Rachael Maves: Hi everyone. You are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. Today. We are talking to Rich Stowell, the director of communications for Alpine District in Utah, the largest District in the state, serving about 85,000 students Rich. Thank you for joining me today.

Rich Stowell: So great to be with you here, Rachael, here virtually before we jump in. I just have to like tell this quick story about how you and I know each other, cuz we go back quite a ways. I was thinking about when we first met and I it was like what? 20 years ago?

Rachael Maves: Yeah, if not more.

Rich Stowell: Yeah, 20 years, almost 20 years.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] Yep, we were young spring chickens in our career and, jumping in, we thought we knew something.

Rich Stowell: Back then we did.

Rachael Maves: That's 100%. True, we did think we knew something, but it's, it's great just to have followed your career to get to this place. We're reconnecting and seeing where we landed and education now knowing that we absolutely know nothing. So I'm I'm excited that you're you're joining today and want to kick us off with just really the opportunity for you to tell your story about why you chose a career in education. And I'm particularly interested, Rich, because your background and the things that you've been involved in have gone pretty deep and varied Beyond even just education, so would love to hear a little bit about your story.

Rich Stowell: Yeah, thanks. It's funny bringing up our the early part of our career, when we first became acquainted with each other, and thinking about how much I, you know, I really knew back then and you know, when you're young, obviously you're, you're optimistic and you're motivated and you kind of have to, you have to have that confidence just to navigate the world. And as I've gotten older, I've realized how much I don't know, and so just the opportunity to learn really motivates me at every, has motivated me at every point in my career. What else can I learn about people, or myself, or my family, or a system that will help make a difference? So, yeah, I started teaching in California and then, of course, you and I did some Consulting work, and, as I was a veteran teacher of, I think, two years at the time, and I was helping do some math education coaching for some of those schools in the Central Valley of California what a great experience, so. And then after that I went back in the classroom for a year.

I did a couple of. Deployments, and so got out of the teaching business for a little while, because what the Army taught me was communication is really is a massive lever that leaders can pull to make their organizations more effective or get people on board with organizational goals. And so I really got fascinated in organizational communication and so I went back to school and studied more about that. And then I came back into education and landed this amazing opportunity with Alpine School District. As you mentioned, it's the largest school district in Utah, and so it presents some really unique challenges and opportunities for us to serve kids here in Utah County.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love that. I have to. I have to share this story with you, Rich, about one of our conversations that we had and it's not going to be the one that you think. And then I want to come back to like why you became a teacher in the first place, but I still remember driving with you because we would carpool down to the Central Valley from the Bay Area together and you were telling me this story of how your math department really created this culture of no one's allowed to fail. And you had set these parameters where any student that got a C or below on a test that they it wasn't actually allowed, that they would be able to take that score, that they would be given the packet. That was, I mean, really intense.

That would say: what did you miss? Why did you miss it? They had to kind of go deep into that space and then you gave them the opportunity to try it again and your kids were all at A's and B's, and it wasn't just inflated grades, it was because they had multiple opportunities for Mastery. And I like that, I would like you. I was very young in my teaching career and it really shifted and shaped how I thought about student learning and our role as teachers, and so I mean you can expound on that a little bit, but I did want to just say it had a huge impact for me and it's still today. I think about it and apply it where I can.

Rich Stowell: Oh, thank you, I'm glad. I'm glad I made an impression. I've those days, thinking back to those early days teaching, you know, before young teachers they're, they're just the best right like they have so much optimism, right plans are just wildly out of proportion to reality. And I remember going in this was right after a big update to the California state content standards. And I remember going into a faculty meeting in the second year and saying I don't care what we do, we are going to get through the standards. And because at the time there was this frustration that there was just too much to teach and you just couldn't get it done in an academic year if you wanted to do it.

Well, I don't know how well I did it, but we did. We planned it out and we stayed on track and we made sure we got through those standards. I don't I don't think I was the world's greatest teacher by any stretch, but what I remember from those days was: you know, there's kind of this, there's kind of this power in your ignorance about your own abilities to get stuff done. And so when you kind of put those blinders on and just focus on a goal, it's, it can be really powerful. And when you get with other people. The fun thing I remember about teaching at those Charter Schools where was that?

