, a patience. I think it's really beautiful. Piedad: One of the, uh, experiences that teachers had that they always share with me, they valued the most is the Summer Institute that happens in Puebla. We were able to send maybe 12 to 14 teachers every other year. And that budget was something that I wrote so that we were able to afford the teachers that experience. And everybody came back completely appreciative of the work that other teachers do. We had, um, the Escamillas take people that had never had the experience of of teaching in another country and seeing what it's like to teach 41 kids in one class, 42 kids in another class, two sessions a day, no support, and yet make the kids truly literate. Um, some of the strategies were able to be observed, La La La, uh, así se dice, um, el dictado, which is such a strategy, and that strategy was also adapted by monolingual teachers in the district because it's so effective. And as you know, it's something that's been used in Latin American countries forever. I remember doing it in second grade in my little school in Colombia. Brandon: Walk us through the strategy for folks who don't know. Piedad: Okay. So, el dictado, it's a language learning experience where the teacher models the writing and the students collaborate in the writing with the teachers, and then the kids correct their own writing and revise it. Uh, and the product that comes out is revision of their own writing, but it's guided by the teacher. And sometimes we have dictado cruzado, which is the kids collaborate with each other and identify mistakes and it's it's an empowering strategy for writing. Brandon: For, I will just say this to our listeners, it is an, it is, I've watched monolingual teachers adopt this in their own classroom, which is great because it's just good writing instruction. It's also the, the most beautiful collaborative process. If we can speak it, we can write it. There's sort of a, sometimes many of us feel a real separation between what we feel like we can say versus what we feel like we can write. And we, I think you bridge that gap for a lot of young people because then you get caught in the nuance of spelling and all this stuff. It's like, that's not the important part right now. It's like, how do I communicate my ideas in both of these mediums? And it's amazing to watch. There are probably YouTube videos folks should look. It's really, it's really special. Piedad: It it's incredible. And kids learn to love it and writing becomes part of every lesson. Even if it's just three sentences. So writing is not taught separately, a total organic development from whatever unit was being taught, whatever lesson was presented. So kids learned that writing is not laborious. Writing is a way to explain your thinking and to be able to make mistakes and it's okay if we correct them. It also is a great formative assessment for teachers immediately because then they see where are my kids getting it, where are they not. So I do, I agree with you. I want teachers to look at it and learn from it and it's a strategy that is really something that can be implemented all the time. Brandon: Incredible. I love this. All right, the program you built, it runs K through 8. And you built with a team, I know that you were about to correct me and be like, we did this as a whole entity, a whole organization. But a lot of biliteracy programs live in elementary grades. That was the program that I went to as a kid. And you chose to do this with middle school students. I think it's really magical and and also a financial commitment from the district. So what changes at that level? How did you protect the program through those grades? Piedad: So that is one of the challenges I faced because uh COVID hit. So we were only able to get that to like sixth and seventh grade, not all the way through, just trickle into eighth grade, but we brought in teachers who uh work with the students in pockets of Spanish. So teaching some of the content in Spanish, speaking, giving them the opportunity to speak in Spanish, creating clubs in Spanish so that it would continue, and then development of the social studies. We started with one content area, social studies, because we couldn't do it all at once, as you know, it takes a while. Um, and then I had bilingual teachers who co-taught with other, uh, teach, with monolingual teachers and we were able to do it that way. And I think you have some of those videos, Brandon. Brandon: Really, yes, they're incredible to watch. I nerd out over it. I'm obsessed with co-teaching. Part of that is my my background as a special educator. Part of that is because I think it's not a strategy we use enough for language development. And you brought in a good friend of ours, Andrea Honigsfeld, to lead some of that work or develop some of that work with you. She's been on the podcast. I, another person I am really obsessed with in this this work. Piedad: And and she was so incredible and giving. During the first year that I was in the district, I I contacted her and I said, would you do a book study with my teachers? And she said, it would be an honor to do a book study with your teachers. So I bought the book, we would read ahead, she would come in and expound upon the chapters, and then she and I actually created a little pilot that we called the Co-Teaching First Grade. So we had two teachers teaching the first grade, and she and I presented at WIDA. The language scores went through the roof. It is powerful. Andrea's research also brings in the protocols that you need to follow, because