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Ever Onward Podcast
The Ever Onward Podcast is your go-to business podcast, offering engaging discussions and diverse guests covering everything from business strategies to community issues. Join us at the executive table as we bring together industry leaders, experts, and visionaries for insightful conversations that go beyond the boardroom. Whether you're an entrepreneur or simply curious about business, our podcast provides a well-rounded experience, exploring a variety of topics that shape the business landscape and impact communities. Brought to you by Ahlquist.
Ever Onward Podcast
Dr. Derek Bub: Transforming Idaho's Largest School District | Ever Onward - Ep. 39
Ever wondered how strategic leadership can transform the largest public school district in Idaho? Join us on this episode of Ever Onward as we sit down with Dr. Derek Bub, superintendent of the West Ada School District, to uncover his groundbreaking vision for education. Dive into the distinctive challenges and opportunities faced by this rapidly growing district.
Embark on a journey through Dr. Bub’s fascinating career starting with his initial ambitions of joining the FBI and how his unique skill set translated seamlessly into the realm of educational leadership. Reflect on his time as principal at Centennial High School and gain insights into the historical background of the school's construction. Discover how West Ada School District's rapid growth is managed while fostering a positive and inclusive school culture.
Explore the current state of public education in Idaho as Dr. Bub discusses the district's impressive achievements in state proficiency tests and the significant impact of Career and Technical Education programs. Understand the complexities of funding and the strategic planning necessary to accommodate a growing student population. This episode also delves into the critical topic of school vouchers, stewardship in education, and the importance of collaborative school culture. Celebrate the dedicated educators and learn about the innovative approaches that are shaping the future of Idaho’s education system.
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Today on the Ever Onward podcast, we have a very special guest, dr Derek Bubb. He is the superintendent of the West Ada School District here in centered in Meridian. It is the state's largest public school district. He was appointed to the position in April of 21. He has over 20 years of experience as an educator and has held a variety of leadership roles, including most recently being the principal at Centennial High School in the West Ada School District from 19 to 21.
Speaker 1:I don't know of anybody in the education world right now that doesn't just have the highest regard for Dr Bubb and what he's doing at West Ada. He's a tremendous leader. We've gotten to know him just a little bit and I'm honored to have him on today to talk about education in Idaho, uh, to talk about the West data school district and the future plans here, with all the growth, and to hear more about his thoughts and ideas on education. So, uh, today we welcome Dr Derek Bubb. Before Derek Bubb comes on for our AllQuist update this week, um, we're going to have Kakoa Nawahini back on, one of my partners here. So first we'll hear from Kakoa and then, dr Bob, your ears burning, my ears yeah, I just got through doing a chamber, their voice of young professionals talk.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And someone asked the question. They're like, how do you, how do you make an impression when you're new to a company and how do you like figure things out? And I said, well, let me tell you a story. I told them about the kakoa story.
Speaker 2:It's awesome, oh I used you as an example you might need to get a clip of that you should get a clip of it.
Speaker 1:It was good. It's good stuff. It was really fun being with them, how you been good, doing great. Hey, a little something a little bit different this week. We usually talk about just our projects and business, but I'm not just BSing you. You're like one of the best leaders-driven guys I've ever been around. But I had a thought, because you're a four-year starter at Boise State, talent is probably a big deal Hard work. I think what you're known for more than anything around here or anybody that knows you, is you work your tail off. You work harder than the next guy. But how important is strategy in business, like kind of thoughtfully figuring out how you're going to put your talent and your hard work together?
Speaker 2:Yeah, huge. Well, first of all, thanks for saying that. I appreciate the kind words. Second of all, I think strategy and everything is huge. You see it a lot.
Speaker 2:So the best story that I can use in this situation is Harsin used to always tell the team the separation is in the preparation, and I love that saying because it's true, you have talented people everywhere. You have people that work hard as well. But where you can really separate your yourself at that level say using college sports for example where you can really separate yourself at that level, is the time that you spend before you ever even get to the game. So that whole week, that whole the months that you spend in preseason leading up to it, how are you preparing for when these big moments come up in the game? They always say you're going to fall back on the level of your training rather than rise to the occasion.
Speaker 2:And the same principle applies in business as well is how much are you doing throughout the week to prepare for opportunities that come up? Because there's business opportunities that present themselves and if you've prepared yourself in a way, you can jump on those opportunities. Or when you are working with these groups that have these, these specific needs or and you're going down the path with them and and problems come up because problems always come up in business. Right is, oh, we're ready for this because we know what deadlines we need to hit. We need the way, we know the way that we need to respond and we've got the teams in place that can do that. And so separation in the preparation strategy is huge in knowing how we want to take a group from A to B and even, just in football, how we want to be able to perform in the way that we need to to win games.
Speaker 1:There's so many parallels. Right, yeah, you got to think back to your experience and what you learned and who you're around and leadership, and all this stuff and it makes sense how it settles to that next level.
Speaker 1:Is that why you see so many former? I mean, I know kind of your circle of who you kind of hang with, and there's a lot of guys that are your friends that are also doing really well in the business side of things. Is that just part of it? Is you just get that knowledge, you get that experience and it just translates?
Speaker 2:Is it natural? Yeah, it becomes natural, for sure. There's probably a level to it that's natural and as you continue to work on it just becomes more and more natural and just becomes part of who you are. So you see, yeah, a lot of people that I played with that are that are again doing really well in business because they're taking the same principles that apply universally and it works out.
Speaker 1:I think that's a powerful lesson that, like what we do at work or what we do for work or for our profession, is kind of what we do, but it's not who we are. Who we are is all of these parts and pieces that have made us up through all these years with the mentors and work and effort and lessons. We learn A wisdom that comes from bad experiences all bottles up to who we are and then our work is kind of what we do with that. Right, it's been fun to watch you do it. I, I'm it's. I say it all the time but man, uh, preparedness, effort, talent, it all comes together in some really good success. So that's, that was awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, it's been a lot of fun and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Looking forward to more years. Yeah, okay, thanks for coming on, thank you. Dr Bubb, how you doing Welcome.
