Rachael Maves: Hi everyone. You are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. Today we are talking to Misty Her, the interim superintendent of Fresno Unified School District. Misty is a dedicated educator leader, mom rock star, with a remarkable personal and professional Journey. Misty has held key roles such as instructional superintendent and Deputy superintendent of Fresno Unified School District, California's thirdd largest school district in the state, and was recently appointed interim in 2024. She has been recognized with prestigious Awards, including the 2019 California woman of the year and the 2022 margerie Mason top 10 woman award, highlighting Her commitment to transforming lives through education and community service.

Thank you for joining me today, Misty.

Misty Her: It's such a pleasure for me to be here with you, Rachael, and just to share.

Rachael Maves: I'm excited to one just hear that you're on, that I get to learn from you have this discussion, but also just to hear a little bit of your story. At the team was sharing some just highlights about where you came from, the story of your family, how you got into education, and so I'd love to kind of kick us off with that of why did you choose this career in education? Because this is a wild ride, especially as a superintendent of the third largest District in the state. Why,. Education.

Misty Her: You know, I think I have always, from the time I remember like, had this desire and wanting to learn right, and I think a lot of it stems from my mom, because for as long as I could remember, she would always tell me about how she wanted to. Like all my mom's life, all she ever wanted to do was to learn how to read and write right. And remember this conversation with Her and she goes gosh. You know, I see people and they pick up a book and they can read it and I would love to just pick up a book and know what's inside and what do you reading about. And so you know and I think that stem from Her, you know, being born into a culture, that just women were just not given the same rights as men. And I remember my mom one time telling me a story about how Her parents, my grandfather and grandmother, sent my uncles to school and then sent Her to, you know, to the farm to watch all of their cattle.

And I and she said I just remember like one time sitting there and as I'm watching you know, this was back in LA in our hent and she said, I'm sitting there and I'm watching my brother, you know, go to school and I could see the path that he's taking to school. And here I am, you know, with all of it and in my heart I just, she said, I sobbed, because all I wanted to do was to do to have that same right. And so when I was born, you know, she said,. She said I was. So you know, I was the first born in my family and in the M culture everyone just desires to have a son, right, everybody wants to. And, being the first born, I was a girl and my mom said, while people were so happy that you were born, there was this sadness that you weren't born a son.

And I, just, you know like she, just she told me I felt like I just had to do, right by you and by my sister, you know, your sister, that I create an environment for the two of you so you can have all of the opportunities. And I know there's a lot of like cultural barriers, but there was going to be a way in which I was going to raise you to believe that you are just as good as a son, and so that has really just kind of stuck with me and I think you know, like you don't realize it when you're growing up like you know, like my mom and I, especially my teenage years, we bummed a lot, but as I got older, I realized, like, how much this woman is so courageous and so strong and the barrier she has had to break through in Her own way just so that my sister and I can have the opportunities that we've had. And so and I, you know, and I think like going into teaching. It really was. I mean, I think I started off like at a very young age seeing a lot of inequities, especially for English Learners and students of color, just not having you know. I share this.

I share this story about you know, being in first grade and having here in fres UniFi and being pulled out to do remedial classes to learn how to speak English, and for three hours a day I would go into this class and in this classroom we weren't even learning in know, Reading, Writing, listening or speaking. We were given packets day after day and we were just coloring and filling you know in the blanks and just like tracing and I. And then I go back to my classroom and my friends were all like, yeah, when you were gone today, we read this book and we did this and we talked about this, and then one day I just told my teacher I don't want to go anywhere, I'm not learning in that classroom and I think, like At first in a, as a first grader, I knew that wasn't right and I think that's what's been driving me all these years is just to look at, like, everything that we put in our system and all the decisions that we make as adults, that we make because it's easier for adults and not necessarily what's right for our children.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And what a story, Misty. I was jotting down a note and I was just thinking you know, your mom had a choice. I mean, often you hear when you're that's the culture that you grow up in, the way in which that then gets perpetuated and she chose a very different path to disrupt and go against actually the culture of the Viewpoint of women and I mean I would assume that had a profound impact of the modeling of that for you as a female, as a child, as, watching your mom do that, I'd love to hear, like, how has that now you being in these leadership roles, how has that influenced you and giving you the courage to just to disrupt some of those things that you've seen?

