 Welcome to the Straight Talk Format. I'm Bruce Wilson, Executive Director of Straight Talk Format. And I want to make a couple announcements. Those of you who don't know, we have an art gallery called Art So Wonderful in the University of tomorrow. Please come by and check it out. It's there. And we're trying to get more artists involved and put art in our gallery so you can contact us. Art's so wonderful. And hopefully you can come visit and bring your family friends to a very incredible-looking place. And I think we're going to be doing some murals inside that mall this fall, right, Fiona? Yeah. So we're going to introduce ourselves. And so I have an incredible guest, Lauren McBride, from Principal Brolin's in high school. She's sitting right to my right. We're going to talk to her in a minute. Go ahead. Hello. What up? Go on, Fiona. You can introduce yourself. I'm Fiona Winter. I am the executive assistant to Bruce and his creative consultant. Yes. You know what? I really like that part about her being my creative consultant because she has some incredible ideas. Yeah. At the day, she was talking about some things that we should do at the University Mall with a project that she thought would be in-encompass all the things we do. Yeah. And sure enough, she's working the deal right now. I like it. How incredible is that? I'm so excited. She was like, Bruce, we should do this and have the studio say it, say all those things you say. A space with all of the things that are included in service rendered and art so wonderful and under one roof so that there's studio space, gallery space, space for music recording and dance and all of it in one area. That'd be amazing. That'd be amazing. And it's happening. And be right at the street from us. Yes. Well, this one's in University Mall. Oh, University Mall. It's happening. It is. Oh, my god. So thank you for being our creative consultant. Of course. So why don't you start it off? Why don't you start us off with our interviews? So today, we're talking to Lauren McBride about the future of BHS and what's going on there right now. And yes, do you want to talk a little bit about the beginning of your life and education and where your interest comes from? Sure. So I'm sure. So thank you. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. This is the first time I've been on camera like this. So it's a little exciting and different. So I appreciate it. So I'd say my start into education, and I won't go the super long version of it, but I grew up, I want to say I grew up for the first 21 years of my life in third grade. My mom was a third grade teacher. And so education was really alive in my household and something that was always really valued and important. And when I started to graduate from college and think about my future career, I was like, no, I'm not going into education. I'm going to move to a big city and do something that's different and be a business woman and wear a power suit. And I moved to DC. I sold commercial real estate in DC. And after three years, I was like, wow, this is not what I want. Education is in my blood. And I went back to grad school and then said, well, never. I'm ready to be a teacher. And then I was like, but I won't be a third grade teacher. And then I was a third grade teacher for the next seven years. And I had the good fortune of being able to teach third grade. I've taught in different states across the country, different types of schools. And that, I think, provided me with a really amazing lens on just public education and what it looks like just in the United States and how revered and valued we, as educators, are up here in New England. I taught in Arizona for a little bit. And it's interesting to see how this looks in different parts of the country. A certain part of my career, I started developing curriculum. And I started moving into the consulting realm a little bit by working with educators and other schools and talking about literacy, content, and curriculum. And so I started to find a passion for the curriculum and instruction work, which ended me in getting a job at the Department of Education in Massachusetts, where I worked in district and school turnaround, where we supported schools in the greater Boston area that were undergoing sort of hardships and thinking about school improvement. And then also worked in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction as a literacy specialist. So I did that for a number of years. I worked with a bunch of different districts sitting around greater Boston. And then my partner and I decided that we were ready for a family and wanted to get out of Boston and find some space that we could live a life that we thought we wanted to raise our children in. And that brought us to Vermont. And so as we were looking, as I was looking for jobs, there was an assistant principal position that was open at Burlington High School. And sure enough, kind of took a leap and ended up as the assistant principal in Burlington High School. I started back in 2018. And then was assistant principal for two and a half years and then stepped into the principal role as an interim principal last year and then took the permanent position in May. And here I am. So it's funny because, so you did 21 years in third grade with your mother. And then seven years as a third grade teacher. So that's like 28 years in third grade. 