Episode 130

full
Published on:

4th Dec 2025

Kids Laugh During Shooter Drills—Teachers Speak Out (Full)

Kids cracking jokes mid-lockdown because active-shooter drills feel fake and the fear never lands right. Three veteran educators—Eric Stenlake, Jennifer Winters, Danielle Lysaght—pull zero punches on what’s actually happening inside schools. Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley dig into mental health breakdowns, junk school food, teacher shortages, insane budgets, and why the system keeps failing the people in the room every day.

Timestamps:

  • (00:00) School shootings open with Eric, Danielle, Jennifer
  • (00:56) Why this convo hits different
  • (04:39) Active-shooter drills—kids laugh because nobody taught fear management
  • (09:22) Mental health collapse in classrooms
  • (14:59) Missing health education and life skills
  • (17:42) What teachers actually deal with daily
  • (35:15) Security theater vs. what might work
  • (56:38) Where the education budget really goes
  • (01:00:49) Teacher pay, retention, and burnout truth
  • (01:08:05) Martial arts, ROTC, and physical discipline ideas
  • (01:28:35) School nutrition disaster and brain impact
  • (01:39:21) Final thoughts—why teaching still matters

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Transcript
Sarah:

Still rolling out the complete 2025 episodes, one a day.

Alex:

Welcome to Solving America’s Problems.

Alex:

A middle-school teacher just told the nation that her sixth-graders

Alex:

laugh and joke during active-shooter drills because they’ve never

Alex:

been taught how to handle fear.

Alex:

Another educator admitted she almost had a panic attack watching them goof

Alex:

off, knowing exactly what silence would mean if it ever turned real.

Alex:

Then a third veteran teacher revealed she’s ready to ditch her computer-science

Alex:

gig tomorrow if the principal will just let her teach health class again—because

Alex:

these kids cry the second a coding puzzle gets hard and nobody ever

Alex:

showed them how to breathe through it.

Alex:

Jerremy and Dave sat down with three frontline teachers who’ve clocked almost

Alex:

a century in classrooms combined, and what spilled out wasn’t another gun debate.

Alex:

It was something rawer.

Jerremy Newsome:

The people want to know, what are we talking about today?

Dave Conley:

In this episode of Solving America's Problems, we're tackling the

Dave Conley:

complex issue of school safety from those who know it best, our educators.

Dave Conley:

Today we'll be joined by three amazing teachers.

Dave Conley:

Eric Stenlake, a seasoned educator With expertise in brain health and youth

Dave Conley:

psychology, We'll also hear from Jennifer Weathers, A middle school teacher with a

Dave Conley:

strong emphasis on the role of family and teaching coping skills and communications.

Dave Conley:

And finally, Daniel Lysett joins us, a passionate advocate for community

Dave Conley:

support in schools who have spent over three decades teaching and developing

Dave Conley:

social emotional skills in children.

Dave Conley:

And that's coming up next on Solving America's Problems, School Safety, From

Dave Conley:

the Front Lines with Eric Stenlake, Jennifer Weathers, and Daniel Lysett.

Jerremy Newsome:

listeners from around the entire world.

Jerremy Newsome:

Welcome to today's special episode of solving America's problems,

Jerremy Newsome:

where we dive into one of the most challenging issues facing our society

Jerremy Newsome:

as Americans, which is school shootings.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's a topic that is Discussed in my opinion far too ill frequently But

Jerremy Newsome:

most importantly it is something that every single person is affected by when

Jerremy Newsome:

they see hear or read of this incident happening and as future president the

Jerremy Newsome:

number one focus for me is educational reform, but most importantly, ensuring

Jerremy Newsome:

that there's never a school shooting ever again in this beautiful country.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it starts with having amazing individuals come together and

Jerremy Newsome:

having discussions about it.

Jerremy Newsome:

So let me introduce three of our guests.

Jerremy Newsome:

We have Eric and Eric has been an educator since 1996, bringing

Jerremy Newsome:

a wealth of experience across various educational settings.

Jerremy Newsome:

Including work with at risk youth, public school students

Jerremy Newsome:

and private school environment.

Jerremy Newsome:

His career spans roles as a classroom teacher, athletic

Jerremy Newsome:

coach, and athletic director.

Jerremy Newsome:

joining us is Jennifer Weathers . And Jennifer is a dedicated educator with

Jerremy Newsome:

over 20 years experience also across multiple disciplines, including health,

Jerremy Newsome:

PE, media, and computer science coding.

Jerremy Newsome:

Currently, she teaches sixth grade computer science.

Jerremy Newsome:

At Fruita Middle School in Colorado with a career spanning diverse

Jerremy Newsome:

educational settings and student needs from high crime gang impacted

Jerremy Newsome:

schools to middle class districts.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer has witnessed the complex issues facing today's students.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer is so happy to have you here.

Jerremy Newsome:

And we also have Danielle and Danielle is a seasoned educator with 30 years

Jerremy Newsome:

of experience working across diverse teaching roles, including elementary.

Jerremy Newsome:

Preschool education or career as focused on supporting young parents,

Jerremy Newsome:

children involved in challenging home environments and those dealing

Jerremy Newsome:

with issues related to gang violence.

Jerremy Newsome:

I also like to call her Danny because Danny is someone that's very

Jerremy Newsome:

near and dear to my heart and is a absolutely incredible human being.

Jerremy Newsome:

So with the five of us here today, joining with us as well as my producer

Jerremy Newsome:

and co host Dave Conley, and I'm the host, Jeremy Alexander Newsom, and we're

Jerremy Newsome:

working on really solving this problem.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I'm gonna start with.

Jerremy Newsome:

a very open ended question for our panel.

Jerremy Newsome:

Whoever wants to begin to speak can go do that, and then we will start diving

Jerremy Newsome:

into some of the directional questions in a very fun and free flowing conversation

Jerremy Newsome:

that is going to address this problem.

Jerremy Newsome:

So the open question, based on your experience, how have attitudes

Jerremy Newsome:

and preparedness around school safety evolved Over the years,

Jerremy Newsome:

or have they evolved at all?

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's go there.

Dave Conley:

do you think, Eric?

Eric Stenlake:

Just right off the bat.

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah, we do a lot of preparedness.

Eric Stenlake:

Sure.

Eric Stenlake:

We're doing drills.

Eric Stenlake:

We're doing situational awareness.

Eric Stenlake:

We're trying to get into the space that in the event of an emergency happening

Eric Stenlake:

that we default to our training.

Eric Stenlake:

You go to anybody in law enforcement, military.

Eric Stenlake:

The number one thing is with their training is that they do it so they

Eric Stenlake:

don't have to think about it and and that it just happens automatically.

Eric Stenlake:

The attitude on that with staff and students is, wow, this is where we are.

Eric Stenlake:

This is what we have to do.

Eric Stenlake:

We need to do this all the time, every couple of months to

Eric Stenlake:

make sure that we're prepared.

Eric Stenlake:

Where does that leave us?

Eric Stenlake:

as a school community.

Jerremy Newsome:

No, that feeling.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do you think it's, is that, is it fear?

Jerremy Newsome:

Is it frustration?

Jerremy Newsome:

Is it annoyance?

Jerremy Newsome:

Is it an understanding of why they have to do it?

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah, I think kids and staff, are definitely

Eric Stenlake:

understand the why behind it.

Eric Stenlake:

Is there fear going into that?

Eric Stenlake:

Absolutely.

Eric Stenlake:

Do the kids not take it serious?

Eric Stenlake:

Absolutely.

Eric Stenlake:

And they get into laughing and joking and goofing as a coping mechanism.

Eric Stenlake:

And the adults are going, you need to take this seriously.

Eric Stenlake:

You, you gotta be quiet.

Eric Stenlake:

You have to do this.

Eric Stenlake:

You have to do that.

Eric Stenlake:

Because if this was real holy moly, right?

Eric Stenlake:

And so I think for the kids, mental survival through these training

Eric Stenlake:

episodes they will go into a space of where they can find comfort.

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah.

Eric Stenlake:

Boy, I'd love to, you

Jerremy Newsome:

jennifer, what are you noticing being a current teacher?

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: In my particular school I don't think we, I don't think we

Jerremy Newsome:

practiced the lockdowns enough as I was telling Mr. Conley last night.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know that we have a crisis intervention team, but as of right now I don't

Jerremy Newsome:

even know I know what I would do in my situation in my classroom and where I

Jerremy Newsome:

would go, but as an overall team, so far, none of that has been discussed

Jerremy Newsome:

and I don't know if it's because maybe.

Jerremy Newsome:

It could be the town that we're in where there's not a lot of like

Jerremy Newsome:

crime and violence and everybody's just complacent and comfortable.

Jerremy Newsome:

Know that it doesn't make me feel comfortable that we aren't

Jerremy Newsome:

practicing our lockdowns more.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know we have a lockdown, we have lockdown chills two

Jerremy Newsome:

times a year and that's it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: And the times that we've had those lockdown drills, I've been

Jerremy Newsome:

at the school for three years now.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's just Mr. Stein, like I said, my kids don't take it serious and I one

Jerremy Newsome:

time almost had a panic attack because my kids weren't taking it serious.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I stood there in the middle of the room and I was thinking to myself.

Jerremy Newsome:

If this was a real situation and these kids aren't taking it serious, what

Jerremy Newsome:

am I going to do to get them quiet?

Jerremy Newsome:

And my mind just started racing.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like, how do I get them out, out of here?

Jerremy Newsome:

What am I going to do to get them quiet?

Jerremy Newsome:

What am I going to do to take them seriously?

Jerremy Newsome:

And it really upset me.

Jerremy Newsome:

It was really upsetting that they weren't taking it that serious.

Jerremy Newsome:

To Eric's point, it is awful that we even have to do it, but at

Jerremy Newsome:

the same time, I think there is relevancy to it, like you're saying, and the fact

Jerremy Newsome:

that we even have to have this discussion truthfully is probably appalling because

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm sure you all have either heard or are aware of this, but the amount.

Jerremy Newsome:

That this has even occurred is really appalling, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

So in 2023, there were 346 school shooting incidents across the country.

Jerremy Newsome:

So that's averaging one incident, per day.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then as of September 2023, there have been nine there have been 50 school

Jerremy Newsome:

shootings in the United States that year.

Jerremy Newsome:

So up until about a year ago.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: Yeah,

Jerremy Newsome:

sorry.

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah no, exactly.

Jerremy Newsome:

Huge numbers.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: yeah, I looked up some statistics as well, and you're right

Jerremy Newsome:

on the money, the statistics that I looked up, because I was just curious.

Jerremy Newsome:

So far, I know you said September, but the statistics that I saw

Jerremy Newsome:

was 58 school shootings in the U. S. so far just in 2024.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it's, it is as scary as a faculty, it's scary as a

Jerremy Newsome:

teacher is scary as a parent.

Jerremy Newsome:

Just the entire aspect of it is terrifying.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so from beginning to dive into it, Danny, I'd love to hear your perspective.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do you feel that this is a gun issue or is this a mental health

Jerremy Newsome:

issue or is this another issue that we aren't addressing at all?

Danielle:

You know me so well.

Danielle:

I gotta tell you, as I hear all of you guys talking about this.

Danielle:

And we're talking about a school which is a place right a place

Danielle:

a location, and it sounds to me.

Danielle:

As you're saying, we're going to have to deal with this.

Danielle:

I think maybe we're looking at it a little bit differently, where maybe we

Danielle:

need to start teaching the children, the school the people themselves, right?

Danielle:

How to deal with, you were saying, Eric.

Danielle:

How kids deal with it, they would laugh and giggle.

Danielle:

And, they show that if we could, when it's not in such a high flight

Danielle:

fight or flight kind of a thing, teach the children how to cope the

Danielle:

coping skills, the coping mechanisms that we could use daily to help them.

Danielle:

Along with right, keeping the school protected for sure.

Danielle:

But I think it's go it goes hand in hand for sure that if we teach them,

Danielle:

this is the reason why we're doing this.

Danielle:

And this is how you can deal with it internally, along with external.

Danielle:

And then And Jen said, like her school system.

Danielle:

So we're dealing with different school systems, big places, small

Danielle:

places, people that don't think it's going to happen to their school.

Danielle:

Oh, but guess what happened.

Danielle:

Then all of a sudden, it's your school.

Danielle:

You just never know, but that's somebody smart told me you plan for

Danielle:

the worst and you hope for the best.

Danielle:

And that's primarily the way I view it.

Danielle:

And all of that is right.

Danielle:

But I think we have to deal with the kids themselves.

Danielle:

To help with this.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah I know it's a beautiful piece because at some

Jerremy Newsome:

stage when you're dealing with.

Jerremy Newsome:

school shootings, you were dealing with stopping it.

Jerremy Newsome:

And again, it's always been my perspective and it will be part of my platform that I

Jerremy Newsome:

think going at it from a gun perspective.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is too divisive.

Jerremy Newsome:

Number one.

Jerremy Newsome:

Number two, it creates too much animosity.

Jerremy Newsome:

Number three, it splits people into too many different directions.

Jerremy Newsome:

But number four, it starts to remove our actual purpose, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

It removes the purpose of, all right, take guns aside.

Jerremy Newsome:

Imagine they didn't exist.

Jerremy Newsome:

How do we protect our Children because it could be guns, it could be cars, it

Jerremy Newsome:

could be drugs, it can be knives, the tool and the instrument doesn't matter.

Jerremy Newsome:

If someone wants to cause harm, then what really matters is how do we simply protect

Jerremy Newsome:

the Children and how do we make them safe?