Misty Her: Yeah, you know, I think that we are for so many of our families and so many of our children. We're judged, we're being judged, based off of our life circumstances, and then we're we're. Then we start to create rules. We start to create rules for why certain things can't happen and versus, like, exceptions. We create War rules versus exceptions, and I think that what's happened to me is that exceptions were created for me. You know, exceptions were created for me by my mom, by people who met me along the way that saw something in me, by, you know, people who, like, invested in me and said: I know this is the rule, but let's make an exception.

You know I'll give another example when I was in Middle School,. I got into, you know I, teenagers right and getting into quite a lot of trouble and I, my English teacher, I went at the time, went to Fort Miller Middle School and there was a GATE track at the school and my English teacher, just you know, noticed something. And my history teacher noticed something about me and just said, you know I, what if we put Her in the GATE track? But I was in GATE and they just said let's put Her in the GATE track and see what happens. They created an exception. And going in there like I totally flourish, you know, I, when you start to tell a child that they're GATE, they start to believe that they're gay, right, or you know, or they start to believe that they have these superpowers that you just have yet to unleash in them.

And I think that's why I'm so passionate about, like what I do is because I think we create I believe we create a lot of rules, and what we need to do is we really need to think of, like, how our children come to us, the life circumstances that they are dealt, however they come, you know, whatever comes in our way, and then how do we like really look at them and see them for the child that they are, and then find these, you know like, find what works for them and unleash it for them so that they then they can truly learn. And yet we have all these rules. We can't, because if we do that for this person, then this and this happens and we can't be. There's a lot of we can't versus like how about we find a way?

Rachael Maves: Yes, yeah, I just if I could applaud and bring in all the people to hear this piece. Misty, I think that you're you're hitting and it deeply resonates with me because it's part of my like why and education, and I think that having that lens of there has to be an answer, there has to be a way. There can't be the resignation and from your background and a little bit from my background, is because of that is because, based on everything else we experienc, there's no way we should end up in the positions that we did, but through whatever it was teachers that saw something in us, people holding high expectations we were then able to move into that space and it is possible. So to have that driving you of like no, I know it's possible, look at me like I know it's possible. So how do we create those Pathways for those same kids to see that possibility?

Misty Her: It's, you know, and it's interesting, right, because I've been doing a lot of interviews and lots of, like you know, talking to people and the question keeps coming up over and over again about why are you working so hard, why are you doing this when you might not even get the job? And I'm like you know, I, for me, it's not even about whether I get the job or not, it's just about doing a good job and it's just about doing the job and if I do, great, if I don't, it's okay too. You know, it's it's completely okay. And I just think about, like, this kind of hits with me because there was one interview that I was in and the person kept asking me about: like okay, well, what if it doesn't turn out? You have this, you know, 100 day plan at the time we were doing, or my 100 day plan, and that you've developed and you've narrowed your goals in the district to two goals, you know: a student outcome goal and a customer service go and all this for what? Like, why are you doing it?

Why does it matter? Right, and I? My response was is: why wouldn't it matter? You know why wouldn't it matter? Why wouldn't we do this? And as long as our students are still coming, and we H, and as long as I am taking a pet paycheck, because my paycheck comes from our students it, you know, I get paid because students show up to work every single day and as long as I'm doing that, then I need to do right by them and I need to make sure that I'm making the decisions that are in and whatever we are designing is in the best interest of them.

And so the person finally just asked me: are you doing this because of those poor? And you know, Rachael, I had pause because, one, it made me really sad, that's how people look at our kids maybe not everybody, but you know, but that's how people look at our kids. And then, two, it made me think about like I'm one of those kids. Yeah, that's right, I'm one, I'm one of those kids. And then I just said to the person I said I want you to know that our children come to us in the circumstances that they come to us. They may lack resources and they may lack the support that they need right now, but it doesn't mean that they're poor intellectually, y, that's right.