28 years in third grade. That's impressive. So it's a funny story. So my son, like he lives in Boston. He did his commercial on real estate as well. And so one year he said, dad, dad, I made $16,000. I said, how long did it take you to make? He said, just now. Yeah. One deal. So I mean, for you, I don't know. I don't know if you, I think that was making more money back in commercial brokers than being a teacher. But it wasn't, it was an amazing experience. But it realized, I realized really quickly what I wasn't passionate about. I think I needed that to help kind of have me think about like what my value, like what I really wanted to make out of my career. So I think it was an invaluable experience. And I walked away from it, you know, ready to, it made me really ready to jump into education. And so when I went back to grad school, like I knew that that was what I wanted. Like I had the fire in my belly. I was ready to go. And I was committed to like having this be my path. You knew one thing, that you could teach third grade. You knew that from a fact. I did, I did, but I didn't, I swore I was never gonna teach third grade. And then I ended up in third grade, which I ended up loving because I do think third graders are, it's kind of an amazing year. My third grade teacher was Miss Taylor. Very nice. I was Miss Rebello was mine. So yeah. Miss Taylor. Yeah. So let's hear a little bit about your vision for the future of BHS. So, BHS is in this pretty amazing and interesting place right now. I mean, obviously we are not in our original building. We've been moved into our downtown BHS campus, which is a converted Macy's, which everyone knows. And I think that there's a lot of really, being downtown has offered us and being in a new building has sort of offered us this ability to reset in a way and really take a step back and think about what the experience that we want for our students, I think in high school. And so we've been really thinking about that we have this opportunity, we're downtown, there's community partnerships. There's experiences that we now have access to that 52 Institute Road was not that far away, but it was far enough that in order to get downtown during the day, it added another layer of planning and now we're just right there. So I think our vision is that we want students to have an experience that they look back on and they feel that they had access to a really powerful education that they were challenged in the classroom, but they also had the experience to follow their interests and try things that maybe they wouldn't have tried in the past and had the ability to engage in different flexible pathways towards accumulation of credit, which may help to inform their college or their career path, whatever path they choose. And so I think in the midst of that, we also are looking to really be a community that supports and wraps around our students. I mean, the past year and a half has been challenging I think for educators across the country and I wanna specifically say for our educators and our students here in Burlington, those that lost a building in the midst of a pandemic and then had to relocate. So we also wanna make sure that our community is a warm and inviting place where students feel seen and valued and heard. And also a good thing too is that they write downtown to downtown transit center. Yes. Green Mountain Transit, downtown transit center, where it's like every bus goes through in where they wanna go. Yes. You need to go to. And how wonderful is that? And it's right there. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That's incredible. Students like lagging or hanging around it. They really had no need to unless they're doing that to school programs. They can get right on the bus and go home. Yeah. Or go wherever they go. And so many of those students had to use that, the bus transfer to transfer to get onto another bus. So for so many, it's cut down their travel time and their ability to get to school too. So it's really, it's helped to increase just access in terms of being that close and not having to add one more bus onto the mix. And another thing too is that we're gonna be looking for, I'm on Green Mountain Transit, Justice Equity Diversion and Inclusion Program, I'm on an advisory, and I'm gonna be looking for students to be joining this advisory. I already, Veronica Lindstrom is already joined. And so we're gonna be looking for all those students to join that advisory. Helping make some of the decisions about one of the things is how Green Mountain Transit operates, you know, because they ride their bus more than anybody, you know what I'm saying? So it's important that they help make the decisions what's happening with Green GMT. That would be amazing. I think one of the things that's also stood out to me as we've started this school year is just the power and the voice that our students have. And so I think the more that we can include them to be at the table, like whether that's, you know, school issues that are happening at school and like decisions that are being made there, but also within the community, helps them to then have that experience to see like the power and the influence that they can have. No doubt about it. They need to be right with everybody else in the making these decisions. And we work tirelessly to make that happen. We've been doing this since 2001, you know, and so youth on boards is our, you know, they need to be there to help us make decisions on whatever's going on, you know what I mean? Cause I think everything that we're doing and it's some buy for some youth, you know what I'm saying? Everything you working on, everything's, if your own is working or anything, it's got to do with the whoever's gonna take over, take over. And we want them to take over, like, oh, Bruce ain't doing this no more, you know, but we worked with him. So we don't have to scrap everything. We just want to amend to the following, you know what I mean? Now we know what we're gonna be doing, right? Cause we was helped there to help them, help not help him, but help make the decisions. So that's how it should be. That's great. Yeah. That's how we've been doing it for, since 2001. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I know that. Got to do it that way. I won't change. A lot of people say, Bruce, I need you to come here and work with the youth and do this and do arts and music and this and that and education. And I say, well, I got to get the youth board first. I got to put together the youth board first. Cause I might be able to have the answers based on what, you know, I'll probably have a good answer based on what they might say, but I just, I can do it. But they come with so, I mean, our youths come with so much experience and just so much voice and interest too. So I think it's like having their voice be at the table is huge. Got to. Yeah. And I want to, she, for young and old, we have youth, we have our youth at the table making decisions about like Veronica Limstrom, like for instance, at your school, then Velina Zirco at BTC making decisions on all our events and stuff. That's great. How powerful that is. And Veronica Limstrom, she sat down with those, like I said, City Councilor Chair and a member of the City Council and we designed the whole, we revamped the whole resolution for youth on boards. You know, added youth moral committees and we added new and voting rights. So, you know, she was right there. I wasn't going to make a move into whatever she had to say. We was going to write, put it down, bro. Put it down. Yeah. I love it. So that's so important. Yeah. What are the like more applicable ways that you've actually gone about including those voices? So this year right now we're in the process of, the district is actually in the process of revamping our strategic plan. And so we have had a coalition of students and family and board members and community members that have been helping to meet with our district leaders to help to identify like what are the priorities for us as a district to continue to move on. And I think student voice has been really powerful in that planning piece. I sat in a meeting on Tuesday with a student talking about one of the priority areas and really being able to like utilize like his experience to help us to like action plan and think about like what we could do differently as we move ahead. Over the summer we had a racial justice academy that met at Hunt Middle School. And there were about 56 youths I believe that were part of that academy. And they came to us with a list of recommendations of things that they saw as potential inequities or areas that we can look at as a school to improve. One of those things that we've heard loud and clear from them has been our current student handbook which is archaic, it's been the same student handbook that kind of has been like looked at and like tweaked over the course of however many years. And there's been a real, there was a real strong message from this group that we need to look at this document and like actually look at it through like an equity focus lens and look at some of our policies and think like are these still the right policies? And so that work is we're getting ready to launch that work and what we're seeing this as is an opportunity for students to be at the table to help us comb through that handbook and to have influence over like what do these policies mean? What do they look like and how does it impact like their ability to access education and also set some clear parameters for their experience at the high school. And so that's work that we're looking to that we heard from the summer, we're getting ready to launch and then we'll be working through the rest of the year and sort of a task force with the idea of having it ready to go next school year. That's amazing. And then they also I guess in the spring of last year we had a task force that included students also some parents and community members and faculty that looked at our bell to bell schedule. So when does the school day start? When does the school day end? And there was a lot of we put out surveys and received a lot of feedback on we figured if we can learn anything over the pandemic there have to be some things that we can learn that we do differently knowing that the only group of students that knew our original bell to bell schedule are current juniors that had it for half of the year and seniors. And so we had a task force that kind of analyzed our schedule, thought about things that were different through the I think the 18 different schedules we had based on last year because we had so many different iterations of instruction from remote to one day a week in person to then moving into downtown BHS. They surveyed people, they looked at other schedules of what other schools across the nation do and they helped us to totally revamp our schedule. And so our bell to bell schedule is new this year and there was actually