Rachael Maves: Hi everyone. You are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. Today we are talking to Sheryl Sisil, associate superintendent of educational services for Madera Unified School District. Sheryl leads nine key departments to provide Innovative and comprehensive support for students, academic and personal growth. With over 16 years of experience as a teacher and administrator, she's dedicated to promoting Fair access to resources and preparing caring students for success in higher education and the workforce. Passionate about creating welcoming learning environments, Sheryl actively Champions program, supporting students from a broad range of backgrounds.

Sheryl, thank you for joining me today.

Sheryl Sisil: Thank you for having me.

Rachael Maves: I'm really excited that you're here. Madera is a close friend, I would say, of Parsec. We Appreciate You guys' partnership and always excited to see some of the great things that are happening in your District. Before we kind of jump into your thoughts just around education and the things that are keeping you up at night, I'd love just to hear your story. Why did you choose a career in education? What led you to this place?

Sheryl Sisil: I would say my career path into education started from a really young age. I was one of those kids that growing up, when asked what I wanted to be, I always wanted to be a teacher and I would say, probably similar to many. It was because of some really amazing teachers I had at a very young age that loved on me and engaged me and made me feel valued and made me feel important and made me feel loved, and so I had a really you know, I have such fond memories of Elementary, even the dreaded Middle School years and high school, and so I think I knew from a very young age always asked: I wanted to be a teacher. Interest thing is my parents really kind of tried to talk me out of Education really, yep, I am the only educator on either side of my family. My dad was a small business owner, my mom worked for a large manufacturing plant here in Madera and they both thought I should go into a health career, and so I did try to make my mom and dad happy for a short period of time, and my favorite story to tell of all is at freso State. I think it was probably my first semester.

I was in like the anatomy physiology lab and our grad student who was in charge of our lab. I was in the cadaver lab and I remember he was like eating pizza and had his hand in the body and I was like no, so I made it through. I think one semester of PRX for. Nursing and then I as a young person thought I wanted to be like a history social science teacher. I always was kind of fascinated with history and social science. But if you don't know about me, I'm an I'm an Aggie.

So I was born and raised on a ranch. We had horses, we had cattle. I grew up showing horses. So when I got to Fresno State,. I kind of made my way into Agriculture, and so my entrance into education ended up being as an agriculture instructor, and so I started my teaching career as an a teacher. I taught for six years in Firebaugh and then as an AAG teacher, and then had the opportunity to come back to Madera is my home, so I was.

Given the opportunity to come back and teach in my community, which I was eager to do. At the same time I was getting married and my husband was living and working in Medera, so it was kind of all a perfect scenario. So then I went into teaching agriculture here in Madera at the time the egg program was housed at Madera High School and I completed two years of teaching in the a department, and at the end of my. Year I was asked to apply to be a vice principal and at that time Madera Unified and I believe still is a leader in this work. But we had a model at that time that was called a career School model. So there was a school of Agriculture.

I was an agriculture teacher. I had a strong background in agriculture and so the vice principal position for the school of a opened up, so that's the job I was recruited into. So I became a vice principal for the school of. Agriculture where I got my start in administration, and that would have been 2006 and I was still able to be heavily involved in the a program. I still was involved as an FFA adviser, I still coached teams, I still supervised projects with students. So it was like for me it was perfect, because my love and my passion was being a classroom teacher.

But through agriculture I got an opportunity to engage at such a more, you know, a closer level with students through leadership and through different opportunities to supervise agriculture experience projects. And so I was the school of AG viice principal for 5 years and then our at that time the principal, asked me to consider leaving the school of a to be, at that time, what was called the dean of curriculum and instruction, and so I left my position as a vice principal for the school of a and became the dean. I was the very first Dean in Madera Unified. Actually, I became the dean of curriculum and instruction at Madera South High School. Where I was in position for I want to say three years probably two and a half is more correct because I had my third child when I was in my role as Dean and she was due February 28th. I had her March 4th.

So I my last, Almost my last, semester at Madera South as the dean. I was being a mom and then at that time, the superintendent for Madera Unified was, in my opinion, kind of visionary in his thought around College and Career Readiness. So you can imagine, this is 2014, yeah, and the idea of College and Readiness not that it should have been or Was A New Concept, especially not Madera Unified, because in this District we had a really strong commitment to Career Pathways and Career Technical education and agriculture in our community had always kind of been the standard, the gold standard, yeah. So our Superintendent at that time had the idea to develop a position called the director of College and Career Readiness, which I applied for and got that job in like June of 2014. So I ended my career as a site administrator in the spring and then transitioned to a director job here, and that was where Bob chund and I met, because he was also hired at the exact same time to be the. Director in our district and I can't remember what his title was at that time.

