Rachael Maves: Hello everyone. You are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. Today we are talking with Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings. Dr. Hennings is beginning her third year as superintendent at Temecula Valley Charter School. She holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, a master's degree in public health, a master's degree in psychology, and a bachelor's degree in speech communication and psychology.

She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric neurodevelopmental psychology at Loma Linda Children's Hospital, which I can't wait to hear a little bit more about that. She holds her credentials in school psychology and administrative services. She is a certified trauma specialist and licensed clinical psychologist. Dr. Hennings began her early career as a pediatric neuropsychologist and professor in higher education. Over the past 20 years, she has served in various capacities in education, including school psychologist,

Senior Director of Special Education, Senior Director of Inclusion and Program Development. She also serves as a consultant to various organizations and companies. Charity, thank you so much for joining me today. I can't wait to dive into some of this stuff with you. It's exciting and I'm kind of a bit of a neuropsychology nerd. So I'm excited to get into that with you. But we'll start with the first question that I always ask everyone.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: It's a lot.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Okay.

Rachael Maves: Because it's really interesting to me to hear the responses of how people ended up in education. I mean, you have such a varied background, especially. Why did you choose this path? Why choose education?

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Sure, so I think the easiest response to that is probably genetics. So both of my parents were in education. I swore I was never going into education and you can see sort of how that journey ended up. But I think part of that is that over time our vision and our perspective kind of solidifies and narrows over time. So you heard that.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: I have a background in clinical psychology and primarily my specialty was in pediatrics. And there were a number of life circumstances that kind of happened and ended up working together where I ended up going back into K-12 public education full-time. And although I did not start there, that's where I came. And I think one of the things I'm really grateful for is a lot of the work that I was doing at the higher education level and...

in the clinical realm, right? And in the research realm, now I'm actually living that out, right? And so education and being in schools is where you meet kids face to face and are in their world every day. And so that has always been a nice transition for me of going from the clinical setting where it's very, you know, kind of isolated and, you know, one-on-one and the research setting where everything is very philosophical and

and those kinds of things in the teaching setting where you're talking about the real world, but you're not in it, right, to kind of being back in those real world settings. And so I feel like in some ways my career has kind of come full circle and I've been able to experience, you know, kind of all the best of each of those realms.

Rachael Maves: I love that. So I want to hear a little bit of just how that experience in neuropsychology and really understanding trauma is ingrained in the work that you're doing now or the lens that it provides or how does that perspective that you carry and the expertise that you carry inform the work that you do today?

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Sure. So I think particularly in the world of charter school education, we have a little bit of flexibility as we move forward in terms of designing curriculum and designing programs and those kinds of things. And I think my background in neuropsychology and particularly, you know, kind of the neurodevelopment of mental end of that is really understanding how children's brains work. Right.

Rachael Maves: Mm.

Rachael Maves: you

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: And that really drives having that knowledge and understanding really drives the decisions that I make, the coaching that I provide to my staff and those kinds of things. Unfortunately, where we've come in education, so much of it is governed by laws. So much of it is governed by, you know, just these decisions that aren't always related to how we know that kids develop and grow. And so...

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: being in this realm, I'm able to really use that to say, why is it, for example, at our school, we don't choose to do a full day tea cake program? Well, we know, right, developmentally, kids' attention spans at that grade level, their needs at that grade level don't necessarily lend itself to a full day, you know, seven hour a day program, right? So we make a decision based on what we know about brain development at that age and how we design our programs. And so,

Those are some of the ways that understanding brain development, understanding development in general really drives the decisions that we make in terms of our educational programs.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I think that's so important. I first started kind of getting into a little bit of the research around neuropsychology and then that intersection with trauma. I remember it being just such an aha of the students that you have in your classroom. this is, know, thinking about specifically the trauma aspect that

aren't accessing the curriculum that are shutting down, that aren't doing their homework, the very real barriers that are there just within their brain being able to be present, be focused in what it is that they're doing was, I think, just such an aha for me of how do you, the importance of creating that safe space, Maslow's hierarchy of need before you can ever even get to the place of

accessing academic content. And I mean, I'd love to hear, especially, you know, after the pandemic and all of the things that we know that we're hearing with mental health, where you see that coming into your school and is that prevalent and how are you guys looking at and exploring that?