you can't just throw in two teachers and say, you have at it, you guys figure it out. I met with the teachers every week. Uh, I said, let's see what's working, what's not working. I would stop in and see how the the instruction was going. They became, we did this for two years, they became such a team that when they knew a lesson wasn't working, they would just touch base with each other and say, no, we need to switch it and do it this way. But it's all based on Andrea's work. I think as far as co-teaching, her co-teaching models are the most effective, and the details that she provides so that teachers can be successful is second to none. Brandon: I agree with you more and I say this often, the best professional development I've ever had as an educator was inside of a classroom with a co-teacher. Piedad: Yes. I know, me too. I think it's a powerful model. Brandon: It's a powerful model. I have so much more to to ask you, but I do want to talk a little bit about this move from compliance to asset-based practice. So you talked about the work in Mannheim as changing the paradigm. And some of that is because you took researched-backed models and tried to bring them in with fidelity. Yes. And I know that that's not a slogan for you because I know you, it's something that you actually did. And at the same time, we've heard you today talk about this, not quickly. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't like, and then tomorrow it was this built out program that we launched. This took time. Piedad: Um, I will have to say that I credit my school board and the superintendent at the time with the vision. But I explained to them exactly what we were doing because we have to remember that the school board members live in the community. And people will stop and say, and the president was wonderful. She would say, you know, Dr. K, they they stopped me and they said to me, you know, what is this language thing all about? And so she was able to present it, right? So it it it was from the top down and then with my teachers, some moved along quicker than others, but we were seeing the results. And we look at people who sometimes are not quite on board. And I actually prefer the teachers who would say to my face, I'm not on board with it, than the ones that said, I'm on board with it, but really didn't do the work. I think the magic of being a a leader who truly understands the benefit of the program is to have the patience to bring that along. And also know that teachers are truly the most impactful people in in the education of kids. And I can honestly tell you that I loved our teachers. I, um, when I retired, they collected this beautiful scrapbook where they all wrote messages for me and things that I had brought to them and into their lives. And one of them called me because she became a bilingual director in another district, as I said, Sandra, you're, you you need to go into administration. And then she called me and she goes, I'm sorry, I gave you such a hard time that first year. And I said, it's okay, I loved you guys anyway. I knew where we were going, but I think that teachers need that. They need a a leader that knows where they're going and where we're all heading together. There was a an opportunity that Sandra Butvilofsky set for us in Colorado, where we were able to visit schools where the biliteracy model had already been established for years. And, um, I got to the airport, I rented a small bus. I thought they were going to give me some training and the guy said, just drive it around the parking lot. But I had 14 of my teachers in there, and we went to different schools and I said, guys, I've never driven one of these before, but we're going to do it together because this is so important. And that was a turning point for my teachers who were a little bit on the fence. And they were able to see how other teachers were doing it, collaborate with them. So you have to really magically look at ways to solve issues that teachers may be facing. Brandon: You said something that really resonated with me. It's, you know, leadership with a vision for where they're going. But before that, you said something that I found really profound, and it's, but being a leader who has the patience to bring people along. Yes. And I think sometimes we feel such a pressure from the outside world, from our own ego, from the board, from the media, from the urgency of outcomes, just the reality that like our kids deserve the best, that we miss the patience to bring people along and it actually slows down the opportunity to accelerate outcomes. Piedad: Yes. And we remember when we were teachers. We remember when we were given a PDF and said, go implement this or and that I promised myself would not be the way that I would work with teachers. Um, so, I was very happy that things developed the the way they did and that the teachers embraced the work, but we also brought in, um, Sue Hopewell to come in and work with our teachers and she, uh, helped me develop the units that we implemented with our kids. So the teachers were like, holy cow, we're really working with the people that did the work. Um, and then Sue came back, she became part of the family in the district. She came back and she did some research on oracy. She's writing a book right now on oracy for multilingual learners and the research that she did was in our district. So it was very powerful. Brandon: I want, I can't wait to read that. And there's, I'm looking at the clock. I could talk to you all day. I'm very lucky because there will be a follow up phone call