Chris Brewster: We Don't Love Kids in Oklahoma (Pt 2)

When 80% of kids aren't reading on grade level in Oklahoma, Chris Brewster believes that they don't love kids in his state. His wife told him "Suck it up princess, get to work" and so Chris did. He founded Santa Fe South Schools, which has an inner-city population of 5,000 students that usually score in the bottom 5-10% in the state, but their elementary and early childhood students are in the top 5-10%! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
We continue now with part two of our conversation with
Chris Brewster right after these brief messages from our general sponsors,

(00:26):
Haven't I read something that you've said that I don't know?
Almost two thirds of kids in Oklahoma don't read on
grade level by fourth grade. If I mess that up correctly.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
We've got seventy according to the NAPE, seventy six percent
of kids the national three quarters. Yeah, three quarters are
not reading at grade level in our fourth grade. Well ever,
but by third grade, yeah, even through the course of.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Well, then that would indicate that seventy five percent of
kids in Oklahoma City are then two thirds more likely
to not have a job and not be productive citizens.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Worse than that, because it's.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Worse than that that we're talking about two thirds of
seventy five percent of your population.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
In the state.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
So that includes the affluent, high performing districts. When you
concentrate that data in the earth environment, that's correct.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
That's correct.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
So it's worse, it's worse.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
So a small example, there was a school being shut
down by a local district. It had proficiency rates in
reading at two percent when they were going to shut
it down two percent. Ninety eight percent of the kids
were not proficient in this elementary school. I mean, it's
just so virtually none of the kids in the entire school.

(01:40):
So the community.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Case, it's not a school, it's not school.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
They're not teaching anything.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
You know, it's and we could talk about this, but
it's the only institution that we pour billions into but
have zero accountability for the one thing we actually pay
what's the one thing we pay taxes for in public
education to teach your kids for the public to be educated, right,
which is a measurable outcome, Right, you can actually measure this,
but we don't do that, but we put billions in.

(02:08):
Some of our highest paid public servants are superintendents in
school districts that have some of the lowest outcomes because
we don't hire people to have academic outcomes. We hire managers,
people to manage to kind of keep the fights down
or hopefully have a good football team or whatever we need.
But we're not producing educated.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
Let's not get sued.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
No, no, that's exactly right.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
Let's protect our backs.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, have you ever heard in your state or others
of a public school superintendent being fired because of academic outcomes.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
I have heard of them being fired all the time
by elected boards yep. Based on political crop yep. I
don't think I can ever think of one that's been
fired because kids weren't doing well.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I mean, the number one thing we should be held
accountable for superintendents are the academic outcomes of children reserve.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
That's really the only thing.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
And yet we don't hold our chief executive officers in
our public school systems accountable for that role.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
They can get fired for fiscal malfeasans or embarrassing the public,
or even poor athletic programs.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
They can also get fired for you know, if a
twenty six dollars lunch receipt.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Didn't turned down, Yeah, that kind of still enough.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
A twenty six dollars lunch receipt didn't turn down. Yeah, meanwhile,
a thousand kids in their district can't read it cannot read.
But the lunch receipt, Now that's something we need to
be worried about.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
And so you hire managers, and they hire managers to
manage buildings, and they hire managers to manage classrooms. But
this isn't a pedagogical skill set issue. And so unless
we're really requiring people to be skilled and held accountable
for the outcomes in their classrooms, in their buildings and

(03:58):
their districts, we're going to get exactly what we keep getting.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
All right, So you've had it after six years and
you bolt and I think you're going to become a
minister now?

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Or what's your wife's name?

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Christy?

Speaker 1 (04:11):
All right, you must be like up to this point, Christy,
this is dripping crazy.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
What does she do? Well?

Speaker 2 (04:18):
She's been my partner in crime through everything. So she's
worked with me in church ministry. She's my accompanist in
the choirs I'm teaching. Yeah, because I wasn't the real
musician she was. She has her master's in performance. I
was just a hacke. So I'm up there a way
in my arm. She's really the skilled musician. She makes
it where I can keep my job basically, So what is.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
She doing while you're teachings, raising our kids?

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Volunteers?

Speaker 1 (04:42):
So you have to be coming home? So this has
to evolve over six years. Were toward the end she's
even saying to you, you're miserable, do something else.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I think I think she's more like, you know, you
keep running your mouth about this stuff. You should just
She's more like, kind of suck it up, princess, get
to work.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
I mean she's a little bit she's very supportive work.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
I mean she's not all about the feels right. When
we got work to do, right, we've loved this is
the work you've chosen. I'm with you in this. We
don't have any money, but this is this is the goal, right.
We're working with kids. We love kids. And she's always
been my partner in crime. We started dating when she
was sixteen and I was seventeen, so we've been married
first in the Pines and the Philippines missionary kids. She's

(05:29):
a missionary kid too. Okay wow, And so we're in
it through thick and thin. But I said, I think
I think I got to get out do something, sell insurance,
be youth passed or something. And she said, okay, well,
let's pray about it, which meant she needed me to
think about it a little bit more. And I talked
to my principal and he said, well, you should go
back and get your administrative degree. I'm like, or what

(05:52):
he said, to become a principal. I said, well, your
job sucks. Why would I want to be a principal?
He goes, well you should, you should go get your degree.
I'm like, that would be it.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
That's an awful idea.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
But he was my mentor and doctor Raoul font so
I listened. I listened and went back to University of
Oklahoma and I began to study to get my administrative degree,
and I focused on school reform, and appropriately, I just thought, well,
if I'm here, I might as well read about some
school reform. And what I found was, much to my chagrin,

(06:25):
is that there were places around the country where there
were some real bright spots. There were things happening with
populations like ours that were exceptional.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Kids were learning where I mean, do you remember there
were places in Memphis that we're starting.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
To see some results, Like I didn't even know where
Memphis was really at that point, right. We looked at
in some places in California, in Texas and New York
like these little bright spots, like how are they taking
this radically impoverished community mostly black and brown kids English
language learners and having academic outcomes?

Speaker 3 (06:57):
What what is the secret sauce here? Like? What's going on?

