Rachael Maves: Hi everyone. You're listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. Today we are talking to Dr Caprice Young, the chief executive officer and superintendent of Navigator schools. Dr Young is a seasoned executive and superintendent with extensive leadership experience. She is the former National superintendent of Lifelong learning, overseeing 49,000 students across five states, and has served as CEO of a Fortune 500 subsidiary. She has received numerous Awards, including the coral Crystal Eagle for excellence in public service and California State University Los Angeles educator of the Year.

Dr Young has served on multiple boards and was president of the LAUSD or Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Caprice, thank you for joining me for today. I'm super excited about our conversation together.

Caprice Young: My pleasure, absolutely my pleasure.

Rachael Maves: So we always start out the podcast with what I feel like is the most human part of everything around your story and pathway and career into education. Why choose education?

Caprice Young: I wasn't supposed. To. I grew up in a huge family. My biological parents were Foster, so I have 36 brothers and sisters not all at once, not all at one, oh, my God. Was in the host spost family I stay fo and everybody else came and went and sometimes came back and again. So I was blessed with 30 brothers and sisters and that I stopped counting after I moved out.

So my parents, who are, you know, Saint, have continued fostering kids, even T that. So growing, you know, growing up in a family like that, I was awake to the diversity of humanity from the very beginning and my mom was a special education teacher. My dad was a juvenile probation off ser and became a Minister. And I went off to college thinking I was going to have a Praying in policy or something in government, but really focused on policy and making differ world. And after 10 years in public finor and Technology, I got elected in the school board in Los Angeles. Now think, oh, I'll just serve on the school board in Los Angeles, will fix public education and then I'll go back by.

Down, and not just any school board, but the Los Angeles Unified School Board.

Rachael Maves: I mean for people who are listening, that are Educators. Tell us the size of that District, the smaller now than it was then.

Caprice Young: This was 1999 through 2003 and had three4 of a million P 12 students and another 40,000 prek, and then another 400,000. Adult School students and the laws have changed a lot since then, as that was years ago, M than 20 years ago. So the adult school responsibilities are no longer part of school districts responsibility that you know. But the school district as a whole is now under 500,000 and that has everything to do with, you know, declining enrollment and how we as a society have failed the plan for growth effectively. It was supposed to be a r war and Los Angeles failed to build housing and became unaffordable and bance haveed out, you know. Then there was small matter of a 2008 recession.

And just when I left the board in 2003, I went on to start the California Charter Schools Association. We found it that in 2003 and now there are about 200 charts in Los Angeles as well, and wow. So famili so fled with their feet around what they want for their kids. And you know, I, when I served on the board, I realized that this could be a way to make a real difference in o and it fell L greatly with working an educator. Education people are, you know, amazing. They're hiding, aristic and cynical.

All at work, one and beer be churing to make the world better for kids, and that's true whether they're traditional Public Schools or. CH, yeah. So, yeah, how could I not? How could I not do this?

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] It found me and I am a willing partip and you never looked back.

Caprice Young: Oh, I looked back all the time. Who does it? What you know? I see my brands are in technology and they're doing amazing things in technology, things that are revolutionary and Grand breaking, but I would describe them as morally neutral and I think that we can be revolutionary and groundbreaking in education in a way that's more, that's more good. You know, net positive and, yeah, you know I love working with Brad. It's a great company and doing in the 90s, doing some really revolutionary work, but at the end of the day, I was, you know, I was still adding to the bottom line at Toyota or insurance companies or you know, and what I really want to be doing is working with our kids in our communties and that's, it's just for me.

This is selfish. I love this work and I.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, you know it's not often that you hear a the story of a board member that then is like, wow, I've, I've got, I was bit by the bug and now I want to go and, like, be a practitioner and Lead this work in schools. And when you I love what you said that you fell in love with Educators, do you remember like either a point in time or story from that time that really highlights that moment for you where it just clicked of: I wanted do this in a different way?

Caprice Young: Well, you know part of the reason, part of the reason why generally people go from being a board member to having a career in education, that generally you're the board member at the end of, yeah, I was electing the school board in my early 30s, I was 32, twoy old kid, and so it was the war like career, not the end with like career. Yeah, and you know it was sort of like: well, okay, I can volunteer a lot by serving on the P or I can run from the Schoolboard and me that. Look. So that was kind of, that was kind of it so. But that's part of a reason why it's an unable PA. It has less to do just with getting get when, more to do with that with some the I started now.

Since then we've had several people elected to the school board and law some ear 30 and so it's not so uncommon more. But definitely there was a moment at a water, it was once. So I, my youngest daughter she was PR when I got elected Bor so she started kindergarten in our local public school while I was first at the school board and one day she brought home from school a note actually it was were the first days that she was at school as her brand newgard. She brought home a note from the fourth grade teacher who was the union chapter chair at the time, and it was when she said to me: Mommy, I get in trouble, I don't even know this teacher and she told me to keep me this letter. So I opened up the letter and it was the union chap telling you how I was supposed to vote at the board me and I was concerned about then my daughter as a messenger. And I went to the school site.

