Breaking Generational Cycles: How Education Transforms Communities

Dr. Jim: Thanks for joining us today. This is your friendly neighborhood talent strategy nerd, Dr. Jim. Education is the pathway to opportunity and growth. There's a reason why the saying goes that knowledge is power. What's interesting about that dynamic and that saying is that oftentimes the access to education And opportunity is limited or unavailable to large segments of the population.

Everyone understands in broad terms, the value of a good education, but yet there's often can be resistance to investments for education in any number of ways. In today's conversation, we're going to look at how a local K through 12 district is transforming the lives and opening the doors to opportunity for all students.

en followed by a master's of [: 00:01:00

Mary's University in San Antonio. She later went on to get her doctorate of education and educational administration from Texas A& M University in Commerce. She joined Zapata. Isd in 2022 bringing over 30 years of experience in education And her career includes roles as assistant principal chief academic officer chief of staff interim superintendent assistant superintendent for administration compliance and school safety as well as human resources And leadership development at laredo independent school district She's married to tony trevino and is the proud mother of two daughters erica and abigail and grandmother to Issa Gail and Emma Celeste in her free time.

She embraces her passion for ranch life helping manage cattle and wildlife Operations across her 2, 000 acre ranch where she cares for six horses and six dogs So you don't have a lot of free time. So bobby welcome to the show.

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[00:01:57] Dr. Jim: Yeah, i'm looking forward to this conversation [00:02:00] and I especially like conversations where you're talking about tight knit communities and opening doors for students of all types to Move forward and have successful careers and lives So I think that's going to be a really interesting conversation, especially considering some of the educational climate headwinds that we're dealing with today But before we get into that discussion, I think it's going to be important for the listeners to know a little bit more about you and some of the things that Help shape you into the person that you are today.

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And then when we moved back to Texas he went into banking and built his career as a banker. So my life was heavily influenced in the pursuit of higher education and [00:03:00] continuous learning filled with The idea that because we were blessed to have what we had and the opportunities that we had, that we give back.

And so my calling has always been of a service and providing service to others, especially those that maybe lack opportunity. So the majority of my career I would say all of my career has been in working with Highly at risk, limited English, high poverty students. And and that's where I feel I'm most needed and where I like to do my work,

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Given your track record of working with at risk communities I'd like you to share with us a little bit more about the value in doing that.

munities aren't even seen or [: 00:04:00

[00:04:08] Dr. Bobbie Trevenio: For me working in the communities that I've worked in there's a often a perception that when you're dealing with highly at risk and high poverty students, that parents And parents don't care.

And I have found that is farther from the truth. For many of them they may not have the skills to know how to help their kids, but they definitely want something better for them. Nine times out of 10, If you are able to connect with them, they will work for you to help you with their kids and educating them.

appens when a student really [: 00:05:00

[00:05:04] Dr. Jim: Now, I appreciate you sharing that and the reason why it it's your experience strikes me is that, I'm a generation zero immigrant as well. And when we came over here there were two things that my parents instilled in, in us and also demonstrated one, you have to work hard And two, you need to make sure that you are putting in the work when it comes to education, because that's a pathway to a lot of good opportunities or big, bigger opportunities and to put a.

Put even more of an emphasis on it, when we came over from from India for, there was a period of time that we were on section eight and on, and those sort of social services. So I think one of the disservices that happens in these sort of narratives is this whole idea that you got to where you are because you did it by yourself.

t of different things to get [: 00:06:00

[00:06:02] Dr. Bobbie Trevenio: I do wanna add just real quickly just to compound on what you're saying. And one of my school districts they the district established an early college academy built on the university grounds and that. Early college was specifically for not your top performers, but rather your one of the criteria was they had to be first generation college goers and providing that they were graduating from high school with 60 hours.

Of college paid for and that just really opened doors for them. But to see the pride in the parents in their reaction towards, seeing their children graduate with college hours from high school was monumental.

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[00:07:07] Dr. Bobbie Trevenio: Zapata, Texas is located about 50 miles southeast of Laredo. We are in an isolated area in the sense that we're about 60 miles from any major city in either direction. And we do not have a, Acts a border crossing. So there's we don't have a bridge that brings commerce in or people in from Mexico.