Speaker 2 (07:01):
We began to sort of unpack what really was taking
place in those and I thought, well, if it's happening
somewhere else, maybe we were obligated now to see that
it happens in our city. So that the shift in
my mentality was like, to me, it was God saying, look,
look there are places where it is this. There is
hope in this work, so you just need to learn
how to do it. We began to think differently about that,

(07:24):
and then yeah, the sort of ironic thing was as
I as I finished my coursework, my first administrative post
was Deer Creek High School in Edmund, Oklahoma, and so
it was about seventeen eighteen minutes away on the highway
from Capitol Hill, and Capitol Hill was ninety eight percent

(07:45):
pre and reduced Lunch qualified ninety eight percent poverty and Deer.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Creek was two percent. Wow.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
The soccer team I coached at Deer Creek or at
Capitol Hill had one white kid on the team, and
we were very good because this culture valued soccer, so
we were pretty good. And with the Deer Creek we're
at one Hispanic kid on the team and they valued football.
They were two A state champions the next year. But
our soccer team was just it was not good. And

(08:13):
a parking lot full of mostly beater cars and those
were the teacher cars to a parking lot full of
BMW's and and land Rovers and those were the kids cars.
And I'm like, fifteen miles apart, what what You're not
in Kansas And well fifteen minutes apart about twenty two
miles away.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, so but not two separate universes literally.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Same Maria code right across what And I was just just,
I mean, it was jarring how radically different it was
to be born in this community versus this community.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Okay, next, pontification. I say it every day everybody who
will listen. The zip code at the time of your
birth should not predetermine your ability to succeed in our country.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
But it does.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
It does because the systems are embedded in those zip
codes that sort of maintain those cycles we're talking about,
maintaining the cycle of affluence and opportunity, or the cycles
of poverty and all kinds of social scess.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Truth, and we need to look ourselves in the mirror
and realize so much of what we have in this
country and the world is luck of.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
The drawing we didn't earn it either way, right when
we're born into it. And again, this was that thing
that just continue to be churned in me, that the.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Way that eats people up when you hear that, though,
And honestly, let me tell you something.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
My mom was married and divorced five times.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
I worked hard to get over some of that trauma
and get through college, and I started a business with
seventeen thousand dollars that now employees one hundred and thirty
two people and we do business in forty two countries.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
I worked hard, and I earned that.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
I did not earn the access I had to capital
to start that business. I did not earn the access
I had to scholarships to go to college. Those things
I didn't earn. So when someone says, well, you didn't
earn that as a result of a result of your privilege,

(10:23):
it doesn't mean everything you have in the world is
just handed to and you're lucky, and we need to
quit being so self conscious over that concept. But it
also means the kids whose luck of the draw at
the time of their birth of the zip, they didn't
earn the crap that they're surrounded with, like the ticking

(10:44):
fan and everybody needs to drop this weird reaction to
the truth of privilege and just look at things for
what they are and understand them and quit taking them
so damn personally.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
I don't understand why it's even an issue. Why don't
either if we can help kids, why don't we want
to help kids.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
And why and to understand how kids are where they
are and why we need to help kids. We have
to be honest with ourselves about privilege and earn and
zip codes and births and reading levels at third grade
and just drop all these preconceived notions that we like
like plan ourselves into it.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
It's destructive to our society.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
The whole society. It hurts us as well, it hurts everybody.
It's a worse place for my kids to grow up.
I've got nine kids, there are four biological and five adopted.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
You're nuts, well, you are insane, and your wife is
a warrior. She's a wonder woman. Actually that's her other gig.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
But the difference in what each one of those kids
needs to be successful is right in my face. So
they're all, as you can imagine, very very different. So
at the micro causm I know I have to do
something different for each of our children so they can
have success.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
I thought you said you were a Baptist. You're a
Catholic up.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
In a Catholic country. We didn't just kidding, We didn't.
We didn't mean to adopt five. We were open to adoption.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
Then the first adoption was the Siling set of three,
and then birth mom had two more and we adopted those.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
So it it's phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
That's a whole another story. Okay, so you're at deer
what's it called.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Deer Creek Deer Creek super athlete.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
That the juxtaposition is just smoking you in the face.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
And I said, well, I mean I loved it. The
district was amazing. I mean, uh it was. It was
while before the first home football game. One of the
the Booster Cubs called members called me and said, hey, coach,
what do you want for What do you want for
your your pregame meal? How do you want your steak cooked?
I'm like, what are you talking about? Well, we cooked
steak for the kids before.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
The home games. What are you talking about? I mean
sometimes we.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Give a bag of burgers from McDonald's and feed them
some you know, Chief pizza or something. But they were
custom slicing steaks for their football team before the home games.
I want to know how I wanted mine cooked. And
in that moment, I thought, man, this is just another
one of those infinite examples of complete differences in how

(13:22):
we're approaching the rearing of children in our society. These
kids are incredible kids. They were kind, they worked hard,
they were great athletes. But so were the kids at
Capitol Hill. But there was nobody calling me up before
the soccer game saying, how do you want your steak cooked?
It was nobody in the stands, right, it was.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
And I guarantee you there's no kid being hit with
by brick in the back of his head laying in
a pull of book street outside that school with folks
rolling up and taking them off.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
In a car.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
And if it had happened, it would have been national
news in that neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's right. It's a good point, a beautiful point.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, every one of the news stations would have been
there talking about this tragedy at Deer Creek or outside
of derri Creek, and nothing in South ok See. So
I had lots of those experiences where I just was
reminded of this completely obvious disconnect between how we reared
children in this community versus how they were being supported

(14:22):
in this community. So I got this weird phone call,
and this the late winter of two thousand and one
from somebody. I thought it was a network marketing scheme.
You know you get those calls from your friends, said
to call you and okay, and he said, I want
to talk to you about an opportunity to start a
school in South ok See. And this was a Jose

(14:43):
Gomes and Joe Gomez had founded an organization called Oro
Development Corporation and basically with a nonprofit that had been
around serving migrant farm worker populations as they migrated through
the central part of the US. And his heart had
been he was Hispanic, had grown up, he was US
military vet, and had said, we need to take care

(15:05):
of the community. Just a remarkable, just quiet servant, deep
man of faith who had built this small nonprofit just
serving people who were underserved. And he had seen some
sister nonprofits in Arizonna, in Texas and places starting these
things called charter schools to serve that same population, and
so he thought, well, let's start a charter school.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
I could not remember what a charter school was had
no idea.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I had to go back and look at whatever chapter
that was in my graduate textbook that talked about what
charter schools were, because in ninety nine Oklahoma started.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Its first charter school.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
I had it first charter school law on the books,
but it was two thousand when the first charter school opened,
so this was brand new.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
This was two thousand and one.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Went down and sat with he and a couple other
members of the community in a storefront. The weirdest job
interview I've ever had. It ended in, you know, handholding
in prayers. These people were Pentecostals on a Southern Baptist
I didn't know what was going on. My arms were
being raised and people were praying out loud. I don't
know if it was Spanish or in tongues. I'm like,

(16:07):
what is going on here? This is the strangest job
interview ever ever had in my life. And Christy, my wife, said, well,
how did it go? I was like, I have no idea.
I have no idea what just happened. I'm excited because
they're talking about serving kids in South o k See,
but I don't have any idea what this looks like. Well,
I went back a couple of bits he had. Joe
had been trying to find somebody to lead a school.