just an article in our school newspaper about it and overwhelmingly students have been really happy with the way that the new schedule runs. We start later in the day, we end a little bit later which is really good in terms of like if you look at brain science and development of adolescent youths or young adults we it shows that this later start is actually better and many of them are more present in the morning first bell or first block is not like ooh it's rough just rolled out of bed was up until three a.m. They have a little bit of extra time to be more present and alert in the classroom. So it's been great. So that's very interesting because Fiona's got she's putting together like an equity program education we do an educational series right with CCTV but also Fiona's been showing me some links about equity and education. You wanna talk a little bit about that? Yeah we're just talking about how we can work with schools in public education and start talking about the disparities across public education and the differences in experience across different states like you were talking about earlier and yeah it's pretty much in the beginning stages. Yeah and so it'd be nice to you know we can figure out ways that we can all cause work with students cause like one thing that Fiona was telling me that she wanted to compare like our school system based on what other schools are doing across the country like you are already done some due diligence you already have looked into some of the things and I'll be interested in maybe we can find some of what the outcome measurements are what you found. Yeah equity and so how do you how do you see equity and you know we're definitely diversity in BHS it's like no doubt. So how do you have incredible like interpreters you have you know you have incredible system how you work with people from other countries you know it took a long time it's been for years you guys have been doing that you know so that's you know that's incredible I appreciate that but how do you see yourself in working making sure that students what does that mean should I say with equity and inclusion what does that mean when you work with students in your school how does that how does that tie into curriculum and culture and you know and niceties you know how does that how does that work. So I think it it it lives in so many different ways I think some of the work that we're doing within our departments is really being thoughtful to ensure that like our students and their experience and the places that our students come from the experiences that they have are representative within within the content and so if we look at English our English department as a as a model of that or just as an example of that they've done a lot of work over the years of being really thoughtful about updating the texts that they're that they're using within those different classes. So they want to make sure that there is representation of a variety of characters that are being and their stories that are being told through these so we're getting rid of we're not getting rid of we're being thoughtful about the texts that we have and making sure that we are also looking at who our students are like where they come from what their experiences and making sure that we amend refine you know maybe let go of some to be able to bring in other new higher quality or other high quality texts that represent the students and that way they can see themselves in that versus just reading you know the same story that's been or the same texts that's been read year after year after year. And I think that the other way that we start to see this is really being thoughtful about the use of data. I think that there's data that is used in multiple ways we obviously have the number data so looking at what are the ESPAC scores from the state telling us what is data within how are students entering into high school and what classes are they accessing in the math like in math are they accessing on level courses below level courses and I think having honest conversations about who are the students in what classes and how do we have to make sure that we increase our capacity to provide more opportunities for students to be able to succeed and so using not only like you know number data but also using what we call street data which is like that which are the experiences and really thinking about like what are students saying when we talk to them and what are the things that they say about their experience that we have to also incorporate like as we look at the numbers because it shouldn't just be about the numbers they the numbers also have a voice to them too and so these conversations are at the kind of the forefront of a lot of the conversations that we have within our departments, within our school our leadership team, our leadership team is brand new I don't know if you know that but we have this is my first year as principal I have three new assistant principals and I have a dean of students for the first time ever and so together we retreated over the summer and we created like what is our vision what is it that, how are we going to operate as a leadership team and as we tease this apart we have this graphic that lives in all of our offices and at the core it says like equitable outcomes for students and so whenever a decision is made our team pushes each other and we go back to that graphic and we say wait a second like is the student centered is this helping to create more access for all of our students, our students on the margins and if the answer is no then we have to be okay to toss it because if it's not about them at the center then we're not doing our job so we're really focused on trying to be mindful and make sure that voices are heard and incorporated as we go I know Ms. Tom Flanagan told me that I was a superintendent of the school district said do you have, I think Ms. Sparks running Equity Inclusion Club or something like that? We have, so we have the Racial Justice Academy that ran over the summer and then they meet on Fridays during our extended like choice time time and then we also have our My Brother's Keeper group and My Sister's Keeper group. Oh, that's My Sister's Keeper. