Rob Birdsell: Hello and welcome to The Next Class. I’m Rob Birdsell, one of your co-hosts. Welcome to season six, and I’m joined by two of my co-hosts, Erin and Kent. Welcome back.

Erin Barisano: Thanks, Rob.

Kent Hickey: Thank you, Rob. Great to be back.

Rob Birdsell: Also by our new producer — Carlos, do you wanna introduce yourself to our listeners?

Carlos Cárdenas: Yes, of course. Thank you very much, Rob. My name is Carlos. I am from Mexico, and I live in the beautiful city of Guadalajara. Nice to be here.

Rob Birdsell: It’s great to have you, Carlos. You’re gonna be doing all the heavy lifting — we just kind of talk, and Carlos does the magic.

Carlos Cárdenas: Sure.

Rob Birdsell: So let’s begin by saying, Kent and Erin, you guys survived a season and you’re back.

Erin Barisano: Well…

Rob Birdsell: You’re the first hosts ever to come back.

Erin Barisano: Well, that makes a very trustful, or stupid, I'm not sure.

Kent Hickey: Yeah.

Rob Birdsell: Well, you kept your jobs, because my first co-host left after season one. Then Rob Schneer, after season two, went to Fairfield University. Then Tom Bedford, after season four — Tom went on to… where is he, Erin?

Erin Barisano: Oh, he is at the Shrine of John Paul the Great, right?

Rob Birdsell: Yes, the shrine.

Erin Barisano: Yep.

Rob Birdsell: Then Nico was here for one season until he decided he’d had enough, and then you two came. So you made it. You’re the first hosts to come back — wow.

Kent Hickey: Yeah.

Rob Birdsell: So that is a major success. Heading into season six, we have hosts that have returned.

The second thing to share with our guests — we’re going to have a slightly modified format this year. Whoever is joining me, Kent or Erin, we’ll get on at the beginning and talk a bit about what’s happening in the world, but specifically about our guest and what we’re going to be talking about, to give a little preamble.

And then we’re going to stay on at the end to do a bit of debriefing about what we heard from our guest — to shake it up a little bit and see how this goes.

I would also like to invite you to send us questions this year at rob@amerigoeducation.com, and Carlos can put those in the show notes. Send us questions, send us suggestions of guests if you want someone for us to reach out to.

Erin Barisano: Cool.

Rob Birdsell: Last season, we actually had a guest that was a cold LinkedIn message, and that got her to join. And she had a great time catching up with your friend…

Kent Hickey: Yeah. Yeah. So good, so good. Yeah.

Rob Birdsell: She also joined on Zoom, so that was really special for Kirsten.

So as we head into this season, we actually have about four guests already lined up. Kent, do you wanna talk about the first one?

Kent Hickey: Yeah. Actually, we’ve already recorded this one — Rob and I interviewed John McKay. I don’t think there’s a person with a more interesting and varied background around, quite frankly. That’s a pretty high bar, I guess, but… John McKay is an attorney who, when he got out of law school, worked for the Poverty Law Center. He headed it up out of D.C., and then he’s had all of these interesting experiences.

Okay so, or example, in Rwanda — we remember the genocide in Rwanda — he was on the Truth Commission there, and he describes what that was. In some ways, uplifting; in other ways, of course, absolutely horrible. But the attempts to find justice were, in some ways, uplifting.

He was a U.S. Attorney in western Washington under the Bush administration, and he — along with a number of other appointees — were fired because they would not do what they considered to be unethical things at the request of their higher-ups. So, I mean, he’s been on Meet the Press and shows like that for taking that ethical stand, decided "I'm not going to do this", which cost him his job.

Later, he was asked by the State Department to try to establish rule of law in Palestine. This was shortly before the pandemic, and he did that. They told him, “You need to live in Israel and go to Palestine to travel,” and he said, “No — I’m going to live in Palestine.” So he lived in Ramallah with the Palestinians, and he grew to admire these people very, very much through his work.

Of course, we know what’s happening over there now. There are a couple of other things too — that’s just the high points. But to finish off regarding John McKay: with each of the stories he told us, we would ask him, “Hey, what does this have to do with education? What does this have to do with leadership?”

Sometimes the question Rob and I would ask was, “If you were in front of a classroom right now, what would you say to students about this?” We always try to tie it back to education. He is a law professor, so he does have that education background, but it was a super interesting conversation. I’m glad we’re kicking off the season with that — I think people will really enjoy it.

Rob Birdsell: And Kent, wasn't he, on your board at Seattle Prep?