Speaker 3:Let's do it. Thanks so much Welcome.
Speaker 1:When you first came in school's back in session.
Speaker 3:School's back in session. It's been a smooth start to the school year.
Speaker 1:Man, summers go by fast. For me, but I'll bet for you it's like this Summer, Does it ever?
Speaker 3:really stop. It doesn't. You know what. It's funny. A lot of people think, oh, summer is the time to relax, summer is the time to plan. So if the school year goes smooth, it's because we spent a lot of time working hard and our team's doing a lot of things over the summer to make sure that school year is ready to go.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen, I'm not just saying this. You've got a tremendous reputation. I mean you took over in 21, right? So for those listening, dr Bob, west Ada School District largest school district in the state of Idaho encompasses all of kind of West Ada County, kind of that's a good way to say it West Ada.
Speaker 3:County.
Speaker 1:And it's big, how many students now.
Speaker 3:We serve about 40,000 students, 40,000 students.
Speaker 1:But, man, what a tremendous job you're doing. I'm hearing it from parents, I'm hearing it from people and the community, the coaches, the whatever. Everyone loves you, so it's an honor to have you on today.
Speaker 3:Well, I appreciate that and we'll talk a little bit about.
Speaker 1:I don't know where this is going to go. There's a lot of great things to talk about, but talk about just tell us a little bit about you and how you arrived at becoming the superintendent of the largest school district in Idaho.
Speaker 3:Sure, it's been an interesting ride. I mean, I started out in education and really started out. I'll even go before that. I worked in private industry, worked for State Farm Insurance as a special investigator and enjoyed that and just kind of thought to myself I want to make a difference in this world and no better place.
Speaker 1:Where'd you grow?
Speaker 3:up. I grew up in Phoenix, arizona. Okay, so I went to Northern Arizona, went to University of Washington for a stint and have a degree in criminal justice and mathematics and really just thought I was going to work in that criminal justice and mathematics.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah Was set. I'm going to go work in the FBI. I'm going to work in that criminal justice and mathematics. Yeah, yeah, was was set. I'm going to go work in the FBI, I'm going to go work for the FBI, and and mathematics is always one of those areas that are high.
Speaker 1:Those skills probably help taking care of like a bunch of students, right?
Speaker 3:Great skills when you are taking care of teenagers, for sure.
Speaker 1:That's great. I wish my kids still were at West data and I'd say, hey, you better be careful, that guy's got a degree in criminal justice and he can check it in. That's awesome. So then, how did you?
Speaker 3:arrive in Idaho. So my wife and I came up and said, hey, we want to look at Idaho. We've heard great things about it and we thought we were going to buy a vacation place up here, some place to just get away. And we fell in love. Get away. And we fell in love. We got on the plane and never expected to see the amazing things going on in Idaho. We stayed right downtown and it was safe and the people are friendly. All of the stereotypes you hear about Idaho they're true. It was just a great place, welcoming.
Speaker 3:I sat next to a gentleman who talked my ear off about how great Idaho is at the time, and that was probably about nine years ago now. And and uh said, hey, this is a great place to raise a family. And so I have two daughters and and uh, talk to them about it. And they said they'd love to come up and look at Idaho. And so we came up and it was the winter time and so there's no leaves on the trees and and that's, we're just not used to that and say, dad, is this how it always is? No, the trees actually have leaves. And so, uh, but they fell in love and and uh was feel really fortunate to be a part of this community and and just be a little little pawn in in this big system.
Speaker 1:But it's been, it's been fun well, side note, you were the principal at centennial high school. So for anyone that knows my partners here mark cleverly and ryan cleverly, like they are centennial Patriots, like to the very core right All their kids and them, and it's it's, it's fun. So I I that's how I first met you was through that connection, cause they, you did a tremendous job there, so you went from principal there to the superintendent.
Speaker 3:I did so. I took my first job at Mountain View high schools. I was an assistant principal over at Mountain View. I was fortunate enough to be over at Centennial High School. I still love the Patriots and got to know the Cleverleys really well and they're just such advocates for kids and for the things that we were doing over there. And then applied for the superintendent position.
Speaker 1:It's a crazy story about that school, though, because when they built it, it was during a budget crunch, and it has very few windows, very few windows.
Speaker 3:The story is we reused a lot of material to be able to build that school, so you'll see different things from like meridian high school that was reused there.
Speaker 1:That's the story is like they were like basically kind of like putting the thing together with what they had and they didn't have enough money for windows. And when you drive by it, you look at it now and you're like, oh wow, there's there's not very many windows on this.
Speaker 3:There are not very many windows and there's not very many options. You know, once you put you, you live in the world. Once you build a building with no windows uh, outside of skylights, it's pretty comes pretty costly to put windows.
Speaker 1:It's kind of suck a little bit If you're like, either you're like going to a. Why he out of this like modern, like palace, or centennial.
Speaker 3:It's different. I will say this and I use this line all the time, but I truly believe it Students and staff make a building. You know. Obviously the building itself is nice All of our buildings are really nice but the students and staff at our schools are what really make the personality of that building, and we still get great things out of that school.
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking as I'm telling you this story. I went to a place called Cypress High School. Anyone that school? I'm just thinking as I'm telling you the story. I went to a place called Cypress high school. Anyone that's from Utah knows it's like the wrong side of the trash bag and when I was in high school, our our, our high school sunk it literally like there was a sink hole underneath it. So they shut it down and we went. We went and attended the junior high and used relocatables while they shored it up.
Speaker 3:It doesn't. It's it's about the people. Well, let's knock on wood and hope that doesn't happen to our schools, but it is. It really is about the people. That's great.