It does not mean that they're poor in their minds. And just because someone's circumstances, wherever they are, whether they whichever zip code you know they come from, or their in their income, you know the, their family's in income, does not determine their intellect. And I, really, that is how I look at our students and that is how I look at our families is just, it's that, you know, I, if I think about, like my own story and how, at one time my mom held two jobs. She, you know, at night was a night custodian and then worked as a housekeeper during the day, and then Her and my dad farmed on the weekends and then my dad also did two jobs, you know, he was a custodian by day, then he did translating, and that still was not enough. Yeah, you know that still was not enough. And that didn't mean that my parents weren't hardworking or they weren't giving or they weren't, you know, they weren't doing everything, anything in their power to provide for us the life that you know, to give us all the resources that we needed.

It's just that we simply our life circumstance at the time didn't provide for us. But that didn't mean that I was, I wasn't any smarter or my brothers and sisters weren't any smarter, and I think that's what one of the things that really drives me is that. And then that is inside of me. And then you know, of course, our students that come and they are incred, you know they come with they're and that we need to accelerate, then we need to do that, but like for and when I say, however, our students come to us, we need to challenge them, we need to have high expectations of them, and I'm not just talking about our kids that are below grade level. I'm talking about all kids who come that are maybe below grade level, kids who come that are not there yet, that are right us at the cus, and then kids who come that are completely gifted and we need to accelerate and challenge them. Yeah, you know, that is why we exist as a school organization and that is why we have what we have in our you know, as the adults that we have in our system, whoever you are, no matter what your position, that is why you know we exist.

Rachael Maves: Yes, and you know, Misty, one of the things that I see in you and I feel like, too, as women, maybe surfaces in a just a different way is: the job is like almost secondary. It is, at the end of the day, whether you get that superintendent position or not, at the end of the day, you have a role in serving kids right now and you are going to knock it out of the park like because whatever you do, it's about them, right, and you're going to use all that time to make sure that it's moving the needle for them and the job's almost like icing on the cake at this point.

Misty Her: Yeah, I mean, I truly look at it in that way, you know, I look at it is like this is I owe this? Yeah, it's just not that. I'm just like I've I've gotten this interim position and then, oh, yeah, I'm going to it's. I actually owe it to our kids and our families, you know, to do this for them, and I also think that it, you know, there's a lot that can come right. There's a lot of dis. What I try to do all the time is I try to stay very centered, because I know that there's a lot of like distractors that can come your way, and I have to.

I have to just keep reminding myself, like, what is it that keeps me grounded and what keeps me Center, so that then I don't get so distracted that I start to lose myself, and that's very important for me. So, like you know, this morning, it had been a very hard week and a couple of weeks and I just said, you know, this morning I have some time, I'm going to go buy a school and I'm just going to spend some time with kids, yeah, or, and I'm going to drive by a couple of schools. Instead of taking the freeway, I'm going to drive by some schools first so that I can get myself centered before I walk into. You know what I'm. Whatever, I'm going to walk into today.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love that we haven't really gotten to any of our questions, so I'm gonna. I w, I wanna know. This is wonderful and this is exactly. You know why we do this podcast, Misty, because there's so many wonderful, great stories of people doing fantastic work Across the Nation in education, and you're one of them. I mean, clearly, you're one of them. I want I do want to come back to just Fresno.

I mean, I've been in California for 18 years. Before we moved, most of it was in Northern California, but now, you know, in my role at perek I'm I'm actually in Fresno, often in the Central Valley, and it is a very unique setting in Fresno. It's such a large city but is such a small community as well, and which is just a different look and feel and relationships are really important and it I know that in the last few years it's Fresno's been impacted, just like all the other schools Across the Nation. And I do Wonder for you, as a leader of this system, what keeps you up at night? What are the one or two things that really sit heavy with?

