Rachael Maves: Hello everyone, you are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. Today we are speaking with Jeff Rice. Jeff is the founder and director of A plus the association of personalized learning schools and services, a statewide movement and membership association whose mission is to advance the flex based personalized learning education model and to support schools that provide a flexible and personalized education delivery system.

for their enrolled students. Now in its 24th year, the A plus network is comprised of 119 personalized learning public charter schools that collectively serve more than 128,000 students throughout California. Jeff also serves as a representative on the California Charter Schools Association member council, having served on the member council since 2004. Jeff, thank you for joining me today.

Jeff Rice: Thank you very much, Rachael. It is an honor to be here with you and I look forward to our conversation.

Rachael Maves: I have to start off just by saying congratulations on 24 years of A+. I had no idea it had been that long. Some years, right? Some years. Yeah, that's right. So I want to hear just a little bit about your story, Jeff. How did you end up in this career in education?

Jeff Rice: Thank you, it goes by in a flash.

Jeff Rice: Well, some years, yes. Some years are slower than others or more grueling than others, one might say.

Jeff Rice: Well, it pretty much chose me. I came out of school with an MBA in marketing, public relations, communications, and started working in socially conscious fields, ride sharing, health foods, solar electricity. And then it just happened at the time, windows of opportunity open at unique times in one's life, that

Rachael Maves: Mm.

Jeff Rice: There was a position at a local charter school in the greater Sacramento area that was looking for somebody with marketing and public relations and networking experience. A couple of friends of mine were working for that charter school and came to me and said, Jeff, you'd be a great candidate for this position. And one thing led to another. And I was hired. And one of my roles was to network with

Rachael Maves: Hmm.

Jeff Rice: like-minded schools throughout the state of California. This was in the early days of the charter school movement, right around the turn of the century. And so there wasn't a lot of organization by model types. was more, there was one organization that represented all charter schools called CONNECT. It was the predecessor to the California Charter Schools Association. And I...

Rachael Maves: interesting.

Jeff Rice: I found through connections through connect and through networking other schools that were doing incredibly innovative things for students, working with students that were not a good match for the traditional classroom only model, but yet didn't have an identity, didn't have a representative voice and were serving a lot of students successfully.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Rice: that were not well matched in the traditional system. And my position with that organization after two and a half years or so was ending because of a change in leadership. They were going a different direction. So I went to some of those representatives of those like-minded schools and I basically said, if I build it, will you come? Because I recognized that they were.

Rachael Maves: Mm.

Jeff Rice: kind of shooting themselves in the foot by not having their own distinct identity, but in fact, describing themselves more by what they were not than by what they were. And that's a formula for public relations disaster. And so they agreed. so together we formed A plus as both a movement

Rachael Maves: sure.

Rachael Maves: Hahaha.

Jeff Rice: that was to advance personalized learning, which is a more flexible model that's tailored to the needs of individual students, rather than a single curriculum, a single environment, a single pace, and a single teacher that pretty much teaches a group of students all the same way at the same pace. And we recognized, moving into the 21st century, that that

system was obsolete for a lot of students. As you know, the system was established in tandem with the industrial age. And one of its primary purposes was to educate citizens well enough to operate machinery in a factory and to separate out those who could do that from those who couldn't. And yet here we are

well into a post-industrial age driven by technology and for most part we're still teaching all kids the same way. But yet technology is changing society and changing the way we understand things, the way our knowledge base and so forth so rapidly that there needs to be something more than that. I think the other thing to consider is the fact that the 21st century really is

the century of the individual. We've moved from a group-minded type of approach to an individual-minded type of approach. And you just need to look around at all of the different industries and services that have become tailored and personalized to the needs of individual clients. And one would think that education should be on the leading edge of that, but yet it's decades behind. So we recognize that

Rachael Maves: Thank

Jeff Rice: As we move into the 21st century, there are a lot of students that are not being well served by that system of the one size fits all as it's known. And that there needed to be an alternative that was more tailored to the needs of individual students, that was more personalized to the needs of individual students, and that was more flexible to accommodate the varying circumstances of individual students.

Our mission was to advance that opportunity and then secondly to support schools of like-minded educators who recognized that vision for the 21st century and were dedicated to providing a more flexible and personalized approach to the growing number of students that were falling behind, that have experienced mental health trauma, that were bullied.

that have socioeconomic challenges or ethnic challenges, urban challenges, where their needs are not being met by the system. And so in 24 years, we've grown from a small group of eight member schools to 119 now serving more than 128,000 students throughout California. So that's more than 2 % of the entire population.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Maves: So Jeff, if you wouldn't mind, because everybody who listens to the podcast comes from an education background, and you talked a little bit about what the traditional setting looks like, could you just give a brief overview of when you say personalized learning education model and the type of school and charter that is set up in A +, what that actually looks like in practice?