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Do you want to talk about the extracurricular time a little bit? Yeah, so one of the other great things about our schedule this year was that we recognized that the student experience is obviously about academics at its core but it's not just about academics that students also have a variety of interests and things that they care deeply about and there are also barriers and obstacles that sometimes prohibit students from being able to access all of those things and so we were seeing specifically extracurriculars and after school activities as a place that was suffering in the past that some of our enrollment data was down. People weren't showing up because they had competing after school conflicts whether that was caring for our siblings, going to work, athletics, drama and so we have every Friday we now have something called choice time and it's about an hour and it provides a time for extracurricular clubs or extracurriculars and clubs to be able to meet in the school day and so now we have students that are able to come to these meetings that weren't coming to them in the past for a variety of reasons and we're looking and also during that time there's targeted study halls for our study sessions, tutoring help and specific content areas and so students all opt in to be able to attend one I think we offer about 50s in the 50s every Friday so there's lots to choose from and all students are opt into a place they sign up and that's where they go for that Friday and they have the ability to change the next Friday so if I wanted to go get extra help in science one week but I really am interested in the chess club the next week I have the ability to go to different ones and opt in as I choose which has been really great and I think a nice break for students to be able to pursue passions that are not necessarily you know anchored in like content. How's enrollment increased since you've done that? So I think the beginning of choice time was a little wonky because this was a brand new structure and I think students in the first couple of weeks were like what is this? You know wait a second and I think that as we've now moved into this more and more we're seeing a lot more buy-in from students who are excited to be able to go and have that time within the different opportunities that are offered. I think one of the things I'm looking to explore is how do we bring in more? I would love to have community members come in and talk about like what does it mean for them to do a role that they do within the community or to talk about their experience in high school and then life after high school. I think if we can offer even some more of those choices or those guest speakers to come in and share like their love and their passion I think that we may even be able to have students see options that they may not even know exist after high school. So I'm hopeful that this time which is still in its infancy is gonna continue to grow and feel valuable to students at the school. Sounds incredible. So like we said we know there's still need 40 hours to graduate, 40 hours to community service to graduate. Yes, yes. And so I know it's been where the world is today, it's kind of tough to get those hours on. Do you have any ideas how they are getting those hours? Yeah, so we did, so for last year's graduating class and then for this year's graduating class we did wave 10 of those hours just based on COVID restrictions and not being able to potentially do some of the activities that students had done in the past. As we are looking forward I think that there's, we have our BHS Heroes which is a group that's on campus and they are weekly putting out different opportunities for students to be able to opt in for community service. It ranges from like a clothing drive to being able to, there was something recently, I think that there's a bizarre happening at a local community church in a couple weeks and we offered an opportunity for students to go and like help to be on site and support that event or do some bake sales. So we're trying to be able to hit different, think outside the box and think about other things happening within the community and partner with different community members to help to support students to see other options to be able to earn those hours. That's awesome. For many, many, I don't know how many years, a lot of years, like BHS students have, we've, I think I told you we gave them community service opportunities. I mean, I don't know how many times students come to me ready to graduate and like boost any community service I'm not gonna graduate. I said, well, how many hours you needed? 40. 