Jerremy Newsome:

Not only feel safe, but to your point, know how to cope internally if and when

Jerremy Newsome:

something happens, because regards to the trauma or the traumatic experience,

Jerremy Newsome:

we all know as adults that we have to learn how to internalize, to heal,

Jerremy Newsome:

to move on, to cope, to understand.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if we start ingraining that and providing those directional steps to

Jerremy Newsome:

children, it's earlier and having more conversations about that, then we start

Jerremy Newsome:

healing the problem from the inside out.

Jerremy Newsome:

Eric, I'd love to hear your stand, your stake on that.

Eric Stenlake:

just ended with that healing from the inside out.

Eric Stenlake:

It's my fascination, my goal, my desire as a teen and family coach besides

Eric Stenlake:

what I do in the space of education and working with teens and families

Eric Stenlake:

and helping kids to get to some of these places of self realization, self

Eric Stenlake:

understanding, self emotional and mental regulation of thoughts and feelings.

Eric Stenlake:

I think that we really do need to address this at a very deep level within the

Eric Stenlake:

school systems in America because if we do not, this is going to continue

Eric Stenlake:

to be a problem because we can, we look, we can look at silos of issues.

Eric Stenlake:

You've got guns, you have this, you have that, you've got mental health,

Eric Stenlake:

you've got past family traumas.

Eric Stenlake:

We could unpack all of these different areas, right?

Eric Stenlake:

And if we keep passing by on some of these real at the heart issues of what's

Eric Stenlake:

going on with our youth from the littles on up through the high school kids

Eric Stenlake:

and that we're not addressing those.

Eric Stenlake:

And we're not facing what those are with them, not alone, that we

Eric Stenlake:

are facing these with them, that we

Eric Stenlake:

are supporting them

Eric Stenlake:

in whatever it is they're dealing with, from social, socioeconomic,

Eric Stenlake:

to bullying, to whatever these things that they're going through.

Eric Stenlake:

If we can collaborate on this as an issue and begin to target them at a

Eric Stenlake:

younger age, I think we're going to see that pendulum swing back the other way.

Eric Stenlake:

If you will, on what our kids are going through and it doesn't matter if it's

Eric Stenlake:

a it's if it's a high affluent, high income area or a low income area that

Eric Stenlake:

doesn't matter when we can take the time to show them that we love and care

Eric Stenlake:

that we're there to support is not about instruction is not about standards.

Eric Stenlake:

It's not about some of these things that seem to be the prevalent forefront

Eric Stenlake:

that it's about them as human beings.

Eric Stenlake:

And how do we help them be the best humans they can possibly be?

Eric Stenlake:

We're going to turn this around.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer, I'd love to know your perspective on the

Jerremy Newsome:

mental health piece for the, for our children specifically on that topic.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: I think, just like Mr. Steinlich said, this is

Jerremy Newsome:

a very multifaceted approach.

Jerremy Newsome:

There are several different aspects to this, but.

Jerremy Newsome:

The biggest one that I've I hit home on is the mental health aspect of it

Jerremy Newsome:

because what I see and what I dislike and I don't understand it is why is

Jerremy Newsome:

especially at the school I'm at now, why is health not being taught in 6th, grade?

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't even know here.

Jerremy Newsome:

I need to look into it.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't even think it's taught in 5th grade.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I don't understand that because I think a lot of these issues, mental

Jerremy Newsome:

health wise, like coping skills, emotional intelligence, behavior, behavioral

Jerremy Newsome:

intelligence coping skills, all that can be touched and talked about and

Jerremy Newsome:

dealt with, I think, in health class.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I just don't understand why that aspect is being taken out of schools

Jerremy Newsome:

and why it's not being taught.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know they touch on it in elementary some, like my stepdaughter she's in sixth

Jerremy Newsome:

grade, but she didn't have help last year.

Jerremy Newsome:

She doesn't have help this year and she won't in seventh and eighth grade.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: I just find it important and I don't understand why health.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is being dropped and why it's being taken out.

Jerremy Newsome:

The other aspect is I read in an article yesterday is that even

Jerremy Newsome:

though the help is being taken out because of funding issues, they're

Jerremy Newsome:

throwing that health aspect off on.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like social studies teachers or science teachers and trying to get them to, add

Jerremy Newsome:

that help aspect into their classes and it's overwhelming those teachers because

Jerremy Newsome:

they're having to pull in all these other aspects to teach and it's just,

Jerremy Newsome:

It's a struggle for those teachers.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's another reason why I have 41 kids in eight classes.

Jerremy Newsome:

Every single class because we are short and an exploratory teacher,

Jerremy Newsome:

we are short a health teacher,

Jerremy Newsome:

wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's, I'm just trying to put myself in.

Jerremy Newsome:

Your shoes and probably the teachers all across America.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm sure feeling overworked and a lot of the policies that probably

Jerremy Newsome:

end up preventing this as well.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like to your point would also require some restructuring of teachers,

Jerremy Newsome:

either addition adding more teachers or some type of change, some type of

Jerremy Newsome:

implementation, because I would love that.

Jerremy Newsome:

I would love all your perspective on this.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you so much.

Jerremy Newsome:

One of my beliefs addressing either mental health or just communication

Jerremy Newsome:

is I do feel that children right now ages six to 16 across the United States

Jerremy Newsome:

and most likely even across the world.

Jerremy Newsome:

Not only experienced COVID and had the negative associations of, quarantines

Jerremy Newsome:

and so forth, so on and so forth.

Jerremy Newsome:

The ostracizing and the political issues that it's caused from that, but just

Jerremy Newsome:

having a class called communication where you sit these kids, you take

Jerremy Newsome:

the phones down, take the iPads down and have them in a, I don't know.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm viewing as a circle, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

You're sitting around the campfire.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you're just having conversations.

Jerremy Newsome:

Hey, what's your mom?

Jerremy Newsome:

How's she doing?

Jerremy Newsome:

What is your mom's name?

Jerremy Newsome:

What's your last name?

Jerremy Newsome:

What's your middle name?

Jerremy Newsome:

How many brothers and sisters do you have?

Jerremy Newsome:

Tell me about you as a person having communications.

Jerremy Newsome:

What do you think you're, what do you think God looks like?

Jerremy Newsome:

Tell me what you think heaven is having religious conversations,

Jerremy Newsome:

having conversations, Because for two reasons, the way I see it, most of

Jerremy Newsome:

these school shootings, especially the large, what would be called mass

Jerremy Newsome:

school shootings, very often happen from children who are bullied, ostracized,

Jerremy Newsome:

made fun of, don't feel connected.

Jerremy Newsome:

They feel obvious.

Jerremy Newsome:

Anger, animosity, frustration.

Jerremy Newsome:

And my take on this is that probably could have been changed or redirected or brought

Jerremy Newsome:

to light or understood that at some stage, it's okay to feel that way if classes

Jerremy Newsome:

were designed and programs were instilled to just have conversation between kids.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is that a crazy viewpoint than L or am I just.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is that, is this doable?

Danielle:

Know what we're all in this, all this together and we're like, Jodi,

Danielle:

you are, Jeremy, you are right on target.

Danielle:

If we could get these kids to start communicating, to understand that

Danielle:

there's feelings behind those words that they say that it's just not the

Danielle:

awkwardness that they share sometimes of saying hi in the hallway, that

Danielle:

they keep their, heads down, right?

Danielle:

Some even the kids keep their mask on still, right?

Danielle:

They just don't know how to look at somebody's eye or smile.

Danielle:

They feel that awkwardness and yes, let's start a class.

Danielle:

Let's

Danielle:

start like that.

Danielle:

Something simple, right?

Danielle:

But then again, Jen says we're adding more to for the teachers and the

Danielle:

teachers, God bless every single one of them because now they're not just

Danielle:

the teacher that teaches education.

Danielle:

They're the moms in some cases, the dads in some cases, the

Danielle:

sometimes babysitters that have to

Danielle:

stay after school because they're not picked up.

Danielle:

They're the confidants.

Danielle:

They are the, they're the magical workers.

Danielle:

Same with the police officers that work at the school system.

Danielle:

I think they are heroes to us as parents, as teachers, as administrators.

Danielle:

We need to give them Some kind of support to I really feel that because

Danielle:

that's another part of this triangle that we really need to set up of the

Danielle:

students of the kids of school, the community, being the police department

Danielle:

right to keep it safe, keep our kids in our administrators and teachers safe.

Danielle:

We all have to be on the same page, and even if they could do the health

Danielle:

issue part of it, I don't know, but wouldn't that be awesome if

Danielle:

we could implement something like that along with like breath work,

Danielle:

something Simple, like in the morning when you have your what do you have,

Danielle:

Jen, in the morning you have your, I don't know, is it, you say stuff

Danielle:

that their announcements, that you

Danielle:

have a one minute meditation, one minute mental

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: And

Danielle:

Awareness.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

Just to get them back because sometimes their life, their school is a safe haven.

Danielle:

Some

Danielle:

of them, that's where their panic comes in is when they come into school.

Danielle:

Each child is so different.

Danielle:

But if we give them time to acclimate to forget about what was home

Danielle:

focus on at school or vice versa.

Danielle:

Maybe that's something that we can work with and get.

Danielle:

That the teachers, the police department and everybody right on

Danielle:

the same page along with the kids.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah, Janet hit us with a magic pill.

Jerremy Newsome:

Just daydream with us for a moment as a teacher right now, so that

Jerremy Newsome:

you also can see both, you can be not only rewarded in the sense of

Jerremy Newsome:

children happy schedule is easier.

Jerremy Newsome:

How would you current as a teacher right now, if we're

Jerremy Newsome:

dreaming design the perfect day?

Jerremy Newsome:

For you and your students, so for teachers and the kids?

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: I personally I have a degree in health and P. E. and exercise science.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's what I started out in was help.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I was, I was even thinking about going back Monday and talking

Jerremy Newsome:

to my principal and be like.

Jerremy Newsome:

I can teach health.

Jerremy Newsome:

We need it.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if you can find a computer science teacher to stick in my place,

Jerremy Newsome:

stick me back in health because I think that these kids, they need it.

Jerremy Newsome:

The kids in my computer science class right now.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's if they can't even cope, if they had a, if they have a really hard

Jerremy Newsome:

time solving a coding lesson, they

Jerremy Newsome:

Down and cry and I would, my, my perfect day would.

Jerremy Newsome:

Start out in my health class and, we taught a lot of coping skills and mental

Jerremy Newsome:

health skills and breathing skills and life skills in health class and

Jerremy Newsome:

it would just make my day if I could, I would love to go back to health and

Jerremy Newsome:

help these kids learn how to cope only have maybe 25 kids a class, but I don't

Jerremy Newsome:

know right now if that's possible.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'd have to look into it.

Jerremy Newsome:

But my perfect day would the kids come in and, we have a moment of silence

Jerremy Newsome:

and I teach them life skills and communication skills, how to put their

Jerremy Newsome:

phone down and have a true conversation with somebody instead of being so

Jerremy Newsome:

attached to their phone all the time.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

You have my vote of approval on that one.

Jerremy Newsome:

I for sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

And Eric, thanks for being in agreement.

Jerremy Newsome:

I see you over there clapping, which is awesome.

Jerremy Newsome:

To tell me what resonated powerfully with you.

Jerremy Newsome:

My.

Eric Stenlake:

I am so aligned with what Jen was saying.

Eric Stenlake:

Holy smokes.

Eric Stenlake:

Because right now I am writing curriculum, neuroscience neuropsychology

Eric Stenlake:

curriculum and brain health curriculum.

Eric Stenlake:

That is going to be going out to the schools and the 25, 26 school year

Eric Stenlake:

through the neuro encoding Institute.

Eric Stenlake:

And I want the kids to know what I know.

Eric Stenlake:

I want the kids to know how to be able to self manage themselves so that when they

Eric Stenlake:

walk on campus, there is no anxiety, there is no fear of the unknown, that there

Eric Stenlake:

is no depressed feeling of things that happened yesterday, that they're coming

Eric Stenlake:

into a learning environment, safe, secure, capable, curious ready to take on what

Eric Stenlake:

needs to be done that day for themselves.

Eric Stenlake:

And that they leave and they go home and they're like, yeah, today was a good day.

Eric Stenlake:

And that repeats every day over and over again because they Are at a high level of

Eric Stenlake:

emotional intelligence as jim was saying they're at a high level of self management

Eric Stenlake:

self control That these issues that we've had and seen in the past are continuing

Eric Stenlake:

to deal with day after day that are driving educators out of their poor mind.

Eric Stenlake:

I used to have a beautiful head of hair, but I'm bald now because

Eric Stenlake:

I pulled all my hair out, right?

Eric Stenlake:

Because I got these giant knuckleheads in there that just

Eric Stenlake:

don't understand or have trouble focusing and being in the classroom.

Eric Stenlake:

In that regard, and this is that way for them to be not just functionable, but

Eric Stenlake:

thriving in a school learning environment.

Eric Stenlake:

JennWXS-1: Yeah, because they're not

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah I think back to Jen, when you said like health class

Jerremy Newsome:

and your background and your degree again, my version of this world.

Jerremy Newsome:

Has because the school system failed me to the extent of I could have been

Jerremy Newsome:

and done so much better and learn so much faster and had so much more

Jerremy Newsome:

ability and access if it was available.

Jerremy Newsome:

And what I mean by that is I believe probably fifth grade to, senior year kids

Jerremy Newsome:

should be doing some type of physical activity for a minimum of two hours a day.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because I do not as a, I'm not a doctor at all, but I think that the vast majority

Jerremy Newsome:

of mental health is directly proportional to how much we're making kids be still

Jerremy Newsome:

be quiet, sit down, not do anything, not talk like you need to be talking,

Jerremy Newsome:

yelling, screaming, run around being wild.

