ShiftED Podcast #92 Change Is the Only Constant Leading a School Board with Cindy Finn

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Shift Ed Podcast. Looking for great conversations in education and what's been happening in our beautiful province of Quebec, but also looking bigger scale. Um today I'm reaching not too far down the road uh to a Lester B. Pearson School Board, and I have Cindy Finn uh the Director General joining us today. And I really wanted to talk with Cindy about this global vision of our system. We often get into the minutiae of it all, but I love perspectives that have an overarching view. So Cindy, thanks so much for taking some time and uh joining us today.

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

So Cindy, I like to start off a little bit about I mean, the director general role is is sounds massive, like just from you know, a person that's been in education his whole life. Um, you know, many conversations with DGs. What were some of the the steps that brought you to this position? Like what helped you kind of be able to take on this role of of you know, this large leadership role?

That's a great question. I think I'm still reflecting on it and I'm almost seven years in. It's certainly not a path that I saw for myself necessarily. Um, but I think leadership uh in general just sort of opportunities presented themselves along along the way. So I I did work in student services for many, many years. I started as a psychologist, worked in schools, and just always had this desire to keep trying to make a difference. And that led into an assistant directorship in student services, so helping to organize all the complementary services, so not the subject-specific curriculum per se, but everything that supports that. So whether that's students who need extra support through psychology, speech therapy, occupational therapy, but the broader services like guidance support, health promotion, health prevention, addictions prevention. So moving into that leadership role, again, I just always thought, well, perhaps I have something to contribute and I can make a positive difference on a systems level. And so for 16 years, I was in administration in student services, two years as assistant director, and then 14 as director. And, you know, so going to that next step of director general, as I say, it wasn't necessarily in my line of vision, but a few people along the way had said to me, you know, you sort of have the right personality for this work because dealing with students who have high needs, parents who are very frustrated, you you you do develop a sense of compassion and calm. And so it was suggested to me more than once, you know, leaders, executive leaders at the top also need to be calm and reassuring and action-oriented, but not panicking. And so when the opportunity came up, I thought, okay, this will be interesting. And certainly having been at the same school board for, you know, most of my career was very helpful because I knew people, I knew the departments. But that said, it was still a steep learning curve. And, you know, people obviously think about school systems in terms of, okay, there are classrooms, there are teachers, but it's it's everything that goes into making a system run. So it's, you know, are the, you know, buses running on time? Is there a flood? Is there renovations that need to happen? How are the finances? What is the government giving us in terms of budget? So it's it's certainly there are a lot of moving parts in the machine. And I'm very fortunate. I work with a wonderful team and and and we all rely on each other, and it's very much a team effort. But yeah, it it's it's an interesting role to be in. And I don't have anything else to compare it to, but I always say to people, you know, I started my my tenure as uh director general started six months before COVID. So if if uh in some ways that was reassuring because I could tell people, I really don't know what this job is because nobody knew at the beginning how to manage a pandemic. So I I didn't feel so much like an imposter because I had very seasoned colleagues saying we're all in the same boat now. And but it was it was certainly something to tackle in that first year. I think in the first year I had there was the pandemic, then we had labor unrest with a very temporary sort of teacher strike. And anyway, it's it it's never a dull moment. I'll say that. And I actually like that. It suits my personality well to know I'm getting up every day to do something. I know what the mission is, so that's very clear. I know what my purpose is, is just you never know what's going to get thrown at you in the course of a day, but I don't mind that. I like unpredictability, and I, as I say, I work with a great team and and live in a great community. The Lester B. Pearson community is very strong in terms of supporting each other. And so it's, you know, I often say to the commissioners when we have meetings, because I go through performance reviews and I say, you know, it really is some days the absolute best job in the world. And then there are other days you just sort of wonder, do I have the energy to do the job? Because you cannot control the pace. Yes. It's the one thing you just have to, I, you know, one of my favorite sayings is change is the only constant. So I wake up every day, knowing there'll be change put in my path. Something will require me to pivot or navigate, which is fine. You you learn to adapt to that. And like I say, it kind of appeals to me on some level. I like being a problem solver, I like being resourceful, and so those skills come in very handy in this role.

For sure. For sure. And like for for you know, the education system, oftentimes, I mean, there's we have nine English school boards across the province, so we have nine different, you know, directors general. What's a day in the life? Like it like, because I I love that you have this overall this big vision. You gotta keep your eye on the prize, and you know, students and and teachers are our focus and our uh the people that we want to support. But like you said, things pop up and you know, like it's always shifting, changes a part of what you do. How would how what's a day in the life of of of a director general? Um, like what were the what are the kinds of things that you that you do daily to push that vision forward?