40. Yeah. I'm like, wait a minute. Yeah. You with us every day, buddy. Yeah. You with us every day. Yeah. So one thing that I talked to Tom Flaniken about the superintendent schools is a Burlington school district is to, we wanna work with students based on what their goals and dreams aspiration out and let them complete their 10 hours doing those things. Yeah. That way you have, all the things you said that you guys do. But I think they, well, we know for a fact that they enjoy that better. Cause now we can help them with whatever they wanna do. We hook them, connect them with the people. We go with them or connect them to whatever they wanna do in life. And so how important is that? Like I said, the best community services, those applied upon themselves. And I know that for a fact cause we have a lot of measurements from it. Yeah. Absolutely. So we still like to be able to do that with the students. You know, I was talking to, I think Deanna Valle or Cheryl. Yeah, Cheryl. Yeah. About that. Yeah. That we want them to refer students or how do we get students to work with us? How, whatever we need to do. Yeah. Is that? Yeah, I think that's amazing. And it's such a great opportunity for students to be able to do things that are hands on that may be something that they're interested in that allows them to either see and say like, oh yeah, this is something that I wanna continue to learn more about or be like, oh, I thought it was, but maybe I need to try something else. Which I think is learning too. I mean, that was me when I was in DC. So I understand. That is awesome. And I think that, so I would love to help increase like spreading awareness for that. I think we can work with our school counselors. Spread awareness within our BHS Heroes extracurricular group and I think do any sort of outreach. So I'd love to continue to talk about ways that we can do that. Yeah, no doubt about it. That would be amazing. Because that's so important, you know, that's so important. Like, man, you know, we have, we get refers to the course, to the course and the Raptors, to the Justice, Rappin' Inventions, the Community Justice Centers. And we get refers in there in ways too. And like they say, well, we go see Bruce, you know, for the community service. They might have 50 hours of community service to do, you know. And so we go do something. We don't, you know, we say, come on, help us clean up our gallery or youth centers or help us, you know, do sell some items that we have from our sponsors or whatever. And the other 25 hours, guess what we're gonna use that for? What? We're gonna use it on you. You know, we'll help you. What's your goals, dreams and aspirations? You know, I prefer to see people working towards a GED or adult deployment, you know, with their community service hours, than to be like, you know, picking up crap out the park or whatever you don't say. How important is that? Every taxpayer in America will love to see that happen. Then there's somebody picking them. Because they learn that from, first of all, another thing, do they get angry? That they gotta pick dog crap out the park. I know. I don't blame them. Yeah, no. I don't blame them. Yeah. You know, this is meaningless. And they don't change the thinking that put them at risk. They don't change the reasons why they doing a community service anyways through the court. This way they have new alternatives to the thinking that put them at risk, as well as they learn new things to do. They want, I don't know, how many people are in the street today? Or what are they like? Can we, when are you gonna have another concert? When are we gonna, what can we do? You know, they wanna do more and more. Yeah. You know? So that's. I think that's awesome. I mean, however we can help to support that, I mean, and if we, the fact that there's community members that are willing, that are eager to have students that are helping, I think it's great. I think hands-on learning opportunities is some of the best learning that you can have because you're actually applying and seeing your, it's that connection to the classroom that now you see that value of, of why that class is important because you're seeing it play out and how it can impact your life, like within, as a community member and, you know, part of the workforce. So. No doubt about it. And so I stand by that forever, you know what I mean? You know, the best community service is those that apply to them themselves. And that's for real. And that's where you wanna do it anyways. You know, like, like we do all the murals, right? We got 60% of the murals are through our art program. Yeah. A lot of times we get people who like, they call bomb the wall, you know, put their little niches on it. They're tagging it, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we say, guess what? Because, you know, because we believe in restorative justice. We're all gonna clean this wall up. But guess, guess what? What? The rest of the community service, do you put a mural that you can show your momma? Yeah. Put your money in the police and hand you a pen. It's awesome. The paint and then, and that's what I, that's how our art's so wonderful. The mural program started. That's awesome. By helping people just like that. Yeah. And so all these cool murals everywhere, as you know, you see them everywhere. Yeah. You know graffiti ones, all that, you know. Love it. And so, and then we have measurements where we have graffiti from vandals