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that we see is one of the greatest factors that allows children and just people in general to be resilient with trauma is social connection, right? And so when I used to teach classes in stress and coping at the university, right, we would talk about things that combat

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: stress, right? And one biggest things is what we call social support or this whole body of research on social support and interconnection and how that creates resiliency. You're probably very familiar with the ACEs research, right? And what are the things that generates resilience in kids that have experienced a lot of trauma? And what they find is, there, if there is a single mentor in that child's life that is building into them relationally, then that accounts and that combat

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: sometimes years and multiple traumas. But the one thing that the pandemic did, right, more than anything else is not only did it create a high level of stress, but it shut off social connection. And I think the biggest we are seeing right now in the educational environment, I mean, our kindergartners this year were literally the babies that were born at the beginning and right at the beginning and middle of the pandemic.

Rachael Maves: Yes

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: is we're seeing that challenge and struggle with social connection, right? And then we bring them into school sometimes and we're all excited about all this technology that we have to offer them and AI and how we don't even have to do anything really to generate an essay. And I think, gosh, what's been lost in that process? And while those things are very valuable technologically, it's a huge struggle because there's no such social connection necessary to learn.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: and there's no social connection necessary to kind of survive in the school environment. And that creates, I think, a real struggle for students. And it takes away that really key piece of resilience that we know that our brain and we as humans just need in general to survive kind of the stressors of everyday life.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I never heard it explained like that before of the one, the pandemic having super high stress levels and then removing that really necessary piece around connection. I'm going to write that down and take it away with me, Charity, because it is such a perfect explanation of why we saw so many of the mental health impacts that we did on kids. I'd love to hear a little bit more too of

Like what keeps you up at night as you think about whether it's pandemic related or not, but the students that you're serving, the families that you're serving at your school, what are those things that are really hitting you and keeping you up at night?

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: I think as I think about your question, I think it really is that social connection. So one of the things, bringing it back to kind of the neurodevelopmental pieces of child development, Children are social learners, right? The first thing that we do when we're born is we learn by responding to our parents, right? And to their facial expressions and basic attachment happens as part of a social relationship.

That doesn't change, I mean, it evolves, but the basic idea that we are social learners continues to grow with us at different developmental periods, right? So we learned language by social interaction, right? We don't learn it by studying a sheet of vocabulary words, right? We don't learn it by taking a spelling test, we learn by using it. And so it really concerns me that as we're bringing in particularly these students that

were born during the pandemic and we already know have less social connection. What we're bringing them into is a world in which we are so focused on technology and we're so focused on being in front of screens and having screens generate content for us. And we talk through a phone, right? So we can edit, we can take it away and say, nevermind, I don't wanna say that, right? And I X that out.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: That's not real life. That's not real social interaction, right? When I interact with you socially, I'm on the podcast, right? If something funny comes out of my mouth, I'm stuck with it, right? We're in this conversation. So, you know, that's the prayer on a podcast is please don't let me say anything too ridiculous, right? And so for me, I think about, gosh, that is not the real world. When kids are communicating through text, they're communicating through computer. All of their learning is really mediated through technology.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: you

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: And that does not match with what we know about the brain. We have social brains and the brain learns through social connection. It learns through verbal mediation, talking things out, reflection, whether that's an inner dialogue or an outer dialogue and those kinds of things. And so I believe that when we're coming into this level of educational environment where so much of it is based on technology, again, technology is not a bad thing, but it certainly limits our learning.

and the capacity that our brains have to learn in that way. So, yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to hear. I mean, because that's a big one. And I feel like that's a huge debate that's happening right now is what is that place of technology and specifically around AI and how do we use it responsibly? And to your point, how do we find that balance of engaging with technology, but not removing the human connection? Because I feel like the pandemic actually did give us a picture of what that looks like for the majority of the students, not all, but for the majority.