Speaker 1:So um great legacy of leadership in the West Davis school district. Uh, formerly the Meridian school district right Renamed, probably 10 years ago about 10 years ago.
Speaker 3:You still see that Meridian school district around every while, every once in a while, but we serve five municipalities from Boise to CUNA, pieces of the Nampa area, so it's a large area, tremendous growth, right.
Speaker 1:Tremendous growth.
Speaker 3:Maybe one of our biggest challenges is the growth that continues.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't even know where to start with you, but can you kind of talk just about the state of? Well, when I ran for governor it's interesting, right, because you have kind of the great state of Ada that the rest of the state knows and I visited back in the day, there was like 115 school districts roughly it was like 113 or 115. And I visited like 87 of them and met with their superintendents. The variety is crazy, the different things. And then you have you have West Ada was that's so big? What is kind of the state of education in Idaho in general? And then talk us through how you balance with kind of one state board with districts that are big. And then you go out West here and like you can hit a nine iron in any direction and you hit a different school district when you go out into Washington County. And anyway, how are things now in education, public education?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think public education is in a great place and and and I'll tell you why I think that I'm going to I'll brag a little bit about West data. But West data is really a product of the system that we, that we get to live in. I mean so right now. We just went through some test scores. They were just released in Idaho Ed News and 69% of our kids are proficient in ELA. That means they're. When I say proficient, that means they're at grade level where they're supposed to be when they test them. That includes 11th grade.
Speaker 1:And how does that stack up in the rest of the states?
Speaker 3:Number one in the state, number one in the state, number one in the state, and so we're excited about that, we are proud of that, and you know that's something that we've really worked hard on. We count on those things. I don't think it's the only metric, but it's a metric. It's something that everybody should look at and say okay, how is West Ada doing compared? And so when we compare ourselves to everybody else, we stack up really well. When we compare ourselves in mathematics, we're number one in the state for large school districts in mathematics as well, and that really is a pat on the back for our administrators, for our teachers, for all of our staff that are working hard to make sure that our kids are overcoming any learning challenges that they may have. That being said, I also think, under the leadership of Debbie Critchfield, that everybody's arrow is pointing in the right direction and everybody's getting better. And you're right Small districts as I meet with small district superintendents and some of them are the principal slash superintendent, slash bus driver, slash head football coach those are challenging positions and you're trying to manage all of those things.
Speaker 3:There's a lot to that. We're very, very blessed in West Ada to have a team of people that can address the needs of our community. Yes, we're big. We can also leverage that size with our CTE programs that are really magnet CTE programs for around the area. With our curricular resources, we just have the resources to be able to meet the needs of all of our students and we can do it at a low tax dollar, like I'm going to, I'm going to keep interrupting you.
Speaker 3:So two things you just said that.
Speaker 1:I want to expound on one. I think Debbie's doing a great job.
Speaker 3:Agreed. I couldn't agree more. She's doing fabulous.
Speaker 1:I hope she listens to this. She, you know, back when I ran it was a different state superintendent and watching her take the reins, coming from where she came from, the way she thinks, the way she's it's just been great. So I think she's doing a great job and I really appreciate her leadership. I want to talk CTE. Let's do it so with CWI here and with you being kind of right in the mix and with your programs being just so exceptional and with the launch program. How is all that integrating together? And what should families know out there about how transformative that can be for certain families in the valley here?
Speaker 3:It's unbelievable. You know, we've really changed our motto and I'll just I'll tell you when I went to school and I don't know how it was for everybody else, it was almost this college or career.
Speaker 3:You're going to go on the college path or you're going to go on the career path. In West Ada we've changed that or to an, and Our goal is to make sure that when kids walk across the stage at the end of 12th grade they get that diploma and they have options to go to college. They have options to go into a career, they have options to go to get seek some additional training through CWI, who, gordon, has done such an amazing job trying to make that a cost-effective program for our kids, for our community. It's those things that make this place an amazing place to raise a family and we need those kids not only to go get that post-secondary training, whatever that might be, but then to come back to our community and contribute. We know that when we send kids away, a lot of times they go and contribute to another community. We need them to contribute right here to our community and be part of what makes Idaho great.
Speaker 1:Well, what I love about what you do and I'll tell some personal stories later just because they're meaningful to me but you have the ability, those kids, that curiosity, that line of sight, that thing to the next. You know what are my options? That's really the rock bed and that's where you are foundational. How can I expose these kids to all these different options? We have to keep them right here in Idaho. And then you've got that collaboration that's happening at on all levels with higher education and CTE and careers and the business community. But you're at ground.
Speaker 3:You're there, ground zero, I mean that's where it all happens, and I love the word exposure, because that's really what it is about Getting kids exposed to something that they may not have known, and I'm going to use our welding program. It's very rare that I talk to a group of third graders that say when I grow up, I want to be a welder. You walk into our welding program and it's packed with kids. It's packed with all types of kids that are really interested in it. I met with a student last year who wants to be an engineer, but he said well, this is going to be a great skill that I have. I'm going to be a welder as well, and so I'll have that skill on the side. Those are the things that we're trying to provide our community and our kids, and you have access to those things if you're at any of the west data schools. We put you on a bus and and we bring you over can we talk about offerings again?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna absolutely can you pull these up, baddie? Because my so full, full exposure here. My kids are products of west data school district. Um, we have four kids, oldest two, I didn't even know the word homework existed, I just didn't. They just always got straight A's and had great teachers and went through. It was great. Our two younger kids were both on IEPs and I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you what. When you go through and it's not the standard thing and you're trying to figure it out, thank heavens for some of those women down at and and and counselors down at Eagle high school where they went, I mean they are angels upon the earth because because I watched how they cared for and loved my daughter, my daughters, and how they went through and and the exposure they had to life and school and work through their things, it's, it was unbelievable. So I got I, so I got both sides of it. But within West Ada you have a lot of offerings, this idea of school. What choices do families have out there? And I want to hit a few of them, because you do have medical. Then talk about your campus over here with Renaissance High School. You take us on this journey, but there's a lot of options for parents in West Ada.