to artists who we put on shows like, you know, at Friendspace. We put them on shows at Echo and a lot of art places like Daily Planet, you know. And they showcase the art to sell it. We put an art show every year at the Marriott for nine years, going on nine years now. They were selling art at $2,000, $3,000 a pop. That's amazing. You know what I mean? We used to give them like bombing the wall, you know what I'm saying? So all you gotta do is give them, give them, help them with their goals and ask the person, I'm telling you, that's the way that you gotta do it. You know. You just can't say, go clean up that graffiti and then they clean up canvas, nice canvas and then go back and bomb it again. Yeah. Yeah. I like, I mean, we have a lot of white walls too, so I'm happy to. Yeah, we definitely want to be in there. Fill it with some student art. And we learned something about doing that too. It's like the individuals who bomb the walls are, you know, when they put the nice mural up there, you know, and they put their name on it, the other vandals, they don't touch them. I know. It's a mono-mono. Yeah. They won't touch them, you know what I mean? And then we tell our guys, to tell your friends to bomb the wall, come work with us, but we got walls. That's why we got walls. That's why we got murals everywhere. Yeah, that's amazing. They didn't let you box this at our studio. Yeah, that's awesome. So, man, we'd love to come to your school and put some murals up there. Get some ideas from your students, their art teachers and whoever. Yeah, that sounds great. Mike, sounds great. Well, you would put murals in them, and a lot of those walls are white. I know they are. So, couple weeks ago. Yeah, so they are, I mean, we have, we do have some artwork that's like coming in. And I think, yeah, we're still really looking, I think we're still looking, I guess we're still looking to increase and have student voices that capture the space. And so I think one of the things that we've often talked about is like, how do we get more students interested in maybe a mural project that reflects them? I think the amazing thing about this place is that we have an opportunity, even though this is not a permanent location, but we have an opportunity to actually showcase like who we are with the people, with our students that are there right now. And so, you know, I would love to see continued like groups of students that wanna take on a wall and, you know, get them a canvas and have them display what they care about and what they're passionate about and like, and who they are and their voices. I think that there's, it then creates more of that sense of community of that, even though this place is temporary, it is our home. Sure, and it's gonna be our home for a while. And it's gonna be our home for a while, and that's okay. Awesome, so like, you know, I would love to work with whoever on that and I'm feeling like, it's gonna be awesome. She's amazing on her herself. I believe, I'm like, I'm hearing you talk about the university mall, I'm like, yes, tell me more, that sounds amazing. We have murals in the food court and we have murals throughout that mall, like, you know, we got three more places that we're gonna, you know what I mean, like, 1,000 square feet, or we're gonna put murals there as well. It's great, it's awesome. And then in our art gallery as well, we have it there. But we have places on the street too, you know, our mural locations, so this summer, or later, later spring, let me forget the spring. Yeah. You know what I mean? I know. We could put some murals off, you know, but we'd love to have you over the winter have VHS students and BTC students work in our malls for the mural. And I don't know how we're gonna do that, but we have one place that we was looking at and it's like way, like, I don't know, it's two, three thousand square feet, I don't know how many, how big is that wall? It's huge. I got it, but it's a project that, it's a big incredible thing that we can get our students to work in. Yeah. And just do process, do types of, like, say if they came up with something in through the art department or through the arts, this one just, we don't have to do one whole thing. When you say you had one whole thing in mind, I'm gonna leave it alone, I'm done talking about that. I'm gonna sit on the floor. She's the boss, she's the boss on that one, I ain't gonna, I'm done. So that's a lot of space for, that'd be cool. I can't wait to see it, because I don't, so for me, like one of my interns years ago said, Bruce, Bruce, come on, and we're doing a mural. She said, come on, get on this wall, get on this wall. I said, I can't even draw a stick, man, one on a page, she already don't know what I'm going to know. She said, Bruce, that's art. So every time somebody's here, your art's hard to go. I think it was Vanessa saying, back in 2003, yeah, I guess so, I guess so. Yeah. Because, you know, one on a lot of that. There's a great book for that. I'm gonna go back to like my little, when I taught my little people, there's a great book by Peter Reynolds called Ish, and, or no, sorry, it's the dot. He has a number of them. And it talks about how this one student, the art teacher was trying to have the student engage, and the student said, I don't do art, I don't do art. And then our teacher said, just put a dot right there. And so they put a dot on the paper, and then the art teacher framed the dot, and so the student