Jerremy Newsome:

Being crazy and not taking a pill because you're seven.

Jerremy Newsome:

You don't have ADHD.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're seven, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Like my three year old, like I'm not going to get my three year old

Jerremy Newsome:

medicine ever to calm him down.

Jerremy Newsome:

The kid is literally an actual tornado.

Jerremy Newsome:

He's a human tornado.

Jerremy Newsome:

So was I. So I want that brilliance.

Jerremy Newsome:

I want that energy and that shouldn't be contained.

Jerremy Newsome:

But again, When children learn, just like probably I would say adults, we

Jerremy Newsome:

learn our best when we're at a peak state of excitement, energy, vitality.

Jerremy Newsome:

We feel better.

Jerremy Newsome:

We feel healthier.

Jerremy Newsome:

We've moved.

Jerremy Newsome:

We've created naturally our dopamine, our serotonin, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

We've been outside potentially if it's the right weather.

Jerremy Newsome:

And we just feel excited about life.

Jerremy Newsome:

And in those moments, child can learn so much better.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you all know that they can learn so much faster as well.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so we don't have to repeat the same thing over and over.

Jerremy Newsome:

We can tell them one thing one time, and they can get it, especially

Jerremy Newsome:

if they're in the right state.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it'll stick a lot quicker because of the neuroplasticity of

Jerremy Newsome:

the repent, the repetition, the state that they're learning in.

Jerremy Newsome:

The happiness, their calmness, their alertedness, and then when they get

Jerremy Newsome:

home, they might are probably a much less spastic and rambunctious because

Jerremy Newsome:

they're so tired because they've been running and playing in PE for hours at

Jerremy Newsome:

a time before they learned something.

Jerremy Newsome:

Maybe that's just a dream world.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is that a dream world, Danny?

Jerremy Newsome:

Is that possible?

Danielle:

No, it's not a dream world.

Danielle:

It's a world that we can make happen.

Danielle:

I'm sure great people coming together just like this getting some great ideas going.

Danielle:

And I believe we can do this.

Danielle:

I really do.

Jerremy Newsome:

Eric, you said you were going to release some curriculum.

Jerremy Newsome:

How tell us more about that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Number one.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then number two, tell us how hard is it to change

Jerremy Newsome:

curriculums in certain schools?

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah so I said a couple minutes ago that I'm also a

Eric Stenlake:

a life coach for teens and families.

Eric Stenlake:

So I hold a license through the Neuroencoding Institute

Eric Stenlake:

with Dr. Joseph McClendon.

Eric Stenlake:

And I hold a brain health license through the Amen Clinics with Dr. Daniel Amen.

Eric Stenlake:

So I'm taking what I've learned there and putting that into curriculum

Eric Stenlake:

based on a very simple poem.

Eric Stenlake:

As I think, so I feel.

Eric Stenlake:

As I feel, so I do.

Eric Stenlake:

As I do, so I have.

Eric Stenlake:

And having that be the foundation of understanding that everything

Eric Stenlake:

we do starts with a thought.

Eric Stenlake:

From that thought and that feeling, we turn that into action.

Eric Stenlake:

And like you're saying your son is the human tornado.

Eric Stenlake:

High creativity, right?

Eric Stenlake:

His prefrontal cortex is absolute fire, low evaluation.

Eric Stenlake:

So it seems like a great idea.

Eric Stenlake:

Let's go do this.

Eric Stenlake:

And then, Oh, maybe that wasn't such a great idea, but he is on

Eric Stenlake:

fire and running and running.

Eric Stenlake:

And right now is we get to that end of looking at what we have and

Eric Stenlake:

saying, wow, did this work out?

Eric Stenlake:

Yes or no.

Eric Stenlake:

And why?

Eric Stenlake:

And going back and understanding that I can simply pause and think

Eric Stenlake:

about why that thought is there.

Eric Stenlake:

Why that feeling is there.

Eric Stenlake:

How can I recognize that?

Eric Stenlake:

How can I change that to understand what I need to do differently to,

Eric Stenlake:

to pursue and push my own success?

Eric Stenlake:

Thanks.

Eric Stenlake:

And then how that goes into the classroom of having those curious

Eric Stenlake:

and crucial conversations with those kids that, just curious.

Eric Stenlake:

I'm checking in with you today.

Eric Stenlake:

Are you going to do any work today?

Eric Stenlake:

I'm just, it's Wednesday and I noticed you haven't done anything all week.

Eric Stenlake:

Are you going to engage at all this week?

Eric Stenlake:

Nah, Mr. S I'm good, bro.

Eric Stenlake:

Okay.

Eric Stenlake:

And are you going to get the results that you want with this?

Eric Stenlake:

Oh, but we've got to have, we've got to start having these conversations.

Eric Stenlake:

We've got to start having the place of which we can go into.

Eric Stenlake:

And Jen was saying, having this be a part of the curriculum of which it doesn't

Eric Stenlake:

matter what class we're in, I can talk the language of this neuropsychology

Eric Stenlake:

and brain health in whatever class, whatever situation, whatever moment.

Eric Stenlake:

I'm using this language all the time with the kids all the time and they

Eric Stenlake:

understand it and they know it it helps to bring them back into their

Eric Stenlake:

center Into their peace their calm their love their joy their happiness

Eric Stenlake:

And they understand how to be in their presence And not worry about things from

Eric Stenlake:

the past and not things the depression the anxiety of the future of things that

Eric Stenlake:

they can't control That they can control them and in that moment in that situation.

Eric Stenlake:

They have the power to make You choice and change for them that's going to help

Eric Stenlake:

drive that behavior for their success.

Danielle:

Eric how old is this curriculum fixed for the, what's

Danielle:

the age group that the curriculum,

Eric Stenlake:

Great question.

Eric Stenlake:

I am designing this for age 11 to 18.

Danielle:

we

Danielle:

need some young curriculum too.

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: good.

Eric Stenlake:

That's my, this is my starting point.

Eric Stenlake:

We'll bring it down as young as preschool pre K.

Jerremy Newsome:

Love that Dave.

Dave Conley:

What I'm wondering is there was a before and there's an after.

Dave Conley:

There was a time before Columbine and Uvalde and Parkland.

Dave Conley:

There was a time before daily shootings.

Dave Conley:

Shooters are boys.

Dave Conley:

They're young boys in their teens.

Dave Conley:

What happened to them?

Dave Conley:

What's going on?

Dave Conley:

JennWXS-1: Look at the divorce rate to families and that little boy not having

Dave Conley:

a true mentor and leader in his life.

Dave Conley:

Where he just feels lost, and then you also have social media, which is.

Dave Conley:

I will never understand putting a smartphone.

Dave Conley:

In the hands of a nine or a 10 year old, they don't need a smartphone,

Dave Conley:

but they all have access to social media and it's all in their faces.

Dave Conley:

And so I think, like I said before, I think this is a multifaceted approach and

Dave Conley:

there are a lot of puzzle pieces to it.

Dave Conley:

And with those little boys, I know divorce rate has gone up in families and.

Dave Conley:

They just don't have a true leader or a mentor to somebody to guide them

Dave Conley:

along with all these other things, they're going on in their lives.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's Random statistic, but I think it's 85 percent of individuals in jail

Jerremy Newsome:

and prison have one thing in common and it has nothing to do with social

Jerremy Newsome:

economic, has nothing to do with the race, has nothing to do with religion.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's did they have a dad,

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: yes,

Jerremy Newsome:

It's if you do not have a dad, you're 85 percent

Jerremy Newsome:

likely to go to jail or prison.

Jerremy Newsome:

According to the current statistics, it was like that to your point.

Jerremy Newsome:

There are obviously so many puzzle pieces.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm very happy that we have really quite similar feelings and perspectives

Jerremy Newsome:

on the internal portion of how to solve this problem, how to solve

Jerremy Newsome:

this issue that America faces.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think we all can agree that there's absolutely some level of mental

Jerremy Newsome:

health, mental clarity, communicable skills, And the healing capacity of

Jerremy Newsome:

an individual through trauma so that they don't have to express their

Jerremy Newsome:

anger and frustration in this way.

Jerremy Newsome:

Semi colon.

Jerremy Newsome:

However, when they do feel this way, what do you think we should

Jerremy Newsome:

start doing if that ever happens?

Jerremy Newsome:

And so should every school be outfitted with something?

Jerremy Newsome:

Do teachers all carry guns?

Jerremy Newsome:

Do we have, Armed security guards, every single school.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's start just thinking through in the event that we do whatever, and there is

Jerremy Newsome:

still something, maybe it's not a child.

Jerremy Newsome:

Maybe it's an adult.

Jerremy Newsome:

Maybe it's someone who just wants to do harm at this stage.

Jerremy Newsome:

What should we do or what are your opinions?

Jerremy Newsome:

And we'll just have these, those fun conversations because that's all

Jerremy Newsome:

also some level of importance because there are, when's the last time

Jerremy Newsome:

you heard of a shooting at a police station or a community firehouse?

Jerremy Newsome:

It doesn't happen.

Jerremy Newsome:

So Eric, what's your take?

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah boy, oh boy, that's a that's a big one I think what's coming

Eric Stenlake:

to me on this one is that for the last 14 years, I've had the privilege of working

Eric Stenlake:

for a company called Franklin Covey and doing professional development workshops

Eric Stenlake:

for teachers all over the U. S. And I can honestly, as you were saying that, it

Eric Stenlake:

was popping up in my mind, the schools of which I walked up and went, yeah, okay.

Eric Stenlake:

Why?

Eric Stenlake:

Because I saw how hard it would be to enter this campus, and other places that

Eric Stenlake:

I go to, I go, my word, gosh, the school I work at, it's what's up next to an

Eric Stenlake:

elementary school, it's completely open.

Eric Stenlake:

There's a park at the other end of campus, public park.

Eric Stenlake:

There's a ball field public park on this side of campus.

Eric Stenlake:

It's completely wide open.

Eric Stenlake:

I think we can look at that.

Eric Stenlake:

I've been in New York City and walking into schools and there's a police

Eric Stenlake:

officer sitting there checking IDs.

Eric Stenlake:

Fully armed and therefore there for the school.

Eric Stenlake:

There I've seen the gamut across the country.

Eric Stenlake:

And yeah, what is the solution on that?

Eric Stenlake:

What makes sense to pour in billions and billions of dollars to build new

Eric Stenlake:

schools, to have them be fortified if you will, that they're non, non,

Eric Stenlake:

you can't get into them because they're like closed institutions.

Eric Stenlake:

I don't know.

Eric Stenlake:

That's such a great loaded question.

Eric Stenlake:

Jeremy,

Jerremy Newsome:

It is it's a big one.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer what do you think initially in right now would make you feel

Jerremy Newsome:

safe from, again, let's just say from a physical standpoint, the no

Jerremy Newsome:

longer internal compass of the child, but now the actual school itself.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: what would make me feel safe inside of the school that I'm in?

Jerremy Newsome:

Oh, not specifically, but just as a teacher from the teacher's

Jerremy Newsome:

perspective, what are current protocols and, or what do you think could be added?

Jerremy Newsome:

Two schools for overall safety.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: I know the school that I used to work at when I first started teaching

Jerremy Newsome:

the small town in South Georgia we had that school locked down like Fort Knox.

Jerremy Newsome:

When you came in the front door, you actually had to go through 2 set of doors

Jerremy Newsome:

and those 2 sets of doors were unlocked.

Jerremy Newsome:

by button at the front desk.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then when you walked in that second set of doors, you actually

Jerremy Newsome:

had to go through a metal detector.

Jerremy Newsome:

We had I would say at least six resource officers there.

Jerremy Newsome:

And they were always roaming the hallways.

Jerremy Newsome:

You could always like I personally had a walkie talkie in that school.

Jerremy Newsome:

So if anything ever happened I could always get in touch with a resource

Jerremy Newsome:

officer through my walkie talkie.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so I felt very safe.

Jerremy Newsome:

And even some visitors when they came in, they were not

Jerremy Newsome:

allowed to roam the hallways.

Jerremy Newsome:

They were escorted to wherever they had to go.

Jerremy Newsome:

They had to show a driver's license and then we had to print them off a pass and

Jerremy Newsome:

all the exit doors to the school all the way around the school were always locked

Jerremy Newsome:

and checked by the resource officers.

Jerremy Newsome:

I felt really safe at that

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: There were outside cameras.

Jerremy Newsome:

There, there were probably in that entire school about 60, 60, 70 cameras.

Jerremy Newsome:

parking lot, outside, inside, every single hallway.

Jerremy Newsome:

And and I don't feel unsafe at the school that I'm at now.

Jerremy Newsome:

We don't even have half as much security as the first school that I worked at.

Jerremy Newsome:

We have only have two resource officers and no metal detectors, but I don't feel

Jerremy Newsome:

unsafe at the school that I'm at now.

Jerremy Newsome:

But what concerns me Is that because there's not a lot of violence in that

Jerremy Newsome:

town and nothing bad has ever really happened, which worries me because right

Jerremy Newsome:

when you think something's not going to happen the very next day, you got

Jerremy Newsome:

somebody walking up on campus with a gun.

Jerremy Newsome:

It can happen at any point in time.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's something to think about to

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now, what do you think?

Danielle:

Cool.

Danielle:

Schools are buildings, right?

Danielle:

And if you have the experts come through, because every school,

Danielle:

like Jen was saying, and Eric, every school does it differently.

Danielle:

I don't know if it's a criteria that you have to meet so many different things.

Danielle:

That you can implement into schools.

Danielle:

I know they have a money or some of them even get grants that help them

Danielle:

with making those things happen, right?

Danielle:

The metal detectors and the cameras I, and some look into it.

Danielle:

And some, like you say, they're little communities and they think they're safe.