Speaker 3:No, it's's so interesting. So when people some I think the old term of CTE really was welding, collision repair, maybe auto repair. Today we have expanded that to nursing programs you can get your CNA. My daughter just graduated with her CNA uh, certified nurse, nursing assistant certificate, um, you can walk away with uh, your EM. Have a fire program. We have so many programs that so here we go.
Speaker 1:Where should we? We're on your website here for those that are watching on on youtube? But, um, so there's because think about that like you are the connection to the jobs, because these kids can come out and, regardless if they're going to go on and get a bachelor's in nursing or a PA degree or a doctor, they're coming out of high school ready to go to work and there are opportunities in which, when we talk about exposure, there are kids that go into something and say not for me.
Speaker 3:I thought I was going to be a nurse and I don't like the sight of blood. Well, you probably don't want to go into this occupation. But how much money does that save a parent, a taxpayer, when they find that out before they're in the middle of their junior year or they've gone into a competitive process?
Speaker 1:It's the double-edged sword of life. Right, you're going through and trying to decide what you want to be, but if you look at those people that are able to be navigated to the place that they find their passion and their thing, it does save years and dollars and time and they just become very productive very early Right. So anything you can do to expose them to as much as they want to see, find a passion and go and that's what I love about how much of what you have, so CTE for you is is a big deal. Talk about Renaissance.
Speaker 3:So Renaissance is. So we really have have two what we would call cte centers. Both renaissance high school and meridian high school serve as cte centers. What they allow us to do is we bus kids in or kids transport themselves into those centers. They'll go to rocky mountain high school but for well, for additional welding training, they'll go into that center.
Speaker 3:That model is really because we are such a large district. It allows us to utilize our size to have one welding center rather than having a small welding center at several different places, which is going to be an extra figure on taxpayers. And so, rather than doing that, we utilize one welding center. We get as many kids as we possibly can. There's always going to be kids wanting to be part of that program, but no matter what. And so that's really what Renaissance does and that's what our CT center over at Meridian High School does. We are looking at expanding that. We're always looking at expanding our CT programs.
Speaker 3:We're fortunate enough to receive a grant from the state for just over a million dollars that will help us expand our program over at Meridian High School and I think that will be tremendous for the kids to be able to get more kids into our programs and offer different programs. I mean, I've just met with some computer science students and a lot of them. You know, ai has changed everything for computer science students, and so they're thinking, okay, well, how do I stay ahead of that curve? I'm going to tell you, as a junior in high school, as a senior in high school, I was not thinking how do I stay ahead of that curve? And so at least our kids are in those situations and we as a district have a responsibility, have an imperative to also stay ahead of that curve and make sure that the programs that we offer are something that the community needs and that the kids need. I love it.
Speaker 1:Arts. Let's talk about that. Yeah, you got.
Speaker 3:Mr Housel over there, right? Yeah, absolutely I mean so when we talk about schools of choice. Our schools of choice are tremendous. We have obviously Idaho Fine Arts Academy, which is a product of what used to be over at an Eagle, and now that's a tremendous facility and really emphasizes the arts, but emphasizes education in the arts. When you look at their test scores people say, okay, well, what's the arts? The arts intermix so well with education and you can tell that with again with test scores. But they do such a tremendous job over there and that's a great niche for a lot of it's funny.
Speaker 1:I have a long history with that because we go back to fine arts academy. We started that whole thing and my kids were there and but you look at what happens when we use that side of our brain and are exposed to things that that stimulate creativity, and arts are that, and as funding constraints have come on districts and education, some of the first things to go have been some of the arts offerings and the things that really make us whole humans right. So it's so cool to watch that being a pathway, if you want it, where you can go, explore and do those things that allow you at a young age to really pursue passions that can be lifelong passions and kind of balance the traditional side of your brain with this creative side of your brain. I mean it's incredible.
Speaker 3:No question, it really does give you that other side if that's your passion. I think that's what probably makes me the most proud about West Ada is we do have those choices. We have our STEM schools in our elementary schools. We have our STEM schools in our elementary schools. We have our art schools in our elementary schools.
Speaker 3:Renaissance High School outside of the CTE program, renaissance High School is really what I would say for our really high-achieving students and gives them opportunities to extend themselves. It's an international baccalaureate school. Awesome, extend themselves. It's an international baccalaureate school. Um, those kids, uh, if you are a ambitious academic student, um, renaissance might be the place for you. And and uh, they just have deep, deep, uh curriculum and uh culture over there, that where they're trying to teach kids at the highest levels. And then we see kids go out and go to the Dukes of the world and go to some of the most prestigious schools in the nation where we find out that they walk in and there's nothing better than hearing from those kids and hearing their stories about how West State education provided them with a good platform to be successful after high school. Love it. We talk about sports. Yeah, let's talk about sports anytime. You're pretty good at that too, right talk about sports anytime.
Speaker 1:You're pretty good at that too, right You're doing pretty well right, sports are a huge priority.
Speaker 3:So my background I started out really. I got into education, I was a high school football coach, I was head coach for a long time, I was an athletic director and so I also think you know, as much as I believe in the arts, I also equally believe in in our athletics and and providing kids with, with an opportunity to be successful, uh and compete in all types of athletics is important for us. We're super incredibly lucky to have a guy like jason war overseeing that he's doing it.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he listens either, but guy's a stud, he is so good, I'll make sure he listens.
Speaker 3:He's unbelievable. He does a tremendous job for us, and not just with sports. But when we talk about those constraints, he comes up with ways to financially support our schools and do things outside the box. I mean, he came into me two years ago now and said, hey, what if we did a raffle? What if we did something like that? That raffle has almost raised a million dollars last year.