Everybody was young and everybody was naive. We were all in it together, we were going to get it done and we got a lot done. I still keep in touch with some of my students and there's some really impressive people in that bunch and we did not have the greatest resources. We were a high school. At one of the schools I taught at, we started off with n9th and 10th grade. We were in an old elementary school that the district was not using anymore.

It was not the best facility. Before that I was in another. We our school was in a church an old church, that. So it's not like we were operating with the most, you know, the most resources, but we had a lot of energy and a lot of optimism and that goes a long way.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love that. So what I mean? What Drew you to become a math teacher in the first place?

Rich Stowell: Funny, I didn't ever want to become a math teacher. I wanted to be a social studies teacher. Math was the backup, and, yeah, I'm I'm fascinated by history. That's what I studied, and I did teach it briefly, but the need for math was always so much greater and I knew that it would be, and so I got a math endorsement, I got a minor in math and I thought: you know I this will at least get my foot in the door to just about any District where I want to work. Yeah, but after I started teaching math, I did love it's. It's really fun to.

See, I know every teacher has challenges and every subject is challenging in its own way. Math, for some people, there's, there's, I feel like there's an extra layer of, there's an extra barrier for some teachers, because you have to convince lots of students that math will benefit them. Right, a lot, of a lot of students will see math as just a requirement, and if they can just get through the class and get and check the box off, they will have succeeded. And so for me it the challenge was to motivate them to actually want to be mathematicians, right, want to be logic thinkers, want to be able, want to be good problem solvers. And that was fun and you. I wasn't the greatest at math and I had to rely on other Math teachers in my departments to actually understand some of the material, especially at the higher levels.

I think that actually benefited me a lot, cuz I knew the struggle that my students often times were going through, and so I had to. I could find ways that were not math. You know kind of traditional math ways of explaining functions or yeah or other. You know more abstract Concepts, yeah. So that was fun. But so that's how I became a math teacher, how I be.

You know, what drove me to become a teacher is just kind of in my. I think it's in my genes. Honestly, both my parents were Educators. It's kind of what I grew up knowing about, and I always saw myself being an educator. And I don't know. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I feel like everybody at some level needs to be an educator. Every leader right has to be an educator to some degree. So whether you're a parent, a coach or you have some other job, if you're not teaching somebody something at some point, then you're probably not doing it very well.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I hadn't thought about it like that, but I think that's absolutely right. And you know, it's not just the that role as the teacher, like you were saying before, that knows everything, it's the teacher, learner, the learner, teacher. You know like I think about my role at Parsec right now, and while I've LED extremely large organizations and Statewide initiatives, I'm coming in and supporting the customer success team and there are some things that translate over in those skills and Leadership skills, and then there are other things that are new. So being able then to have those mentors that pour into you, but then also being able to support teams, especially if they're young teams and what that looks like. But yeah, I think you're exactly right. I, yeah, I'd love, Rich, to get your thoughts on just education and especially coming from this Communications.

Lens. When you think about education in our current state and all the things that are going on, what are the one or two things that really keep you up at night?

Rich Stowell: My initial reaction to that question: what keeps me up at night is youth mental health, I mean and that transcends education, right, it's just that Educators have so much connection and contact with young people that it we can't ignore it. But it's, it's a problem that certainly is bigger than our education system. But yeah, that youth mental health, it keeps me up and I sort of it. To be honest, it scares me because I've studied a fair amount what some of the risk factors are and what some of the trends are with youth mental health and I don't think I'm any closer to understanding the root cause of the problem. And I know lots of folks, you know, will posit theories about why youth mental health is in decline or why suicide rates seem to be going up among young people. But I don't, I don't fully understand it.

So that's what scares me. And you know we hear stories. If you're in a school or a school system, you're going to hear. You'll hear some stories of Triumph and healing and overcoming. But you're going to, you're going to have a lot of experience with trauma and loss and it's it's hard to deal with emotionally. But for me when I hear of those things happening lots of times it just increases the fear, cuz I think, well, you know, we were.