Danielle:

I

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah it's, there, there's a very interesting blend, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

It's a blend of, you use the term, jim Fort Knox, it's definitely a blend

Jerremy Newsome:

of as much security as we can have.

Jerremy Newsome:

And being unique and creative and our thoughts around that, having

Jerremy Newsome:

probably, hopefully some type of government intervention slash the

Jerremy Newsome:

government awareness that, hey, this needs to be a number one concern.

Jerremy Newsome:

We need budgetary creations for this protocol.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then also the blend of not making it feel scary or extremely

Jerremy Newsome:

secure, like a prison or a jail for the children that go there.

Jerremy Newsome:

And there it's a unique, it is unique blend.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so we've had conversations in the past with incredible men that have military

Jerremy Newsome:

background or have security background.

Jerremy Newsome:

And right now there's a lot that's happening with some schools.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where it's focused on LIDAR detection.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's focused on the perimeter being controlled and and monitored by not

Jerremy Newsome:

necessarily artificial intelligence, but robotics in the future.

Jerremy Newsome:

We even have that.

Jerremy Newsome:

We even heard the word drones thrown around where I was like, Oh my goodness.

Jerremy Newsome:

That is.

Jerremy Newsome:

I didn't even know that was, even in my field of awareness

Jerremy Newsome:

that it's wait a minute, schools can also be protected by drones.

Jerremy Newsome:

Of course, terrifying again, to even think that we need to think about that,

Jerremy Newsome:

but to the point of there, there does need to be some type of installation and

Jerremy Newsome:

probably every school in the country.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where you have at your disposal, something that is a standard.

Jerremy Newsome:

You mentioned walkie talkie, Jen, imagine you hit a button and all of the glass

Jerremy Newsome:

and the entire school either becomes opaque or someone can't see into it.

Jerremy Newsome:

It becomes fog or there's some type of metal shield that just drops

Jerremy Newsome:

on every single window instantly where the schools become outfitted

Jerremy Newsome:

with the ability to be armorized or become a lot more safe instantly.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that is public schools, potentially private schools, potentially charter

Jerremy Newsome:

schools, some unique standard where it does provide more security.

Jerremy Newsome:

If it's not police officers that are there did you call them?

Jerremy Newsome:

What are they called?

Jerremy Newsome:

Resource officers.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: resource officers, school resource officers.

Jerremy Newsome:

So as a school resource officer, if it's not a school resource

Jerremy Newsome:

officer, potentially we began working more with our servicemen and women

Jerremy Newsome:

after the, after they retire from one of the armed forces, you have a

Jerremy Newsome:

retired armed forces, officer that gets.

Jerremy Newsome:

Awarded or rewarded to work at a school and one of their professions

Jerremy Newsome:

and jobs for a period of time is to keep the overall public safety of that

Jerremy Newsome:

school is their top concern as well.

Jerremy Newsome:

All things that we can openly think about, but there are certainly

Jerremy Newsome:

solutions because I am sure there are a lot of schools that do not have

Jerremy Newsome:

that level of security and capacity.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: It's funny you said that because about the military aspect

Jerremy Newsome:

because my, I'll never forget him, my principal of the first school that I

Jerremy Newsome:

worked at was a retired army colonel and he just, he, I worked really close with

Jerremy Newsome:

him and he had a plan for everything and that school it involved a lot of

Jerremy Newsome:

drugs, a lot of gangs, but that was one thing about that school I didn't feel

Jerremy Newsome:

safe because, I didn't feel unsafe.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because of him, because he had plans set in place.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's one of the things that he did, like in our staff meetings,

Jerremy Newsome:

he would go over those plans with us and, it's like you use in trading

Jerremy Newsome:

sometime, Jeremy, if, and then, and that's what he would do in meetings.

Jerremy Newsome:

If this happens, then we're going to do this.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah having the having the teacher preparedness which has me

Jerremy Newsome:

wanting to follow up more, Eric, on what you said earlier, and I apologize

Jerremy Newsome:

for not remembering the exact term, but you said that you worked with.

Jerremy Newsome:

teachers to help them in something.

Jerremy Newsome:

Tell us a little bit more about that.

Eric Stenlake:

that's within the scope of leadership and culture development.

Jerremy Newsome:

Sure, sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

But even in that specific aspect, that means that you are doing the outreach

Jerremy Newsome:

to help teachers outside of school.

Jerremy Newsome:

They're getting poured into from outside resource, AKA

Jerremy Newsome:

you and the program around it.

Jerremy Newsome:

But even to that degree, do you feel like it can be something.

Jerremy Newsome:

Something more securitization implementation from a teaching

Jerremy Newsome:

standpoint from an outside resource as well, like a military professional.

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah.

Eric Stenlake:

I think it's a great it's a great discussion point.

Eric Stenlake:

And I think there's definitely a possibility for that.

Eric Stenlake:

Is it as a way for the campus to be more secured is to have those.

Eric Stenlake:

Those people on campus, where they come from through what agency that

Eric Stenlake:

they're coming from that's going to be the question of the school resource

Eric Stenlake:

officers are, is it a military contract?

Eric Stenlake:

Is it a law enforcement contract?

Eric Stenlake:

Something of that nature though, which in our school, we've got,

Eric Stenlake:

we get, two or three people on our campus based on the size and numbers

Eric Stenlake:

that we have of kids and staff.

Eric Stenlake:

How that plays out, I definitely see that would definitely be beneficial because I

Eric Stenlake:

can tell you right now, our school, the middle school that I'm at, they we split

Eric Stenlake:

a resource officer between, I think.

Eric Stenlake:

They've got three or four schools.

Eric Stenlake:

So who knows where in South Orange County they are at the given time

Eric Stenlake:

that anything should happen because they're not going to be there.

Eric Stenlake:

And we're going to be, we're going to be on our own left to get as many

Eric Stenlake:

kids inside as quickly as we can.

Eric Stenlake:

And that's actually the conversation that some of the teachers are having

Eric Stenlake:

of we're going to do the best we can.

Eric Stenlake:

And what we can't do, it's just out of our control.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah,

Dave Conley:

wondering, so how do you, so my, I think my sister teaches in a post

Dave Conley:

Columbine school and the design of that is it's weird walking in because there's

Dave Conley:

I don't think there's any corners in the entire place and the doors are different.

Dave Conley:

How do you all balance, not freaking out the kids with these drills and

Dave Conley:

the environment the fortress that you want to protect these kids in and

Dave Conley:

the cathedral that you want them in.

Jerremy Newsome:

it's gonna be a fine balancing act.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, it will be.

Jerremy Newsome:

It'll be a fine balancing act.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think ultimately, if me, when I went to school, this wasn't, there

Jerremy Newsome:

was no police officers at my school.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that was a career day, police officer would come in and you get

Jerremy Newsome:

to meet with the police officer.

Jerremy Newsome:

But I think having children be very comfortable having discussions with

Jerremy Newsome:

the resource officers or the military professionals that are on campus, having

Jerremy Newsome:

them come up, having them put their hand on the gun that's in the holster or that's

Jerremy Newsome:

unarmed, or that is there for a safety instruction so that they don't see this

Jerremy Newsome:

person as an entirely separate entity, but someone that is there for their

Jerremy Newsome:

safety, someone that there, they can have a conversation with someone that they're

Jerremy Newsome:

not terrified of, that they can know that they're there for their protection.

Jerremy Newsome:

And just having those conversations with them, I think also will make it from a

Jerremy Newsome:

child's standpoint, make them feel safer.

Jerremy Newsome:

And.

Jerremy Newsome:

Make them feel loved and seen.

Jerremy Newsome:

What do you think,

Danielle:

that's such a, that's such a great idea of putting the armed forces

Danielle:

and giving them the opportunity to help out or however you said it, it

Danielle:

was perfect because I think they come back and sometimes they don't feel as

Danielle:

though they had the purpose, right?

Danielle:

It will give the kids, too, an opportunity to get close to those people.

Danielle:

And a lot of the Actually are like in the parking lot or the football games.

Danielle:

So that's another opportunity that they I could see is where that

Danielle:

would be a perfect way of using the armed forces in the community.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah that's a great point.

Jerremy Newsome:

And Dave has mentioned that in a previous podcast episode where a lot

Jerremy Newsome:

of the times when we think of school shootings, we really do think of the.

Jerremy Newsome:

The initial thought that will strike most parents is the covenant school

Jerremy Newsome:

in national Tennessee or the parkland, like the big, scary mass shootings,

Jerremy Newsome:

multiple people and it's terrifying.

Jerremy Newsome:

But the vast majority of the school shootings are also and more

Jerremy Newsome:

obviously single incidences where it could be a violence related.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like you said, it can be in the parking lot, it can be at

Jerremy Newsome:

a football game where it's not.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's more of a revenge, angry tactic Dave, versus a Everyone's

Jerremy Newsome:

just no, it's just me and you.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't really like you very much.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I want to make sure that you feel pain.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

So the difference between a disagreement between when, between a couple of

Dave Conley:

folks and it's outside the school and the mass shootings that we see.

Dave Conley:

So there's like this hidden one that we don't see and then, the headline grabber.

Jerremy Newsome:

But the ones that you, the ones that we don't see,

Jerremy Newsome:

to circumvent or to re circumvent what you mentioned earlier, this.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is like we have a, we have it pretty much nailed down the

Jerremy Newsome:

archetype for who is going to be bringing a gun to school to use it.

Jerremy Newsome:

so Dave, do you feel there should be some level of more focus on that archetype?

Jerremy Newsome:

Whereas we don't specifically need to be training or berating, 13 year old girls.

Jerremy Newsome:

But we need to be focusing on the 13 year old to 16 year old boys and

Jerremy Newsome:

have them start conflict resolution.

Dave Conley:

A hundred percent.

Dave Conley:

And that goes back to the first question I had for the group here, and

Dave Conley:

I heard, yeah, so totally social media.

Dave Conley:

I've heard lacking a mentor and like we're medicalizing our

Dave Conley:

kids to really high degrees.

Dave Conley:

There's a lot of medication that's going into these schools that, that

Dave Conley:

before and after I'm still stuck on.

Dave Conley:

Like, where is the, before we, before I think about solutions, I really

Dave Conley:

want to hear more about the problem, internationally this isn't happening even

Dave Conley:

in, in countries that have lots of guns.

Dave Conley:

This isn't happening and they have social media, right?

Dave Conley:

There is a problem with guns in a sense that like the kids are

Dave Conley:

getting the guns from somewhere.

Dave Conley:

But like what else is going on?

Dave Conley:

Like I feel like we're missing something and it feels like there's

Dave Conley:

a crisis in boys, in young men.

Dave Conley:

And I

Dave Conley:

see you nodding, Jen, what, what's what's on your mind for these young boys?

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Because you see, you all see them early too, And,

Dave Conley:

JennWXS-1: I totally agree.

Dave Conley:

It's, I keep going back to multifaceted and I don't want to get all stray away

Dave Conley:

from the topic, but there's just so many aspects of this that need to be dealt

Dave Conley:

with from mental health to family to.

Dave Conley:

Divorce rates, and the food that we eat, to how much is actually being put

Dave Conley:

on teachers these days by the state.

Dave Conley:

Because I can tell you right now, and I think that's also a big part

Dave Conley:

of it too, I do more paperwork than I actually do teaching.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: with that paperwork goes back to, I don't know if Danielle, if

Jerremy Newsome:

you and Eric have noticed this, but I have more kids this year on medication

Jerremy Newsome:

with an IEP or a 504 plan than I can even count on my fingers and toes.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so it hit me the other day at the emails that I get.

Jerremy Newsome:

For the IEPs and the 504s.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I know in one particular class, I have I have 41 kids per class,

Jerremy Newsome:

but in this particular class, I have 20 kids that are on medications.

Jerremy Newsome:

They have an IEP and they have a 504, and I have to find a way

Jerremy Newsome:

to accommodate all these kids.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I'm just ready to pull my hair out because I can't

Jerremy Newsome:

rearrange every single kid.

Jerremy Newsome:

I can't put every single one of those kids at the front of the class.

Jerremy Newsome:

I

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

And tell me Jen, so you can remind me what is IEP and 504?

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: An IEP 504 is like special accommodations for the child depending

Jerremy Newsome:

on the severity of what they have.

Jerremy Newsome:

They could have a learning disability

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

A lot of kids I have to move to the front of the room so that they can

Jerremy Newsome:

focus on the teacher or whatever.

Jerremy Newsome:

A lot of kids, I have to find a place for them to go.

Jerremy Newsome:

So it's not loud so that they can focus.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, I have 41 kids in a class.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's going to be loud.

Jerremy Newsome:

How do I accommodate this kid?

Jerremy Newsome:

And then you have to do all this paperwork and you have to go to all these meetings.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I just I'm upset because I don't feel like I have time.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then my planning periods are cut short.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I don't really feel like I have time to teach because I'm

Jerremy Newsome:

just doing paperwork all the time.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Danielle:

when you have that many students that have the IEP do you get a helper

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: I knew you were going to ask that.

Danielle:

I was just, I went to an in service last week and I was asked that last week.

Danielle:

And no, I do not have any assistance whatsoever.

Dave Conley:

well, and you're being asked to do everything.

Dave Conley:

You're being asked to do kind of everything, but teaching, right?

Dave Conley:

Like you're asked to be a stand in parent.

Dave Conley:

You're asked to be a disciplinarian.

Dave Conley:

You're asked to now be a, a protector, right?

Dave Conley:

You're dealing with, post COVID kids that are already behind your like

Dave Conley:

all of those things are happening.

Dave Conley:

Then you have paperwork on top of it.