Speaker 3:I bet you this year it's going to raise a million dollars. We just finished up with the first one and it's right around. We do them quarterly and we're right around $350,000 for one raffle. It's unbelievable. He finds a way to make it happen and make it happen for our kids.
Speaker 3:So Owyhee's way to to make it happen and make it happen for our kids and ultimately so why he's been pretty good. Since they opened up right, they have been pretty good. A little controversy about recruiting kids right there there I I have heard some things.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've got a good friend out in, uh, cuna, whose son was like a rock star baseball player. Um, gage hawes is okay, yeah, yeah. So he ended up going out there and I know I think they're on their.
Speaker 3:It's either second or third in a row, right, I think I. I want to say third, I think, third, I think it is, I think they just finished the first time I met that kid and he shook my hand.
Speaker 1:I'm like and you're in ninth grade? Yeah, are you kidding me? Yeah, it'll be fun. I think he'll play in the pros. He's. He's unbelievable, but they're killing it Pretty competitive with other big districts around the state. How are things going to go this year? The big ones football, basketball, baseball, volleyball you know what.
Speaker 3:We're so lucky. I think our teams will always be competitive and it's fun to see the football teams out there right now. This is my favorite time of year is to be able to stand on the sideline and just root on our kids and our teams. West Ada has been fortunate enough to be dominant in a lot of sports.
Speaker 1:Except for poor Cleverleys are listening to this.
Speaker 3:Centennial struggles every once in a while, but they're going to figure it out and they're going to come around here.
Speaker 1:Ryan was telling me that his son they like scored a. He plays for the middle school team. I think they scored a touchdown like two touchdowns in one game, and last year they had one touchdown all year. So they were celebrating. See, they're coming around. They're coming around. There it is, it's all perspective.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right. You know what I will say this what is really spectacular about our schools is you get to see the culture of those schools and you can go to a centennial game and the fans are there. Uh, the tradition is there, the enjoyment is there, and that's what kids need. If this isn't just about educating kids in the classroom, it really is about getting them to be part of something, and uh, and and so far we've done a really good job with that.
Speaker 1:I love it On your list here when we were talking about this, the podcast, I love this how to empower minds and ensure excellence. Yeah, kind of one of your deals.
Speaker 3:Right, it is, you know what I think, ultimately what we want is we want kids to be able to think independently, and that really is empowering minds. We're going to give you some tools and we want you, we want kids to be able to think independently, and that really is empowering minds. We're going to give you some tools and we want you to decide how you deal with those tools. Our staff has been amazing. And then that ensuring excellence is to make sure that our teachers, our administrators, our district is serving our kids, to make sure that they can be successful, in whatever way that that looks. Excellence doesn't always mean you're a 4.0 student. Excellence means that we're going to give you everything we possibly can to help you be successful and then you get to define what that success looks like and as a family, you guys can decide what that success looks like. For some kids, success looks like welding. I mean, I love bringing up the welding story.
Speaker 3:I met with a student last year who signed on with one of our local welding units and was extremely excited and got done and asked his dad what does a 401k mean? And I thought this is an 18-year-old kid who's got his career ahead of him. He's going to do an internship and get some more certifications. But he's going to be ready to go and pretty soon I'm sure he'll be showing up in my house and I'll say I need something done for me and he'll be the guy. So it's awesome. What are some challenges you have right now? You know growth is always our challenge, right?
Speaker 1:Let's talk about growth and maybe get a dig a little bit deeper into funding. I didn't realize until I went around and met with everybody that there was a shift in the way that they funded. It goes back and I don't even know who to blame at this point. But you hear both sides of it. But the reliance on kind of levies, property tax, state constitution, saying that we got to fund an education, how that works with rural districts and big districts and there's a lot of complicated parts to this. But talk a little bit in your district about you've got this explosive growth. You got our kids. What are our most cherished thing we have going for us here is our kids and keeping them here and educating them. And then you balance that with budgets and how to pay for it all property taxes, growth, everything. Talk a little bit about where you sit in that whole milieu.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's really important for people to understand and I like to talk about. Well, I'll go reverse through this. I'm going to talk a little bit about taxes and nobody wants to hear the word taxes, that's the bad word to say. But we're proud of where we're at right now. So right now we just finalized our L2 form, which is kind of our tax form. 10 years ago we were over $600 per $100,000. Right now we're at $32. What $32?
Speaker 1:per $100,000, right.
Speaker 3:And so when you talk about that $32 per $100,000, I had a parent text me and she said Derek, I have four kids in the West data school district and I have a $400,000 home assessed value and I paid just over a hundred dollars in taxes to West data and I paid just over $100 in taxes to West Data. That's pretty incredible and we will continue to that is incredible.
Speaker 3:What value? So when you talk about that, you really talk about when people invest, and I think in education you invest and you brought it up. I think these are the kids that are the future for Idaho, all of those things I love to talk about return on investment. So I you know, I already said West Ada as the largest district in the state, um, compared to all other large districts. We're number one in ELA, we're number one in mathematics and we have one of the lowest tax rates around Um. That is really, really something that I think a lot of people should sit back and look at and say this is education, doing it the right way and it can be done.
Speaker 1:How much what's think about who came before you. I spent a lot of time with Linda Clark. She's unbelievable. I think she's just tremendous. What has West Ada done right to get in this position? Because if you look at value and ROI, that's great. I did not know that number until right now.
Speaker 1:And I'm sitting here thinking how on earth is that possible? How have you done it and how have you been good stewards of tax dollars and talk us through kind of? Because I do think that's like everyone's worry right Is how is this going to happen and what are we going to do on property tax? And then you do have your bonds and your levies that come up and talk about how those play in, but that is tremendous value.