It seemed like we were doing everything right. We, it seemed like we were. We had set up systems of support, it seemed like these kids were healthy and yet, you know, something tragic might happen. And so I always go back to my own kids like what can I possibly do to protect my kids? And that's why, that's why it keeps me up at night, because I'm not sure I have very many answers other than to just love them.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, when you? Because I think that not everyone is as in touch or engaged with youth in the United States. So let's say, you know, for people outside of Education or don't kind of have their finger on that pulse when you say youth, mental health, what I mean? What do you see? What does that look like? What is that umbrella?

And why do you see that even as a crisis?

Rich Stowell: Yeah, so the US Surgeon General has put a lot of emphasis on this. Last, I think it was last year, the surgeon general's office published a report that described the state of Youth mental health as a crisis, and he presents some sobering facts. I don't have them all at my fingertips, but I think some of the symptoms are: youth today tend to be much less connected than you know. You are I growing up, you know deeply connected with friends or family, and that connection piece is as just as a physical health measure is more powerful than like smoking sensation. You know, it actually equates to years off of life expectancy, and so that's that's a little scary. You know, when we think about how we are setting up education systems for young people, are we building in?

Are we building in the things that really matter? Yeah, they got to learn math and yes, they have to be able to write an essay, but are they also learning how to have a conversation with somebody, how to be a friend, how to listen? And if they don't learn that, nothing really Else Matters right. Yeah, so that's, that's just one example. Of course. Suicide is another, is just sort of the jarring.

Evidence of Youth mental health in Decline. Yeah, so every time, and you know, every time we hear about a teen suicide, it's heartbreaking and we wonder, you know, how did? How could this have happened? Or how can we protect everybody else? And it's just it. Sometimes it feels like we're kind of fumbling and stumbling through as we learn.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I agree, and I think, especially post pandemic I mean, we saw that exacerbated since, you know, this generation of students went through, I mean, a pretty intense experience, and I don't know for your kids, but I'll speak for mine. You know, we in Sonoma County particularly they, were just hit as a community by one really hard thing after another. We had the fires that came through and completely devastated Santa Rosa, with 5,000 people, including my own, that lost our homes. The next year we had flood. The next year we had another fire that came through and then the pandemic hit and I remember Santa Rosa city schools. The superintendent at the time, Diann Kitamura, did a survey with her students and the results that they got back was that 70% felt hopeless about their future.

And I mean that's that's staggering when you think about how many kids are losing, like this vision and dream of this bright, shining future and their place in it and contribution that they have to a healthy, functioning society and like. So when we talk about the, this youth mental health, I like my brain goes to that space of like there's the real and present for each kid and then there's the implication of what that means for them seeing that world that they want to be a part of.

Rich Stowell: Yeah, no, that's a great point that you bring up. I really love the work that Martin Seligman has done on this. You know he talks a lot about optimism and how it's kind of the antidote to hopelessness, and I love that. He sees optimism as a skill that can be taught, and so I can. You know I, we take that on as a family and we try very hard to teach our kids optimism. But are we incorporating those kinds of skills into schools?

And it's also hard because everything is political now and it's sort of a shame. And that was my probably my second answer to your question: what keeps you up at night? And I, it's probably how, as a society, we seem to becoming more fragmented or more divided politically, and that's yeah, it's affecting everything, including how we educate kids. Yes, that's not, that's not healthy in my opinion. So, as we propose Solutions, you know, if we want to teach social skills around connection skills that would build up protective factors, it's. It's sometimes fra, because often times ideologies and polit and political attitudes come into play and make what should not be objectionable to some people.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, that's so true when you think about I mean, those are two really weighty, heavy topics and you already mentioned this a little bit about the optimism piece. But what do you see as two ways that we can move forward in that? Space.