Right. Well, I would say in general, in education, and you would know this, Chris, you know, it's very cyclical. So it depends where you are in the in the school year cycle. So at the beginning of the year, it's a lot of setting things up, establishing things. And then as the year goes on, you know, pretty much by the midway mark, we're already planning into next year. So so the duties might change, but I I would say generally speaking, you know, there are regular meetings with our senior management team. So all of the departments at head office, we happen to have 11 of those at Lester B. Pearson. So we meet regularly, you know, the finance people need to talk to the transportation people and the HR folks need to make sure we're connecting with the, you know, curriculum folks because it's all about helping the system run. So um we have regular check-in meetings. So as a director general, that's sort of my role to make sure we keep everything moving along. Um, there could be meetings and very often very impromptu announcements from the ministry. So we might be asked to jump on a call, and and that has improved. One of the silver linings of COVID is there's now these wonderful platforms like Zoom and Teams. And in my first days, it was a phone call, like a conference call with, you know, 72 DGs and the background noises. And it was it's a lot easier now that we can see each other. So often there's mini ministry meetings, ministry correspondence meeting, you know, uh it this at this time of year, we're very much into staffing. So looking at our administrative staffing. So any changes to principals, vice principals, directors, assistant directors, uh, because every year we have retirements or resignations. And so we're looking at that. And, you know, part of my role is also visiting schools, making sure I get out and meet people and see things, and principals are very proud, as they should be, of the things they do in their schools. So I, you know, do go and visit if there's a construction project they want me to see, or a student concert, or a public speaking contest to judge. So those are the joys in the job. Anything that brings me back into the schools. And then there's a whole, you know, backdrop of things that just happen around governance. So meeting regularly with our council of commissioners, preparing for those meetings, dealing with municipalities. Like right now, it's springtime. Some communities in Montreal are being threatened with flooding. So people, we maintain contact with the municipalities to make sure, you know, the roads are open, there's no flooding that would affect our schools or any of our communities. So lots of outreach. And again, depending on the time of year or the issues, uh, just trying to be out there. And and I see myself as a person who's trying to connect as many of the right people together so they can do things, because I can't do it all, but I'm able to sort of say, hey, what if this person talked to that person and we got a project going? And so we have lots of partners. Learn, LCQ, the DG's table in and of itself is one big exercise in optimizing resources and sharing because we partner and we talk about common problems of practice and solutions. And so there's lots of meetings. That's the one thing students often ask me, like, what do you do? And I say, Well, I go to a lot of meetings. I sit in a lot of meetings, but they're important meetings because we need to talk about what is good and what can be even better for the student experience.

Amazing. Amazing. I love that you you get that ground contact as well of visiting schools and building those relationships. I mean, I always say, I mean, education is relationships. I mean, it's from the top to the bottom. It's about those and who you know to help you support you in the you know, your larger vision that you might have. I'm curious of Cindy, about what are uh what what are you finding right now? Like it just seems like there's this urgency happening around our system and you know, in our communities and within the English school network. You know, like I I had a conversation with Joe Artona or Artona, sorry, from EMSB. And he's, you know, all these lawsuits that he's pursuing around different bills and laws and stuff. I mean, maybe even beyond that, what in your perspective, what do you feel like is the urgencies that are happening right now within our within our education system and and our communities that support those systems?