(16:29):
He wasn't an educator. I had no idea, but he
wanted somebody who knew education. What I found out later
is I was about fourth on the list and the
other three had said no, thank you, we're not interested.
So I was like not JV. I was like the
bench on the ninth grade team. I was not even
I was barely a name on the list when he
called me in. So I was just the only one
that said yes at that point, and crazy, though crazy

(16:52):
well ignorant.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
I think one of the three above you were probably
chased off by the by the talking and tongues, the
pentacle maybe.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
But it's like, I can't work with these people.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
They were all three actual educators who knew what they
were doing too, So I think they said, there's just
no way for this to This can't succeed.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
You have any students, no, do you have any money? No?
Do you have the charter written? No?

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well we're just not thinking that's a good professional move
for us.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
And this business plan as a whole, there's no.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
There was no business plan. There was no business plan.
There was nothing. The business plan is all yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
It was like, here, we want to start a school.
Will you start a school? That was the whole conversation.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
I go back to Christian and she goes, well, I said,
I think we're supposed to start a school in South
Okay see.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
And I was thinking in the back of my mind
she because the interview was so convincing.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Because I honestly felt like she was going to speak truth. Right,
She's like Holy Spirit Junior in my life, and she's
the one that's in Holy pumped the brakes a little
bit there, boy, we need to slow this down and.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
Go back and tell them what kind of stake you want?
Next week?

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Well exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
So I'm in Deer Creek and I've got this, I
mean the pathway, and we think about this, we pray
about this, and my superintendent comes to me a couple
weeks later and she said, I want to talk to
you about next year and she starts to lay out
that there's an administrative role that's coming open and she'd
liked me to think about it. And I mean, I'm

(18:32):
thirty two at this point. This is looking pretty good
on paper. And I said, well, doctor Flood, Well, I
think what I'm gonna do next year is started charter
school in South Oklahoma City. And she kind of cocked
her head and looked at me and said, well, what
do you think about it?

Speaker 3 (18:49):
A couple weeks and come back and tell me.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
And I went home and I said, well, this is
getting really real right now, because this is our professional career.
Christy was stay at home mom raising our two littles.
We were living on an educator income. There's not much
margin there at all. And we thought about this, and
I honestly thought Christy would say, no, this is really
not the right timing, and she's basically she says, you've

(19:12):
been running your mouth about this for years, like basically
if put up for shop is exactly what it was.
And so we we did pray about we thought about it,
but again mostly mostly ignorance and hubris and trying to think, yeah,
we can do this thing.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
No all started by business.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Squear to you, it was ignorance and hubris and a
little bit of faith.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
Yeah, and the willingness to.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Work, yeah yeah, work was Yeah. I worked hard before,
but I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
So so we decided to start a charter school.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Didn't know what we were doing.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
We wrote a charter that was a few pages in
linked It was kind of the wild West and charter
schools in Oklahoma. Like, sure, you can start a school,
and you can start a school, and you can start
a school. And I went back to doctor twid Well
two weeks later and said, I think I'm supposed to
start this school and she goes, well, let me get
this straight. From what you've told me, you want to
start a school doesn't exist with students. You haven't enrolled

(20:08):
in teachers, you haven't hired.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
In a building that you don't know where it is.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
We didn't have a building, we didn't have curriculum, we
didn't have furniture to anything. So when you put it
that way, it doesn't sound like a great business plan.
But yes, ma'am, I think that's what we're going to do.
And it was that. I think it's one of those
weird moments where you just you don't have a choice.
You just you're in it now, so you got to
go do the You got to go do the work.
Starting business is very very similar. You want to eat,

(20:34):
You're going to go to work and so we started
this crazy idea to start a charter school, and it
was wild really honestly, no reason it should have succeeded
in opening, much less succeeded in opening.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Now twenty five years later, it's it's okay.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
School now before we go forward is a good time
to help people. I think people by now and this
year have heard the world charter school. Yeah right. I
don't think most people understand how charter schools are funded,
because our view is still in district public schools. If

(21:11):
you live in an area, you go to the school,
and you can have busing, and you can have food
if you're fall below privaty level, and how kind of
in general, how the public system is supposed to work.
And then you've got parochial and private schools which you
pay your tuitions and are largely affelent and everything else.

(21:31):
But then there's this thing called a charter school, and
I don't think people really understand financially, how they exist,
where the kids come from, how they get in. Could
you explain just not specifically yours, but the overall view
of what a charter school is, whether it's in Oklahoma, Memphis,

(21:52):
or LA.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
So somewhere around nineteen ninety one, a group of teachers
I think in Minneapolis actually said something like, all right,
district folk, if you just gave us the money you're
spending on a school, we could design a better school.
Here's our charter, here's our contract for how we'd run
a school. And there were some folks who were crazy
enough to say, all right, you educators, think you know
what you're talking about, go run your school. And it

(22:17):
was this idea that if there's a need and a
group of people that can respond to that need to
fill a void in a community with public dollars to
be used for public school students and open enrollment, that
maybe there's some opportunity there. And from that sort of
genesis we now have I think forty seven states with
some type of charter school law on the book.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
So I think in the state of Tennessee. And this
may be dated.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Alex may can figure it out, but I'm going to
pick a number that's close. I think we spend about
fourteen thousand dollars per kid in Shelby County schools. I'm
pretty sure of it. Pretty close, Okay, So if I
can get a charter an agreement started charter school are
you saying that for each kid that comes into my school,

(23:06):
the state will give me fourteen thousand dollars, because that's
what the average called. You see, I'm trying to understand
the financial.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Okay, So the financial side of it basically is that,
I mean, you set up a nonprofit that will charter
with a state authorized authorizer who say, here are your
state rules for running this public school.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, you got to meet the standard. There's a state qualification.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
My standard for it's non sectarian.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
You've got to have a curriculum, you've got to be insured,
you've got to have strong financials, special ed a compliance
with all ada and all of the every rule. The
basic way to understand charter school is every rule that
applies to children in a public school and a traditional
public school applies to children in.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
A charter school.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Every rule see time and Carnegie units and graduation.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
It's not a nonprofit.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
But the nonprofit then can turn and say, but the
rules that apply to the adults. We've got some latitude there.
So there's no tenure. There's no union agreement in our school.
I can pay teachers more or less. I can use
non certified but highly qualified staff for example, a chemist
could come and work to teach chemistry for.