Jeff Rice: Yeah, so when we talk about personalized learning, we really talk about providing options in all of the variables of learning. And there are in my estimation, five different variables. How, what, when, where, and with whom each student learns. So when we're talking about personalizing, we're talking about personalizing education in all of those areas.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Rice: And so when we're looking at how can we deliver that, we have to have a delivery system that recognizes that there need to be choices in all of those variables to varying degrees. Now, personalized learning can fall significantly along a spectrum. One can personalize learning by changing the pacing. And even some classroom-based schools do that. And so to the degree that

any school, whether traditional public or charter, can begin moving along that spectrum toward personalization, I think we're going to have a much better public education system in the future. Recognizing that, some students will still do well and learn successfully in that same pace, same curriculum, same environment, same teacher model.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: but even varying the pacing or varying the choices of textbooks or resources or other curriculum, adding on online courses, adding on different pathways, furthering CTE pathways, supporting curriculum providers that might be aligned with state standards, but maybe are not state adopted.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: those kinds of things that are more suited to individual needs of students.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, you know, it's interesting, Jeff, that I hadn't thought about it like this before. And I wonder if it's kind of a chicken and egg question. But you know, in, I would say years ago, that community model was much more prevalent in the United States, not even just, you know, like what you were talking about.

during the industrial age and the purpose of school, but just as how we operated together as a society. And that has all shifted with a lot of technology and social media and access to platforms and news across, I mean, every avenue that you could possibly imagine things coming at your fingertips. Like, I wonder how, like, how much is, yes, the

our society as a whole has shifted and shaped now the way in which we have to keep up to be able to support students versus students have shifted and now we need to keep up. Does that make sense?

Jeff Rice: think that's an excellent point. I think the big red flag warning of technology is it can strip us of our humanity. And we can't allow that to happen because even with the conveniences and the advances of technology, it's very tempting to move ourselves toward that and forget that we're human beings that were.

Rachael Maves: Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Ahem.

Jeff Rice: social beings that we need the interaction and support of other human beings in order to thrive, in order to succeed. Look at what happened during COVID. During COVID, students and teachers and human beings were isolated from one another. And in that isolation, they developed significant mental health issues that to this day,

Rachael Maves: That's right, yes.

Jeff Rice: have not been for many people resolved and subsided. We cannot lose our humanity. The way to embrace both technology and humanity in public education is to move towards a more flexible, tailored and personalized model for students that need something that is more adaptable to who they are and what they need. And we know that

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: that students are individuals. They have their own unique spark of divinity. They have their own unique interests and aspirations that are unlike any other. And that needs to be honored and respected. If we don't honor and respect that, then we diminish their capacity and we put them in a box with a label that oftentimes

they hang on to for life and it is demeaning and it is condescending as to who they are and what they can become. We need to get back to honoring and respecting one another for who we are, even with our differences, because an education needs to lead that. The way to lead that is to in recognizing that the education system is there

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: to help students on a pathway to success to prepare them for 21st century workforce and 21st century challenges. But yet one of the ways the public education system has lost that is the public education system seems to have morphed into a system where they believe the students are there to serve them rather than

Rachael Maves: Thank you.

Jeff Rice: the system is there to serve the students. And they've lost touch with the fact that students are their customers, students are their clients, as well as the parents and the families and their communities by extension. But yet the way students are treated doesn't reflect that at all. And that needs to change. The other thing that needs to change in order to embrace a more flexible and personalized learning experience for students is at the state level.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: Most states throughout the nation only recognize attendance by seat time. And even here in California, the prevalence of emphasis on seat time is way beyond the pale. And we're fortunate to have both the combination of flexibility in charter schools and flexibility in independent study. When you combine those two into one, you can create an attendance accounting system that

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Rice: is outcome-based. So for flex-based personalized learning schools, attendance accounting is a combination of engagement on every school calendar day and time value, which is a reflection of the amount of work completed that was assigned by your teacher of record. And that combination allows personalization to flourish.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, and that makes sense. It's funny that we're spending a lot of time and money trying to figure out how we can kind of get away from the Carnegie unit and this idea of seat time. But we have models that have been doing it for quite some time that we can actually leverage what those bright spots are and how can we begin to incorporate that. So we've talked about a lot, Jeff, around some of the things that are bubbling up that keep you up at night. But is there anything else that you want to add that

as you think about your role leading A plus and advocating for charters in that personalized learning space that we haven't touched on that's really waiting on you.

Jeff Rice: Well, without getting too political, I think one of the major challenges we face are those that would like to see us go away and who are actively and relentlessly trying to stop us from growing, stop us from serving more students, stop us from establishing new personalized learning schools in areas where there is a clear need. So...