Now it would be like the director of communications and continuous Improvement is kind of those departments he was ever seen. So we worked closely together, coming in together as directors in 2014. I was the director of college Inc Readiness then, for three years, did a ton of work. I would say. People ask me what I think my best work was and I think the most rewarding work and the work that really meant the world to me was that work that I did in those three years and that was really focusing on College and Career Readiness, expanding career Pathways that were aligned to relevant industry sectors. They were no longer The Dumping Ground for kids that weren't going to go to college and I feel like that was a.

Big piece to the work that is that I think Madera Unified is leading today and should be recognized Nationwide for our work around College Inc Readiness, which led to the work in The Graduate profile, which helped us lead to the work that is around our project based learning Middle School. You know we have world champion robotics teams. We have National Champion teams in multiple Pathways. We, I would say we, are definitely a district to be reckoned with for our work in that area and I feel like that was the work that I started back in 2014 and that's probably the work I'm most proud of. The work then transitioned in 2017. I was appointed to be the, at that time, assistant superintendent of educational services.

That job title is now the only thing that's changed is now the associate superintendent of Educational Services, which you already identified as nine departments, plus being the authorizer of our independent charter schools in Madera Unified and also the author of The LCAP for Madera Unified, which is no small feet. The local control accountability plan is no small feat, Sheryl, and it is no small feat, but again I would say and I'm sure it's going to come up in here, like what work I'm, I'm proud of that we're doing now and I feel like. The commitment that our district has made to really understanding how the LCAP should and was it like the promise of the LCAP? Right, like the promise of the LCAP was that districts with the greatest needs would get the greatest amount of funding. And then it's a District's responsibility to ensure that funding is going to the students and families and that we're seeing that achievement Gap and Equity Gap close. And I would say we're, we're, I believe we're doing the right work to get us there.

I believe that. We're our academics are going to show and we are growing students significantly. But there's obviously still work to do. But I believe the LCAP if you were to look at the LC cap that we adopted last year at to start this new threeyear cycle I'm really proud of that work. It's, it's painstaking and it is ongoing and it never stops it. You know, I mean for it to be the document it's intended to be.

It can't be something you look at once a year and revise annually and move on. We have a strategic team that meets four times a year. We do a lot of. We're we're doing a deep look at the implementation of our actions. We're evaluating the effectiveness of our actions. We're using quantitative and qualitative data points to do that work, and that would that's new, and I think if babun day were still here and he were still in charge of the elcap, he would probably be moving the work that way.

But I feel like the document is a really high quality document. I feel like it represents where Madera Unified is going and I suspect that the goals that we have set should be and will be the goals that'll drive this District, whether I'm in this position or not.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love, Sheryl, that you're already looking at and talking about the quantitative and qualitative data side of things, because I think that often we get stuck in this place where, when we're looking at our strategic plan or we're trying to assess is, are we getting the results that we want to see? We focus so narrowly on the quantitative data that we miss that engagement from our staff, from students and community members, and I'll just say, you know, as Madera, as a real partner, and we're seeing some of the reals and the information that you guys are getting in is pretty powerful, the feedback that you're from your kids. So I just applaud you guys and embracing that and utilizing that as part of the way in which you're assessing how you're meeting the needs of your students, moving forward.

Sheryl Sisil: Well, and I would say the utilization of Parsec real has really helped to amplify the student voice for us. Now, obviously, the Ed code says you have to have students involved in the decision making around the LCAP development and so we started with the official work of adding students last year as part of our pack, but our superintendent had already started the work of convening student voice meetings, bringing in student leaders, having really open dialogue. Yeah,. I've said multiple times and I believe wholeheartedly that our students will tell us exactly yeah, usually exactly what we need to know about what's going on, and so they bring a very honest, in my opinion, and Powerful dialogue to the table. And so I think one of the things that Madera Unified and our superintendent and our leadership is really trying to prioritize is the student voice and, as an example, last year when we were getting feedback from students, you know we had, like, if you took all three high schools, Comprehensive High Schools plus our continuation sites, I mean we had probably close to 12 to 15,000 individual student responses. We had one high school that really, you know, had a that they seem to be the high school in our district that has really gotten the hang of how to utilize The Reel, but all of our students and our schools are utilizing it.