So I think I'd answer that on two levels. Uh I'm very fortunate. I I sit on a number of tables that meet provincially, but uh I'm also a member of the Canadian Association of School System Administrators. And there's a lot of commonality across systems, whether it's one school board to another, one province to another, and even globally. I have some colleagues I stay in touch with in the states. And I would say at that more global, broad level, we are all living in a time of great uncertainty. People are very worried about the future, whether that's, you know, the climate and environmental things, whether that's war and nations not getting along, um, people just feeling overwhelmed. And I mean, I do a lot of reading, and some people have said, you know, this was entirely predictable. We knew COVID was going to be a big disruptor, but six years later, we all thought we'd be back on track sooner. And other people have said, no, this was really a life-changing kind of generation-defining moment. I don't know if that's true, but but certainly I see it everywhere that there's this uncertainty and angst. And I say everyone is more aware of the importance of mental health in work and life and certainly in education. But I would say more specifically, because you were asking me to talk a bit about the Quebec context, I think that uncertainty plays out differently. And it's hard to explain to people who don't live in our province because, you know, there are some particularities about our system. So I think right now, for the English-speaking communities in Quebec, I think there's even more uncertainty because in recognizing the world's upside down, you sort of hope, well, maybe my community will support me. The the proximity factor will be a good thing. But unfortunately, the English-speaking communities in Quebec have been felt, I think we've been feeling a little under attack these last few years as governments try to centralize. And now that there are economic realities, everybody's trying to restrict budgets. And the one thing the English education community has always said is we are successful, but we need flexibility. Like people need to understand the reality of instructing students in English and French, because it's a misnomer to say we're just an English school board where we educate students in multiple languages, but we're working in a context where Quebec is a minority within the larger North American majority. And so all these measures that we can understand are being designed to protect French at a very provincial level, they land differently in the English-speaking communities because we see that these things are threatening our vitality as a community. And it's an interesting discussion to have with people who are not in Quebec because they say, well, that makes no sense. But, you know, just when you start to explain to people the stress it that people are under to first get their eligibility, now they have to worry about having eligibility beyond secondary because the whole CEGEP and Bill 96, everything that changed there, it just puts students, and we see it in our students. There's a lot more anxiety in students, in parents, and then, you know, expand the circles out. Teachers are feeling it, there's pressure. So I think it's it's unfortunate. I think, you know, there's always opportunity that comes with challenge. And so the opportunity is to see ourselves as a minority language group and say, what do minorities do? They come together, they share resources, they work together, they collaborate. And I think the English community is always certainly an education. We've always known that's how we survive, especially for our smaller boards. You mentioned the nine boards. I mean, the seven of the nine boards, you know, their size of geography is huge, but their populations are small. And then in Montreal, you have EMSB Lestreby, where we, you know, share the island of Montreal, and then our board goes off into the Montregy. So our territories are not that big, but we have very dense neighborhoods and high student populations with a very, you know, each each region of Quebec has their own realities. So, you know, we're dealing with issues that are particular to Montreal, and then there are issues that are particular to the English network. And I think it's a challenge as DGs for us to balance both. And we're always sort of nicely trying to remind the government, you know, we live in two worlds. Like, yes, I'm in the region of Montreal, the great metropolis, but I'm also in the minority language group in Montreal where I can't have access to students who are here, you know, via immigration. Um, we we don't we don't have, we do have defavor, you know, milieu défavorisées and disadvantaged neighborhoods, and the misnomer that all Anglophones are rich and comfortable and live in suburbia. That's not true. But people still think that in some places. So it's always about deconstructing the myths and saying, you know, at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. We want kids to have great experiences at school, learn, grow, feel they belong, feel safe, and have parents and teachers who are able to also do their respective roles and contribute to these future citizens of tomorrow. So I think, I mean, your question was a big one, and I could probably go on and on all day. But I do think I think people are getting a better handle. And I what I've seen is a very encouraging sign, I would say for sure, in the last 10 to 15 years or so is people understanding that link between mental health and student achievement and student success. And it's great that that relationship has become much more defined. And so now people understand, you know, if a student doesn't feel safe, doesn't feel well in their skin, doesn't feel seen, heard, it's going to compromise their learning. That's that in and of itself is very powerful. But now the extra bit, the new twist in the research of the last few years is to show that if teachers and support staff and principals don't feel well, if they're stressed and anxious, it's a two-way street. The stress goes to the students and the students who are stressed or living under really, you know, terrible conditions, that stress translates back into the school climate. And so it's everybody, I mean, it's all symbiotic. Everybody's working together. It makes sense. But now there's actual neuroscience that shows stress is contagious. And so we have to work as hard at making sure the adults are okay so they can be available for those students, just as we would now want to be sure students are okay and getting as much support as they need in order to learn. Because our goal isn't to make schools into therapy centers, but there are things on a universal level that we all know we can do that would help improve the student experience. And then hopefully we can give those tools to teachers and parents and everyone just keeps moving along and making sure that we do basic self-care and basic mental health care. And those students that need the extra, there'll be services we can refer them to. But that's another challenge as well, that's also particular to Quebec. You know, everyone talks about the limitations of our health and social services system. And I don't doubt it for a moment. It's felt province-wide, but it's particularly acute in the regions where English-speaking Quebecers can't even access. If there are services to be had, they're not available in English, which is just another barrier for families who are struggling to get their children help outside of a school context.