Rich Stowell: One thing that in my role and I think it would apply to Educators in almost any role is Extreme transparency. I think that cuts through a lot. I think transparency builds trust. We've been reading some work by Adam Grant. You've read Adam Grant a team we're we're reading it's called think again and he talks about the importance of humility in being a leader, and so transparency, I think, encourages humility and I and that makes look humility has probably lots of benefits. Number one: you're going to learn more.

The more humble you are, you're going to learn. You're going to be a better, whatever it is you are, if you approach it with some humility, it'll build trust. So it'll increase that connection and it'll increase sort of cooperation, partnership, opportunities. So, with your stakeholders and in education, our big stakeholders are parents. I think that should be number one. Well, students, but parents as sort of a proxy for our younger students, and you know they pay the bills.

Let's be honest, if we need to have, we need to have parents on board with what we're doing so that they can let these education systems do what they're designed to do. So yeah, I think there's a lot of benefits of just being totally transparent, and I sometimes worry that in education you know, it's a human tendency: when we feel threatened, we get defensive and we sort of close off, except for we go more tribal. And I think that happens in education also. When these political controversies or social issues become more played out in the public sphere and we worry about what people are going to say, I think we tend naturally to tighten up circled wagons. I think we need to fight that urge and open up even more and let people share, let people talk and just lay our cards out on the table. I think that it's harder, but I think that approach is going to serve students better in the long run and it's going to make our systems much more effective.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, especially that piece around the like seeing parents as partners in the work. I just it was something that was true before the pandemic, but it's something that is especially true now. I mean, if we can't figure out a way to lock arms, to engage, to see one another as allies in the serving of students, then being able to accelerate the work that we know has to happen for students that we still have within the K-12 system and the impact that the pandemic had, it's it. We're not going to see the results that we need and we're asking more of parents than we've ever asked before. AR we, yeah, and so we've got to honor their place in that partnership, but we've also got to honor their place in the Learning Journey and that one thing that I really a lesson that I'll never forget from teaching is: not everybody's going to learn at the same Pace.

Rich Stowell: Yeah, that's right, and our parents are the same way. I mean, we're as professionals, we're the same, we're the same way, but certainly our parents. We can't expect all our parents to get on board all at the same time at the beginning of the year or to understand our problems in the same way that we understand them at the exact same time. So I think little humility and some flexibility, like you mentioned, in how we approach parents and what we expect of them is in order.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, so this question we always ask at the very end is kind of like a wrapup question, and I'm always just curious to hear what people have to say. But when you think about education and all the things that we're asking about it, what is one question we're not asking that we really should be?

Rich Stowell: This is like time for controversy, right?

Rachael Maves: Yeah, Babatunde would be like hearing if he heard you say that.

Rich Stowell: No, I'm, I'm thinking like: well, if my boss hears this, what is he? Maybe we should be asking: are we doing? Are we trying to do too much?

Rachael Maves: Oh, I haven't heard that one before. Okay, so now you have to expand on that, tell: no, I gotta unpack that, but I.

Rich Stowell: Mean what is essential and, as I've been served well, when I, in my teaching assignments, when I pause and I step back and I ask myself what is the essence of what I'm trying to accomplish here? Yeah, and it's so easy to load up more tasks or load up more details or more, you know, texture to our experiences and sometimes that's totally appropriate, right, but often times I see I mean this is happened. You know, I was teaching adults in a college course last semester and you know curse of knowledge. Right, as teachers, we know what, we know what the curriculum is, we know what we're doing, and so we sort of I think sometimes we come into our problems with the expectation that everybody else understands those things in the same way we do, and it's always a jolt, right, when you get that new class, you realize, hey, these students are not. Where my last batches students who just finished the semester or finished the year ended up right. So you got to.

You got to have that reset moment and figure out where they're at and meet them there so that you can you know, you can start rowing the boat together. So when I see my students struggling, you know at first it's it's, it sort of hurts because I feel like, oh, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't do well, I didn't do a good job teaching them. But what I remind myself of is there's an Essence to what we're trying to do and if I can just go back to that Essence and review it often and get them there, I will have, I will have succeeded. Yeah, and then if they're, if they get the essence, then the details can start to fall into place. Or we can pick and choose what, how we want to advance from there. So, just as an example, the last class I taught was a research class and there's a lot that can go into it.