Dave Conley:

I, I think about what we ask of like our emergency personnel, what

Dave Conley:

we ask of our police officers.

Dave Conley:

It's like anything, but what they were hired to do.

Dave Conley:

Like you were hired to be a teacher, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

That is wild.

Jerremy Newsome:

When you're saying like paperwork, I just didn't imagine the

Jerremy Newsome:

ignorance is bliss part of me is.

Jerremy Newsome:

I just thought that someone would do that for you because that's not

Jerremy Newsome:

your job, but nope, apparently not.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: Yeah, we do more paperwork than anything and to

Jerremy Newsome:

circumvent back on Dave's question.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think, other governments, other countries, obviously their education

Jerremy Newsome:

system is way different than ours and I think it's a lot less.

Jerremy Newsome:

Paperwork involved possibly.

Jerremy Newsome:

I, it's something I would have to research and look into, but our education

Jerremy Newsome:

system is just, it's really suffering.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think a lot of it has to do with America's military spending.

Jerremy Newsome:

Just from the fact like that's our number one, that's our

Jerremy Newsome:

number by all by a long shot.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like it's not even close.

Jerremy Newsome:

America's defense spending is our number.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like we are the, Military industrial complex.

Jerremy Newsome:

Our smallest military is bigger than every single military in

Jerremy Newsome:

the world, almost combined.

Jerremy Newsome:

The U S annually spends.

Jerremy Newsome:

We do spend a lot on education, both federal and state levels totaling, let's

Jerremy Newsome:

call it 800 billion in recent years.

Jerremy Newsome:

But for fiscal year 2024, the department of education

Jerremy Newsome:

requested a 90 billion budget.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think with that 90 billion, where is it going?

Jerremy Newsome:

What is it being used for?

Jerremy Newsome:

Can't, can we do more?

Jerremy Newsome:

90 billion.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

That absolutely sounds like a lot, but when we, it is Eric, you're

Jerremy Newsome:

shaking your head, like, why do you not feel like it's a lot?

Eric Stenlake:

no I don't feel it's a lot.

Eric Stenlake:

I don't feel it's enough because when you break that number down on the allotment

Eric Stenlake:

per student that each district gets.

Eric Stenlake:

It's dollars a day

Eric Stenlake:

to that the district is spending for that one child in terms of supplies and books

Eric Stenlake:

and care for that child and, to Jen's point, maybe in her district they need

Eric Stenlake:

the funds elsewhere and so they're not going to have a one on one student or

Eric Stenlake:

they're not going to have a case carrier that has, 10 IEP kids on it that they

Eric Stenlake:

can float from class to class and help the kids with accommodations and, and

Eric Stenlake:

while they're expecting, the rest of us to do that openly and to take the time to

Eric Stenlake:

teach the class and do everything else.

Eric Stenlake:

This is why we're stressed out and burned out.

Eric Stenlake:

But yeah, no I firmly believe that budget has to increase.

Eric Stenlake:

It has to increase.

Eric Stenlake:

We've got it.

Eric Stenlake:

We've got to put more money into teacher pay teacher retention.

Eric Stenlake:

We've got to put more money into per capita how much we spend on each

Eric Stenlake:

student to ensure that the teachers that we have enough of supplies and

Eric Stenlake:

trainings and things that we need in order to give these kids the best

Eric Stenlake:

education experience that they deserve.

Dave Conley:

Where, so where is the money going in the sense

Dave Conley:

that like school budgets are.

Dave Conley:

The number one expense for most states but usually by a long shot and, I know

Dave Conley:

in talking to some teachers are like we got a lot of administrators, but like,

Dave Conley:

where, like, where is this money going?

Dave Conley:

If it's not getting to the teachers, it's not getting to the supplies.

Dave Conley:

It's not getting to the student.

Dave Conley:

Where is it?

Dave Conley:

And okay, let me ask it another way.

Dave Conley:

Where would you put it?

Dave Conley:

Like I hear teacher pay and teacher, and I'm also hearing from Jen, you need a lot

Dave Conley:

more teachers, but where else would you put this to benefit the kids the most?

Danielle:

After school programs, I think that would be a great thing

Danielle:

to add to the curriculum of children or even before school, because a lot

Danielle:

of parents are leaving kids are by themselves early in the morning when

Danielle:

thoughts of whatever happens, right?

Danielle:

We're still talking about school shootings.

Danielle:

If you had a big brother, big sister program.

Danielle:

Something that the kids would feel comfortable coming in early or

Danielle:

staying in over at over school.

Jerremy Newsome:

Keep this in mind though, Dave, that a lot of the funding that

Jerremy Newsome:

you're referring to for state budgets also is considered or grouped into the

Jerremy Newsome:

higher education and Pell grants as well.

Jerremy Newsome:

So not all of it is going you asked Eric, where's it going?

Jerremy Newsome:

And he's bro, I have no, like the hands up.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't know.

Dave Conley:

Like, where is it?

Jerremy Newsome:

So it's in a garage

Jerremy Newsome:

somewhere being lit on fire.

Eric Stenlake:

Right.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, a lot of that is individual states going to, the grants

Jerremy Newsome:

and Pell grants and scholarships for high school students into colleges.

Jerremy Newsome:

So keeping that in mind, that's a whole different conversation

Jerremy Newsome:

for an entirely different

Jerremy Newsome:

podcast.

Dave Conley:

yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Cause that one's a big one.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's obviously one, again, my main focus is reform because Eric

Jerremy Newsome:

and Jen I really truly do feel like you were speaking to my heart and

Jerremy Newsome:

my overall mission of why I am doing what I'm doing is because I truly

Jerremy Newsome:

believe we either need more teachers.

Jerremy Newsome:

But I think if we do restructure the schools in the way that my vision has

Jerremy Newsome:

us doing it, where you have a lot more running around P. E. health time, a

Jerremy Newsome:

lot better food, and you have the best teachers who are paid significantly

Jerremy Newsome:

more are able to instruct many more kids at one particular time on one

Jerremy Newsome:

particular subject and you are not made to teach the kids to memorize something.

Jerremy Newsome:

You are teaching the kid the point of learning that particular thing and the

Jerremy Newsome:

point of studying it and understanding it and seeing it at different levels.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you're teaching creative thinking versus topics.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if you have less teachers, potentially teaching more kids, but

Jerremy Newsome:

those teachers are supported much better and also have higher pay.

Jerremy Newsome:

That to me probably begins to instill because I, you don't have to make.

Jerremy Newsome:

A face did, but I'm sure there are some teachers that don't want to be there.

Jerremy Newsome:

And there are some teachers that do want to be there and the ones that do

Jerremy Newsome:

like you and the ones that truly love the mission and the purpose behind what

Jerremy Newsome:

you do, giving those teachers, those additional rewards, not only monetarily.

Jerremy Newsome:

But the rewards of teaching things that you want to teach

Jerremy Newsome:

that inspires you as well, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow that's pretty wild.

Jerremy Newsome:

Cause that, that, that

Dave Conley:

hey, Eric.

Dave Conley:

What role, and this might go around the panel here what role today can

Dave Conley:

communities and parents what can they do today to get involved and to make

Dave Conley:

for safer environments at schools?

Eric Stenlake:

For a safer environment.

Eric Stenlake:

I thought you were going to say, what can I do to get involved?

Eric Stenlake:

And I'm like, oh, they can go in and they can read to the kids.

Eric Stenlake:

And then when they get them to school, the parents go, great, you're on your own.

Eric Stenlake:

Good luck.

Eric Stenlake:

Goodbye.

Eric Stenlake:

And they don't do anything.

Eric Stenlake:

And same with high school.

Eric Stenlake:

Parents aren't involved unless your kids are in sports.

Eric Stenlake:

To help with the safety end of that.

Eric Stenlake:

I don't know about you guys.

Eric Stenlake:

Danny and Jen, we've got campus supervisors.

Eric Stenlake:

These are minimum wage paid positions of which they patrol the campus.

Eric Stenlake:

They are unarmed.

Eric Stenlake:

There's nothing they help out the office.

Eric Stenlake:

They go get kids out of rooms when kids are misbehaving, things of that nature.

Eric Stenlake:

Is there a way to get them involved in the safety?

Eric Stenlake:

Can they advocate?

Eric Stenlake:

Can parents stand up and say, listen, we're looking at our campuses and

Eric Stenlake:

we need to be proactive on this.

Eric Stenlake:

We need to take measures.

Eric Stenlake:

Proactive measures, we want to see what the game plan is here.

Eric Stenlake:

What's your plan a, your plan B, your plan C, your contingency plans.

Eric Stenlake:

Could they be involved in that?

Eric Stenlake:

We were talking earlier about military.

Eric Stenlake:

Can we have somebody come in from.

Eric Stenlake:

1st responders and say, we're going to put together contingency plans.

Eric Stenlake:

I know for us, if we're outside and they say lockdown, it's a scatter.

Eric Stenlake:

It's like cockroaches when the lights come on.

Eric Stenlake:

These kids don't know where to run to and they just start going all over the place.

Eric Stenlake:

They know they have to get to a room, but now they're in fight and flight.

Eric Stenlake:

Or some kids going into freeze and numb.

Eric Stenlake:

And they don't know what to do.

Eric Stenlake:

So maybe there's some better ways to look at contingency plans and

Eric Stenlake:

build a better system around that.

Dave Conley:

Jen, I think you mentioned, it's okay, what is our plan, right?

Dave Conley:

It's there's gotta be a communications plan somewhere with Family, right?

Dave Conley:

And like, where, where are the parents in asking for, the, what's the safety plan?

Dave Conley:

How do you keep my kids safe?

Dave Conley:

I think is like my number one question, right?

Dave Conley:

JennWXS-1: That's, now that is one thing that I can say good about the

Dave Conley:

school that I'm at now is on all of our committees that we have, which the

Dave Conley:

crisis team is one of our committees.

Dave Conley:

We are required to have a parent come in.

Dave Conley:

And be on each one of those committees, we have to have a parent.

Dave Conley:

And I think it's also required that we have.

Dave Conley:

Somebody from the community, so it could be police officer on the team.

Dave Conley:

Maybe somebody from the community, or, the local rec center on

Dave Conley:

the health and wellness team.

Dave Conley:

We have to have somebody that is a requirement.

Dave Conley:

So we do have that parent involvement at the school now, and it was also

Dave Conley:

that way at the last school that I was, that I worked at in North Carolina.

Dave Conley:

And so I can say that about my school is that we do have

Dave Conley:

a lot of parent involvement.

Danielle:

Do you see a

Danielle:

lot of

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: even

Danielle:

though?

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: ma'am

Danielle:

Jen, do you see a lot of difference when the parents are involved

Danielle:

with the students and the teachers?

Danielle:

Do you see a big difference with the kids?

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: this particular school.

Danielle:

I do.

Danielle:

Yes.

Danielle:

And at the last school, I did.

Danielle:

We even have parents that have gotten certified to be substitute teachers.

Danielle:

So I would say yes.

Danielle:

Now, at the very first school that I worked at, because it was a low

Danielle:

socioeconomic school and it was, very game driven, a lot of drugs and stuff.

Danielle:

I would have definitely said no.

Danielle:

We weren't required to bring people in from the community or

Danielle:

parents in from the community.

Danielle:

And I think the school would have been better if we had done that.

Danielle:

And the kids.

Danielle:

But the other aspect of the first school that I worked at is the,

Danielle:

we had retired Air Force three retired Air Force guys that came

Danielle:

in and they ran our JROTC program.

Danielle:

And so that helped massively with our kids at that school.

Danielle:

That was huge.

Danielle:

That was the biggest program that we had, and majority of those

Danielle:

kids all went off to the military.

Danielle:

That was pretty big in that school.

Danielle:

It was it was very effective, and I think also because my principal was a retired

Danielle:

army colonel, so he was big on military.

Danielle:

He was big on structure.

Danielle:

And the other thing that he implemented into the school that

Danielle:

was very successful is with the kids going through the ROTC program.

Danielle:

Is they could go through a pilot program where they actually learned

Danielle:

how to fly a plane, a real plane.

Danielle:

And they had a simul a flight simulator in the ROTC room.

Danielle:

And I was there 15 years.

Danielle:

And in that 15 years, I think we had at least 12 kids that

Danielle:

learned how to fly a plane.

Danielle:

And they got their pilot's license by the time they were in fourth grade.

Danielle:

Feels pretty cool.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're going to start getting into the thing that, that I

Jerremy Newsome:

also could see implementation of very easily in our school system which is some

Jerremy Newsome:

level of martial art training for both men and women to the extent of, and it

Jerremy Newsome:

might be a little bit personally biased.

Jerremy Newsome:

But let's just call it jujitsu.

Jerremy Newsome:

And, Brazilian jujitsu is very much the art of, first of all, inner

Jerremy Newsome:

connectivity, interconnectedness, because you are right in that person.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's no more personal space it's gone.

Jerremy Newsome:

So now the awkwardness gets removed from the situation.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then number two.

Jerremy Newsome:

It teaches every man and woman that you're going to lose at some point.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so it's an ego crusher, which is awesome.

Jerremy Newsome:

One of the best moments of my adult dad life was seeing my 13 year old son,

Jerremy Newsome:

Gabriel get tapped out by a girl at a at a tournament and he started crying

Jerremy Newsome:

because he lost and I was like, Hey man, You tried and he got zero trophy.

Jerremy Newsome:

There was no, Hey, you still nothing.

Jerremy Newsome:

It was like, you lost buddy.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like this girl beat you.

Jerremy Newsome:

He thought he was going to beat her, but she was better.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's the other third part is that it is a skill that truly

Jerremy Newsome:

doesn't embark on strength.