Totally. Totally. And Cynthia, I'm fascinated about this too. Like I I totally see the you know the mental health and the well-being as as kind of surfacing up to be something that we really need to start paying attention to. Could you tell us a little bit about what's happening on in the schools to kind of address um you know this issue with uh students and teachers? You know, I mean, throw throw administrators in there as well. I mean, I think it's a a systems uh, you know, issue that we have to deal with. What are some like ways that schools are are approaching dealing with this in practical ways?

Yeah, I think one of the big advancements has been this recognition, as I was saying a few moments ago, you know, there are things that everyone can do, and then there are things that sort of are, you know, if you think of the RTI model where you have different levels of support, we have the same model in mental health care to look at a multi-tiered system of support. So it's, you know, equipping teachers with some of those tools. And I see it happening. We now talk a lot more about social emotional learning. We have programs in a number of our schools, like zones of regulation, um, you know, different ways that we can help teachers sort of regulate that classroom climate, deal with individual students, sort of help everybody understand that, you know, it's important to say good morning, it's important to respond politely, people have to live in community. More of our learning is collaborative and you have to interact with people. So you need those basic social skills. And so I see a lot of that work happening naturally as just as part of good classroom management and we're being more explicit with teachers. So all of the, you know, those programs that emphasize social emotional learning, uh, and really I will bring in here, you know, again, as we move up those layers of intervention, if if teachers are struggling or schools are struggling, we do have resources available. So if you think about the Center of Excellence for Mental Health, the Center of Excellence for School Climate, the Center of Excellence for Behavior Management, they all help accompany schools in Quebec, the English School Network, in developing some of those interventions. And certainly the administrators of complementary educational services, that's uh every director or coordinator of complimentary services in the province meets regularly and they exchange best practices. And they've been, for the number of years now, the DG's table has been supporting them with some operating grants that allow them to put some programming in schools that address some of those issues around mental health, being aware of the impact of anxiety, for example, just understanding how we can better help students manage their positive mental health. And so it's I've seen a big change in the last um, I'd say 15 years ago when I started. Well, I guess it's close to 20. Years ago now, but when we were doing some of the work early on with students with students with behavioral issues, we were very focused on behavioral interventions, right? Reward the child, they'll do more of the good behavior, punish them, they'll stop doing the more disruptive behavior. Except it's a little more complicated than that. We're not rats and pigeons. And yes, we work for rewards, and yes, having a consequence might make us think twice, but we know the importance now of attachment, all of Gordon Newfeld's work around the importance of attachment and students attaching to not just their teachers, but their classmates and understanding developmentally where students are. I really see that we've become so much more attuned to that. And then similarly, there's been a lot of attention now focused on recognizing trauma that in the past we used to sometimes be very quick to label a child as having some kind of inherent condition or disorder. And only to discover, well, maybe their attention problems, their focus problems, their achievement issues have to do with experiences they're living, whether it's neglect, abuse, you know, severe trauma. And so now a lot of our schools have adopted these trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive ways of being. So again, professionals, psychologists, special ed consultants, autism consultants, helping teachers better understand the students in front of them and what works for some students and what will work better with others. And so we've really, I think, come a long way in trying to better individualize our responses to students and give tools to the teachers and the principals who are in the classrooms and in the schools every day so they can better assist those students in their learning.

Totally. And I mean, I guess this kind of attaches a bit to mental health, but this year, you know, there's been a bell-to-bell cell ban, you know, within our schools and our centers. Um have have you found like have you noticed any differences in in you know what's being reported back to you from schools about uh students not ha being on their phones and social media and the you know all of the stuff that comes along with those things? Um is or is it just way too early to tell if if if that is affecting or or helping alleviate some of this you know mental health that our our youngies are are have have experienced just through social media and you know this constant access to stuff, uh content. Is it too early to tell on that yet? Still like if it's you know, if it's if it's having a positive or a negative effect.