Rachael Maves: Okay.

Jeff Rice: That keeps me up at night. The other thing that keeps me up at night is just the heartbreaking reality of the number of students that should they be able to have access to this kind of model with Thrive. And they're unable to have access to it because of the aforementioned challenges. But if we can get back into a growth mode now that the moratorium on the establishment of new

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: non-classroom-based charter schools has sunsetted. Perhaps we can start another growth opportunity to reach students that critically need a more tailored, one-on-one, personalized, relationship-based type of education delivery model and have not been able to access it in the past.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, and I'd love to let you have just an opportunity to share a little bit about two ways that we can move forward in that. I do think that what you're highlighting for our listeners that are outside of California, just some context around the moratorium after the pandemic, and everyone was moving online, there was a massive insurgence of non-classroom based applications for charters in California.

put a hold on that of not allowing any more to open and for a set amount of time in that moratorium now is just expiring that will open those doors again and I'll be interested to see Jeff and I'd love your thoughts on this. If that has cooled a little bit now that things from the pandemic has settled down if we're going to see I think the same interest and excitement that we saw during that time period of lots of people putting that forward

Do you have any indication or sense of what that's going to look like?

Jeff Rice: Well, imagine a pressure valve that isn't to steam and it builds up from within and then finally the valve is turned to release it. Well, the force that has built up over the past six to seven years is so intense that it's bound to just explode off the top. My greatest concern is the motive of people coming into it.

Rachael Maves: Thank

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: established new non-classroom based charters. We, A +, for 24 years have been partially successful because we require of our members that they be committed every year that they renew their membership to a high standard of integrity, accountability, academic excellence and compliance. But we've seen a couple of bad actors come into the sector.

Rachael Maves: Mmm.

Jeff Rice: that we have had nothing to do with it. In fact, we were whistleblowers early on when we saw some shenanigans going on that we knew were out of compliance, unethical and downright illegal. And they fell on deaf ears. Nobody at the authorizer level, at the county level or at the state level would take immediate action to shut those schools down. And they allowed them to proliferate

into very large cancerous entities that scammed, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars. If they had acted immediately when we blew the whistle, they would have shut those before they were ever allowed to steal money from the state at the levels that they did. My concern is, and so,

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: Our 119 schools stand strong and united for integrity and accountability. I wish I could say that all schools that come into this sector have the same commitment, but there's no guarantee that they do. Especially those who have been waiting in the weeds or waiting in the wings for the moratorium to sunset.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm. Right.

Jeff Rice: I am concerned about their motives coming into California or having already been within California to establish a new non-classroom based charter school with a motive that's self-serving, that's for profiteering. And we know of instances where petitioners go to districts, promise them the world, promise them more money than they could have ever imagined.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Thank

Jeff Rice: having and the backroom deal is an exchange for turning a blind eye to what might be going on in the school. I do not want to ever see that occur again to the level where it's another A3 type of situation. So what keeps me up at night are, for lack of a better term, snake oil type salesmen coming in.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Jeff Rice: and trying to sell a bill of goods for their own profit motives and not take care of kids and be accountable and be rooted in excellence and compliance.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Before, we're gonna segue into our last question, Jeff, but before I ask you that, one of the things that I do just want to highlight and give you kudos for that I appreciate that you're doing in A plus is holding that high level of accountability and integrity. Because in my mind, that's actually what a true professional membership looks like. It is the ability and willingness.

to hold that standard no matter what and when something isn't meeting that standard to call it out. And I think if we in education just in general operated more along those guidelines of what we expect from one another, I think we'd have an entirely different model. But I do want to get to our last question and I'm interested to see where you go with this one.

What question in education are we not asking that we should be?

Jeff Rice: What is in the best interest of students? How can we best serve students and families? How can we change our system to be more adaptable, tailored, and personalized to the needs of individual students? How can we put students first in the public education hierarchy? Those are all questions

Rachael Maves: Peace.

Jeff Rice: that are not being asked by the system, but that we have embraced and put as our top priority.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, on that note, Jeff, I couldn't have said it better that kids have to be at the heart of everything that we do. I just want to thank you for your time today for your expertise and your commitment to the work that you're doing and the benefit that it has to over 128,000 students in California. It's pretty impressive.

Jeff Rice: Thank you so much, Rachael. It's been an honor to be with you, and I thank you again for inviting me to join you.

Rachael Maves: To all my listeners, thank you for joining us today. Parsec Education is proud to partner with charter school organizations like A+. We are here to support you and your teams. We have a variety of free resources on our website built to support your mid-year LCAPS or strategic plans, climate and culture surveys, and your budget planning for the 2026-27 school year. Check out what we have at parseceducation.com slash resources.

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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.