Speaker 4 (24:13):
Me, even if he doesn't have his teacher certificate.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
That's cruse.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
You would have to have it a public school, that's correct,
which is a little crazy.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, it's a little crazy.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
I'm looking in other conversation.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Highly qualified people who actually produce results.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
God forbid, don't let me teaching economics one of one class.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
As a guy who's been thirty three years in international.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Business, you might know a little bit about it.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Let's have a twenty two year old who just graduated
from the University of Memphis to it instead because they
have a certificate exactly. It's so charters could take advantage
of that the money. How does does the state then
give a certain amount of money per student based on
that ratio?

Speaker 2 (24:50):
So most of the money that if the charter school
were a public school, the same amount of money that
would flow from local and federal sources will flow through
the entity into that school. Okay, but then that school,
their board will decide how it's how it's spent the
charter school, the charter will so you'll decide with your your.

Speaker 4 (25:10):
So each charter school has its own board.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
That's correct, and so it's not a private school, no,
but it's removed from the district board and district superintendent
because it has its own board and its own management.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
Because it's a five to zho one C three.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
But the state makes a contract that says, but for
the kids that you take, we will fund money to
you based on the same ratio that we fund money
to get some public schools.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
That's right, So October one is my child count. I'll
turn a number of students who are enrolled at Santa
fe Soil schools to the state. We are funded on
that amount of school and the type amount of students
and the type of students. So there's a waiting formula
in every state that says, imparver's kids get this factor
times of state aid, A bilingual kid would have, this,

(26:00):
special ed kid would have this. So they calculate all
this in each state and say this is the money
that the public is spending to educate this child. Your
public charter school will now use that money to educate
these children.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
But because it's a five oh one C three, you
can then also take outside donation actly to build the school.
It almost is replacing the old school PTA and Boosterqlal.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
It's much, but it's actually more challenging because some of
local sources you don't have an advantage of the number
one thing we don't have. Now, there's two things that
charter schools are underfunded in. One is there's often an
administration's fee charged by the authorizer. In some states, that
might mean you only get eighty five percent of every dollar.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Well, that's interesting. It's retained by this group.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
So sometimes it's five percent, one percent, but sometimes it's
a much less amount than that fourteen thousand you you quoted.
The other pieces that local funds which build.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
A build with the caveat that, I don't know what
I'm talking.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
About, but I think that's probably full of the number
of bill it's ten nine. We could pontificate about education forever,
but money is rarely the issue.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
That's correct.

Speaker 5 (27:07):
So the state of Utah is the best education state
in the country, and they theirs is less than Memphis.
Your money is not the problem. It is the fifth
in the public sphere of.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
I just want people to understand kind of how a
charter school is funded and operate.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
So that's it.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
So the big issue that we face is facilities and infrastructure.
So most districts will pass a bond and then levy
a local tax to repay the bond. So if you
want to build a fine arts stadium, a new school,
a football stadium, these are all paid for through a
local bond initiative. Charter schools don't have any of that.
So facilities are very expensive. As you're aware to build

(27:48):
in your industry, you know how prices are going up.
If I need to open a classroom for a classroom
full of kids and it cost me three hundred bucks
a square foot to build, I don't have any money.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
To build those state backing going to stand backing.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
So I have to be very creative and very lean
in my budgeting because all of my facilities costs come
out of my per pupil amount.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Okay, well, so based on that, starting this charter school
was absolutely ludicrous.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yes, yes, in fact nothing from my perspective, now, I
would not have approved me. No way, did I have
any business And there's no way I would highly recommend
I not be allowed to start a charter school for
all those reasons. But you did, Yeah, we did. We
started with one hundred and twenty kids.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Where'd you get them?

Speaker 2 (28:29):
Well, here's what we saw, so I hired these teachers,
sat them around at a table like this. We had
two cell phones and an office phone and a matrix
printer print out of names and phone numbers.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
And they said, what's this?

Speaker 2 (28:42):
I said, well, these are all the incoming freshmen in
Oklahoma City public schools. So where did you get these numbers?
I said, that's not important.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
We may have stolen.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
We have friends in low places. They said, well, what
are we supposed to do with these? I said, well,
you call the numbers and you tell them about our school.
What do we tell them? I said, you tell them
anything you need to tell them, because if you don't
have students, you don't have a job.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
And they're like, oh, okay, your teachers became recruiters. So
we're on the phone like yeah we o. But no,
this was gonna be a great school, like we're gonna
have football. Yes, we're gonna have football, Yes at all
we're gonna.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
I mean, we literally, coach, we did not know what
we were doing, Like, we did not know we're doing,
but we cast this vision for a school that were
sort of forming in real time. Because we believed in kids,
we believed in opportunity. We believed in in our ability
that this was probably unfounded, but we believed in our
ability to do better than than the local system despite

(29:45):
all of these things that we hadn't taken care of,
like fire coat issues in the building and ceiling tiles
and actual chairs and those types of things. So we're
calling these parents and they begin to as symbol and enroll,
and we thought, well, look, they are such right parents.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
They know exactly how good the school's going to be.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Well, I very quickly realized that that wasn't the equation
at all. That what they were doing is in their
minds saying, maybe this wet behind the ears, white kid
in a church basement with no experience, no equipment, no computers,
no textbooks, is a better option than the local high school.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Now can you imagine being.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
That that would be a value judgment in and of
itself is so incriminating on the local hospital.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
It was horrifying to me that we were the best option.
There's no way we could be the best. Looking back
on it, now, why would any parents say, my most
precious asset, my child is better served with this guy.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Because although it wasn't on the news, word gets around
the neighborhood. When a kid's laying convulsing in the street
with blood coming down, they know what's going on.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Everything about those institutions was bad for their children, everything
about it. From the moment they walked in the door,
they knew they were in a bad place for all
of the reasons, physically, emotionally, mentally. They just were not stay.
But parents didn't have You know, we have choices, right
if we can move to a district that we choose,

(31:17):
if we can private school, if we can homeschool, we
have choice. So affluent, mostly white people have choice. Impoverish
communities have no choice. So charter schools are about choice,
giving the power of the public institution back to the
public and from the institution. So right now in these
inner cities, the institution maintains all the power. There's no

(31:39):
reason to improve because you don't have to. You open
the doors and your zip code has assigned the students
who will come in the door.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
And there's very little accountability to the actual education.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Could you run a business if there was no competition
and you could set your own prices, and.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yes, but could I run my business with that accountability?