You have to go either to Laredo or to Roma, Rio Grande Valley in order to get that kind of stuff. So what is those communities growing. Because of the commerce and population, but our community isn't our kind of claim to fame was Falcon Lake, where it was like amazing bass fishing, but our lake has deteriorated and really gone down.

have here is our community, [: 00:08:00

by Texas standards because of our population. So we have about 3200 students. After doing some research this summer I was looking at poverty levels and realized that our community is about. Four times the national average and students ages zero to 18 were living in about 55 percent deep poverty.

So that was very telling to me. And this is already year three that I'm in the school district. But I see the trends and the patterns in the work that we've been doing to explain the why. We're struggling with certain aspects of running a school district

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[00:09:13] Dr. Bobbie Trevenio: yeah. Definitely you're right about that that we don't have, there's not an influx of a lot of people moving to, to, to our town, right? The main employers are the county and the school district. And I can tell you that probably 90 percent of my staff members From custodians to administrators are all graduates from this school district, and they've either stayed here all their life and worked in different jobs or started working with the school district and have been here for, 30 years, or they left to college and then returned back home and returned back home to to work here.

to be in growing our own. So [: 00:10:00

And it, that takes a community effort because it can't be just the school district. We have to work. Community wide to say, our goal is for kids to return back home and provide service to our community, whether it's in education or some sort of vocational, whether it's HVAC or auto mechanics or, whatever technical area.

But the idea is that we need to create, grow our own and create those conditions. And so that's where the challenge lies.

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To fall into the trap of this is how the things have always been around here. We're just going to keep the lights on and go through the motions. What were some of the things that you did to break out of that sort of mindset and make sure that everybody is still pushing to get to the next level?

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Whatever system we have in place, it's worked up until now, but covid hit and things aren't the same anymore. And so we have to look at our system, try not to make it a personal, like it's not a personal attack against anybody or saying the system was wrong. The system was perfectly designed and we got these results.

erent results. So we have to [: 00:12:00

[00:12:06] Dr. Jim: Switching gears a little bit. Now we've talked about some of the challenges from a people side of the equation when it comes to staffing the district. But I want to switch gears to the students and family side. You described a district that has its own set of challenges and headwinds. So I would imagine with those sort of Situations on the ground just the simple act of getting to school would be a challenge For a lot of families and a lot of members of the community.

So when you look at Solving for the most basic of challenges within the community. What were some of the things that you did to create an easier pathway for those families and for those students to just participate in the education, in the exercise of education?

[: 00:12:51

So while we were addressing some leadership kind of concepts around strategic planning and goal setting we're also targeting parental engagement and stakeholder engagement while at the same time really hitting hard on attendance because our community, even though Most of the community lives within a five mile radius of any school that they're attending.

We have some issues with with attendance and our attendance, I think it's reflective of our poverty levels. It's reflective of the culture that was set up at that time. COVID, I wish I could say COVID was the reason why but we had a lower attendance rate. Even pre covid historically, right?

are we, how are we going to, [: 00:14:00

You want kids running to school, not away from school. That means that what we create in our campuses has to be welcoming, engaging. Kids need to feel safe. They need to feel connected to somebody. And if that wasn't happening consistently with all, it might have been happening with some, but not with all then that's where you had that discrepancy of, kids not really feeling like they belong.

And parents not feeling like they belong.

[: 00:14:33

That's essentially in survival mode. And when you're living in survival mode, it's difficult to even see an opportunity if it's standing right in [00:15:00] front of you. So when you look at that dynamic significant headwinds from a socioeconomic perspective, and then the opportunity to get access to opportunities.

How did you start building a solution to bridge that gap? Because first you have to get people out of that survival mode that they're immediately facing.

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And so our job is to pay that forward and we needed to create those opportunities for our students equally, not just because you're related to me or somebody or you're related to somebody I know because we're not a diverse community in the sense of of demographics. We are diverse in the sense of the haves and [00:16:00] the have not.

So there's a very clear line between the people that are able to provide for their kids and those that aren't and those that aren't already carry a tremendous burden of not feeling accepted or visible or that they even have hope they're living. Like you mentioned, day to day survival. So how do we get them to feel welcome here?

It's giving them voice. So I did a couple of things as superintendent that I felt was very important. Number one was giving voice to my students and establishing opportunities for me to interact with them being very visible. So I go to the campuses, I visit classrooms, I talk to students, I go to their, all of their activities as many as I can.

et a hundred percent better, [: 00:17:00

And with the parents, it was also giving them voice. So just as an example, we had kicked off our strategic planning with an education summit. And everybody said, our parents don't really show up to these things. We just some excuses around that. We were expecting about 100 people and I thought if we get, even half of that's good.