to keep going. But I I want to ask you something about families again. You have a really intentional or had a really intentional strategy around newcomers. I hate that word, but folks who are new to our systems. Uh, the families who have been here but are also navigating complex systems. And you decided that you started those family experiences with a conversation before a screener. I want this, I wish this was our national model. Uh, talk about what you did in those family conversations or those family interviews before just like throwing at them their home language survey. Piedad: Mmm. This comes from the time when I was a child in third grade, and my parents didn't really know what we were learning in school. Uh, it was almost like a mystery. My mom and dad dropped me off at the third grade door, Mrs. Parker, and good luck, here you go. But mom and dad, they were busy. They were going to Georgia Tech University. That's how we came to the states, because my mom and dad were going to school. My brother was a year younger and my sister was starting kindergarten. But dad and mom did not understand the system of education in the United States. So once you sit with a parent and you say, these are the possibilities that we have to provide your child with an education. We're here to serve you. We're here to make sure that your child learns and I 100% from the bottom of my heart believe that teaching a child to read changes a life. And uh, I I take that as seriously as can be. Um, I think parents felt the passion that I had and I would say if if they were reluctant, I would say, fine, just give me a month. If after a month, your child is not going home super happy and learning and sharing rhymes with you and canciones, then we'll we'll go ahead and revisit. But just give me an opportunity. And that was very successful because also they had my cell phone number. They would call me at night, they would call me during the weekend. Uh I needed to be part of a a community that knew that I wasn't, you know, separate from them. I was there to be part of the education for their children because I love them, the families. They became part of my BPAC. They became part of the people that showed up whenever we needed any support or we needed dancers or costumes or it it becomes a kind of holistic uh community. Brandon: Mira, you have events where you would have 800 parents showing up to these multicultural events. Like you more than did that. You built a relationship with families. You know, we talk about like, and I hate this word as well, so I should one episode I'll just do like all the education jargon I hate, but we talk about empowering families. It's like our parents don't require empowerment. They have to feel welcome and you created this place where it's like, oh, this is for me, this is, I'm part of this. Piedad: You know, there was something about having La Doctora K there at everything that made them know that we were going to all be together. And then this one event, it was after COVID, uh, our first community event. And we had no idea that 800 people were going to show up. And then the fire department came, my buildings and grounds guy was like, Dr. K, you need to get 90% of those people out of there right now because we're so we have so many people all over the hallways and everything. They didn't want to leave. We ran out of food. We had to call in restaurants to like, we'll pay you tomorrow, I promise, but send in some pizzas. Um, but this is where the teachers did their magic. They wanted the kids there too. And the beauty of like every graduation from eighth grade, the teachers would show up to watch their kids graduate and the families would invite us to their parties for the graduation because for many Brandon, eighth grade was the first one in the family who was graduating. It was it was just amazing. Brandon: I I could tear up because it was very true in my world and I think about my brother who didn't go to school past eighth grade. It gets lost on a lot of educators who it is like the norm that you just keep going. And that high school is is the sort of obvious endpoint and then college is the next. But for many of our communities, it is very novel that this celebration would occur and I'm, every time I get to talk to you, I'm deeply moved. I think we share a very similar spirit in how we think about education and education policy as actually something from the heart. But I see you in that response very deeply. Piedad: Thank you. And I think the passion is something that you can't fake. Talking about our eighth graders, then we were able to build a very close relationship with the high school and then when my first batch of kids were getting offers to go away to college, we had to bring in the parents together because no quiero que se vaya. I don't want them to go. It's too far. Um, so I remember getting parents in my car and driving them to university and saying, this is where they're going to be, like Northwestern or DePaul, and they're offering your kids a scholarship. We need to open the way so that they can become successful too. So all those things that you don't anticipate in having a K, a pre-K through eighth grade, you you don't just abandon them in eighth grade. You have to take them all the way through. So, as of last year, we had 22 college graduates that went through Northwestern. Uh, there are so many opportunities for our kids to go on to graduate school. So it it, I think educated the families and the word spread throughout the community that, you know what? It's okay to let them