Speaker 3 (32:01):
I mean no, Look, people hear me.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Okay, I have coached kids that got advanced from one
grade to another because they had good attendance.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
That's not uncommon, it's very common.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
That is sick. We'll be right back. So anyway, we
got to get to it. You start this school that's

(32:39):
shouldn't even be a school with a bunch of people
that are passionate, but honestly theophytes as it pertains to
running a school and.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
In a church basement, and.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Kids showed up.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
We had a waiting list the first class, and I
I mean for the first twenty two years, we never
even recruited a kid.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
It was a word, never did it.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
We grew every year from that first class of one
hundred and twenty kids, seven teachers, to now we serve
five thousand kids, six hundred and fifty employees, a budget
of about half a million the first year to fifty
two million this year just.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
For a second in one facility.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
No, it's all over the place. We have schools in.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Former grocery stores, former malls, former armory, former private school
that didn't want to be in the South Side anymore.
We'll put a school in just about any facility I
can bring up to.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
What ages are we talking?

Speaker 3 (33:39):
So now we serve pre K through twelfth grade.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
As I mentioned, we did everything so my daddy would
say bass ackwards, trying to get it sorted out. When
kids came in the door as ninth graders, I quickly
realized they're five years behind.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
They remember the third grade reading proficiency thing. You're catching
them all right.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
And now we have this thing called end of instruction
that we're starting to come in some good accountability. But
I realized I have four years to make nine years
growth with kids who are already their trajectories downward academically,
not upward.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
I can't do this. There's no there's no We're good,
but we ain't that good.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
You can pull them out of the river, but eventually
you got to go up river and find out why
they're getting in the river.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
And I got to start in middle school, right, we
got to get up river. So we open a middle school.
There're three years behind the I'm a little slow here,
so if we get them out of the delivery room
into the classroom before they go back. But even I mean,
you know as well as I do. In under resource communities,
children aren't school ready. Even in pre K.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
They walk in.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Before they start beddimb stories are sung lullabas and they
just haven't.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Developed because mom is working three jobs.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
I'm not, I'm not, I mean abody fact, it's the fact.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
And so we built it backwards until we're finding we're
finally very good at what we do because we've learned
over the years, and now we start school's early childhood
pre KK in one and then build them at grade
level at a time. We're building feeder patterns now into
our was one charter school and now we're a charter
school district. We're a pretty sizable district.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
You're serving five thousand kids.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah, this year.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
Do you still have a waiting list in various grades?

Speaker 2 (35:24):
We do so, like a pre K sixth grade, ninth
grade where they're sort of moving into another school grade
level configuration.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
We have waiting lists.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
When you catch them in sixth grade. In ninth grade,
are you still catching kids that are way behind again? So,
do you have transitional programs to get kids caught up?

Speaker 2 (35:42):
It's extremely hard work to catch kids up who haven't
been in our system already. But we do a lot
of direct instruction, a lot of tutoring programs, a lot
of associated assistance for kids to catch back up, and
still sometimes we don't make it.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
And everybody needs to remember this is a choice these
kids and families are making to come to.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
These charter schools.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
This is a choice they're making to try to get
a better opportunity for themselves and their children. This is, again,
I'm gonna say the word again, a choice, a cognitive choice.
So when you look at these impoverished areas and you
shake your head, they're like, do they not even care?

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Hell?

Speaker 4 (36:28):
Yeah, they care.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
They love their kids just like everybody else loves their kids.
But absent choice, what can they do? Stuck in a system.
And what your place is given is a choice, a determination,
and opportunity. And in twenty years you've gone from one
hundred and twenty to five thousand. Now it's time for

(36:52):
the data points give us a comparative analysis on what
your schools have been able to do for its students
first their peers in the public schools.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
So the early sort of indications of success were graduation rates, attendance.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
Rates, early like first five six years.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, just kids who stayed in school, right, ironically, as
we kept kids in school who were less likely to
stay in school, your ACT scores don't go up initially
because those are the kids that would bring down your
ACT scores. So graduation rates going up. Being able to
get kids into community college, into career certifications, into the
military increased significantly, but we were still and still are

(37:33):
not cracking. In one of our high schools that overall
sort of college admission north star of a twenty five
one and act that.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
We want, you want to average twenty five.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
We want to get to twenty five for our kids
when they get out. Twenty two would be admission to
most schools. Twenty five would be our highest goal for
our kids in our schools. One of our high schools,
the Pathway's middle college model, is really an interesting model again,
open enrollment embedded in a local community college schl the
Okohoma City Community College, and kids there begin their college

(38:07):
coursework the second semester of their sophomore year in high school.
There's about four hundred and fifty kids in that nine
through twelfth grade school. Now, last year, my senior class
from that high school, eighty six percent of the kids
got their first college degree two weeks before they got
their high school diploma.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Are you hearing all those Bill remind you of something
that is It's one of.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
The most is the name of the school I coached
high school football.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Middle college, college.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
There you go, that's the name of the school.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
So you know this work right.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
If you give kids opportunity and supports, it's remarkable what
they can do.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
It's freaking phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
These are normal kids. We have no admission test. Now
they know what they're getting into, and they when they
go to this high school, they're on a college campus.
These fifteen year old will be going downstairs to the
college classes.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
They'll get college supports. They also get us right in
the middle of their work because they're not eighteen yet.
There's nothing private.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
We know if you go to class or if you
do your homework, and we're paying for all tuition, fees
and books. There's no cost, there's no debt associated with that.
Those parents have figured out this is the heck of
a deal.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
That's biggest bargain in the United States.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
I mean, it's forty K worth of college education scholarship
handed to you. Was your first college diploma. I mean,
you've got this in the bag. So that's really working
well for a big chunk of our kids, our comprehensive
high school has not quite reached those, but our elementary
and middle schools are really starting to see the academic
results that we expect. So our three established elementary schools

(39:42):
and our two early childhood schools are performing in the
top five to ten percent of the entire state now
with an inner city population that's normally in the bottom
five to ten percent.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
So it's completely switched to.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
What's the demographics of your schools.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
So we're ninety seven percent free and reduced lunch poverty
level or below, ninety six percent Hispanic, fifty five percent
our English language learners, so first and second generation migrant population,
blue collar, just working class, but least likely to succeed
academically in the in the research. But we're seeing that

(40:21):
flipped on its head in the work that our teachers
are doing.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Nobody's going to listen to a twelve hour podcast, I could.
I have literally a thousand more questions that we're not
going to get to. When you watch this year's graduating
class walk across that stage and you know that your

(40:49):
kids are going to have a shot, and you juxtaposed
that with the graduating ceremonies, you must have tended at
the Capitol was a Capitol.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Hill Capitol Hill High School. Yeah, how do you balance
those too? That's interesting. I don't.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
I don't look back a lot. I feel too much
of a sense of urgency forward. I get that there's
I mean, I'm always trying to think.