Misty Her: You know, I think that one for the longest time: Fresno, for as long as I can been remember and I'm going on my 31st year we have always struggled with getting our students, you know, academically, on grade level, and so that keeps me awake at night, that I mean I lay awake almost every night thinking about what do we need to do, how do we need to be different, so that? But I think you know, as I have done that, Rachael, I've realized that I don't just want kids to be on grade level, I don't want them to just learn how to rewrite and do math. I want them to have that, but at the same time, I want them to be good, loving, kind human beings. Yeah, and I learned a lot when I first got into this role and I was doing my listening sessions and I started talking to students, and I talked to students that were in our system, but I, then I also talk to students who have left our system and they are at in college right now, or even students who are now parents back in our system, or students who are now have finished college and are working. And I asked them the question and I said: where do we, where could we have been better for you? Know, what could we have done that was better for you?

And there were kids, students that were coming from all walks of life, right, students who had, you know, gone to Stanford, gone to Harvard, and then students who went to UCLA, and then students who went to City College, or students who went straight out into the work field. And they, the one thing they said to me and I the question was, what could we have done that would have been better for you? And the one thing they said was from all of them was: it was good that I, you know that I learned it was important to learn how to read, write, do math, because I do need those, to have those critical thinking skills. But the one thing I wish I had known was I had. I wish I had known. I wish I had those life skills.

I wish I learned how to work cooperatively with people. I wish I learned how to critically think. You know one gentleman that I sat across from, you know, who is now working in back working in Fresno. That was a student of ours. He said: you know, had I know the things I knew about life, I don't think I would have been fired twice before I landed in this job. I would have made better decisions right and so that really taught me that you know while reading and writing and math and all that is so important.

It is also about like, how do we just teach our students to be good human beings so that when they come back, when you know, when they go out into the world, they can be empathetic? They can, yeah, you know, they can show love and they can show kindness and they can come back and do the same thing. You know and get you know to our community in that way, because if we really want to change our community, yes, we get every child Reading, Writing and doing math and getting them all on grade level. That's how we change our city. But we also change our city by teaching our students how to just be out, to go out there, and how to be, you know, just wonderful human beings. What and what does that mean?

To be empathetic, you know what does that mean? To care and to give you know without expecting anything in return. Those are the things that, like, ultimately I, and that keeps me awake. And then I think about like, what also keeps me awake is that our people are pouring there. We have 10,000 employees in Fresno Unified and there, every day, people show up. And I don't think people show up to go.

I'm going to go and just do the minimal today, or I'm just going to show up just to show up today. I think people show up and they want to. They want to pour their 100% in every day. W and I think it's just getting really focused on, like, what are we pouring into? Yeah, it's cuz we are a district that grabs on to a lot of things, that we are a district of site, like we love to have so many goals and what I have found is that it's easier to have a lot of goals because you can hide behind a lot of goals. Yeah,.

Yeah, but when you narrow the goals, the accountability automatically comes with it and we have to perform and we have to get results.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, that's right, and I love what you're saying, Mr, because I do think there's that key component alongside of our academics is kind of the practical application, and how do we show up and engage as Citizens in our country in a productive way? And, unfortunately, I mean we see what happens when it deteriorates pretty quickly. Yeah, I love that. So, as you're you know.

Misty Her: Yeah, and I was having some conversations with some students and you know they were I kind I actually walked into a high school campus and I overheard. So every time I overhear, I'm like really, let's, you know, have a conversation around that. And I was hearing a conversation about you know just where we are right now with our even our elections, right, and I was talking to students and they were like very, you know in it and I said you know we can have debate and then we can also have healthy dialogue. Yes, yep, and how do we have healthy dialogue so that then it doesn't become like an US versus them or but the how do we have those very healthy, you know, very critical dialogues so that and adults to model that for our children, so that they can also understand that they can have, you know, opposing viewpoints and opposing perspectives and that is completely okay, but then how do we take that into a healthy dialogue so that then we are, then we are be then become very inform versus just, you know, the things that we pull up the, because, you know, our kids have access to information now at the tip of their fingertips, and so I also want them to be very critical thinkers.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, absolutely yeah. I look in our organization and you've probably heard Baba tend say this multiple times, but he calls it the creative tension. You know, like how do we have creative tension with one another? We're all on the same team. We may not agree at the end, but we're better thinkers because of it. And he I don't know if I've come to the same place where he is, where he just loves it, and he, you know, it's like this deep, exciting thing for him.