Jerremy Newsome:

So where it's not a male dominated sport, because it is a technique

Jerremy Newsome:

And speed and ability and agility sport where the strongest person

Jerremy Newsome:

very rarely wins, actually.

Jerremy Newsome:

So saying all that to say cause I can talk about jujitsu forever.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think having some form of sport that's not football for our boys, for our girls,

Jerremy Newsome:

for individuals to understand what it means to Lose for what it means to be

Jerremy Newsome:

an act out in an aggressive stance.

Jerremy Newsome:

and still lose, have the ability to understand and talk and feel and know how

Jerremy Newsome:

to work out solutions, know how to work out problems, know that the vast majority

Jerremy Newsome:

of mil marshallee are trained individuals.

Jerremy Newsome:

The fighting propensity decreases dramatically.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like the amount of times I was in a fight as a teenage boy was weekly.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then as I started doing more and more martial arts, I started realizing very

Jerremy Newsome:

quickly that I didn't know how to fight.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that there were people in the world who knew much more

Jerremy Newsome:

than me in this particular realm.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I love to practice and I love the martial art of that inner knowing,

Jerremy Newsome:

that inner peace, that calmness, that stillness, and after going through

Jerremy Newsome:

that, the anger, if you will, the rage monster that probably lives in

Jerremy Newsome:

almost all teenagers, but definitely teenage boys starts to dissipate.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because you also have an outlet to act it out.

Jerremy Newsome:

But at the same time, you also are aware that there is different

Jerremy Newsome:

levels to the game and that you're not the coolest person in town.

Jerremy Newsome:

So that's just a, an implementation piece where I just think really

Jerremy Newsome:

restructuring so much of our schools.

Jerremy Newsome:

Does allow for mental health, physical health, awareness,

Jerremy Newsome:

happiness, peace, joy, prosperity.

Jerremy Newsome:

Danny, you mentioned breath work.

Jerremy Newsome:

You guys mentioned meditation.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer, you mentioned silence, a moment of silence where shoot, not a minute.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's try an hour.

Jerremy Newsome:

An hour of silence is challenging for most adults, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

You mentioned the word life coach area.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like I'm a life coach as well.

Jerremy Newsome:

I work with men and women of all ages on many different pieces, but the aspect of

Jerremy Newsome:

just sitting in silence and listening to whatever you want to listen to whatever

Jerremy Newsome:

intelligence or universal or God energy that you need to tap into just to listen,

Jerremy Newsome:

because in silence, we hear the most.

Jerremy Newsome:

And teaching and implementing that.

Jerremy Newsome:

You do this and you start solving a lot of the root issues that cause

Jerremy Newsome:

potentially aggression at the house.

Jerremy Newsome:

You start solving a lot of the problems that face the the family unit, I believe.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm sorry.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think it does eventually translate.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wait, what do you think, Eric?

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah, absolutely.

Eric Stenlake:

And I think we have a lot of those big connections in activity, in action.

Eric Stenlake:

And so by being in the sports and being involved in that high action

Eric Stenlake:

I know for me when I'm out, when I'm on my runs I, I love getting

Eric Stenlake:

to that place of that runner's high and boy, do I have the clarity that

Eric Stenlake:

just comes over and the thoughts.

Eric Stenlake:

And I'm like, wow, here it comes.

Eric Stenlake:

Let's open it up here.

Eric Stenlake:

Let's bring these ideas, bring these thoughts.

Eric Stenlake:

And I think that would be great for the kids to experience.

Eric Stenlake:

In terms of the family unit, really, how do we level the playing field?

Eric Stenlake:

Because I think we have families of all different dynamics, all different

Eric Stenlake:

constructs, and how do we level the playing field so that, and it's not

Eric Stenlake:

that everybody's getting chovy, but that kids are getting opportunity.

Eric Stenlake:

And I think that's the golden ticket to me right here.

Eric Stenlake:

How do we get

Eric Stenlake:

these kids opportunity to put them in front of the I'm going to reject you.

Eric Stenlake:

I'm going to go into the ROTC, or like we have here we have the Young

Eric Stenlake:

Marines here in Southern California.

Eric Stenlake:

We got that group because we're right here by Camp Pendleton.

Eric Stenlake:

What do we have that we can open up as opportunity for kids to be involved?

Eric Stenlake:

That's, that I think is, even if my home life is horrible, And I don't want to

Eric Stenlake:

go home at the end of the school day.

Eric Stenlake:

What outlet do I have?

Eric Stenlake:

What

Eric Stenlake:

can I do with now all this built up energy

Eric Stenlake:

that I need to do something constructive with?

Jerremy Newsome:

So if I totally agree and if those.

Jerremy Newsome:

Programs are requirements in school,

Jerremy Newsome:

Right?

Jerremy Newsome:

If the ROTC is a requirement for school and the leaders of ROTC, I

Jerremy Newsome:

don't even know if I would do well in an ROTC right now, like the pushups,

Jerremy Newsome:

the sit ups, the paying attention, the sitting still the, obviously the

Jerremy Newsome:

no phones, the being able to listen.

Jerremy Newsome:

On demand essentially, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

If that was not an option and especially it wasn't a paid option,

Jerremy Newsome:

but it really was a requirement, Eric, do you feel that if everyone had the

Jerremy Newsome:

opportunity, yes, but essentially the mandatory requirement to go through

Jerremy Newsome:

that, does that begin to allow more people to experience that opportunity?

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay.

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah, I believe it does.

Eric Stenlake:

When you look back at where education was and what was offered.

Eric Stenlake:

Throughout the course of the school day, home mech, shop wood shop,

Eric Stenlake:

all of these things I remember kids being in ROTC in, in high school.

Eric Stenlake:

And that was only a couple years ago.

Eric Stenlake:

And absolutely.

Eric Stenlake:

And where can we help get them involved?

Eric Stenlake:

Because they are going to thrive, they're going to have those

Eric Stenlake:

kids that thrive in the ROTC.

Eric Stenlake:

That's just what they needed.

Eric Stenlake:

And then these kids are going to thrive over here.

Eric Stenlake:

This is just what they needed.

Eric Stenlake:

And they're going to learn the soft skills and they're going to learn the

Eric Stenlake:

management, self management, and be able to tap into their their greatness

Eric Stenlake:

and their empowerment in those spaces.

Eric Stenlake:

And I think that's the why behind the importance of creating this

Eric Stenlake:

opportunity space for them.

Eric Stenlake:

JennWXS-1: But I think that also goes back.

Eric Stenlake:

Eric and Danielle already touched on it.

Eric Stenlake:

That goes back to our state with them cutting our cut.

Eric Stenlake:

That's why teachers are quitting.

Eric Stenlake:

You're cutting our money.

Eric Stenlake:

We're not being funded enough.

Eric Stenlake:

Eric said it himself.

Eric Stenlake:

And then Danielle we because our funds are being cut.

Eric Stenlake:

We don't have those afterschool programs.

Eric Stenlake:

How freaking cool would it be?

Eric Stenlake:

Like you said, jujitsu.

Eric Stenlake:

If we had the funding, we had the afterschool program and you could bring in

Eric Stenlake:

somebody from a local YMCA or rec center or something to teach that jujitsu to

Eric Stenlake:

keep the kids off the street, to help them mentally, physically, emotionally, because

Eric Stenlake:

I'm sure jujitsu touches on all of that.

Eric Stenlake:

I think that would be wonderful if more schools had programming like

Eric Stenlake:

that, but we're just, that's the other reason why teachers are quitting,

Eric Stenlake:

mental burnout and they don't feel supported and they're not being paid.

Jerremy Newsome:

Sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm with you.

Jerremy Newsome:

100%. I agree.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I know, and I've always known that is one of the main challenges

Jerremy Newsome:

that not only face the schools, but just face what's going on in the

Jerremy Newsome:

schools is the budgetary constraint.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because again, we, I'm going to continue to pour in more time, energy, and effort

Jerremy Newsome:

into understanding where some of this money is going, because realistically.

Jerremy Newsome:

I have heard from so many individuals that are on in schools now, like you

Jerremy Newsome:

three, we don't have the money for it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like the school doesn't have the money.

Jerremy Newsome:

The schools are always cutting budgets.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I remember probably what, five years ago that there was a nationwide budget cut

Jerremy Newsome:

and that nationwide budget cut essentially affected drama, music, and art.

Jerremy Newsome:

I was like, let's teach more science and literature, which everyone hates.

Jerremy Newsome:

Not really, but cause the school says, I'm talking about failing

Jerremy Newsome:

me when I was in fourth grade, I had an amazing history teacher.

Jerremy Newsome:

And this history teacher made everything come alive for me.

Jerremy Newsome:

It was Mr.

Jerremy Newsome:

Potter.

Jerremy Newsome:

He made everything come alive.

Jerremy Newsome:

It was so fantastic.

Jerremy Newsome:

And he was just the best history teacher.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I loved history because of him.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I still love history to this day.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I walked up to him one day in class and I was like, Mr. Potter, I want to

Jerremy Newsome:

be a history teacher just like you.

Jerremy Newsome:

And he went, Oh, you don't.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I was like, yeah, I do.

Jerremy Newsome:

And he goes, no, you don't.

Jerremy Newsome:

I was like, why?

Jerremy Newsome:

He goes, you're not going to make any money.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I never heard that before.

Jerremy Newsome:

I thought teachers were like loaded.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so I asked him, I'm in fourth grade, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

I was like how much do you make?

Jerremy Newsome:

And he said 39, 000 a year.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now, granted, when I was in fourth grade, that was 1436 but 39, 000 for

Jerremy Newsome:

any age, any profession at really any point pre 1930, isn't great.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's a low number.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I even knew it then I was like, Oh yeah, it's not that much money, dude.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like 39, 000 is not a lot.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then he went through all of his, daily routines and that he was spending, he was

Jerremy Newsome:

working 60 hours a week every single week.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then his summer break, he was like, During my summer break, like

Jerremy Newsome:

everyone thinks that we have a super long, amazing summer break.

Jerremy Newsome:

He goes, our summer break is really?

Jerremy Newsome:

Like ultimately two and a half weeks because you have

Jerremy Newsome:

the closing of everything.

Jerremy Newsome:

You have the reopening of everything.

Jerremy Newsome:

You got the planning for everything.

Jerremy Newsome:

The moving of everything.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's we think That's a society that, Oh, dude, teachers get three months a year.

Jerremy Newsome:

They get all these vacations.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's bro, that's when they're doing all of the tests.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's when they're doing all the grading.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's when they're doing probably all the paperwork.

Jerremy Newsome:

We, and I would love to pay teachers more.

Danielle:

would love it too.

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: That

Danielle:

many teachers that take it right out of their pocket.

Danielle:

They just have no, that's what they love.

Danielle:

They love that and for them to do what they need to do.

Danielle:

I was one that took it right out of my pocket, right?

Danielle:

Because I wanted to make sure that they had what they needed.

Danielle:

So yeah,

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: I pay for so much stuff out of my pocket because there's

Danielle:

just not enough money to go around.

Danielle:

But, talking about budget, that was 1 of the school that I was

Danielle:

at last year was an 8, 9 school.

Danielle:

It was just 8th and 9th grade.

Danielle:

And that's 1 of the reasons why that school they, that was a scary time.

Danielle:

We got called into a staff meeting around Christmas.

Danielle:

And walking into that staff meeting and we saw the superintendent walked

Danielle:

in, we knew something was wrong.

Danielle:

And he walked up into the staff meeting and he said, we hate to

Danielle:

tell you this, but this whole entire staff has just gotten fired.

Danielle:

We were like, what?

Danielle:

And he was like, yeah, basically he's this school will be closed

Danielle:

at the end of the school year.

Danielle:

And you all have got to go out and find new jobs because we don't have the

Danielle:

budget to support this school anymore.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

wild.

Jerremy Newsome:

David, do you truly feel that there is the ability for this country to

Jerremy Newsome:

properly pay for our school system?

Dave Conley:

Yeah, everything's a choice, right?

Dave Conley:

Everything is a choice.

Dave Conley:

And I'm going back to, like, where's this money going?

Dave Conley:

That's the, when it, it's not making it to the teachers.

Dave Conley:

No teacher should have to be paying for anything.

Dave Conley:

And teachers need to teach, right?

Dave Conley:

So that's going to mean, staffing it.

Dave Conley:

That's going to mean adequate pay.

Dave Conley:

That's going to mean retention.

Dave Conley:

That means.

Dave Conley:

All of that money needs to start there.

Dave Conley:

The teachers are the ones that are actually with our kids day in and day out.

Dave Conley:

So I, there's no other choice, right?

Dave Conley:

That there are choices that aren't that is is the problem.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Can one of you three, five minutes or less, can you teach me and Dave on the

Jerremy Newsome:

hierarchy of a school in the sense of, so you mentioned the superintendent.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't know exactly what that means, but ultimately.

Jerremy Newsome:

The board of education, like where is all the administrative costs going

Dave Conley:

and it's different in different states, right?

Dave Conley:

JennWXS-1: Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Or is it about the same?

Dave Conley:

I don't know.

Danielle:

I think maybe even different in different school systems, school district.

Jerremy Newsome:

really even different school districts will be different.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

So who who is the principal, does the principal make a lot of choices and

Jerremy Newsome:

decisions around the budget of the school?

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah I'll hop in.

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah, principals do get to do that.

Eric Stenlake:

There is a trickle down to the teachers.

Eric Stenlake:

They can ask for things.

Eric Stenlake:

There's.

Eric Stenlake:

They could be told we've got this amount in the budget.

Eric Stenlake:

It could go to there's a person that deals with budgets.

Eric Stenlake:

I'm going by my school.

Eric Stenlake:

There's a person that deals just with budgets and can say

Eric Stenlake:

how much each teacher can get.