Speaker 4 (41:18):
How do you allow yourself?

Speaker 3 (41:19):
I think what I do now, and I see our
graduating class.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
I'm an employer, going those are kids I want to
hire into my organization. These are exceptional young people that
I want to work at Santa Fe South. So I'm
I'm now in that employer's position, trying to contend for
these kids, and I don't think I would have.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Been in that role.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
I was more grieving at the early graduations, like now,
who's going to take care.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Of these killings? Right?

Speaker 4 (41:45):
That's actually what I'm getting at.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
It really almost feels like you've gone from grief to celebration.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Absolutely, absolutely like uncertainty about what's going to happen next.
For many of these kids too, I hope we can
get them back in the community because they're.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Going off like rockets now.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Well, I mean, we wanted to stay here, to work here,
to build their businesses, here, to work for us here
and grower.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
Tax base, tax base economy.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
And I want their kids in school.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
A whole bunch of our kids now I'm probably a
third of our student population our second gym.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
Now they're the kids of our graduates.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
Awesome. Do you know that that the weirdest the world wild.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
I have three freshmen on the team that our coach
today whose fathers I coached.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
You know, one of the things that you know we're
getting old.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
Now just means you and are old, old man.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
We're born in what sixty nine? Coach, So here's what
I've seen. Now, I'll have this this uh, this parent
come in and say, coach, h this is this is
my daughter and and she is so smart. She can
count in Spanish and English. You know those are days and
weeks and months and Spanish and English and and she's

(42:56):
going to do so I'm like, well, you didn't know
that in high school, so you were already head of
the game. Brother, You were kind of dumb as dirt
in high school. And the I tease them, but they
are so much better parents now than their parents were
about supporting the academic process. So their children are going
much further than we ever anticipated. I didn't think the

(43:19):
long term reform was really in the second generation of
kids that come through.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
But it absolutely is wild. It's so encouraging.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Nelson Mandela said, there can be no keener revelation of
the society's soul and the manner in which it treats
its children. I have I've repeated that quote many times
in an Alexis prop. I know that's something that you've
thought about a lot.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Now, as a pastor, as a man of faith and
the superintendent of the school, I have used the words
that are society is sinful and the way we continue
to let kids from the wrong zip codes languish. Yep

(44:10):
and Neessa Mandela challenged us to think about the keener
revelation of the society soul in the manner of which
it treats its children.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
You won't speak to that.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, I think what you're hinting at is what I
feel most profoundly is the keener revelation of the church's
health and soul right is profoundly found in how it
treats the children in its society. I think, I mean,
we hold politicians accountable and business is accountable, but there's

(44:42):
no one that should be held more accountable than those
who say they follow a God who said, inasmuch as
you have done it unto the least of these, you've
done it under me. So I used to say I
like kids more than adults, But I really do like
kids more than adults. I mean, and now I really

(45:06):
really do because I think adults are sort of I mean,
we're not only stuck in our way, but we've sort
of made our pathways. And I really do think that
there are people who focused their life of service and
recognition to what God has done for them.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
On helping others.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
And I don't think there's a better place to focus
than that than on children. So I think we can
look at this personally and collectively and say we're we're
doing a good job. And here's one of the ways
we can tell the children of the Canary and the
coal mine. In our society, they're the most vulnerable, so
the first ones to be hurt and to show us
where the pain points are in our society, and they're

(45:45):
the fastest to thrive. We can literally turn society around
in a generation. That's the hopefulness of this. We can educate,
we can change our entire city.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
We can change our.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Right, if we would recognize the third grade literacy thing,
recognize the sin of the soul of our culture, and
look ourselves in the mirror and say we've got this wrong.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
Here's our moonshot, right, remember the moonshot? Oh yeah, yeah,
here's our moonshot literacy. Right. It's not sexy. What does
it say that that's a moonshot? I know that should
be a baseline. We shouldn't even thinking about this.

Speaker 4 (46:31):
We shouldn't, but we are, and we talk about the gangs.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
And the cessacialism on social media and the news and
all the things, and oh what's wrong with us?

Speaker 4 (46:41):
And holy crap, each our kids to read.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 4 (46:47):
And you, my friend, are doing it well.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
My teachers are, and my leaders are.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
I appreciate the humility, But you were the idiot that
got on the phone with the stolen school list and
started telling people you're going to have a football team
when you were in a baby.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Well, yeah, and our football team went very good. But
our football team soccer team is five times.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Pretty pretty salty. We'll be right back. So it's pretty fit. Dude.

(47:36):
You look good.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
You look like you're carrying these fifty six years pretty well.
Despite all the stress and everything else, so I guess
there's more.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
I coached for thirty two years, like you, I've coached
at the high school varsity level. This is my first
year to hang it up, so I sort of sort
of stayed in shape by working out with kids all
these years. But I work out because it's cheaper than therapy.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
And I need I need. I need a lot of work, and.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
So I've a group pastors and graduates and kids that
I work out with in the morning because I do
think there's a lot to go. I've got work to do,
you know, I want to do as long as I can.
I also have a three year old and a six
year old in the house, and as my wife pointed out,
we're going to be celebrating our fiftieth anniversary when my
youngest graduates from high school. So we've got we've got
to stay moving.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
So tell us about how this is now morphed into.

Speaker 4 (48:25):
Some other stuff.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
So this is the most exciting thing in the future
right now, And I know, I know we're running out
of time, but I want to.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
I really want to get.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
To this and as if all of it is enough,
and I think the blessings of continuing to work and
do things right as God continues to reveal opportunities to us.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Here we are you speaking to this directly?

Speaker 2 (48:47):
That long obedience in the same direction, right, He didn't glamorous,
and it's kind of ugly.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Sometimes I'm never completely easy. And it was a heck
of a lot of work. I know, I don't even
know you're I've never met you before today, but I
know that.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Just grind right, grind, I mean, that's the wrestler mentality.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Was wrestler in high school? Baby?