Kent Hickey: He was the, he was the chair of the board at Seattle Prep. So he had to put up with me. That's another little feather in his cap. He had to put up with me for a while. A fantastic board chair, uh, full of courage, honesty, integrity. He's just an exceptional, exceptional leader and even better, deeply spiritual. Really spiritual, particularly with Ignatian spirituality.

So he retires, and what he's gotta do, he goes to try to help homeless women who are encountering, encountering crises in their lives, like, um, being kicked outta their homes. But he didn't have, he doesn't, he didn't know any of that stuff. Like he didn't know landlord tenant law stuff.

He's, you know, he used to prosecute terrorists and all this kinda stuff, but he didn't know that law. So, you know, as a guy in his sixties, he had to kinda learn again. How to practice the, kinda the more basic elements of the law in pursuit of this volunteer work he now does, which is to help, um, folks who are indigent folks who really need assistance.

Yeah, he's just, he's the smartest guy I know, but I'd also, I'd say even more so, he's the most kindly person, except for you three, although, Carlos, I don't know as you all I, but I do, I can sense your kindliness.

But anyway, he's a wonderful man and I think the interview went really well, so I think folks will enjoy it.

Rob Birdsell:  Right. And, we don't know what order these are gonna go, but we do know confirmations of these other guests. Uh, so Laura Slover, uh, I've known for about 15 years, and she is an expert in assessment. And is working on a project with the Carnegie Foundation and ETS around mastery and the concept of the Carnegie Unit is sort of on its way out and what, what is gonna look like.

So a conversation, uh, that Aaron and I are gonna have with Laura about what does mastery look like in Catholic education and what, what can school leaders be thinking about around assessments as we move? Kind of away from the Carnegie Unit into, uh, this new concept of mastery education and what that look like.

So, Aaron, that will be a fun one.

Erin Barisano:  That'll be really, really interesting. Yeah. Looking forward to that.

Rob Birdsell: Are your schools doing anything around mastery education?

Erin Barisano: Not yet. Not yet. We're you know, still talking, talking about that, but we're really deep into just you know, our regular, we use Star Renaissance in California here. But no, I think, I think with all that's going on in education, that, that will be a really, really interesting conversation to have.

Rob Birdsell: Yeah, so that'll be a fun one. Working on scheduling that. And then the next one, Erin, you're working on.

Erin Barisano:  Yeah. Yeah. Still you know, talking about education, trends in education will be welcoming Steve Cheeseman. Dr. Cheeseman is the president, CEO of NCEA, the National Catholic Education Association. And has been there just about a year that he's I think just finishing up his first year in that role.

Previously he was a superintendent of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

But a great educational leader really, um, really gets, it gets the essence of Catholic education. Being able to have some really good conversations with him. And I'm looking forward to just kind of hearing what his vision is now, and you know, for this Catholic membership organization for our Catholic schools and how it can continue to support and serve the changing needs of our schools and our teachers.

Rob Birdsell: Yeah, that'll be a great one, especially given his one year in. I'll be really interested to hear what he's seeing. I know he is been traveling a ton. He's posting on LinkedIn about his visits and he's definitely around this year, and so I look forward to hearing what he has seen this year.

Erin Barisano:  Yeah. No, we had him out in, the diocese of Orange, back in February and you know, visited schools and that was right in the, again, right in the middle of his kind of national tour. So, yeah, that'll be fun to connect with him.

Rob Birdsell:  And then our fourth confirmed guest, Kent.

Kent Hickey: Yeah, Brandon Jacobs is a search consultant at Carney Sando. And I worked at Carney Sando for about a year doing some search work. So I got to know Brandon there, and he's a wonderful, wonderful man, and he is also been to our Eley seminars and, and I know that when he was at an Eley seminar, you know, recently he was really blown away by the experience and so he's become really helpful in trying to encourage leaders from across... You know, actually the Christian ecosystem.

Because there's a couple of folks outside Catholic schools that he suggested would come in and hopefully that will happen. Um, but he was really blown away by how good Eley was. But anyway, when we talked to him, I think folks will enjoy listening to, you know, what do he look for in a search, you know, and such.

And the other part he does is implicit bias training for search committees, and I sat in on one of his when I was doing a search. It's truly remarkable. It really gets you thinking a little bit.

Now, I think some people initially might think, well, is this, it is related to diversity, it's related to cultural, racial diversity. Absolutely. Part of it. It's broader and bigger than that. It's really asking each person to kind of question, do I have any biases as I come to the search, let's say, and guess what everyone does?

No one goes into a search without some, some thoughts beforehand.