I'm like here we go, but it's, it is a huge value. And I think if we can impart that for our kids of how do you do that and do that, well then as adults we see what the benefit and the fruit of that will be. And that's one pie Misty I think that you're hitting on when we look at what are the two ways that we could move forward. As you're thinking about this and the things that you mentioned, what like practical application do you see as steps that you can?

Misty Her: Take, you know, I think, one. I think that, like getting everybody, for me these things are really important, right. Coherence, yeah, like calm, I always tell the stuff: we're going to be calm, we're going to be focused and we're going to be steadfast, right, and what that does, you know, when you have calm, you have focus and you have steadfast in your system, is it portrays confidence, yeah, confidence in yourself, in your employees, confidence in your children, and then the confidence in the that the public has in you as an entity. Yeah, and I think that you know, like, one thing that I have worked so hard on is to build that calm in our system, to say, okay, you know there's going to be a lot of chaos, but we got to think about what's. What does calm chaos look like? Yeah, right, what does that look like?

And then Focus, what do we focus on? And I know we have a lot that we can do and there's so many things that can come our way but what are we going to focus on right now? And I'm really big on like one thing at a time and in phases and layering, and so, you know, I'll give the example two goals do I know if they're the right goals, I, but you know what it's at least gotten us to two. And then that's one way in which was starting to turn the ship, and so everybody's focused on that, from, like, our board all the way down to, you know, our students, to the classro, and so if we're all starting to turn that way, then there's that, at least there's that calm in our system to go, you know what. There's not going to be a lot of things that are going to penetrate, because that's what we're focused on, you know, right now and then staying steadfast with it so that when we see other good, shiny objects that are coming our way, we don't start grabbing onto it, but we're like that's on pause for right now, and so, like, a strategy that I have is everybody knows I have this for a later folder and when really good things come and I really want to do it, I have to go. You know what, I'm going to file it in my for later folder, because we got to get this first, we got to get this right first, and once we get this you know like first phase of it then what's the next phase that we're going to layer on, and then what's the next thing that we're going to layer on?

And then some of it might come from my four later folder. I'm like I literally have this big giant folder where I'm like putting things in. I've got sticky notes all in there, I've got everything in there, because sometimes I go back to go, oh, you know what, I think it might be time to do that four later note that I have put in there. But that's one of the you know like in terms of what you're talking about, implementation. It's getting everybody there and then getting everybody like on the same page. It's very important.

You know like one thing I started to do is I started like being in front of principals of that, so that they hear directly from me, just so that they have this Arc of learning that they know. You know what. You're going to see it here, and it's going to be very surface level right now, but the next time it's going to go in a little bit deeper. And then the next time you're going to see, it's going to be the same thing, but it's going to go deeper. And then the next time you see, it's going to be the same thing but it's going to be deeper, with some other things attached to it. Yeah, so that you can start to build alignment into what you're trying to do.

And it's just, you know, it's just kind of like how my brain works and I just, you know, think in terms of that, otherwise it becomes very o overwhelming, you know, and so you know, that's like that's one strategy. The other strategy that I think I'll think a lot about is Simplicity, like how do I keep things so simple? So that someone can grab onto it and they can go. Oh okay, you're saying two goals, 15 points, right, yeah, two goals, 15 points. What does the 15 points mean for me as a teacher? And if I've got 25 students, what does that mean for every single one of my children?