So I think the research is still very much in its infancy, and I'm I'm following it uh pretty closely because I am I am very curious to see where it leads us. I think people a government, when they imposed these bans, I I think it was done with the right intent. Um I think people were recognizing we were facing some really challenging issues. I think, you know, bans are always a little tricky. I'm I'm not usually uh I'm rarely a fan of anything that's banned outright because I don't think it answers the question, how then are we going to teach people to behave and do things that are appropriate? Because if we just say we can't do something or we can't read this or we can't say this, it doesn't teach the behavior, the behavior we want to see. So I think in terms of the ban, okay, banning the cell phones, I think from a pedagogical point of view, I have heard it was appreciated. Even students are telling us, you know what, I'm happy not to have that distraction because it is mind-altering. You have a device, we're all, you know, back to that behaviorist model, like those algorithms, everything's designed to get us to want to go on those phones, and it's pretty powerful. So I applaud that people thought that might be the first step to finding a solution. What the research is telling us, however, is, you know, we have to ask the right questions because the first set of questions were, well, how many hours a day are kids spending on screens? That's a bad thing. The nuanced question is what are students doing when they are on those screens? And now that they're not in screens at school, there was a fear. And I don't know what the research will tell us, but the fear was there would be a rebound effect that if students were not on their devices for six hours a day, once they go home, then parents are going to have to deal with that even more intensely. I don't know if that's come to pass. Anecdotally, I sort of hear it on both sides, but um that yes, for some students, they become more, you know, on they're more on their phones after school hours. But I like to think for other people, it's about creating new habits and doing things a little differently. And so I'm hearing even parents starting to talk about no cell zones, you know, at home, that we don't have cell phones at the table. And so I think it's a societal shift that's starting to dawn on everyone. It's not just a problem for youth, it's a problem for all humans who have a device that may be overly attached to that device. But I think the researchers are right to point out, you know, there's there's there is merit in that question. What are students doing on the phones? That may be more important because if it is being used for learning purposes or if it is being used to connect with people in meaningful ways, then it's a tool. And a tool can be used for good or evil. But we shouldn't just throw it out and say it's it's a bad thing. The reality is we do live in a digital world. I mean, there are things I cannot do unless I have my cell phone. The companies have things set up, you renew things online, you need to book things online. So I don't know that the answer is totally banning the devices, but I do concede that there is a lot of research that shows developmentally the brain is pretty, you know, much in development until you're 25 years old. And there are patterns that get laid down at early ages. So I do understand why pediatricians are advising not so much screen time at certain ages and not so much screen time. When you're trying to learn a task, you don't want distractions. This myth of multitasking has been debunked. So people know, you know, you need to be focused on a task at hand. And so I think I think it's a I would say there's signs that it's been successful in achieving certain things, but I still think we need to, as a society, still wrestle with, well, then how do students learn proper etiquette? How do they navigate this because the phones aren't going away? And even banning, you know, going onto certain social media sites. The reality is, I, you know, when I talk with principals, Monday morning is still a difficult conversation time because that's when things that happen on the weekend spill back into school. And so even though the phones may not be there and it may end in one sense, there can be other things. And there's always, you know, situations where, you know, students will go home and continue doing what they were doing the day before. And so, so the schools are still dealing with the impact of screens and technology. And so I think it's early days yet to know it if it was a total success. But I also think it would be simplistic for anybody to think that's the solution, that there's only one. I think it's a set of behaviors that we have to listen to the researchers and then help inform teachers and parents and policymakers ultimately about what is the best way forward. Because I hear the argument. People say we don't want our students to not have a technological advantage, and things are here. AI is here, shouldn't they be exposed to it? And there's value to that argument. Schools are a place where you can risk and try and learn. And so we shouldn't just discount it. But I can appreciate it is a distraction. Students are on their phones and must be very hard. Must have been very hard for teachers to control that. So now it's it's better, but there's a whole other set of control measures that schools now have to police this that they didn't before. So, you know.

Yeah. I mean, I guess it's it's taken away a bit of the immediacy of it, but the underlying issues are still there. The kids are still, you know, do using them outside of school. So I I appreciate that it there is still a role for us in schools to play, particularly with AI literacy, digital literacy, citizenship online. Really important skills for our kids to embody before they leave our our schools. Well, Cynthia, I I I have one last question. I really appreciate your time and your insight. It's been a really fascinating conversation. Um and I mean it's a big question, but I'll uh you know, I'll try to frame it a bit, but if you're looking ahead, like big system-wise, I mean, a part of education, we have our families, we have our students, we have our teachers, you know, we have all of these players involved. Where do you see uh meaningful change happening over the next, you know, five to ten years? What what are you looking for? Because I imagine that you always have to be looking further down the road than next year or even the year after. What are some of those big uh visions that you carry with you, you know, you know, as you look many years down the road? Mm-hmm.