Right, we studyed a little bit of Statistics, we got into to, like, some public relations history. What else you know? Get into AP style and stuff. Style is a great one, right? AP style: it's important that they know how to follow a style so they can communicate. But that's not the essence of what we're doing.

The essence of what we were doing in that class was: you ask question, you answer it with. You know, following the scientific method, use some systematic steps to answer a question. So ask a good question, come up with a plan to answer it. That's the essence. So if we can get back to that kind of thinking, it helps me a lot when things get frustrating. So in our school systems, you know, we load up a lot and a lot of this comes from our legislatures and the federal government.

There's lots of requirements that fall down on school systems and you know, but even local school systems, they set priorities and they, you know we decide at the local level what we want to cover. And so I wonder you know it might be a healthy question are we trying to do too much? Or you know what is the essence? Maybe the essence is teaching kids how to connect to one another, how to, you know, be good neighbors, good friends? Yeah, and I'm certainly not advocating that's all we do, but it might be useful to ask that question every now and again.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, you know, that is that's particularly pertinent, I think, in my mind, because we're we're starting to provide some support in strategic planning and as we're meeting with partners and I saw this when I was at the County office as well, looking at District strategic plans you know, when you have six to eight goals, like you can count on doing nothing really well, because there's just, I mean, so much going on within the system. And then, and how do you really focus in on? Like, what are the one or two things that are important and how do those strategies and actions ladder up to that? And then, what are the qualitative and quantitative metrics that you're going to be looking at on a regular basis? And we're not good at that in education, I mean, it's, it's just it's not like part of the way in which we engage with the work. Why do you think that is?

You know, I'll just speak for, like, my teacher prep program and then even the work that I did with admin. We didn't talk about Improvement Cycles. We didn't talk about, like, Focus. We didn't talk about, like, how to create a strategy that is really clear and then the actions lading up to that. We didn't talk about leading and lagging indicators. I mean, that was all stuff that I got from a completely separate training focused on continuous Improvement, like, yeah, so I mean, that's my hypothesis, but I love your thoughts on that.

Rich Stowell: Yeah, I don't know, I, but I can also say because I agree with you 100%, And I certainly don't want to give the impression that Educators don't do a ton and they do it really well, right, absolutely. Yep, I don't know, though you know, I think I once had a conversation I can't remember who this is. This was back when I was teaching, though, and you know, a superintendent's job is nearly impossible, and those who can survive more than a handful of years are really good at it, and hats off to them. But I remember in California we had a we had a superintendent controversy and I think the board dismissed our superintendent and then we had some turnover. That was not healthy for the next few years, yeah, and somebody once brought up just kind of as a discussion Point like why don't they hire somebody who's not an educator, right, somebody who's run a business? And really we're asking.

It kind of goes back to the question: are we trying to do too much? Our superintendent I mean, are my the superintendent here in Alpine School District has over a billion dollar budget that he's responsible for.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] Yeah, and that's massive and it's hard to take on that responsibility. And still, you know, stay grounded to what got you in education in the first place.

Rich Stowell: I would think, yeah, you know, have that responsibility. But increasingly I think we're asking our higher you know our superintendent and cabinet level leaders to be Enterprise leaders and politicians. And so I don't, for what that's worth, I don't have a there's no solution in there, right. It's just kind of peeling back an onion and seeing maybe some problems that I'm sure other people have thought about before, but kind of interesting to think about.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, and that's so true. I mean, it requires so many different skill sets than if it was just strictly a business that I think it just looks and feels different. Yeah, well, I appreciate this time Rich. I appreciate you coming on and being on the podcast and sharing, of course, your wonderful, great thinking.

Rich Stowell: I always enjoy our conversation, so, thank you, this has been fun. Thank you for having me.

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This transcript was created from the episode's captions and lightly edited for readability. It may contain small errors; please refer to the audio for exact wording.