Speaker 3:How it is tremendous and that $32 per $100,000 includes bonds, levies, everything, that's everything. And really I'm going to go back to Linda Clark and I'm going to say it has been good financial management and I'm sure for years beyond that I'll give from Linda Clark to where we bought the building that we're in today and having that foresight, and that was Linda.
Speaker 1:Um, that's so. That's back when I first met her and a gal named Bessie Katsilamaitis and she was at ISU and Linda was at the school district, and they have this great idea to take that old building that was sitting there and they had a handshake and figured it out together. And you go back to some of those transformative leaders. I mean, look at the downstream effects of owning your own business, collaborating with higher education in you know the year 2002. You know it's been over 20 years ago now, no question. And so what I love about that story, derek, is like leaders like you, good decisions making good policy and good physical decisions. It doesn't just affect now, you know. You look at those ripples that are decades later. It's really amazing. And boy, I learned a lot from those two.
Speaker 3:They've done a tremendous job and put us in a good position and and you know, and we're, we're fortunate, we are very fortunate to not only attract good leaders, but then also, with our district and having the size, we're able to leverage that. And people I hear from people all the time Well, if you were smaller, if you look at smaller districts, look and see what happens to tax rates. They, they're extensively higher and that's not to be insulting to our smaller districts, but it's just the reality.
Speaker 1:I don't even know who's going to hear this cause they're going to. I'm going to get so much hate Like we're going to get so many calls.
Speaker 1:Why on God's green earth. Isn't there some consolidation? Yeah, like like I know you probably can't comment, but like you go, like you just go around and like as a business guy and you're like, well, wait a minute, if you have a school district, and you have, and just there's, there's just administrative and they've done some things to encourage that, but but it seems to me like just a little bit of that and you don't want to lose local control. I know there's a whole other side of this and people are very proud of their districts and what they do, but but but with constraints and tax dollars, you'd think that they'd say, oh, this is early, smart decision. Why do you think? Yeah, I think it does go back to the, that local control.
Speaker 3:And you know when, when a community gives up their district, they're also giving up control of, as you had already mentioned, kids are our most prized possession and so when you give up that control and what that might look like, I think fear sets in and people get concerned over it. Um, we are fortunate in where we're at. Um size has its challenges as well. Right, I mean just visiting schools. I can remember my first few days as superintendent. I thought I'm going to go visit all of our schools in the first couple of days.
Speaker 1:And I figured out.
Speaker 3:I'm going to visit 20 of our schools in the first couple of days, so um you know there.
Speaker 1:Wow, let's go back to I interrupted you. So value, value, value is what you're bringing Value, value, value, Community and you got growth happening. I don't think it's going to stop. With Highway 16 going in and with the growth on this side of I-84, north side growth on south side of I-84, I mean it's not going to stop. What are your projections? What does this look like?
Speaker 3:I think Star is opening up new houses by the minute right now. Oh yeah, and you know, that area is exploding for us. South Meridian is exploding for us All of the construction you're well aware of. They're right off 10 Mile, and that corridor is going to blow up for us, and so we have to you know we have.
Speaker 1:How many years advance are you looking? Because I got. I actually didn't think of this till right now too, but as I watch this explosion, you got to be thinking about elementaries and the middle schools and high schools and all these areas and what it eventually looks like 10 years in advance.
Speaker 3:We try to look, and we look at everything from birth rates, move-in rates, all of those things to try to project. And there's no easy way, right? If we would have sat back 10 years ago and said, hey, how close were we. It's really hard. As we get closer in, then it's easier to project, but it's tough, we didn't know what was.
Speaker 1:I don't think anyone knew what was going to happen to the Valley. There's a lot of really smart people that what happened was crazy.
Speaker 3:Are you factoring Micron into this? Absolutely, I mean, I still think we don't get that. I think the Micron and a lot of people when I moved here we bought our house from somebody that worked at Micron I think a lot of people that work at Micron will make that commute. That's not a very far commute, especially if you're coming from Washington, oregon, california, where you're sitting. You're used to sitting in traffic 20 minutes on the 84, isn't that big a deal to be able to live in a place that you want, and so we absolutely think that's going to impact us. We're really, really thankful that the legislature helped us out this year with House Bill 521, which is going to give us some additional funds to be able to build some schools in a fiscally responsible way and so we can meet some of the growth needs to elementary schools. I would expect that we're going to look at elementary school in the North and an elementary school in the South really soon here.
Speaker 1:How come they don't standardize buildings a little bit more?
Speaker 3:You know what?
Speaker 1:It's like a develop. I mean you, you, you look at our buildings that are here at Eagle V landing today, but if you go down to 10 Mile, our buildings are very similar. The reason why is because we're building them with our own money. It seems like there should be some standardization of buildings for 5A schools and 4A schools and 3A schools, but it seems like it's just all over the place. Any thoughts on that? It does seem that way. That might not be a fair question.
Speaker 3:No, it's really fair and I get that question a lot. I think it seems that way more than it is. If we walked into our middle schools, for example, you would say this is the exact same middle school. So there are more standards. Within West Ada we try to standardize because that saves us. Obviously, the building is going to cost the building, but there's a lot in architecture fees, there's a lot in planning fees, all of those things that go into it. So we do. Hawaii High School is actually built off a model that a lot of schools. When you look at Valley View High School, when you look at Middleton, there's a lot of schools that fit that same model. We may adjust it a little bit, make the hallways a little bit wider, a little bit skinnier, move a training center to the right rather than the left, but overall the plan is pretty similar across our districts. If you look at Rocky Mountain High School and Mountain View High School, those two schools are very similar in nature. That's great.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking through that. I'm now thinking of those. They are probably the same, I guess, in other parts of Idaho they're not.