I think one of the challenges that we face in education is doing our best to prepare students for the world they're living in, but the world they're going to be adults in. And so that's always a moving target because the world keeps changing around us. So that's what I love about education is this, you know, we're always learning and growing, especially the adults. So where I think, you know, it's very positive is we've recognized perhaps uh in education, we're we're seeing that we we have moved away from this idea when public education was created that we're just here to give students information. Once they have it, they'll go get nice jobs and they'll be set for life. What we're realizing is yes, information's important, but we live in an information saturated age. So it's about creating tools for people to navigate that. So critical thinking, understanding your place in the world. And so those things are being very much discussed in education. The especially when I look at you know, some of the projects that are directors of educational services and our administrators of complimentary services, they're very primed in that way of thinking. So we do have, we have a critical thinking project going. We have a history, you know, project with history teachers to help them better teach history because it's not just about teaching people math facts and history facts. It's about interpreting data and understanding data and acting, you know, knowing, you know, predicting and being able to calculate probabilities and understand and debate and all those nuanced skills that used to get very short shrift because we'd say they're soft skills and not really important. And it's turning out they're very important. They're very important because you can only navigate a world with intelligence if you can problem solve on the spot. If someone tells you how to solve a problem, but the solution isn't helpful in the moment, it's not really a true solution. So it's about giving students those skills to be able to read their situation, analyze data, create hypotheses, test them out, work with people if they can't figure it out on their own. So I'm very encouraged because I see that happening in schools. And I always laugh because I think the students are our main focus, and they're the ones that adapt the easiest to some of these things because it responds to what they want. Students tell us all the time, we just want school to be relevant, we want it to be engaging, and we really like our teachers. The survey data says that. But they find the subject matter itself boring. Why am I learning this? Why am I learning? And that's the rule, right? The teacher's challenge is to say, okay, no, algebra seems really like not in your immediate future, but you need it if you want to do XYZ. All those applicable world problems will be solved if you have literacy, numeracy, and basic facts about the world around you. So I think that's very exciting. And I think the other place where we have much more room to grow, and we are seeing it now, is just paying attention to student voice. Uh, all of the school boards, certainly our school board, we have a very active central students committee, whether it's called that or an advisory committee or student council. But the students have solutions to their immediate problems, even in their schools. They can tell us we need more of this and less of that. So I think listening to those voices, and I'm very encouraged. We just had a fair the other night. It was a green fair. So we had schools come and present the ecological projects they're doing, whether it was making a garden or composting or recycling or, you know, and these were students, some of them were literally in kindergarten grade one, and they were up there speaking about what they're doing to make their world, very small world of school, a better place. I I turned to someone and I said, I couldn't have done that when I was 16, let alone six. But our students today have that confidence. They kind of understand they're an actor in the world and they've been empowered to have that voice and to tell people what they think. And I think school systems are always a little slow to respond, but I see signs of encouragement that people are listening to the student voice and they are trying to involve students in the solutions to the problems they see in their day-to-day life and beyond. Like again, I'm amazed at how compassionate this generation is. I see it in our schools all the time. They're raising money to help people who are in a homeless situation. They're, you know, send giving money, not money, but they're bringing in food for food banks. They're doing a fundraiser, a bottle drive to give money back to the community. You know, they're doing the Terry Fox run every year. They're they're collecting socks for people who are living in shelters. There's such compassion and knowing we're not alone in this world and we have to help each other. And they're so willing to do that. It's it's very refreshing to see that cynicism or, you know, whatever adults sometimes get caught up. And it's not there in students. So I think if we look to them and keep focusing on the education is for them, then they hearing their voice will just help us be more responsive to some of the things that they're telling us they need to have done differently.

Absolutely. Love it. I mean, student voice love getting them more involved and listening to them, I think is such a great um idea to leave this on. I also love your idea of the soft skills or empowering students with skills that they need to practice to to obtain. So creating those environments where kids can actually practice some of these resilience and problem solving, etc. Um, just fascinating. Well, Cindy, thank you so much. I mean, this has just been a real treat. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness and in the answers. And um I feel like really optimistic after this chat. So I know we started kind of the the heavy, but really happy we ended it with this positive outlook. And I and I see it too. And I I feel it amongst our communities as well that there's there's some momentum heading. You know, it might not happen next year or the year after, but there's a momentum that's definitely happening. So thanks for pointing that out for us. Awesome.

Thanks so much. Thank you so much.

You have a great day.