Speaker 4 (49:08):
I voked it for you.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
You got it? He just grind. That's all you do.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
So you get up and you keep moving. And does
God does that? He's he works.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
He forwards obedience to multiply things you have no business
being in the middle of, to amplify way beyond what
you have a business anyway.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
So five years ago, I'm looking at durable school reforms,
realizing someday I want to die, not any day sooner.
We want things that endure for the community, way beyond
a leader or a curriculum or a technology or some
flash in the pan reform ajure, whatever it is people
are doing. What are the durable reforms that maintain efficacy

(49:47):
generation after generation. There's not many, but there's one sort
of emerging, and it's called the community schools model. And
again it's it's not very sexy, but basically it said,
what what if teachers could just teach and kids could
just learn, if there weren't all of these things between
the two that inhibited that transfer of knowledge.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
It's so critical.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
So I show up to learn how to read in
my first grade classroom, and you really are prepared and
ready to teach Coade, You are ready to teach me.
I need to learn, but I can't really see so well.
And you figured this out, So you stop your day
to make sure I get my vision screening cared for.
All Right, we'll get your glasses. I'm hungry the next week.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
By the way, everybody, that happens all the time. Kids
get all the way through to a place, and nobody
noticed that maybe one of the reasons they're not reading
well or adding well is.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
Because they can't see. It's a simple, right, but it
literally happens.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
I mean, honest to goodness, I had a left tackle
that kept blocking the wrong guy.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
This isn't high school.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
He couldn't see the hand signals from the sideline, and
as sixteen year old, I said, we're getting your eyes checked.
And then he became a college tackle because now he
could see it seems so ridiculous, but I'm telling you,
in these worlds, this happens all the time.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
And that profound inhibitor is amplified across everything, all these
systems of poverty. And so, for example, underresourced kids will
often miss up to two weeks of instruction per year
for dental health. Like, what if my kid needs to
go to the dentist, that's second hour. They're back in

(51:26):
school by third hour. We're not missing instruction, but you
don't go to that initial check up. You get the tooth,
the KA, you get the ABSSS. Then you're out for
weeks because mom can't figure out who's going to get
you to a dentist that pay for this, And all
of a sudden you're way behind your peers and you
don't catch up. And this compound's year in and year out.
So community schools have said, well, we can solve for that.

(51:49):
You decrease the distance from the problem to the solution
for the kids. You put a dentist in the school. Okay,
then you put a healthcare worker in the school. You
put a doctor in the school. You wrap the solutions
inside of the school so the kids have access, and
the families.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
A nutritionist, a nutrition so you're not drinking drinking kool aid,
eating hot fries for dinner.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Every day, and all of these and then all the.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Health improves, and mental acuity improves and rest improves, so
you're a better student. People do not have the first
clue what these kids are up against.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
So this is simple, right, It is simple, and as
it turns out, is relatively easy when you begin to
bring people into the game that are able to run
in their lane. So, as an educator, if I have
to be a full service social institution, I really can't
do my main job you're paying me to do. It's
just to educate, because I get all of the counseling

(52:47):
and nutrition and here envision screening all of this family
economics issue. I can't even get to algebra one. You
got me dealing with all this. What if I could
just teach? Well, As it turns out, teachers are pretty
good at teaching a bit, and kids are designed to learn, right,
They're actually designed to acquire knowledge. And when you can

(53:08):
just let people do that. So community schools in small
scale have been doing this now for a while. They're
embedding the solutions to the sort of present problems and
getting higher academic outcomes.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
I'm like, well, if a.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Little bit is good, then a lot of this is
a lot of something is better. My wife says, I
have a problem with that. So sometimes just as moderation
is better, I know a lot of something is better.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
If it's good.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
So I thought, what if you took instead of three
hundred kids and you serve them, what if you took
eight thousand kids and put them in a high quality
school in proximity to high quality services, everything that they
or their family would need, and you concentrated that and
multiplied that effect. What could it do to an entire
portion of the city, Not just the school, not an

(53:52):
elementary school.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
I think it changed an entire setting.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
The theory that we're working with now, the theory of changes,
we think we can change all of South Oklahoma City.
This area that's called the police called the block. We
call it the Square because it sounds nicer, But it's
this area bounded by interstates, you know, as we do
in our inter city, where most of the violent crime,
and poverty and low academic outcomes are concentrated. So every city,

(54:17):
Memphis has sections same thing. What if we were to
change the plot the plight of that group of kids,
it will change the city from the inside out, bottom up,
bottom up. And what if we did this not from
hoping the government's going to show up and solve this problem, right,
but what if we did this and said, look, all right,
all of you people of faith, I mean, what if

(54:40):
you really did do the things that you say you're
supposed to be doing. And it's a personal indictment of
the church and those leading churches to get outside of
our climate control padded pew environments and do the work
that you're supposed to be doing. It sounds good in theory,
but what it's amounted to is again sort of like

(55:03):
starting a school. You run your mouth about it enough,
people say all right, well put up or shutup. We've
formed a nonprofit that was able to purchase a mall
that got shut down. The Crossroads Mall was at one
point the sixth largest mall in the country, one point
two million square feet underrun one roof. We already have
two functioning charter schools in the space serving about twenty

(55:25):
six hundred kids, and two of the anchor stores a
sister charter network that's the highest performing charter school right
across the Ring Road on the same property, Dove Science Academy,
we'll have sixteen hundred kids on their campus. So we
already have four thousand kids being served right there. And
a faith based nonprofit was stood up in the last
year and a half to acquire the balance of the

(55:47):
mall not already owned by Santa Fe Sause Schools, with
the purpose of turning the interior concourse into this full
service community schools model that we talked.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
About Denis Office, doctors.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Everything you can imagine, and like we basically send a
survey out in state.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
I'll be honest with you, forget inner city charter school.
That sounds like a cool place to go to school.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
And this is the We want everybody in this in
the city and the state to say, I would want
my child to be there. So building it not from
a deficit model, but from an excellence model, the very
best full service healthcare institution, not a storefront, throw crumbs
to the poor kids kind of model, but the very best.
The fact, that's why we're here in Memphis looking at

(56:27):
some of the models that you guys have already implemented
with the concourse, cross down concourse, taking an old school
making it incredible, right looking.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
Yeah, I visited it for yea.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Been there, and I've looked at Valor, and we've looked
at other places that are just doing exceptional work in
this area. So we know the academic piece like I
know this piece, but now we're now working with local
banking institutions and the YMCA and high quality childcare, local
businesses like we have a coffee shop called Not Your
Average Joe whose vision and mission their world class product

(57:01):
and world class vision combined. So they exist to serve
to employ special needs adults, but they also have some
of the best coffee anywhere in the country. So their
business model they've now exploded to I think eleven or
twelve shops and a bakery. Their business model is exploding.
We want them in our space because they're exactly the

(57:23):
kind of partner that we want to have in that space,
not Starbucks, but not your Average show, local restaurants that
already employ local community members, or local businesses that are thriving.
And so now we're in the process we've raised eleven
and a half million dollars.

Speaker 4 (57:38):
That's my question.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
This is a got to be a capital intensive deal.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
Yeah, it's massive. It's way beyond anything I can imagine. So,
I mean, you've raised eleven eleven and a half. We
bought them all.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Ninety two acres were there.

Speaker 4 (57:54):
You know, it's eleven How much do you need?