And I think what he really does well, and it'd be interesting to again, ask him more about that, is how do you move people to understanding and to acknowledge I have some biases as I approach this search, whatever it might be. How do I hold onto my wisdom, while also being open to possibilities.

And I noticed that in searches too. That's that the searches that worked really well was when there was a spirit of discernment and openness and people weren't closed into thinking, we have to have this or we have to have that, you know, and so he's extremely wise.

Only problem. He is a big Philadelphia Eagles fan. That's the only problem I, but I'm gonna talk to him about the Packers and maybe we can have, you know, some kind of metamorphosis happen. We'll see.

Rob Birdsell: And I know he's a big Villanova fan too, so I'm sure we'll be

Erin Barisano:  Oh, he is a, he's a Villanova. Yeah, that's right. He's a big Villanova guy.

Rob Birdsell:  I'm also interested to talk to him about, um, tenure and what he's seeing...

Kent Hickey: Oh yeah, that's another good one.

Rob Birdsell: What is tenure looking like over his career? Has he seen it shifting and the role of the board with this head of school, what kind of dynamics and best practices he's seen there as well. SO I think that one will be a robust one, Kent.

Kent Hickey: I think people will be, maybe they won't be surprised, might be surprised by the average tenure of school heads now. And the other part to, and, and this would be, uh, I'm not giving anything away, but discussions at Carney, Sando can, Carney Sando does Catholic search, but bigger, they do private school searches.

And, and the really big question is like when do heads of schools lose their job? Is it with the second board chair or the third? And it's really, that's pretty amazing. So yeah, we'll ask him some questions on that too. Yeah, it's kind of scary.

Rob Birdsell: And then to wrap up, uh, for our listeners, Erin, do you wanna share with them a little bit about what we did last week?

Erin Barisano:  Yeah, we had the privilege of spending two days with the leadership team at Santa Margarita Catholic High School here in Orange County. And really kicking off their school year using to in the name of Jesus by Henry Noun as a framework for contemplation discussion, reflection on the call to leadership in a Catholic school in a variety of senses.

Not just that the president and principal, but we had our, you know, our APs with us. Facilities, ou know about 10 school leaders sitting around the table there. And just really robust conversations deep contemplation and a lot of fun. A lot of fun together. This is a team that is really, really high functioning a lot of trust and we were able to kind of tap into that, but also, like I said, really, really have some, some good downtime together as well.

Rob Birdsell:  Uh, not to sell ourselves too much, but in the post uh retreat survey, a hundred percent of the participants recommended this retreat to other school leaders. So if you are looking for a retreat. We have, we've one that that Kent did for all the California state superintendents.

Erin and I have done for our school. Kent's also doing one for another school this fall. So Elea can help you with your retreat if you're looking for a faculty or leadership team or that in retreat.

And to close up this initial podcast I just thought it was rather ironic of today's gospel where Christ goes up the mountain alone to pray. And it just made me think of all of our Elea fellows out there. They prepare this fall to head back up the mountain. If you wanna learn more about Elea, can go to www.ileeconnect.org.

That's ILEE Connect, one word, dot org. Or, again, email me at rob@amerigoeducation.com.

It'll be in the show notes, but, we are full for cohort three, but actively recruiting for cohort four and five, which launched in March and June of next year. And it's a, a time like Christ, you know, in the gospels. Erin and Kent goes up the mountain 12 times to pray, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. So if he did, if he did the 12 times in three years, I think people can do it three times in two years.

Erin Barisano: Yeah

Kent Hickey: Yeah

Erin Barisano: Amen

Kent Hickey: Amen. And one of the yesterday's, not the gospel, but the reading from Hebrew scripture was pretty interesting because it was, it was about Moses and all of his struggles with the people that can really wear people down. I was thinking about school heads this fall, and of course. Everyone's excited when you go back to school.

That's, it's an awesome thing, but it kind of wear you down. But the wonderful celebrant at Mass yesterday said, actually in Exodus there are 10 separate rebellions against Moses. I never knew there were that many.

I thought, well, that poor guy.

So as matter of fact, the reading yesterday was when Moses says, just kill me. Yeah. He said, just kill me.

We're done. Anyway.

God's response was I'll send you quail. Oh my gosh. Good stuff.

Rob Birdsell: To all our listeners, thank you for joining us. We hope that you subscribe to season six as we launch it here, and looking forward to these guests we've shared with you and many more. Again, a warm welcome to Carlos to the next class family.

So if you have enjoyed this, please like it and share it with your family.

And until the next time, we'll see you at The Next Class.