I know parents also can utilize it. I haven't I haven't kind of very deep into that the work that we do with parents as partners. I'm a big believer in face Toof face so we hold a lot of all of our schools hold Community meetings to get parent insight and parent feedback. Obviously we have the parent advisory committee and the district English language advisory committee that I happen to be the facilitator of those two District level groups and really and bring a valuable lens. To how we allocate our assets yeah, both fiscally and Personnel wise in our district.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I'd love to hear, Sheryl, just a little bit about your thoughts, as you're I mean, you oversee so much in the district and you're doing so much work to engage students and hear their voice and families what keeps you up at night? What are the one or two things that really weigh on you as you're leading this work with than Madera? Unified.

Sheryl Sisil: Yeah, what keeps me up at I because Educational Services our primary function. We exist to support School sites, to improve academics. So you know if I'm being transparent. What keeps me up at night is that I know the work that were developing and implementing is the right work. The research supports it, just the academic turn. Around, I guess, isn't where I would hope, and so what keeps me up at night is the constant.

You know, can we do more? Is there something we are not doing? Because our community deserves the best from us and our kids deserve the best from us, and academically we are not where we would want to be, and so it's, I would say, that keeps me up at night. And then the other piece that I guess I think about often:. Is high quality teaching, yeah, and is my department doing everything that we can to support teachers in the Quest for students? You know, academic achievement, yeah, teacher retention and teacher quality I think is something if you ask anybody across the state.

Rachael Maves: I'm, and you do, I'm imagining that's something that comes up, yeah, everywhere.

Sheryl Sisil: Yeah, we have now. Yeah, it's a big topic. You know we have to get to a place where we're not seeing the teacher turnover at such a high rate, because in Madera Unified we have really tried to invest in our young teachers. We have invested in something called the teach teachers support and mentorship program, which is where every one of our new teachers, both pre-service and, you know, year one or year two, with a credential but if you're a brand new teacher in this District, year one, two or three, you're paired with a mentor teacher. That's a significant investment in young teachers in our district and we are seeing the benefits of that. It's also helping us see just exactly how much.

Is on the plates of not only new teachers, but all teachers. And this kind of folds into one of the questions, which is: you know what are the challenges, Ju? Just what is it that is challenging Us in education today? And again, I'm imagining that every person you ask that question to is going to say: we can no longer just talk about academics. We have to talk about the whole child and the whole student, and with that, now, if you're a teacher, you're not just going into the classroom with an expectation that you can deliver your curriculum every day and the kids are there, welcome and ready to learn. We have a lot of social, emotional and behavioral challenges facing our teachers, and so what a teacher's asked to do today is hard work, yeah, hard work.

I would say that in a community like Madera, where 91% of our students are disadvantaged, I believe there's a strong tie to students and families that live in poverty and the challenges that ultimately they face. Yeah, and so when you're a teacher in Madera Unified, you have to know that you're you're going to be asked to deliver the curriculum to ensure that students are meeting their grade standards, but you also are going to be responsible for the social, emotional and behavioral pieces that are so important in a classroom. And you know we are facing and seeing significant challenges, especially in our youngest Learners. Our youngest Learners are really coming to. Us and challenging our classroom teachers to be able to deliver grade level curriculum and focus on academics, because of the challenges in the classroom around the social, the emotional and the behavioral pieces.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, as you think of about all of that, Sheryl, and the things that you're bringing up, because I agree completely, the role of the teacher has shifted and I would say it's based on Research, right, like we know and understand more and more the barriers that students face in the classroom that have to do with external conditions, and how do we then create the environment that allows them to have access? So a child that is living in a fight, ORF flight mode constantly or in Survival, how do we create that safe space for them to be able to access the educational content when they come into school and not just be in a state of being triggered all the time? I mean, that's a, that's a whole new skill set learning that we're laying into education, and I'd love to hear I mean e on that or any of the other things that you brought up what is one way in which Madera is really like looking to address this and provide that support?

Sheryl Sisil: Yeah and Rachael, I can touch on the commitment from our school district. This is actually an entire. In our school district there's an entire division now that is that exists to address the social, emotional and Behavioral Health of students. In Madera's, the student and Family Support Services, we have invested tremendous amount of fiscal and personal re Personnel Resources to address those needs. But I think that we, our community, our state, even as a nation, we still have a long ways to go. Teaching in the classroom just simply doesn't, can't and won't look the same our teachers.