The night of that event, it was in January, so chilly for us. We had over 480 people show up to this event. Plus, we had people online and what I found was most interesting about that experience other, aside from that all these people showed up, we were having to pull tables in and make space for everybody, which was amazing.

se, as you can imagine, with [: 00:18:00

And I felt that was, for me, that was a very powerful message. silent message from our parents that they care about what our students think. In fact, the feedback was your campus meetings should include students. We want to hear what they have to say. And so that's what we started doing is just giving people voice.

it's going to involve those [: 00:19:00

So as leaders, we needed to tap into that. How can we give them voice so that we can improve our systems and address the needs of the community?

[: 00:19:10

So you emphasize student voice, parents voice, staff voice, but you index towards student voice. So when you did that, what was revealed to you as far as the highest priorities that were on their radar and how did that shape? What you did as a superintendent from a strategy and execution perspective.

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And I think the important thing was that we needed to create some quick wins. For our community while we tackle the bigger problems. And so those quick wins, might have been things like that kids find important, like meal choices or or having more activities in the classroom or, Yeah.

At the high school, it was dealing with uniforms. And so we changed our dress code at the high school to allow for a little bit more freedom for them as they grow into young adults. And so creating some quick wins for them and for our parents, I think was important. And part of that for me as the leader was lots of visibility.

ut I went to all alternative [: 00:21:00

Tell me about what you're doing. What grade are you in? Are you planning on, what are you planning on doing after you graduate? And then I get their name and then I follow up. I send a message to their counselor, please follow up with this student, make sure that you're talking to them, make sure that, so it might not be a massive thing, but for that one kid, it matters.

Listening to that one kid because then they feel like, hey, this is important. I'm important. I have hope.

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Once you did that, what else did you do to create an environment where you are building that structure and support [00:22:00] so that opportunities are available to all students versus a select group of students?

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What is our data look like? What is our mass? Does our master schedule support what we're trying to do? Does our curriculum support where we're trying to go on? So some of the heavy lifting had to do with curriculum alignment and really changing that, particularly at the elementary level, because that's where there was like, I have more campuses, right?

all on the same page around [: 00:23:00

Something different than everybody else. Everybody has the equal opportunity to get the same high level curriculum that was there was some resistance there. So it was a lot of positive strokes, a lot of building relationships with teachers and also providing some quick wins for them. But then strategically planning our professional development.

Our PLC's our PLC processes were really important at the district level. So it was reorganizing, for me, it was reorganizing my human resources to maximize their impact on the campuses and then really working with campus leaders to empower them to help lead. The charge because we're small.

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What did that involve at a fairly high level in terms of getting everybody on the same page?

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And so when I first came in, campuses were like we'll do it for this grade level, but not this one. We're going to keep doing, a lot of. And so I really, at the end of the day, I really said, okay, let me, I'm going to help you all through this process. The, what is decided for you?

removing the, and it sounds [: 00:25:00

To say that, but I had to do that because otherwise it would have continued year after year of picking and choosing who was going to do, what so to me, that was like the the managerial part of me is here's what you're doing. We're not going to discuss it anymore.

This, we're not hiring this consultant anymore. You're not using this material anymore. This is what we're going to use. Now let's work to make it, work.

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And I think that's how I understand what you're describing. So I want to take that one step further, and we're talking about a community that has the, socioeconomic headwinds that it has. How did [00:26:00] all of that work turn into sort of those pathways that open doors into broader opportunities?

How did that show up? You mentioned that this started at the third grade level and went from there. What was actually delivered that helped open the doors to those opportunities?

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Give me everything. I want to see everything. There was a lack of data at the lower grades. That was number one. Number two. What I discovered was everybody in central office except for me and one other person were elementary certified. All of the central office staff. Our secondary either math, science, or technology. How are we addressing literacy in our district if nobody has, at the top [00:27:00] level, even had the lens to look through? That was one of the things that we really needed to address, and that's why literacy we'll talk a little bit about that, but why literacy is so incredibly important in our district, and it's our primary initiative.

Is to get kids on read, on reading level. But what we started to see was kids because of the process that we were following in the classroom and the teaching strategies that we were using kids that normally weren't performing are starting to perform kids that normally weren't reading are reading kids that couldn't engage or weren't engaging in problem solving are now.

ction that you're hearing is [: 00:28:00

It's at a much higher level.