I explain that I really wanted mam when I was on the School site, not a board member, but that they were welcome to call me rly anytime about policy and I really ended up hitting it off positively with that teacher, the fourth grade teacher, and as I was on the school board in 1999 we were between 99 and 2003 we were really rolling out an entire spoex based program and was three different curricular that the school start to choose from. W we set for all or local court and my daughter's teachers were phenomenal teacher who had the kids writing in by. And, wow, I got to sit down as we talking about the roll out of this curricula and I fear the death of their interests and concern and ideas around how to make it successful. And they were Hing at it from a very kid oriented perspective, although we're thinking about the whole range ofans from pinat who are highly gifted. Pinat special education needs kids who are multi worker, kids who had work efficiencies, that come from poverty and wanting to make it successful for all things and you know a lot of people that easy just not. You know it is one of the hardest things that we and the professionals who are doing it are sing the most invested people that we want and don't.

They're fun too. So that was definitely a moment. But there was another moment when, as Schoolboard president, it wasn't so much a moment of, was an accumulation of moments, and that was what I would go to visit traditional Public Schools a lot of times. What I look hear from school sided M graders for things like the budget is blah, the policiy blah, everything was wrong, bad and horrible. And go to Charter School site and they would be like you got to come see my robotics lab and positive and up, and so that for me was kind of a shift from traditional public schools to. Because, yeah, because I wanted to be able to lead environment where or people are excited about the work and my I think my biggest regret is that you know, once you moving to the Charter School World, almost impossible to go back toal Public School world.

It's an just visible politics. It's just because of politics and you know I have always phasized about wanting to a traditional. Superintendent, so that I could bring that kind of positivity and I would described as yesness, being able to say yes into a context where it's almost always the answer is no.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love that, Caprice, I you know I don't know what that trajectory looks like or if that will ever be a checkmark for you, but yeah, absolutely to be able to have that type of mentality and bring a little bit of fun into that space in a different way. For sure, as we think about just where education has been in the last four years and where we're headed after the pandemic, what, from your lens and the this vast experience in education, what keeps you up at? Night.

Caprice Young: Well, you know I my day job is that I'm the superintendent of Navigator schools, which are four amazing schools on the Central Coast of California. Wat, though illo, holler and Hayward is, are our one Urban School site. Whether who are in agricultural to, and our students are prolly with sons and daughters of people work in that age, and our schools are Head and Shoulder above other schools in terms of their. Star, actually the traditional public schools around us, certain very similar but not identical, but they're. They're scoring, you know, 20% of kids proficient, which is, from my perspective, absolutely heart rate, and our schools are 50 to 70% efficient, to which W, honestly, is still heartbreaking for me. So what keeps me up at night is: well, how do we, how do we change what we're doing to reach all of the students?

All and you. One of the hols that I think that we have to really work on as a sector or a movement is or not. How do we make small changes, but how do we make big changes? How do we move? How do we use time much more efficiently towards it? Yes, how do we?

How do we find where to unlock ourselves from these bands of: oh, you're first grade, you have to this these things over this period of time and if you don't, we're going to move you up second grade anyway, even though it's going to increase your failure because you didn't wear the that you needed to move that. That, yeah, we have to. We have to be able to break gr from those traditional structures. Because what that's leading to me, you know, 30% of our kids taking seventh and eth grade not able to learn in the classrooms that they're sitting in and becoming cical and having be a big Wast of their time with everybody else, right? So the thing that I worry about, think about, I worry about, I mean, have I worry about it? But like the big noodle on this is how do we break out of that so that we can meet every student, me.

And that requires changes in the regulatory environment that we were in. One of the areas of char School growth that I'm hor excited about is the growth in the Nar classroom Public School n class n classroom based Public Schools. But it comes to California, people think that means online learning, and in some cases it does, but what it actually means is that those schools get paid based on the work that the students do, as opposed to the how long their butts been in the chair, and it's that kind of fiscal structure that's going to allow us to have the freedom or flexibility to really meet the needs of every single kit and, as I'm as I'm leaving right now leading classroom based school. And that structural qualification is a real challenge. So light team is looking at how do we do it better.

Rachael Maves: I love that. I want to just quickly, before we go into like practical next steps like the one that you just gave. I do want to come back to some of your data and what you're seeing. I mean that's pretty significant to look at where you guys are currently performing and yes, I understand like it's still not good enough and you're you're striving to continue to hit higher proficiency marks, but it's significantly outperforming the other schools in the area. What do you attribute to this success that you're seeing?