Speaker 3 (57:58):
We need about forty four and a half million. And
so the first you.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
Have some oil people in Oklahoma that stroke that checked out.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
There's there's you know, we were talking about this earlier with Alexis.
There's there's national money and maybe even international money. I'm
convinced that local communities have all the resources they need
to solve their own problems, not to wait for outsiders
to come in. So now I'll spend Walton money, I'll
spend read Hastings money, I'll spend who wants to give

(58:25):
us money. We're grateful to receive it, but I believe
that the money is local. And we've had local philanthropists
like the Green family of the Mardels. They've been tremendously
instrumental in helping us to acquire this. We've got the
inas Much Foundation, which is local. Some local families giving
money and now the biggest issue now for me, I

(58:48):
think we can come up with the funding, but the
long term sustainability is eighty percent occupancy of people paying
just below market rent to keep their product in the community.
This is to be a gift back to our city.
And so we need banks, and we need dentist office,
and we need grocery stores, and we need childcare to

(59:11):
be in the space, and we need them to be successful.
Everybody there has to be successful or it doesn't work.
But we're excited about that and we're just going to
see because now it's not up to us anymore. It's
up to the city's collaboration in this to see if
this is something they want. So we'll know here in
about eight to ten months if we're going to be
able to.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
Pull this thing off. My goodness, brother, I have no
idea if it's going to work. I want to be
honest with you, terrified.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
You had no idea if the charter school is going
to work. When you quit your job at the Great School,
the fed steaks to the coaches.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
Yeah they were good stakes.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
But I get street tacos now and homemade tomales, so
it's much better.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Actually, so are you nervous?

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Oh yeah, I stay in the state of like I
just don't want to get out over my skis. I
don't want to like anticipate what I think does o bro.
But there's something about when you're fifty six, you don't
want to leave a mess behind you. You want to
leave things well established, like you want to leave things
like in good position to move forwards.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
So I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
We do start changing the way we perceive stuff as
we age, and I get it, But holy smokes, I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
Want to be reckless.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
I want to be ambitious and aggressive because I'm led
that way, but not because I'm just blind.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
I'm trying to be much more. It's Christine, right, yeah, Christy,
what is she just saying? Put up Buttercup?

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
You know she's like, dude, this is she's just so stable, right,
just so solid. She's her great great grandparents were Dutch immigrants,
they I mean, or she comes from this line of.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
Hardworking people that says, this is what we're supposed to
be doing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Yeah, yes, then go do the thing right, get out
of bed.

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
And in the middle of all this, she passed her
a church.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Yeah, rivileged to be a part of a small congregation
South Okay. See beautiful little group of very very eclectic group.
If you walked in, you would go, this is very
interesting group.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
In your spare time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Yeah, well, I've got lots of lay people that support
that work.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
We share a lot of the load.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Have you allowed yourself to just rock back on your
heels at home and some quiet time with maybe just
you and Christine and taking stock of what this crazy
thirty year old idea was on this charter school and
where you are now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
So once in a while, as you mentioned, graduation, so
this past spring is I get the vantage point of
being on the stage looking at the community that's gathered.
And we always rent venues that are massive because we
don't limit the number of people that our kids can
invite to graduation. And the Hispanic community they roll deep, right,

(01:01:54):
they roll deep. So one kid may graduate, but there's
thirty three people there or forty people there. So we
have this huge crowd. And I looked at it and went,
I just had that moment like holy cow. You know,
it's remarkable that when you give and underresourced community opportunities

(01:02:14):
they step through those doors. They do immeasurably more than
people would think they would. So it's a huge blessing,
incredibly like crushingly humbling to be around the team that
I have now is so wildly competent at their work.
I just try to stay out of my people's way
because they're so good with the finances and the curriculum,

(01:02:35):
the leadership, And I'm like, I do I have one
one superpower. I can hire really really talented people and
try to stay out of their way. But they're hard
to manage, right, I mean, you get really good people
there trying to keep them fed and water to something
that's challenging everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Chris Brewster, the founder and superintendent of Santa Fe South Schools.
I gotta believe if someone heard this and was sitting
out somewhere and just wanted a little bit of advice
or idea about how they make it do something like
this in their community, you'd be willing to share thoughts
and ideas. And if you're in that area, pretty cool

(01:03:21):
place to go to school is the old retired mall
it is? Is there a website about you and this?

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
And yeah, absolutely so. Santa Fe South Schools has a
website and all kinds of information there and enrollment and
jobs and all that kind of stuff. My email is C.
Brewster at Santa Fe south dot org.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
That's C.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
B R E W s T e R at Santa
Fe South dot org. Again, Santa Fe sounds like New Mexico,
but it's Oklahoma City. That's another long story about how
we named a school after a street. I mean it was,
it was crazy, but it stuck. And then the Crossroads
Renewal project. We would love to find if there are
people being stirred to do like significant legacy work in communities,

(01:04:06):
we would love to have you talk to us about
what we're thinking in our community, if you want to
partner with us, or maybe some ideas we have about
what you could do in your community. But even more importantly,
if you're already doing this well in your place, we'd
love to hear from you so you can guide us
and direct us and what we're doing. But I mean,
more and more, like even this conversation, I'm just so
encouraged that there are people in every single community doing

(01:04:30):
exceptional things. I think you sort of labor sometimes you're lonely,
you think there's nothing else going on. But the more
of these kind of conversations that I have, the more
I'm aware that God's working through people all over the country,
all kinds of places, all kinds of ways, and it's.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
What we're trying to connect in an army of normal pork.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Such a cool podcast and the concept is remarkable.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
So I appreciate the work you guys are doing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Thanks for taking time to get away from school enjoy
the rest of the day in Memphis. Chris, I really
really appreciate you join us. I appreciate your story. More importantly,
I appreciate you serving thousands and thousands of your community,
and I gotta believe that's it's changing the outlook for
Oklahoma City.

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
And good luck in the season, coach. I'm jealous you
get to coach. This is my first year not to coach,
and I can feel it right now.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
I know it's.

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
Keep up with the middle college Bulldogs. See how we're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
We'll do, We'll do. Thank you, buddy, Thanks for being here, pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
And thank you for joining us this week. If Chris
Brewster has inspired you in general or better, you have
to take action by caring about the education of all
kids in your community, doing something about it. Adopting a
child or something else entirely. Please let me know. I'd
love to hear about it. You can write me anytime

(01:05:55):
at Bill at normal folks dot us. If you enjoyed
this episode, share friends and on social subscribe to the podcast,
rate it, review it, join us, join the army at
normal folks dot us, any and all of these things
that will help us grow an army of normal folks.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
I'm Bill Cordiney. Until next time, do what you can