I use the example: when I went into the classroom my first year of teaching in 1998 again, I was an agriculture teacher. I taught ag biology and I taught advanced animal science and I taught some ornamental horiculture. When I went into that classroom I got to be the content expert and I got to teach kids. Agriculture I, if I were to walk into the classroom today as a teacher and still be being the expert in the room and the content that's. That's not enough anymore. It's just not enough.

Our teachers have to be able to engage students at a different level. They have to be able to support students at a different level. It. They varied levels of students that are coming in. There's language barriers, there's academic barriers, there's the social, emotional piece, which was something that I won't say we didn't face when I was in the classroom, but I mean the challenges I would just say have exponentially, especially since returning to school in 2021, after we closed schools and then brought kids back, and our superintendent was and is very much a Visionary and I can remember sitting in conversations about what we were going to do differently to. Ensure that our students wanted to come back to school, and it was at that time that we made some really significant changes in mad unified.

We knew that our teachers needed to have protected time within the school day to ensure that they could develop engaging lessons for a group of students who were going to need to be more engaged. We also knew that we had to create opportunities for students to. Joy and excitement to come back to school. So when we opened School 2021, we opened in elementary with an opportunity for every child transitional TK through sixth grade to have what we call our elementary enrichment or Elementary electives. So every child and still right now gets 50 minutes of art a week. They get 50 minutes of stem a week, they get 50 minutes of Music a week and they get 50 minutes of dramatic literacy a week.

And then they also get, depending on their grade level, 50 to 100 minutes of physical education, provided by a credential physical education. Teacher. During the time that our students are getting those electives, our teachers the classroom teacher gets to meet with their grade level team or work independently on developing, enhancing whatever they need to do to ensure that they're able to meet the needs of their classroom. So we created non-instructional time for classroom teachers. I love that for the first room ever in our district that wasn't asking teachers to come and then work from 3:30 to 6: PM. Right, yeah, we're going to pay you on a time sheet after you've already put in a full day's work and then we're going to ask you to engage in professional learning.

That is a common practice and there are still some opportunities like that happen in our district. But every Elementary School teacher in this District gets 250 to 300 minutes of non-instructional time a week during their Duty day to focus on. Themselves, how they can grow professionally, how they can collaborate with their team and how they can focus on lessons that are highly engaging for our students.

Rachael Maves: That's awesome.

Sheryl Sisil: Elementary our elementary students get to experience 250 to 300 minutes of what we hope are activities that they enjoy again: stem, music, art, drama and physical education. Yeah, is it perfect? No, it's not. It's not perfect, but it was something that was groundbreaking for our area and it was a commitment to engaging students in a new way. To Hope Yul want develop that love and excitement to come back to school, and we recognize that teachers were going to need to engage students in a way they never had before, and so we needed to provide them the opportunity ongoing to focus. Themselves, so I feel like that was a really big step in the work that Madera Unified's doing.

At that same time is when we also implemented the teacher Support Program, which is where we hired distinguished teachers from within our schools. They come out now and they are mentoring anywhere from probably three to five new teachers. In some cases they have a few more, but they are the person who directly supports and mentors. All of our new teachers and that's that's again something that we're really proud of and we are seeing our teacher retention improve because of I bet that different Sheryl. I mean just because that all the research shows that part of the reason that new teachers leave is that they don't feel supported, they don't have the resources that they have or they're not connected with the leadership at their school and being able to provide what you're doing with a mentor teacher: giving that space and time that's job embedded for them to really get into the weeds, to analyze their data, to look and plan and collaborate, but to not just have to do that in isolation.

Rachael Maves: I mean that's, that's huge for. Educators, you know.

Sheryl Sisil: And the other piece I would want to Circle back on around the educational landscape and what I see that Madera Unified has been very committed to for a lot of years, but really significantly in the last, say 10, is that idea of College and so ensuring that every student, when they leave us in, with a college. Diploma has the greatest number of opportunities and the widest array of options for Success. Yeah, so there's been a significant investment in our schools, one by adding the seven period day. So we were one of the very few districts around that I was aware of that was still operating on a six period day. So we now have a seven period day in middle school and a seven period day in high school. For us that was.