Speaker 3:So it would be interesting if, at a state level, they could help out these smaller districts with hey, here's what they did for a no question, and I know that that's been some conversation that should we come up with just a standard plan? And I've even heard conversations around do we just come up with a standard plan for the state? Conversations around do we just come up with a standard plan for the state? And then if taxpayers say, well, but we want this additional pay for it, then yeah, local control, we get to pay for that yeah, um, any any political challenges on you guys?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know the answer to this question either, but I do know in times where education, public, educate, I mean there's a lot of there. Well, there's a lot of chatter about, you know, funding going away from public to private side. I think with it's hard to argue in West 80, you don't have all the choice you want and I think the education that your kids get is just I don't know. I just don't know. But with a lot of legislation they're considering, I worry as someone who I think is pretty well read on this stuff. I worry less about you than I do, a smaller district, because I'm thinking, holy smokes, if you lost 10 to 15% of your students who wanted to take their $7,500 or 85, whatever it ends up being per student and and you know that's that could be crippling to a small district. But do you worry about some of the legislation that's going through and how do you approach that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I worry about some of the legislation for two reasons. One is, selfishly, I came from Arizona. I used to own property in Arizona. I'll emphasize I used to own property in Arizona because I saw what happened to my taxes and that's a concern.
Speaker 1:So they just went through this?
Speaker 3:They did, and I say just, they probably went through it in the last 15 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because Doug Ducey was kind of in the middle of some of this right and so talk to us a little bit about what happened there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is accountability right, and if you have the right accountability you can probably live in a system that has vouchers Not having that accountability. There's plenty of situations in which people Can we back up a little bit.
Speaker 1:I haven't had anyone on the podcast that's talked about this. Okay, here we go. So vouchers back when I ran for governor. It's a big question. It's a very bedrock conservative thing.
Speaker 1:Are you for vouchers or are you not? It's a very simple question. It's way more complicated than are you for vouchers or not, because even what it means is different depending on the definition. But the idea is that with tax dollars, you can take a dollar per student and give that to the parent and let them choose to go where they want to go. If they want to homeschool and there's a mom on the corner of their neighborhood that wants eight kids, you take eight kids times, whatever the number is, and you pay them. If you want to go to a private school, if you want to go to BK, you want to go to Coal Valley Christian or if you want to put that money in a public school, the question is not about it. I get why they're saying that, and competition and all that. The problem is what that ends up doing to tax burden, costs and fraudulent behavior in the system.
Speaker 3:Frankly, that's a really good way to say it and that's what I mean when I talk about accountability. It becomes, even from a system standpoint, right. What is it that's going to stop Derek Bubb from opening up Derek Bubb voucher school or private school and then, in the middle of December, saying, ah, you know what, we can't do that anymore. And I'm going to add I'm going to add to this.
Speaker 1:There's been charter schools that have had this problem. Because they start up, it's usually passionate parents. We get rolling and it's hard. We got our facilities, we got our whatever, and then those passionate parents either leave or their kids grab there. We've seen it on a next level up with charter schools in Idaho, let alone getting it down to the, you know the, the, the person on the corner, that's. That's opening up. That. It just seems like a lot to it. Um, and is it not true? I'm asking you questions I don't, I don't know the answer to, but I think you get less per student already.
Speaker 3:We do get less pursued by far by far, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Compared to a small district, you already are getting there's additional funds that go to some of our rural districts and I do worry. I mean and you brought up earlier, these are concerns that I have you brought up earlier what about our smaller towns? I'm proud of what we offer in West Data. I think kids will continue to go to West Data schools. I don't think we get very many kids that say, gosh, I would rather have a private school education. We're extremely proud of what we offer here in West Ada and we're going to continue to flourish regardless of what happens.
Speaker 3:I do worry about our smaller towns, because now, all of a sudden, you open up a school like that in a smaller town or a struggling district. How do you ever turn that around? And so those are challenges that I would ask everybody to consider, and I know our legislators will consider as they. They ponder this, and it's a complicated issue. It's not, you know, I wish it was just oh, this is vouchers or no vouchers. You know even how you pay for vouchers. Do you pay for it out of, out of state? Oh yeah, do you give a tax credit? I mean, there's a lot that goes into this that becomes more and more complicated as you go down the road.
Speaker 1:Do you think they're looking around? One of the things we kind of suck at sometimes here in this state is we there is data, there is experience there is. Do you think they're looking at how Arizona and some of these other states have maybe mistakes, they've made lessons learned? Where do you think we are in the process? Because I know it's going to be another, it's going to be another topic of discussion this next legislative session.
Speaker 3:It will definitely be a topic of discussion, I think, no question. I'm going to say this and I'm going to go back to Debbie Crutchfield. I trust Debbie, I think she's going to do some great things and I think she's working to advocate for schools in general. I know that there's a lot of pressure to to look at vouchers and and different ways that we can fund our help. Our students take money and and provide an education that they want, whether that be homeschool, whether it be private school, whatever that might be. I think there are certain parameters that have to go around vouchers and I think that's what we can learn. I believe in our legislature, I believe that they can find those things.
Speaker 1:You're a confident man in our legislature. I'm with you on Debbie Critchfield. I'm with you on Governor Little. I'm with you on Scott Becky. I don't know that I there are several of my trust. I don't know about the whole thing.
Speaker 3:Okay, I trust most. Let me recant that statement. I trust most of our legislators, but I think if you create some pillars where you say, okay, listen, number one, we got to have accountability. Okay, uh, if we, if we sit with that great number two, we can't continue to take money out of k-12 education, general education. We're just getting to a spot where we can, where we can survive and we can, we can do that in a fair way and we can provide our kids with an education. And then you know when I look at what would be the third piece. The third piece is I'd love to have it impact some of our low-income students and is there a financial need? And if there is that financial need, then let's help them out.