only started making dots, and she made this whole gallery of different types of dots. She learned how to make dots by not making dots, and then at the end, she saw herself as an artist, because she was creating art. This was her art, and then she paid it forward to the next student, and the book ends by her paying it forward to the next student. So see, so you are an artist. Oh yeah. Everyone is an artist. I'm an artist. Yeah. Now, I tell you what I'm gonna do something together, we're gonna make some art together, so you're gonna teach me. Yeah, yeah, I like it. Thank you. So, you got any more questions? Well, I was just gonna ask about the plans for the new school and where that's at, if you wanna touch on that a little bit. Yeah, so we're still, the decision's been made that we are gonna end up going back to Institute Road. Obviously, we're gonna be looking at the property, and won't be going back into the existing building, but we'll be building in another area of the property, and so we're in the preliminary stages of resetting and restarting that work, so we'll be interviewing architects in the coming week, and then we'll be in back re-envisioning with creating plans and moving forward. So we know where our home is, and I think that that's the most exciting piece, is that we know where we're going, and now we get to restart the process of re-envisioning what our new school will be. So exciting. More to come, yeah. It's really exciting. Yeah, no, it's very exciting. So you are now Tom Flanagan, Burlington School District Superintendent, and you're the principal of Burlington High School. Now you're both are new. Yes. So how you guys get along? Great, great. So actually, it's fun because Tom Flanagan moved up here most recently, Superintendent Flanagan from Rhode Island, and I'm a Rhode Island native, so I get to, you know, even though he's not a Rhode Island native, and he's not from Rhode Island, but we get to do the Rhode Island isms and because we're a small but mighty state and talk about, you know, different places, and so it's really nice to have that connection. He's really active in our schools a lot, and so it's great to have him, you know, see our students, you know, see our faculty and staff. He's committed to the work and has been a really great partner as we go. So yeah. I was just seeing him on his bike, I'd be on my bike, you know, and you're like, you know, he's an avid bike rider, you know. Yeah. It's cool to see you too, you know. Yeah. You get around. And his daughters play hockey, and I'm hopeful that my daughter will play hockey someday, so maybe his... Are you a hockey player? I don't want to tell you that I played hockey in high school. I don't know if I can really say that I was the best player. I tried really hard, but grew up in a hockey family, so yeah. Well, I used to figure skate, but I was never great, so... Yeah, so... So I played, and I tried really hard, and I played through high school, but I played field hockey. I went on and played field hockey in college, so... Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So you got any more questions? That was just about it. So how did the students like you? I don't know, you'd have to ask them. What do you think? What do you think? That's a good question. I think sometimes... Well, I've had a lot of people that go, oh my gosh, I didn't know you were the principal, because sometimes you saw me with my backpack when I came in, and I'm sometimes in the hallways with my backpack walking around, so I think that people that... You know, I have a lot of students that come by and get candy from my office, and they knock on my doors, and they're like, I know you have candy. So I'm like, yes I do, come on in. So it's been great getting... Honestly it's been great with all of our students back in one place, all at the same time to be able to really get to know our students more. Today I was sitting outside in the front lobby and was in the cafeteria, and ended up playing a game of spoons with five of our students. They taught me how to play. I made it through one round, and then they beat me the next round, but I'm going to come back and I'm going to be quicker at grabbing the spoons. So they're great. We have amazing students, amazing families, like this is an awesome community. I've never heard anything that bad about you from a student. Oh good, I hope not. But I believe that based on what you're working towards for them, they should be bringing apples every day. Yeah, and so they come and they take my candy. But that's okay, that's what it's there for. I keep refilling it. That's right, that's right. So it's good to have them come by. Come in as you can see them, they can see you. Yeah, so it's great. That's awesome. Well, we're going to wrap the show up, and we're going to take an alarm and provide the principal of Bronson High School for being our guests today. Thank you so much for having me. I hope that I had a lot of fun. So you got any parting words? That was really amazing. And I'm glad that we got to talk. We can follow up after here. Absolutely. Once your plans are in action a little bit more, we'll see. Yeah, I like it. Great, well thank you so much for having me. We're coming tomorrow on our show LeVar. Yeah. You're coming on, bro. You're next. Sorry LeVar. LeVar, I got you, bro. Coming on. Well thank you for everybody tuning in to the straight talk for my show, and see you later. Thank you. All right. Yeah.