go. They don't need to stay close. It it's fine. Brandon: I'm going to ask you the last question of the big questions. You are a force and I I hope in this chapter for you that you get to do a lot of reflection around the impact that you have, the lives on the ground of young people that you've changed, the the students who became adults 40 years later, they are now, have children of their own, and and the educators who you made better teachers and the ones who as a result of seeing you in that seat, decided that district leadership isn't so bad. And and I really, I hope you get to do that processing. I know you're doing it, but I really hope you sit with that impact because it is profound. I am curious as this last big question, what's your message or your hope to bilingual educators right now? What do you want to see more of? What do you want them thinking about? Where do you think we can go? Piedad: One of the things that really saddens me is when I see posts on Instagram about teacher burnout. I I want our teachers to know that they can emotionally, again, using Marc Brackett's work, identify their frustration so that it's not an amalgam of emotion that's overwhelming them. It can be solved. It can, they can move forward, they can use language. They are valued. They are appreciated. They just need to understand that the work that they do to preserve two languages in the lives of children is a a work that will be, not maybe not immediately appreciated, but later on, kids will totally be grateful for the work that their teachers did. It has to go on, it can't stop. Um, more teachers are now coming into the field and they, the administrators need to make sure that there's a lot of training, that there's a lot of support, um, and that that continues. Brandon: And before we say goodbye, what's something that you are learning from right now? Piedad: Well, I've been reading a lot about dyslexia and um my family lives in South America and I've gotten calls from a couple of people in Colombia and one from Argentina because they're like, we we know that you work with bilingual education, and we don't understand dyslexia very well. How does that manifest? How do we know that our kids are getting the right support? So right now I'm going to, um, I signed up for a cohort at Vanderbilt University because I want to be able to speak from that expert point of view and understand it more. Um, I I have to say that to me, what I want to say to the parents that have called me is, it's not the end of the world. We have resources, we have tremendous support for your children. It's a label that's given, but that doesn't mean the child can't learn. And that's what we're here to do, to to take that scare away from the families and say, we're here, we're all ready to support your child and support you because the calls that I have gotten have all been from a fear and angst kind of point of view. And there's some parents have even sent me videos of their children. Um, can you analyze it from here? So as dyslexia becomes even more identified in Latin American countries, I think it's something that we can certainly study more and I truly want to become more educated on it. Brandon: One, sounds like you're not retiring. And two... I can't retire because I love what I do too much. It's, I I told my team I'm retired from the eight to five, but I'm not retired from the research and the thinking. Uh, it's, it's just too much, too, too powerful. And the teams that we work with with uh, Margo and Kathy and Tim and Andrea and Marc and Peter DeWitt, we're all connected. We we all have the same passion, so you can't just retire. Piedad: I can't retire because I love what I do too much. It's I told my team I'm retired from the eight to five, but I'm not retired from the research and the thinking. It's just too much, too too powerful. And the teams that we work with with uh, Margo and Kathy and Tim and Andrea and Marc and Peter DeWitt, we're all connected. We we all have the same passion, so you can't just retire. Brandon: Amen. And you know what else makes me excited? You know how deeply I care about special education is you are very good at taking researched-backed strategies and implementing with fidelity. And so to your point to families, there is real research and sometimes there's just a gap between how we apply that research into reality. And so I'm excited that you are getting your hands in this space. I think it will be good for kids and and I can't wait to talk to you about that soon too. Piedad: Oh, thank you. I will definitely keep you updated. Brandon: Good. Hermana, I don't think you know how much I needed this conversation today. Sometimes in administrative work as you're building a business to support young people, you have to like manage through a lot of noise that has little to do with the work that really matters. And and that's true for our educators too, and I'm holding that every day. These conversations remind me why we do this, why it matters, and I loved getting to reflect on your journey with you. Piedad: Thank you. Brandon: Great conversation. I cannot wait to talk to you soon. Piedad: Oh, we will. We'll be in touch regularly. Brandon: Good. Until next time. Thanks for listening to today's episode. And as a reminder, if you enjoyed the show and you want to learn more, please join us at medleylearning.com/podcast and subscribe to our newsletter. You're going to get all of our latest drops, the resources that we discussed on today's podcast, as well as future ones. 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