There's a lot of reasons why that became really, but in a six period day in a school district with a population of English Learners that hovers around 5600 5800, which is about anywhere from 28 to 30% of our student. Population that are English Learners. Once those students hadn't reclassified when they left elementary school and they entered middle and high school, their trajectory completely changed in this District until we were able to get the period day, because those students now take their required core programs, but they also get access to highquality Career Pathways, yeah, and so that's really important because now those kids not only have an opportunity to engage in something that they might actually enjoy in school, they actually have an opportunity to complete a career pathway. They have an opportunity to earn industry level certifications. They have an opportunity. To earn the Seal of literacy.

Just many doors were opened with the seven period day but that has, in my opinion, been some of the most and will lead to some of the most transformative work for our student populations, specifically in our community English learner students, where we have really tried to focus and prioritize those students to ensure. That when they inter midd and high school they are guaranteed the same opportunities that monolingual students are.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, and so for our listeners that aren't in education, and then we'll wrap this up too. I think it's important, Sheryl, just to highlight this tension that's always been in place in education around College and Career, and I love what you said, that were you were Shifting the mindset that it's not just a Dumping Ground and, unfortunately, if you weren't on that career pathway I think the nomer was you don't really need a rigorous program because you're going to go into this career pathway that's not going to be as challenging and the shift that I see in Madera and the work that you've been leading is actually that's not true. We want to ensure that all the career pathways are just as rigorous so that there is the opportunity for Upward Mobility for all of those students that go into a career, that they're not stuck at entry level positions but they have the skills and the knowledge and understanding required to continue to move up and build that pathway so that they're not just staying in those like really early career. Positions.

Sheryl Sisil: Yeah, I would love to talk a little bit more about that, because that is sort of what the fire in my belly still comes from. Yeah, is around the true belief in College and Career Readiness and in D unified. If you complete one of our career Pathways, you're going to have an opportunity to earn college. Credits, so you're going to take college level coursework. You're going to earn industry relevant skills? Yeah, and you're going to earn those industry relevant skills because we have an amazing set of Industry Partners who believe and invest in our schools and in our students and come to those meetings when we say, hey, what is it that you need?

When our kids come to you, what is it that you're looking for? Yeah, and so the skills is. Again, we strive and expect kids to leave well above a entrylevel skill position. Yeah, and they're going to, because of that, earn industry relevant. Certifications, MH. So and this isn't always popular what I'm about to say but every child does not need a four-year college degree to earn a highquality living wage anymore, because there are skills and certifications that we can give our students that make them employable the when they're in high school in some cases, and employable when they leave us in high school, and I have seen it over and over again.

But that is a challenge and it's still a challenge because there is still a college for all mindset and. I will stand toe-to-toe with anybody that say every child needs to go to college. It's just not true. We have students who go to college, get a college degree, and they're a barista across the street at Starbucks, yeah, or they're working, you know. They went to college, they got their bachelor's degree and unfortunately didn't get the best advice or the best guidance. And now they've got a piece of paper, but they don't have the skills and they got the piece of paper in an area that they can't really put it to work.

Versus students who have a will to work hard to learn new skills. We can provide that and we do provide that. I'm not going to say that in every school district across the state or the country that CTE is embraced, like it is here in Madera, but I can tell you that my current director of College and Career Readiness, she, believes it and I believe it, our Schoolboard believes it, our superintendent believes it. In Madera Unified, we are invested in ensuring that students truly can leave us in a position to be successful in college if that's what they choose, but also in career if that's what they choose.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, and I love too that the way that You' structured that program. It allows for them to make different decisions later on. If a student follows that career pathway but then later on decides: I actually want to go to school now because I want to further my education or deepen my understanding this area, or whatever it might be, that door hasn't closed to them like they still have what they need because you've created such a rigorous program. Which, to me, at the end of the day, is: how do we ensure that students have all of those opportunities available to them, regardless of what that choice is, and that we're we are not closing those doors inadvertently? By the way, we've structured our program programs, which I think you guys are doing really well, Sheryl. It's just exciting.

I just want to say thank you for your time today. I know that it's limited and there's a million things going on and I appreciate you coming on the podcast and just sharing with us the great work that Madera is doing around this. I would encourage, if you're a district leader and you're listening to this and you want more information, to reach out to Sheryl, because I think what Madera is doing, and even what we're seeing and some of the real feedback from the students, is pretty power powerful the way that you're equipping students in both of the career and the College Pathways. So thank you, Sheryl, for all your work.

Sheryl Sisil: Absolutely thank you for having me today.

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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.