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[00:28:17] Dr. Bobbie Trevenio: I was an elementary school teacher for, 15 years and what we would always say the lower grades is teaching them how to read. Learning to read and then from third grade on, you're reading to learn. But if you don't know how to read, then you can't read to learn. So when we really strengthen the foundation, then our kids now are able to better comprehend the contents that they're learning, depending on, what grade level they're at.

hool, career. Whatever it is [: 00:29:00

[00:29:12] Dr. Jim: When you're looking at all of the foundational stuff that you've done up until this point, you just described, graduation as the Super Bowl.

What were the things at a programmatic level that you put in a place that helped this transformation and also helped these students be prepared for the next stage of their of their life and ideally position themselves for those broader opportunities in the world of work or continuing education?

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We really have done a lot of [00:30:00] work around our master schedule. As I mentioned earlier, our challenge of being able to recruit teachers into our district is can be quite difficult, particularly when we're talking about career pathway teachers, Like health services and welding and ag because those are key areas for our community being able to offer different pathways for our students while also meeting the demands of the accountability system that we have in place in Texas.

mmunity college, which I say [: 00:31:00

So while we were working on the instructional piece of it. The leadership development had to happen as well. And I keep talking about multi layering, but we also invested in our leaders. We provided executive coaching for our campus leaders on one of our campuses, which is our most neediest campus.

help inform change and drive [: 00:32:00

[00:32:14] Dr. Jim: Good stuff. One of the things that we haven't touched on has been the impact. You've done a lot of work in a relatively short amount of time. What are some of the things that you're seeing across the district across all grade levels that are indicators of progress?

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Continuous improvement in student performance across the great levels. We're seeing continuous growth in and in moving the needle up. And then what we're finding is we've got a decrease in disciplinary incidents. Our kids [00:33:00] are doing better in school which indicates some well being.

One thing that we didn't talk about that's an underlying layer is what we've been doing with social emotional learning for our students, because that is a big piece of separate from what we're talking about today, but it really is a critical piece of supporting our students and our families in the situations that they're dealing with that could be preventing them from.

Being better in school and doing better. So that layer has really, I think all our efforts combined. We're starting to see the climate and the culture changing in our district, but definitely increase in attendance, increase in student performance and decreases in discipline. That's really how you measure what's been happening in our schools.

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[00:34:11] Dr. Bobbie Trevenio: Number one poverty cannot be excused for students to fail. We're the gatekeepers of that, and we're the ones that are holding the key for them to be able to break generational cycles of poverty. If you keep that in mind it's critical that we build trust with our stakeholders.

We have to be able to foster a culture of continuous improvement and growth. From the top. It starts with me. As the leader, I have to be focused on continuous growth and self reflection and leading me, leading myself before I can lead others. Engaging in those reflective practices and getting others, other leaders involved in that process.

s not working, let's fix it. [: 00:35:00

And then there has to be a C a center on equity and opportunity. And I ask. When we're trying to decide something, there's three questions that we focus on. Is it good for kids? Is it good for staff? And is it good for our community? If you cannot answer that it's good for kids, then we don't do it.

We don't even entertain it. Because whatever we're doing has to be good for kids. It has to be good for our staff, and at the end it has to be good for our community. And you can't do that if you don't have strong partnerships with your community. As a superintendent, you're leading the instructional charge and making sure that our kids have what they need to graduate.

e making. So it's a very big [: 00:36:00

You're just every day you're balancing and juggling all these balls and trying to do what's best for kids.

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[00:36:14] Dr. Bobbie Trevenio: You can reach me at the spot. The county independent school district

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And the reason why that piece is important is that before you can actually work on any higher level stuff, you need to [00:37:00] solve those survival level challenges that people are having. If you're in a district where you're dealing with similar circumstances, your first opportunity or your first action should be to listen to the frontline impact of what's going on and then look for those quick wins.

Once you have a level of stability at that foundational layer, you're That's when you can start working on some of these higher level initiatives and opening the doors to these opportunities for the people that are in your community. Because unless you are working to remove those obstacles and those roadblocks to survival, people aren't going to see the opportunities that lay right behind those obstacles.

So it's going to be critical that you take that listening exercise and then act on it to identify and triage and solve those quick wins. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. And I think that piece of the exercise is really important for other folks to keep in mind. For those of you who've been listening to this conversation, we appreciate you hanging out.

If you like the [: 00:38:00