Caprice Young: Oh, it's, it's hard, smart work on the part of our educat. So there is no limit during the day. That hasn't been thought through by our e and they're wearing glri bu on. How do we? How do we support the teachers in being as a back them as possible? So a lot of thought goes into the curriculum which curriculum have or how it's implemented, and we also do a lot of training, development of our teachers and it's not just a.

You know the week before school starts at the beginning of the year and then you know two hours once a week throughout the year, yet that we staff our School site so that you can have ongoing coaching on an ongoing basis with all of our teachers. And then, in addition to that, we have a small group model being. We see CES. For spit gr, for example, we have all of our incentives. So 30 kids per class and 10 kids are workable U directly with the teacher getting direct instruction. For what?

For part the time, playing kids are workable with small group instructor who focused on helping in practice or School learn, and then 10 kids are focused on their iPad doing hybrid that allows them to also practice but also extend their learning, but specifically at their level. Right, so not everybody is studing the and then also using data and frankly, that data that were able to car by education, we are able to change those small groups on an ongoing basis so that the teacher can actually have the right kids in the right group, focusing on what those SK me specifically, and that use of data is extraordinarily for to our model. So you know, just to kind of to summarize, like: so really thoughtful selection of curriculum and the tools that teer tap, but also we'll te sure that teacher CL, the coaching and support that willful and then also being using B that comes into it at the middle school level reging, leverage our kids to. So we have something called the squads model, which I'd love to go into detail and really want to talk Squad. But the squads model is really all about the students teaching each other and it works, thrill, it really works for, especially with middle school students who are inclined to want to talk to each other anyway. And so by using the squads model we are able we're able to really leverage their energy for each other and teach them and teach them how to be active participants and Learners in the group setting.

It's different from, like, maybe, when you and I went to school where the teacher would say, okay, you four go off and you do this group project.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, that's right.

Caprice Young: Yeah, one person does all the work and the other. Then the other three scw around and the one person who does all the work, angry because they're having to do all the work but they don't want to, you know, get a bad grade and it's not like that. They. These are squats where each person has a role and plays that role and contributes in positive ways to the group learning. So you know, it's a combination of things and I think that's true with every school that really excels. It's not like it's not like there's some you spice that, you on it and therefore it's successful.

It's everybody working hard on all the different aspects of what has to happen. I mean, I just talked about the academic program, but I could easily have talked about what we're dealing on: social, emotional stuff, which is what makes it possible for the classroom to work. I could easily have talked about how we're engaging parents, which means that you know, after school and the non- school F, the parents are serving of the primary. Educator, our special education program is completely fall, incling that I easy after the pandemic. So no, you know. So I think everybody wants it to be: oh, it can just do this one thing: everything will be perfect, and the fact is there's so much more to it than that and it's hard, yeah, it's hard, and I think that what we have to, as a society, recognize that great schools don't just happen.

It takes a ton of work.

Rachael Maves: That's right, yeah, and I what SCS out to me, Caprice, and I actually want to follow up with you after this because I feel like we need to, we actually need to do like a webinar series with you around some of these different components and highlighting it, because you've taken what we know in research is all of this best practice, but you've implement it, implemented it in a way that leads to success and with Fidelity so like, just as one clear example, I've heard of Centers before and this small group instruction, but the component that I often see missing in that is this datadriven. Look on a regular basis where you're continually Chang ing those groups based on the progress that you see, because there are kids that are going to be Excel in one area, that may need support later on in something else, that no child is fantastic at everything, but they're often stagnant. It often becomes like the groups and the labels and then there's never any movement within those for that differentiation based on what the need is in the moment and that's, I mean, that's ideal but not often put into practice. So it's just, yeah, amazing the work that you guys and we're we are able to e that because, first of all, we will form an assessment five times a year.

Caprice Young: That sounds like a lot, but we do it. He also use a test that me, not an overal the star, as opposed to andw world, so it's not as difficult to wer. So we have four units in here getting pre and post data for each of those. But then also, because the kids are working every single day on their hybrid laptop, I mean iPad systems, whether it's St maap or Lexia reading, we're getting constant data, not just on how the kids are doing generally, but how they're doing on every single learning standard. So when a teacher this is going to be by direct instruction group for this week she's piing or he is speaking students who are all working on the same thing, yeah, as opposed to, you know, having small for the sake of small, it's small for the sake of differentiation, and that's and that's that's the key, and the more precise you can be around that differentiation, the more success you know that you're going to have.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, as you look at all the things that you're doing right now because it's amazing and then thinking about what we just talked about, some of the things that are keeping you up at night, what, where do you see as some of the next steps for you guys that are just right ahead of you, that you'd like to move forward or begin to?

Caprice Young: Well, I can tell you that actually, what my staff will tell you is stoping. What new stuff? Now I came back them it's guess what you're all going to get. A week in feiji, it's another thing you're going to have to do. They would say: no, please don't send us to Fiji anything but Fiji. And you know because that I mean that this is true for everything.