You know that I'm that's in my students that are in front of me every day, and then you know for the particular student then what does that mean. You know by name, by, and how do I? How do I look at that? And so I always try to put things in like the simplest of forms, because I know we can't tackle everything all at once, but we can take very, you know, small parts of it and get really good, and then we can start to, you know, scale up. But what in our system, what we haven't done well is we haven't done like very few things really well. That's why we haven't been able to scale up.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I hear that a lot from districts where you know if we could just do exactly what you're doing, focus and the role of the leader almost becomes like shielding from initiative fatigue and really getting clear around the what then? Yeah, I'm excited, Misty, just to continue to watch the progression of the work that you guys are doing, as it does exactly that. It gets deeper and deeper. We're going to wrap up with the last question and this one. I'm always interested to hear what people have to say. What is one question in education that we're not asking?

But we really shouldn't be. We should really be.

Misty Her: Asking, like: how do we engage the people who we are really designing for and for me and not just involving them? Right, because you involve them and then you get it and then you can go. It's, it's like a, it's like a check off. Okay, we went to this group, then we went to this group, then we went this group, like how do we really engage people in doing that? And for me that is like what? There's a lot we can learn from our students.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] Yeah, and I think that the one, the people we don't ever ask, is our students.

Misty Her: Yeah, and I think that as adults, we tend to believe that we know it and that we have the answers. And you know, I think for me, sometimes the most the best answers I've gotten are from when I spent time with our students and I've I've asked them like I'm wrestling through this what would you do with it? Or how could we, how could we solve it? You know, I'll give you an example: when we got the cell phone. You know, the cell phone. Restriction.

And I thought you know the adults. I brought my team together. We were like, well, we need to do this, we got to do this, we got to do this. And so I just thought you know what I'm going to be in front of a group of kids, let me just ask them the cell phone restriction. And I did. And I and I said: what would you, what would you do, what would you guys do?

And these are a group of high schoolers and they said, well, if you ban it, we're going to find a way, because we're always going to be, we're always going to find a way. As kids, we're going to gain you. We're going to trust me, we're going to find a way to gain you. And they said: why don't you work with us? Why don't teachers work with us so that we can come up with agreements together, so that then? So then I went to a couple of teachers and I said, hey, would you cut a pilot?

Ask your kids what they want to do with the cell phones, because and it was a couple of people I knew in our district that were really struggling with kids being on their cell phones when they were instructing and so I had two teachers who said that they sat down with their kids and they said: you know what I get it? I understand, I you know, because when I was have that having that conversation with the kids, they said: Mrs Her, you have two cell phones. Right, you don't just have one, but you have two, one when you're, and then, and in the time that you've been with us, you've checked your phone more than five. Times, wow, right. And so I was just like okay. So I went to these teachers and these teachers said they sat with their kids and they said: what could we do?

And they said, well, let's have some agreements. Let's have some agreements. We will agree that when we get into the class, you give us the first three minutes to just check our phones, really quick, yeah, and then we put all our phones away and then the last four minutes before class ends, you allow us to check our phones. And I said okay. So when I first went into their rooms, it was true, they were all. But then I went back two weeks later and the there, because there were agreements and because there was voice from the students, no one was on their phone.

And then the class ended and the teacher goes: okay, take out your phones, you guys. You know, go ahead and do that while. You know I'm listing up the homework, and there were no issues, you know. And then another class that I went in it was a completely different class teacher did it a completely different way. But the kids were like, well, if you, let us charge our phones while we're waiting, so when the kids go in, they charge their phones, and then when they and then five, you know four, three, four minutes before class ends, teachers let them go get their phones and their phone is now charged. No one's been on their phone the whole time and there's lots of learning taking place, and then the kids check it on their way out.

Yeah, but that's why I mean when I said what's the question that we should be asking? When we don't ask an in education, I think that we don't ask the people who this impacts the most.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love that. Misty. That's like the perfect exclamation point on the end of this. I just want to say thank you for joining me today on the podcast. It's just been a real treat. Look forward to continuing to watch your career as your leading Fresno Unified and appreciate you giving up your time today, course.

Misty Her: Thank you so much for help 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.