Speaker 1:I love it. That was a great topic. Talk about teacher pay. I love it, that was a great topic. Talk about teacher pay. It's always been one of the. You know you look at the whether you like it or not, in an economy that we have right now, with so many options to go workplaces, at some point it does settle down to what can I make and how can I provide for my family? And one of the biggest concerns we've had for years here is okay, as things heat up and you have lots of options for employment and unemployment rates that are so low even if I'm a passionate teacher that went into it, for this is my passion kids educating, watching these kids grow at some point it does become about paying benefits. And how are you stacking up right now and how tough has that been in just a hot, hot economy we've had the last decade?
Speaker 3:It's always tough. So economic challenges are actually blessings to school districts from a teacher pay standpoint. Right now, as a teacher sits, a teacher can say, hey, you know what? I'm going to go be a realtor and I can sell a few houses a year and I can make a decent living, or maybe even I can make a better living than I can as a teacher. Here's what we count on. We count on teachers that have a passion for kids, that are willing to come into the classroom and work with every single student and work their tails off, and we're lucky enough to have those people.
Speaker 3:We've tried to address teacher pay. The governor has. That's been a big priority for him, and when we appreciate that the career ladder continues to get funded, um and and so we're able to capitalize that on that and make sure that our teachers being paid appropriately. We know that there's no person myself, anybody else that makes a bigger difference in the lives of kids than that teacher standing in front of them, and so, uh, we celebrate that, we're thankful for that, and I will just throw this out there. The other pay that we continue to try to address is our classified staff pay, and that's our custodians, that's our paraprofessionals, our secretaries, all of those people. When I came into the job, they're making right around $10 an hour. That's not a competitive wage. These days Now we're we're at $15 an hour. Um, that a lot. A lot of that money comes out of general fund money. Um, that's not designated money. We put more money out of general fund money to our classified staff than we do to our certified staff, and that's our custodial, our secretaries.
Speaker 1:You had to to make a gap right. Had to secretary, you had to to make a gap right.
Speaker 3:Had to, well that's that was an awesome answer, hey, um, anything else, this went by way too fast. Stick of this by way too fast. This one, really what?
Speaker 1:what are some ways uh, anyone listening at parents out there that could help you help education, help our teachers, help, help everyone out there. What are some things that the community can do to support you?
Speaker 3:you know what? What? I just appreciate the exposure. We're proud of the work that we're doing. We're proud of the schools that we have. Our teachers are doing a tremendous job, our administrators are doing a tremendous job. This is such good exposure for us to be able to say, hey, look at what West Ada is doing and how can we be a support to anybody else. And we try to open that door for some of our smaller districts who want to come in and see the things that we're doing. And we don't do everything perfect. I'm going to tell you right now, we don't do everything perfect. We make mistakes, but one of my commitments is we're going to be responsive and we're going to address parents' needs and we're going to make sure that we value the community that we live in and we value the voice of the community we live in and we're going to work with people rather than against people and and education is a good spot in west data and I would argue, in the state of idaho.
Speaker 1:That's awesome can I ask you one more question? Yeah, ask away. When I ran for governor, I ran, I read a whole bunch of books on education, a whole library of books on it, because I just it was something you know, I just you, you wanted to understand, and so part of it was this tour when I went on and listened to everybody. But at the same time I was reading books and I'll never forget I read a book that was given to me by a school superintendent, called the Answers in the Room, and it was about how education oftentimes and the example they use is within an elementary school even, no matter what the circumstances around the elementary school were, there were one or two teachers just thriving. And then you would go to a district and it was kind of the same same situation for the whole district. But there were one or two schools within the district that were just thriving and and part of their point in the book was in education.
Speaker 1:Probably, like in a lot of things in life, it's really hard to scale successes. Have you found a way to scale successes within your district since taking over? Because to me, when I looked at everything, I thought, man, if you could just replicate some of these successes that are happening. That's part of it because you got the talent there, you got the secret sauce there. How do you spread that across your district?
Speaker 3:Sure, I'm going to answer that with this. We use professional learning communities. Education's interesting because we don't get paid on commission, but let's just use the commission sales as an example. If you and I are both selling widgets and you came over to me and said, Derek, today I sold 10,000 widgets, and I said, well, I sold two widgets. Here's what I'm going to ask you what did you do different? How did that work? That's really what a professional learning community does for us. Is we get to sit down and say we all taught this lesson?
Speaker 3:We all tested the kids. Your kids averaged a 92% on the test. My kids averaged a 21% on the test. What did you do different? Tell me a little bit about that. And for a lot of that you have to check yourself a little bit at the door and say, okay, I'm going to bring down, you know, any of my, my guards and I'm going to go in and I'm going to learn a little bit from one another and sometimes I'm going to have that opportunity to teach as well. Uh, and and so our teachers have not only embraced that, but it is really a part of our culture when we cancel it.
Speaker 3:So Wednesday late, you know we talk all the time about Wednesday late starts and I hear about that. Those Wednesday late starts are really designed so our teachers have that opportunity to sit down and talk about that stuff. If they didn't have that opportunity, it would be like having a bunch of commission salesmen that would never talk to each other. That's not effective. That's not how we can do business. Being able to collaborate, talk about the needs of students is a huge piece and it breaks down our rooms. Instead of being silos, we're really schools and I will just say, in West Ada, our goal is to be a school system where we have the overall experience at every single one of our schools should be very similar, rather than having these silos of individual excellence.
Speaker 1:Boom, drop the mic.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Hey, well, as a parent who sent my kid through, I just thank you for what you do. It's the good work, it's the hard work, and thank you for your leadership. It's the good work, it's the hard work, and thank you for your leadership. Again, I think you're doing a tremendous job. We're lucky to have you and, if you can express your appreciation to all those teachers and support staff, it's the most important thing that happens and anything we can ever do to help. We're all in thanks for coming on today we appreciate you and we appreciate the partnership.
Speaker 3:You guys have always been open for us and so thank you so much. Thank you appreciate it.