Eric Stenlake:

There's overhead and all that stuff that gets put into that pot if you will.

Eric Stenlake:

From the principal, you've got the course of the hierarchy of the district.

Eric Stenlake:

Ours is quite large and I know all the way up to the top of the superintendent,

Eric Stenlake:

I know his salary is somewhere around 350, 000 400, 000 a year to be the

Eric Stenlake:

super and then we have how many assistant supers who are all paid?

Eric Stenlake:

And then you have department heads at the DO and they all get paid

Eric Stenlake:

and then they have assistance.

Eric Stenlake:

And so when you're looking at the levels of the multiple levels that come down

Eric Stenlake:

to a school that finally trickled down to, and this is what I said before,

Eric Stenlake:

this is why our kids are only allocated, what, five, 7 a day and it's up to

Eric Stenlake:

us to say, get yourselves to school.

Eric Stenlake:

And we don't say it's so that we can collect your ADA, because if

Eric Stenlake:

you're not in your seat by, nine o'clock, we're not going to be able

Eric Stenlake:

to claim full ADA for you and get the funding for your warm butt in a seat.

Eric Stenlake:

Don't get me started.

Eric Stenlake:

Holy moly.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: the other reason why our, that school was closed last

Jerremy Newsome:

year is because of what Eric said.

Jerremy Newsome:

We didn't have the kids in the seat.

Jerremy Newsome:

We didn't have the butts in the seat.

Jerremy Newsome:

That was another 1 of the reasons why the school was closed and

Jerremy Newsome:

that's another reason why.

Jerremy Newsome:

I have 41 students and 8 classes.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because the school gets rewarded for more kids.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: But it's in the seat

Jerremy Newsome:

whoa.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: and

Dave Conley:

that's the wrong, that's the wrong incentive.

Dave Conley:

That's

Dave Conley:

No.

Danielle:

The education is the transportation now being budgeted

Danielle:

with the school and with like you said that there's less students.

Danielle:

So did they cut busing?

Danielle:

Really?

Eric Stenlake:

Yeah.

Eric Stenlake:

We're in the the pretty heavily populated.

Eric Stenlake:

We have a couple of buses that come because they are bringing

Eric Stenlake:

low income students from a particular area to the school.

Eric Stenlake:

Otherwise I drove my kids to school every day from kindergarten through till they

Eric Stenlake:

started driving somewhere in high school.

Eric Stenlake:

And if you wanted to pay for a bus, it was.

Eric Stenlake:

I think it's up to almost a thousand dollars a year now if

Eric Stenlake:

you want your kids to ride a bus.

Eric Stenlake:

JennWXS-1: I think that,

Jerremy Newsome:

bonkers.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: yeah, I think that's tied in with, the busing is tied in with

Jerremy Newsome:

the superintendent and like his budgets that he has to manage a district level.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's fascinating to see the web of the the changes and the tweaks and the adjustments

Jerremy Newsome:

that are at least available because.

Jerremy Newsome:

It also seems to me that the problem is, and we all know, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Extremely multifaceted, but there are also probably pretty easy tweaks

Jerremy Newsome:

and adjustments that haven't really been focused on by an administration

Jerremy Newsome:

especially a government administration.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so again, that's my whole purpose and campaign is to change the educational

Jerremy Newsome:

system, to re to reinvigorate it, to transform it, to transcend it,

Jerremy Newsome:

to elevate it, to shift it to where.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's more opportunities.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's more money, there's more safety.

Jerremy Newsome:

And in the in the awareness of if we, as a country start shifting to

Jerremy Newsome:

that as our primary concern, I've talked to every single parent every

Jerremy Newsome:

parent I've ever talked to is an agreement that the education system

Jerremy Newsome:

hasn't truly undergone scrutiny.

Jerremy Newsome:

And a change and a revitalization in a long time.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so it does, it just seems, it seems crazy.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

It seems interesting to me.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the reason it seems interesting is because again, just from the standpoint

Jerremy Newsome:

of superintendents, the the S the school board, you obviously have a school

Jerremy Newsome:

districts, district superintendents, state board of education, state superintendent,

Jerremy Newsome:

commissioner of education, state department of education, U S department

Jerremy Newsome:

of education, like the hierarchy is And so for someone to care so deeply about this.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think is probably the only way it changes and you have to get almost

Jerremy Newsome:

like this union level of striking where it is everyone gets behind a

Jerremy Newsome:

central mission to create this shift.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the shift will be dramatic.

Jerremy Newsome:

It needs to be dramatic.

Jerremy Newsome:

But at the same time, it's probably pretty easy.

Jerremy Newsome:

if it is easy as, let's find ways to use our tax dollars more

Jerremy Newsome:

appropriately, so that teachers get paid more, police officers get paid

Jerremy Newsome:

more, first responders get paid more.

Jerremy Newsome:

Those cohesive units begin to work together to keep everyone more

Jerremy Newsome:

safe from a community standpoint.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the schools themselves are a place that is To Dave's point, fortified,

Jerremy Newsome:

but also beautiful and friendly and exciting and inviting and luxurious

Jerremy Newsome:

and enticing and a wonderful place to learn because the teachers are happy.

Jerremy Newsome:

The students are happy.

Jerremy Newsome:

And there's never a school shooting ever again especially a mass shooting.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think just having not only conversations like this, but having

Jerremy Newsome:

people that come together to know that it's a problem and to start inciting

Jerremy Newsome:

the change is extremely important.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the last 10 or 20 minutes, I think one of those changes that we haven't

Jerremy Newsome:

talked about in depth or really discussed at length, but has been mentioned

Jerremy Newsome:

by all three of you is the food.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: Oh,

Jerremy Newsome:

Now,

Dave Conley:

for those just listening, we just had an entire group of

Dave Conley:

people just start shaking their head.

Dave Conley:

We're like, Oh, my God.

Jerremy Newsome:

What is happening here with the food gin?

Jerremy Newsome:

Why the verbal

Jerremy Newsome:

disgust?

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: it's just God awful.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's awful.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know my three step girls they refuse to eat at school.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's just that bad.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's, I don't even know where to start.

Jerremy Newsome:

Eric and Danielle might, but I don't even know where to begin on school nutrition.

Jerremy Newsome:

It is just horrid.

Jerremy Newsome:

All right, Eric, teach us

Eric Stenlake:

I'm coming from the brain health perspective, if I may.

Eric Stenlake:

And my lord have mercy, when you look at the list of ingredients that are on the

Eric Stenlake:

back of those packages, that those kids are going out for break time and eating

Eric Stenlake:

this breakfast cookie, With all these artificial preservatives and colorings and

Eric Stenlake:

this and that and then they get more at lunch and then they get more and yeah, and

Eric Stenlake:

now they got their bag of this and they're eating that and they're drinking Cokes And

Eric Stenlake:

we're wondering why they can't sit still.

Eric Stenlake:

We're wondering why they don't have the ability to comprehend,

Eric Stenlake:

to intake and solidify into memory content that's being put in front

Eric Stenlake:

of them because they're putting into their bodies, neural disruptors,

Eric Stenlake:

JennWXS-1: Process garbage.

Eric Stenlake:

process, garbage, oils, seed oils, all these things

Eric Stenlake:

that are neural disruptors.

Eric Stenlake:

So the eat this, they come in after break.

Eric Stenlake:

Or lunch and they're just, heads are spinning around like

Eric Stenlake:

this and they're so off kilter.

Eric Stenlake:

And then I'm supposed to help teach them something that's going to take

Eric Stenlake:

brain power and concentration and focus and energy to put into that.

Eric Stenlake:

Or the kids aren't eating like Jen was saying, so now they're, they don't

Eric Stenlake:

have fuel in their tank, so they can't drive their vehicle and they come

Eric Stenlake:

into class and they're near sleeping because they don't have anything,

Eric Stenlake:

haven't put anything in their bodies.

Eric Stenlake:

And they have a few of themselves

Jerremy Newsome:

what was the term?

Jerremy Newsome:

Neuro neural

Eric Stenlake:

neuro disruptors, so

Eric Stenlake:

just disrupting the neural connections in the brain.

Jerremy Newsome:

So are there certain foods that do that more

Jerremy Newsome:

than others to your awareness?

Eric Stenlake:

Yes.

Eric Stenlake:

So anything with the artificial flavorings and colorings, the dyes, the yellow, reds,

Eric Stenlake:

blues, all of those things, speed oils, for sure your sunflower, your staff flower

Eric Stenlake:

all of those palm oils seed oils that are in the foods and the preservatives that

Eric Stenlake:

are there to keep that food from rotting.

Eric Stenlake:

Preservatives that are on the packaging all of that is a contributor.

Jerremy Newsome:

So Jennifer, do you, you're, I'm assuming you're

Jerremy Newsome:

allowed to bring in your own food and you just eat your own food.

Jerremy Newsome:

Can you walk us through what that looks like from a

Jerremy Newsome:

nutritional standpoint for you?

Jerremy Newsome:

Do you interact with any of the school lunches or is that

Jerremy Newsome:

something that you do on your own?

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: The kids can bring in their own lunch and I do see majority of

Jerremy Newsome:

the kids bringing in their own lunch.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's just like Eric said, I was about to chime in.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't even know if our lunch staff even.

Jerremy Newsome:

If they cook lunch, I'm very surprised.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know they don't cook breakfast.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know everything at breakfast time is packaged in plastic.

Jerremy Newsome:

Everything.

Jerremy Newsome:

They go through and they get, I know they get one thing of whatever

Jerremy Newsome:

they put out and every single thing that they put out is in packaging.

Jerremy Newsome:

We have a snack

Danielle:

COVID,

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: ma'am.

Danielle:

let's start with COVID.

Danielle:

And then it

Danielle:

just kept on going.

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: I don't, even at my last school in North Carolina, it was the same way.

Danielle:

And I was at that school throughout all of COVID and they were doing a

Danielle:

packaged foods at breakfast time, like package, like little pancakes

Danielle:

and packaged, sausage links and.

Danielle:

And there are even the frustrating thing.

Danielle:

It's like there are even microwaves in the lunchroom for the kids to use

Danielle:

if they want to heat up their food.

Danielle:

so I don't I bring my own lunch to school as well.

Danielle:

So

Jerremy Newsome:

Is it is it is it free to eat lunch at school?

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: Yes, it is free.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

Gotcha.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: my school it is.

Jerremy Newsome:

Sure what about you, Danny?

Jerremy Newsome:

Like in your thoughts on the food, how much we all know

Jerremy Newsome:

that it's extremely important.

Jerremy Newsome:

We've all heard that the gut is the second brain.

Jerremy Newsome:

So to Eric standpoint, like if you're putting food in there, that's not

Jerremy Newsome:

terrific, you're probably you're if your second brain isn't awesome,

Jerremy Newsome:

your first brain probably sucks.

Jerremy Newsome:

So now you have two brains.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're like, ah, I don't like this.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where do where does someone start with better nutrition, Danny?

Danielle:

This is something that I do know that parents are excited

Danielle:

because the kids get a breakfast now and a lunch and it's free, right?

Danielle:

That lets them understand that they think their child is getting

Danielle:

something healthy for their body.

Danielle:

That is not always the truth, as these guys have talked about Eric?

Danielle:

It fills their belly, but that's primarily where it stops, right?

Danielle:

It doesn't heal their brain.

Danielle:

It doesn't it doesn't heal their body.

Danielle:

It fills it, right?

Danielle:

Makes it comfort food.

Danielle:

But then, Like Jen was saying, all these IEPs, all these special

Danielle:

things, everybody on medicine.

Danielle:

We are feeding our children.

Danielle:

Why are we doing this?

Danielle:

Feeding our children all these drugs, right?

Danielle:

All these uppers, all this sugar, right?

Danielle:

And then all of a sudden, oh, I've got an ADHD child.

Danielle:

Oh, you think?

Danielle:

Let's put a pill on that too.

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: Let's mandate it with a pill.

Danielle:

yeah.

Danielle:

Yeah, understanding that the school feel as though they're doing a service for

Danielle:

the children, giving them their meal.

Danielle:

But in reality, that we have to understand that we have to start giving the children,

Danielle:

substance something that is going to fuel and help their body, not just to fill it.

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: The other thing that I have heard when it comes to the lunchroom

Danielle:

staff is, They they have parameters from the state where they have to

Danielle:

provide certain things, whether the kid picks it up and eats it or not.

Danielle:

And a lot of things that, the parameters and a lot of things that they're having

Danielle:

to provide, the kids, Won't eat it and they and but they're forced to have to

Danielle:

put it on their plate, according to the state, even though the kid won't eat it.

Danielle:

So then you've got all of these things that the kids won't eat that are going

Danielle:

in the trash every single day, like bananas, apples and I could go on and on.

Danielle:

And I remember at the school.

Danielle:

I was at North Carolina.

Danielle:

It's like when I would be on morning duty, I would look and I was sitting

Danielle:

here thinking, there are 60 apples, fresh apples in this trash can, because

Danielle:

you're forcing that child out of state parameters to put that stuff on their

Danielle:

plate and they're not going to eat it.

Danielle:

And this all goes in the trash.

Eric Stenlake:

Because it's tied to what?

Eric Stenlake:

Money.

Eric Stenlake:

JennWXS-1: But

Eric Stenlake:

Everything that goes on that plate is a piece of money.

Eric Stenlake:

And so they're basing that money off of this ridiculous

Eric Stenlake:

thing called the food pyramid.

Eric Stenlake:

One of the most, nonsensical,

Jerremy Newsome:

There's no way they still teach the food pyramid dude.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: unfortunately, yes, they do.

Danielle:

one.

Danielle:

The wrong one.