I mean, how are you guys thinking about it? And when you think about that issue around social connection, what are one or two ways that your organization is moving that work forward?

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Sure. So I think one of the things that we are really trying to do is we create a lot of opportunities on campus for social connection. So our goal is when students leave TVCS, they are socially connected in some way, whether it's athletics, whether it's music, whether it's art, whether it's a chess club, whether it's robotics, know, regardless of what that is, we feel like that growth and development and kind of consideration about the future

Rachael Maves: Mm.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: happens in the context of something that they feel good about themselves in the context of the larger kind of world, right? And what they get connected to. And so if they're leaving us with no real connection or passion to anything, then that's a problem. And what comes with that connection and passion is we very carefully identify adults in their world.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: that are mentoring and pouring into them in each of these areas of interest, right? So that they're connecting and making those connections so that they see that there are people involved, right, in each of these circles that they're in. I think the second thing that we're really focusing on is having students question and reflect, what does that feel like to me?

Right, because in this day and age, we can engage in an action and the only thing that responds to us is a screen, right? Or we can do something or say something and there's really no consequences to that when we're not interfacing with live human beings, right? Or when we're in a very narrow world of just who is in our household. And so I think we're spending a lot of time with our students, not just with.

you know, formal social emotional lessons, but in just providing corrective feedback and providing our kind of code of conduct here at TVCS, we're really focusing on that getting back in touch and I know this sounds very much like a psychologist, but hey, that's where I started, right? Getting back in touch with those feelings, like what does it feel like when somebody says something terrible to you, right?

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Because you can say whatever to a screen and it's going to give you a programmed response or it's not going to respond at all, right? But when you're interacting with another human, that's a real feeling, right? And what does that feel like when that's said back to you? And at the same time, how do we regulate the emotions that have come up for us when we're not used to having live interaction or we're not used to the real world consequences?

of choices that we make. And sometimes those are good choices, right? They're not always bad choices. They're good choices, but there are consequences and responses to everything that we do.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love that. So this is actually our last question. And I'm excited, given what we've been talking about, to hear what you're thinking around this, what question in education are we not asking that we really should be right now?

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Yeah, that's a great question. I ask myself that every day because I'm always trying to think, OK, what is it that we could be doing that we're not for students, right? And not just our students, but our staff. But I think what we need to be asking is, what is it that we need to include that prepares our students not just to be good students, but to be good citizens of the world?

Right? And we can learn all the math in the world that there is. But if we go out and we don't know how to teach math or we don't know how to use that in a functional way, in a way that impacts society and impacts our workplace and moves us forward as kind of the human race, right? What good is that learning and knowledge, right? And if we sit in isolation and don't know how to use that education,

then I think that's really a problem. so I think the number one thing we need to ask as educators is what are we doing students to prepare to use the knowledge that we're teaching them in the real world and in real human interaction?

Rachael Maves: Yeah, yeah, I think that you're hitting on something that has such a massive ripple effect, you know, that piece around

What does it mean to be a healthy functioning member of our society that is contributing in whatever space that looks like? But that you're showing up in and giving your best self to to our society and our communities and one another. Yeah I appreciate your time today charity. I know especially with schools just opening and being in the first few months it is a whirlwind. So thank you for coming on and sharing your thoughts and the great work that you're doing at in your charter is

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Yeah, absolutely.

Rachael Maves: just wonderful.

Dr. Charity Plaxton-Hennings: Appreciate the opportunity.

Rachael Maves: A friendly reminder that Parsec Education's updated early bird sale for Parsec partners is live until September 30th. Partner tickets are only $199 for the 2026 Measure What We Value Summit happening February 4th in Fresno, California. Don't miss the limited time offer and the opportunity to experience our incredible MC Brandon Leake, Season 15 winner of America's Got Talent. Secure your tickets now at parsecsummit.com.

---

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.