When I was in the tech industry, it was all about focus, and then that's equally true in education. That's the one of the big things that we are doing this year is making sure that all of our Data Systems talk to our par Main syst so that I don't have I don't have people having to input data in a thousand different systems and I see the word thousand advisedly, but when we pred, we need had more than 200 systems that we're collecting data on our kit and we add to screen wi. We focus so that data could be useful and I think having that data all-in-one system in a thoughtful, integrating way allows us to ask and answer questions that are vital. It also means that you know that every system that our students interact with directly, my teachers don't have to upload that data or retype that data over, and our goal is our goal is for each is for our teachers to interact with each piece of thinga no more than one time, and I less than one time, because the system should be able to talk to other and how this like seal super basic and it is super basic. Getting this together is what's going to allow us to be able to rule this AI in the future.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, that's great.

Caprice Young: A year from now, I don't want to have to ask the Parsec system. Tell me which of my 50 kids who are English language Learners need focus on their fraction. I want the system to tell me: hey, face, these 50 kids who are English language Learners need focus on their fractur. Yes, you know, that's where we want it to be going and I do think we're going to get there and, I think, can make our lives a whole lot easier. We're just at this point now, are still pretty clingy and but when we get there, it's when we get there. I think it's going to very.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I agree, and it sounds like you've been talking to Eugene, because this is like the ultimate goal and vision of everything that we're working towards, but I think eug and a former IB yeah,. 100. When he said he was jumping in, I was like, oh boy, we're in for a ride, here it. But I think what you said and this is important for people who aren't in education, that are listeners to understand, because we talk about an improvement work every system is designed to get the results that it gets and in education, one of the biggest barriers is exactly that you can have 200 different systems that carry different data and we don't have this repository in one place where visualizes it in a meaningful way and allows easy access for the user to make understanding and Analysis of it. And so I think what you're identifying as I think about and you brought up at the beginning: what are those ways in which we can reduce time. That's where I see technology and AI enhancing and accelerating the profession not taking it over, not taking the role of teachers, but really like what are those places that right now are burdensome, that require us to spend so much of our time and effort?

That should be with kids, and that's that's where I see us getting close to being able to close that gap, which is just super exciting to me.

Caprice Young: Yeah, no, and our teachers at Navigator and our administrators site leer last year. We're spending hours and hours of time just sorting and sifting through data and uploading things into Google Sheets and then turning the Google Sheets into Excel. That turned into. Powerp and it was such a waste of time, a massive time. When we can have a system that takes the data and answers your questions, that's great and there's work up front to get there. But we have brilliant educators, are I want, rather, and yeah, that's, that's what gets in, get us, yeah, that's what's exciting to me, yeah.

Rachael Maves: So final question, then we'll wrap up, Caprice: what question in education are we not asking that we really should be right now?

Caprice Young: Well, you a lot of. Questions. I, you know, as a, as I mentioned, I kind of have a backwards career in that I started on the policy end of now. I the education every day, which I love, but from a policy perspective, one of the things a lot of people don't understand about education is that education is created by state legisl and that's right. And when what happens is a state legislator will find out oh, this school, and right. Has a whole bunch of kids who whose parents are in hourly wage type jobs and they have to work from, say, 6:00 AM to 3M, and so I need to pass a law that says that we're going to spend $30 million to create before school care, feeding and co-work rooms for kids between the age between the time of 5:00 a.m.

When their parents have to drop in to get work and 7:30 or8 when school start. So it's all based on like little niche things that you know and that it wouldn't be happening that way if, on the school sites, our Educators and leaders were actually fing through their tools and meaning our pool. Yeah, and what that leads to is education systems that are wildly micromanaged at the state level but based on things that are not, that are not research, children, research, thought through or systemic yeah, and then, on the other hand, there are times with the political ideologies of the day are getting in the way of implementing research, proven programs, and the truth is that and shouldn't have to have the state legislature come in and say, wow, why a program that actually works for teaching kids to read? Schools ought to be able to self diagnose that and do it. But the whole system. Is so calcified and screwed up because of the way that, the way that it is Managed, IT broken because of that.

Yeah, and that's why charter schools are so important: because as long as we can maintain the flexibility to do what we know is right for kid and then prove through testing and other outcomes that we've been right about that, the more students are going to get a grade education, and I just wish that we could give that gift of flexibility and accountability to every public school, traditional or Charter.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love it. Caprice, I just want to say thank you so much for your time today. I really am going to follow up because I want to pick your brain a lot more in some of what we talked about today, but I appreciate your leadership in the work that you're doing and I'm so glad that you fell into education.

Caprice Young: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Lucky for me, right, all that's right, take care, thanks.

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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.