Eric Stenlake:

the wrong one.

Eric Stenlake:

We know because we're in a space of which we're, we understand why

Eric Stenlake:

the food pyramid doesn't work, but they are putting things on our kids

Eric Stenlake:

plates based on the food pyramid.

Jerremy Newsome:

Fascinating.

Jerremy Newsome:

Fascinating.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're, you did the money symbol, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

For the listeners, like everything is tied to money.

Jerremy Newsome:

One of my mentors, Jesse Itzler.

Jerremy Newsome:

Has openly asked the CEO of Kellogg's to do an interview because many of the the

Jerremy Newsome:

cereals are labeled as heart healthy.

Jerremy Newsome:

And Jesse Itzler is please.

Jerremy Newsome:

Tell me how you put that label on your box and he's offered 100,

Jerremy Newsome:

000 cash just for the interview and he's not even a podcaster.

Jerremy Newsome:

He just cares about his kids just like every other parent in the world and

Jerremy Newsome:

he knows and he's done the research and he's looked up the ingredients.

Jerremy Newsome:

He goes, these are not heart healthy at all.

Jerremy Newsome:

And, Kellogg's general mills, it's a very long list, but the vast majority.

Jerremy Newsome:

Of cereals that we put out in schools or maybe even hotel

Jerremy Newsome:

boardrooms where, you know, anyone's eating those aren't healthy.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're even remotely, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

We're talking 36 to 48 grams of sugar per serving, which is like three Cokes.

Jerremy Newsome:

It is unimaginable amount of sugar.

Jerremy Newsome:

And there's been so many studies.

Jerremy Newsome:

That I'm aware of that sugar and cocaine.

Jerremy Newsome:

Are so closely related, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

They're so closely related and it's almost identical as far as the receptors

Jerremy Newsome:

to the brain and actually what happens.

Jerremy Newsome:

And there are some scientists and gut health experts and biome experts

Jerremy Newsome:

that have said sugar is as bad.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if we don't start realizing that soon, we're going to

Jerremy Newsome:

continue the poison in our nation.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: The

Eric Stenlake:

A hundred percent.

Eric Stenlake:

That addiction is housed in the same pleasure center in the brain.

Eric Stenlake:

So whether I'm eating high amounts of sugar and I need more and more,

Eric Stenlake:

or I'm going after cocaine or meth or whatever else, it's the same,

Eric Stenlake:

it's the same area of the brain.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Danielle:

Need to start farms at school, right?

Danielle:

So we can start growing our vegetables and our fruit and have the kids learn how to

Danielle:

do it, dig in the dirt, learn all these skills, and then turn around and eat them,

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah, sure.

Dave Conley:

Thing is about this.

Dave Conley:

This whole discussion is about school safety and We've covered a lot and

Dave Conley:

what I'm trying to figure out is what's going what's, what's going right in

Dave Conley:

because, you don't have the time, we don't have the money, we, we're not

Dave Conley:

teaching the skills needed because we don't have the teachers there's we're

Dave Conley:

feeding them garbage, we're, all of these Things are, there's a lot to fix here.

Dave Conley:

So what's going right.

Dave Conley:

What do we need to be doing more of that?

Dave Conley:

We're already doing.

Dave Conley:

If anything, what do you think, Eric?

Eric Stenlake:

Listen, I'm going to speak for the teachers that I know

Eric Stenlake:

they're the most beautiful souls and the beautiful hearts of people I've ever met.

Eric Stenlake:

And we're in it for that reason.

Eric Stenlake:

To bless the lives of others.

Eric Stenlake:

To help kids get love, see love, and experience love that maybe

Eric Stenlake:

they don't ever get at home or from other areas of their lives.

Eric Stenlake:

And to freely be there to support kids.

Eric Stenlake:

And it's not, to me, it's not about.

Eric Stenlake:

The curriculum that's important, but it's more important for me to stay in that

Eric Stenlake:

heart of service and love for these kids.

Eric Stenlake:

And and that's the space that I know I'm in and as well as my colleagues,

Dave Conley:

jen, anything to add?

Dave Conley:

JennWXS-1: I totally agree with him.

Dave Conley:

I think, I've been in 4 different school systems and the education

Dave Conley:

family, I still keep in touch with, a lot of those teachers that I worked

Dave Conley:

with in the past school systems, especially my 1st school system.

Dave Conley:

Because it was like my 2nd family.

Dave Conley:

And I can honestly say, like Eric, that the teachers that have decided to stay.

Dave Conley:

And that are in it and they pull money out of their own pockets.

Dave Conley:

They are truly there to love and care for those kids that you, look

Dave Conley:

at me, I've been in it 20 years.

Dave Conley:

And so I pull from my pocket every single day.

Dave Conley:

If a kid, I have kids coming up to me left and right, can I borrow a dollar?

Dave Conley:

And I'm like, yeah here's a dollar.

Dave Conley:

Or school supplies.

Dave Conley:

And so we're truly in it because we love and care for the kids

Dave Conley:

and we want to be there for them.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's what's going which thank you as well.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's always been a profession that's been near and dear to my heart

Jerremy Newsome:

because Danny knows this, I back to the fourth grade, I always wanted

Jerremy Newsome:

to be a teacher, always wanted to be a history teacher specifically.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I didn't even realize until three years ago that I actually

Jerremy Newsome:

am technically a history teacher.

Jerremy Newsome:

I just teach the history of the financial markets.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I teach individuals how the financial markets work.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I teach specifically mostly adults, but I have taught kids and I have seen how

Jerremy Newsome:

fast and quickly they learn and can learn.

Jerremy Newsome:

And what is going right is that we are, and we do have the greatest talent

Jerremy Newsome:

pool to choose from because we're in the greatest country in the world.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the greatest country in the world have the greatest problems in the world.

Jerremy Newsome:

You can't be in a position of greatness and not have the most eyes and the most

Jerremy Newsome:

fingers pointed at you So to get political for a moment have any three of you?

Jerremy Newsome:

Spent time Learning or reading or hearing more about kennedy

Jerremy Newsome:

his make America healthy again.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is that something that any of you either support or believe

Jerremy Newsome:

will actually come to fruition?

Jerremy Newsome:

Eric looks like a knife for you.

Jerremy Newsome:

JennWXS-1: Go ahead.

Eric Stenlake:

I was gonna, I was gonna say personally, I have not read

Eric Stenlake:

it or seen it, but just hearing those words to make America healthy again.

Eric Stenlake:

A hundred percent.

Danielle:

Exactly.

Danielle:

If anybody would jump on that bandwagon, right?

Danielle:

Yes, support it for sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah that's, that's something that he's he was campaigning for

Jerremy Newsome:

and I, again, I just think it's a, it's an important aspect to, to focus on this

Jerremy Newsome:

is this being one of those large pieces.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because in his, what was the term, Dave, his decommencement speech,

Jerremy Newsome:

where he's steps down as running for president and gives his allegiance

Jerremy Newsome:

essentially in support to Trump.

Jerremy Newsome:

He said that the food that we're eating is killing this country.

Jerremy Newsome:

And he goes, that's something that we need to address.

Jerremy Newsome:

We need to fix.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I'm just happy to know that it's in the upper levels of government.

Jerremy Newsome:

There are definitely people that are aware of this.

Jerremy Newsome:

Cause also Kennedy jr. Is like every other politician, 60 plus white dude,

Jerremy Newsome:

but at least the guy is jacked and isn't healthy and can do like 10 pull ups, at

Jerremy Newsome:

least we have that because that's also the thing that we need in leadership

Jerremy Newsome:

is we can't only have people that say it's important, but we can't And they

Jerremy Newsome:

have none of the, what you would call physical characteristics of health and

Jerremy Newsome:

regardless of what side of the aisle anyone stands on, I think we can all

Jerremy Newsome:

agree that the majority of our past.

Jerremy Newsome:

Presidential candidates, nominees or specifically presidents.

Jerremy Newsome:

But many of the other aspects of government, we are not focused on

Jerremy Newsome:

having health as a big priority because to begin to wrap up, I fully do agree

Jerremy Newsome:

that as we focus on health, physical health, mental health, you at the

Jerremy Newsome:

core will begin changing the internal composition of the American populace.

Jerremy Newsome:

And when you start focusing on the internal core of the American populace,

Jerremy Newsome:

you then start working on the absolute.

Jerremy Newsome:

Almost mandatory construction of what the American future is built on, which is the

Jerremy Newsome:

education, the educational system and the health and well being of our Children.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so when you make that the obvious distinctive priority, then you have

Jerremy Newsome:

to then say, how do we not only make our nation healthy, but how do

Jerremy Newsome:

we keep all of our Children safe?

Jerremy Newsome:

And then you start now focusing on changing and reinvigorating

Jerremy Newsome:

the educational system.

Jerremy Newsome:

Mhm.

Jerremy Newsome:

Which goes back to the point of the entire discussion, which was really eye opening.

Jerremy Newsome:

I just want to say thank all three of you for giving us your valuable

Jerremy Newsome:

time, all of your education.

Jerremy Newsome:

Combined, you're all almost at a hundred years of educational background

Jerremy Newsome:

and of knowledge and of resources.

Jerremy Newsome:

And as one child that did make it out of the education system to know

Jerremy Newsome:

how valuable our teachers are, thank you for all the lives that you did

Jerremy Newsome:

impact, the ones that never told you.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because they might not have known how to tell you they might not have known that

Jerremy Newsome:

you were valuable and it might have taken them to be a 25 year old man to say, wow,

Jerremy Newsome:

that 4th grade teacher really did change and impact my life and gave me such a

Jerremy Newsome:

beautiful shift of what's possible taking.

Jerremy Newsome:

Taking a portion of education that most people generally would deem as boring

Jerremy Newsome:

and put his energy and time and passion into it to invigorate someone that is

Jerremy Newsome:

going to run for president of how broken his face was when he told me of how

Jerremy Newsome:

much money he made and how poor he felt.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I just want to say.

Jerremy Newsome:

From one person to teachers that are here, the really the healers that

Jerremy Newsome:

are here, the caregivers that are here, the parents that are here.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for your time.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for your service.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for your generosity.

Danielle:

Thank you, Jeremy.

Danielle:

JennWXS-1: Thank you, Jeremy.

Jerremy Newsome:

Absolutely.

Jerremy Newsome:

Love and blessings.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for being on the podcast.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for being a part.

Jerremy Newsome:

of solving America's problems.

Jerremy Newsome:

We are focusing and dealing with one of the most egregious problems and

Jerremy Newsome:

that is helping and elevating and changing and shifting the educational

Jerremy Newsome:

system to educational reform.

Jerremy Newsome:

And most importantly, in this episode, we dealt with how to stop school shootings.

Jerremy Newsome:

Danny, Jennifer, Eric, it was a pleasure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you so much for your time.

Dave Conley:

Okay.

Dave Conley:

Alright, so what did you learn?

Jerremy Newsome:

What what did I learn?

Jerremy Newsome:

I learned that this is probably going to be the focus of so many of our

Jerremy Newsome:

episodes, Dave, because it seems like.

Jerremy Newsome:

When we continue to talk to more and more individuals that are in

Jerremy Newsome:

and around the educational system.

Jerremy Newsome:

We have, we've had military experts that focus on prevention in schools.

Jerremy Newsome:

Then you have teachers.

Jerremy Newsome:

That are saying is a budget issue.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's going to be so much to unpack here and to really find out the initial

Jerremy Newsome:

problem, potentially the Genesis, potentially the root problem that we can

Jerremy Newsome:

start addressing, knowing exactly what it is it going to require a lot more

Jerremy Newsome:

deep diving, which I'm excited about.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's obviously the point of this entire podcast, but most importantly,

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm also excited because it seems like.

Jerremy Newsome:

When we find that problem that we truly directly specifically solved, there will

Jerremy Newsome:

be an incredible domino and ripple effect that a lot of people will get behind and

Jerremy Newsome:

champion and really see to the forefront.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes.

Dave Conley:

man I learned, we, it came up over and over again as this

Dave Conley:

is multifaceted like this, and this is where I'm hearing it from you

Dave Conley:

too, is it's like there's a lot here.

Dave Conley:

And I also, that came back to our first conversation on this as

Dave Conley:

we're talking about bulletproof desks and robots and drones.

Dave Conley:

Come on, no way.

Dave Conley:

I, that's, there's already no money.

Dave Conley:

And if we're saying we're going to be making these fortresses with, I don't know

Dave Conley:

where that money's going to come from.

Dave Conley:

Now I hear you.

Dave Conley:

It sounds like quick, a quick fix.

Dave Conley:

And, it's oh, our schools will be safe if we just get some

Dave Conley:

robot dogs that will be trolling.

Dave Conley:

And I'm like, oh, come on.

Dave Conley:

We're feeding our kids garbage.

Dave Conley:

There's no after school classes, divorce, lack of mentors, money's not making it

Dave Conley:

to the kids, we're over medicalizing the kids just not having enough

Dave Conley:

teachers, all, so many things, right?

Dave Conley:

And there's, no, no wonder we have a crisis.

Dave Conley:

We're making our kids crazy.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think if we are to truly create an actual real

Jerremy Newsome:

tangible solution, it does start with conversations like this.

Jerremy Newsome:

It starts with listeners.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like you, it starts with you all sharing your thoughts, your opinions,

Jerremy Newsome:

your feelings, and your feedback.

Jerremy Newsome:

If you want to be a guest on this show, if you want to be someone that helps us with

Jerremy Newsome:

your insights and with your thoughts, make sure you contact us and reach out so that

Jerremy Newsome:

we can hear your voice and make sure that you are also part of this conversation

Jerremy Newsome:

because we are solving America's problems.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for listening.

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About the Podcast

Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.